Germaine Greer

[IamTheWhoreofBabylon]

i never post here but I'm watching Germaine Greer on newsnight
Crazy, the woman is not allowed to discuss feminist issues without being forced to discuss transgender issues
Disclaimer- I really like GG
Am I reading this correctly? Why does she have to fight for a different groups issues

www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/jess-phillips-rape-threats#.qi1Om1X2QD

I've just been reading the comments under Jack's Guardian article. There are some very good discussions going on in there about what gender actually is.

The equivalence of post-hysterectomy women with MTTs is such a straw (wo)man. Amputees don't suddenly stop being bipeds because they only have one leg. A woman is a woman post-hysterectomy. And a man is still a man post-castration.

Furedi's article is good. I'm afraid I agree with him that this is a free speech issue at root, not purely a feminist one. If we want free speech we have to defend it for people we don't like too. Dapper Laughs. Nigel Farage. All those unpleasant imams. There are lots of feminists who have been busy cracking down o. The free speech of people whose views they deem hurtful to feminism and now it's all got so out of hand they've turned on a feminist icon.

Feminism needs to get behind free speech - real free speech including for people who don't like feminists - because ultimately there are lots of people who would like to see women's voices shut down and if we lend our voices to a cultural climate where it's acceptable to shut down certain opinions that will, inevitably, eventually be turned on women. As we are now seeing.

YY Buffy. I think it also depends on what subjects speakers are planning to address. I remember being very against giving David Irving a platform to talk about holocaust denial, but I would have been grudgingly OK about him speaking about Hitler's military strategy, for instance.

Similarly, if Greer was planning a talk called 'Why Transwomen aren't Women' I'd be quite sympathetic to transactivists who called for her no-platforming, but given that she was going to talk about something entirely different I think they should grit their teeth and hold back.

I don't know, comparing holocaust denial to a talk about "Why Transwomen aren't Women" is somewhat inappropriate.

Saying that transwomen aren't women would be more like saying that the Jewish population is not completely innocent in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Though I don't think one could even talk at length about the difference between women and transwomen. Except you live in the US and want to give people the information about basic anatomy they should have been given in primary school, but haven't.)

I honestly think that once you start getting all hair-splitty about whose speech should be free and whose should not you're on the slippery slope to people inventing reasons why women should stfu. But I suspect I'm in a minority here.

Comparing Germaine Greer to a Holocaust denier is repulsive. She is actually the opposite because the Holocaust happened whereas transwomen are men. She should be banned from speaking the truth?

Profile in the observer today

www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/01/germaine-greer-angry-outspoken-feminist-lioness?CMP=twt_gu

I'm not at all comparing GG to David Irving; I'm trying to think through when I think no-platforming can be defended and when it can't (in addition to Buffy's encouraging violence point which I entirely agree with).

And nor (I should add) am I comparing Holocaust denial to denying transwomen are women. Absolutely not.

If anyone can come up with some better examples of where they think the no-platforming line could be drawn I would be v. interested.

Les Green Professor of the Philosophy of Law, University of Oxford has basically repeated exactly what GG has said in his
blog. I wonder if he will be no platformed/abused/harassed.

Weighty backing there.

Laurie Penny is an idiot.

Feminism is too focussed on women, because um, that's what feminism is all about. You know, the liberation of women. I had to step away from the internet for a while when I read that.

No one, however offensive their view, should be denied the right to soeak, unless they are actively advocating violence. Free speech is the right to be offensive (including holocaust denial imo). Denying free speech is both a slippery slope and risks creating Martyrs.

Universities should be bastions of free speech. Those who attend them should be up to defending their views.

I'm watching Little Women atm. Jo March was a strong woman who fought gender norms (so was Louisa Alcott for that matter) but there was never any question about either of them being a woman. I wonder if nowadays they'd be pushed towards trans too?

That in much of the world women and girls are bought and sold like cattle. Abused, their genitals disfigured, their bodies used as commodities. If you are born a man, you got lucky in life's lottery. If you want to wear a bra and call yourself Lulu, go ahead. But don't trample all over the issues that real women face every day. Same old male privilege, with nail varnish on.

^ I agree with this. If I could 'like' your post, SirVix I would.

Not sure how this platform-giving works. I mean, there is the right to free speech, but that doesn't equal the right to use university facilities for speaking.
A well-known feminist like Germaine Greer should of course be able to talk at an university.

But I don't think every random conspiracy theorist should have the same right. If in doubt, there's always talking from a soapbox on the streets.

@larrygrylls: Some boundaries have to bet set. In Germany, holocaust-denial is actually illegal, if I am not very mistaken. It sure spares everyone lots of nerves. I am busy enough fighting the blatant lies of misogynists.

I genuinely don't understand how it's transphobic to say that transwomen are not women. If you were jumping in a transwoman's face and saying it repeatedly for no reason, well that would be harassment, but the statement itself is a fact not a judgement. In fact if I actually think it's more transphobic to deny that transwomen are trans. In doing so you're denying a big part of their life

And Laurie Penny... Oh yes she is an irritant. An arrogant irritant.

Isn't that weird Buffy a man and woman say the same thing, yet the woman is harassed and abused for it. Huh.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/lauriepenny/how-to-be-a-genderqueer-feminist#.enqO5wAqx ODFO Laurie Penny. That article is me of the biggest loads of crap I've ever read, up there with Paris Lees banging on about how she loves street harassment.