Author Jacqueline Rose (Donald Maclellan/Getty Images)
What is a woman? Hoping he might be able to answer this vexatious question, the New Statesman turned to Richard Dawkins. In the resulting piece, the biologist expresses sympathy with those with gender dysphoria, but is unequivocal that a woman “is an adult human female, free of Y chromosomes”. Sex, he writes, is “binary”.
In the interests of “balance”, an opposing view was deemed necessary. The counter-argument, published last week, was made by Jacqueline Rose, a professor at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. According to Dawkins, her response does not make any “coherent sense”, which he suggests may be a badge of honour among postmodernists.
I am a long-time admirer of Rose. Her insights on psychoanalysis have suffused my own writing and I loved her book Mothers, which, as it happens, I reviewed in the New Statesman. I described her as “one of our very best cultural critics”.
Yet even I was surprised at how poor her recent article was. I understand that, unless you are Zizek, you have to sign up to a lot of nonsense if you are to survive on the international academic circuit. Unlike Dawkins, though, I am weirdly steeped in postmodern theory. In the Eighties, I got an interview with Baudrillard and tried to sell it to The Guardian, but they had never heard of him.
From early on, I could see how much of this fashionable theory — rooted in a rejection of “grand narratives” about the truth — does not accommodate feminist politics. When I was teaching American students about postmodernism and Judith Butler, it became even more apparent that much of her argument was a response to Marxism; that postmodernism was born of the failure of revolutionary politics.
But there were good bits. And the Rose article reminds me strongly of something I wrote in 1988: “If the whole question of power cannot be tackled, it is because these new hysterics with their male bodies and optional female subjectivities cannot speak of a desiring subject who is actually a flesh and blood woman.” I was talking here about male theorists, rather than trans people. But I return to it in an attempt to understand how, in a call for “generosity”, Rose has written a piece that is so completely dismissive of women, our concerns, rights, bodies and fears.
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SubscribeI’m sorry, have UnHerd started publishing in a foreign language that I have never heard of? For me, this was like listening to a couple of aliens debating the esoteric inner-workings of their society. I could understand each individual letter and word – it’s the sentences I had the problem with. It seems, I have drifted so far from the mores of our current human culture, that I probably no longer identify as human.
Prashant , you are not alone. Many articles of late have become so thoroughly academic I think, that I cannot understand the “foreign language” either. I thought I was just getting old. Glad to hear someone else is having the same reaction.
It’s getting a bit too ‘Quillette’ for me also.
Yes but this is fake academic – a likeness, ersatz and a simulacrum. Whereas for the most part Quillette pieces satisfy the requirements for rigour associated with Western academia from the 50s to 90s when false papers were a tiny percent of all published work
Trust an otter to beaver away….
Trust an otter to beaver away….
Yes but this is fake academic – a likeness, ersatz and a simulacrum. Whereas for the most part Quillette pieces satisfy the requirements for rigour associated with Western academia from the 50s to 90s when false papers were a tiny percent of all published work
I also thought it was just me getting old, but then I decided it was the second large gin and tonic in sunny Cyprus that did it for me!
Nah, if anything that adds clarity…the ability to pierce the jargon and sever the Gordian Knot of klutzy, angst-ridden, gender-studies academese to discover, beneath the bluster only a hollow emptiness, the sound of one hand clapping: the sounding brass, the tinkling cymbal.
Far better the sparkling G&T beneath the Cypriot sun!
Nah, if anything that adds clarity…the ability to pierce the jargon and sever the Gordian Knot of klutzy, angst-ridden, gender-studies academese to discover, beneath the bluster only a hollow emptiness, the sound of one hand clapping: the sounding brass, the tinkling cymbal.
Far better the sparkling G&T beneath the Cypriot sun!
It’s getting a bit too ‘Quillette’ for me also.
I also thought it was just me getting old, but then I decided it was the second large gin and tonic in sunny Cyprus that did it for me!
I also struggled. I was struck by this:
“The construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.”
I think (but am not sure) that the author supports this statement. Apparently oestrogen, physical strength, child rearing capability etc play no part in the construction of gender identity.
Starting from an irrational position leads, unsurprisingly, to a contorted argument,
Basically, she wants the bits of biology that prop up her already formed dogmatic ideas, but not the bits that threaten it.
Try again. The traits you list are traits of being female (sex). Those traits don’t rationally lead to passivity, unpaid work at home, reduced pay in the workplace, being “deserving” of male violence, which is the realm of gender/femininity as defined and regulated by culture.
None of those things define gender/femininity in my world. The ills you describe were fought by the Women’s Liberation movement and largely won.
This discussion relates to fundamental definitions of what constitutes a woman. To say that can be done without reference to biological sex.is nonsense.
Your point is well taken, Martin, but I think that the distinction between sex (maleness or femaleness) and gender (masculinity or femininity) can be drawn too sharply.
Gender is a cultural system, sure, not a biological one. But it’s not entirely arbitrary or unrelated to sex. Maleness and femaleness are givens of the natural order and therefore innate. Notions of masculinity and femininity are somewhat flexible givens of the cultural order and therefore not innate. These gender differences are symbolic interpretations of, or elaborations on, sex differences. This is one of the few universal patterns of human existence, both historically and cross-culturally. Even though all cultures acknowledge innate differences between men and women, some cultures exaggerate these differences in order to benefit from the distinctive contributions of both male and female bodies (which is relatively easy but sometimes comes at the cost of disharmony between men and women) and other cultures minimize these differences (which is relatively difficult but sometimes comes with the benefit of fostering harmony between men and women).
I made this comment in response to another article and received a vote of 1 for the effort (up after being voted -1). Maybe many readers don’t like to be reminded that some current ideologies tend to rely heavily on biological determinism (evolutionary psychology, say, or religious fundamentalism) and competing ideologies tend to rely heavily on cultural determinism (various forms of feminism, social constructionism and transgenderism). These ideologies are all mistaken, I think, because they fail to account for the complexity of being human.
Your last sentence covers it all. It’s complicated!
Well put. I agree with everything you say. It is so obvious.
Another point for you on this one, Paul. Excellent analysis of the issue at hand, which happens to fit with a favorite little saying of mine: “Is it nature or nurture? Yes, it is.”
Upvote from me. Very clear, very good post.
I’d just add that the conceptual distinction sex/gender is part of the problem as it leaves no conceptual space for average innate differences in personality and behaviour between the sexes. It basically eliminates their possibility through conceptual sleight of hand.
Also not sure about the reasons societies exaggerate/reduce the sex differences, though it’s obvious they do this. Can you point to evidence this about specialisation/ harmony.
Again great post.
I’m not sure of what you mean, David. Innate differences are by definition those of sex. Other differences are those of gender. What does this have to do with “conceptual space”?
Your question about why societies either exaggerate or minimize gender differences is a good one–especially now that many of our most influential authorities insist on the notion that men and women are almost interchangeable or even on the more cynical notion that there’s no such thing as a man or a woman at all but only insidious “social constructions” that promote the power of some groups over other groups. I suspect that the answer to your question has something to do with the environment in relation to both food and relations with neighbors. Here it is, stated very briefly and schematically.
If food is not only plentiful but also easy to gather, then gender differences would be of little importance (which means that they would amount to nothing more than a few symbolic distinctions). Both men and women, after all, can pick fruit off the trees, wield implements in vegetable gardens, tend to small animals, fish in local streams and so on.
But if food production requires lengthy, arduous and even dangerous hunting or fishing expeditions, then most men are better equipped than most women are. Societies must not only train men but also reward them for risks taken on behalf of everyone. Their training occurs primarily during adolescence, when boys are removed from the safety of home to be instructed by men on how to kill game animals and avoid being killed by them–or eaten by predatory animals. The training of initiates culminates in coming of age rituals that demonstrate the new skills that they have learned and formally acknowledge completion of the inherently difficult transition from boyhood to manhood. To varying degrees, societies must foster not only traditional knowledge of the natural world but also traditional virtues such as stoic endurance and self-sacrifice, or at least of bravado. Maleness per se is not enough to equip men for these activities, in short, so these activities are culturally coded as masculine and thus clearly differentiated from feminine ones.
The emphasis on supplementing male nature with masculine culture is heightened, of course, in societies that expect men to participate in raiding or warfare.
Every society depends also on women to gestate and lactate. Women, like men, must therefore face heavy risks and accept the need to sacrifice themselves for the common good. Until very recently, after all, death in childbirth was very common. To become women, therefore, means supplementing female nature with feminine culture. Girls must learn traditional skills for the gathering, production and consumption of food, administering medicinal products and so on. The cultural transition between girlhood and womanhood is often less dramatic than the transition from boyhood to manhood, however, because the first flow of menstrual blood is itself a very dramatic transition. Girls seldom leave home to become initiates, moreover, and do not need to switch the source of their identity from one parent to the other. This is why feminine coming of age rites are often less dramatic, let alone less dangerous, than masculine ones. In fact, weddings often function as coming of age rites for girls.
The greater the cultural differentiation between masculinity and femininity, of course, the greater the need to cultivate harmony–that is, (a) to encourage a positive source of identity for each sex (the sense of being needed) and (b) to discourage envy of one sex by the other (something that modern societies often forget, assuming that men have no inherent problems and therefore no reason to envy women). It’s a very hard balance to maintain, and I doubt that any society has ever attained enough balance to avoid at least some degree of rivalry, suspicion or envy between the sexes.
I’m not sure of what you mean, David. Innate differences are by definition those of sex. Other differences are those of gender. What does this have to do with “conceptual space”?
Your question about why societies either exaggerate or minimize gender differences is a good one–especially now that many of our most influential authorities insist on the notion that men and women are almost interchangeable or even on the more cynical notion that there’s no such thing as a man or a woman at all but only insidious “social constructions” that promote the power of some groups over other groups. I suspect that the answer to your question has something to do with the environment in relation to both food and relations with neighbors. Here it is, stated very briefly and schematically.
If food is not only plentiful but also easy to gather, then gender differences would be of little importance (which means that they would amount to nothing more than a few symbolic distinctions). Both men and women, after all, can pick fruit off the trees, wield implements in vegetable gardens, tend to small animals, fish in local streams and so on.
But if food production requires lengthy, arduous and even dangerous hunting or fishing expeditions, then most men are better equipped than most women are. Societies must not only train men but also reward them for risks taken on behalf of everyone. Their training occurs primarily during adolescence, when boys are removed from the safety of home to be instructed by men on how to kill game animals and avoid being killed by them–or eaten by predatory animals. The training of initiates culminates in coming of age rituals that demonstrate the new skills that they have learned and formally acknowledge completion of the inherently difficult transition from boyhood to manhood. To varying degrees, societies must foster not only traditional knowledge of the natural world but also traditional virtues such as stoic endurance and self-sacrifice, or at least of bravado. Maleness per se is not enough to equip men for these activities, in short, so these activities are culturally coded as masculine and thus clearly differentiated from feminine ones.
The emphasis on supplementing male nature with masculine culture is heightened, of course, in societies that expect men to participate in raiding or warfare.
Every society depends also on women to gestate and lactate. Women, like men, must therefore face heavy risks and accept the need to sacrifice themselves for the common good. Until very recently, after all, death in childbirth was very common. To become women, therefore, means supplementing female nature with feminine culture. Girls must learn traditional skills for the gathering, production and consumption of food, administering medicinal products and so on. The cultural transition between girlhood and womanhood is often less dramatic than the transition from boyhood to manhood, however, because the first flow of menstrual blood is itself a very dramatic transition. Girls seldom leave home to become initiates, moreover, and do not need to switch the source of their identity from one parent to the other. This is why feminine coming of age rites are often less dramatic, let alone less dangerous, than masculine ones. In fact, weddings often function as coming of age rites for girls.
The greater the cultural differentiation between masculinity and femininity, of course, the greater the need to cultivate harmony–that is, (a) to encourage a positive source of identity for each sex (the sense of being needed) and (b) to discourage envy of one sex by the other (something that modern societies often forget, assuming that men have no inherent problems and therefore no reason to envy women). It’s a very hard balance to maintain, and I doubt that any society has ever attained enough balance to avoid at least some degree of rivalry, suspicion or envy between the sexes.
Your last sentence covers it all. It’s complicated!
Well put. I agree with everything you say. It is so obvious.
Another point for you on this one, Paul. Excellent analysis of the issue at hand, which happens to fit with a favorite little saying of mine: “Is it nature or nurture? Yes, it is.”
Upvote from me. Very clear, very good post.
I’d just add that the conceptual distinction sex/gender is part of the problem as it leaves no conceptual space for average innate differences in personality and behaviour between the sexes. It basically eliminates their possibility through conceptual sleight of hand.
Also not sure about the reasons societies exaggerate/reduce the sex differences, though it’s obvious they do this. Can you point to evidence this about specialisation/ harmony.
Again great post.
And that’s the point. Suzanne Moore is pointing out that Gender Ideology seeks ot reverse all that has been won – because it essentially codifies a very specific, socially constructed, view of “feminitity” as all that it takes to be a woman, and therefore anyone that prances round doing that is de facto a woman. Which is, to put things in purely technical language, utter bollocks.
The whole of Gender Ideology starts from the assumption that sex (not gender) is the social construct. Again, utter bollocks.
The trouble is that it has a real world impact. I started the public sector this week and was made to sit through training that said that I had to accept men in the women’s loos because the man in the example, “felt like a woman”. Illegal, but as a locum I am keeping my mouth shut.
Your point is well taken, Martin, but I think that the distinction between sex (maleness or femaleness) and gender (masculinity or femininity) can be drawn too sharply.
Gender is a cultural system, sure, not a biological one. But it’s not entirely arbitrary or unrelated to sex. Maleness and femaleness are givens of the natural order and therefore innate. Notions of masculinity and femininity are somewhat flexible givens of the cultural order and therefore not innate. These gender differences are symbolic interpretations of, or elaborations on, sex differences. This is one of the few universal patterns of human existence, both historically and cross-culturally. Even though all cultures acknowledge innate differences between men and women, some cultures exaggerate these differences in order to benefit from the distinctive contributions of both male and female bodies (which is relatively easy but sometimes comes at the cost of disharmony between men and women) and other cultures minimize these differences (which is relatively difficult but sometimes comes with the benefit of fostering harmony between men and women).
I made this comment in response to another article and received a vote of 1 for the effort (up after being voted -1). Maybe many readers don’t like to be reminded that some current ideologies tend to rely heavily on biological determinism (evolutionary psychology, say, or religious fundamentalism) and competing ideologies tend to rely heavily on cultural determinism (various forms of feminism, social constructionism and transgenderism). These ideologies are all mistaken, I think, because they fail to account for the complexity of being human.
And that’s the point. Suzanne Moore is pointing out that Gender Ideology seeks ot reverse all that has been won – because it essentially codifies a very specific, socially constructed, view of “feminitity” as all that it takes to be a woman, and therefore anyone that prances round doing that is de facto a woman. Which is, to put things in purely technical language, utter bollocks.
The whole of Gender Ideology starts from the assumption that sex (not gender) is the social construct. Again, utter bollocks.
The trouble is that it has a real world impact. I started the public sector this week and was made to sit through training that said that I had to accept men in the women’s loos because the man in the example, “felt like a woman”. Illegal, but as a locum I am keeping my mouth shut.
How is housework ‘unpaid’? Work is something you’re employed to do in order to gain financial benefit. Keeping your home clean or washing your clothes, or those of your family, is maintaining a level of hygiene for your own benefit. I live by myself. I’ll do the hoovering after work. How much should I pay myself? And paying men and women different amounts for the same job is illegal, so you can forget that one.
Oddly, no one pays me for repainting the house, putting up shelves or hanging pictures to order, building sheds, sweeping the path, de-moulding damp corners, assembling or shifting furniture, hanging blinds, cleaning the windows, doing the gardening, servicing the car, maintaining the bikes, or putting the bins out – all tasks I perform and my female partner does not.
I roll my eyes every time I see this ‘wages for housework’ BS canard in the BBC and other BS MSM. In my experience, women do little housework beyond laundry, shopping and cooking, and there’s a lot more to maintaining a home than that. Time for a campaign for Wages for DIY & Home Maintenance!
You’ve got it easy, I don’t do the cooking either.
You’ve got it easy, I don’t do the cooking either.
Oddly, no one pays me for repainting the house, putting up shelves or hanging pictures to order, building sheds, sweeping the path, de-moulding damp corners, assembling or shifting furniture, hanging blinds, cleaning the windows, doing the gardening, servicing the car, maintaining the bikes, or putting the bins out – all tasks I perform and my female partner does not.
I roll my eyes every time I see this ‘wages for housework’ BS canard in the BBC and other BS MSM. In my experience, women do little housework beyond laundry, shopping and cooking, and there’s a lot more to maintaining a home than that. Time for a campaign for Wages for DIY & Home Maintenance!
‘unpaid work at home, reduced pay in the workplace, being “deserving” of male violence, ”
I know, it’s pointless to point out the utter rubbish that’s the “gender pay gap” nonsense
But it’s interesting, the aversion towards “unpaid work” at home when a) it’s usually men who are breadwinners – work far harder, longer hours and under more stress outside home, with most of the pay spent on wife and family – and how few women agree to pick up that role.
b) No woman seems to mind “unpaid work” when sitting at home collecting alimony checks.
And around 50 people died in a year from domestic violence. One third men, incidentally.
Meanwhile, a few hundred thousand have died in the Ukraine war.
How many women?
I worked much longer, harder hours than my husband…. Too much generalisation here. This isn’t the 50s!
Good for you, and to see someone standing up for what they say, and if a lot more women had the same attitude as you, wouldn’t be as irritated by this cheap talk.
But on average, I have found far too many women happy to take the easy route and go part time or be at home while their husband slogs away.
To my mind, that’s fine, and probably preferable for the kids. But it’s extremely annoying to then hear phrases like “unpaid work”.
You think only paid work counts? Then go out and do that 60 hours a week job, instead of complaining how long it takes to run the washing machine.
Any spouse, male or female, who chooses part-time paid employment in order to give the necessary care and attention to their children, is not ‘taking the easy route’. Your phrase ‘probably preferable for the kids’ shows just how much importance to attach to childcare and just how much you’ve thought about it.
Caring for children is both hard work and the best fun available . If I had spent no time rearing my own children I would have only myself to blame if I did not like them as adults. I did work as well in order to remain professionally up to date.
Caring for children is both hard work and the best fun available . If I had spent no time rearing my own children I would have only myself to blame if I did not like them as adults. I did work as well in order to remain professionally up to date.
As a traditional, now elderly woman, I married had two children and two different careers as fisrtly, a Probation officer and secondly, an Anglican priest/prison Chaplain, over 44 years of paid work, p/t when the children were young. I have 3 university qualifications and a lot of practical gifts. I too worked longer hours than my husband, we each did what was needed at any given time from cooking to childcare solely on the basis of who was home and available, we shared time off and income and still do. We both did what we each wanted, and spent very little time debating our gender identity or roles. I do not feel deprived of these conversations, having lived a very interesting life with a like minded male companion doing what we wanted to.
PS my adult children are on balance happy and moderately happy andsucessful doing what they enjoy and working.
Any spouse, male or female, who chooses part-time paid employment in order to give the necessary care and attention to their children, is not ‘taking the easy route’. Your phrase ‘probably preferable for the kids’ shows just how much importance to attach to childcare and just how much you’ve thought about it.
As a traditional, now elderly woman, I married had two children and two different careers as fisrtly, a Probation officer and secondly, an Anglican priest/prison Chaplain, over 44 years of paid work, p/t when the children were young. I have 3 university qualifications and a lot of practical gifts. I too worked longer hours than my husband, we each did what was needed at any given time from cooking to childcare solely on the basis of who was home and available, we shared time off and income and still do. We both did what we each wanted, and spent very little time debating our gender identity or roles. I do not feel deprived of these conversations, having lived a very interesting life with a like minded male companion doing what we wanted to.
PS my adult children are on balance happy and moderately happy andsucessful doing what they enjoy and working.
Good for you, and to see someone standing up for what they say, and if a lot more women had the same attitude as you, wouldn’t be as irritated by this cheap talk.
But on average, I have found far too many women happy to take the easy route and go part time or be at home while their husband slogs away.
To my mind, that’s fine, and probably preferable for the kids. But it’s extremely annoying to then hear phrases like “unpaid work”.
You think only paid work counts? Then go out and do that 60 hours a week job, instead of complaining how long it takes to run the washing machine.
More than 50 people, male and female, die each year from domestic violence. About three women a week are murdered by an intimate partner. Google is your friend.
Three women a week is more than 50 in a year.
Wonder what it was back in the 30-40-50’s before “liberation”? Does our society encourage mental illness now? I once has a violent wife (ex) while I was taught men never hit women. Her rage was partly learned, I think, but she was not stable.
Three women a week is more than 50 in a year.
Wonder what it was back in the 30-40-50’s before “liberation”? Does our society encourage mental illness now? I once has a violent wife (ex) while I was taught men never hit women. Her rage was partly learned, I think, but she was not stable.
I worked much longer, harder hours than my husband…. Too much generalisation here. This isn’t the 50s!
More than 50 people, male and female, die each year from domestic violence. About three women a week are murdered by an intimate partner. Google is your friend.
You use loaded terms, carrying loaded meanings. Yes, you’re right… estrogen, physical strength, child-rearing capability, nurturing, etc. do not necessarily lead to passivity (whatever that means)…or unpaid work at home, or reduced pay in the workplace…or victimization.
But, equally we can say that motherhood, and the conscious decisions to be a fulltime mother to one’s children can indeed lead to unpaid work at home and/or reduced pay in the workplace to accompany reduced time in the workplace or a reduced commitment to the workplace (which, of course, is what every ‘pay gap study’ consistently shows).
But the fact that motherhood is not a profession which is directly market-rewarded does not mean it is not highly valued. Indeed, it is myopic to measure human value only by what the labor market is willing to pay for it. How much does the market pay for fatherhood…or grandfatherhood? As a matter of fact, based purely upon market compensation rates, being a grandparent is valueless. But human value transcends the market; it always has.
As for the possibility of victimization…. heck the weak (or weaker) are always at the mercy of the strong (or stronger). That means that women, by nature, are more vulnerable. And yes, that reality does influence (and should influence) the nature of the ‘gender roles’ that women tend to play….just as they influence the gender roles that men tend to play.
“unpaid work at home”? Before corporations discovered cheap labor by convincing females that working for them was better for them than raising children, running a household and being a partner? Did a fine job of reducing wages overall. The partnership involved in that unpaid work at home was successful for a very long time and rewarding for the couple. Now we have many women quite dissatisfied in both work and home. Progress.
Thank you. I have often thought this. By joining the work force, women ensured two income families would be required. When the workforce doubles, wages drop. Obviously.
We should have fought for more equality in banking, credit, ownership based on our unique (and, I believe, necessary) contributions to home and society.
Now, neither men nor women have energy for volunteer groups, community organizations, nothing. Children spend more time on tablets than with family and friends. Why? We are all exhausted. We all work 40+ hours per week, and all have to help clean, cook, help kids with homework and all their sundry needs…who has time or energy left for anything?
Feminism did not help women gain freedom. And I say this as a child who watched my Mom break the glass ceiling. Watched her get her first “own” credit card. I was proud of her. But I was so lucky. My grandmother came to live with us so we had a Mom anyway.
Only as an adult can I see what the revolution may have gained us as individuals (and not most of us) but lost us as a society. As a family unit.
Today, I am the main breadwinner. I was fortunate enough to figure out a career path I do not hate and find satisfaction from. And that supports my home in the middle middle class. I am fortunate. But I never had kids. And when I come home, hurting everywhere, and pop a frozen meal in the oven, I am sad. But also relieved that I do not have to cook for my family and that my husband can do much of the cleaning slowly thru the week because he has more time than I do. What if I had even more on my plate?
I survive now. I think many people are merely surviving now. Life, with a full time Mom, honestly had some time and beauty in it. Meals were a beautiful thing to behold. As were holidays. I am glad I experienced it through my grandmother.
Thank you. I have often thought this. By joining the work force, women ensured two income families would be required. When the workforce doubles, wages drop. Obviously.
We should have fought for more equality in banking, credit, ownership based on our unique (and, I believe, necessary) contributions to home and society.
Now, neither men nor women have energy for volunteer groups, community organizations, nothing. Children spend more time on tablets than with family and friends. Why? We are all exhausted. We all work 40+ hours per week, and all have to help clean, cook, help kids with homework and all their sundry needs…who has time or energy left for anything?
Feminism did not help women gain freedom. And I say this as a child who watched my Mom break the glass ceiling. Watched her get her first “own” credit card. I was proud of her. But I was so lucky. My grandmother came to live with us so we had a Mom anyway.
Only as an adult can I see what the revolution may have gained us as individuals (and not most of us) but lost us as a society. As a family unit.
Today, I am the main breadwinner. I was fortunate enough to figure out a career path I do not hate and find satisfaction from. And that supports my home in the middle middle class. I am fortunate. But I never had kids. And when I come home, hurting everywhere, and pop a frozen meal in the oven, I am sad. But also relieved that I do not have to cook for my family and that my husband can do much of the cleaning slowly thru the week because he has more time than I do. What if I had even more on my plate?
I survive now. I think many people are merely surviving now. Life, with a full time Mom, honestly had some time and beauty in it. Meals were a beautiful thing to behold. As were holidays. I am glad I experienced it through my grandmother.
None of those things define gender/femininity in my world. The ills you describe were fought by the Women’s Liberation movement and largely won.
This discussion relates to fundamental definitions of what constitutes a woman. To say that can be done without reference to biological sex.is nonsense.
How is housework ‘unpaid’? Work is something you’re employed to do in order to gain financial benefit. Keeping your home clean or washing your clothes, or those of your family, is maintaining a level of hygiene for your own benefit. I live by myself. I’ll do the hoovering after work. How much should I pay myself? And paying men and women different amounts for the same job is illegal, so you can forget that one.
‘unpaid work at home, reduced pay in the workplace, being “deserving” of male violence, ”
I know, it’s pointless to point out the utter rubbish that’s the “gender pay gap” nonsense
But it’s interesting, the aversion towards “unpaid work” at home when a) it’s usually men who are breadwinners – work far harder, longer hours and under more stress outside home, with most of the pay spent on wife and family – and how few women agree to pick up that role.
b) No woman seems to mind “unpaid work” when sitting at home collecting alimony checks.
And around 50 people died in a year from domestic violence. One third men, incidentally.
Meanwhile, a few hundred thousand have died in the Ukraine war.
How many women?
You use loaded terms, carrying loaded meanings. Yes, you’re right… estrogen, physical strength, child-rearing capability, nurturing, etc. do not necessarily lead to passivity (whatever that means)…or unpaid work at home, or reduced pay in the workplace…or victimization.
But, equally we can say that motherhood, and the conscious decisions to be a fulltime mother to one’s children can indeed lead to unpaid work at home and/or reduced pay in the workplace to accompany reduced time in the workplace or a reduced commitment to the workplace (which, of course, is what every ‘pay gap study’ consistently shows).
But the fact that motherhood is not a profession which is directly market-rewarded does not mean it is not highly valued. Indeed, it is myopic to measure human value only by what the labor market is willing to pay for it. How much does the market pay for fatherhood…or grandfatherhood? As a matter of fact, based purely upon market compensation rates, being a grandparent is valueless. But human value transcends the market; it always has.
As for the possibility of victimization…. heck the weak (or weaker) are always at the mercy of the strong (or stronger). That means that women, by nature, are more vulnerable. And yes, that reality does influence (and should influence) the nature of the ‘gender roles’ that women tend to play….just as they influence the gender roles that men tend to play.
“unpaid work at home”? Before corporations discovered cheap labor by convincing females that working for them was better for them than raising children, running a household and being a partner? Did a fine job of reducing wages overall. The partnership involved in that unpaid work at home was successful for a very long time and rewarding for the couple. Now we have many women quite dissatisfied in both work and home. Progress.
You only have to google image ‘Long Chu’ to see how irrational it is – there is no possibility of ‘her’ ever being mistaken for a woman.
She also has a hetero female partner. She is quoted as saying ‘heterosexuality is so much better when there aren’t any men in the equation’. Hilarious!
This in turn reminds me of something Renton says in the film ‘Trainspotting’: ‘One day there won’t be any men or women, just wa*kers. Sounds great to me!’
We are nearly there IMO
Quite
Quite
I think you meant ‘he’ in your 2nd paragraph..?
We are nearly there IMO
I think you meant ‘he’ in your 2nd paragraph..?
Did you actually read the article? She’s actually saying the opposite of that. Or do you believe that doing the ironing and wearing pink are encoded at conception in female DNA or something?
Straw-man argument.
I said, of the specific quote, I think she supports the statement but am not sure. I read that statement as hers, not something she was disagreeing with of Rose’s. As a standalone position it’s nonsense.
How you manage to draw the inferences you have is beyond me.
Straw-man argument.
I said, of the specific quote, I think she supports the statement but am not sure. I read that statement as hers, not something she was disagreeing with of Rose’s. As a standalone position it’s nonsense.
How you manage to draw the inferences you have is beyond me.
“The construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.” I think a Germaine Greer quote. And she’s not wrong in my view.
Female is biological, femininity is social. Ooh easy to understand, so binary. All that human complexity I was imagining, solved at a stroke.
They don’t exist in isolation from one another though do they? Across time and space and in vastly different cultures there are concurrences between different societies’ conceptions of femininity and masculinity which suggests that at the very least these conceptions have some sort of connection with the underlying biological reality.
“which is learnt”. Not sure that is quite true. Female and male thought patterns are distinct, even at birth it becomes obvious. Females are largely interested in faces, males in objects – in general. Maybe pink desire is learned, don’t know. my wife preferred purple, I blue or gray. Have no idea why.
Pink preference is definitely societal. Men from the Ukraine like pink. So…that is one thing we definitely imposed. But femininity as a trait more likely in the female sex…no. That is real and much of what is considered feminine is cross cultural…though, obviously, not all.
Much of what is “feminine” results from us being the biologically weaker sex and from child bearing. That is all.
Hate pink, so do both my daughters and granddaughter
Pink preference is definitely societal. Men from the Ukraine like pink. So…that is one thing we definitely imposed. But femininity as a trait more likely in the female sex…no. That is real and much of what is considered feminine is cross cultural…though, obviously, not all.
Much of what is “feminine” results from us being the biologically weaker sex and from child bearing. That is all.
Hate pink, so do both my daughters and granddaughter
Female is biological, femininity is social. Ooh easy to understand, so binary. All that human complexity I was imagining, solved at a stroke.
They don’t exist in isolation from one another though do they? Across time and space and in vastly different cultures there are concurrences between different societies’ conceptions of femininity and masculinity which suggests that at the very least these conceptions have some sort of connection with the underlying biological reality.
“which is learnt”. Not sure that is quite true. Female and male thought patterns are distinct, even at birth it becomes obvious. Females are largely interested in faces, males in objects – in general. Maybe pink desire is learned, don’t know. my wife preferred purple, I blue or gray. Have no idea why.
This is the reason a male dressed as a female is called effeminate. Not because of the construction of the body gender but because of the social construct of the fashion style. Therein lies the problem that is trying to be defined.
Men and women behave differently, dress differently, have different primary life focii, in every society in every age and in every primate species.
I believe that is so because there are very obvious and significant biological differences. Societal expectations grow out of these differences, accepted, but biology is at the root.
Effeminate, Tomboy are just words describing non stereotypical behaviour.
Well, actually, ‘effeminate & Tomboy’ are stereotypical descriptions assigned to a different — but not uncommon — kind of stereotypical behavior which is different from the usual, ‘center of the bell-curve’ kind of behavior evinced by either sex.
What we see in any large population (of either sex) is a range of behaviors associated with differently sized population subsets (and a stereotype for each one). For men, as a for instance, at the far right we may find Conan the Barbarian types….next to Conan maybe professional football players….next to them maybe survivalists, hunters, fisherman….next to them construction workers…next to them office workers carrying briefcases fighting the good fight behind desks and computer screens…next to them stay-at-home dads….and on and on until we arrive at the far left which may be the man who likes to pretend he’s a woman. Each segment carries its own stereotypical description/phrase which may be more or less accurate.
And each of these stereotypical behavior types is, to your point, applied to the basic, unchangeable biological reality which makes each Man.
Well, actually, ‘effeminate & Tomboy’ are stereotypical descriptions assigned to a different — but not uncommon — kind of stereotypical behavior which is different from the usual, ‘center of the bell-curve’ kind of behavior evinced by either sex.
What we see in any large population (of either sex) is a range of behaviors associated with differently sized population subsets (and a stereotype for each one). For men, as a for instance, at the far right we may find Conan the Barbarian types….next to Conan maybe professional football players….next to them maybe survivalists, hunters, fisherman….next to them construction workers…next to them office workers carrying briefcases fighting the good fight behind desks and computer screens…next to them stay-at-home dads….and on and on until we arrive at the far left which may be the man who likes to pretend he’s a woman. Each segment carries its own stereotypical description/phrase which may be more or less accurate.
And each of these stereotypical behavior types is, to your point, applied to the basic, unchangeable biological reality which makes each Man.
Men and women behave differently, dress differently, have different primary life focii, in every society in every age and in every primate species.
I believe that is so because there are very obvious and significant biological differences. Societal expectations grow out of these differences, accepted, but biology is at the root.
Effeminate, Tomboy are just words describing non stereotypical behaviour.
Basically, she wants the bits of biology that prop up her already formed dogmatic ideas, but not the bits that threaten it.
Try again. The traits you list are traits of being female (sex). Those traits don’t rationally lead to passivity, unpaid work at home, reduced pay in the workplace, being “deserving” of male violence, which is the realm of gender/femininity as defined and regulated by culture.
You only have to google image ‘Long Chu’ to see how irrational it is – there is no possibility of ‘her’ ever being mistaken for a woman.
She also has a hetero female partner. She is quoted as saying ‘heterosexuality is so much better when there aren’t any men in the equation’. Hilarious!
This in turn reminds me of something Renton says in the film ‘Trainspotting’: ‘One day there won’t be any men or women, just wa*kers. Sounds great to me!’
Did you actually read the article? She’s actually saying the opposite of that. Or do you believe that doing the ironing and wearing pink are encoded at conception in female DNA or something?
“The construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.” I think a Germaine Greer quote. And she’s not wrong in my view.
This is the reason a male dressed as a female is called effeminate. Not because of the construction of the body gender but because of the social construct of the fashion style. Therein lies the problem that is trying to be defined.
We have left the realm of science, where words describe reality, and have entered the world of wizards, where words are supposed to create reality.
Actually it’s a lot simpler than that. It’s just one person trying to rationalise inconsistent beliefs in public. If she spoke plainly it would be painfully obvious to all. Not sure why Unherd is providing a home to refugees from the Guardian. Or rather I do know – it’s because of the trans issue. But it doesn’t excuse poor writing.
Compare this with Kathleen Stock!
I got the gist of the the article, I think, but I, too, found myself staring blankly at the page pretending (and for whom?) to read, only to skip a paragraph or two.
It’s a good article. If you’re going to argue with postmodernists, you need to become fluent in their weird language, and turn it against them.
I’m less than convinced I should spend any time at all becoming fluent in postmodernism.
Up your game Prashant. You’re being a bit lazy here. You don’t have to speak the language of Mordor, but you do have to understand it. If you want to reject the postmodern framing of sex and gender that’s all well and good, but why do so from a position of ignorance?
Because there are some things which are so unimportant and inconsequential that it is sinful to waste brain cells trying to consider them. ‘Postmodern framing of sex and gender’ seems to me to be a prime example of this.
Simply dismissing ideas without examining them is indicative of a lack of sitzfleisch, John and Prashant.
Ah, but that’s the Semantic Trap which is, essentially, post-modernism.
One has to be a post-modern….thoroughly immersed in the arcana of post-modernism….willing and able to quote Foucault, Butler, Derrida, Lyotard, et al at the slightest provocation…capable of leaping any given reality-obstacle in a single bound with a glossary of post-modernese & off-hand references to Power, Resistance, & Meaning….in order to debate Post-Modernism. Which means, of course, you’ve already lost the debate because you’ve granted granted the nonsense a hearing and invested yourself in that nonsense-making in the process. You could spend an entire career chasing the Cheshire Cat’s fading grin.
“People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.” Foucault!
Of course, as Foucault himself might have pointed out, this burgeoning nonsense successfully created an entire Academic Culture which effectively, critically, took the legs out from under every traditional discipline thereby creating a million new opportunities to be published in new journals…which gave to the Post-Modernists POWER.
It’s why Kings used to hire Wizards to defend themselves from other King’s Wizards who were always doing Wizardly Things that Kings could not understand (and were not intended to understand).
““Knowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.” Foucault again.
Quite – baffle them with bull3hit.
One can immerse oneself in postmodernism without becoming one of its disciples, as evidenced by Chomsky who argued that far from challenging existing power structures, postmodern thinkers are often the very ones who are most instrumental in bolstering oppressive institutions of power. Your emphasis on power relations though suggests that you have allowed postmodernism to contaminate your own thinking. Why have you given up? You can engage with the enemy without allowing it to dictate the terms of engagement as Chomsky demonstrated when he debated Foucault in 1971.
You’re right… but I would back up one additional step and ask, “Why engage?” Why ‘immerse’ one’s self in postmodernism when the postmodernism itself is so inherently worthless, hollow, and without meaning?
Your Chomsky point is particularly interesting…but perhaps (?) misleading. I ran across a text supposedly composed by Chomsky (link below) as he discussed Postmodernism. Here’s a quote which, I think, is rather telling, speaking of PM:
“It’s entirely possible that I’m simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I’m perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made — but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I’m missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it’s all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I’m just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I’m perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).”
In other words (and perhaps I, too, oversimplify), he’s saying: ‘Why bother?”
I agree.
Regardless, you are right — we need to at least take a stab at understanding the enemy if we are to defeat them, turn them back from the gates, chase them from the walls, and out of the public square.
Link: http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
You’re right… but I would back up one additional step and ask, “Why engage?” Why ‘immerse’ one’s self in postmodernism when the postmodernism itself is so inherently worthless, hollow, and without meaning?
Your Chomsky point is particularly interesting…but perhaps (?) misleading. I ran across a text supposedly composed by Chomsky (link below) as he discussed Postmodernism. Here’s a quote which, I think, is rather telling, speaking of PM:
“It’s entirely possible that I’m simply missing something, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I’m perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made — but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I’m missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it’s all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I’m just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I’m perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else).”
In other words (and perhaps I, too, oversimplify), he’s saying: ‘Why bother?”
I agree.
Regardless, you are right — we need to at least take a stab at understanding the enemy if we are to defeat them, turn them back from the gates, chase them from the walls, and out of the public square.
Link: http://bactra.org/chomsky-on-postmodernism.html
Quite – baffle them with bull3hit.
One can immerse oneself in postmodernism without becoming one of its disciples, as evidenced by Chomsky who argued that far from challenging existing power structures, postmodern thinkers are often the very ones who are most instrumental in bolstering oppressive institutions of power. Your emphasis on power relations though suggests that you have allowed postmodernism to contaminate your own thinking. Why have you given up? You can engage with the enemy without allowing it to dictate the terms of engagement as Chomsky demonstrated when he debated Foucault in 1971.
Ah, but that’s the Semantic Trap which is, essentially, post-modernism.
One has to be a post-modern….thoroughly immersed in the arcana of post-modernism….willing and able to quote Foucault, Butler, Derrida, Lyotard, et al at the slightest provocation…capable of leaping any given reality-obstacle in a single bound with a glossary of post-modernese & off-hand references to Power, Resistance, & Meaning….in order to debate Post-Modernism. Which means, of course, you’ve already lost the debate because you’ve granted granted the nonsense a hearing and invested yourself in that nonsense-making in the process. You could spend an entire career chasing the Cheshire Cat’s fading grin.
“People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.” Foucault!
Of course, as Foucault himself might have pointed out, this burgeoning nonsense successfully created an entire Academic Culture which effectively, critically, took the legs out from under every traditional discipline thereby creating a million new opportunities to be published in new journals…which gave to the Post-Modernists POWER.
It’s why Kings used to hire Wizards to defend themselves from other King’s Wizards who were always doing Wizardly Things that Kings could not understand (and were not intended to understand).
““Knowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.” Foucault again.
Simply dismissing ideas without examining them is indicative of a lack of sitzfleisch, John and Prashant.
The problem is that the postmodern framing of sex and gender is incapable of stepping outside of its own terms of reference, which means that ‘having to understand it’ involves de facto acceptance of said terms.
Any disagreement is merely regarded as ‘not understanding it’ because the underlying assumption is that the postmodernist is self- evidently correct in their belief.
Their is no ‘game’ to ‘up’ because in the eyes of the postmodernist there is no discussion to be had.
If you want those who employ the weaponry of postmodernism to declare, “Touché, well played, Jeff,” then clearly you won’t receive any satisfaction when you tussle with them. If, on the other hand, you don’t need them to pat you on the back, you could launch a few truth bombs at them. For example, you could bring up Dawkins’ concept of “survival value.” The epiphenomenon of gender, or what we call sex roles in other animals, ensures the survival of a species. Without gender, which ensures a practical division of labour, humans would not have survived and thrived. I understand the refusal to engage with these dirty fighters, but to simply hide our heads in the sand and hope the marketplace of ideas will separate the wheat from the chaff seems naïve at best.
If you want those who employ the weaponry of postmodernism to declare, “Touché, well played, Jeff,” then clearly you won’t receive any satisfaction when you tussle with them. If, on the other hand, you don’t need them to pat you on the back, you could launch a few truth bombs at them. For example, you could bring up Dawkins’ concept of “survival value.” The epiphenomenon of gender, or what we call sex roles in other animals, ensures the survival of a species. Without gender, which ensures a practical division of labour, humans would not have survived and thrived. I understand the refusal to engage with these dirty fighters, but to simply hide our heads in the sand and hope the marketplace of ideas will separate the wheat from the chaff seems naïve at best.
Because there are some things which are so unimportant and inconsequential that it is sinful to waste brain cells trying to consider them. ‘Postmodern framing of sex and gender’ seems to me to be a prime example of this.
The problem is that the postmodern framing of sex and gender is incapable of stepping outside of its own terms of reference, which means that ‘having to understand it’ involves de facto acceptance of said terms.
Any disagreement is merely regarded as ‘not understanding it’ because the underlying assumption is that the postmodernist is self- evidently correct in their belief.
Their is no ‘game’ to ‘up’ because in the eyes of the postmodernist there is no discussion to be had.
Up your game Prashant. You’re being a bit lazy here. You don’t have to speak the language of Mordor, but you do have to understand it. If you want to reject the postmodern framing of sex and gender that’s all well and good, but why do so from a position of ignorance?
I liked it for perhaps no other reason than the line, “Lets take this idea out for a walk…”
I’m less than convinced I should spend any time at all becoming fluent in postmodernism.
I liked it for perhaps no other reason than the line, “Lets take this idea out for a walk…”
Yea gods, I thought it was just me. I had to reread several sentences to grasp the meaning. This is not the first article in Unherd that I have had to do this. You cannot get an argument across if it is nearly understandable. KISS.
Upvoted just for KISS.
Upvoted just for KISS.
I was hugely gratified to open the comments on this article and read your response as I was starting to wonder if I had some sort of brain fog. And indeed more and more of the articles on Unherd seem to be unintelligible- I am really disappointed with my subscription.
That’s interesting Amanda. Recent articles seem to have lurched between those that are largely unintelligible and those that are trite or flippant. It ain’t a cheap sub.
That’s interesting Amanda. Recent articles seem to have lurched between those that are largely unintelligible and those that are trite or flippant. It ain’t a cheap sub.
Thanks for saying that. I think I nearly read each sentence twice and still didn‘t under stand most of it. There were about two or three statements which made sense. One was from Dawkins.
Well said! I would like to add that since your opening comment, I have never seen so many sensible responses to an Unherd article. Clear thinking is still appreciated and not dead.
It’s incredible how many commenters here are pretending this article is difficult to understand and how many are conflating the incoherence of J Rose’s piece with this response. Moore has experience in academia and is able to respond to the word salad posturings Rose leans on. Rose and her ilk depend on people’s incomprehension to avoid any challenge to their misogynist gobbledegook. Moore is equipped to challenge the nonsense with plain language.
There is an historic precedent familiar to many wherein women point to imperial evidence of their exploitation and the men who benefit from that exploitation fein incomprehension. Sorry to see the latter group in full regalia here.
I don’t think that’s accurate at all. There is no one denying I don’t think, that the vast bulk of dominance is (and always has been) perpetrated by males on females across the board, violence not least. There is equally no denying that the shoe has been steadily shifting to the other foot over the last half century to the point where women are winning out in aggregate over men (except right at the edges, of say STEM, or F1 racing etc.) – a consequence of technology driven shifts which now favour female biological traits over male ones. The fact that some men (and women) are grifting on to these trends, is no doubt inevitable and is neither here nor there. A straightforward application of Occam’s Razor tells you that all that is needed to explain this current cultural moment is a good honest look at biology and technology – the word-salad of ‘postmodern philosophy’ or whatever it’s called is superfluous. My issue specifically with this article is that Moore is attempting some sort of halfway house, seemingly buying into some bits of what looks to me like semantic nonsense, but rejecting others. I don’t think such a stance is stable, because the result as we can see, is incoherence.
Yes, I think ‘pretending’ is the word. Only one of the self-styled uncomprehenders actually cites a supposedly incomprehensible sentence, and he immediately goes on to argue against it, showing that it’s not incomprehensible at all, he just disagrees with it. They will have to go elsewhere to have their misogyny reflected back at them, I’m afraid.
Yes, I completely agree. I was amazed at the comments which don’t relate to the contents of the article, or to its style.
Very tactfully said. I couldn’t help noticing that most of the comments that claimed they couldn’t make head and tail of the article came from men. Since intelligence is equally distributed between the genders I wondered what the other factors might be that account for this disparity. Could it have something to do with the fact that women who feel threatened to have their status taken away by the post modern and transgender strategies are better informed about the than men? I for one find the article perfectly lucid.
This comment sums up what is happening here perfectly, thank you! There’s nothing ‘incomprehensible’ about Moore’s article.
I don’t think that’s accurate at all. There is no one denying I don’t think, that the vast bulk of dominance is (and always has been) perpetrated by males on females across the board, violence not least. There is equally no denying that the shoe has been steadily shifting to the other foot over the last half century to the point where women are winning out in aggregate over men (except right at the edges, of say STEM, or F1 racing etc.) – a consequence of technology driven shifts which now favour female biological traits over male ones. The fact that some men (and women) are grifting on to these trends, is no doubt inevitable and is neither here nor there. A straightforward application of Occam’s Razor tells you that all that is needed to explain this current cultural moment is a good honest look at biology and technology – the word-salad of ‘postmodern philosophy’ or whatever it’s called is superfluous. My issue specifically with this article is that Moore is attempting some sort of halfway house, seemingly buying into some bits of what looks to me like semantic nonsense, but rejecting others. I don’t think such a stance is stable, because the result as we can see, is incoherence.
Yes, I think ‘pretending’ is the word. Only one of the self-styled uncomprehenders actually cites a supposedly incomprehensible sentence, and he immediately goes on to argue against it, showing that it’s not incomprehensible at all, he just disagrees with it. They will have to go elsewhere to have their misogyny reflected back at them, I’m afraid.
Yes, I completely agree. I was amazed at the comments which don’t relate to the contents of the article, or to its style.
Very tactfully said. I couldn’t help noticing that most of the comments that claimed they couldn’t make head and tail of the article came from men. Since intelligence is equally distributed between the genders I wondered what the other factors might be that account for this disparity. Could it have something to do with the fact that women who feel threatened to have their status taken away by the post modern and transgender strategies are better informed about the than men? I for one find the article perfectly lucid.
This comment sums up what is happening here perfectly, thank you! There’s nothing ‘incomprehensible’ about Moore’s article.
Interesting commentary on the supposed opaqueness of this piece. Me, I understood every word, phrase, and sentence of it—perhaps because, as a woman myself, I have had to become fluent in “trans” theory, and the extent to which it threatens my rights and safety.
In California, where I live, this academic theory has actually become enacted into law. It is now illegal in this state to prevent men who “identify“ as women from using women’s bathrooms, spas, and changing areas. Or from competing against women in sports.
Thanks for nothing, Gov Gavin Newsom.
Newsom recall vote:
Men supporting him : less than half
Women: two thirds.
Don’t thank Newsom. Thank women.
Newsom recall vote:
Men supporting him : less than half
Women: two thirds.
Don’t thank Newsom. Thank women.
“, a professor at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.”
I think this might be a clue
You could go back to reading ‘The Guardian’.
Yes, that’s an option. But if you are offering chewing my own leg off with my bare teeth as an option as well, I’ll take that instead.
Yes, that’s an option. But if you are offering chewing my own leg off with my bare teeth as an option as well, I’ll take that instead.
I gave up reading very close to the start. I can read very dry academic tomes but this was too much for my “small bear brain” at the end of an intense work day on Teams, which is impossible for anyone with a significant hearing loss. Captions. Pah!
This article especially. I understand a fair amount of Po-Mo and critical theory, but for me it seemed the author would barely touch on a tenet as expressed by Rose and then instead of a step-by-step explanation of why Rose is wrong/incoherent/illogical, the author finishes the sentence with some cryptic tossed-off phrases. Very frustrating; the community here at UnHerd can understand just about anything if it’s explained coherently without resort to insider-speak.
Oh thank God, I thought I had become truly stupid as so much of it went over my head. Suzanne can write so sharply and clearly normally.
Post modernism is a harmful movement whichever way one looks at it. Time to reject the whole thing, not just their views on gender.
You found it difficult to read – fair enough. It might have sounded like a foreign language to you because its subject matter is not something that’s a big part of your life, which is also fair enough. I didn’t find it difficult to read at all, and I’m not an academic. But I am very interested in the subject and I thought it was an excellent piece. As did the editor, which I think is also fair enough. The whole point about Unherd, after all, is that it’s a mixed bag. Jolly good thing too.
I’m surprised, I wouldn’t have called it academic at all (I’m not an academic) and I was really enjoying it until the last third when she seemed to lose the thread a bit. There are definitely some articles Unherd articles I don’t enjoy or find impenetrably written at points. But then surely the point of Unherd is to be a mixed bag, which is precisely what I like about it.
It’s really very simple. Ms More is telling you, very clearly I thought, that Ms Rose while seemingly off her head is simply petrified in case she might loose her job in academia. Academia sadly has sold out on reality and now operates in a post modern fantasy world. I thought it was very well unpicked and rolled out.
Prashant , you are not alone. Many articles of late have become so thoroughly academic I think, that I cannot understand the “foreign language” either. I thought I was just getting old. Glad to hear someone else is having the same reaction.
I also struggled. I was struck by this:
“The construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.”
I think (but am not sure) that the author supports this statement. Apparently oestrogen, physical strength, child rearing capability etc play no part in the construction of gender identity.
Starting from an irrational position leads, unsurprisingly, to a contorted argument,
We have left the realm of science, where words describe reality, and have entered the world of wizards, where words are supposed to create reality.
Actually it’s a lot simpler than that. It’s just one person trying to rationalise inconsistent beliefs in public. If she spoke plainly it would be painfully obvious to all. Not sure why Unherd is providing a home to refugees from the Guardian. Or rather I do know – it’s because of the trans issue. But it doesn’t excuse poor writing.
Compare this with Kathleen Stock!
I got the gist of the the article, I think, but I, too, found myself staring blankly at the page pretending (and for whom?) to read, only to skip a paragraph or two.
It’s a good article. If you’re going to argue with postmodernists, you need to become fluent in their weird language, and turn it against them.
Yea gods, I thought it was just me. I had to reread several sentences to grasp the meaning. This is not the first article in Unherd that I have had to do this. You cannot get an argument across if it is nearly understandable. KISS.
I was hugely gratified to open the comments on this article and read your response as I was starting to wonder if I had some sort of brain fog. And indeed more and more of the articles on Unherd seem to be unintelligible- I am really disappointed with my subscription.
Thanks for saying that. I think I nearly read each sentence twice and still didn‘t under stand most of it. There were about two or three statements which made sense. One was from Dawkins.
Well said! I would like to add that since your opening comment, I have never seen so many sensible responses to an Unherd article. Clear thinking is still appreciated and not dead.
It’s incredible how many commenters here are pretending this article is difficult to understand and how many are conflating the incoherence of J Rose’s piece with this response. Moore has experience in academia and is able to respond to the word salad posturings Rose leans on. Rose and her ilk depend on people’s incomprehension to avoid any challenge to their misogynist gobbledegook. Moore is equipped to challenge the nonsense with plain language.
There is an historic precedent familiar to many wherein women point to imperial evidence of their exploitation and the men who benefit from that exploitation fein incomprehension. Sorry to see the latter group in full regalia here.
Interesting commentary on the supposed opaqueness of this piece. Me, I understood every word, phrase, and sentence of it—perhaps because, as a woman myself, I have had to become fluent in “trans” theory, and the extent to which it threatens my rights and safety.
In California, where I live, this academic theory has actually become enacted into law. It is now illegal in this state to prevent men who “identify“ as women from using women’s bathrooms, spas, and changing areas. Or from competing against women in sports.
Thanks for nothing, Gov Gavin Newsom.
“, a professor at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.”
I think this might be a clue
You could go back to reading ‘The Guardian’.
I gave up reading very close to the start. I can read very dry academic tomes but this was too much for my “small bear brain” at the end of an intense work day on Teams, which is impossible for anyone with a significant hearing loss. Captions. Pah!
This article especially. I understand a fair amount of Po-Mo and critical theory, but for me it seemed the author would barely touch on a tenet as expressed by Rose and then instead of a step-by-step explanation of why Rose is wrong/incoherent/illogical, the author finishes the sentence with some cryptic tossed-off phrases. Very frustrating; the community here at UnHerd can understand just about anything if it’s explained coherently without resort to insider-speak.
Oh thank God, I thought I had become truly stupid as so much of it went over my head. Suzanne can write so sharply and clearly normally.
Post modernism is a harmful movement whichever way one looks at it. Time to reject the whole thing, not just their views on gender.
You found it difficult to read – fair enough. It might have sounded like a foreign language to you because its subject matter is not something that’s a big part of your life, which is also fair enough. I didn’t find it difficult to read at all, and I’m not an academic. But I am very interested in the subject and I thought it was an excellent piece. As did the editor, which I think is also fair enough. The whole point about Unherd, after all, is that it’s a mixed bag. Jolly good thing too.
I’m surprised, I wouldn’t have called it academic at all (I’m not an academic) and I was really enjoying it until the last third when she seemed to lose the thread a bit. There are definitely some articles Unherd articles I don’t enjoy or find impenetrably written at points. But then surely the point of Unherd is to be a mixed bag, which is precisely what I like about it.
It’s really very simple. Ms More is telling you, very clearly I thought, that Ms Rose while seemingly off her head is simply petrified in case she might loose her job in academia. Academia sadly has sold out on reality and now operates in a post modern fantasy world. I thought it was very well unpicked and rolled out.
I’m sorry, have UnHerd started publishing in a foreign language that I have never heard of? For me, this was like listening to a couple of aliens debating the esoteric inner-workings of their society. I could understand each individual letter and word – it’s the sentences I had the problem with. It seems, I have drifted so far from the mores of our current human culture, that I probably no longer identify as human.
I have no access to reading articles on the New Statesman but I can imagine the Dawkins – Rose polemic as something that might take between a cardiologist and an English teacher: the cardiologist tells you that the heart is a muscle that rhythmically contracts in response of an internal pacemaker, and the English teacher says, no, the heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a water’d shoot.
Without the reality of a functioning heart, the English teacher could not express romantic notions about the heart. Similarly, without a functioning society, maintained by realists, the bonkers ideologists would not have lost touch so completely with reality.
If you replaced the English teacher with a clown who mindlessly repeats nonsensical lines of religious dogma, said only to let the clowns fellow believers that she is one of them, you would be closer to it.
Best comment on here.
https://archive.ph/r0d6J
https://archive.ph/PX1rr
Dodgy links. Don’t click.
Thank you
In what way dodgy?
My virus scanner gave an alert when I hovered over them with the cursor earlier today, but now I’m not getting that any more, so they’re probably safe.
My virus scanner gave an alert when I hovered over them with the cursor earlier today, but now I’m not getting that any more, so they’re probably safe.
Thank you
In what way dodgy?
Dodgy links. Don’t click.
The problem with this analogy is that the post-modern radical academics are so lacking in any charm, wit, verbal invention, or poetry
Are you being reminded of what Chris Barnard said? The heart is but a pump. He was the first man to do a heart transplant.
Hmm. Up to a point lord copper. Isn’t there an awfully big difference between metaphor and ideology? The English teacher is using a metaphor. Metaphor expresses a thing in terms of something else – Shakespeare’s ‘fretted net of stars’ etc – while recognising that the two are not identical. Ideology expresses a thing in terms of set concepts that it regards as identical with reality. Which is a pretty fatal confusion that’s never done anyone any good.
Ah but the problem we have is that all these cardiologists, in the NHS and universities, suddenly say the heart is a not a muscle it is a feeling and if anyone protests they are told they have no feelings.
Without the reality of a functioning heart, the English teacher could not express romantic notions about the heart. Similarly, without a functioning society, maintained by realists, the bonkers ideologists would not have lost touch so completely with reality.
If you replaced the English teacher with a clown who mindlessly repeats nonsensical lines of religious dogma, said only to let the clowns fellow believers that she is one of them, you would be closer to it.
Best comment on here.
https://archive.ph/r0d6J
https://archive.ph/PX1rr
The problem with this analogy is that the post-modern radical academics are so lacking in any charm, wit, verbal invention, or poetry
Are you being reminded of what Chris Barnard said? The heart is but a pump. He was the first man to do a heart transplant.
Hmm. Up to a point lord copper. Isn’t there an awfully big difference between metaphor and ideology? The English teacher is using a metaphor. Metaphor expresses a thing in terms of something else – Shakespeare’s ‘fretted net of stars’ etc – while recognising that the two are not identical. Ideology expresses a thing in terms of set concepts that it regards as identical with reality. Which is a pretty fatal confusion that’s never done anyone any good.
Ah but the problem we have is that all these cardiologists, in the NHS and universities, suddenly say the heart is a not a muscle it is a feeling and if anyone protests they are told they have no feelings.
I have no access to reading articles on the New Statesman but I can imagine the Dawkins – Rose polemic as something that might take between a cardiologist and an English teacher: the cardiologist tells you that the heart is a muscle that rhythmically contracts in response of an internal pacemaker, and the English teacher says, no, the heart is like a singing bird whose nest is in a water’d shoot.
I always find it amusing the way feminists characterize the whole of history as a conspiracy among men to keep them in their place. Women’s place in civilization, and our stereotypes of femininity evolved because they bore and cared for children, and it was only after the Enlightenment and its ideas of freedom and individuality that they began to overcome the limitations history had imposed on them.
So, it is supremely ironic that post-modern feminists want to destroy the Enlightenment ideas which allowed them to make the progress that put them in the position to actually do it. And when they are done, they will be put in their place again by men with large breasts.
Yes – there’s a disturbing vein of paranoia running through much of the movement.
It’s not just enlightenment ideas either. Without antibiotics none of this stuff works anyway. Post-modernism is entirely dependent on the drug companies.
Woman: Men kill women on average of two per week in the UK. We want this to stop.
Man: Oh pipe down dearie. You ladies are so amusingly paranoid!
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8224/CBP-8224.pdf
72% of homicide victims are men. As a man I’m 3x more likely to be murdered in the U.K. than a woman is.
There are around 700 murders pa in a population of c65m. If we assume all the murders were committed by men, we’re looking at 0.002% of men are deranged enough to kill.
Why not address the causes and solutions to those derangements rather than this ridiculous male/female binary on a complex societal issue?
There is more to violence than murder. Rape andother sexual assaults are99.8% committed by men on wome. Of course, spread out over the entire population the percentage is very small, but it is a question of proportions..
And oddly enough, the vast majority of the men who are murdered are killed by other men. Same for assault/GBH. But you simply don’t get an equivalent number of women murdering and assaulting men. So if you’re a woman, that’s a problem concerning men’s behaviour towards women. That’s not a ridiculous binary, but a plain fact.
A tribal response. I said specifically “if we assume all the murders were committed by men.” It’s not quite true but I accept most are.
The point is it’s a minuscule proportion of men. You conflate the 0.02% who are psychopaths with the 50% who are just men. I am three times more likely to be murdered by a man than you are but do not spend my life fearing or castigating men as a category
If governments spent the money they allocate to ridiculous campaigns like Khan’s maate initiative, on really focusing on the problem families who tend to produce the psychopaths, rather than relentless targeting half the population, we might actually do something about the problem.
A tribal response. I said specifically “if we assume all the murders were committed by men.” It’s not quite true but I accept most are.
The point is it’s a minuscule proportion of men. You conflate the 0.02% who are psychopaths with the 50% who are just men. I am three times more likely to be murdered by a man than you are but do not spend my life fearing or castigating men as a category
If governments spent the money they allocate to ridiculous campaigns like Khan’s maate initiative, on really focusing on the problem families who tend to produce the psychopaths, rather than relentless targeting half the population, we might actually do something about the problem.
You omitted the fact that those male victims were killed by men.
If you’d bothered to read the comment you will see I did not.
If you’d bothered to read the comment you will see I did not.
There is more to violence than murder. Rape andother sexual assaults are99.8% committed by men on wome. Of course, spread out over the entire population the percentage is very small, but it is a question of proportions..
And oddly enough, the vast majority of the men who are murdered are killed by other men. Same for assault/GBH. But you simply don’t get an equivalent number of women murdering and assaulting men. So if you’re a woman, that’s a problem concerning men’s behaviour towards women. That’s not a ridiculous binary, but a plain fact.
You omitted the fact that those male victims were killed by men.
Correction: there are two people killed on average per week in UK.
1 out of every 3-4 is a man, but they don’t count right?
Work related fatalities: 3 per week
Suicides: 120 per week
About 600 deaths in Iraq / Afghanistan
Majority, or vast majority men
Woman: oh pipe down dearie. Male lives don’t matter, doncha know?
You skip the stat on humans causing the death of other humans. It is almost always males who cause the death of other humans.
It’s isn’t just men, on either side, who supported the Ukraine war, but it certainly is only men who are dying by the thousand while women run for it.
And while a tiny fraction of men kill, its primarily men, a much bigger fraction of men, who take risks and die protecting others in the police, fire brigade, doing the risky jobs.
Interesting thing though, how that statement
“almost always males who cause the death of other humans”
is somehow unacceptable when we replace “males”, with “non white males”, even though the stats are ten times more true in that case.
It’s isn’t just men, on either side, who supported the Ukraine war, but it certainly is only men who are dying by the thousand while women run for it.
And while a tiny fraction of men kill, its primarily men, a much bigger fraction of men, who take risks and die protecting others in the police, fire brigade, doing the risky jobs.
Interesting thing though, how that statement
“almost always males who cause the death of other humans”
is somehow unacceptable when we replace “males”, with “non white males”, even though the stats are ten times more true in that case.
You skip the stat on humans causing the death of other humans. It is almost always males who cause the death of other humans.
We’d all like it to stop, because nobody likes people being killed. But actually this number is vanishingly small compared to the population of the U.K., and it is highly unlikely to be reduced to zero.
To illustrate visually, because we all struggle with numbers of this size:
If the Canary Wharf Tower represents all the women in the U.K. (like a giant bar chart) then the number of women killed in a year would be represented by a mark 1mm from the bottom of the tower!
My comment had absolutely nothing to do with violence against women in the present, and I think the way progressives characterize history has more to do with stupidity than paranoia.
But yeah, you may be paranoid!
Thank you for saying it so I didn’t have to. Not to mention sexual harassment, rape etc etc. But of course that’s just making a silly fuss and anyway they’re only women.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8224/CBP-8224.pdf
72% of homicide victims are men. As a man I’m 3x more likely to be murdered in the U.K. than a woman is.
There are around 700 murders pa in a population of c65m. If we assume all the murders were committed by men, we’re looking at 0.002% of men are deranged enough to kill.
Why not address the causes and solutions to those derangements rather than this ridiculous male/female binary on a complex societal issue?
Correction: there are two people killed on average per week in UK.
1 out of every 3-4 is a man, but they don’t count right?
Work related fatalities: 3 per week
Suicides: 120 per week
About 600 deaths in Iraq / Afghanistan
Majority, or vast majority men
Woman: oh pipe down dearie. Male lives don’t matter, doncha know?
We’d all like it to stop, because nobody likes people being killed. But actually this number is vanishingly small compared to the population of the U.K., and it is highly unlikely to be reduced to zero.
To illustrate visually, because we all struggle with numbers of this size:
If the Canary Wharf Tower represents all the women in the U.K. (like a giant bar chart) then the number of women killed in a year would be represented by a mark 1mm from the bottom of the tower!
My comment had absolutely nothing to do with violence against women in the present, and I think the way progressives characterize history has more to do with stupidity than paranoia.
But yeah, you may be paranoid!
Thank you for saying it so I didn’t have to. Not to mention sexual harassment, rape etc etc. But of course that’s just making a silly fuss and anyway they’re only women.
When you say ‘feminists’ are you talking about Rose’s kind of feminist or Moore’s? Or didn’t you realise they disagree with each other?
The disagree on the trans issue.
So? Last time I looked, conservatives disagree with each other. Scientists disagree with each other. People who share common ground disagree with each other. Welcome to life.
The disagree on the trans issue.
So? Last time I looked, conservatives disagree with each other. Scientists disagree with each other. People who share common ground disagree with each other. Welcome to life.
Yes – there’s a disturbing vein of paranoia running through much of the movement.
It’s not just enlightenment ideas either. Without antibiotics none of this stuff works anyway. Post-modernism is entirely dependent on the drug companies.
Woman: Men kill women on average of two per week in the UK. We want this to stop.
Man: Oh pipe down dearie. You ladies are so amusingly paranoid!
When you say ‘feminists’ are you talking about Rose’s kind of feminist or Moore’s? Or didn’t you realise they disagree with each other?
I always find it amusing the way feminists characterize the whole of history as a conspiracy among men to keep them in their place. Women’s place in civilization, and our stereotypes of femininity evolved because they bore and cared for children, and it was only after the Enlightenment and its ideas of freedom and individuality that they began to overcome the limitations history had imposed on them.
So, it is supremely ironic that post-modern feminists want to destroy the Enlightenment ideas which allowed them to make the progress that put them in the position to actually do it. And when they are done, they will be put in their place again by men with large breasts.
Thanks Susanne for this response to Jacqueline Rose’s article in the New Statesman. It clearly explains all the points that struck me as questionable when I read Rose’s piece; but to which for the most part I was struggling to articulate a response.
It took me two attempts to read Rose’s article last week. I was instantly infuriated by her confusion (obfuscation?) of ‘womanhood’ with ‘femininity’ (cf Germaine Greer in an interview recently resurrected on twitter); and then at the half-quoting of de Beauvoir, rendering that quote out of context, I slammed my laptop shut in frustration.
After subsequently reading the whole of Rose’s article, ‘incoherent’ was exactly the word that sprang to mind.
Thanks Susanne for this response to Jacqueline Rose’s article in the New Statesman. It clearly explains all the points that struck me as questionable when I read Rose’s piece; but to which for the most part I was struggling to articulate a response.
It took me two attempts to read Rose’s article last week. I was instantly infuriated by her confusion (obfuscation?) of ‘womanhood’ with ‘femininity’ (cf Germaine Greer in an interview recently resurrected on twitter); and then at the half-quoting of de Beauvoir, rendering that quote out of context, I slammed my laptop shut in frustration.
After subsequently reading the whole of Rose’s article, ‘incoherent’ was exactly the word that sprang to mind.
‘Yet no other “civil rights” movement has had the dominant group identify into the oppressed group and then tried to take away their rights.’ This sounds like anti-racism in which every white person regardless of material circumstances is more privileged than a black person, hence Oprah Winfrey, the billionaires, is less privileged than a white person living in the worst circumstances. Just exchange white for male (dominant group) and black for female (oppressed group). Same underlying faulty ideology.
I was struck by the phrase you quote from one of the worst and most contorted articles published by Unherd I have encountered. Surely the the men who identify as women are not taking away women’s “rights” they are merely seeking to take advantage of them? What are these “rights” in any case?
On the whole women are physically weaker than men so they compete in many sports against other women. It is obviously disruptive and “unfair” for men who retain the physical advantages of being men to compete against them by claiming to be a woman but they are not thereby taking away the women’s “rights” Similarly, women have achieved a measure of apartheid in toilets, changing areas, hospital wards etc to give a sense of safety from those men who are sexually predatory and it is this sense of safety that is disrupted by men posing as women entering such spaces.
I am unaware of any trans individuals that are seeking to deprive women of any human right to which they are currently entitled.
Suzanne Moore has embarrassed herself by seeking to enter the area of pseudo philosophy. She should leave such speculations to real philosophers who can think and write clearly such as Kathleen Stock. I think they are in agreement as to what is a woman but I can understand Kathleen whereas I simply think Suzanne is writing overblown nonsense.
There is a lot of twisting of arguments these days. Rather than accepting some people are born disabled, society is frequently accused of disabling these people, that way they can blame society and demand accommodations. I first came across this argument in the early 2000s. A psychology lecturer was having a rant about how society failed the disabled because they are a minority group. She claimed people who have faulty eyesight are not disabled by society because they are not a minority group so society provides prescription glasses. At the time, I thought the argument was back to front but said nothing: society is enabling the visually impaired, society did not cause them to be visually impaired (disable them).
You accept that is is unfair for competitors with male physical advantages to compete against women, but conclude that this does not involve taking away women’s rights? Eh? The right to fair competition is enough for me, but they’re is also access to material resources at stake in terms of sponsorship, grants, prize money etc.
The right to fair competition is a bit of a tricky one as it would imply there should be a basketball league for shorter people, leagues for people of different levels of talent as well as different physical attributes. The Olympics were traditionally about finding the best in athletics and were consequently all male. Including separate events for females to encourage more women to take up sport makes more sense.
It doesn’t imply anything of the sort (although I do appreciate that you’re not advocating for this). If you’re short, you’re not going to be a top level basketball player. Find another sport. Leagues for different levels of talent exist throughout amateur sport. They also separate into ability leagues for each sex. This is how the participants have organised themselves through their governing bodies and it’s up to them how they choose to organise their competitions. If you organised based on ability, you would have elite men playing each other, sub-elite men beating elite women and sub-elite women battling it out at the bottom. Eventually, the elite women would stop competing against sub elite men and you would be back at sex based categories.
Women can actually participate in men’s sports, they just have to claim to be men. Men don’t object but clearly women do object to men claiming to be women to participate in women’s sports. You could say that is unfair. Why is it ok to tell short men to find another sport and not ok to tell women to find another sport. Or just do something else. There are sports where men have no competitive advantage. Admittedly not many. You are correct that I am not against sex segregation in sport. I am against the argument it’s not fair. Life is not fair. To make fairness a human right is ridiculous.
It’s really a question of separating the theory from real life. Are you likely to find enough short people who so love basketball that they form their own league that excludes anyone over a certain height? Or maybe they take up golf or weightlifting (where being short can confer an advantage) instead. The example of boxing has come about because there are enough participants for weight divisions. Asking women to choose another sport where the physical advantages of being male don’t apply would leave very few options and lead to greatly reduced participation. Humans are most characterised by their sex; other physical traits are secondary. Participants in sport see dividing into separate sex categories and then by ability level as the fairest way for most people to participate, assuming they wish to.
Worldwide, yes there are plenty of short men (and women). I am sure the Japanese and Chinese and other Asian nations would love to have a chance of winning an Olympic gold at basketball.
Worldwide, yes there are plenty of short men (and women). I am sure the Japanese and Chinese and other Asian nations would love to have a chance of winning an Olympic gold at basketball.
I get really mad when people throw that hoary old chestnut “Life is not fair” into a discussion. Fairness is not a naturally occuring feature of life it is an entirely human concept. In fact it is one of our species’ better ideas. One we should be working to nurture and develop, not abandoning it as unworkable as you seem to suggest here. We may not be wholly successful, but that should not be a deterrent.
It’s true. Life is not fair. Some are born taller than others, some more attractive than others, some more intelligent than others, some more athletic than others, some more articulate than others. It’s a fact of life, some are born into wealth, some into poverty, some are born into loving nurturing families, some into abusive families. Those are facts of life. All a society can do, is decide what kind of society it wants to be or aims to be. Societies can give to those born within its borders the right of residence. Societies can decide what is to be rewarded within society and what is to be punished. Societies can decide upon their own laws and decide upon the penalties for breaking those laws. Societies can decide on what is socially acceptable within the society and what is not. Within the context of the society, it is possible to declare members of the society have certain rights that are upheld by the laws of the society. For example, in the US freedom of speech is enshrined in the constitution and upheld by law. Fairness is both nebulous and unfeasible. A right to free medical treatment works as long as the state provides the medical treatment which depends on the state ensuring there is a functioning state funded health service. A right to a minimum income works as long as the state can provide any extra funding that is necessary. A state can say within the state their is freedom of worship, freedom of belief. It really is upto the state.
It’s true. Life is not fair. Some are born taller than others, some more attractive than others, some more intelligent than others, some more athletic than others, some more articulate than others. It’s a fact of life, some are born into wealth, some into poverty, some are born into loving nurturing families, some into abusive families. Those are facts of life. All a society can do, is decide what kind of society it wants to be or aims to be. Societies can give to those born within its borders the right of residence. Societies can decide what is to be rewarded within society and what is to be punished. Societies can decide upon their own laws and decide upon the penalties for breaking those laws. Societies can decide on what is socially acceptable within the society and what is not. Within the context of the society, it is possible to declare members of the society have certain rights that are upheld by the laws of the society. For example, in the US freedom of speech is enshrined in the constitution and upheld by law. Fairness is both nebulous and unfeasible. A right to free medical treatment works as long as the state provides the medical treatment which depends on the state ensuring there is a functioning state funded health service. A right to a minimum income works as long as the state can provide any extra funding that is necessary. A state can say within the state their is freedom of worship, freedom of belief. It really is upto the state.
Yes. Exactly right.
Life is not fair. (I thought everyone’s mother told everyone exactly that when we were all 3 years old?? Did it not sink in?)
Mom, of course, would try to make it fair — as much as she could. She’d carefully divide the Snickers bar into 3 EQUAL chunks for my brothers and myself. And she’d do that so well that she was the ONLY allowed Snickers Bar cutter in the family. Dad would just go WhackWhack and we’d have to live with the results as he also told us: “See, life really is not fair! Keep complaining and I’ll give you something to complain about!” We always shut-up at that point.
So no, fairness is not a human right.
Neither is the right to ‘never be offended’. Equally we could add the non-existent right to ‘Never feel harassed’.
Life, as they say, is hard. But better than the alternative.
I think you’re right. It is a failure to grow up and accept life is not fair. Complaining about things not being fair is playground talk. Trying to ensure fairness never works, because it is impossible to be fair to everyone. As the saying goes: you can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. A more robust basis for decisions must be found. I wonder if the extended childhood is a consequence of the digital age and the lack of interaction with intractable reality.
For goodness sake we are talking about over half of the human population here not personal traits.
For goodness sake we are talking about over half of the human population here not personal traits.
I think you’re right. It is a failure to grow up and accept life is not fair. Complaining about things not being fair is playground talk. Trying to ensure fairness never works, because it is impossible to be fair to everyone. As the saying goes: you can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time. A more robust basis for decisions must be found. I wonder if the extended childhood is a consequence of the digital age and the lack of interaction with intractable reality.
It’s really a question of separating the theory from real life. Are you likely to find enough short people who so love basketball that they form their own league that excludes anyone over a certain height? Or maybe they take up golf or weightlifting (where being short can confer an advantage) instead. The example of boxing has come about because there are enough participants for weight divisions. Asking women to choose another sport where the physical advantages of being male don’t apply would leave very few options and lead to greatly reduced participation. Humans are most characterised by their sex; other physical traits are secondary. Participants in sport see dividing into separate sex categories and then by ability level as the fairest way for most people to participate, assuming they wish to.
I get really mad when people throw that hoary old chestnut “Life is not fair” into a discussion. Fairness is not a naturally occuring feature of life it is an entirely human concept. In fact it is one of our species’ better ideas. One we should be working to nurture and develop, not abandoning it as unworkable as you seem to suggest here. We may not be wholly successful, but that should not be a deterrent.
Yes. Exactly right.
Life is not fair. (I thought everyone’s mother told everyone exactly that when we were all 3 years old?? Did it not sink in?)
Mom, of course, would try to make it fair — as much as she could. She’d carefully divide the Snickers bar into 3 EQUAL chunks for my brothers and myself. And she’d do that so well that she was the ONLY allowed Snickers Bar cutter in the family. Dad would just go WhackWhack and we’d have to live with the results as he also told us: “See, life really is not fair! Keep complaining and I’ll give you something to complain about!” We always shut-up at that point.
So no, fairness is not a human right.
Neither is the right to ‘never be offended’. Equally we could add the non-existent right to ‘Never feel harassed’.
Life, as they say, is hard. But better than the alternative.
Women can actually participate in men’s sports, they just have to claim to be men. Men don’t object but clearly women do object to men claiming to be women to participate in women’s sports. You could say that is unfair. Why is it ok to tell short men to find another sport and not ok to tell women to find another sport. Or just do something else. There are sports where men have no competitive advantage. Admittedly not many. You are correct that I am not against sex segregation in sport. I am against the argument it’s not fair. Life is not fair. To make fairness a human right is ridiculous.
It doesn’t imply anything of the sort (although I do appreciate that you’re not advocating for this). If you’re short, you’re not going to be a top level basketball player. Find another sport. Leagues for different levels of talent exist throughout amateur sport. They also separate into ability leagues for each sex. This is how the participants have organised themselves through their governing bodies and it’s up to them how they choose to organise their competitions. If you organised based on ability, you would have elite men playing each other, sub-elite men beating elite women and sub-elite women battling it out at the bottom. Eventually, the elite women would stop competing against sub elite men and you would be back at sex based categories.
It is not a right for women to compete against women only in some sports any more than it is a right for bantamweight boxers not to compete against heavyweight boxers. It is just a convention we have adopted to ensure a “fairer” competition. Where physical strength is no particular advantage women can compete in open competitions.
Of course it would be “unfair” for heavyweight boxer to identify as a bantamweight boxer and take the main prizes in that sport but the unfairness only comes about because of a decision to divide the sport up into different weight categories just as many sports are similarly divided into men and women’s categories to ensure a less predictable outcome.
Having separate categories for inferior performers is a convention not a right.
My comment has received more downvotes than yours despite the similarity of content. Probably because I am female and consequently considered guilty of blasphemy and betrayal. You are a man therefore cannot be found guilty of such crimes against feminist doctrine.
Aphrodite, I think we are indeed in agreement on this subject and I shall upvote your various posts. As for the number of downvotes last time I looked my first comment on this thread had 6 positive votes but now seems to have four downvotes while my second comment had two up votes but now has no votes. The approval or disapproval is fairly random I think depending where the comment comes in the sequence, but you may be right that comments questioning the feminist viewpoint by an apparent woman may be more harshly judged.
I greatly depreciate men who claim to be women being allowed to compete in women’s sports where strength is a factor but I regard it as a reasonable convention rather than some universal right that is being impinged and I entirely agree with the points you make. Serena Williams would certainly beat me at tennis and plenty of other men but she has said herself that she could not compete at the top level of men’s tennis and it is surely not a human right that she has a special women’s category for her to win it is just a convention that has been agreed.
For some reason some women are reluctant to accept this.
Thank you Jeremy. To be honest the downvotes don’t bother me. I would prefer if someone disagrees he/she states precisely his/her disagreement because it would help me develop my ideas. An upvote is fine because if you agree with someone, there is nothing further to say. Sometimes, I think I should just cancel my subscription to Unherd and switch to Spiked but then I would generally be in agreement and I think that is quite limiting. I am open to persuasion by well reasoned argument.
A downvote and no explanation – bizarre.
Downvotes are just plain silly.
They say nothing; they mean nothing; they make no point. At best they only are capable of expressing a primitive dislike (not even disagreement).
Always reminds me of a 18 month old being offered broccoli: you might get a head shake, maybe a dodge, maybe even a hand swat. But even the 18 month old occasionally gives you a NO.
Which is more than I can say for downvotes.
Having read through this very sensible discussion with Jeremy I’m at a loss to understand the downvotes for either.
Yes, a downvote adds nothing to the conversation. It is mere disagreement without rationale. I will often upvote something I disagree with because the poster has had the curtesy to put forward a decent albeit fallacious argument.
A number of downvotes will sometimes stimulate me to re formulate and repost what I am saying on the basis that they must have misunderstood the point I was putting forward, but on the whole I just think a downvote is similar to the cacophony produced by some idiot who wants to shout down a Jordan Peterson talk but doesn’t have the intellectual capacity or tolerance of debate to question what he is saying.
A downvote and no explanation – bizarre.
Downvotes are just plain silly.
They say nothing; they mean nothing; they make no point. At best they only are capable of expressing a primitive dislike (not even disagreement).
Always reminds me of a 18 month old being offered broccoli: you might get a head shake, maybe a dodge, maybe even a hand swat. But even the 18 month old occasionally gives you a NO.
Which is more than I can say for downvotes.
Having read through this very sensible discussion with Jeremy I’m at a loss to understand the downvotes for either.
Yes, a downvote adds nothing to the conversation. It is mere disagreement without rationale. I will often upvote something I disagree with because the poster has had the curtesy to put forward a decent albeit fallacious argument.
A number of downvotes will sometimes stimulate me to re formulate and repost what I am saying on the basis that they must have misunderstood the point I was putting forward, but on the whole I just think a downvote is similar to the cacophony produced by some idiot who wants to shout down a Jordan Peterson talk but doesn’t have the intellectual capacity or tolerance of debate to question what he is saying.
It’s very strange, I post a comment for the first time in which I claim to pretty much always agree with the articles in Spiked and a few hours later an article appears that actually horrifies and sickens me in which the author argues there should be no limits on abortion. I guess it’s a case of Sod’s Law.
Well no because sex is binary and in physical competition males have the advantage. That just puts people in a fair category beyond that of course there are differences that make you compete or not. The basic divide on strength is not just a convention it is embodied in law so it is a Right. It is because women have this Right to be a separate category that men call themselves women and that until recently has been unfairly accepted. Meaning that a 6 foot 4” mediocre male talent can without any physical change say that he feels he’s a woman and therefore compete and win a lot of awards and lots of money. How can you think that is ok?
Thank you Jeremy. To be honest the downvotes don’t bother me. I would prefer if someone disagrees he/she states precisely his/her disagreement because it would help me develop my ideas. An upvote is fine because if you agree with someone, there is nothing further to say. Sometimes, I think I should just cancel my subscription to Unherd and switch to Spiked but then I would generally be in agreement and I think that is quite limiting. I am open to persuasion by well reasoned argument.
It’s very strange, I post a comment for the first time in which I claim to pretty much always agree with the articles in Spiked and a few hours later an article appears that actually horrifies and sickens me in which the author argues there should be no limits on abortion. I guess it’s a case of Sod’s Law.
Well no because sex is binary and in physical competition males have the advantage. That just puts people in a fair category beyond that of course there are differences that make you compete or not. The basic divide on strength is not just a convention it is embodied in law so it is a Right. It is because women have this Right to be a separate category that men call themselves women and that until recently has been unfairly accepted. Meaning that a 6 foot 4” mediocre male talent can without any physical change say that he feels he’s a woman and therefore compete and win a lot of awards and lots of money. How can you think that is ok?
Tisk tisk Aphrodite. I enjoy your comments and this is the first one I can recall where you stoop to that sort of self-pity. Persecuted by the Patriarchy are we? This is beneath you.
WHAT? Where have I blamed the patriarchy? I don’t even believe in the patriarchy.
WHAT? Where have I blamed the patriarchy? I don’t even believe in the patriarchy.
Aphrodite, I think we are indeed in agreement on this subject and I shall upvote your various posts. As for the number of downvotes last time I looked my first comment on this thread had 6 positive votes but now seems to have four downvotes while my second comment had two up votes but now has no votes. The approval or disapproval is fairly random I think depending where the comment comes in the sequence, but you may be right that comments questioning the feminist viewpoint by an apparent woman may be more harshly judged.
I greatly depreciate men who claim to be women being allowed to compete in women’s sports where strength is a factor but I regard it as a reasonable convention rather than some universal right that is being impinged and I entirely agree with the points you make. Serena Williams would certainly beat me at tennis and plenty of other men but she has said herself that she could not compete at the top level of men’s tennis and it is surely not a human right that she has a special women’s category for her to win it is just a convention that has been agreed.
For some reason some women are reluctant to accept this.
Tisk tisk Aphrodite. I enjoy your comments and this is the first one I can recall where you stoop to that sort of self-pity. Persecuted by the Patriarchy are we? This is beneath you.
It’s so much more than a ‘convention’. They’re rules designed to ensure safety, competition and equality btwn the sexes.
As far as whether this involves rights, it obviously depends on how you define a ‘right’. I’m not saying it’s a universal human right for a bantumweight to fight in their own weight category, but women have a right (moral entitlement) not to be discriminated against on grounds of sex. Therefore we have female boxing, as to have women compete against men would be unsafe and uncompetitive even in the same weight category (bone mass, strengthbetc)
Women are not being discriminated against on the basis of sex, they are being excluded (if they are being excluded) for their own protection. Probably because the organisers do not want to be sued.
Thankfully they’re not being excluded so much now. Female bantumweights can fight against other female bantumweights.
Thankfully they’re not being excluded so much now. Female bantumweights can fight against other female bantumweights.
Women are not being discriminated against on the basis of sex, they are being excluded (if they are being excluded) for their own protection. Probably because the organisers do not want to be sued.
It is, of course, the right of anybody to compete (or not) in any sport against anyone who wants to compete with them.
Have to disagree. It’s not just convention, as you put it, but law. Western countries have adopted laws mandating equal treatment of all individuals falling into the same categories—which prohibits indiscriminate favoring of certain people over others.
Out of interest, which categories have been enshrined in law as being deserving of equal treatment? I thought the law prohibits discrimination based on certain characteristics and height doesn’t happen to be one of them.
Demanding equal treatment would just mean women should be able to compete in the same competition. Have women ever been prevented from setting up competitions in a sport?
I am not sure I follow you. Surely equal treatment between men and women would require there to be no separate sporting categories for men and women. I thought “separate but equal” had been disallowed by the Supreme Court in racial matters. Are you saying that “separate but equal” is a US legal requirement in sexual matters?
Out of interest, which categories have been enshrined in law as being deserving of equal treatment? I thought the law prohibits discrimination based on certain characteristics and height doesn’t happen to be one of them.
Demanding equal treatment would just mean women should be able to compete in the same competition. Have women ever been prevented from setting up competitions in a sport?
I am not sure I follow you. Surely equal treatment between men and women would require there to be no separate sporting categories for men and women. I thought “separate but equal” had been disallowed by the Supreme Court in racial matters. Are you saying that “separate but equal” is a US legal requirement in sexual matters?
It’s so much more than a ‘convention’. It’s a rule to ensure some combination of safety, competition and equality. The balance of these priorities will vary been sports.
I don’t think it’s a universal human right for a bantumweight to fight only others in the same category, but women’s boxing is about female equality. Then, having women compete only with other women in boxing is about safety as male bodied people are stronger even at the same weight.
My comment has received more downvotes than yours despite the similarity of content. Probably because I am female and consequently considered guilty of blasphemy and betrayal. You are a man therefore cannot be found guilty of such crimes against feminist doctrine.
It’s so much more than a ‘convention’. They’re rules designed to ensure safety, competition and equality btwn the sexes.
As far as whether this involves rights, it obviously depends on how you define a ‘right’. I’m not saying it’s a universal human right for a bantumweight to fight in their own weight category, but women have a right (moral entitlement) not to be discriminated against on grounds of sex. Therefore we have female boxing, as to have women compete against men would be unsafe and uncompetitive even in the same weight category (bone mass, strengthbetc)
It is, of course, the right of anybody to compete (or not) in any sport against anyone who wants to compete with them.
Have to disagree. It’s not just convention, as you put it, but law. Western countries have adopted laws mandating equal treatment of all individuals falling into the same categories—which prohibits indiscriminate favoring of certain people over others.
It’s so much more than a ‘convention’. It’s a rule to ensure some combination of safety, competition and equality. The balance of these priorities will vary been sports.
I don’t think it’s a universal human right for a bantumweight to fight only others in the same category, but women’s boxing is about female equality. Then, having women compete only with other women in boxing is about safety as male bodied people are stronger even at the same weight.
Why do women have right to “material resources at stake in terms of sponsorship, grants, prize money” if they are physically incapable of competing against even third rate men?
There are 1.3 b Indians. Who get a miniscule amount of the “resources” you spoke of.
Should they have a separate, third “Indians” segment for football, athletics, etc where the winner gets paid as much as the winners of the “non Indian male” section?
I didn’t say anyone had a ‘right’ to sponsorship. I also didn’t get into the argument of women being paid the same as men (which you imply in your ‘Indian’ analogy).
Women have a right to access sporting competition based on the protected category of sex. If male-bodied boxers/swimmers/rugby players etc are allowed to compete in female categories they deprive women of sporting opportunities (and possibly also commercial opps) as well as being dangerous.
I didn’t say anyone had a ‘right’ to sponsorship. I also didn’t get into the argument of women being paid the same as men (which you imply in your ‘Indian’ analogy).
Women have a right to access sporting competition based on the protected category of sex. If male-bodied boxers/swimmers/rugby players etc are allowed to compete in female categories they deprive women of sporting opportunities (and possibly also commercial opps) as well as being dangerous.
The right to fair competition is a bit of a tricky one as it would imply there should be a basketball league for shorter people, leagues for people of different levels of talent as well as different physical attributes. The Olympics were traditionally about finding the best in athletics and were consequently all male. Including separate events for females to encourage more women to take up sport makes more sense.
It is not a right for women to compete against women only in some sports any more than it is a right for bantamweight boxers not to compete against heavyweight boxers. It is just a convention we have adopted to ensure a “fairer” competition. Where physical strength is no particular advantage women can compete in open competitions.
Of course it would be “unfair” for heavyweight boxer to identify as a bantamweight boxer and take the main prizes in that sport but the unfairness only comes about because of a decision to divide the sport up into different weight categories just as many sports are similarly divided into men and women’s categories to ensure a less predictable outcome.
Having separate categories for inferior performers is a convention not a right.
Why do women have right to “material resources at stake in terms of sponsorship, grants, prize money” if they are physically incapable of competing against even third rate men?
There are 1.3 b Indians. Who get a miniscule amount of the “resources” you spoke of.
Should they have a separate, third “Indians” segment for football, athletics, etc where the winner gets paid as much as the winners of the “non Indian male” section?
There is a lot of twisting of arguments these days. Rather than accepting some people are born disabled, society is frequently accused of disabling these people, that way they can blame society and demand accommodations. I first came across this argument in the early 2000s. A psychology lecturer was having a rant about how society failed the disabled because they are a minority group. She claimed people who have faulty eyesight are not disabled by society because they are not a minority group so society provides prescription glasses. At the time, I thought the argument was back to front but said nothing: society is enabling the visually impaired, society did not cause them to be visually impaired (disable them).
You accept that is is unfair for competitors with male physical advantages to compete against women, but conclude that this does not involve taking away women’s rights? Eh? The right to fair competition is enough for me, but they’re is also access to material resources at stake in terms of sponsorship, grants, prize money etc.
Fail to see what is so difficult to understand about that sentence.
Here’s an example. In California, until recently, the Cal Civil Code (sec 51) afforded women protection against discrimination “on the basis of sex.” If an establishment or institution afforded men a service or benefit, then the establishment or institution had to afford women the same service or benefit.
Then the word “sex” was redefined to include “gender identity”. As a result, great hulking bio men in Calif are now free to avail themselves of the services and benefits formerly afforded to women and girls. Women and girls no longer have a civil right to same-sex areas of spas, gyms, public bathrooms, etc—a loss of protection that erodes women’s and girls’ safe participation in many areas of civic life.
Perfect example of trans rights trumping the rights of women and girls. Insanity. Instead, to the extent that trans individuals experience risk from using the men’s, then that is where the risk should have remained—the risk should not have been transferred to women and girls, as the smaller sex.
(edited for paragraph formatting)
I never said it was difficult to understand. I just asked which categories were included. What is wrong with equal treatment for all? As for height, certain races are generally shorter than other races. Neither the Chinese nor the Japanese will ever win olympic medals in basketball. Is that fair?
You ask “What is wrong with equal treatment for all?” The question you should be asking should be ‘Why don’t we try to achieve fair treatment for all?’. Also you might want to re-consider your outdated assumptions about height in the far east. The Chinese women’s team won Olympic Basketball Bronze in 1984 and Silver in 1992 and the Japanese Women won Silver in 2020. That seems perfectly fair to me
What about the men? Internationally the variance in height between women is far less than the variance in height between men. I have commented on the problem with demanding fairness elsewhere. Just because life is not fair, it doesn’t mean people should not strive to be the best that they can be, which society should encourage and if having separate female categories encourages and enables women to be the best that they can be then surely that is good enough reason to separate the sexes.
The olympics is not about fairness, it is a celebration of the fact life is not fair. It is a celebration of exceptional talent and superhuman effort.
What about the men? Internationally the variance in height between women is far less than the variance in height between men. I have commented on the problem with demanding fairness elsewhere. Just because life is not fair, it doesn’t mean people should not strive to be the best that they can be, which society should encourage and if having separate female categories encourages and enables women to be the best that they can be then surely that is good enough reason to separate the sexes.
The olympics is not about fairness, it is a celebration of the fact life is not fair. It is a celebration of exceptional talent and superhuman effort.
Why stop at eliminating sex categories in sports competition? Let’s eliminate age categories, too. Everyone competes against one another, regardless of age. Let the best man win.
Your point is? I have never suggested any category should be eliminated. I have just disputed that the Olympics are about fairness. I even suggested possible reasons why it might be important/ beneficial to have separate events for females: to encourage more women to take up sport and to motivate women to achieve their sporting best.
Your point is? I have never suggested any category should be eliminated. I have just disputed that the Olympics are about fairness. I even suggested possible reasons why it might be important/ beneficial to have separate events for females: to encourage more women to take up sport and to motivate women to achieve their sporting best.
You ask “What is wrong with equal treatment for all?” The question you should be asking should be ‘Why don’t we try to achieve fair treatment for all?’. Also you might want to re-consider your outdated assumptions about height in the far east. The Chinese women’s team won Olympic Basketball Bronze in 1984 and Silver in 1992 and the Japanese Women won Silver in 2020. That seems perfectly fair to me
Why stop at eliminating sex categories in sports competition? Let’s eliminate age categories, too. Everyone competes against one another, regardless of age. Let the best man win.
I thought the whole point of the olympics is rewarding and witnessing excellence that is a result of exceptional natural ability plus super human effort: not about fairness though obviously against cheating.
In fact the olympics highlights life is not fair, the majority can only watch on with awe and amazement. Maybe if there was greater acceptance of the fact life is not fair, then academia could return to being about excellence, the result of exceptional ability and hard-work, and the courses which indoctrinate rather than teach would disappear along with their chief proponents and once again academics would be respected.
Does sec 51 afford only women protection against discrimination “on the basis of sex” and are not men protected against such discrimination? If men are protected then presumably men (whether great and hulking or not) have a right to avail themselves of of the same facilities as women – or does it only work one way? I am sorry not to be more familiar with California legalities.
Don’t misunderstand me I am interested in the answer. I am not arguing against women having certain protections but I don’t understand how they are derived from equalities laws that presumably should put men and women on equal footing rather than carving out separate rights.
Yes, men are afforded protection against discrimination on the basis of sex under Cal law. Sec 51 is a broad anti discrimination law, prohibiting discrimination on basis of race, religion, etc.
Under the new redefinition of “sex” to include so-called gender identity, women may now use the men’s facilities if they identify as men.
Theoretically this puts everyone on an equal footing.
In practice, however, because females are (1) on average physically smaller & weaker than men, and (2) statistically more likely to be victims of sexual assault, the law has now placed women and girls at a disadvantage in safely using public or private facilities previously reserved only to biological females.
Helen, thank you for your reply. I think we are in agreement that the definition of sex incorporated in the section 51 of the Code that I have now checked out is completely bonkers.
It states as follows: “Sex” also includes, but is not limited to, a person’s gender. “Gender” means sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender expression. “Gender expression” means a person’s gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”
What I fail to understand is why a statute providing for equal treatment is supposed to mandate unequal treatment namely that women should be able to have a separate competition for some but presumably not all sports. Surely equal treatment means they both compete in the same competition and if women don’t win prizes because of their physical makeup that is just the normal operation of equal treatment.
I don’t advocate that women should always compete against men in all sports because that would be equal treatment. I think there are perfectly good reasons why they should have their own competitions that should not be invaded by men with a “gender identity” of a woman. But that seems to be a sensible convention not a right arising out of any equal treatment provision. Similarly it is a reasonable convention that women should have spaces reserved for them for the reasons you outline that should not be used by men but I fail to see how this arises out of equality laws.
Helen, thank you for your reply. I think we are in agreement that the definition of sex incorporated in the section 51 of the Code that I have now checked out is completely bonkers.
It states as follows: “Sex” also includes, but is not limited to, a person’s gender. “Gender” means sex, and includes a person’s gender identity and gender expression. “Gender expression” means a person’s gender-related appearance and behavior whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth.”
What I fail to understand is why a statute providing for equal treatment is supposed to mandate unequal treatment namely that women should be able to have a separate competition for some but presumably not all sports. Surely equal treatment means they both compete in the same competition and if women don’t win prizes because of their physical makeup that is just the normal operation of equal treatment.
I don’t advocate that women should always compete against men in all sports because that would be equal treatment. I think there are perfectly good reasons why they should have their own competitions that should not be invaded by men with a “gender identity” of a woman. But that seems to be a sensible convention not a right arising out of any equal treatment provision. Similarly it is a reasonable convention that women should have spaces reserved for them for the reasons you outline that should not be used by men but I fail to see how this arises out of equality laws.
Yes, men are afforded protection against discrimination on the basis of sex under Cal law. Sec 51 is a broad anti discrimination law, prohibiting discrimination on basis of race, religion, etc.
Under the new redefinition of “sex” to include so-called gender identity, women may now use the men’s facilities if they identify as men.
Theoretically this puts everyone on an equal footing.
In practice, however, because females are (1) on average physically smaller & weaker than men, and (2) statistically more likely to be victims of sexual assault, the law has now placed women and girls at a disadvantage in safely using public or private facilities previously reserved only to biological females.
I never said it was difficult to understand. I just asked which categories were included. What is wrong with equal treatment for all? As for height, certain races are generally shorter than other races. Neither the Chinese nor the Japanese will ever win olympic medals in basketball. Is that fair?
I thought the whole point of the olympics is rewarding and witnessing excellence that is a result of exceptional natural ability plus super human effort: not about fairness though obviously against cheating.
In fact the olympics highlights life is not fair, the majority can only watch on with awe and amazement. Maybe if there was greater acceptance of the fact life is not fair, then academia could return to being about excellence, the result of exceptional ability and hard-work, and the courses which indoctrinate rather than teach would disappear along with their chief proponents and once again academics would be respected.
Does sec 51 afford only women protection against discrimination “on the basis of sex” and are not men protected against such discrimination? If men are protected then presumably men (whether great and hulking or not) have a right to avail themselves of of the same facilities as women – or does it only work one way? I am sorry not to be more familiar with California legalities.
Don’t misunderstand me I am interested in the answer. I am not arguing against women having certain protections but I don’t understand how they are derived from equalities laws that presumably should put men and women on equal footing rather than carving out separate rights.
No she is just saying that, in the case of racism for example as you cite, that no white person has claimed to be a black person then been accepted as the true voice by authorities and then campaigned against black rights. This is what has happened to women.
I was struck by the phrase you quote from one of the worst and most contorted articles published by Unherd I have encountered. Surely the the men who identify as women are not taking away women’s “rights” they are merely seeking to take advantage of them? What are these “rights” in any case?
On the whole women are physically weaker than men so they compete in many sports against other women. It is obviously disruptive and “unfair” for men who retain the physical advantages of being men to compete against them by claiming to be a woman but they are not thereby taking away the women’s “rights” Similarly, women have achieved a measure of apartheid in toilets, changing areas, hospital wards etc to give a sense of safety from those men who are sexually predatory and it is this sense of safety that is disrupted by men posing as women entering such spaces.
I am unaware of any trans individuals that are seeking to deprive women of any human right to which they are currently entitled.
Suzanne Moore has embarrassed herself by seeking to enter the area of pseudo philosophy. She should leave such speculations to real philosophers who can think and write clearly such as Kathleen Stock. I think they are in agreement as to what is a woman but I can understand Kathleen whereas I simply think Suzanne is writing overblown nonsense.
Fail to see what is so difficult to understand about that sentence.
Here’s an example. In California, until recently, the Cal Civil Code (sec 51) afforded women protection against discrimination “on the basis of sex.” If an establishment or institution afforded men a service or benefit, then the establishment or institution had to afford women the same service or benefit.
Then the word “sex” was redefined to include “gender identity”. As a result, great hulking bio men in Calif are now free to avail themselves of the services and benefits formerly afforded to women and girls. Women and girls no longer have a civil right to same-sex areas of spas, gyms, public bathrooms, etc—a loss of protection that erodes women’s and girls’ safe participation in many areas of civic life.
Perfect example of trans rights trumping the rights of women and girls. Insanity. Instead, to the extent that trans individuals experience risk from using the men’s, then that is where the risk should have remained—the risk should not have been transferred to women and girls, as the smaller sex.
(edited for paragraph formatting)
No she is just saying that, in the case of racism for example as you cite, that no white person has claimed to be a black person then been accepted as the true voice by authorities and then campaigned against black rights. This is what has happened to women.
‘Yet no other “civil rights” movement has had the dominant group identify into the oppressed group and then tried to take away their rights.’ This sounds like anti-racism in which every white person regardless of material circumstances is more privileged than a black person, hence Oprah Winfrey, the billionaires, is less privileged than a white person living in the worst circumstances. Just exchange white for male (dominant group) and black for female (oppressed group). Same underlying faulty ideology.
We don’t need to go past the first four words.
‘What is a woman?’
A woman is anybody with a skirt, high-heels, makeup and a blouse.
Ask Eddie Izzard or Admiral Rachel Levine.
If somebody disagrees, punch them in the face.
Sarcasm?
Sarcasm?
We don’t need to go past the first four words.
‘What is a woman?’
A woman is anybody with a skirt, high-heels, makeup and a blouse.
Ask Eddie Izzard or Admiral Rachel Levine.
If somebody disagrees, punch them in the face.
An intriguing article.
And this is where philosophy and politics dies. Language is not primary or bounded by reality, the map is not the domain. The literati believe that merely saying something makes it so, and much of their ‘discourse’ is trying to square language with reality.
And so we come to the debate about the definition of what a ‘woman’ is. If the activists settled on a woman as an adult biological female then the debate about the expectations of trans people could be handled and resolved. But then the activists would be out of a career.
I have only recently realised there is a section of society that believe they talk things into existence and this then becomes reality. These are highly articulate people and according to Jordan Peterson the type who are most powerful in left wing autocracies, hence the need to silence opposition. I guess that is why they also claim words are violence as wrong-speak threatens the ‘reality’ they create with their words. As women are in general more articulate than men and physically weaker, it would be expected this would become a way some women would acquire and retain power. It’s not surprising feminism has been co-opted in this way as it is led by highly articulate women who seek power – not equal representation as they claim: they do not want equal representation in prisons and dangerous occupations. I much preferred the arguments when I was young and society existed: society would benefit from the development and utilisation of the talents of all its members regardless of class, sex or colour, instead of all the moaning about it not being fair.
I have only recently realised there is a section of society that believe they talk things into existence and this then becomes reality. These are highly articulate people and according to Jordan Peterson the type who are most powerful in left wing autocracies, hence the need to silence opposition. I guess that is why they also claim words are violence as wrong-speak threatens the ‘reality’ they create with their words. As women are in general more articulate than men and physically weaker, it would be expected this would become a way some women would acquire and retain power. It’s not surprising feminism has been co-opted in this way as it is led by highly articulate women who seek power – not equal representation as they claim: they do not want equal representation in prisons and dangerous occupations. I much preferred the arguments when I was young and society existed: society would benefit from the development and utilisation of the talents of all its members regardless of class, sex or colour, instead of all the moaning about it not being fair.
An intriguing article.
And this is where philosophy and politics dies. Language is not primary or bounded by reality, the map is not the domain. The literati believe that merely saying something makes it so, and much of their ‘discourse’ is trying to square language with reality.
And so we come to the debate about the definition of what a ‘woman’ is. If the activists settled on a woman as an adult biological female then the debate about the expectations of trans people could be handled and resolved. But then the activists would be out of a career.
The main point of postmodernism is to permit bourgeois taxpayer funded students and academics to cosplay being victims and revolutionaries and avoid recognising their own absurdly privileged positions in society.
It ‘s not just Marxism fell out of fashion with it’s obvious failure. Any and every concern for the less well off went out of the window too. Why? Because these pampered drones care about as much for the poor as Marie Antoinette.
This stuff though, which is all about THEM, they find much more conducive.
The impenetrable language serves (a) to cover up that this garbage is meaningless gibberish – see AJ Ayer, Sir, what does this MEAN? and (b) conceal the selfish self dramatising childish motivation from its authors.
It’s a very profitable gig. As Suzanne says.I commend to you Nussbaum’s brutal Takedown of Butler, ‘Professor of Parody’, if you’ve not read it, that points this out.
Personally I would defund of taxpayers money any and every course based on this nonsense. Frankly if they were made to sweep the streets that would have more social utility.
The main point of postmodernism is to permit bourgeois taxpayer funded students and academics to cosplay being victims and revolutionaries and avoid recognising their own absurdly privileged positions in society.
It ‘s not just Marxism fell out of fashion with it’s obvious failure. Any and every concern for the less well off went out of the window too. Why? Because these pampered drones care about as much for the poor as Marie Antoinette.
This stuff though, which is all about THEM, they find much more conducive.
The impenetrable language serves (a) to cover up that this garbage is meaningless gibberish – see AJ Ayer, Sir, what does this MEAN? and (b) conceal the selfish self dramatising childish motivation from its authors.
It’s a very profitable gig. As Suzanne says.I commend to you Nussbaum’s brutal Takedown of Butler, ‘Professor of Parody’, if you’ve not read it, that points this out.
Personally I would defund of taxpayers money any and every course based on this nonsense. Frankly if they were made to sweep the streets that would have more social utility.
Suzanne, your columns in The Guardian were always a must read for me so I am glad to see you bob up here. As always, you are insightful, wry and a pleasure to read. I read why they ditched you and was annoyed and frustrated by their craven cowardice.
I had forgotten she used to write for the Guardian. That explains the same faulty underlying ideology as the person (Rose) she is criticising. She would never have been employed by the Guardian without subscribing to it.
I hadn’t forgotten that she is a Guardian retread and so subscribes to a lot of intellectual nonsense but to be fair she normally expresses herself rather more clearly than she does here. This article is merely a hot mess of pseudo-philosophical babble that was a waste of time reading.
In the course of my lifetime I’ve watched the Grauniad go from a bog-standard liberal newspaper to an ideology-bound comic. When Suzanne Moore first began to write for it, it was not the utterly bizarre creature it is now. Plus your idea that you can judge someone solely on the basis of contributing pieces to a particular publication sounds pretty much like classic Guardian ideology to me. On that basis anyone writing for the Speccie would be a fascist.
I hadn’t forgotten that she is a Guardian retread and so subscribes to a lot of intellectual nonsense but to be fair she normally expresses herself rather more clearly than she does here. This article is merely a hot mess of pseudo-philosophical babble that was a waste of time reading.
In the course of my lifetime I’ve watched the Grauniad go from a bog-standard liberal newspaper to an ideology-bound comic. When Suzanne Moore first began to write for it, it was not the utterly bizarre creature it is now. Plus your idea that you can judge someone solely on the basis of contributing pieces to a particular publication sounds pretty much like classic Guardian ideology to me. On that basis anyone writing for the Speccie would be a fascist.
Well said.
I had forgotten she used to write for the Guardian. That explains the same faulty underlying ideology as the person (Rose) she is criticising. She would never have been employed by the Guardian without subscribing to it.
Well said.
Suzanne, your columns in The Guardian were always a must read for me so I am glad to see you bob up here. As always, you are insightful, wry and a pleasure to read. I read why they ditched you and was annoyed and frustrated by their craven cowardice.
Fantastic article. Intelligent and yes grounded in an academic debate. What’s wrong with that? The illogical position of some academics who are in a position of influence with young people should be criticised.
Fantastic article. Intelligent and yes grounded in an academic debate. What’s wrong with that? The illogical position of some academics who are in a position of influence with young people should be criticised.
Suppose the international academic circuit steeped in post-modernist feminist theory were to evaporate tomorrow in a big puff of smoke, would the world be any the poorer?
Only those who take part in it.
Only those who take part in it.
Suppose the international academic circuit steeped in post-modernist feminist theory were to evaporate tomorrow in a big puff of smoke, would the world be any the poorer?
If there is a ‘core, lived sexual identity’, then it sounds as if there is something beyond discourse – a metaphysical absolute of womanhood that some males identify with. The trans movement is ridden with contradiction.
If there is a ‘core, lived sexual identity’, then it sounds as if there is something beyond discourse – a metaphysical absolute of womanhood that some males identify with. The trans movement is ridden with contradiction.
Feminism died when feminists started insisting on the moral superiority of women. Women are only morally superior until they acquire the power hitherto enjoyed only by men and become CEO of NatWest, for example.
Or Paula Vennells, late CEO of the once revered GPO*.
(*General Post Office, for US readers.)
True. Women’s oppression – anyone’s oppression – is immoral, but that doesn’t make every victim of oppressive behaviour a better person, it simply makes them a victim of oppressive behaviour. The morality the status of being moral/immoral lies in the behaviour and the beliefs that drive that behaviour, not the physical people themselves.
Isn’t that another hidden part of our Christian heritage ( also see Islam) ? Women aren’t accorded real power in most religions so, as a consolation prize are assumed to be repositories of other values like compassion, mercy etc (see Vigin Mary, Fatima etc etc). This was a great temptation for feminists who covertly repeat this as it’s a convenient leg-up over men while claiming they want to be equal. All marginalised groups do a version of this ( Blacks can’t be racist, gay men can’t be patriarchal as they’re excluded from said structures etc etc ). I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s nothing to do with equality at all; it’s all about getting even and getting to the top of the heap by all and every means possible while never giving up the handy crutch of victimhood. Identity politics has, as with every other theory, just raised as many new problems as the number of old ones it tried to get rid of.
Just reposting this comment as it seems pertinent bearing in mind the left always claims moral superiority: I have only recently realised there is a section of society that believe they talk things into existence and this then becomes reality. These are highly articulate people and according to Jordan Peterson the type who are most powerful in left wing autocracies, hence the need to silence opposition. I guess that is why they also claim words are violence as wrong-speak threatens the ‘reality’ they create with their words. As women are in general more articulate than men and physically weaker, it would be expected this would become a way some women would acquire and retain power. It’s not surprising feminism has been co-opted in this way as it is led by highly articulate women who seek power – not equal representation as they claim: they do not want equal representation in prisons and dangerous occupations. I much preferred the arguments when I was young and society existed: society would benefit from the development and utilisation of the talents of all its members regardless of class, sex or colour, instead of all the moaning about it not being fair.
Really beautifully expressed AR.
Thank you.
Really beautifully expressed AR.
Thank you.
Just reposting this comment as it seems pertinent bearing in mind the left always claims moral superiority: I have only recently realised there is a section of society that believe they talk things into existence and this then becomes reality. These are highly articulate people and according to Jordan Peterson the type who are most powerful in left wing autocracies, hence the need to silence opposition. I guess that is why they also claim words are violence as wrong-speak threatens the ‘reality’ they create with their words. As women are in general more articulate than men and physically weaker, it would be expected this would become a way some women would acquire and retain power. It’s not surprising feminism has been co-opted in this way as it is led by highly articulate women who seek power – not equal representation as they claim: they do not want equal representation in prisons and dangerous occupations. I much preferred the arguments when I was young and society existed: society would benefit from the development and utilisation of the talents of all its members regardless of class, sex or colour, instead of all the moaning about it not being fair.
I thought it was the Victorians who insisted on the moral superiority of women, the angel of the house, the keeper of the hearth and so on, except that if they did not come up to expectations they were the opposite.
I thought feminism was about men and women being seen as equal in value, though not necessarily equal in characteristics.
Did I think wrong all along?
I think the argument is that “the moral superiority of women” is part of the (unacknowledged, perhaps unconscious) inheritance of feminism. Historically this is the case – feminism was strongly linked to the temperance movement, and suffragettes marched under the banner “votes for women, chastity for men”. Some resistance to votes for women was due to the fear they would vote for prohibition.
I think it continues in the background. While we have little trouble with the idea that men are rapists (only a tiny number are), we struggle with the idea that any woman might lie when it is in her interest to do so.
And some still cling to silly ideas along the lines of: there would be no wars, bank crashes, corruption etc if women were in control. That’s a claim of moral superiority.
I’m a feminist, have been for decades and have always fought against any idea of moral superiority of women as that just plays into the hands of sexism. It was an early sop to women eg Jonson in the 18th century who argued that as nature had given women so many gifts it was only fair that men had the keys to the bank.
All we wanted was equal rights for responsibility in law, and equal pay for equal work.
If you knew the history of the second wave movement you would know that it was triggered by the male Beat Generation when they revolted against picking up the tab. The role of kept housewives was over, it was time women paid their own way and for them to ask for equality was surely only morally fair. But it’s always easier to blame women, since Eve
I’m a feminist, have been for decades and have always fought against any idea of moral superiority of women as that just plays into the hands of sexism. It was an early sop to women eg Jonson in the 18th century who argued that as nature had given women so many gifts it was only fair that men had the keys to the bank.
All we wanted was equal rights for responsibility in law, and equal pay for equal work.
If you knew the history of the second wave movement you would know that it was triggered by the male Beat Generation when they revolted against picking up the tab. The role of kept housewives was over, it was time women paid their own way and for them to ask for equality was surely only morally fair. But it’s always easier to blame women, since Eve
I think the argument is that “the moral superiority of women” is part of the (unacknowledged, perhaps unconscious) inheritance of feminism. Historically this is the case – feminism was strongly linked to the temperance movement, and suffragettes marched under the banner “votes for women, chastity for men”. Some resistance to votes for women was due to the fear they would vote for prohibition.
I think it continues in the background. While we have little trouble with the idea that men are rapists (only a tiny number are), we struggle with the idea that any woman might lie when it is in her interest to do so.
And some still cling to silly ideas along the lines of: there would be no wars, bank crashes, corruption etc if women were in control. That’s a claim of moral superiority.
Or Paula Vennells, late CEO of the once revered GPO*.
(*General Post Office, for US readers.)
True. Women’s oppression – anyone’s oppression – is immoral, but that doesn’t make every victim of oppressive behaviour a better person, it simply makes them a victim of oppressive behaviour. The morality the status of being moral/immoral lies in the behaviour and the beliefs that drive that behaviour, not the physical people themselves.
Isn’t that another hidden part of our Christian heritage ( also see Islam) ? Women aren’t accorded real power in most religions so, as a consolation prize are assumed to be repositories of other values like compassion, mercy etc (see Vigin Mary, Fatima etc etc). This was a great temptation for feminists who covertly repeat this as it’s a convenient leg-up over men while claiming they want to be equal. All marginalised groups do a version of this ( Blacks can’t be racist, gay men can’t be patriarchal as they’re excluded from said structures etc etc ). I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s nothing to do with equality at all; it’s all about getting even and getting to the top of the heap by all and every means possible while never giving up the handy crutch of victimhood. Identity politics has, as with every other theory, just raised as many new problems as the number of old ones it tried to get rid of.
I thought it was the Victorians who insisted on the moral superiority of women, the angel of the house, the keeper of the hearth and so on, except that if they did not come up to expectations they were the opposite.
I thought feminism was about men and women being seen as equal in value, though not necessarily equal in characteristics.
Did I think wrong all along?
Feminism died when feminists started insisting on the moral superiority of women. Women are only morally superior until they acquire the power hitherto enjoyed only by men and become CEO of NatWest, for example.
For God’s sake – when WILL women stop using she/ her when talking about men! And for Andrea Long Chu! He of ‘the ar**hole is the universal vagina’ infamy. What A grotesque erasure of women. Could anything be more servile than pretending you accept an untruth even while you are arguing against that untruth. You might as well have gone out for a nice drink Suzanne. The rest is semantics, no matter how well said.
Thank you for enlightening me, I had no idea whether this person was a trans man or a trans woman.
I just call them ‘they-them’ people.
I just call them ‘they-them’ people.
Chu got that way from watching a lot of pornography – he says so himself. It has clearly warped him beyond belief.
Yes, this needs to be stressed. There’s even a term for it: pornosexual.
Not heard that one before but it’s a perfect descriptor.
Not heard that one before but it’s a perfect descriptor.
Yes, this needs to be stressed. There’s even a term for it: pornosexual.
Thank you for enlightening me, I had no idea whether this person was a trans man or a trans woman.
Chu got that way from watching a lot of pornography – he says so himself. It has clearly warped him beyond belief.
For God’s sake – when WILL women stop using she/ her when talking about men! And for Andrea Long Chu! He of ‘the ar**hole is the universal vagina’ infamy. What A grotesque erasure of women. Could anything be more servile than pretending you accept an untruth even while you are arguing against that untruth. You might as well have gone out for a nice drink Suzanne. The rest is semantics, no matter how well said.
Quote upon quote and not a drop of actual evidence from reality. A castle built from clouds and wistful feelings, all pretends and dressings-up of academic make-believe.
Can you please tell us where Moore says something unsupported by evidence? I don’t think you’ve actually read the piece.
Can you please tell us where Moore says something unsupported by evidence? I don’t think you’ve actually read the piece.
Quote upon quote and not a drop of actual evidence from reality. A castle built from clouds and wistful feelings, all pretends and dressings-up of academic make-believe.
Upton Sinclair observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Of course, that goes for a woman, too.
That is the crux of the matter!
That is the crux of the matter!
Upton Sinclair observed, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!
Of course, that goes for a woman, too.
Moore comes off here as just slightly (but significantly) less unhinged than Rose.
Moore comes off here as just slightly (but significantly) less unhinged than Rose.
Thanks Suzanne; great to have you and your wonderful perspective here at Unherd – unkind, unpersuaded and unbound – you fit right in!
Thanks Suzanne; great to have you and your wonderful perspective here at Unherd – unkind, unpersuaded and unbound – you fit right in!
From the evolutionary perspective, only real women will procreate and hopefully spread their genes. The others are only a dead end. So are these academics unwilling to grasp hard scientific knowledge.
Except that this transhumanist evil is just around the corner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2RIvJ1U7RE)
Except that this transhumanist evil is just around the corner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2RIvJ1U7RE)
From the evolutionary perspective, only real women will procreate and hopefully spread their genes. The others are only a dead end. So are these academics unwilling to grasp hard scientific knowledge.
Rose must be nearly 70 (the photo is forty years old I’d guess). She is a well established figure so it’s not power or money she wants rather to be seen as the cool progressive that she posed as then and that she might feel is now threatened by her age. I too admired her work very much in the past and find it excruciatingly sad to see such a brilliant well read woman ditch intelligent critical thinking for conformity to the new orthodoxy. The other example is still sadder because she is young: Amia Srinivasan who used to write original lucid and entertaining essays in the LRB now performs intellectual contortions writing gobblydook to fit in.
Rose must be nearly 70 (the photo is forty years old I’d guess). She is a well established figure so it’s not power or money she wants rather to be seen as the cool progressive that she posed as then and that she might feel is now threatened by her age. I too admired her work very much in the past and find it excruciatingly sad to see such a brilliant well read woman ditch intelligent critical thinking for conformity to the new orthodoxy. The other example is still sadder because she is young: Amia Srinivasan who used to write original lucid and entertaining essays in the LRB now performs intellectual contortions writing gobblydook to fit in.
I knew it was a good idea not to read The New Statesman.
But the Dawkins article she was responding to ”for balance” was quite good.
It was the NS that provided the Rose article for ‘balance’ not Suzanne. She was just describing why it was there which as she said was suspect from the start.
BUT not long ago no one who believed in gender ideology or trans rights would speak. No debate they said. Transphobic to ask for debate. Well now they are being forced to debate and the hollowness misinformation and circularity if their arguments are apparent. And they have to be refuted. Many authorities are signed up to it , subverting our language and laws. The struggle against it, though so obvious to so many, is still in the foothills.
It was the NS that provided the Rose article for ‘balance’ not Suzanne. She was just describing why it was there which as she said was suspect from the start.
BUT not long ago no one who believed in gender ideology or trans rights would speak. No debate they said. Transphobic to ask for debate. Well now they are being forced to debate and the hollowness misinformation and circularity if their arguments are apparent. And they have to be refuted. Many authorities are signed up to it , subverting our language and laws. The struggle against it, though so obvious to so many, is still in the foothills.
But the Dawkins article she was responding to ”for balance” was quite good.
I knew it was a good idea not to read The New Statesman.
Silliness and silliness squared.
“She complains that “the idea of female” is “some kind of primordial condition… as if it were the bedrock of all the limitations to follow”. She’s actually right here: this is the unfortunate reality in many parts of the world.”
“The unfortunate reality in many parts of the world”?? What?
Female, the actual physical reality, which is the embodied female human IS a primordial condition. It is the bedrock of human existence. We can exist only as males or females. As Dawkins says…as reality dictates….as our existence on the planet demonstrates…”sex is binary” (sperm or egg). And yes, human existence is completely and utterly limited. God is not, but we humans…with our single century lifespans (if we’re lucky) live out that cosmic blink-of-an-eye surrounded by limitations. We are only so big, so smart, so strong, so fast. We can see & hear only in a given & highly limited spectrum. We have no claws or armor. We do not naturally create our own food (where is our chlorophyll??). We are born into a condition of absolute vulnerability. It takes us a year to learn to toddle (a colt does it in 90 minutes). Men only produce sperm. Women only produce eggs. And neither can reproduce without the Other. Sex is, once again, a natural, reality-limited fact of life….and it is this fact which is the bedrock upon which sexual differentiation is grounded.
But why on earth is this unfortunate…that life is naturally and unavoidably limited?
Is it unfortunate that granite is hard and rain wet? Is it unfortunate that fish can’t talk? That man can’t fly? These are the natural limits of a natural reality. We might as well complain that we can’t grow hamburgers on our head or live for 10,000 years. We can’t…but why is this ineluctable reality ‘unfortunate’? It simply is. There is no other way.
What I suspect the author means is that in some places in the world ADDITIONAL social/political/cultural limitations are assigned to women…but so-called social constructs gravied across a female reality are entirely arbitrary and in no way a ‘primordial’ strait-jacket. Are the social limitations imposed by any given society or culture unfortunate? Ask those there in that culture, at that time. [Would any of our great, great, great grandmothers envy Jaqueline Rose and her gender confusion? I suspect not.]
As for whether a “core, lived, sexual identity” can be ‘in conflict’ with the sexual reality which is the bedrock of human existence… sure I suppose it can be (quite obviously seems to be). Just as it’s possible for a man to believe his wife is a hat, we can imagine that it’s possible for man to believe himself (somehow) a woman…or maybe a zebra…or maybe the King of Siam. But his wife is not a hat (and never will be one)..and the man is not a woman, nor can he become one. (Neither is he a zebra or the King of Siam) Transition, in other words, is the wrong word for what the dysphoric & delusional might seek.
I can transition from Des Moines to Chicago: two completely different places, objectively verifiable. I can transition from skinny to fat. Again, two different objectively verifiable conditions, both eminently real. I can even transition from happy to sad because anyone can be happy (at any given point in time) and anyone can be sad. These two conditions, however, are not objectively verifiable and can only be indirectly measured as we ourselves communicate an entirely subjective feeling. But I can’t transition from male to female. I can only play-pretend. And it doesn’t matter if I sexually mutilate myself, wear my hair long, sway my hips when I walk, and take a suitcase full of drugs…the best I can do is get really good at play-pretend (if, that is, behaving like a 20th female stereotype is being really good). But in reality, I remain always a man.
Rose’s essay ends where it begins, with the question: ““What is a woman?” “Speak for yourself.” She says. “Who on Earth can presume to answer the question on behalf of anyone else? In the end, it is a matter of generosity and freedom.” No, dear Rose, it is not. A woman is a female human being, always and forever. Welcome to reality.
Equally we also welcome the parallel reality that how a woman chooses to behave…the life she chooses to live…the clothes she chooses to wear…the music she chooses to enjoy….and whether or not she wants a hamburger or a salad for dinner: all these life choices are entirely her call. The reality of being female is not — that is a constant — but everything else, that’s up to her, whoever she is.
Loved your comment. Laughed out loud. Thank you.
Glad you liked it!
Glad you liked it!
Loved your comment. Laughed out loud. Thank you.
Silliness and silliness squared.
“She complains that “the idea of female” is “some kind of primordial condition… as if it were the bedrock of all the limitations to follow”. She’s actually right here: this is the unfortunate reality in many parts of the world.”
“The unfortunate reality in many parts of the world”?? What?
Female, the actual physical reality, which is the embodied female human IS a primordial condition. It is the bedrock of human existence. We can exist only as males or females. As Dawkins says…as reality dictates….as our existence on the planet demonstrates…”sex is binary” (sperm or egg). And yes, human existence is completely and utterly limited. God is not, but we humans…with our single century lifespans (if we’re lucky) live out that cosmic blink-of-an-eye surrounded by limitations. We are only so big, so smart, so strong, so fast. We can see & hear only in a given & highly limited spectrum. We have no claws or armor. We do not naturally create our own food (where is our chlorophyll??). We are born into a condition of absolute vulnerability. It takes us a year to learn to toddle (a colt does it in 90 minutes). Men only produce sperm. Women only produce eggs. And neither can reproduce without the Other. Sex is, once again, a natural, reality-limited fact of life….and it is this fact which is the bedrock upon which sexual differentiation is grounded.
But why on earth is this unfortunate…that life is naturally and unavoidably limited?
Is it unfortunate that granite is hard and rain wet? Is it unfortunate that fish can’t talk? That man can’t fly? These are the natural limits of a natural reality. We might as well complain that we can’t grow hamburgers on our head or live for 10,000 years. We can’t…but why is this ineluctable reality ‘unfortunate’? It simply is. There is no other way.
What I suspect the author means is that in some places in the world ADDITIONAL social/political/cultural limitations are assigned to women…but so-called social constructs gravied across a female reality are entirely arbitrary and in no way a ‘primordial’ strait-jacket. Are the social limitations imposed by any given society or culture unfortunate? Ask those there in that culture, at that time. [Would any of our great, great, great grandmothers envy Jaqueline Rose and her gender confusion? I suspect not.]
As for whether a “core, lived, sexual identity” can be ‘in conflict’ with the sexual reality which is the bedrock of human existence… sure I suppose it can be (quite obviously seems to be). Just as it’s possible for a man to believe his wife is a hat, we can imagine that it’s possible for man to believe himself (somehow) a woman…or maybe a zebra…or maybe the King of Siam. But his wife is not a hat (and never will be one)..and the man is not a woman, nor can he become one. (Neither is he a zebra or the King of Siam) Transition, in other words, is the wrong word for what the dysphoric & delusional might seek.
I can transition from Des Moines to Chicago: two completely different places, objectively verifiable. I can transition from skinny to fat. Again, two different objectively verifiable conditions, both eminently real. I can even transition from happy to sad because anyone can be happy (at any given point in time) and anyone can be sad. These two conditions, however, are not objectively verifiable and can only be indirectly measured as we ourselves communicate an entirely subjective feeling. But I can’t transition from male to female. I can only play-pretend. And it doesn’t matter if I sexually mutilate myself, wear my hair long, sway my hips when I walk, and take a suitcase full of drugs…the best I can do is get really good at play-pretend (if, that is, behaving like a 20th female stereotype is being really good). But in reality, I remain always a man.
Rose’s essay ends where it begins, with the question: ““What is a woman?” “Speak for yourself.” She says. “Who on Earth can presume to answer the question on behalf of anyone else? In the end, it is a matter of generosity and freedom.” No, dear Rose, it is not. A woman is a female human being, always and forever. Welcome to reality.
Equally we also welcome the parallel reality that how a woman chooses to behave…the life she chooses to live…the clothes she chooses to wear…the music she chooses to enjoy….and whether or not she wants a hamburger or a salad for dinner: all these life choices are entirely her call. The reality of being female is not — that is a constant — but everything else, that’s up to her, whoever she is.
Suzanne, I appreciate your commitment to biology. But like many TERFs you are ignoring the elephant in the room. Feminism – all varieties – and Marxism share a common root…Rousseau…They’re all part of the fall out from rejecting Christian/Aristotelian virtue ethics and natural law.
They all start from the idea that some kind of (super) humanity can create its own ethics; that there is no such thing as a human nature – or at least it can be transformed at will by a political project. New socialist man (Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot), the feminist idea of socially constructed ‘gender’ (which could/should be reconstructed) and now the full on transhumanist mental health epidemic of transgenderism – are all part of a piece.
They are all predicated on a kind of billiard ball individualism which sees people as utterly autonomous and sovereign. They all reject family and the natural state of dependence on kith, kin and place-bound community. They would all see a massive expansion in the state and or the market – to replace family and community….to allow these rootless individuals to bounce around the world without binding ties or obligations…and sustained by either jobs, private insurance…..or by state welfare structures. The logical end point is for babies to be confiscated and brought up by the state (Alexandra Kollontai’s plan in soviet Russia) ……or for babies to be produced to order in factories, bypassing the dirty, relational, complementary business of sex, marriage, birth and parenting all together (and this really is just around the corner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2RIvJ1U7RE) ….
My point is that feminism has always been predicated on trying to abolish the evolved difference between men and women. Even your kind of TERF feminism. I will support you and Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock all the way …But Kelly Jay Keane especially because she’s abandoned the language of feminism all together. She knows that feminism is part of the problem. Feminism via the awful corrosive nonsense of Judith Butler – birthed transgenderism as a political movement.
The only coherent and true counter point to any of that is to go back to a virtue ethical traditionalism rooted in obligations, interdependence and a recognition of an immanent and transcendent God. Catholic Social Teaching provides a good point of departure.
There is a lot of truth in what you say. A lot of us feminists got carried away and are now looking in horror at the unintended consequences of our mission.
Hi Hilary. I’ve upvoted you. Though I am curious at what point you had your “oops” moment.
Your honesty is deeply appreciated. I know I have have gone along with some very stupid and damaging things in my time. The ability to acknowledge considered rethinking is crucial. There’s a whole generation out there that are going to have to work their way back to sanity. I want to encourage them to start that journey.
If it’s any comfort Hilary, I was a left-libertarian/Marxist/feminist for decades; grew up with Marcuse, Adorno, Fromm, Andre Gorz, Murray Bookchin, Kollontai, and the rest….swimming/drowning in the cool aid. It’s been very liberating to change my mind, somewhat late in the day. I think the single most important insight triggering my own change was the recognition of how crazy and damaging any utopian project is qua utopia….or as Eric Voegelin put it…the catastrophe that always comes when we try to create heaven on earth….(‘don’t immanentize the eschaton’). Gradualism, minor improvements, respect for the wisdom of the ages, modesty and acceptance of the permanent balancing /negotiation of incompatible interests and ends……not very sexy or heroic, but much less likely to end in tears
Hi Hilary. I’ve upvoted you. Though I am curious at what point you had your “oops” moment.
Your honesty is deeply appreciated. I know I have have gone along with some very stupid and damaging things in my time. The ability to acknowledge considered rethinking is crucial. There’s a whole generation out there that are going to have to work their way back to sanity. I want to encourage them to start that journey.
If it’s any comfort Hilary, I was a left-libertarian/Marxist/feminist for decades; grew up with Marcuse, Adorno, Fromm, Andre Gorz, Murray Bookchin, Kollontai, and the rest….swimming/drowning in the cool aid. It’s been very liberating to change my mind, somewhat late in the day. I think the single most important insight triggering my own change was the recognition of how crazy and damaging any utopian project is qua utopia….or as Eric Voegelin put it…the catastrophe that always comes when we try to create heaven on earth….(‘don’t immanentize the eschaton’). Gradualism, minor improvements, respect for the wisdom of the ages, modesty and acceptance of the permanent balancing /negotiation of incompatible interests and ends……not very sexy or heroic, but much less likely to end in tears
There is a lot of truth in what you say. A lot of us feminists got carried away and are now looking in horror at the unintended consequences of our mission.
Suzanne, I appreciate your commitment to biology. But like many TERFs you are ignoring the elephant in the room. Feminism – all varieties – and Marxism share a common root…Rousseau…They’re all part of the fall out from rejecting Christian/Aristotelian virtue ethics and natural law.
They all start from the idea that some kind of (super) humanity can create its own ethics; that there is no such thing as a human nature – or at least it can be transformed at will by a political project. New socialist man (Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot), the feminist idea of socially constructed ‘gender’ (which could/should be reconstructed) and now the full on transhumanist mental health epidemic of transgenderism – are all part of a piece.
They are all predicated on a kind of billiard ball individualism which sees people as utterly autonomous and sovereign. They all reject family and the natural state of dependence on kith, kin and place-bound community. They would all see a massive expansion in the state and or the market – to replace family and community….to allow these rootless individuals to bounce around the world without binding ties or obligations…and sustained by either jobs, private insurance…..or by state welfare structures. The logical end point is for babies to be confiscated and brought up by the state (Alexandra Kollontai’s plan in soviet Russia) ……or for babies to be produced to order in factories, bypassing the dirty, relational, complementary business of sex, marriage, birth and parenting all together (and this really is just around the corner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2RIvJ1U7RE) ….
My point is that feminism has always been predicated on trying to abolish the evolved difference between men and women. Even your kind of TERF feminism. I will support you and Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock all the way …But Kelly Jay Keane especially because she’s abandoned the language of feminism all together. She knows that feminism is part of the problem. Feminism via the awful corrosive nonsense of Judith Butler – birthed transgenderism as a political movement.
The only coherent and true counter point to any of that is to go back to a virtue ethical traditionalism rooted in obligations, interdependence and a recognition of an immanent and transcendent God. Catholic Social Teaching provides a good point of departure.
I like this article in that it provokes very amusing commentary
I like this article in that it provokes very amusing commentary
So I’m not tripping? There is some really poor writing going on here lately.
So I’m not tripping? There is some really poor writing going on here lately.
This is what happens when several irreconcilable half-assed ideologies – feminism, postmodernism, trans, identitism, – run headlong into reality. Don’t waste time trying to work out what it means; it’s meaningless maundering. Anyway, it’s all the fault of the patriarchy.
and each other!!
“Anyway, it’s all the fault of the patriarchy.”
Funny thing tho is that on the deepest level it is our fault. We are the guardians of civilization and we let the barbarians in. We let spoiled, selfish, entitled adult children take over our institutions. Just as a kid can rightly blame their parents for any misfortune they might suffer, so the radfems, who are also children, rightly blame Daddy, AKA The Patriarchy.
and each other!!
“Anyway, it’s all the fault of the patriarchy.”
Funny thing tho is that on the deepest level it is our fault. We are the guardians of civilization and we let the barbarians in. We let spoiled, selfish, entitled adult children take over our institutions. Just as a kid can rightly blame their parents for any misfortune they might suffer, so the radfems, who are also children, rightly blame Daddy, AKA The Patriarchy.
This is what happens when several irreconcilable half-assed ideologies – feminism, postmodernism, trans, identitism, – run headlong into reality. Don’t waste time trying to work out what it means; it’s meaningless maundering. Anyway, it’s all the fault of the patriarchy.
“Postmodernism is patriarchy in drag.”
One should not commit schadenfreude but I can’t help but smile at the way radfems attempt to blame trans on The Patriarchy when in fact the radfems dug their own graves, to use an expression, when it comes to all this shit.
Yup, it was the radfems who minimized the differences between men and women and who demanded inclusion into every male space. Men and women, they said, were only different due to Oppression — and some trivial reproductive hardware.
So the trannies have simply taken that logic to it’s conclusion. As for we Patriarchs, we have always asserted that men and women are very different and that a man is never a woman, nor visa versa, and that female-only spaces are a fundamental right.
“Postmodernism is patriarchy in drag.”
One should not commit schadenfreude but I can’t help but smile at the way radfems attempt to blame trans on The Patriarchy when in fact the radfems dug their own graves, to use an expression, when it comes to all this shit.
Yup, it was the radfems who minimized the differences between men and women and who demanded inclusion into every male space. Men and women, they said, were only different due to Oppression — and some trivial reproductive hardware.
So the trannies have simply taken that logic to it’s conclusion. As for we Patriarchs, we have always asserted that men and women are very different and that a man is never a woman, nor visa versa, and that female-only spaces are a fundamental right.
It’s remarkable how poor people’s writing suddenly becomes if they start to disagree with you. It’s almost as if your judgement of the quality of their writing is based on whether they agree with you or not.
To the extent that I understand what she is trying to say I agree with her, but still think that this is a shockingly poor piece of writing.
On what objective literary grounds?
On what objective literary grounds?
To the extent that I understand what she is trying to say I agree with her, but still think that this is a shockingly poor piece of writing.
It’s remarkable how poor people’s writing suddenly becomes if they start to disagree with you. It’s almost as if your judgement of the quality of their writing is based on whether they agree with you or not.
“Myths are not believed in, they are conceived and understood.”*
(* George Santayana.)
“Myths are not believed in, they are conceived and understood.”*
(* George Santayana.)
Assuming I’m interpreting this correctly, this is the only piece of sense in an otherwise silly article. An admission (?) that feminism is yet another grand narrative which tries to explain way more than it is capable of.
Assuming I’m interpreting this correctly, this is the only piece of sense in an otherwise silly article. An admission (?) that feminism is yet another grand narrative which tries to explain way more than it is capable of.
Is this seriously what SM thinks is a good bit?
Is this seriously what SM thinks is a good bit?
boring . . .
boring . . .
** I described her as “one of our very best cultural critics”. Yet even I was surprised at how poor her recent article was. **
I don’t think “yet” is the apropos conjunction here. Everyone who previously believed Ms. Rose was a great writer and thinker would be surprised at her producing dreck.
** I described her as “one of our very best cultural critics”. Yet even I was surprised at how poor her recent article was. **
I don’t think “yet” is the apropos conjunction here. Everyone who previously believed Ms. Rose was a great writer and thinker would be surprised at her producing dreck.
So on one side you have Dawkins, and every human being who is not forced to lie by the fear of getting cancelled, on the other side some bubbling credentialed posturing idiot taking “imaginative leap”. Give me break
So on one side you have Dawkins, and every human being who is not forced to lie by the fear of getting cancelled, on the other side some bubbling credentialed posturing idiot taking “imaginative leap”. Give me break
Modern-day feminism and gender politics – It all makes me feel like the young boy in that Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw.
Modern-day feminism and gender politics – It all makes me feel like the young boy in that Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw.
When a writer is impenetrable, the problem is theirs not ours. Any decent writer can use words coherently to communicate an idea.
When a writer is impenetrable, the problem is theirs not ours. Any decent writer can use words coherently to communicate an idea.
Feminism and all the other isms are surely part of the problem and simply breed more deranged versions of themselves as time goes on like the serpents’ teeth in Greek mythology.
Feminism and all the other isms are surely part of the problem and simply breed more deranged versions of themselves as time goes on like the serpents’ teeth in Greek mythology.
I really have no idea what this author is talking about. I think this is a great example pseudointellect. How the simplest of biological facts can be debated at such length is really beyond me.
I really have no idea what this author is talking about. I think this is a great example pseudointellect. How the simplest of biological facts can be debated at such length is really beyond me.
Thanks so much Suzanne for responding to the appalling article in the current edition of the New Statesman that they published to ‘balance’ Richard Dawkins lucid account of the necessary sexual binary of the human species.
Jacqueline Rose’s article was balderdash and what inflamed me most, and you, was the misuse of Simone de Beauvoir’s utterance that ‘women are not born they are made’. Taken completely out of context. She explained very clearly that being a woman necessarily encompassed femininity else one was not accepted in society. She was looking at patriarchal society, she was living in 1940’s France. Her mission was to free women from the straight jacket of femininity.
What Simone de Beauvoir did NOT say was ‘women say you are a man if you want an active role in society but if you like that passives sexual role even if you are a man say you are a woman’.
It is so staggeringly stupid and willfully blind thank you for responding at such length .
For respondents on here who are objecting to Suzanne’s academic tone (?) I am frankly shocked. How else can you refute this current power grab by academia which is filtering through society, through schools, government departments, law, police, you name it . Accepted because people think they know what they are talking about and it must be them that are dim. You have to fight back with their tools.
I wish people would think s bit harder about this, the emperors have to be disrobed.
We have seen Costa emblazoning it’s trucks with murals of girls with scars instead of breasts. This self hatred that girls are being taught is chilling. All done in the name of inclusivity and yet no pictures of men with scars instead of penises. People please wake up to this. Suzanne is hitting them where it hurts most, where they can’t say well you just don’t understand we have intellectual weapons you don’t have, she disarms them. It’s no good just rolling your eyes and saying ‘I know what a woman is’ This ideology has channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And every weapon must be used. We are now rolling out the big guns , it seems that if you are a respected successful man you can say what you like, just don’t be a woman . Andrew Neil is now saying ‘ oh now I understand what JK Rowling objected to I agree it’s appalling and must stop.’ But still we have respected organs like the New Statesman publishing gibberish.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Thanks so much Suzanne for responding to the appalling article in the current edition of the New Statesman that they published to ‘balance’ Richard Dawkins lucid account of the necessary sexual binary of the human species.
Jacqueline Rose’s article was balderdash and what inflamed me most, and you, was the misuse of Simone de Beauvoir’s utterance that ‘women are not born they are made’. Taken completely out of context. She explained very clearly that being a woman necessarily encompassed femininity else one was not accepted in society. She was looking at patriarchal society, she was living in 1940’s France. Her mission was to free women from the straight jacket of femininity.
What Simone de Beauvoir did NOT say was ‘women say you are a man if you want an active role in society but if you like that passives sexual role even if you are a man say you are a woman’.
It is so staggeringly stupid and willfully blind thank you for responding at such length .
For respondents on here who are objecting to Suzanne’s academic tone (?) I am frankly shocked. How else can you refute this current power grab by academia which is filtering through society, through schools, government departments, law, police, you name it . Accepted because people think they know what they are talking about and it must be them that are dim. You have to fight back with their tools.
I wish people would think s bit harder about this, the emperors have to be disrobed.
We have seen Costa emblazoning it’s trucks with murals of girls with scars instead of breasts. This self hatred that girls are being taught is chilling. All done in the name of inclusivity and yet no pictures of men with scars instead of penises. People please wake up to this. Suzanne is hitting them where it hurts most, where they can’t say well you just don’t understand we have intellectual weapons you don’t have, she disarms them. It’s no good just rolling your eyes and saying ‘I know what a woman is’ This ideology has channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And every weapon must be used. We are now rolling out the big guns , it seems that if you are a respected successful man you can say what you like, just don’t be a woman . Andrew Neil is now saying ‘ oh now I understand what JK Rowling objected to I agree it’s appalling and must stop.’ But still we have respected organs like the New Statesman publishing gibberish.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Absent extensive plastic surgery, we all know within seconds of meeting someone who is male and who is female. And even with extensive plastic surgery, male hands, feet, and voices give it away. Chromosomes are mighty powerful. Nature designed this for procreation and for the safety of women. Women might be able to pass as small men, hiding behind a beard, because they pose no threat. But no matter what they wear or do, men are always identifiable because women need to be safe. Mother Nature knew what she was doing. You can’t wordle your way out of chromosomes. XX or XY it is.
Absent extensive plastic surgery, we all know within seconds of meeting someone who is male and who is female. And even with extensive plastic surgery, male hands, feet, and voices give it away. Chromosomes are mighty powerful. Nature designed this for procreation and for the safety of women. Women might be able to pass as small men, hiding behind a beard, because they pose no threat. But no matter what they wear or do, men are always identifiable because women need to be safe. Mother Nature knew what she was doing. You can’t wordle your way out of chromosomes. XX or XY it is.
Yes, but do we need to convert all buildings to unisex toilets or not?
Yes, but do we need to convert all buildings to unisex toilets or not?
Oy veh! Yet another culturally in-bred metropolitan female academic theorist loon who ticks every uber-progressive academic BS loon-box there is.
Pace the Dead Kennedys, what she and her academic, poseur ilk need, my soooooon, is a holiday in Cambodia.
Oy veh! Yet another culturally in-bred metropolitan female academic theorist loon who ticks every uber-progressive academic BS loon-box there is.
Pace the Dead Kennedys, what she and her academic, poseur ilk need, my soooooon, is a holiday in Cambodia.
“The counter-argument, published last week, was made by Jacqueline Rose…
According to Dawkins, her response does not make any “coherent sense”, which he suggests may be a badge of honour among postmodernists.
I am a long-time admirer of Rose.“
Yeah. The rest was prolix redundancy then, wasn’t it? We really never have moved on from the archaic ecclesiastical debates about the sex of demons or the heavenly hierarchy, have we? Same old, just repackaged.
“The counter-argument, published last week, was made by Jacqueline Rose…
According to Dawkins, her response does not make any “coherent sense”, which he suggests may be a badge of honour among postmodernists.
I am a long-time admirer of Rose.“
Yeah. The rest was prolix redundancy then, wasn’t it? We really never have moved on from the archaic ecclesiastical debates about the sex of demons or the heavenly hierarchy, have we? Same old, just repackaged.
If not caused by a lab leaked virus, what is causing this sudden increase in gender dysphoria?
Quasi intellectual crap!
To the editor(s):
I humbly request that in the future should a contributor use opposite-sex descriptors for someone that you ask them to expend a few words to explain why.
Ms. Moore’s decision herein to use “she” & “her” for trans-identified male Long Chu baffles me given that this entire article is Ms. Moore picking apart Ms. Rose’s critique of Dawkins
Ms. Moore does not say why she uses wrong-sex descriptors for a male who defines female as “self-negation and fuckable porn-addled passivity”.
If nothing else, the following passage suggests Ms. Moore has unresolved cognitive discrepancies of her own where “trans” is concerned.
“Long Chu is a controversial, often witty, trans author who starts her book Females with: ‘Everyone is female, and everyone hates it.’ For Long Chu, a female identity is one of self-negation and fuckable porn-addled passivity, which is precisely why she transitioned,” (italics are mine).
She obviously means the idea that gender is intrinsically tied to sex (rather than being extrinsically tied to it by society). And generally speaking, yes, repudiating that idea of womanhood always was the feminist position until a recent (transitory?) fling with biology.
Maybe it’s something like the Godhead.
‘Godhead (or godhood) refers to the essence or substance (ousia) of God in Christianity — God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’
‘Godhead (from Middle English godhede, “godhood”, and unrelated to the modern word “head”), may refer to: Deity. Divinity. Conceptions of God.’
In Which case: Womanhood refers to the feminine or femininity or conceptions of women.
I think that would get you an accusation of “essentialism”.
It’s not something I agree with, I just tried to find a precedent.
It’s not something I agree with, I just tried to find a precedent.
I think that would get you an accusation of “essentialism”.
Maybe it’s something like the Godhead.
‘Godhead (or godhood) refers to the essence or substance (ousia) of God in Christianity — God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.’
‘Godhead (from Middle English godhede, “godhood”, and unrelated to the modern word “head”), may refer to: Deity. Divinity. Conceptions of God.’
In Which case: Womanhood refers to the feminine or femininity or conceptions of women.
She obviously means the idea that gender is intrinsically tied to sex (rather than being extrinsically tied to it by society). And generally speaking, yes, repudiating that idea of womanhood always was the feminist position until a recent (transitory?) fling with biology.
I started skimming through this article after reaching a certain point, still don’t understand it!
You’re lucky!
You’re lucky!
I started skimming through this article after reaching a certain point, still don’t understand it!
tasty bint…
tasty bint…
I lost interest after I read Dawkin’s reply to Rose.
I lost interest after I read Dawkin’s reply to Rose.