Selina Todd, threats, security, wrong side of history my arse

[janeskettle]

Prof Selina Todd, a historian who specialises in the lives of women and the working class, said that she has now been provided with “routine security” to ensure she is not attacked {by TRA's}

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/23/oxford-university-professor-given-security-guards-lectures-threats/

Female historian needs security guards on campus (Oxford) to accompany her to lectures because of threats.

And we're the aggressive orthodoxy!!! I don't bloody think so!!

It may be that they are taking action. I don’t know. Oxford has been better than most universities about defending staff actually. At the same time, it seems to have particularly aggressive and nasty students involved in this.
Sally Hines is awful. I would be so depressed if I worked in her department. I don’t know how anyone can say it’s not one-sided anymore. It’s disgusting outright misogyny. I hope heads roll for this in the future. People like Sally Hines, Allison Phipps and many others have actively encouraged these attacks and bullying against their colleagues. I suspect some of it is jealousy. Both Phipps and Hines, but especially Hines, are pretty piss-poor in terms of the work they produce. They need to be aggressive because otherwise their weaknesses would be exposed. They pale in comparison with someone like Selina.

Other aggressive so-called feminist academics who talk about how disgusting TERFs are tend to fall into the precariously employed sector, many of them having struggled to find a job at all or only able to find fixed term work. I suspect a lot of their anger is also directed at those who have the permanent jobs that they believe themselves to deserve. I don’t blame them for their anger about the precarious job market but I would never employ any of them following some of the misogynistic rubbish they have tweeted and the way they have attacked women who don’t agree with them.

I don’t know how anyone can say it’s not one-sided anymore. It’s disgusting outright misogyny. I hope heads roll for this in the future

Yes, people must be held accountable. The blatant misogyny of it is just shocking. Ten years ago, the idea that an Oxford historian would require bodyguards because of her feminist perspective? Unimaginable. But here we are.

Prospective employers would be very interested in the ‘student activists’ activities too. They do realise that they have to go out into the real world - and the Internet never forgets?

The 'pro trans' lobby can do no wrong as far as the Guardian and BBC are concerned, so when they do do wrong, they ignore it. If a far right group had been attacking Selina Todd, they'd have been on her side.

And they wouldn't even have to take sides as such, just report the facts. They can't have looked at this story and deemed it not newsworthy.

And they wouldn't even have to take sides as such, just report the facts. They can't have looked at this story and deemed it not newsworthy.

Yes, in this case they could have reported that an Oxford University professor needs to be protected by security guards at work due to threats to her safety from some students. No opinion on the facts needs to be stated. Readers can then go to another source with more detail and then go wtf?

The BBC and the Guardian are relying on the fact that many people use them (and other similar news sources) as their only source of news. Such people will dismiss the Times, Telegraph and Mail as right wing bigotry, and insist that if media outlets like the BBC and Guardian aren't covering something it isn't happening/isn't important.

Maajid Nawaz LBC is going to be covering this today. Not sure if he's doing it at 1 o'clock or 2 o'clock.

OK, it's going to be 2 o'clock.

The BBC and the Guardian are relying on the fact that many people use them (and other similar news sources) as their only source of news. Such people will dismiss the Times, Telegraph and Mail as right wing bigotry, and insist that if media outlets like the BBC and Guardian aren't covering something it isn't happening/isn't important

OldCrone
That's an interesting point. It is the very definition of an echo chamber. The Guardian's 'journalists' who think news is regurgitating Twitter memes, were in shock and awe after the election result. Their insularity explains why.

The BBC and the Guardian are relying on the fact that many people use them (and other similar news sources) as their only source of news. Such people will dismiss the Times, Telegraph and Mail as right wing bigotry, and insist that if media outlets like the BBC and Guardian aren't covering something it isn't happening/isn't important.

I was discussing media bias with my intelligent, Guardian-devotee parents, who were staggered when I disagreed with their view that the Guardian is less biased than other outlets. You can't judge what you just don't see. I've other friends who also stuck to the Guardian and are totally unaware of the whole issue. It's disgraceful.

The bbc headline calls it trans "threats" which rather diminishes the fact that real and believable threats have clearly been made

BBC News has to save £85 million. They've sacked Vic. Maybe Ben Hunte could be next?

Now picked up by the BBC news site.

Oxford professor given protection following threats from trans activists
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-51248684

Prof Todd said universities were not a place for bigotry, but somewhere to have a "respectful, democratic debate" that was "evidence-based".
She continued: "This might sound like a storm in a teacup and something that's just about student activists but students become graduates and Oxford students tend to become graduates who go into things like politics, the media or the civil service.
"So if they are learning that no debate is the way to run a society we should all be worried."

his might sound like a storm in a teacup and something that's just about student activists but students become graduates and Oxford students tend to become graduates who go into things like politics, the media or the civil service."So if they are learning that no debate is the way to run a society we should all be worried

littlebrowndog

That is an excellent point. Imagine when this cadre of authoritarians are in pole position across the establishment?

That is an excellent point. Imagine when this cadre of authoritarians are in pole position across the establishment?

Many already are

R0wan

I agree. This lobby has some extremely well placed, influential advocates strategically placed in key roles.

Maajid not covering it now. Continuing with coverage of facial recognition technology. (Shoulder shrug emoji).

They do rowan and ovary

Rember what Lang said about regulatory capture

Jeez bovary not ovary

Jeez bovary not ovary

If a far right group had been attacking Selina Todd, they'd have been on her side

You're right!

I have to guard against posting before I've thought something through fully, as well as how I want to express it.

The BBC and the Guardian are relying on the fact that many people use them (and other similar news sources) as their only source of news.

Yup.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/27/male-genitalia-week-in-patriarchy-women
"While the Yaniv case has been going on for a while now, you may not have heard much about it, as it has largely been covered by the rightwing press."

What's interesting on the BBC news story
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-51248684 ,
is that it's currently showing as 3rd "most read" item, at the time of typing this.

Front page of the BBC?

Carefully, BBC, it looks like you're in danger of taking threats against women seriously.

I had thought it was a blanket no-debate, no-platforming ban on this subject?

Move along, nothing to see here, female academics require security presence for wrongthink, tut and move along ...

A bit more from the Guardian article. I wanted to see if they had some sort of excuse for not covering the Yaniv story for so long. (Spoiler - they didn't)

"While the Yaniv case has been going on for a while now, you may not have heard much about it, as it has largely been covered by the rightwing press. The sort of outlets that normally joke about consent and women’s rights are now outraged that women are being forced to handle male genitalia against their will. The sort of writers that are normally whipping up hate against immigrants are now outraged and concerned that at least one of the beautificians that Yaniv has filed complaints against is a poor migrant."

So why wasn't the Guardian covering it? Presumably the Guardian identifies as a left wing newspaper which stands up for consent and womens rights and is outraged about people who whip up hate against immigrants.

Could it be that the Guardian found itself caught between standing up for women and immigrants and standing up for trans people, no matter what their behaviour? And they didn't know which side to support. Because it's normally the side of the brave and stunning, but when the brave and stunning are actually causing harm to women and ethnic minorites, should they still support them?

Obviously the only sensible thing to do was keep their heads down until they could establish that either Yaniv was actually a "troll" and a racist, or that the women were just transphobic bigots. And until they knew for sure, they were leaving it to the right wing press to report on it.

It's what happens when you decide the right of a man to self-declare himself a woman is more important than the right of a woman not to be forced to believe that he has changed sex.