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Original poster

Men who parade how "feminist" they are but who can fuck right off...

416 replies

ArcheryAnnie · 03/03/2015 23:20

...as they don't actually want to listen to women who disagree with them in any way.

I am not including common-or-garden arseholes here, as the list would be a billion posts long and the internet would explode. I am talking about the kind of man who writes a long, handwringing article in the Guardian about how we should all listen to feminists more, but then deletes most of the comments from actual feminists that are posted on it.

The two currently at the top of my very long List are:
Ally Fogg
Owen Jones

Nominations, please.

OP posts:
PinkIndustry · 05/04/2016 08:55

I agree that while "posh" is derogatory, "posh women" is worse because it has connotations of a class of women who are not engaged in any activity that is considered useful by society whereas "posh men" has connotations of men who are ruling the country or the economy or some such.

Have I read your post right, Archery , in that he seems to be claiming that there is a difference between what he acknowledges is "emotional abuse" and "domestic abuse"? That is really disheartening. So he acknowledges that as a 'right-on' kind of guy, he would never make jokes about a man actually hitting a woman, but it's OK to belittle and minimise emotional abuse which, particularly in the story-line quoted, has inflicted incredible damage to the victim's mental and physical health.

PlonitbatPlonit · 05/04/2016 08:50

Mark Steel made jokes about Josef Fritzl when I saw him in his live show (plus a bunch of other sexist bullshit material). My admiration stopped that day. I couldn't bring myself to heckle "What is this misogynist shit" as I felt too upset, so just sat in grumpy silence until I could rant on the way home to DH. I actually decided after that gig that Russell Brand was less sexist than Mark Steel.

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 05/04/2016 08:44

And he did obviously know about the DV storyline, so it's totally disingenuous for him to claim that his tweet wasn't about it. He's a social-media-connected, politicaly-minded, Radio-4-show-having broadcaster, not a hermit in a cave. He also referenced it directly in his tweet with the "joke" about emotional abuse. It doesn't need a lot of "reading into" anything.

I liked Mark Steel! I want to continue liking him! That's one of the many reasons I am so bloody disappointed when men like him pull shitty moves like this. It's not even so much the ill-timed, tasteless joke (lots of jokes are tasteless, that's in the nature of many jokes, and he's a ~edgy comedian), but it's the response (deny, sneer and block) which is depressing.

OP posts:
LassWiTheDelicateAir · 04/04/2016 22:31

"Some posh woman/bloke/kid" is such a lazy way of rubbishing anything. Inverted snobbery is just as bad as snobbery.

scallopsrgreat · 04/04/2016 21:35

The 'some posh woman' comment is incredibly dismissive even without the rest of it. I agree with WomanWithAltitude.

itllallbefine · 04/04/2016 20:53

incredible, you can read all that into it !! Hmm

WomanWithAltitude · 04/04/2016 17:27

He obviously knew the discussion was about DA. Why reference it otherwise?

Essentially, he though it would be really funny to minimise DA. And have a poke at 'posh women' who care about such things. Hmm

itllallbefine · 04/04/2016 17:19

I think that's a bit much given that if he replaced the word women with "bloke" or "guy", no one would give a shit. Besides in 2016, a soap with a story about domestic violence is hardly groundbreaking. Can you think of a soap that has not covered it ?

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 04/04/2016 13:31

Time to reanimate this zombie thread! For comedian and broadcaster Mark Steel, who I normally like very much, dammit.

He tweeted this earlier on today:

"'I've woken up to some posh woman on Radio 4 dribbling for 20 minutes about the current plot of The Archers. I might sue for emotional abuse."

When a bunch of women pointed out that this was a wee bit insensitive, as the discussion was about the Rob/Helen DV story, he threw his toys out of the pram and began a blocking spree.

This is his response to one woman: "not once was domestic abuse mentioned in the bit I heard. Try harder at learning to engage with people."

Because a slot on the R4 Today programme devoted to one particular groundbreaking storyline that is entirely about domestic violence has no relationship at all to domestic violence. Right, Mark. Sure.

And the "some posh woman" thing: there's nothing worse than "posh women", right? I don't blame Mark - who has hosted his fair share of Radio 4 programmes - so perhaps all women should shut up, just in case they are insufficiently downtrodden for Mark's liking, and it would be unfair to subject him to women dribbling on about things that affect them.

Mark, you may have left the Socialist Workers' Party, but the SWP has clearly not left you.

OP posts:
YonicScrewdriver · 27/04/2015 12:44

I assume he also tweeted a link to one or more NI campaigns he supports, Annie?

Or...not?

LagerthaEarlIngstad · 27/04/2015 11:58

I was really disappointed about linehan, I didn't know he'd said such stupid things about porn too.

LagerthaEarlIngstad · 27/04/2015 11:57

Can I nominate Noah Berlatsky who wrote an article in Playboy (no really!) all about how Meghan Murphy is rubbish at feminism for saying that posing nude is not empowering and is now being lauded by the twitter funfems and transactivists as like, the most feministy feminist ever. Mind boggling.

slug · 23/04/2015 14:50

Please don't get me started on Graham Linehan. I had a rather long and involved twitter conversation with him about pornography last year. His general argument was 'the women get paid well so what's the problem?' Hmm

Smartleatherbag · 23/04/2015 13:54

I'm really annoyed by linehan. Ffs, if he can't see it, then it's not happening?!

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 23/04/2015 13:39

Another one for The List: Graham Linehan, or @Glinner on twitter.

For this gem:

"Dunno why there's not more anger amongst UK feminists about abortion law in NI. I guess the fight for a female Doctor Who takes precedence."

He is so right! And for the following reasons:

  1. our little ladybrains make it difficult to think of more than one thing at a time;
  2. all activism is well-reported, so if Graham isn't seeing reports of women's activism, it doesn't exist;
  3. if Graham isn't seeing feminist activity on twitter, it's feminists' fault, even though Graham has blocked many feminists on twitter.

What we really needed was a man to tell us what we should be working on. Thanks, Graham!

OP posts:
StillLostAtTheStation · 16/04/2015 23:34

Whilst I have been a Guardian reader for 30 years, still buy the print version, it can be extremely tiresome on occasions.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 16/04/2015 23:26

He's been asked repeatedly to show where it's been edited but hasn't been able to produce it. So it would appear that he thinks that 9 yr olds who are being sexually abused enjoy it. Bastard.

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 16/04/2015 23:06

If that's true, then he should make public his unedited letter. And yet he hasn't.

OP posts:
StillLostAtTheStation · 16/04/2015 22:22

Who is Matthew Hopkins?

StillLostAtTheStation · 16/04/2015 22:21

He claims his letter to the Guardian in 1997 was edited.

It's impossible to read that letter as anything other than at face value. If I'd written a completely different letter which turned out like that I think I might have complained.

PuffinsAreFictitious · 16/04/2015 18:37

Blogpost here

With the caveat that the writer is generally a bit of a git, by all accounts, but his facts are straight, sadly, and backed up with evidence.

Original poster
ArcheryAnnie · 16/04/2015 14:03

If it's the one on my first point of disagreement with Tatchell (listed above), he has been dancing the dance of "I'm just pointing this out, not endorsing! I'm here to protect the kids!" on the subject of child abuse and his reportage that it was a source of "great joy" for some of the children abused, for a long, long time now. He presents himself as a brave, honest, trusting man just in search of freedom and truth, when he's really just a narcissistic fucker full of weasel words.

OP posts:
PuffinsAreFictitious · 16/04/2015 13:14

She's been asked to do a piece on Tatchell's ridiculousness. However, when I get home and can link, there's a fairly awful blog post about him and his views. Bleah Sad

ifyourehoppyandyouknowit · 16/04/2015 12:36

Love Sarah Ditum, she just absolutely nails it.