Should I know Meghan Murphy?

[Freespeecher]

Or is she just another everywoman fed up with the current mess?

twitter.com/MaajidNawaz/status/1065734285569732608

Meghan Murphy runs the excellent Feminist Current website:
www.feministcurrent.com/author/megmin/

She's one of the few prominent Canadians I can think of speaking out against self ID (which is already a done deal in Canada). Her website carries a number of good interviews (as podcasts) with feminist thinkers.

from Feminist Current:
"We provide a unique perspective on male violence against women, pop culture, politics, current events, sexuality, gender, and many other issues that are often underrepresented or misrepresented by mainstream, progressive, and feminist media sources.

Founder and Editor: Meghan Murphy

"Meghan Murphy is a freelance writer and journalist, and is the founder and editor of Feminist Current. She completed a Masters degree in the department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University in 2012.

Meghan began her radio career in 2007 in a trailer in the middle of a sheep field. The show was called The F Word and aired from a tiny Gulf Island off the coast of B.C. She took full advantage of the unmonitored freedom of pirate radio by drinking beer, reading passages from Andrea Dworkin, and playing Biggie Smalls. She returned to Vancouver, where she joined the coincidentally named F Word radio show, which she hosted and produced until 2012. The Feminist Current podcast is Meghan’s current “radio” project, bringing progressive, critical, feminist analysis and interviews to listeners around the world. You can subscribe to the Feminist Current podcast on iTunes.

Meghan has been writing about feminism since 2010. She is known for going against the grain and was the first to publish a critique of Slutwalk, back in 2011, and was one of the only popular feminist bloggers to publicly articulate both a radical feminist and socialist position against the sex industry. Meghan’s critiques of third wave feminism, #twitterfeminism, burlesque, self-objectification in selfies, gender identity politics, and choice feminism have brought both acclaim and attacks, but most of all recognition as a writer who isn’t afraid to say something different, despite what popular feminism and mainstream media deem to be the party line.

You can find more of her writing at the CBC, Truthdig, The Globe and Mail, the Georgia Straight, Al Jazeera, Ms. Magazine, AlterNet, Herizons, The Tyee, Megaphone Magazine, Good, National Post, Verily Magazine, Ravishly, rabble.ca, xoJane, Vice, The Vancouver Observer, and New Statesman. Meghan is a contributor to Freedom Fallacy: The Limits of Liberal Feminism and is currently working on a book project of her own, which takes a critical look at third wave feminism and calls for a return to the radical movement we call second wave feminism.

Meghan has appeared on CBC radio, Sun News, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, BBC Radio 5, and Al Jazeera English, as well as many other media outlets.

Meghan is also available to teach workshops on writing, interview techniques, blogging, feminist journalism, and podcasting. She has spoken on and moderated panels about sexism in the media, feminist journalism, and women writers. She lives in Vancouver, B.C. with her very photogenic dog, Emma (not pictured)."

www.feministcurrent.com/about

It is worth google searching her appearance on a recent panel. I don't have the link to hand.

Thanks to both!

Yes, you should know her. Quite prominent Canadian feminist - I love her analyses and her Twitter battles.

And I agree with her on the left/right issue. As a staunch antiwar advocate I have found great allies among libertarians - with whom I frevently disagree on all kinds of issues. But that‘s ok, they engage and are not dogmatic, and you get new perspectives. And I know, no matter how much my opinions annoy them, they won‘t try to shut me up.
Much of the vocal left has been very disappointing for me on many fronts, sadly.

deepwatersolo

I agree. As a lifelong Guardian reader before I became aware of the whole transgender issue, I now find much better coverage of gender-critical perspectives from right-of-centre publications and commentators, often a lot further to the right than I could ever have imagined myself reading in the past.

I agree with her too. Look at the way the only party showing stirrings of common sense and a connection to popular sentiment on the self-ID issue is the Tory Party. I hate their policies on austerity. I can't forgive them for the misery and actual physical harm they've caused the poor and disabled, and the total lack of respect for these vulnerable groups. I think they have a blind spot over Europe and have caused this country to take the single worst political decision I can ever remember, viz vote to leave the EU, and they have made an utter balls up of the negotiations. I will never forgive them for any of this. I've never voted Tory and I never will.

But I'm not tribal. The Labour Party is in just as bad a state. Corbyn couldn't run a piss up in a brewery. Utter abnegation of responsibility over Brexit. But in some ways I think their policies are even worse than the Tories'. They are driven by ideological fervour and have that mad glint in their eyes - Burn the witch! Burn the heretic!

Why have the Labour Party never elected a woman as leader? The Tories have managed it twice.

Why have Labour totally ignored all the dissenting voices of women over self-ID? Any fool can see what's going to happen when the general public finally get to hear that it's now party policy that Granny's carer or the practice nurse doing Mum's smear test can be a biological male who identifies as a woman, the secondary school toilets are now unisex and 11 yo Ruby won't use them, the Guide camp is now mixed sex and Grace had to share a tent with 13yo Lucy who was Leo last month but nobody told the family in advance, Joe who's been bingeing on Youtube and Tumblr is now known as Joelle at primary school but nobody told Mum and Dad because he says they're bigots who won't support him and Social Services are getting involved, and cousin Vicky, who's had a dreadful life and ended up in prison for lashing out at a police officer while she was off her head on cheap cider, has a 6'4" registered sex offender called Trixie housed alongside her in prison.

Brilliant Bittermints!

Meghan Murphy is 👌🏼

23/11 Meghan Murphy UnHerd Article, 'Why don’t trans activists practise what they preach?
What's so "kind" about threatening me with violence for airing my views?'
concludes:
"I’ve seen this first hand. Last month, I gave a talk in Kitchener, Ontario about the impact of trans activism on women’s rights. What was most interesting (and revealing) to me were the questions and comments from trans activists. One young woman asked, “How do you think your non-inclusive perception of woman and your non-inclusive language actually affects transgender people… [Do] you think you’re hurting their feelings?” In other words, rather than address any of the arguments I’d made in my talk, respond to any of the questions I’d asked or to any of the concerns I’d brought up, she wanted to talk about people’s “feelings”.

When I asked her to define the word “woman,” she replied, “I don’t want to be put on the spot.” When I asked why the word “woman” shouldn’t exclude men, she didn’t respond, and repeated, “I’m wondering how you think your words are affecting people’s feelings.”

I said, “Your words are affecting people’s lives.” Afterwards, the young woman tweeted, “I want to cry because I was just asking this question in attempt to understand if this woman possesses basic empathy… Deeply saddened by the blatant hate at this event yesterday.”

Far from uncommon, this is a go-to strategy on the parts of trans activists. When asked to explain their claims that “transwomen are women”, that individuals can change their sex, or, simply, what a “transwoman” or a “woman” is, they will refuse to respond, and instead accuse the questioner of being “mean,” “hurtful,” “hateful” or “bigoted”.

It’s a successful tactic, since most people do not wish to be considered “bad” or “hateful”. But when it comes to debating ideas and public policy, it makes no sense to avoid critical thinking or evidence, lest we upset those lobbying for the changes or ideology. Imagine if we were asked not to debate war or capitalism or climate change, lest it hurt the feelings of warmongers and capitalists and climate change deniers?

But beyond that, since when did being “nice” entail lying? Or rejecting critical thought? Is it “nice” to accept dogma one believes is harmful or irrational? If someone told you the earth was flat, would you agree in order to avoid hurting their feelings?

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Coddling of the American Mind, sees this trend as having originated on college campuses, where students have “medicalized” their aversion to certain ideas, books, words, and speakers. Rather than simply protest, as they would have in the past, students are claiming that these ideas, books, words, and speakers are actually harmful, traumatising, or even “literal violence”. And rather than debate these difficult ideas, they no-platform speakers and entirely avoid having to examine what, exactly, they say or believe is troubling about the ideas or words in question.

This isn’t an attitude that will save us from bad policies or harmful political ideologies. In fact, it is already preventing us from forming good ideas and legislation with regard to trans issues. Nor is it good philosophical practice to accept dogma unquestioningly. Besides, how “nice” is it to demand the public go along with your preferred beliefs, lest they be blacklisted, bullied, fired, threatened, or labelled as “bigoted”?

I’ve been threatened with violence online countless times, simply for asking questions about transgender ideology and gender identity legislation. Recently, Twitter locked my account because I tweeted the phrase, “men aren’t women”. This doesn’t strike me as particularly “nice” or open-minded behaviour. Yet somehow I am the one accused of “hate”.

Meghan Murphy
@MeghanEMurphy
Hi everyone! I've been locked out of Twitter since Monday morning. They demanded I remove the viral tweet complaining about having been locked out last week for saying that men aren't women. The tweet was at like 20,000 likes so I guess they didn't like that.

Twitter’s response, after I appealed the suspension, was that I had engaged in “hateful conduct”, thereby breaking “Twitter Rules”. The company declined to elaborate on how saying “men aren’t women” is “hateful” or where, specifically, in Twitter’s Terms of Service, it states users are not permitted to differentiate between men and women.

You may successfully shut people up using these tactics, just as people are silenced and made fearful of rocking the boat under dictatorships. But if this is the preferred way forward, let’s not carry on the charade of describing trans activism as a progressive movement towards acceptance. It smacks, instead, of tyranny."

unherd.com/2018/11/dont-trans-activists-practise-preach/

unherd.com/2018/11/dont-trans-activists-practise-preach/

R0wantrees, thanks for that (and for all you do - incredibly helpful). That first quote was so insightful. I personally think we have done the younger generation no favours by creating an educational system where they don't learn to cope with failure and merited criticism. Sink or swim isn't the way but the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

Bittermints, I'm glad its useful. There's so much information spread all over the place!
I agree wholeheartedly about how young people are being failed in universities.
I was listening to Jonathan Haidt, author of 'The Coddling of the American Mind' on Radio 4 this week. You might be interested in what he had to say- I cheered when he talked about the need to build both critical thinking and resilience
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3427907-Radio-4-Start-the-Week-Safe-spaces-and-snowflakes-interesting-nuanced-discussion-Jonathan-Haidt-Olivia-Sudjic-Yasmin-Alibhai-Brown-and-Mark-Ravenhill-with-Amol-Rajan

I'll listen to that later!

I’ve just seen her be compared to Alex Jones by left wing commentators and the tweet they were referring to said that men can’t be women

Someone else responded saying “Alexa, play ‘born this way’” which seemed ironic given that the point is that men were born men and women were born women! I think the lyrics also mention how “god makes no mistakes” which seems counter to the “brain in the wrong body”’narrative (I know it was a throw away remark and not a seminal piece of writing on the politics of transgenderism )

Meghan has just been permanently suspended from Twitter.

This Policy Exchange talk/panel was thought-provoking (it was live streamed and there is now an uploaded video of it on this link):

Jonathan Haidt, one of the western world’s most important social psychologists and public intellectuals, will be launching his book The Coddling of the American Mind (co-written with Greg Lukianoff) at Policy Exchange on Thursday evening November 22nd.
The book is an investigation into the new safety culture in US universities and the dangers it poses to free speech, mental health, education and ultimately democracy itself. The book challenges three great “untruths” that characterise the safety culture: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; life is a battle between good people and evil people.
This event will considered the extent to which these American trends have crossed the Atlantic and if so, whether they should be combatted. Does Britain need a local version of the Heterodox Academy, the organisation founded by Haidt to monitor and lobby against the intellectual monoculture in the humanities and social sciences?
Joining Haidt on the panel were Eric Kaufmann, Professor of Political Science at Birkbkeck, whose latest book Whiteshift on the decline of white majorities has been the subject of heated debate; Joanna Williams, Head of Education at Policy Exchange and the author of Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity; and Ken Macdonald the Liberal Democrat peer who has been at the centre of free speech debates at Oxford University where he is Warden of Wadham College.

policyexchange.org.uk/pxevents/is-there-an-ideological-monoculture-at-british-universities-and-does-it-matter/

Meghan has been permanently suspended from Twitter for saying men are not women, Ereshkigal?!?

A friend of mine makes documentaries and one job led her to North Korea. She described the people there very friendly and very child like. Of course there was supervision during most interactions, but she is convinced most of the childlike admiration of and deference to dear leader was genuine. Just for a lack of being exposed to any alternative world view.
There are other countries where you‘ll find the same, just less extreme. I very much feel that is where the West is headed, fully approved by our dear leaders.

Yes, that's about it, deepwatersolo.

Jonathan Haidt

In case anyone is wondering, his name rhymes with ‘height’ not ‘hate’.

I’ve gone through several periods of counselling and I’ve never once had a counsellor say ‘Just avoid stuff you don’t like.’

It’s all geared around facing your anxieties, albeit gradually.

A university should be a physically safe space but they shouldn’t be protecting you from ‘harmful’ ideas.

If you know everything already you shouldn’t be in university in the first place: give your place to someone who acknowledges their ignorance and wants to learn.

Meghan has just been permanently suspended from Twitter

What? The woke techies of Silicon Valley are definitely on the march. It's only days since WordPress took down the excellent GenderTrender and Gender Watch blogs, on the pretext that they had breached a newly updated and unpublicised change of service terms, which bans deadnaming. They really do want to silence women, at least female-born, gender-critical ones.

I generally spend what little spare time I have on Twitter and am deeply disturbed that Meghan has been permanently suspended. Generally speaking, as well as not being allowed to say that men are not women, it now seems that dead naming even convicted rapists and the like is being censored. There are, of course, mutterings that someone employed by Twitter is having undue influence in these decisions and there is the suggestion of a class action being mounted.

I'm waiting for Index on Censorship to speak up about what is happening on Twitter and Wordpress and with every hour that passes, I'm increasingly concerned that they will not.

www.indexoncensorship.org

I'm stunned that Meghan Murphy has been banned. She may write things which TRAs don't like, but I've not read anything transphobic in her writing. It's just woman-centred. It's just more silencing of women. Difficult to fight back against it online.

Whenever I think of Twitter I remember a couple of years ago when they banned the person who reported accounts openly sharing pictures of child sex abuse.

MM is good value.