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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Refreshing insightful discussion- Unwoke - Douglas Murray and Titania McGrath

33 replies

BolloxtoGender · 22/11/2019 20:18

OP posts:
AutumnRose1 · 28/11/2019 20:36

@DuMondeB

thank you, I will watch that.

I spoke out against "positive discrimination" and that time and got roasted. Did anyone see the play "Great Britain"? There's someone there who got his job to fill a quota about skin colour - something I say on here about myself which seems to upset people - and the character and the problem were very well portrayed. My writing group and my social group absolutely hated me for agreeing with that. I apologised to one man in the writing group because he was so upset at how funny I found that character.

I rarely go to writing groups now for many reasons but one is choking on the woke.

re the writing, I did pitch my novel to a couple of agents who were positive, but within writing groups I was asked why I was writing an English historical novel, with a clear implication that it's not my heritage because of my skin colour. It becomes impossible to tell if you're being trolled by a racist or if someone really believes they are "right" in their approach.

Goosefoot · 28/11/2019 21:21

This isn't the problem. It might be a problem but it's dwarfed by the real problem. The real problem is people who are not marginalised (in the lingo these would be called people who have privilege) weaponising identity politics to damage those who they perceive as the enemy, who can be anyone, privileged, marginalised, whatever.

Both of these things are part of why the whole concept is problematic though. There is no awareness that human nature, people who are privileged or oppressed or somewhere in between, will use any kind of hierarchical social structure to advantage. So where we have those structures they need to be balanced in a way that protects against that.

That's not to say it is always or usually easy to achieve that, arguably it's the ongoing and never-ending project of political history. But if you actually believe at the outset that some groups of people are too pure or good or powerless and so there is no need, I can guarantee that people will take advantage of that at some point.

This kind of identity essentialism undermines the idea of universal humanity and entrenches whatever differences of identity that are named and validated as vectors for power. It's inevitable they will function that way, and also tend to encourage the creation of more categories.

nauticant · 28/11/2019 21:29

This kind of identity essentialism undermines the idea of universal humanity

It always surprises me when I think of the decades of the Civil Rights movement striving to instill understanding that people are effectively the same and should be treated equally being supplanted easily with an ideology obsessed with identifying the differences between groups and putting in place hierarchies of rights.

AutumnRose1 · 28/11/2019 21:34

It's almost as if they want to see certain groups as being so oppressed, we will never ever be able to get out of it.

I've been told many times to "take advantage" of the fact that people are so obsessed with "diversity".

I hope these two can take on the endless form filling. I am amazed how many people think this is helpful. As it say, it winds up that I don't know if someone is being sarcastically racist to me, spectacularly stupid, or just hasn't thought at all and got taught some really unfortunate woke lessons.

And I do feel very sorry for the generations being told "no debate" even at school level.

NonnyMouse1337 · 28/11/2019 22:05

Reminds me of Mother Teresa being paraded about as a saint and an amazing person, when she actually didn't really want to relieve the pain and suffering of poor people, but did her best to glorify it instead.
Identity politics doesn't seem concerned with actually helping people who are marginalised or oppressed. They prefer perpetual suffering because it keeps the 'oppression matrix' going.

AutumnRose1 · 28/11/2019 22:20

Murray's book on immigration contains a couple of jaw dropping accounts of what some people have done to show "atonement" to certain countries. I'm sorry I can't recall precise details, but non-politicians arranging trips abroad to go through a sort of ceremony to apologise to people whose countries their ancestors upset 400 years ago.

though if anyone saw the Helena Bonham Carter thread yesterday, you'll know what I mean!

Needmoresleep · 29/11/2019 16:38

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/11/holly-rigby-and-the-ignorance-of-the-corbynistas/

The Spectator has kindly offered me a free trial this weekend and I am making the most of it. Douglas Murray sounds very fed up with the invective he has been receiving. When will people realise insults are not debate.

AutumnRose1 · 29/11/2019 23:51

I still want to give him a big hug but that’s probably no less annoying for him 😂

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