Why are some gender critical feminists praising Rod Liddle?

Punching down on the mentally ill and people with food allergies is not "courageous" or "Swiftian satire." It's just being a playground bully.

Well he died alone and his body wasn't found for a few days, so who knows who had the best path. Swings and roundabouts I guess. I'd moved away, years ago. Found out about his death on Facebook. I'm entirely sure that there would have been people who would have read some of the tributes to him and thought "But he was always awful".

You don't give a shit about Duffield.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/rod-liddle-my-opponent-who-became-a-friend/

😁
I guess at least part of the reason he was wearing a dressing gown to the pub was because he wanted people to say "that man's wearing a dressing gown to the pub"

Do you remember Dylan Mulvaney? It was so on the nose that I thought they were pretending at first, either as a parody or a grift. But eventually they got surgery so either they were deadly serious all along or the persona took over.... I think I'd prefer to be stuck wearing a dressing gown to the pub non-ironically than having major surgery or having people debate whether I meant the things I said about wanting to sleep with 15 year olds. So I guess your friends path was better.

I actually do know some people who know him. And his widow - who for the purposes of this thread has been reduced to 'pregnant girlfriend victim'. Some of them liked him very much - including a friend who had a difficult childhood, was a victim of DV and has mental health issues, and to whom he was apparently personally very kind and generous. While I won't be shedding too many tears myself, I'm not about to tell them that they can't express grief at his death and sadness for his family, nor that they are hideously flawed for doing so.

For balance, some of the people who knew him thought he was an absolute cunt

It's the one area in which I am 100% in favour of the purity spiral.

Reminds me of a friend. Dead now, could be an absolute arsehole, could also be the most generous man alive. Anyway. He spent some time going to the pub in his dressing gown and slippers "for shits and giggles". (this was the 90s, before everyone just wore their pyjamas out) One day he looked at me and just said "There'll come a time when I won't know if I'm doing this deliberately or not."

I can happily be friends with people with whom I disagree vehemently on certain issues - I have friends who are TWAW for example - we agree to disagree or avoid the issue altogether (the latter is often the best tactic with younger people in my experience).

I could never be friends with someone who openly expresses sexual desire for children (even if in jest), or who believes that possession of CSAM should not be an offence, or who assaults their then pregnant girlfriend, nor could I hold them in any regard other than the lowest.

And I don't understand the mentality of people who can. It suggests to me that they simply think these are matters of "opinion" rather than fundamental morality.

I also tend to agree with a PP, that Liddle was one of those professional contrarians who doesn't really believe a lot of what he says. Although I'm never sure whether that makes it better or worse.

I agree. But if a big part of your life is spent putting on a particular public persona, at what point does that become who you are? I get people can have different faces in different situations - a public persona, how they are with friends, how they are with family, an interior life only they know. But I don't think it's the case that only one of those "selves" is real/matters. The words he wrote were real words and designed, on some level, to persuade.

There's a really good Kurt Vonnegut novel Mother Night about a more extreme situation that it reminds me of...
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

I get all of that. But if I had to choose between hanging out with the fox killer guy and hanging out with Alok I'd still feel more comfortable with the fox killer guy. That doesn't mean I think he's a good person.

I also agree there's a difference between child abuse and makinf creepy theoretical arguments about sexualising children. Ones illegal and the other isn't and arguably falls under freedom of expression. But (and I hate this phrase so sorry) freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences and if people are going to make creepy theoretical arguments about sexualising children, a consequence might well be that they are viewed askance by people and that this is brought up when discussing their character.

And yes, it is quite likely he was taking deliberately contrarian positions. But there's something really off-putting about grown adults doing that (I know it's very common nowadays: thanks internet). It's very "edgy 13 year old". Especially when the "edgy" position is that CSE should be legal or racist stances. Again, I am not saying that it should be illegal. But an inevitable consequence of being an edgy contrarian is that many people will remember you for the positions you took publicly. Even on death. I don't agree with dancing on people's graves. But also, some people on here seem to be implying that any criticism is evidence of the "left" being goulish. It's not (and it's not the same as that person saying they hoped AW died in pains handcuffed to her bed).

Cruelty to animals, actual cruelty not just making a creepy theoretical argument about it, is a pretty strong indicator of the likelihood that someone is capable of actual violence against people. I find that pretty abhorrent. I suppose though that is an illustration that people have different boundaries.

And I do think there is a difference between "child abuse, sexualising children [and] people who make creepy theoretical arguments about sexualising children". Sure, the latter may indicate that the person making the argument is more likely to do the first two, but there is a danger that no-one discusses anything ever, because there is an immediate leap from "talking about" to "absolutely, definitely wanting to do terrible things". In the case of the first article (2003) I still believe (and other posters recollections support this) that there was a bit of a debate around 'just looking'. That again is not a defence (and it's a bit depressing that this keeps having to be restated), but it is context

I also tend to agree with a PP, that Liddle was one of those professional contrarians who doesn't really believe a lot of what he says. Although I'm never sure whether that makes it better or worse.

I don't think many people are defending him, unless saying "I disagree with him" is defending him.

What most people are doing are examining the reasons why some feminists, who knew him, may have expressed sadness or whatever when he died.

Of course the OP and other's position is. RL wrote some terrible things, some GC feminists knew him and expressed sadness at his death, therefore this is proof positive that the GC movement is a far right movement that approves of the abuse and sexualisation of children. Which is a bonkers position, and what most people were addressing.

Like a lot of right wing contrarians (see also Jeremy Clarkson/Toby Young/Giles Coren) the public persona is at least partially an act/grift designed to keep them in the public eye of the chattering classes and generate newspaper columns.

Why not? The articles are still on line so if you are sincerely concerned they promote child sex abuse you should ask for them to be removed.

simply because some his views aligned with yours

I was more likely to disagree than agree with his newspaper articles. All I have done is try to explain why people who knew him personally were sad that he died and said so.

The thread is about the immediate response to his death from Gender Critical women who knew him personally.

I didn't so am not in a place to judge either Zoe Williams or Rosie Duffield's comments.

I imagine the focus was on CSA because those posting felt it was a better stick to beat feminists with.

I suppose I find it interesting because clearly lots of posters are (rightly IMO) exercised about RL's views on child sex abuse/fancying younger teenagers etc, but much less so about his blatant racism. It's like most people just don't care, which is a bit depressing.

Zoe Williams has written quite well about him here - I don't usually rate her, let alone agree with her on women's rights, but if you set that aside I think this is a thoughtful and balanced piece: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/06/i-knew-rod-liddle-and-hated-what-he-became

@nicepotoftea

"But again, if you are genuinely concerned that he was promoting paedophilia you should definitely raise this with the Spectator."

This is such an odd take. It's not my job to "raise" a 14 year old article. Should I also be complaining to Youtube about old footage of Rolf Harris or Jimmy Savile? Or rapists like Mike Tyson?

The excuse-making and whataboutery for this vile individual, simply because some his views aligned with yours (and indeed mine) is extraordinary. I wholeheartedly agree with his views on men in women's sports. That doesn't mean he wasn't a nonce, a wifebeater, and a racist.

Honestly, this whole conversation reminds me of Whoopi Goldberg defending Roman Polanski by saying "It wasn't rape-rape" simply because he was quite good at making films.

But then again, I shouldn't be surprised anymore by the extraordinary lengths to which some women will go to defend men.

In the Guardian article you refer to, he explicitly said that people shouldn't be criminalised for "looking at things".

By which he meant CSA. He wrote that in 2003.

The Hunt For Britain's Paedophiles was broadcast in 2002, and the immense harm done by CSA was very much discussed in the year afterwards. It changed a lot of attitudes and led to demands for change. That's the context for Liddle's article.

Yeah, I will believe a man who advocated for decriminalisation of viewing CSA images - and punched his pregnant girlfriend - when he says he wants to rape under-16s. Talk about hiding in plain sight.

So many men attack others when they have guilty secrets themselves (see, for example, how many men claiming to protect girls from trans people, gay people or Muslims, turn out to be paedophiles themselves). I wouldn't be remotely surprised if some very dark things emerge about him.

Projection is real. I was heavily pregnant when THFBP was broadcast and have never forgotten the convicted paedophile who campaigned for an end to FGM. I think of that creep every time a transphobic man sends me his repulsive rape fantasies about 'little girls showering naked with men'. Ugh. (When you're parent to a trans kid, those dangers show up a lot.)

There's so much else with Liddle. His repulsive, homophobic comments about gay sex, the article attacking Rosie Duffield for discussing her experience of domestic violence, his dismissal of the Rohingya genocide (the mass rapes and burning alive of women & little girls, after their families had been shot) as 'a bit heavy-handed'....

Honestly it does in the abstract... But I actually know people who were pro fox hunting and had actually gone hunting back when it was legal. Proper old school Tory types. Their politics were the opposite to mine in most ways, and I also think fox hunting is super cruel (as is bashing a foxes head in with a baseball bat in your wife's Kimono or whatever it was). But I could be friends with them. And I also am friends with vegans who apparently are happy to hang out with me despite the fact I do something they might consider morally wrong for themselves.

So maybe it's a failing on my part. But I can think murdering foxes in cold blood should be illegal and still able to associate with people who do that. I can make a difference between my political beliefs and the fact that people I know are a complicated mix of different things. Whereas child abuse, sexualising children or people who make creepy theoretical arguments about sexualising children is different. I can rationalise it and create a very strong logical reason for this. But the original point was about how comfortable you would feel in someone's company and my reaction is therefore also emotional. I just feel differently about theoretical CSE then any other theoretical political position you could create.

Thank you for the link. It's interesting to step back in time to when the tabloids still controlled the zeitgeist.

We’re talking secondary school level here, by the way — and even then I don’t think I’d have dabbled much below year ten, as it is now called.

I think he is trying to shock the reader and highlight hypocrisy, because that is his writing style. The rest of the article makes it clear that this is not a statement of intent.

The Sun stopped publishing topless photographs of under 18s by the early 90s so I'm not sure of the relevance.

I don't think the Sun stopped publishing photos of under 18s until they were forced to do so by a law change in 2003, but I doubt that many men are able to tell the difference between a 17 year old and an 18 year old. Page 3 didn't end until 2015, and presumably continued to publish topless photos of girls who were young enough to be at school. (This might be why Liddle is not impressed by 'tabloid fury'.)

He concludes:

"But for sure, what Mr Forrest did was wrong. I suspect — and it is only a guess — that thousands of teachers up and down the land conduct sexual relationships with their older charges and that in most cases no harm comes of it. But it is still wrong, and no matter how imbecilic the teacher involved might be, it is still exploitative, even if it is not consciously so. I just hope Mr Forrest is not so thrown by the hyperbolic furore that he neglects to return to Britain with Megan at all."

But again, if you are genuinely concerned that he was promoting paedophilia you should definitely raise this with the Spectator.

Animal cruelty doesn't bother you then?

As a point of accuracy, the tabloid press were still printing topless pictures of 16 and 17 year olds in 2003, until the Sexual Offences Act of late that year prohibited it. The Sport, and possibly the Sun, also printed 'titillating' pictures of 15 year olds as they 'counted down' to their 16th birthday. The 'countdown to 16' was also utilised in respect of a number of young celebrities in these and other media, most notably Charlotte Church and Emma Watson, as grown men marked the date they became 'legal'. All very unpleasant. All again largely opposed by feminists who were often called 'puritans' (where have we read that recently? hmm) and 'po faced'.

If you want to go further back, the fight against what was then frequently unpleasantly termed 'kiddie porn' was largely led by Mary Whitehouse. A woman who has undergone a bit of a reappraisal, but who was at the time, and continued to be, largely mocked by 'progressives'.

And still people can't change sex and men don't get to use use women's single-sex spaces and services.

I'd happily sit in the same room as Jolyon Maugham or Owen Jones or (RIP) Anne Widdocombe even if I found them annoying. Id prefer not to share that same space with Alok Vaid-Menon ("little girls can be kinky too") because he turns my stomach.
There's having very different political opinions to someone. And there's advocating for the child sexual exploitation material. They aren't the same.