Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Philippa Gregory thinks that two sexes, male and female, is a "myth"

142 replies

Fenlandia · 30/10/2023 17:33

According to journalist Susan Dalgety's Substack (a good read), the author Philippa Gregory, who has sold gazillions of historical fiction novels, thinks there are more sexes than we first thought!

https://susandalgety.substack.com/p/philippa-gregory-may-be-a-bestselling

Here is the quote from Dalgety:

"Philippa Gregory, who prides herself as a feminist, does not believe in the “myth of two sexes.” She writes glowingly of a modern world where it is impossible to divide humans into two categories, male and female. “It is as fictional as a sorting hat – we are more diverse than and more varied, and more changeable over time, in a richer multiple word than the binary model…” And she points out that in the 1990s, American sexologist, Anne Fausto-Sterling, counted five sexes (male, female, merm, ferm and herm), while French scientist Eric Vilain suggested an “infinite number of biological genders.” It was at this point I dropped my coffee cup."

And yet again with the tedious trope that in order for people to be interesting and the world to be diverse, we must dispense with the fact of the sex binary by which every single human has been produced, ever.

Philippa Gregory may be a bestselling historical novelist, but facts still matter

Author of Normal Women believes that two sexes, male and female, is a "myth"

https://susandalgety.substack.com/p/philippa-gregory-may-be-a-bestselling

OP posts:
Alltheprettyseahorses · 31/10/2023 10:11

I don't wish to sound ageist but she's nearly 70 which is far too old for this nonsense. I genuinely do think some of this nonsense is down to older women trying to hold on to their youth by keeping up with the cool kids they know who are into a particular fad without once considering how they're not actually the cool kids.

Froodwithatowel · 31/10/2023 09:01

I see this and hear 'I'm a good girl. A very very good girl. I'm using all the words, I'm denying reality on command like a really good girl, I'm genuflecting very hard. I'm such a good girl. Please don't threaten to kill me and find out where my children go to school'.

Blink twice if you want to be rescued Phil. We get it.

PurpleSaturday · 31/10/2023 00:37

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 19:59

Oddly enough it appears she used to live on a farm in the North York Moors. You'd imagine she'd know there was a distinct difference between the sexes, there's no mistaking a ram for an ewe!

Show quote history

Just in an ex farmhouse I think.
A relative lives down the road.

Whoisthatatthedoor · 30/10/2023 23:57

Stupid, stupid woman.

I can’t read her stuff. One of her non-royal books of the Wideacre trilogy was really creepy and seems to relish in a plot about incest and another of hers Virgin Earth had quite a rapey salacious vibe involving a young female character which was equally repellent and that was it for me.

God knows what other weird shit is in her head if that’s what she chooses to write about, so I’m not wholly surprised that she can buy into such delusional weird bullshit as gender ideology.

NitroNine · 30/10/2023 23:48

@ErrolTheDragon
Oh no, none of that - only MORE DRAGONS. Possibly adding ice dragons &/or water dragons to the traditional fire dragons 🤔

spookehtooth · 30/10/2023 23:27

@ErrolTheDragon of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Over the generations we rename, discard and create new ones for that reason. Some barely last a few years of popular usage

RethinkingLife · 30/10/2023 22:52

There’s always a ‘superior intellect’ fad in artistic circles: a hundred-odd years ago it was eugenics or the supernatural, psychic research and seances, now it’s gender woo.

Hasn't gone away. Eugenics in the form of eradicating children who develop into LGB adults. Woo in the form of Moran's auras or gendered souls. Too many pink brains to count and Izzard's coded DNA.

TRSOH is hopelessly entrammelled in these meshed abuses and distortions.

MariaLuna · 30/10/2023 22:50

^
"Philippa Gregory, who prides herself as a feminist, does not believe in the “myth of two sexes.” She writes glowingly of a modern world where it is impossible to divide humans into two categories, male and female.^

But it's still how babies are made.

Whatever.....

PickAChew · 30/10/2023 22:49

Someone who spent too much time clicking her pen in biology lessons.

MargotBamborough · 30/10/2023 22:48

I can't take much more stupid.

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:46

Anne Boleyn might have kept her head...

For sure, she wouldn't have married Henry, and Elizabeth wouldn't have been born because Henry wouldn't have needed to divorce Catherine of Aragon, England would have remained Catholic (at least for a while longer) under his reign followed by King Mary ... and then who knows?

UtopiaPlanitia · 30/10/2023 22:43

ValancyRedfern · 30/10/2023 20:06

From her latest book:

Gregory is the epitome of a privileged muppet. Her cavalier attitude towards the reality of other women’s lives disgusts me.

There’s always a ‘superior intellect’ fad in artistic circles: a hundred-odd years ago it was eugenics or the supernatural, psychic research and seances, now it’s gender woo.

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:40

spookehtooth · 30/10/2023 22:31

@ErrolTheDragon labels have a purpose, heuristics or shortcuts to help us explain things about people. Referring to someone's sex does that for everything legit explained with that label, along with so many others too numerous to list. Our brain relies on a huge number of different kinds of short cuts, it's not just in our language and voice communication

Some labels (including sex) have a useful purpose. Other shortcut labels are just for boxes to shove people into. They may have a purpose but not necessarily a good one.

EdithStourton · 30/10/2023 22:38

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:08

Nah, Maggie was 'assigned female at birth' on the whim of the midwife, but by the time Henry arrived the parents were insisting that the new baby be 'assigned male'.

I wonder what the history of this country would have been like if Henry had had all his children assigned male at birth, albeit Mary and Elizabeth both boys without winkles? I mean wouldn't that have saved a lot of problems? Why on earth didn't he think of it?

Anne Boleyn might have kept her head...

Original poster
Fenlandia · 30/10/2023 22:32

ValancyRedfern · 30/10/2023 20:06

From her latest book:

What a lot of words to tell white, "c*s", older women to fuck off as their fear of male violence (only those men who know you already, of course!) is unjustified. Get in the sea!

OP posts:
spookehtooth · 30/10/2023 22:31

@ErrolTheDragon labels have a purpose, heuristics or shortcuts to help us explain things about people. Referring to someone's sex does that for everything legit explained with that label, along with so many others too numerous to list. Our brain relies on a huge number of different kinds of short cuts, it's not just in our language and voice communication

Iforgotmyusernameagainandagain · 30/10/2023 22:29

She didn't say that when she lived in Hartlepool! She'd have been laughed out of town. Maybe that's because she was Pippa then. Your thoughts must get so much more important when you're full name worthy. Or not.

roibustea · 30/10/2023 22:15

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:08

Nah, Maggie was 'assigned female at birth' on the whim of the midwife, but by the time Henry arrived the parents were insisting that the new baby be 'assigned male'.

I wonder what the history of this country would have been like if Henry had had all his children assigned male at birth, albeit Mary and Elizabeth both boys without winkles? I mean wouldn't that have saved a lot of problems? Why on earth didn't he think of it?

Isn't that what the Egyptians did? Slap on a beard and no-one will be any the wiser...

FictionalCharacter · 30/10/2023 22:14

Is she one of those who thinks that every possible variation in chromosomes/ hormones/ anatomy is a different sex?
I’m utterly sick of non-scientists lecturing everyone about biology. Though to be fair, I’m more disgusted at people who actually are scientists or doctors pushing this kind of nonsense when they know it isn’t true.

CountZacular · 30/10/2023 22:10

I don’t understand how an author who has frequently written about the dynamics between men and women in historic fiction is suddenly confused. I’ve read about half a dozen of her books (though admittedly none in the past 10 years or so) but it seems like she understood that women are treated as property due to our sex.

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:08

Nah, Maggie was 'assigned female at birth' on the whim of the midwife, but by the time Henry arrived the parents were insisting that the new baby be 'assigned male'.

I wonder what the history of this country would have been like if Henry had had all his children assigned male at birth, albeit Mary and Elizabeth both boys without winkles? I mean wouldn't that have saved a lot of problems? Why on earth didn't he think of it?

JanesLittleGirl · 30/10/2023 22:06

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:01

Gender is too intertwined with sex, carrying sexist baggage with it. The concepts require full separation. Even people that see them clearly as separate are inclined to few attributes of different genders more commonly associated with one sex or the other

Or how about just lose the wretched concept of gender and have a fantastic new one: 'individual character'?

I'm with you. There are two sexes and an infinite number of personalities.

ErrolTheDragon · 30/10/2023 22:01

Gender is too intertwined with sex, carrying sexist baggage with it. The concepts require full separation. Even people that see them clearly as separate are inclined to few attributes of different genders more commonly associated with one sex or the other

Or how about just lose the wretched concept of gender and have a fantastic new one: 'individual character'?

EdithStourton · 30/10/2023 21:59

EmpressaurusOfCats · 30/10/2023 20:41

So how did they decide that Henry VIII got to be King & his older sister Margaret had to go to Scotland & marry James IV?

Maybe they tossed a coin.

Nah, Maggie was 'assigned female at birth' on the whim of the midwife, but by the time Henry arrived the parents were insisting that the new baby be 'assigned male'.

RethinkingLife · 30/10/2023 21:50

"Very few men abuse and attack women unknown to them"

Astonishingly naive for a historian.

Rape is a common weapon of war and of terrorising a populace.

Swipe left for the next trending thread