Fantastic comment in the Times - I've never seen so many likes!

EW is free to disagree and air her disagreement. But if she bases her opinion on precisely fuck-all, then she will rightly be called out for it. And that is what has happened here. JKR said nothing transphobic. She is pro-women's rights. EW appears not to know that.

Given her close personal relationship with JKR and the benefits she's received from it, I think EW might have paid JKR the respect of finding out what her opinion is before sounding off on it. But no.

That she's a woman makes it worse because all women navigate the world differently from men. The constant vigilance, the threat-assessment always running in the background, the need to pat a man's ego in case he's the one with the anger management problem or the one who gets off on violence... Doesn't she know any of that? No attempts to wrestle her onto the casting couch? Hasn't she even heard of #MeToo?

I’d love to know which of JKR’s pro-woman views is abhorrent?

I’m always surprised when I remember EW is in her thirties.

Oh blimey I didn't know about the Handmaid's Tale stunt. That is ....quite astoundingly tone deaf.

But none of them can articulate exactly what it is JK Rowling has said that they disagree with. All they're doing is parroting "trans women are women". God only knows what they think a woman is. It's a mystery.

No, let's be clear about this. JK Rowling is a woman who stuck her head above the parapet and spoke out in defence of women, knowing that many women who felt the same way couldn't afford to speak out, and that it would cause a massive backlash from people who believe someone's subjectively experienced gender identity is more important than their objectively observable sex. It became trendy in certain woke circles to publicly denounce JK Rowling, which was precisely why people like Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe were being asked about it. It was a loyalty test. Who are you most loyal to, the woman who made you rich and famous (because you sure as shit can't act) or your woke overlords?

They both jumped at the chance to throw her under the bus, without ever attempting to explain what it is she has said that they think is so terrible. It's pretty shabby behaviour.

verystablegenius, you're surely not advising us - on the feminism board - to be kind?

Lol at that Daily Mail front cover. They know what they're doing.

No time for this tax-dodging overprivileged twit.

but this thread is full of people doing the exact opposite. its alll jus pot and kettle.

you don't owe your life eternally because you performed something someone wrote. if you disagree with them, you can its free country and JK is free to respond.

i'm sure if one of them was a racist then JKR would respond eventually if asked enough

If they genuinely disagree with her, then they should be free to say so.

If only they would read what she actually said, rather than act like nodding dogs on a parcel shelf hearing it all secondhand.

abhorrent views

Oh come on @TomaytoORTomahto you naughty little troll.

'Abhorrent views' 😂

Oh lordy, any editor will have come across authors who are over attached to their own words. It’s hardly a sin. And any author is likely to come across an editor who wants to rewrite the book their way. Grumbling about famous authors is not the most professional behaviour.

I am so nice to my authors that they sometimes take me out to dinner in sheer relief and describe their tree preservation campaigns/puppy adoption/daughter’s wedding to me. Sometimes we get onto the work in hand as well. (JK, if you’re listening, I’m free from mid July and have references...)

Many of us are literally begging for someone to explain why JK Rowling's views are so abhorrent and criticise them in an intelligent manner.

Would you like to be the first? We're all ears.

I suspect emma Watson is very bright on paper, but what she hasn't realised is that she is very cosseted and really doesn't have much life experience.

By 33, most people's world view is a bit more sophisticated than " the goodies" and "the baddies", which is basically where the HP actors all are (though I think Rupert Grint is probably likely to turn quietly now he is a parent - his back up statement to the others seemed just like he agreed for the sake of it really without much thought and he doesn't seem to have invested himself in the Trevor Project or Mermaids).

By 33, most people have had at least one shot job they didn't like that much (not, just a rubbish part in a movie, but a really objectively shit job), they will have failed at something and many will have dependents who have brought home to them that life really is not about you as an individual. That's why mumsnet is so focused on women's' rights, because motherhood does mean accepting that it's not just about you as an individual any more - that is hard, but it is also freeing. I can't imagine what it is like for someone like EW to really feel the need to spend the best part of 2 years trying to find out how to make her day purposeful, because most of us get some sense of that from progress (our own or our kids') or just basic survival, but that is what extreme childhood wealth and fame does.

When the lawsuits hit on transing children, she will realise what she has got herself involved with and I suspect it be quite wounding, because she has set herself up for a "purpose" that involves being recognised as a "goodie", as opposed to all those volunteers who get recognised in the honours list for quietly doing years of charity work, where the initial intention was just to help other people with an identified need.

I very much doubt that ET is in any way "dumb" by any reasonable measure, given her academic qualifications and whatnot, but for sure her every word on this (and many other) subject reeks of absurd levels of privilege and general detachment from reality.

Come on Einstein, do detail these abhorrent views held by JKR

I suppose that when it comes to feminism, and in particular the question of whether trans women are women and whether feminism is supposed to include them, I find a woman who can't imagine herself in the shoes of vulnerable women more maddening than a man who can't.

There's a part of me that would expect someone like Emma Watson to get why, for example, many women don't feel comfortable sharing changing rooms and rape crisis groups with biological males, more than I would expect Daniel Radcliffe or Rupert Grint to get it. It's always a bigger disappointment when women take this position. And it makes me think that a woman who takes this position is either privileged and too thick to understand her own privilege, or simply cares more about being seen to have the right opinions than she does about vulnerable women.

You're right though, I am holding women to a higher standard than men here. Especially the ones who claim to be feminists.

Emma Watson did that feminist book stunt where she went round hiding copies of The Handmaid's Tale for strangers to find. Have you tried reading The Handmaid's Tale, Emma? Could a trans woman have been enslaved as a Handmaid? Could a Handmaid have escaped her fate and become an Eye or a Commander by identifying as a man? Think, Emma. Use your brain.

Mind you, it seems Margaret Atwood herself is more concerned with not being cancelled than she is with real feminism these days. I get that a woman in her 80s doesn't necessarily have the energy or the appetite for facing up to the woke pitchfork mob, but I can't help but compare and contrast Atwood and Germaine Greer in that respect. Although who knows what position Germaine Greer would have taken if she had a very lucrative collaboration with Hulu? I guess she has less to lose than Atwood, and the kind of people who would want to cancel her aren't the kind of people whose opinions matter to her.

I think EW is allowed to think what she thinks and I don’t get why it’s free speech for some and not for others

cant be criticised, not don't be - sodding phone!

That's not really what I meant (I mean, she does seem to be, and I don't think she's a very good one! ).

I don't mean she don't be criticised - I think her behaviour toward JKR has been nasty, as others have said upthread, putting the boot in when she needn't get involved.

But I don't think she deserves all the insults like thick and ditzy that are slung at her and not at her male colleagues stars. Society likes to criticise beautiful women.

Yes I suppose if her output quality was in such steady decline then that explains how she went on to write the Cormoran strike books which are … so incredibly readible. I’m a fairly serious reader and couldn’t put them down. I daren’t start the last one because I have small children and a busy job. There is no question at all in any sane mind that she is extremely talented.

Isn't it partly because she's the only one holding herself out as some sort of ambassador for feminism?

The tone in which we talk about Watson is a feminist issue.

That's so true. She gets a lot more stick than her male colleagues, for no good reason. That in itself is a feminist issue.

Something a few of the people on this thread would do well to remember

She is not a muppet. She has a ADHD. Cooking is a skill that people with ADHD find very difficult because of the issues with executive functioning. Do some research on it before calling someone with ADHD a muppet.

This.

Indeed. In society in general, I reckon, a man is less likely than a woman to be called stupid just for having an opinion people disagree with. Similarly, I think successful and/or conventionally attractive men are less likely to be called stupid than successful and/or conventionally attractive women. The tone in which we talk about Watson is a feminist issue.

I agree with the "biting the hand that fed her", "Rowling is the only reason she's famous" viewpoint overall.