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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Eddie Flipping Izzard

158 replies

ReluctantCamper · 01/04/2018 09:40

excerpt from his autobiography in which Eddie recounts:

  1. using the ladies loo to get changed, because why not. I mean he sometimes wears nail varnish so what woman on earth would object to having a poo or inserting a tampon with Eddie in the next cubical

  2. shouting at some teenaged girls who objected to his presence. This is totes empowering and women could definitely use this tactic when we're shouted at by men in the street and it wouldn't end with us getting beaten up.

You go Eddie. You're a fucking inspiration.

OP posts:
ALittleAubergine · 01/04/2018 19:04

Is he still going to women's toilets?

Teacuphiccup · 01/04/2018 19:05

Have you even read the article?

He sees a lesbian he fancies and asks himself if he could go out with her and the reasons he comes up with are ‘But at that point of my sexuality-and-confidence-advancement mission, I wasn’t quite up for pursuing a relationship.‘
He didn’t question if maybe she wouldn’t want to go out with him because you know, he’s a man and she’s a lesbian.

Teacuphiccup · 01/04/2018 19:06

he only doesn’t persue her because he’s feeling insecure otherwise it would be all systems go.

incorrigiblyplural · 01/04/2018 19:09

Teacuphiccup - I didn't use the disabled loos because the women's were occupied either. Sometimes it's easier, I used to use them all the time with prams etc. He has a valid reason for using the women's loos - that he doesn't want the shit kicked out of him in the men's loos.

I don't think that makes him misogynistic. He didn't write 'Mmm, I was so excited at being near those teenage girls in the toilets' - that would have been gross and invasive. He stresses that "I’d expected to go in, quickly change my clothes, wipe off my makeup, then slip back out in boy mode so I could go home with no one the wiser.
What I wasn’t expecting in the ladies’ loos at about three o’clock in the afternoon were three teenage girls" - he then describes being desperate to avoid all contact with the girls or them seeing him at all.

I think there is a huge amount of real misogyny in Labour (and also, for the record, real anti-Semitism).

And I welcome Izzard onto the NEC precisely because he's NOT one of Corbyn's yes men, and hence more likely to question those attitudes than the current lot.

Now he may let me down on that, I don't know. But I have more faith in him than I do in Corbyn's inner circle.

hackmum · 01/04/2018 19:09

If, as a teenage girl, I'd have seen a man in the ladies' toilets, I'd have been terrified. I'd have assumed he was intent on committing sexual assault.

If I'd been with a couple of friends, I think it's possible that together we'd have plucked up the courage to follow him, to see what he was up to and, if necessary, report him to the police.

The fact that Izzard has no understanding at all of the light in which this story casts him shows he is vastly unsuited to representing the electorate.

AnyFucker · 01/04/2018 19:10

Isn't it obvious plural ?

I was responding to the insinuation by some that being self conscious about inserting tampons when there is a strange bloke using his cock to piss out of a couple of feet away might make them delicate little flowers or something

LostArt · 01/04/2018 19:10

Why didn't he go home to change?

AnyFucker · 01/04/2018 19:12

So your argument plural is that he has to be better than the existing xenophobes in the Labour party

It's not much of a ringing endorsement, that

RockyBayEve · 01/04/2018 19:13

My twat detectors were raging from the first time I listened to him so no surprise for me.

Teacuphiccup · 01/04/2018 19:13

‘He didn't write 'Mmm, I was so excited at being near those teenage girls in the toilets' - that would have been gross and invasive.’

Well no of course he didn’t but the fact he still tells it as a story twenty years later and paints himself to be the victim and the girls to be in the wrong would say otherwise.

incorrigiblyplural · 01/04/2018 19:14

AnyFucker - but why are you even discussing this on a thread about Izzard when you've just claimed that in fact the whole story never happened?

No, it's not obvious to me.

AnyFucker · 01/04/2018 19:15

Oh, I used to love him. Wool pulled right there.

Male entitlement will always out though....sooner or later.

Teacuphiccup · 01/04/2018 19:15

And how come he’s not telling a story about how he had to use the female loos and make some teenagers uncomfortable which he deeply regrets but male violence is such a problem that he felt he had no choice.
Does he paint the men who might beat him up as the bad guys? No of course he doesn’t. It’s the teenage girls fault.

AnyFucker · 01/04/2018 19:17

Oh well, plural. That's a shame but the world won't stop turning because we are on completely different pages.

DickTERFin · 01/04/2018 19:18

For me it's less about what he did then and more about his tone in the retelling of it now.

The tale poses him as the brave hero, who battles the slings and arrows of hateful oppression, (cue female children).and triumphs.

The truth is, is that he didn't, at that time, have the bravery to face the actual oppression of homophobic men who punish gay/effeminate men for not upholding the status quo which I personally hold no judgement over. He was wrong to go into the female toilets, without a doubt, but I can understand why he thought that was his best option at staying safe.

I do judge a middle aged man who reframes his cowardice (however understandable that cowardice was) as bravery. I do judge a middle aged man who hasn't developed a modicum of self reflection and cannot see that his actions were an imposition and could have been seen as threatening to female children.

I do judge a man who, to all intents and purposes, brands those children as scum and pontificates on their probable wastrul lives (like he has any idea about who they were, what they had been through and who they became), especially a man who has documented his own youthful shoplifting and other delinquencies and asks of society to understand that all that was because of unfortunate circumstances, not innate dysfunction in himself.

And I definitely judge a middle aged man who calls himself a "male lesbian".

He is a misappropriating, misogynistic narcissist and the current Labour Party is an absolute shit show (mores the pity).

Hypermice · 01/04/2018 19:19

I am so, so disappointed by this.

A man, a very intelligent and funny man, who used to fly the flag for just wearing whatever the fuck you wanted, regardless of it it was sparkly or ‘blokey’ now supporting the TRA bullshit.

Putting on nail varnish doesn’t make you a woman - men should be able to wear whatever the hell they like and not conform to the masculine crap gender roles, without participating in an ideology which will damage women’s rights.

I always thought he was a smart bloke. Very very disappointed

hackmum · 01/04/2018 19:19

"but male violence is such a problem that he felt he had no choice."

Yup. And he's too stupid to realise that if he's frightened of other men, then teenage girls are going to be even more scared of a man in their loo.

TheRagingGirl · 01/04/2018 19:19

man in make up who says it makes him change sex

Man in make up who says it makes him change sex, and who thinks it's OK to shout at teenage girls who were reasonably concerned about finding a man in the women's lavatories = right-on Bro who is on the right side of history

Fuck that

Teacuphiccup · 01/04/2018 19:20

Bravo dick

incorrigiblyplural · 01/04/2018 19:21

Teacuphiccup - well, the girls were wrong to chase him and mock him, though not wrong to be curious/outraged about what he was doing in the ladies'.

I can remember being about 13 and seeing what was obviously a transvestite going into the communal changing room in Chelsea Girl (ah, Chelsea Girl! But I digress.). This would have been mid-80s, so a similar era to this. (It wasn't Izzard, in case anyone was wondering!! Grin )

I remember thinking it was gross and not using the changing room (it was empty apart from the transvestite). I don't remember feeling threatened; I can identify with the mixture of curiosity and repugnance, and that bit from the description comes across as quite authentic to me.

But I didn't hang around till he'd finished and follow him home, shouting insults, with a gaggle of mates. Hmm

I'm not bloody surprised that that would stick in his mind after 20 years! If I was followed home by 3 girls taunting me about my clothing, I'm pretty sure it would stick in my mind too.

LostArt · 01/04/2018 19:22

"The truth is, is that he didn't, at that time, have the bravery to face the actual oppression of homophobic men who punish gay/effeminate men for not upholding the status quo which I personally hold no judgement over. He was wrong to go into the female toilets, without a doubt, but I can understand why he thought that was his best option at staying safe."

But presumably he was out in public wearing the clothes. Do violent homophobic men only exist in male toilets?

DickTERFin · 01/04/2018 19:23

Why didn't he go home to change?

He didn't want his house mates to see him "dressed". Not because he thought they would attack him but because he felt uncomfortable "coming out" to them at that point (which I think he eventually did).

DickTERFin · 01/04/2018 19:24

But presumably he was out in public wearing the clothes. Do violent homophobic men only exist in male toilets?

Nope. But any divvy knows you're more at risk of attack in secluded areas.

hereyougosuckmyassforensics · 01/04/2018 19:26

Idk what tampons the rest of you are using but I've never had a noisy one Grin

LostArt · 01/04/2018 19:26

"Nope. But any divvy knows you're more at risk of attack in secluded areas."

And why girls don't want men in female toilets?