Sandi Toksvig "doesn't get it", poor love....

Yes that’s probably right on averages. I am not sure the spectrum works that neatly because the statements she makes can be interpreted in different categories.

Agreed!

OK, read it, and it really is as upsetting as the quotes above implied.

I honestly don't know where to start, as the comments are so hypocritical / ignorant / arrogant / naive (I can't work out which).

For example, the argument that, precisely because there are sometimes signs indicating when male cleaners are in the loos, women's concerns about the increasing normalisation of males using the loos without such warning signs are invalid. Mon dieu, that's the point - that there used to be a consensus, reflected in such signs, that a male in an enclosed space may be sufficiently intimidating to women for them to need to be warned of this and empowered to go elsewhere; that your arguments are degrading this consensus.

"Go there. Shut up. Let’s join together..." epitomises it for me. Dismissive, aggressive, and painfully ironic. How can she bear to tell concerned women to "shut up"? I've never used that even in an informal chat about an opposing political viewpoint - I'd feel ashamed saying such a thing - and yet she's prepared for it to be printed in a daily broadsheet?!

I'd previously assumed cynical self-promotion / defensive denial / naivety. But this? It's quite remarkable in its lack of awareness, empathy and logical reasoning. It's honestly quite hard to fathom.

"I believe radical feminists are wrong because... [reasoned argument]" I would respect, and find interesting. But to demand that women "go elsewhere", stop voicing their views and instead "join" her self-evidently superior movement are something else entirely. It's Twitter-quality diatribe, and unspeakably disappointing. Disorientating, in fact.

The infuriating thing about that Times article today is the shit journalism. Her retort to Toksvig was “they fear trans women will occupy safe spaces meant for women.”

Aaaargggghhhhh

No mate. It’s about MEN. We fear men.

I'd say that Sandi falls under 'self serving eejit' on that.

Great post.

Just adding to your points, I would say that the plight of women in Afghanistan is one end of a spectrum of misogyny. We don't suffer from misogyny anything like as badly as they do, but it's the same phenomenon. So it makes no sense for ST to try whataboutery - it's the same battle.

Yes, it's vile.

Holding the umbrella bit in poster:
(another edit to say I have not studied this or know who made the poster - so not endorsing it - just thought it was interesting in terms of spectrum debate)

As she points out, every female toilet puts up a sign to point out it may be cleaned (or fixed) by a man.

Quite. It's about informed consent. It is with awareness of the needs and diversity of women as a sex class and knowledge that some women cannot and will not enter that space while that man is present.

The men wishing to identify into women's spaces do not care about women's consent, women's diversity, or in fact any aspect of women's voices, needs or their feelings at all, they just want the women's bodies around them in a state of undress for their own male needed experience. It couldn't be grimmer. And they absolutely do not want signs up stating that it's a mixed sex space because while that would help the women, it would totally mess with the man's vibes.

The sexism of it all, in fact no it's just plain male supremacism, is dire. If Sandy wishes to provide her own body for the validation of random men then she can crack on all she wants. Her issues are her own problem.

Those trying to work out why Sandi is doing this, reminds me of this trans umbrella infographic I saw the other day. I screenshotted it to look at it later. The spectrum bit at the bottom is interesting. Which part of this spectrum is Sandi on? I think you may need to click on it to get all the info.
edit: the ‘holding the umbrella bit isn’t clear so I will crop and repost’

Agreed. Loved the early seasons (and I actually particularly liked the historical sections they used to have). Toksvig was clearly uninterested and Lucas too keen to be 'zany'. Hammond has brought back a much needed bit of fun/laughter to the whole thing.

Thanks. Americans, then? Not part of British feminism.

What a horrible phrase to use - "the Lavender Menace".

I know this is a bit of a tangent but this argument

I’ve been to every service-station toilet in the country. Every one has a sign up saying male cleaners in attendance. I don’t recall anybody saying, ‘We need to group up against these male cleaners.’
Why would someone dress as a woman when they could just pick up a cleaning cloth? If it really bothers you there’s a toilet some place else. Go there. Shut up

As she points out, every female toilet puts up a sign to point out it may be cleaned (or fixed) by a man. Now I don’t really know why this is done, but I’ve always assumed it is so women are aware men may enter and can make a choice not to use it, or at least be able to ask him to leave whilst they are in there. Because some women will not be able to use it if a man with a cleaning cloth walks in. And if a toilet doesn’t put a sign like that up, yes, I would wonder if the man was actually employed to clean the toilet or had just picked up a cloth and gone in for other reasons.

I guess a sign saying “this toilet is used by anyone who identifies as a woman” ie potentially mixed sex would give women a head’s up but they don’t seem popular. A sign would certainly not say “please be aware men who identify as women use this toilet” because whoever thought it was appropriate to make the toilet unisex would not use that terminology.

And the suggestion of going elsewhere and shutting up, when it is a space FOR women is of no help if it’s the only public toilet in the vicinity 🤷‍♀️

Quite.

They were neither of them the faintest patch on the marvellous Sue Perkins.

Alison Hammond was the absolute saving of that show. It had become unbearable to watch with Toksvig and then Lucas.

Oh yes! I know that some lesbians who were interviewed publicly in the 60s & 70s (the first public lesbian interview didn’t happen until the mid 60s) were fired or kicked out of their houses. There was huge prejudice

I have no time or patience for wealthy women with a voice on this who neither have the world knowledge or the basic intelligence to see the issues for other women and care about them as much as they care about their penised friends getting to be in rooms with non consenting women taking their clothes off and providing their bodies for the penised person's better happiness.

If you don't care about women's consent, have absolutely no concept of why some women cannot and do not consent, don't believe women should have the right of consent anyway, and see the main issue as being the right of blokes to have access to undressed women for their feelz and jollies, you are either fantastically naive and/or stupid or a very unpleasant person with some sexism and/or sexual issues you're a bit shy of being open about.

For someone as white and privileged as Sandi to assume that all other women (you know, the ones talking about women in prisons and rape shelters) are "white and privileged" beggars belief. It is the white, sheltered, privileged and predominantly heterosexual so-called "feminists" who are prioritising men who id as trans uber alles, and especially over women who are NOT what Sandi is mischaracterising here. She just doesn't see the lower orders, does she?

Wholly ignorant woman, smearing and in a bubble of privilege. She infuriates me - privileged women like her have done SO much damage.

There was definitely a contingent, Betty Friedan et al in particular, who termed them "The Lavender Menace."

Is that even true? About lesbians being excluded in the '60s and '70s?

I've not yet read the article, so will do so asap. But in the meantime, the quotes you provide above are disappointing. I saw this thread had resurfaced and wondered if it signalled a change in her views, or a softening of them. The language used and ideas expressed above, though, are astonishing in the light of the growing evidence of the damage this is wreaking on vulnerable females. They feel offensive and quite distressing. Not least, the following:

Why are they talking about this when women in Afghanistan are not allowed to sing or to look a man in the face?

Who aren't allowed to sing or look a man in the face, Sandi? I'm confused. According to the worldview you so forcefully promote, you must mean that some females are, thank God, immune to these horrors (or are there no transmen in Afghanistan?), while some men - transwomen - are victimised in this way?

Now, I know that the above may be jumped on by the Sandis of the world as pettily pedantic and deliberately disingenuous, but it really is neither. Because if language is so important to the western, white middle-class trans-identifying male that "woman", "she" and "her" must be redefined to include him, and women's spaces thereby opened to him, then how - how?! - can the definition of "woman" not matter to that appallingly oppressed 51% of the Afghan population?!

The sheer irony of her misrepresentation of radical feminists as "white and privileged", and the suggestion that we're disregarding the women of Afghanistan, when* she supports a redefinition of "woman" that actively obscures the very source of their oppression is breathtaking.

*(apparent - again, I will read the article, and review this on that basis if need be)

🎯 bang on!!!

Sandy has more in common with a transwoman than the life experience of many many women...

“I’m very interested in the logical, not the biological, family,”

just as an aside this is yet another example of her privilege. In the childless community we talk a lot about creating your family of choice ie friendship because you don’t have children of your own. She has children and grand children. She has a biological family. She is astonishingly lacking in self awareness of her own privilege on so many levels