Douglas Murray asks: Does Owen Jones have a woman problem?

Yes. Wee Owen has a problem with women.

This was in a US context so probably a Democrat/Republican divide, but I think you could have, at the time, extrapolated to other western countries, at least English speaking ones.

Is this related to the topic of the Helen Lewis/Karen Stenner discussion about authoritarianism?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4311625-Interesting-interview-about-authoritarianism-R4-Helen-Lewis-Karen-Stenner

Although I part ways with Murray when he starts asserting that Trans activism is a Marxist conspiracy.

I don't like the word conspiracy here, but he's not wrong that identity politics emerged from Marxism, and shares some important features with it. This is why the leaders of BLM could say, probably totally sincerely, that they are Marxists.

It's like Marxism===>individualism===>personal identity categories. So instead of classes being identified on the basis of material relations that can be seen, it's on the basis of these identity groups, which exist mainly subjectively. There's some overlap between them, being black for example is both something that has a constructed material reality, but also exists as a subjective identity. In id politics the latter is the more important, the real source of class, and it's also the source of validation for individuals. So the solution of id politics, instead of destroying in some sense class in order to destroy class hierarchy, is just to remake the hierarchy to keep on validating people, or at least those who used to be on the bottom.

I remember reading a study years ago that suggested that people who identified as liberal were not worried about new things and contamination - new ideas, new people, diseases, etc. Whereas people who identified as conservative had more worries about new, unknown things, and also a higher disgust response. This was in a US context so probably a Democrat/Republican divide, but I think you could have, at the time, extrapolated to other western countries, at least English speaking ones.

It's struck me a few times that this seems no longer to follow - it now seems to be mainly people who think of themselves as liberals or progressives who are afraid of various kinds of contamination, be it intellectual, moral, or as we see very clearly with covid, biological.

So in terms of personality types, it looks to me like many of the younger progressives are actually conservative in terms of temperament, even though they may not be economically or in terms of how we would usually use the term socially (though in truth I think they are there too.)

And will these kids ever wake up and realise they're being farmed by big business, hooked for life on drugs and surgery?

I see so many echoes of it in Health at Every Size/Fatphobia movement. Lovely, often very vulnerable women who have struggled for years in their overweight bodies are being drawn in by a movement which says, eat whatever you want, it has no consequences, your health is only your business and the only people who will tell you otherwise are mean bigots who hate you and want to deny you pleasure.

Except, not only is it (unfortunately) very harmful in the long term to eat junk food and lots of it, but you are then overconsuming in a planet that is being exploited to the maximum by all sides so you are doing environmental harm. Junk food businesses win financially with their cheap crappy products pumped full of corn syrup, individual women and ultimately society lose out because the healthcare burden will be carried by all of us financially. I hate it, it's incredibly toxic. You see a lot of women in the movement getting very angry (aka defensive), before bringing in arguments about transphobia and BLM in their online postings. It's two sides of the same coin in many ways. But that's a bit of a tangent!

Fleek thanks for that Tribune Link. An excellent article on neo-liberalism.

whenever I hear feminists being criticised for x, y or z - in my head I am shouting look on Mumsnet, we are discussing and taking action and stop following libfems on Twitter and deciding that’s what all feminists think!

I wonder if Murray has never read Kirkup (or other writers) in the Spectator and noticed the references to MN?

"I do find OJ fascinating on one level. The TRA movement is a neoliberal one, surely? How clever of it to have persuaded all these supposedly left wing voices to go into battle for it"

Absolutely. It's all about centring the self, and conveniently distracts those youngsters who have become obsessed with it from looking at the wider world issues that once engaged politicised students: class, sex, geographical and social inequality, environmentalism, capitalism, globalisation, consumerism, foreign policy (which we barely hear about now).

And will these kids ever wake up and realise they're being farmed by big business, hooked for life on drugs and surgery? "Every get the feeling you've been cheated?"

I do find OJ fascinating on one level. The TRA movement is a neoliberal one, surely? How clever of it to have persuaded all these supposedly left wing voices to go into battle for it

'Rather than understanding ourselves as individuals who were reliant upon and responsible for one another, the individual came to be seen as an isolated particle, floating freely in space – occasionally bumping up against other particles but really never becoming embedded in a community, a class, or a society.' (from an article on neoliberalism here tribunemag.co.uk/2021/01/how-neoliberalism-created-a-society-of-individuals)

That's relevant to a large part of his argument isn't it? That trans people are just living their lives and how they choose to live has no impact on anyone. None whatsoever. The only reason he can understand that people make any fuss about the issue is fear, which he can only imagine as something which stems from propaganda..... which of course in the past lead to mass murder. It's like he's got a pair of sunglasses glued to his face. He won't see the debate through any other lens. To do so is to let Nazi tendrils wrap themselves around his brain. Or something. If you are being truly pure, you can't allow any chinks in the armour because we all know the Nazis got to lots of perfectly good people and made them do bad things.

Thing is, if you are so very left wing and care so much about vulnerable minorities, then you have to listen to people like rape victims, or those Muslim women who have to have single sex spaces to be allowed out of the house.... etc etc. It is actually completely irrelevant to say most women support things like self-id (even though they don't). Many many many thousands of us are being clear and calm about the serious reasons as to why, actually, we don't. Why don't we matter?

I think if a large number of women think you are a misogynist then you do need to take the time to reflect on your behaviour and your attitudes very seriously. But clearly he won't.

I've always wanted to meet Owen Jones, so I can show him all the 'cis-gender privilege' I have.

" Is it just me or is this behaviour rather strange from a grown man?"

He will retweet popular accounts hoping to gain more followers

All part of twitter wars

It's a silly game

I do think trying to debate him is going at it the wrong way because it's not a reasoned, rational viewpoint - it's an emotional one. So he'll get flustered and angry when challenged but I don't think it'll ever change his opinion, because that's not the part of his brain that the opinion comes from.

Sorry - if not clear, Murray is wrong, not lessthanaballpark!

I part ways with Murray when he starts asserting that Trans activism is a Marxist conspiracy.

Not true - agree with it or not, Marxism is fundamentally materialist. You can’t have class analysis if you can’t define classes.

OJ has retweeted over 20 Tweets which praise his article.

Is it just me or is this behaviour rather strange from a grown man?

Maybe the problem with OJ is that he is fundamentally very traditional and right wing but identifies as left wing.

His dismissal of women who question his authority, his apparent belief that equality is a charitable gift only to be bestowed on deserving minorities, his investment in identity and status - all very patriarchal.

Yes but Murray has always been a bit quick to dismiss feminism whilst being clueless about what is currently going on in feminism IMO. Do you remember the Munich attacks? He went on TV stating that feminists were doing nothing to help women because they were too scared to criticise Islam.

I was yelling at the screen “But Douglas! What about Mumsnet?!” cos MN was literally chockablock with outrage threads at the time, they even raised a petition that got ignored.

I do this all the time, whenever I hear feminists being criticised for x, y or z - in my head I am shouting look on Mumsnet, we are discussing and taking action and stop following libfems on Twitter and deciding that’s what all feminists think!

He is hoping that by his withdrawal, that he will save his skin.
I honestly don't believe there's anything strategic about it. I think he genuinely believes he's on the side of the righteous.

He has classic bully / coward tendencies.

He kept repeating that he now doesn't engage in debates on trans rights as "he's not trans and it's not his place." The obvious reason for his stepping back is his own self interest. He knows that the debate, by getting more sunlight, is highlighting how many flaws the TWAW argument has and the minefield that will end up with his own cancellation. He is hoping that by his withdrawal, that he will save his skin. His interview with Piers Morgan showed what an absolute coward he is and also that bully's will always back down when confronted by a strong opponent (do not like PM but he would make mincemeat out of OJ if he had to - wonder if OJ is vegan )

Sonia is brilliant @WarriorN . Another writer I think is GC is Kenan Malik. His critical skills were honed in the Revolutionary Communist Party so he can't really be attacked as a right wing Evangelical nutbag.

It’s great isn’t it Warrior? Although I part ways with Murray when he starts asserting that Trans activism is a Marxist conspiracy. However Lionel Shriver answers perfectly by saying that most people supporting trans activism are well intentioned but misguided.