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 âis an adult human female, free of Y chromosomesâ. Sex, he writes, is âbinaryâ.
In the interests of âbalanceâ, 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 âcoherent senseâ, 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 âone of our very best cultural criticsâ.
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 â rooted in a rejection of âgrand narrativesâ about the truth â 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: âIf 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.â 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 âgenerosityâ, 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 âforeign languageâ 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:
âThe construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.â
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 Womenâs 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 itâs 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. Itâs 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.
Iâd 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 itâs 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. Itâs 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.
Iâd 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 itâs 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 itâs 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 âunpaidâ? Work is something youâre 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. Iâll 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!
Youâve got it easy, I donât do the cooking either.
Youâve got it easy, I donât 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 âdeservingâ 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 husbandâŠ. Too much generalisation here. This isnât 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 husbandâŠ. Too much generalisation here. This isnât 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 Womenâs 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 âunpaidâ? Work is something youâre 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. Iâll 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 âdeservingâ 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 âLong Chuâ to see how irrational it is – there is no possibility of âherâ ever being mistaken for a woman.
She also has a hetero female partner. She is quoted as saying âheterosexuality is so much better when there arenât any men in the equationâ. Hilarious!
This in turn reminds me of something Renton says in the film âTrainspottingâ: âOne day there wonât be any men or women, just wa*kers. Sounds great to me!â
We are nearly there IMO
Quite
Quite
I think you meant âheâ in your 2nd paragraph..?
We are nearly there IMO
I think you meant âheâ 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 Roseâs. As a standalone position itâs 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 Roseâs. As a standalone position itâs nonsense.
How you manage to draw the inferences you have is beyond me.
âThe construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.â I think a Germaine Greer quote. And sheâs 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 donât exist in isolation from one another though do they? Across time and space and in vastly different cultures there are concurrences between different societiesâ 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 donât exist in isolation from one another though do they? Across time and space and in vastly different cultures there are concurrences between different societiesâ 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 âLong Chuâ to see how irrational it is – there is no possibility of âherâ ever being mistaken for a woman.
She also has a hetero female partner. She is quoted as saying âheterosexuality is so much better when there arenât any men in the equationâ. Hilarious!
This in turn reminds me of something Renton says in the film âTrainspottingâ: âOne day there wonât be any men or women, just wa*kers. Sounds great to me!â
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?
âThe construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.â I think a Germaine Greer quote. And sheâs 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 itâs a lot simpler than that. Itâs 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 – itâs because of the trans issue. But it doesnât 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.
Itâs a good article. If youâre 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).
“âKnowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.â 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).
“âKnowledge is not for knowing: knowledge is for cutting.â 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 âhaving to understand itâ involves de facto acceptance of said terms.
Any disagreement is merely regarded as ânot understanding itâ because the underlying assumption is that the postmodernist is self- evidently correct in their belief.
Their is no âgameâ to âupâ 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, “TouchĂ©, 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 naĂŻve at best.
If you want those who employ the weaponry of postmodernism to declare, “TouchĂ©, 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 naĂŻve 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 âhaving to understand itâ involves de facto acceptance of said terms.
Any disagreement is merely regarded as ânot understanding itâ because the underlying assumption is that the postmodernist is self- evidently correct in their belief.
Their is no âgameâ to âupâ 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 didnât 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 donât relate to the contents of the article, or to its style.
Very tactfully said. I couldnât help noticing that most of the comments that claimed they couldnât 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 donât relate to the contents of the article, or to its style.
Very tactfully said. I couldnât help noticing that most of the comments that claimed they couldnât 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 itâperhaps because, as a woman myself, I have had to become fluent in âtransâ 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 âidentifyâ 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 âforeign languageâ 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:
âThe construction of gender is social and there is a difference between being female (sex) and femininity (gender) which is learnt.â
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 itâs a lot simpler than that. Itâs 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 – itâs because of the trans issue. But it doesnât 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.
Itâs a good article. If youâre 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 didnât 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 itâperhaps because, as a woman myself, I have had to become fluent in âtransâ 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 âidentifyâ 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 Iâm not getting that any more, so theyâre probably safe.
My virus scanner gave an alert when I hovered over them with the cursor earlier today, but now Iâm not getting that any more, so theyâre 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. Womenâs 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 – thereâs 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 Iâm 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, weâre 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 âif we assume all the murders were committed by men.â Itâs not quite true but I accept most are.
The point is itâs 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 Khanâs 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 âif we assume all the murders were committed by men.â Itâs not quite true but I accept most are.
The point is itâs 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 Khanâs 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 youâd bothered to read the comment you will see I did not.
If youâd 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.