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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Restoring Sanity Takes Time - Helen Joyce

693 replies

RethinkingLife · 02/03/2024 10:16

A bracing read. I am still in a state of some despair about how long this will take. As several people have observed, in the last 10 days, the BBC (in common with other media) disseminated unscientific propaganda that male galactorrhea is better than mother’s milk, repeatedly called a deeply disturbed killer a woman while disdaining to acknowledge the alternate reality as a cat, and has publicly reprimanded Justin Webb for plain speaking that was probably helpful to many listeners.

What will it take to bring bigoted employers to heel? Part of the answer is time. During the past decade, the trans lobby has been stunningly successful in selling false analogies to HR departments: that separate toilets for men and women are like racial segregation; and that insisting people can change sex is “gay rights 2.0”.
Lazy, power-hungry HR managers and staff working in “EDI” (equality, diversity and inclusion) pronounce that the arc of the moral universe is bending towards denying sexual dimorphism, and relish imposing their will on others.
…
Imagine you’re an HR professional belatedly wondering if you’ve got the wrong end of the stick on the whole sex-gender thing. You might turn to A Practical Guide to Transgender Law by two barristers, Nicola Newbegin and transwoman Robin Moira White.
But that might not save you from serious missteps. The first edition, published before the binding Forstater judgment, enthusiastically endorsed the faulty lower court ruling. The second grudgingly acknowledged that yes, gender-critical beliefs were protected, but claimed that “manifesting” them — letting others know you held them — wasn’t.
Even before the recent string of judgments to the contrary, that was obvious nonsense. The law about freedom of belief expressly includes “manifestation”. And anyway, it takes but a moment’s thought to realise that the law can’t possibly concern beliefs that are never manifested, since it can’t reach inside the privacy of our heads.
…
At bottom, the mindset of the narcissistic identitarians joining in workplace witch-hunts is that of the Crusaders, who made converts at the point of a sword. They do not respect other people’s sovereign consciences, nor accept that their belief system is just one among many. And like the Crusaders, they need to be consigned to history.

https://thecritic.co.uk/restoring-sanity-takes-time/

Adding in a good read about the Meade and Phoenix rulings:

Restoring sanity takes time | Helen Joyce | The Critic Magazine

This article is taken from the March 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. It’s nearly five years since I met Maya…

https://thecritic.co.uk/restoring-sanity-takes-time

OP posts:
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MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/03/2024 14:32

I see the posters relentless monitoring women have arrived - anything to divert attention from her message. It's very Victorian to police women's reading and phone use in this way. Although I believe the Taliban are now banning women from phone use & contacting the media so they're in sync with some men world wide.

Geebray · 02/03/2024 14:27

The mention of HR Managers in that first quote makes my spine shiver. HR people are never the brightest in an organisation (by some degree). And they've been the ones in charge of supporting this nonsense...

RethinkingLife · 02/03/2024 14:25

DadJoke Her article her is wrong in both fact and law. It’s not all manifestations of belief which are not legal, it’s discriminatory manifestation in a work context.

It's annoying that the sequence of links seems to interfere with whether or not they appear. However, the link that can't be seen in the OP is this:

https://www.employeecompetition.com/conflicting-beliefs-and-balancing-rights-lessons-from-meade-and-phoenix/

It would be helpful if you were to lay out your argument about HJ's piece in the context of this article by employment lawyers.

Conflicting beliefs and balancing rights: lessons from Meade and Phoenix

https://www.employeecompetition.com/conflicting-beliefs-and-balancing-rights-lessons-from-meade-and-phoenix

OP posts:
nothingcomestonothing · 02/03/2024 14:15

DadJoke · 02/03/2024 14:09

To be fair, she said was reading non-consensual erotic fanfic featuring children in a large font on public transport for research. She describes it as both arousing and disgusting.

However, having read her other work, I’m not sure research is really her thing. Her article her is wrong in both fact and law. It’s not all manifestations of belief which are not legal, it’s discriminatory manifestation in a work context.

Is that large font? I couldn't read the text on someone else's phone on a train from a cross the aisle, no matter how large the font was.

Restoring Sanity Takes Time - Helen Joyce
DadJoke · 02/03/2024 14:09

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

To be fair, she said was reading non-consensual erotic fanfic featuring children in a large font on public transport for research. She describes it as both arousing and disgusting.

However, having read her other work, I’m not sure research is really her thing. Her article her is wrong in both fact and law. It’s not all manifestations of belief which are not legal, it’s discriminatory manifestation in a work context.

RethinkingLife · 02/03/2024 13:44

HJ's piece in the OP and the side-discussion feel like companion pieces to Sidelsky which feels like Havel in a university setting rather than a greengrocer's.

I and a group of like-minded academics set about creating a “Committee for Academic Freedom”: a forum for UK lecturers of all political stripes to speak out about what is going on in our universities. To date, 306 have put their names to our principles. Admittedly, it has not been easy. Fear and mistrust run deep. Many are convinced that “freedom of thought” must conceal a toxic right-wing agenda — as if the left had no possible interest in intellectual freedom.
And even those alert to this sort of Stalinist jugglery can be deterred by the thought that others will number them among the toxic. “If I sign your principles, I will be sent to the Siberia of my field” one historian wrote to me. At least he was honest. Harder to swallow are the frequent silences and evasions, the unanswered emails, the strange non sequiturs. One has to remember the pressures people labour under, the burdens of status, position, etc.
Still, there are compensations. “At every meal that we eat together, freedom is invited to sit down. The chair remains vacant, but the place is set.” Thus wrote René Char, French poet and resistance fighter, recording his experience of life in the Maquis. Of course, England in 2024 is nothing like France under the Nazis, yet the freedom Char speaks of — the glorious unrestraint of those who have thrown off some hated system of inhibitions, internal as well as external — is something that we have come to understand and appreciate. It is a great treasure, which we may lose but can never renounce.

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/march-2024/its-time-to-stop-the-rot/

Havel quoted: https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382551-Live-not-by-lies-Solzhenitsyn-no-tambourines-involved?

It’s time to stop the rot | Edward Skidelsky | The Critic Magazine

Students denounced, lecturers cowed and managers with little interest in truth…

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/march-2024/its-time-to-stop-the-rot

OP posts:
TheGreatGherkin · 02/03/2024 13:42

Mishy never fails to entertain.

RedToothBrush · 02/03/2024 13:29

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

Ad hominem attacks are the last refuge of a failed argument.

HTH

nothingcomestonothing · 02/03/2024 13:25

The fact that 'woman reads legal written material on a train' is the take, rather than that a man took it upon himself to zoom into unconsented photos he took of said woman on said train to see what she was reading and then published the photos online to shame her, says much.

I think HJ is right, this ideology has been and is pushed by puritans who have no room for other people's views, needs, or rights. They won't back down, or golden bridge, they can't.

StephanieSuperpowers · 02/03/2024 13:15

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

Are you judgeoshaming? For shame, educate yourself and do better, you bigot.

Giggorata · 02/03/2024 12:06

Blimey Mishy, is that all you've got?
Lack of reasoned, well thought out rebuttals here.

WickedSerious · 02/03/2024 12:05

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

She hates you.

Girlontherailreplacementbusservice · 02/03/2024 11:59

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

Do you regard everyone who read '50 Shades' on bus, trains etc as 'disturbed individuals' with questionable motives or do you get to be the arbiter of which shitty fan fic with sexy bits people are allowed read in public without question?

RethinkingLife · 02/03/2024 11:48

StellaOlivetti · 02/03/2024 11:06

Excellent article, every word of it. Thank you for posting and well done Helen Joyce. Depressing to think how long it’s going to take for the tanker to turn.

HJ resorts to saying this happened within a decade but with take longer than a decade to unpick.

I'm minded it will take a generation. I very much hope that I'm wrong because it will continue to distort the workplace and accustom people to acting, speaking, and thinking in compelled ways. It feels like one of the precursors described by Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/hannah-arendt-papers/articles-and-essays/totalitarianism-the-inversion-of-politics/

Totalitarianism, the Inversion of Politics  | Articles and Essays  | Hannah Arendt Papers  | Digital Collections  | Library of Congress

An essay on Hannah Arendt and her theories on the origins and practice of totalitarianism by Arendt scholar and trustee Jerome Kohn.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/hannah-arendt-papers/articles-and-essays/totalitarianism-the-inversion-of-politics

OP posts:
StellaOlivetti · 02/03/2024 11:06

Excellent article, every word of it. Thank you for posting and well done Helen Joyce. Depressing to think how long it’s going to take for the tanker to turn.

Brefugee · 02/03/2024 11:01

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

Never change, mishy, you are utterly predictably hilarious.

RethinkingLife · 02/03/2024 10:54

MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

This is in line with your typical posting but I'm checking that this is the sum of your engagement with the content, yes?

OP posts:
MishyJDI · 02/03/2024 10:49

She seems to be a disturbed individual given what she reads on a public train. What are her true motives? Questionable IMHO.

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