Malcolm Gladwell backtracks on men in women’s sports

Gosh, how brave to come out in support of women after - what? - eight, ten years of this shit.

And just at the point that the sands have truly shifted once and for all. What are the chances?

Yes, he's extremely well-known. His first book, The Tipping Point, was a huge international bestseller, and he has written several bestselling books since then.

Just listening to a new (short) episode of the Science of Sport podcast where they're discussing how this has blown up

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5tnPjHjuJszPKD1hUaD4pE?si=Q0Aysq7BTDmk_ZrKXiEqng

I do love Ross Tucker, he's always been pro fairness in sport and saw this trans athlete thing for what it was many years ago. Mike Finch tries the 'women should be the ones responsible for dealing with this' line towards the end and Ross very politely shoots him down 😆

Ross Tucker thinks Gladwell's change of heart should be welcomed.

Thanks @wandasiri. I'm sure that's the wisest response in terms of encouraging people to speak up but it must be so frustrating for people who put their heads above the parapet years ago, resulting in some very severe consequences for them and multiple threats and insults.

Never heard of him so I Googled him. Still none the wiser. His face is vaguely familiar so I assume he's one of these talking heads that pop up on things like "Top 100 Things About Something" on Channel 4 and the like.

Is he actually well known and in any way influential?

Men keep schtum regardless of the topic, because they're afraid of the reactions of other men.

Men only care about their status in the eyes of the tribe of men they've chosen to identify with.

Only very rarely, especially when it comes to the welfare of others, in particular women, do they genuinely care. Most of them are all about posturing and the regard of other men.

@RethinkingLife thank you

I am mystifiedthat anyone could think Douglas Murray would not be a worthy opponent in a debate.

Thanks for linking that thread, incredible stuff

The topics in that NY Post piece and this thread are adjacent to preference falsification, Havel’s greengrocer, Solzhenitsyn’s Live Not by Lies etc. so I’m linking to a thread that quotes some of these.

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

Yes, I was thinking of this Munk debate in the other thread, where the OP had mentioned that she was surprised to discover that Douglas Murray was not a moron as she had been led to believe. Gladwell did so poorly a lot of people who were fans of his were surprised, and he later wrote an article saying that he had not realised when he went into the debate that Douglas had been a member of the Oxford Union and therefor was an expert debater.

I think he's just been so used to everyone being so enamoured of his books (which are frankly full of questionable material,) and in progressive Canadian circles he counts as an oppressed minority despite his class advantages, that he assumes he will easily beat out a guy like DM.

Ross Tucker thinks Gladwell's change of heart should be welcomed.

In exactly the same way as he enjoyed looking down on those who were too unenlightened to support gender identity 🙄
There’s a common thread running through his positioning, and frankly, it’s not very edifying

Helen Joyce made several variations on the ‘men will sort it and say they couldn’t hear women because of our high-pitched voices’ etc. comment in webinars and interviews. This is from 2021 when she was talking about her forecast for ‘the way this ends’. This time stamp starts there and is followed by ‘being strategic’ that elaborates on the idea.

HJ writes about the golden bridge here: https://thecritic.co.uk/sorry-is-the-hardest-word/

He is such a coward! No chivalry from him, he just left women and girls to be injured and cheated by male players. To say something you don't believe in because you are afraid of reactions from other men is really low. It's just throwing an already vulnerable sex to the wolves.

Could you be persuaded to say something you not to be true, asks the article. That's the question isn't it. I could never. Whether it be pronouns, or anything else. No matter how much abuse and flack I get, I won't ever compromise my deeply held principles. God himself couldn't make me.

They were in a debate together and Gladwell was not only bad but but mean and vindictive about another debater, deliberately mispronouncing his name.

Yes that's the issue right there.

What was the prediction and what's the golden bridge thing about please? Asking as you are all much better informed.

I don't know why people like Gladwell didnt just keep quiet.

Agree. Streeting has actually put some effort in post his golden bridge, this feels expedient for Gladwell rather than a genuine apology.

I am often team golden bridge, but not here.

What gets me is how self-righteous he was about the whole thing, he didn't seem reluctantly drawn in at all.

When you think that this cowardly grown man has hidden and left it to teen girls to fight - it disgusts me.

Wow, Murray doesn't hold back.

What pisses me off was Gladwell liked and admired this teacher because he was an eccentric and didn't feel a need to conform. His early books owed a lot to this particular teacher because he was encouraged to think out of the box.

Gladwell then has done the very opposite to everything he wrote in these early books on this subject, preferring to knowingly lie until he felt it safe to comment - after the tipping point.

It is a case of hypocrisy of the very highest of orders.

Fck off Malcolm