Margaret Atwood

‘TERF’ with its explicit condemnation of radical feminists is such a sexist term.

It’s the 2021 version of ‘I’m not one of those man hating dungaree wearing bra burners’.

If she's eager to denounce heretics while making zero effort to dig into it, then again that doesn't reflect well on her. A couple of years ago it would be understandable if you weren't aware of the violent and authoritarian tendencies of transactivism. Less so now.

@EsmaCannonball
I’d be very interested to read critical reviews of the 2nd+ series... can you recommend any?

I am gratified to see several people reminding her of the letter she signed denouncing JKRowling.

No sympathy for her whatsoever. Replying that the writer isn't a terf is a real 'Do it to Julia!' moment. Don't come for me! Burn those women!

I know she didn't write it, but she was a producer on the second season of The Handmaid's Tale, when they had to shoehorn in a pro-commercial surrogacy storyline, just in case the viewers mistakenly thought the show was in favour of those bad feminists who don't think the rich have the right to exploit poor women's circumstances. There were lots of problems with that show but that was the moment I gave up. I don't expect all the culture I consume to be feminist, but I hate it when things use feminism to gain an audience, and then just aren't.

This is interesting. Not because of her reaction to the pile on, it's a given that she will try to appease and do the whole 'I'm not like those women' dance.

It's interesting because despite all her efforts to be a good TWAW ally something is clearly niggling at her consciousness. That something won't go away, even if she renounces her sins this time around, it will grow bigger over time.

She can't be particularly intelligent if she hasn't realised that any questioning of gender dogma brings out the frothing zealots demanding fire and brimstone upon the herectic.

She lives in Canada, and as I understand it, the chances of actually getting an accurate picture of what's going from their normal media is slim - particularly in this area, but also many others.

If she's made no effort to actually dig into it, she may well be totally oblivious. She's written on the area a few times, but she's always seemed very out of touch with current events (like Butler) - just writing in vague handwavey ways.

She must have surely noticed the weird language contortions increasingly common in Canadian media, and maybe they've somewhat annoyed her and triggered this, but she may well have no conception that complaining about it is enough to make you a TERF.

She thought that they were just asking women to budge up and make a little room for the poor old TW.

She thought that she could keep on doing what she was doing and just say TWAW.

Now she's seeing that no, language itself must submit. She can't have a Handmaid's tale any more - Transphobe! Not all people-forced-to-be-inpregnated-by-religious-zealots are women!

Everything she ever wrote about feminism and women which is often centred around the physical realities of womenhood and how this is used to oppress women, must be de-gendered. Good luck with that.

Maybe a little light will come on but I'm not holding my breath.

Oh, that's very interesting. And it will be even more interesting to see how she reacts to the 'burn the witch' mob.

Come on Margaret, don't cave!

She can't be particularly intelligent if she hasn't realised that any questioning of gender dogma brings out the frothing zealots demanding fire and brimstone upon the herectic.

"I actually feel a tiny bit sorry for women like Atwood, because it must be like walking on egg shells all the time"
Women have lost their jobs and been hauled up in court for less. So, no, I don't feel sorry for her.

Starts countdown timer for apology and throwing of article author to the wolves..

Many comments on the Twitter post have a very 'all lives matter' vibe.

And yet they don't see it.

After what she’s said in the past I have no doubt that she will capitulate and issue an apology very soon

(Following complaints last night and this morning, ACAS has now deigned to use the word 'women' in its advice on the menopause a couple of times.)

And we can see here that there is absolutely no slack whatsoever. Atwood has been an enthusiastic cheerleader of TWAW for years, but she retweets one slightly questioning article and suddenly she’s an evil witch.

Good article on that by ExcelPope:

Why J K Rowling must die

I think she is naive enough to have believed the campaigners' descriptions of "TERFs": an apocryphal group of evil bigots who hate trans people for... some reason... and want to send them all off to camps.

She just hasn't noticed the difference between the "TERF" in the mythology and the real women who are actually being called "TERFs".

I can't read the article, can anyone?
What the tweeters seem to be disingenuously missing is that while sure, we can still say 'woman', it's starting to be systematically written out of official documents of various sorts, health campaigns etc. We've got some egregious examples from Scotland, yesterday ACAS, today the website of a girls school which avoids using the word 'girl'.

I actually feel a tiny bit sorry for women like Atwood, because it must be like walking on egg shells all the time. It is very, very difficult to wholeheartedly agree with everything that trans ideology demands simply because a lot of it is unscientific, illogical, and harmful to women. And we can see here that there is absolutely no slack whatsoever. Atwood has been an enthusiastic cheerleader of TWAW for years, but she retweets one slightly questioning article and suddenly she’s an evil witch. I have a friend who is a trans rights activist and she keeps getting distressed because if she says the wrong thing , or asks a controversial question, she gets called a t* and is told to re-educate herself until she’s a better ally (this is coming from her trans friends). Personally I couldn’t live like that, and I would get pissed off really quickly. But I imagine for some people there is a real fear of being branded gender critical so they want to cling to their ally status at all costs.

Well, she's correct, the writer is not a TERF, not that Margaret Atwood should even be using that term. However, the small addled children who live on Twitter no doubt think everyone who isn't exactly like them and doesn't prattle misogynist nonsense all day long is a "TERF" and have no idea what it means.

If they met an actual TERF - which is very unlikely - they'd probably wet their pants.

Watching with interest

Surely she should know how abusive the word TERF is? I mean, aren't words her actual day job? Watching the craven reversal will be fun/depressing