Nigella Lawson apologizes for 27 year old column

When you compare Nigella's response to the response from the Sheffield landlady ( formal complaints,gross misconduct and a swift resolution thread) one is a master class in how to deal with bullies and the other comes across as grovelling capitulation.Yet one is a millionaire and the other is fighting to keep her business going through a pandemic. I have huge respect for one and huge distain for the other.

It's the same with Jolyon Maugham.
Does he have a trans relative?

Apparently, yes. At any rate, I've seen it mentioned a few times on social media but don't know if he's confirmed it himself.

(Note the change of pronouns. Having got to the end of the surgeries some years ago, she still doesn't think she's actually a woman though.)

Exactly, Pelican. There's so much wrong with the 'born in the wrong body' argument - it's quite a good indicator that someone hasn't thought about the subject for more than 2 minutes though!

Of course women understand what it’s like being ‘born in the wrong body’. That’s why most of us are always on a diet or wondering why female models are all supermodels and none of them look like us.

People with cancer understand it. Disabled people understand it.

Billions of people don’t have the body they’d choose.

But only those who say it’s a sex or “gender” based wrongness are indulged.

It used to be a tiny few, and it was acknowledged mental illness.

Now it’s young women having mastectomies and men who keep their female penises.

Nigella saw what happened to JKR and scuttled, grovelling back into her £X million kitchen.

"People deride the term 'woke' but I do think its use as 'being aware of and sensitive to political and societal injustices' is not a bad thing. Lots of women have feminist 'awakenings'!"

Nothing wrong with wanting a just and equal society, but the current TRA mob has people checking their brains at the door, doing insurmountable mental gymnastics and issuing threats to defend nonsense. That is what I'm not on board with. People should always question what's going on, dig deeper, and look at the implications of what's being defended.

TRAs will say all kinds of things to paint GC feminists in a bad light. Including:

• we want to erase trans people
• misgendering is violence
• we demand they undergo GRS
• we think all trans are predators

None of these things are true. We wish for female-only spaces to remain as such and for the concept of self-id to be given proper consideration as it affects women and children and their safety, dignity, and opportunities.

Thanks Bovary

Annoying as it is to see it, I'm not going to have a pop at Nigella for giving in. It would really have put the wind up me too.

Newspaper archives are also easier than ever to search. So I guess old columns will be the next thing.

Yes. We really do have to force the discussion of this up to the highest levels from the grassroots, before it’s too late. The professional middle tier of social organisations have already given up on women.

Also Bovary I think it was you (apologies if not) saying upthread we’d have to burn all historical texts at this rate. Yes

Chatty

It wasn't, but I agree with this assessment of cancel culture. There is a Year Zero fanaticism at the heart of it.

The sad thing is with cancel culture and trigger warnings and all of the other shit, younger people in particular will stop knowing where to find or wanting to read opposing views

Exactly. In fact the idea of legitimate opposing opinions has been incinerated. There is just compliance to the orthodoxy. Or denounce the heretic.

Ah ok I've just seen, the person who complained was the subject of the article?

Typo! We Can’t have projected subjects..

Also Bovary I think it was you (apologies if not) saying upthread we’d have to burn all historical texts at this rate. Yes.
The TRAs would be pretty happy with that, they love a historical rewrite and can pretend that 2+2 has always = 5.
The sad thing is with cancel culture and trigger warnings and all of the other shit, younger people in particular will stop knowing where to find or wanting to read opposing views. I know that’s a massive generalisation but the whole thing scares the absolute shit out of me. It’s modern day book burning.
Anyway I call on Nigella to follow her apology tweet with a journalistic piece about her politics and with others commenting. I don’t care if she has personal skin in the game or not she doesn’t have to talk about it. The personal is political and we can have protected subjects that are off the table and can’t be talked about when those views massively impact other people (women, children, lesbians in particular)

It may be a separate topic from Nigella's apology, but it's certainly relevant to the article which she apologised for. Her article in 1993 was about a woman having unnecessary surgery to remove her healthy breasts and uterus, which is what many of these girls will also do if encouraged along this path of thinking that there is something wrong with their healthy bodies

Well said OldCrone. I wonder if the surgeons who are performing these operations on young women will ever be held accountable?

Apologies if this is explained in the article - the token doesn't work for me and I must have used up this week's quota - but has someone actually combed through Nigella's work - presumably not online if 27 years ago - to find that piece? Because if that's the case then I don't blame her at all for being thoroughly rattled.

I know I'm not particularly proud of all my views from nearly 30 years ago, difference is they weren't aired in public via social media

Neither was Nigella's - social media didn't exist 30 years ago.

Sorry, in case it needs clarifying, when I say in public I mean in social media platforms and also opinion pieces in newspaper columns
The most public place my thoughts and opinions ever went 27 years ago was sometimes in my diary.
Ahh, those were the days lol

People who push their own agenda whilst trampling over other peoples rights are actually very narrow minded, not the other way around.

Well said Patricia and you are quite right about the risks to women with learning disabilities or difficulties too of losing single sex spaces.

Wouldn't surprise me. I think this is one of the reasons for TRAs being so keen on the idea of the 'trans child'. Once everyone has a 'trans child' in their family, it is much harder to push against trans ideology, because it looks and feels like a criticism of that child

OldCrone

That's a really interesting point. As a tactic to completely disable any criticism and cement compliance, it would be effective.

It's the same with Jolyon Maugham.
Does he have a trans relative?

We're getting to the stage that if anyone holds an opionion which deviates even slightly from woke dogma, they'll keep it to themselves. That of course doesn't mean they won't continue to hold those opinions, in fact they'll likely believe in them even more firmly. I see a massive backlash brewing.

Indeed. I've been saying and posting this for months and called vile names and been ruthlessly shut down as a result. I won't stop though. And the backlash is going to be terrible. Balance always finds a way to restore itself but there's often a lot of casualties in the process.

I know I'm not particularly proud of all my views from nearly 30 years ago, difference is they weren't aired in public via social media.

Neither was Nigella's - social media didn't exist 30 years ago.

One of the comments under The Times article says Nigella "changed her mind because she currently has a young trans person in her family". Is that the case?

I didn't know this but I was going to suggest the same thing. It's the same with Jolyon Maugham. Rational thought goes out of the window. It's all about not hurting the feelings of the young trans person.

People can change, but the SM agitator hive mind decides whether they have or haven’t.