Mathew Parris: Maybe Treatment of Trans People is Our Generation’s Blindspot

Yeah. Woke bloke edging around the bits of reality he can't get away from.

I'm so glad you think women should have some right to talk about men in their spaces Matthew - how about thinking that through a bit more and confronting your own male entitlement going on in there?

This will be our generation's blind spot and there will be a whole lot of looking back in horror, but not in the way you're suggesting

I've commented (but not Marilyn Fry!) All comments pending approval, I'll go back and maybe comment again one I see what else is there.

people.terry.uga.edu/dawndba/4500Oppression.html
Errol you're in for a treat.

She also wrote one on separatism and power.
And one on racism.
She's amazing.

Yes, right, that does appear to be the case - we have exemplars of the three types now in Best, Parris and Harrop.

It's ironic that the column has in its heading mention of 'our generation’s blind spot' when he seems to have a massive blind spot about women. Of course, the women with whom he does associate now are likely to be the ones who've achieved some success despite misogyny and structural sexism.

Pips bunce and Alex with the beard are almost in a gender cafe (idea a few posts up). It would be liberating if they did it from the position of manhood or maleness.

I've never heard of Marilyn Frye, do you have a link to what you're referring to, super?

Matthew Parris is a good writer but he has a massive blind spot which is women. He doesn’t appear to spend any time thinking about women’s lives because he’s never had to.

Some gay men are our allies, understanding the challenge of not being a part of the patriarchy; some are utterly unaware of us because they have no wives or daughters and spend their lives in a male realm and do well at work without needing women; and some hate us because we frankly disgust them.

Matthew is in the middle group.

He wrote a piece once about abortion which failed to recognise that it’s not simply a philosophical issue - pregnancy is a matter of life or death for a group of people that he’s not in. He wrote it as if abortion was like Brexit - an important issue for political discussion. It is an important issue for political discussion but it’s also about what happens to my womb, my vagina, my flesh.

If anyone manages to quote Marilyn frye's 'network of forces and barriers designed to mould' etc in the times comment section I will send you a Spartacus badge. Trufax

Well, I'm glad that on the facts and rationalities he's with Janice Turner.

There’s a “but” coming, though. Only a woman can know how it feels, or have first-hand experience of how the world is reacting to them....
I'll take a bet there was institutional sexism in the FCO when he was there too which he never noticed (two or three women, eight or nine men in his cohort? What proportions made it to the top?) and which the women didn't complain about.

Matthew- women want to break the cages of gender. We want men to be able to do so too. The current genderism is analogous to if Robin was accepted into the FCO because he was Oxbridge, because had acquired some indefinable 'englishness'. Nowadays (I hope) a British Asian is accepted for their talents, for their integrity - not for having transitioned to 'Englishness'.

Read the full article now.
Would have been better to let Janice do the talking and leave it at 'I stand with Janice'.
I had a bit of hope that there'd be some critical thinking but I'm not seeing any in what he writes.
It's more of the wholesale ignorance that women simply don't understand what it's like to bound by gender norms. Hmmmm.
There have been some good things this week - Spectator, Tom Farr, Jonny Best etc.
Parris has just regurgitated a whole load of stereotypes and false comparisons without thinking in any depth about the starting point for women. If you ignore or misunderstand that, you're never going to appreciate how this all impacts upon us.
Wrt to Pips Bunce 'womanface' thing, that grates on me continually.

Please posters with Times accounts post some of the on point responses in this thread in the Times. I refuse to see a dumb article as a bad thing at the mo, so long as its possible to present alternative views & resources in the comments.

fufulina

Yes, gay people wanted the same rights as heterosexuals

Trans people want privileges

I've been wondering what his take on all this would be. I think he displays the gay male's empathy for other men (and as others have pointed out, not recognising that women are also affected by the cage of gender). It will be interesting to see the comments. He always attracts many hundreds (often from Brexiteers exasperated by his pro Europe stance) and of course his comments have are never usually moderated.

Yep I'm definitely pink frappachino today I have no idea what one is but it sounds lovely

Gender is a café

A cage is what I meant there clearly.

Yes, I agree redkeyboard, gender is a cafe for men as well, particularly those who don't fit within the limited options available in masculinity. I think men who benefit from patriarchy/gender can be willfully blind to it though.

Imagine just trotting in, not having engaged with anything, expounding your ill thought out views on this as if you were saying something new and insightful though?

Wow, gender is a CAGE! thanks Matthew!

God grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.

Share token

I think it’s a bit crap to be honest. Asks if we can really understand the cage of gender. Yes, Matthew, you total arse, all women can. Drips with mansplaining and fails to see the massive elephant in the transroom of how fucking sexist the whole thing is.

He even says he can’t understand racism because he’s white but doesn’t take the babystep to saying he can’t understand sexism. But he tries to empathise with how the translot feel. Because they’re men. And then finishes saying that we’ll look back and see how ignorant we are - adding to the whole “wrong side of history” accusation in more gentle language. Even drawing in the parallel with homophobia.

Actually I don’t think it’s a bit crap. It’s a lot crap.

Another piece confusing gender and sex. If it was just about gender, surely the answer would be to work more towards breaking down the silly gender stereotype 'rules' so people aren't seen as 'weird' either way.
Not going all-in and saying people can and should change their sex in order to jump into a different box of restrictive and unhelpful stereotypes.

people.terry.uga.edu/dawndba/4500Oppression.html

If only there was a feminist book with an actual picture of a bird cage on it to make it clear gender is a cage, containing an essay articulating oppression's cage-like function.

"Do the rest of us have any idea of the invisible cage that gender makes around us all, and the tremendous difficulty and pain of breaking it?"

Only a man would/could say this. Every woman knows what this is like.