Helen Lewis in The Guardian

[justcly]

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/15/feminism-feminists-tyranny-niceness-complexity

Well worth a read.

Again, I think part of the Guardian's gentle reverse ferret going on.

Think they are starting to realise that they've annoyed a lot of their core market of left-wing feminists, so trying to up the feminist content but without also attracting too much ire from scary TRAs.

Better than where they were, but they've still got a long way to go.

I thought it was a good piece. Though the bit about ‘older feminists’ believing in rigid gender roles is a bit of a misread of the second and third wave for me. Also anti union stuff was happening way before Thatcher, including by labour governments.

But I liked it as an antidote to ‘be kind’ (let your boundaries be overridden in my view) and liked the centring of respect.

“I cannot personally think of any widespread injustice that has been remedied by plodding worthily down the middle of the road, smiling and smiling,” wrote Jill Tweedie in 1971. “If you are sure of the justice of your cause it must be better to have people thinking of it with initial anger than not thinking at all.”

There's a blast from the past! And it would have been so helpful if the District Judge in Scottow's case had read that plus similar remarks about kindness and adjusted her remarks accordingly.

Some young activists saw the older generation as conservatives, wedded to fixed ideas of what men and women could be, whereas they felt gender was much more fluid and playful.

A very odd thing to say. Feminism was never about 'fixed ideas of what men and women could be'. And wasn't 'gender' much more fluid and playful in the 80s?

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/15/feminism-feminists-tyranny-niceness-complexity Clickable link.

I thought it was a strong article

They're still going to need to do more to get a sniff of my money, but I welcome the reverse ferreting.

That's a really good read. Reflects nuance and choice.

I think that might have been expressed in a clumsy way.

'Fixed ideas of what men and women could be' vs 'gender is more fluid and playful' to me suggests that she is trying to say that young activists have swallowed whole the idea that gender has nothing to do with sex and anybody can choose the gender label they think best fits them. Gender is what matters to them, not the body you happen to have been born into.

'Could be' in the first sentence might be a conflation (late edit?) of 'are' and 'have sexed bodies which affect our lives in various ways because of our different anatomy and reproductive roles'. This would be my position. I am firmly of the view that sex is binary and can't be changed and I would like to see more emphasis on helping people to feel comfortable in their own bodies. Getting rid of gender steretypes would be a good start. Obviously I don't believe in gendered brains. It amazes me that anybody does.

'Fixed ideas of what men and women could be' vs 'gender is more fluid and playful' to me suggests that she is trying to say that young activists have swallowed whole the idea that gender has nothing to do with sex and anybody can choose the gender label they think best fits them. Gender is what matters to them, not the body you happen to have been born into.

But that would only make sense if the younger people think that anyone can choose their own reproductive role (maybe some of them do think that). But the feminist movement has never been about being "wedded to fixed ideas of what men and women could be", it's always been about the opposite. I honestly have no idea what she means here.

I liked this quote from the article “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is,” wrote Rebecca West in 1913. “I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.”

I love Helen Lewis. I wish she wrote more.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself,” wrote George Bernard Shaw in 1903. “Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” (Or, as I always catch myself adding, the unreasonable woman.)*

I think of us as bloody minded but difficult will do Here’s to all you unreasonable women who won’t sit down & shut up

That was meant to be Unreasonable will do 🤦🏻‍♀️

Hi @GeordieTerf. Have you signed up to Helen’s Bluestocking weekly email? Also, she writes beautifully for The Atlantic these days.

Hi to everyone else here. I’ve been lurking for over five years. Thought I’d finally take the plunge and join the conversation.

Helen Joyce on Be Jamie Boyce made an interesting point about the Guardian’s failure to cover transgenderism. She blames the free to view/voluntary donations model, one consequence of which is that the G has become dependent upon the woke American reader for survival.

Also, a very good review of her book in yesterday's (15th Feb 20) Times Saturday Review by Melanie Reid - "Feminist Campaigners got nowhere by being nice".

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/difficult-women-by-helen-lewis-review-the-awkward-squad-v-the-patriarchy-b2df3zs6t

Sorry, don't have share token. I actually now buy paper copies on a Saturday to catch Janice Turner, so this was a bonus.

Observer Book of the Week today: www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/16/difficult-women-history-of-feminism-11-fights-helen-lewis-review

Ends with a subtle warning:

"what I loved most of all is her clear respect for those who went before us, particularly the second wave. Not for her the dismissiveness of some younger feminists for older women. Lewis understands that we are all products of our time; that we stand on shifting sands. In this context, respect seems like a rare solid thing and it should be given freely. Enough cudgels are wielded at feminism without us going after those who were, and are, basically on our side."

Welcome @Korimiko

Just Googled events for Difficult Women, where Helen will be launching/speaking about the book. Several London & Cambridge dates came up if people are interested, go get a ticket 😁

Think they are starting to realise that they've annoyed a lot of their core market of left-wing feminists, so trying to up the feminist content but without also attracting too much ire from scary TRAs

One very woke woman on my SM has already been totally enraged by that Catherine Bennett piece about defining 'transphobia'. There is no leeway for anyone to give even an inch on this.

I agree. They have left no room to be nice. You either capitulate to the cult or face labelling as a 'transphobe'. The backlash is building and they won't be the winners.

Rosie Duffield MP has tweeted Helen Lewis to say she loved the article has been jumped on for praising a ‘terf’. She could probably do with some
more supportive comments if anyone here is a Twitter type.

twitter.com/rosieduffield1/status/1229014904750952455?s=21

Has Rosie signed the pledge?

But that would only make sense if the younger people think that anyone can choose their own reproductive role

It could be they mean reproductive role in a larger sense - including things like being primary care giver, or not having kids at all. It's still a stretch but I think a lot of young women who haven't had kids think all the stuff after pushing out the baby is up for grabs. (And TBF I've heard a fair few older feminists make the same claim.)

I have to say, I think part of the reason this disconnect has happened at all is that the gender critical stance, this idea that we could have a society without gender, is really pie in the sky, it can never happen and probably would not be very nice if it did. Our sexual realities always assert themselves in ways that are not just completely directly related to reproduction. In any pre-modern society the hole pattern of daily life for the whole culture will be shaped by them, our experiences as a group are shaped by our sexed bodies, our relation to other people is impacted by our awareness of their sexual role compared to our own, sometimes in a very positive way, sometimes very negative, sometimes is a rather complicated way. It becomes reflected in our laws. It inserts itself into our cultural expressions, art, literature, myth, our perceptions of nature.

When we think we could somehow get rid of all of this, I think it creates a sort of blind spot, or paradox. We know we have this sense, but it's as if people think our cultural expression of sexual dimorphism is a random and so could be rearranged in any which way. Not just switching something like pink to boys or blue to girls, or parenting roles between the sexes, or whatever - instead the expressions are still there but they are still there but are like points on a graph that has no labels.

I'm not entirely expressing myself well, but I guess I mean that I think if we acknowledged that gender is always going to exist, and to some extent most people like it to, we could much more easily talk about ways in which it might be problematic and deal with those. There will always be masculinity and femininity because we will always know and think of ourselves in all the ways that our sexual bodies interface with the world and our experience and relation to the other. But we don't want those to be prisons for people.