To think Margaret Atwood is amazing

[Bibijayne]

Just that really.

I too am amazed. Bewildered, even.

Care to elaborate?

I think she’s talking shit, but she’s a great author so amazing in that sense.

(I can respect someone right to have a different opinion to me without being abusive or wanting them cancelled)

Her books are amazing. Her grasp of biology is a bit iffy.

Margaret Atwood, famous writer of literature about the dangers of crimes against women based on their sex, has tweeted that biological sex is a 'sliding scale'.

I too am amazed, but not in the way the OP is looking for.

I too am amazed. Amazed that she appears to think slugs and fish are the same as humans.

If you consider tweeting an article which has been debunked by scientists and the appropriation of intersex conditions to be amazing then, yes she is.

I think she has written some excellent novels and some not so excellent ones. I also knew her through a family connection when I was living in another country years ago and found her personally fairly tiresome.

Her response to trans issues, specifically to JK Rowling's position, is entirely inadequate. 'Let's all enjoy nature's infinite variety' is a remarkably silly response to the aggressive erosion of women's rights.

No, she’s not amazing. What she’s tweeting is so far beyond reality, it’s laughable. Going on about barramundi and slug sex.

She obviously knew what females and males were when she wrote her books, and now it’s all a mystery? If an elderly relative of mine had such a sudden personality change like that I’d be taking them to the doctors tbh.

Her writing is amazing.

Funny that all the Handmaids didn't seem to figure out there was a sliding scale. Nor in any other of her books - I've read them all - do I ever recall a person whose sex was on a sliding scale. Is she testing a theory for a new book? Where on this biological sliding scale is she?

But then again, Atwood is Canadian and has been savaged already. She should have just kept quiet.

Love her books, great in that way - totally wrong about biology. Personality traits - sure there is a bell curve between traditionally masculine traits and traditionally female ones but apart from a few people with genuine intersex conditions (0.018%) biologically the rest of us are male /man or female/women.

@Jammydodger1981 she's hardly had a personality change. You just disagree with her on this specific matter. No need to be rude.

Likewise JKR has always been consistent. You can appreciate books and writing without agreeing with everything an author says.

I think putting your head above the parapet in anyway as a woman on social media is pretty impressive.

What is it you find amazing OP?

@Howlat

Gilead is an oppressive theocracy where traditional views of male and female and strictly enforced. The main character has no choice in what role she is given.

That's one of the main themes of the novel...

"I think putting your head above the parapet in anyway as a woman on social media is pretty impressive."

Eh? are you from 1958?

@youhave4substitutes eh? Have you not seen how toxic social media can be?

Yes it's true, in the book the main character has no choice in what role she is given.

I wonder how it was decided which roles were enforced on which people...could it possibly have been based on their biological sex? Why couldn't Offred have just identified out of her oppressive role?

Surely she’s just doing some research for her next dystopian novel?

@Xiaoxiong

This is what Atwood has said to this comment on Twitter:

In the novel, they had to be: divorced (Gilead doesn't allow divorce) +fertile. Or "immoral."(Though these might be Jezebels.) Women married only once would be Wives (high status) or Econowives. Some could choose celibacy+ be Aunts or Marthas.

she's hardly had a personality change. You just disagree with her on this specific matter.

Well given that her books have oft been quoted to highlight the lunacy of all this, and now she’s saying something that seems wholly contradictory to her writing, it feels like a personality change to her readers.

Maybe she never really believed there was any real world inspiration for the way people were segregated in the Handmaids Tale - it was all just pure imagination and whimsy, with no factual basis in any form of sex-based oppression. Just pure coincidence that women’s reproductive labour was being explored I expect.

It’s definitely amazing that most, if not all, of her readers seem to have seen something in her writing that she apparently didn’t intend though.

If only the Handmaids had realised that all they had to do was to identify their way out of their situation by claiming to be at the Commander end of the spectrum, they could have saved themselves a load of heartache!

I haven’t read her books or seen the TV series because it looked too depressing, but I understand they are both highly acclaimed, I may read them at some point in the future.

I saw her tweet about slugs and fish and assumed she was some sort of moron.

But then there are lots of books I like by authors who had rather distasteful views, for example I love the Ripley books but I believe that Patricia Highsmith has some racist views.

Yeah....her books are amazing

Her? Not so much

Would love to see how Gilead would respond to a trans woman as a handmaid

You know...since they are women and all

*exploited

How is she amazing?

Just for posting something that doesn't rally make sense and then providing weird nonsensical proofs?

I love her books. Think the lady herself needs to sto and ponder a little!

I am now re-thinking her writing. Maybe I missed something...maybe I read into it something that jst wasn't there and if I read it again I will see where I was in error!

Her current ramblings have really caused some mental turmoil. I need to reassess a lot of things, some of which are close to the bedrock of my personal feminism.

That's not amazingly good, that is dire, befuddling, terrible!