To think Margaret Atwood is amazing

[Bibijayne]

Just that really.

i think her views on sex are nonsense but i do dislike the way that 'oooh she/he probably has dementia' is flung at anyone over the age of 60 when they talk rubbish. It's so ageist.

re PP and TW becoming marthas or aunt lydias - I assume in Gilead they'd be hung for gender trechery

Margaret Atwood’s least likeable female protagonists all engaged in, created, the subjugation of other women for their own amusment or gain!

And no, I am not confusing you... you are consistently misrepresenting posters, making points that are not necessarily as they were presented.. and not listening when you are told you have misunderstood! That is smug!

That you are stuck on a very early post and have not moved on to the wealth of other information/perspectives is a point in case! That too is base misogeny.. not allowing that women actually know what they think! Move on... engage with all that is being said! You seem to be missing a lot of really interesting discussion!

At best 1 person said anything about dementia, others. including myself commented after you raised it again. Alternative takes on the post, different understandings and thoughts. Persoective indeed!

@DioneTheDiabolist I think most people are of your opinion :)

@Soubriquet

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

Whatever their current inclination I suspect, given a Gilead scenario there would be a distinct lack of men wanting to identify as women.

Having voted yanbu, I then read the thread and would chge my vote in relation to her comments on biology. As an author she's fantastic!

A lot of women who call themselves gender critical and think they must therefore also be feminists. Understanding biological sex doesn't make you a feminist. Jeremy Clarson and Katie hopkins are not feminists but do understand that boys have penises adn girls have vaginas.

If you disagree with Atwood and assume she must therefore also be riddled with dementia you are not a feminist. Especially when you discount all the many young women and men who have also managed to completely turn about on the subject of female oppression being rooted in biology.

Caitlan Moran was getting a bashing for her clothes and makeup on FwR last month. WTH is happening.

I disagree with Atwood. I do not assume she has Alzheimers.

Could you please explain to me how suggesting that a woman might have dementia because she expresses an opinion one doesn’t agree with is protecting sex-based rights?

For what its worth, I agree that its wrong to suggest that somebody has dementia because of a twitter post.

I was criticising your assertion that mumsnet has a 'doctrine' on trans rights. I think the reason people on this site tend to have similar views on this subject are:

1). People posting on MN tend not to be in a position to ignore sex.
2). Nobody has ever explained how or why we should or can pretend that sex is irrelevant. I've seen people post things about grammar schools and Brexit and cleaning loos that I don't agree with - but that at least make sense from another perspective. I have seen anybody explain why sex based rights aren't necessary.

I have ticked YANBU as I love her books.

I often wonder how people will view trans - cis women debate in 20 years

[quote Bibijayne]@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...[/quote]

Indeed it was. And on what basis was that oppression enacted? Fairly sure the division of "wife" or "handmaiden" or "Martha" was not at all related to inner feelings of gender, but the very real factor of biological sex. If you had a penis, you could never, ever have those positions.

There was no discussion at all about trying to figure out where on the "sliding scale of sex" people were. It was binary. Because biological sex is binary. It is even binary in the majority of people with disorders of sexual development (and my apologies for again mentioning this group who have asked to be kept out of trans issues, but yet again they are brought in so it's somewhat relevant). And you can be damned sure that authoritarian regimes can make sliding scales if they want to. No reason why they could develop a sliding scale of women's worth, yet fail to notice that not all women were..women.

I was told on a (now deleted) thread when I was talking about discrimination being based on biology that women being asked about children and childcare in job interviews was illegal so it wasn’t an issue. Just like maternity discrimination. That’s great news for everybody isn’t it.

@Jammydodger1981

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.

That made me laugh.

Me too.

(I have never seen anybody explain why sex based rights aren't necessary.)

I love some of her books. Disagree with her latest musings on sex and biology. Not sure where that leaves me on the YABU/YANBU front.

all engaged in, created, the subjugation of other women for their own amusment or gain!

And just to be clear, this is what you believe I am doing by arguing that suggesting Margaret Atwood has dementia because she has expressed an unpopular opinion is misogynistic?

And no, I am not confusing you... you are consistently misrepresenting posters, making points that are not necessarily as they were presented.. and not listening when you are told you have misunderstood! That is smug!

I should be grateful if you could point out the posters I have misrepresented. It would be especially helpful if you could indicate what they said and then my misinterpretation of that. I completely disagree that this is what I have done so I would appreciate examples to help me understand you better.

That you are stuck on a very early post and have not moved on to the wealth of other information/perspectives is a point in case!

You and I have been engaged in a discussion about that post. Why do you consider me to be stuck on it but you not to be? That seems like a double standard. I am under no obligation to respond to all of the posts on this thread. Like any poster, I can pick and choose which posts to respond to.

That too is base misogeny.. not allowing that women actually know what they think! Move on... engage with all that is being said!

I don’t have to do this just because it would be your preference. I don’t have to abandon the point that I find most interesting and worthy of discussion. I have no idea how this is ‘base misogyny’ - please explain the reasoning behind this.

You seem to be missing a lot of really interesting discussion!

I don’t consider myself to have missed anything interesting to me. Whether or not it’s interesting to you isn’t relevant to my decisions about what I respond to.

At best 1 person said anything about dementia, others. including myself commented after you raised it again.

More than one poster has suggested that is / may be some medical explanation for Margaret Atwood having this opinion. If it helps you, you can scroll back through the thread and see this for yourself.

If you respond to one of my posts I am entitled to respond to you again.

Alternative takes on the post, different understandings and thoughts. Persoective indeed!

I don’t understand what you are saying here - perhaps you could try to express it more clearly. Fundamentally, your point appears to be that you’re annoyed that I am focusing on the misogyny of suggesting Atwood has dementia, and you wish I would respond to some of the other points raised instead. You’re welcome to feel that way if you like, but it doesn’t place any onus on me to do what you want and it doesn’t make me misogynistic for not complying with your preferences.

This is the last time I'm going to speak on this, because I'm sure it will be twisted again.

Many people on here will have cared for someone with dementia. The early signs are often big changes of personality and opinion. If you have someone who has for years said black is black suddenly start saying black is white it is a good idea to check it out and find out more. It can be they've heard a really good argument that black is white or it can be something more serious. It is important to find out though.

Literally noone had said that MA has dementia. And while I don't think she really believes what she is saying, based on her previous writing such as THT where she clearly knows the difference between XX and XY, I would never suggest she is not entitled to have that opinion.

I think she is fantastic.

I enjoyed The Handmaid's Tale but I thought Cat's Eye was boring.

I'm puzzled by people on here, who are supposedly 'gender critical' asking whether women can 'identify' out of their roles in Gilead. The whole point of the books is that anyone who doesn't conform to a strict stereotype is either tortured/killed or both.

Gilead is not something Atwood wants us to aspire to FFS - its a critical look at a dystopian society where there is no room for 'gender traitors'.

Bit depressing that people who call themselves feminists are now calling Atwood a 'handmaiden' on twitter because she is trans inclusive (although she's having lots of fun with them so obviously doesn't care)

Great author, rubbish scientist!

Nicely summed up!

I love the irony that her tweets are more fictional than her fiction!

Many people on here will have cared for someone with dementia. The early signs are often big changes of personality and opinion. If you have someone who has for years said black is black suddenly start saying black is white it is a good idea to check it out and find out more. It can be they've heard a really good argument that black is white or it can be something more serious. It is important to find out though.

This is completely irrelevant to the present situation because:

1. I think we can safely assume that nobody here is a close family member or carer of Margaret Atwood and therefore none of us are in any kind of a position to make insinuations about her mental capacity on the basis of a collection of tweets

2. Margaret Atwood has not spent years advocating against trans rights or expressing gender critical views and suddenly changed her tune. What has actually happened is many posters have interpreted one book (of several) in a particular way, no doubt influenced by their own pre-existing conceptions about sex and gender, and have now found out they their interpretation is not the only one, or the one favoured by the author. That doesn’t make them wrong; there are few ‘wrong’ answers in literary criticism, and most novels support a range of often contradictory interpretations. But it is clearly not a sound basis for asserting that the author has undergone some kind of fundamental personality change.

I love her books, read them all. Have always admired her as a feminist.

The main character has no choice in what role she is given..because of her SEX.

@katrina11 I couldn’t agree more. I’ve also always wondered if the GC don’t realise that their absolute insistence that a persons sex is their defining characteristic aligns them much more closely with Gilead than with anyone who opposes it.