Flora Gill - annoying article in The Times

@My0My yes nepotism is definitely an issue

I've just watched the video again.

Interested in other posters thoughts.

I actually feel for her.

Two high achievers as parents and even from the video a can perceive the disfunction in the relationships??

I rate Amber Rudd btw. I think she got blasted for windrush that was her predecessors (Theresa May) fault.

I’m more concerned about why the DD of AA Gill and Amber Rudd gets the writing gig above other talented journalists. Same old. Same old. It’s the NAME that gets you in! So fed up with this!

I'm now recalling an article by Flora she wrote after her father's death.

She had asked for two of her fathers suits (saville row) and had taken them back to the tailor to have them adapted for her so she could wear them.

So I googled and there is a video.

Make of it what you will.

www.thetimes.co.uk/styleplay/fashion/flora-gill-wearing-aa-gill-suits/

@Theluggage15 I think the reason many young women believe (or say they believe) that transwomen are more oppressed, more vulnerable, more in need of support, than women or any other group is that they think feminism has already achieved its aims. They think the fight for equality is over so they can turn their attention elsewhere. While I never thought that myself, it took having children for me to see how far we still have to go.

I know, I really think it's time to grow up at 29.

When people were saying the writer was young I thought they meant like 17, not bloody 29! She does come across as very young but she’s nearly the same age as me!

Who cares that she's dedicated an enormous amount of time and money to supporting and amplifying the voices of marginalised people? Who cares that she chooses to pay her taxes in full

Meanwhile FG confuses twitter outrage with activism, and seems not to understand any of the background to the letter.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/stop-firing-innocent/613615/

"The real threat to free speech doesn't come from us".

Who are you? Everyone who is 29? You and foxysquirrel82? Who handles the appeal once you have moved on to the next target?

Totally agree Harry

I pointed this out to a Woke friend who said "But we don't live in India". He was really shocked when I pointed out how racist that thinking is.

Women and girls in India are fighting for the very rights that women in the West are so carelessly and thoughtlessly giving away: the right to female-only spaces. We all accept that in India many women and girls are attacked by men while looking for a place to urinate/defecate outdoors. We all accept that these attacks would not happen (or would happen far less) if those women and girls had access to their own toilets. We all accept that men can and do attack them outside of the safety of those toilets. So why do we not accept that women in the West will be at risk from men (not necessarily trans-identifying men) if we open up our female-only spaces to anybody who says they’re a woman? My husband said “It’s almost like they are saying, ‘Well that sort of thing only happens in India because Indians are uncivilised. Men in the West aren’t like that!’” And then the likes of Munroe Bergdorf have the nerve to say that gender critical women are the ones with the colonial mindset!

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/aug/28/toilets-india-health-rural-women-safety

You can buy single sex provision, if you can afford to.

This is such an important point, that isn't made often enough.

You can also buy the choice to only use unisex services when you feel completely comfortable.

I'm glad The Times published this.

It's just as effective in blasting through the issues via its poor construction and arrogance as a pro GC copy especially when set against the Detransition article in the magazine.

I wonder if Flora has read that?

It's bloody heartbreaking and if you can't find solidarity and want to protect women in those circumstances then shame on you.

The last par is even worse - self righteous drivel by someone who, one suspects, was offered a writing perch at the Times on the strength of her surname and therefore never had to work very hard at honing her arguments - have a read and tell me whether this isn't classic circular logic: ie the real problem with those who disagree with me is that they disagree with me

Great to see the comments. Well done to Jo Marsh for her usual incisive input. Jo, if you're on here, I wish you were a columnist, and not Flora.

Oh and 'tiny' - proportionally the number of TW who can be made apparently happy ever after by the sacrifice of female only spaces and provisions to them on a plate will be truly tiny compared to the proportion of females excluded from spaces and harmed by loss of provisions.

I won't speculate on the numbers of likely assaults and rapes since in this country less than 1% of actual rapes ever make it into a courtroom, we know how hard everyone works under Stonewall to cover up any evidence that suggests females might be suffering under all their services going mixed sex, and you clearly don't give a fuck anyway. I find it beyond tragic when I see a female who has internalised the message so very powerfully about the inferiority and worthlessness of females that they live to demonstrate to males how vigorously they advance male benefit while suppressing females and what a very Good Girl they are.

It's bloody tragic. Go and read up about oppression love. Real oppression, not the romantic dramatized version.

If you’re focusing only on the tiny number of women who could be at threat from men pretending to be trans, instead of the real threat faced by trans women now, then you’re not fighting for women — you’re fighting against a type of woman you don’t value.’

Even if you agreed with the 'real threat' TW supposedly face in the UK and that TWAW, she's still lost any grip on logic here.

Flora love, you're busy fighting against other types of women you don't value and you're apparently just fine with that, so why object to anyone else doing it? Incidentally many of those women you're busily throwing under the bus in a self righteous, morally superior way will be disabled, BAME, traumatised, females already marginalised and who struggle to access services - remember that little word 'intersectionality' at all?

How lovely you don't give a shit about them. How lovely you're happy to see them suffer.

Depressing article I agree

Oh good god. What are the threats that transpeople face? They must be serious indeed if we are to focus on it rather than the "tiny number of women at threat". Why doesn't she list the threats? She must know them, right?

Phillip Collins: How remarkable it is that, rather than vent their ire at actual sexists and racists, there has been so much vitriol directed at the admirable and kind JK Rowling, a woman of impeccable intellectual generosity whose personal philanthropy is testament to the sincerity of her liberalism.

Yep. Who cares that she's dedicated an enormous amount of time and money to supporting and amplifying the voices of marginalised people? Who cares that she chooses to pay her taxes in full, while Google, who pay almost none, virtue-signal on this issue, showing contempt for women as they do so? This is about a subset of male people, whose needs must, it should go without saying, trump the needs of any female people. We're only women, after all.

The framing of this entire subject shows how much hatred of women is normalised. Rowling knows it, and became involved on that basis. We all owe her a very large debt - for her courage as much as her kindness and generosity. .

EdgeOfACoin

Preferred it when we were Gen Y? Or in my family "Gen but why?"

Yes, the other article is so much better constructed, let alone truthful and reasonable.

I'm so mean. Thoroughly enjoyed seeing this girl having her arse handed to her in the comments.

I thought the Philip Collins article was excellent & was quite touched by his words about the 'online shaming' of JK Rowling.

Thank you Everard.

Clearly the psychological barriers to leaving and seeking help remain. The practical, though, don't.