Hadley Freeman Margaret Attwood article guardian today

And I did think it is of note that Hadley fully explored the issue in her interview, it wasn't avoided or skated over.

I think it's going to be doubly hard to take a GC position in Canada. However, at her age you might hope she had the courage to say the unsayable.

@TheGreatATuin "The main thing that struck me was that she seemed quite taken with her own importance..."

That's my impression as well. I so recoil at her sense of self-importance, I've never been tempted to read her books.

It seems a lesson here is that those who are taken with their own importance fall prey to others with the same attitude.

I think its because she's become the type pf person who refuses to admit she's wrong about anything.
If someone challenges her, she'll take it personally.
Because she's been challenged so much on this, I think she'll refuse to give anyone the satisfaction of admitting she may have been wrong.
And I think this refusal extends to even challenging her own assumptions even privately.

I saw Atwood in person at an event a few years ago. The main thing that struck me was that she seemed quite taken with her own importance and clearly expected to be fawned over. She was quite rude to the person interviewing her.
I came away a little disappointed.
This was before she'd waded into the whole gender identity debate so I had no idea what her take on it was, but I'm not surprised now.

Attwood could do a J K Rowling, but chooses not to.

But she clearly doesn't believe what she saying. She's unable to explain her position or talk about it with passion. So why is she doing it?

So... We're left with ... ashes.

We both want the truth

Atwood isn't a demigod

She's an 82 year old woman who could, if she chose to, stand behind her writing career and say clearly: women are as capable of the full gamut of human behaviours, good, bad and the ugly. But sex matters. Women's rights matter and no man is ever a woman.

But she won't, because what? She wants some other truth?

I remain conflicted. Love the books am perplexed by the woman!

'I'm not interested one way or the other about whether she's "gender critical" but Atwood is rich enough and feted enough that she could "stand up" if she wanted to.'

Very true

I'm not interested one way or the other about whether she's "gender critical" but Atwood is rich enough and feted enough that she could "stand up" if she wanted to.

Hadley is such a great interviewer. Agree that Atwood got very defensive in the interview but glad that their email exchanges afterwards were more thoughtful and productive

Again, no explanation of the gender woo side of the argument. It makes me a bit sad as I can only conclude she's feeling bullied and threatened into this position. A leading feminist who no doubt has influenced many people's thinking on women's rights. Even she can't stand up against the weight of the genderists.

Yes I thought it was very interesting how MA got annoyed & defensive, threw out DSD & then said move on

I would love to know what was said in the email exchange because from that it came across as she really hadn’t a clue about the issues which I found hard to believe….

But it ends with her agreeing that truth matters which suggests she does believe biological sex is real & matters

That is an excellent interview.