Guilty Feminist on Triggernometry

Kk pointed out indigenous populations are only 0.00000001% of the planets population

Am I being stupid here? What do we mean by indigenous populations? Are Han Chinese not indigenous? There's 1.4 billion of them. I think this is just another example of the American experience being (wrongly) mapped onto the rest of the world.

Thank you both

Kk pointed out indigenous populations are only 0.00000001% of the planets population.

She said, why are there so few? Because we killed them.

He said, why were we able to?

That's when she started to become v defensive, saying, what are you implying etc.

He said we were able to kill them because we were more technically advanced.

She said are you saying we are superior?

(I cannot see the connection myself but she was adamant anyone watching would think kk was implying we were superior by saying we were technically more advanced. )

She wasn't winning that argument so then said it had scared her he could say that, etc.

I believe it was her performative horror at KK asking why she thought Australia was invaded ?

I've watched the end and some of the beginning

I really take my hat off to people who could listen to it all. I think I'm done.

does anyone know what they said that "scared" her? Thanks.

Ha yes, good point, @JamieCannister !!!

She seemed utterly unable to handle disagreement. I notice kids doing that, saying they feel unsafe or shocked or scared when the conversation gets a bit rocky. But not only is DFW an adult and supposed to be seasoned in having these conversations, she's written a book about it!!!

She did not come off well when she said things like 'i thought you were supposed to be more intellectual than that' . That's an incredibly lazy way of communicating. You only use those tactics when you're literally stuck for anything else.

I think KK and FF could have done a better job destroying her nonsense, but this would hve meant a 6 hour episode, or, more likely, her walking out

Thanks.

I do quite like the intellectual challenge, even if there is ultimately no intellectual answer to the question of "what does nonsense mean?" But yeah, it is a waste of time and engaging is madness!

I was surprised by KK’s response to non-binary. When Deborah brought it up he just seemed dismissive and said he’d never said people couldn’t identify that way and let it go. Surely that would have been a good point to point out the differences between biological sex and social categories? It wasn’t great as too much time was spent on gender non conformity which no one really has an issue with.

Thank you

edit - my mind is boggled looking at these posts. Hope my bus driver isn't dressed as a clown tomorrow.

I got through about 30 mins of it and it was ridiculous. I thought the set up with her against them confrontational and I don’t even like the Trigonometry guys as I see them as authoritarian and inflexible but Jesus it was bad and she is still banging on about being a JW.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt as I think they are just very different thinkers but she just has no warmth or personality at all.

I went to see one of the live GF shows as I was a fan of the podcast, but she was the least likeable of the guests who were all incredibly funny and had something important to say.

"It was interesting that, as a seasoned podcaster and comedian, she complained that doing interviews was different from writing the book as she didn’t have time to think about her arguments in the moment, especially given that she requested to be interviewed by them. "

Surely she had months or even years thinking about her arguments while writing the book?

I find this quite funny. I ought to be sympathetic, because I am one of those people who is much better at debating a point in writing than I am when speaking. I can get flustered and confused when talking.

Having said that, in a situation such as a podcast interview, where I am familiar with the subject to the extent that I'd written a book about it, I would do pretty well. Maybe not as well as I'd do in writing, but I would certainly hold my own. Why? Well, first, because I'd have thought through all the arguments several times before arriving at my position, and secondly because I'd have made sure to prepare for the interview.

What strikes me about DFW is that she was put in the same situation as all the witnesses in cases such as the Allison Bailey or Roz Adams or Rachel Meade tribunals, where they seemed absolutely stunned to be asked perfectly ordinary questions about their beliefs. Because they'd spent years in an echo chamber, refusing to debate with anyone who disagreed with them, they had no answer at all when challenged to explain what they thought. They couldn't cope at all with someone saying, for example, "That contradicts your last answer" or "Can you explain the logic behind this apparently illogical belief?"

And so DFW just wasn't prepared for it. When asked to explain herself, she couldn't, because, let's face it, gender ideology is completely incoherent and nonsensical, and no one arrives at it through a process of reason, they arrive at it simply because it is fashionable, and going along with the crowd is easier than challenging it.

Really like your analysis @LonginesPrime.

It was interesting that, as a seasoned podcaster and comedian, she complained that doing interviews was different from writing the book as she didn’t have time to think about her arguments in the moment

I know it’s hardly worth pointing out, but can you imagine if Maya, or Helen Joyce, JKR or anyone rocked up anywhere as unprepared and all over the place as DFW in this interview.

You make an interesting point that KK and FF really had to walk certain a line here for their own reputations as interviewers as well. Still, choosing to discuss every idea in her book rather than have a more generalised hour-long chat (that probably wouldn’t have been as funny, to be fair) is an unusual take.

That Johann Hari put her up to it as well means the lols just keep coming.

I'm 15 minutes in and I can't bear it any more. Had to switch off at the "I studied indigenous societies". Did you now? Which of the thousands of indigenous societies did you study or are they all the same to you? This in itself is racist, let alone trying to make out these people didn't understand male and female before the horrible whites came along to corrupt them.

Kathleen Stock is right, the more these people talk the more they reveal themselves. I would pay good money to watch DFW debate this with KS.

Her ideas were ok, but her arguments were against a strawman. She mentioned having been a JW, and I got the impression that as often happens to people who come to the left from a very rigid conservative environment, she assumes anyone who doesn't agree with any particular 'leftist' idea holds a rigidly conservative/religious position. And stemming from that, the only issue is stigma / not accepting difference. She didn't seem to understand that the triggernometry guys could be completely ok with gender diversity AND still think sex is a biological concept that sometimes matters. The one example that she gave of a novel idea of her own was that orphans used to be looked down on and would never be considered a son or daughter of an adoptive family. Whereas now they would, therefore the stigma is gone and life is much better. But I think she missed that we have moved on from when adoption was often kept a secret, with adoptive parents operating 'stealth' at least as far as the child was concerned, or sometimes more widely eg if the child's mother was underage and the grandmother pretended to be the mother. Whereas now we tend to have open adoption, there is a recognition that we can move past stigma and include a child fully in their adoptive family AND be honest and open about their birth family. Ie we've gone from adopted children are bad so could never be part of the family, to we'll pretend adopted children aren't adopted so they can be accepted like other children, to we'll accept adopted children just as they are.

I think much of the reason they let her just talk is the whole steel man strategy that KK encouraged- they didn’t need to grill her or make her squirm like a press interviewer would, as she exposed the glaring flaws in her own arguments merely by continuing to talk anyway.

I’m glad they were open to her perspective and gave her the space and time to just look like she did, as there can be no accusations that anyone twisted her words or that she was tricked or blindsided. It was a hugely charitable airing of her views, whereby she was free to push the direction in whatever way she chose frame her arguments in the best light. So I guess that was it..

It was interesting that, as a seasoned podcaster and comedian, she complained that doing interviews was different from writing the book as she didn’t have time to think about her arguments in the moment, especially given that she requested to be interviewed by them. This suggests she knew how she she was coming across and had some regret, and I think at that point, she would have been very happy for KK and FF to have wrapped things up (as she couldn’t bring it to a close without flouncing as it’s not her show).

I think their strategy of simply not wrapping it up and continuing to let her talk herself into the ground when she expressed frustration that she wasn’t coming across better was far more effective than grilling her about her past antics. It was the whole ‘more sunlight’ strategy, which, as we all know. can work incredibly well.

Also, they are running a business, and this video will obviously do really well as people on both sides of the debate will be talking about it, so the cross-pollination is good for them (as they still get paid whether people watch the video because they love it or hate it). So the more of a hot mess it is, the more people will talk about it.

Plus, they don’t want to put off other guests from the other side of the political spectrum who might want to approach them in the future by getting a reputation for aggressively blindsiding interviewees, especially when it wasn’t necessary to expose her hypocrisy or muddled thinking - she didn’t need their help with that.

KK and FF are fantastic and i really enjoy their interviews, but I felt aggrieved that in two hours, they didn't bring up the Edinburgh rape crisis CEO that The Guilty Feminist not only had on, but celebrated. That's surely a conversation DFW would not want to have!

I only noticed far too late into the interview they were giving her all this time - twice the length of their usual shows with people who generally know what they’re talking about - to discuss each of the six ‘ideas’ in the book in turn, so she got to plug, plug, plug as they discussed each one and they couldn’t then edit it down. A hot mess all round, then, and grilling her about MW wouldn’t fit in with that structure. Wonder what possessed them to do it this way (well, apart from the fact we still all have our jaws on the floor days later)

what i found incredibly frustrating was that DFW seemed to be confusing her arguments. She seemed to think that proving gender nonconformity in indigenous populations was accepted as completely commonplace was THE SAME THING as proving trans women ARE women.

There is also the question of whether what she presents are arguments at all. Presenting the fact that some communities of Aboriginal Australians had what is read by the modern liberal as categories of gender nonconformity proves absolutely nothing. She is actually promoting nothing more than the stock racist notion of the "noble savage", the idea that "primitive" peoples have inherent wisdom in their perspectives of the world, which are superior to the corrupt or corrupting notions instilled by our "civilisation". And DFW reinforces this with the proposition (well known to be historically false) that non-European peoples were accepting of difference until those terrible colonisers came along, and forced them to be mean to gender nonconforming individuals.

At least the latter bit has an aspect of an argument about it. But the idea of "indigenous people believe this so it must be good" has no substance whatsoever, to the point that it barely qualifies as an actual argument.

The last 10min mainly

I'm being slightly facetious. I would not say that Ireland has ever been at the cutting edge of anything!

I think you might find that Australian's have their own style. What you judge as being 'behind the rest of the world', is not really. It is usually a mixture of local trends with international influence, just like here in the UK.

No. Fashion was not different in Australia at the time. Short layered hair was very much the norm there for both girls and women. And it still is not unusual at all.

The clown bus driver idea sounds incredibly insulting to trans people tbh.

I got on a bus this evening. If the bus driver had been wearing a clown suit I would have assumed that they were a bus driver wearing a clown suit and that it was probably some kind of charity thing at their workplace. I wouldn't ever have thought 'being a professional clown is now the same as training as a bus driver'. Nor would I have thought 'it's really normal to wear huge shoes and a red nose to drive a public service vehicle' because it's really counterproductive and attention-seeking thing to do.

The obvious trans analogy would be perhaps a male bus driver dressed as a woman. I would have thought 'there's a male bus driver dressed as a woman'. I wouldn't associate it with something as bizarre or deliberately ridiculous as dressing like a clown. Even more ironically, most female bus drivers actually are dressed exactly like men, bevause there's only really one uniform. Surely she's thinking about the sexist idea that women couldn't be bus drivers, which possibly had more reason behind it prior to power steering, but which really suggests she does think women doing historically men's jobs is still so out there that we might genuinely be astonished by it.

None of this suggests she has much idea what feminism or trans politics might be about.

Agreed. While I thought KK kept his cool very well, I think it exposed that he is not on top of the subject matter. Very early on he could have asked what all her chat about gender non-conformity had to do with sex and sex based rights, but it was really late that he got that out. However all her answers were so rambling that that it may have been difficult for all to know what the the hell the conversation was actually about.