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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

What’s going on with Omid Djalili?

63 replies

RoyalCorgi · 02/09/2022 10:41

About 18 months ago, Djalili tweeted a BBC article about the government’s plans to promote free speech on campus. The article cited a few examples including Professor Selina Todd, who was hounded for her gender-critical feminist views.
Djalili’s comment about the article was “There’s food rotting on the docks, 1000's of companies going out of business, the worst death rate in the world and they're worried that students don't really want to listen to Nazis?”

twitter.com/omid9/status/1361631182023237633

Obviously people tried pointing out that Professor Todd is not a Nazi, but as usual he ignored them and doubled down.

A few days ago, he tweeted a short video from his stand-up routine about the Iranian women’s football team containing four men “posing as transgender”:

twitter.com/omid9/status/1564614480243326980

It did look as if finally the penny might be dropping – though Djalili doesn’t seem to have thought too closely about how to tell the difference between four men “posing as transgender” and actual trans women.

A few women responded to the tweet by asking whether he regretted calling gender-critical women “Nazis”.

Djalili didn’t take very well to that and denied calling women “Nazis”. He seems to have got into a nasty argument with Dr Em, who has now deleted her account.

He claims that his original tweet (the one about students not wanting to listen to Nazis) had “nothing to do with feminist or transgender issues” and that Dr Em “got crossed wires, claimed victimisation when I called her out then deleted her tweets.”

twitter.com/omid9/status/1565073116547751938

At this point you have to wonder if the man is a bit slow on the uptake, given that his original tweet, and the article it linked to, are still there in black-and-white.

People are still trying to explain it to him, and he’s still denying it.

OP posts:
risefromyourgrave · 26/09/2022 16:34

This reply is just fucking insulting, and when you click through to his profile he’s a they/them LGBT activist. So obviously thinks women should STFU in every aspect of their lives.

What’s going on with Omid Djalili?
RoseslnTheHospital · 26/09/2022 14:37

He really is a willy waving wanker. Rather than use this to harangue women he disagrees with and wants to shut up, he should be focussing on those women and feminist groups who are raising this issue. Which includes every RadFem group I follow on social media, and individual radfem social media accounts. And indeed there were many posts about this on here from well over a week ago too.

KatMcBundleFace · 26/09/2022 14:34

What a cheap and nasty jibe. And totally incorrect.
Vile man

terryleather · 26/09/2022 13:52

I wish that tiresome men who use assaults on women's rights - from wherever those assaults may come and which they all too often seem to know next to nothing about - to grandstand and virtue signal would get tae fuck.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 26/09/2022 13:50

His tweet begins “I won” bless him he thinks that he has single handedly engaged GC feminists on this, well perhaps if he hadn’t blocked them all he would have seen them tweeting about Iran before he decided what women should be talking about. Well thank fuck we have a man here to tell us what to do.

bellinisurge · 26/09/2022 13:40

He's an idiot. He had to be asked to use the MahsaAmini hashtag a couple of days ago when talking about events in Iran. I saw the tweet.

Which other Iranians in Iran and outside had been using since her tragic death.

I presume he cares because he's Iranian. But big fucking deal, that should be a no brainer. He obviously doesn't listen to women.
He's a Willy Waver

WolverineBluey · 26/09/2022 11:13

He's done it again. He's done a really moving thread on Mahsa Amini and the women killed in protest, but then... calls out GC feminists specifically for (checks notes) "not genuinely caring about women's rights":

mobile.twitter.com/omid9/status/1574262493748207617

Then has the gall to believe he's "engaged" us on the issue (in a follow up tweet).

I'm absolutely speechless. More power to Alison Ann-Dowling who replied to him and he has made an example of. She put it better than I could!

EmmaH2022 · 02/09/2022 18:19

nauticant · 02/09/2022 17:57

Thanks

EmmaH2022 · 02/09/2022 17:53

I just have a sentiment for Omid because I joined in a nice bit of one of his shows as a student!

EmmaH2022 · 02/09/2022 17:52

KittenKong · 02/09/2022 17:00

How could you have missed it? His last mantrum went on for days!

Do you know when it was, just out of interest? I've been working on this crap (eg writing letters) since 2014. I hit fatigue just before lockdown and I don't recall much of anything from lockdown.

I even thought I saw Sean Hughes the other day, in an area full of that type, and on the bus home something started to niggle at me - googled and he is no longer here!

donquixotedelamancha · 02/09/2022 17:44

That's his look-out, then, isn't it? You shouldn't go round calling people "Nazis" (which is an extremely strong accusation) if you haven't even bothered to find out who they are or what they're supposed to have done.

This. How many actual Nazis are trying to organise talks at UK universities?

I despise Omid Djalili; not because of his political view but because I've paid good money to watch him live.

KittenKong · 02/09/2022 17:00

EmmaH2022 · 02/09/2022 11:14

Oh no
I didn't realise he drank the Kool Aid ☹️

How could you have missed it? His last mantrum went on for days!

nauticant · 02/09/2022 14:27

I'm with previous posters. Some people will need to answer to pushing this stuff, for example Mermaids and in the US cheerleaders of considerable influence like Diane Ehrensaft and Jack Turban, but for mere followers like OD, even if their actions were self-serving or even cynical, it's best to allow them to slink away and quietly rehabilitate their social media history.

DeclineandFall · 02/09/2022 14:16

FS. You are never going to get people to change their mind if you hound them for what they used to believe. What do you want? Them to say oh I was wrong and you were right and wasn't I stupid?
OD doesn't particularly seem a man likely to do that.

bellinisurge · 02/09/2022 14:08

Presumably he's made money/sold tickets/raised profile of the TRA nonsense.
So, I expect him to explain publicly why he's come to a different view.
I'm all for the golden bridge for people who've changed their mind but I expect some one who's profited from it to explain why they've changed their position.

Iadorerain · 02/09/2022 13:58

Don’t give newly GC people a hard time, they’re going to get a load of shit from the TRAs and labour without giving it to them from both sides.

RoyalCorgi · 02/09/2022 13:36

KatVonlabonk · 02/09/2022 12:48

Yes, it was parody, I think he was pushing the boundaries. Didn't end well.
It was in a TV programme too, can't remember which though.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-59214397

It also happened several months after the article Djalili was tweeting about, so he can't have assumed that that is what the BBC article was referring to.

OP posts:
KatVonlabonk · 02/09/2022 12:48

ZandathePanda · 02/09/2022 12:32

Wasn't there was a talk at Cambridge Uni where a lecturer did an impression of hitler? It offended students and they took the matter up and there was a debate on social media about the lecturer apologising? That what I would have thought the original tweet was about.

Yes, it was parody, I think he was pushing the boundaries. Didn't end well.
It was in a TV programme too, can't remember which though.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-59214397

RoyalCorgi · 02/09/2022 12:47

ZandathePanda · 02/09/2022 12:34

…ahh but reading OP it sounds like responding to an article. On its own I would have thought it was about the nazi incident at Cambridge.

Yes, you're thinking of Andrew Graham-Dixon who apparently did an impression of Hitler during a debate. That isn't mentioned in the article, though. In fact the article only gives two examples of free speech coming under attack: one is of an anonymous student whose father, Paul, says he was ostracised at university for his views on Brexit; the other was Professor Selina Todd, a feminist and an historian of the working-class, with notably left-wing views.

So, almost certainly Djalili didn't read the article, and just decided that the people whose free speech the government wanted to defend were Nazis. He was too lazy to take the three minutes required to read the piece and too full of his own self-importance to accept that he was wrong when people pointed it out.

And even though he must now know he was wrong, he is still trying to pretend that he isn't, and that everyone who has criticised him is stupid.

OP posts:
KatVonlabonk · 02/09/2022 12:45

Dr Em will be back, she often has breaks.

ZandathePanda · 02/09/2022 12:34

…ahh but reading OP it sounds like responding to an article. On its own I would have thought it was about the nazi incident at Cambridge.

ZandathePanda · 02/09/2022 12:32

Wasn't there was a talk at Cambridge Uni where a lecturer did an impression of hitler? It offended students and they took the matter up and there was a debate on social media about the lecturer apologising? That what I would have thought the original tweet was about.

ScreamingMeMe · 02/09/2022 12:11

NicoleKidmanSuperFan · 02/09/2022 11:44

Snooze

Hi. Did you mean to post this at your alarm clock?

ScreamingMeMe · 02/09/2022 12:09

NutellaEllaElla · 02/09/2022 12:04

Yeah I was coming to say that even if he was talking about that (which he denies), we should be allowing people to change their minds without waterboarding them into admitting they were wrong. It's ok, he wasn't responsible for TW in sport etc etc. Let him change his mind without harassing him into admitting some kind of guilt.

I agree. I find this very frustrating about GC people on twitter. Some can be prone to dogpilong even though they know what it feels like to be on the receiving end.

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