the not so nice Jan Morris

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www.thetimes.co.uk/article/40d23ce8-4a34-11ed-8176-c5c5e560820a?shareToken=1de68b919321fa445800de825ce2ff54

I enjoy Jan Morris's travel books but his descriptions of women are jarring. Women who aren't chic and groomed are judged to be lazy and morally failing.

It also struck me that his books would be completely different, or perhaps wouldn't exist, if he had been a woman. Not just going on men-only expeditions or visiting religious communities where women are banned, but the everyday roaming carefree in isolated places, dark backstreets and macho dives. Women have such a different experience of travelling.

Not surprising. The entire focus of drag queens, is male contempt mockery and belittlement of real women. TWAW, is all about male control of women's territory, lives, speech, thinking, feelings, independence. Same old same old.

The fact they are trying to say everything is fine because the EIGHT year old says so. Putting an adult decision on a child.

Yes that’s so horrible @Pixiedust1234 , but so typical of selfish parents who force their kids to be the adult and miss out on their own childhood, so they can remain childish and irresponsible themselves. It’s EA.

Thanks for the archive link, that was an interesting read. However the part that upset me the most was

Her four surviving children (the fifth died as a baby), aged from 8 to 20, had agreed she should write Conundrum,

The fact they are trying to say everything is fine because the EIGHT year old says so. Putting an adult decision on a child.

Yes you are right it is sexist but there is no angle into a life defined by someone else's selfish sexism that isn't going to be sexist.

It does make the experience of reading less pleasant than if you had no concerns about the writer. Also, when there are more than enough great books to read, I'll get round to the ones written by people I feel are very unpleasant last of all.

No idea what you're talking about. Is it Greer's comment? “Elizabeth’s unbroken silence is the truest measure of Jan Morris’s enduring masculinity”

What's sexist about that? Greer (and we) understand women's experience of coercive relationships with controlling men. We all understand why Elizabeth was silent and we don't criticise her for it. We understand coercive relationships and how a person who seems charming in public can be a tyrant behind closed doors. Elizabeth has had 'the luxury of silence' as you put it. No one knows what she thought.

Or is it this? Her groundbreaking memoir on the transition, Conundrum, which revealed nothing about her sexual life, sharply divided opinions. What's sexist about that? I think when you're writing about your transition and SRS surgery it's natural for people to wonder about your sex life. It's also fairly widely known that Morris had sexual relationships with a number of people outwith marriage. In what way is it sexist towards Elizabeth to mention this?

I am reeling from the sheer insightful brilliance of Germaine Greer’s comment:

“Eizabeth’s unbroken silence is the truest measure of Jan Morris’s enduring masculinity”

Just spectacular. So condensed with multi-layered meanings. Wow.

I got two-thirds of the way through Conundrum recently. The thing that struck me most was that when he was still James and just starting transitioning, ie wearing "women's" clothes, but well before any surgery, he said he found it very exciting to be patronised and belittled by men. I thought that was ... telling, to say the least.

So called "old school trans sexuals" would have been HSTS, not "acronym-that-cannot-be-name" men.

From the point of view that HSTS would be having relationships with men there at least would not be a female partner and children being affected, but men claiming they are women, straight or gay, are coming from a place of misogyny imo.

So no real surprises in this revelation.

Wow what a comment

This article is profoundly sexist though, is it not? To use Elizabeth's silence against her, not affording her the luxury of silence. She doesn't owe anyone an insight into her private life. She, as a woman, is allowed to be as private as she wants to be.
Also, very odd and sexist to use the fact that Conundrum doesn't include details about her sex life against her- Would the journalist prefer if Morris told all about her relationship with the very private Elizabeth?

This Twitter thread of excerpts from Cinundrum, with commentary from Stilltish is very insightful mobile.twitter.com/stilltish/status/1339237929256955910

someone being a selfish shit doesn't stop them being creative and talented. no need to stop reading his work

no man who thinks clothes, plastic surgery and a higher pitched voice can make him a woman is a friend to women.

I don't wish such men ill, but talk of all these good natured 'old school trans sexuals' does make me roll my eyes so hard I nearly pass out

I rejoiced when reading this article with my coffee first thing.

Germaine Greer dismissed its “self-indulgent impressionistic prose” and commented shrewdly, “Elizabeth’s unbroken silence is the truest measure of Jan Morris’s enduring masculinity” (“Dead right,” Morris’s daughter Suki said later).”

Yet another moment when Germaine Greer was right. She was so prescient. I want to hear more from her. I know she's 83 and probably just wants a quiet life, but I want her to know how much she's appreciated.

I knew this book was being written and I'm pleased to see it out. That Jan Morris was a narcissistic, abusive individual who left his wife to get on with the heavy lifting of raising the children while he travelled and enjoyed the high life and had sex with men was widely known in the area where the family lived. For years I've heard people saying 'But Jan Morris...' and now the truth is out there for everyone to read.

Oh dear. I was given Allegorisings by Jan Morris as a Christmas present last year. It's on my TBR list. Always enjoyed his travel writings. But I did read that he was on Mount Everest while his wife gave birth to their first child
Even by the standard of the times that was selfish.

I'd always had him down as a nice old fashioned trans sexual who just wanted to get on with his her their life quietly. But does such a creature exist?

Yep. In the days when transwomen would start threads on here, totally convinced that their story, their experience, their angst would surely convince us that we were wrong and our rights should be handed over immediately, Jan Morris was always held up as the ultimate gotcha.

Nah.

If anyone has a share token, you will have my eternal gratitude.

Yes. And daughter Suki’s comments too. A lot of pain that no one’s meant to talk about.