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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Sunday Times today

49 replies

mcduffy · 08/03/2020 06:29

I've been up since 5 (side eye to DD2) so have had a scan of the paper already
Letters to the editor re Tavistock clinic/Keira Bell from Prof Michael Biggs from Oxford University and from Toby Young in his capacity as gen sec of the Free Speech Union
In the magazine, I've not read them all yet!
An article on biological sex and why women's genes are different/superior by Dr Sharon Moalem (an excellent read and lots about biological reality)
An article on why cars are unsafe for women by Caroline Criado-Perez, one on how rape is used as a weapon of war and one on Japan's "comfort women" plus feminists storming 1970 Miss World.
India Knight on equality with a great paragraph in the middle on no-platforming and TRAs Grin pleased that she's spoken up after retweeting Suzanne Moore this week.
Any more that anyone has spotted?

OP posts:
Cuntysnark · 08/03/2020 11:25

Thank you for the share token Languishing. That was a shocking read.

DuchessDumbarton · 08/03/2020 11:39

Thank you Languishing and ErrolTheDragon who had also shared upthread.
That is a devastating read.
I get very angry about this. We are already living in Gilead, just that some of us haven't spotted it yet.

Binterested · 08/03/2020 11:44

I was glad to see the MOS article even though I didnt agree with a lot of it. It seemed to quote heavily what men think and to rely on stereotypes. Still good to see views being published. And discussion being had.

I don’t think James Damore should have been sacked although I do think he’s wrong about coding (which was originally a women’s job and has he ever seen a knitting pattern ?)

This is the difference between us and the Guardian Youth Club members. We can appreciate a range of views and can try to tease out the truth from a range of sources.

lionheart · 08/03/2020 12:04

I'm afraid I don't have a share token but this book, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb looks vital.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/our-bodies-their-battlefield-by-christina-lamb-review-how-the-rape-of-women-is-used-as-a-weapon-of-war-35l6lrj6p

lionheart · 08/03/2020 12:06

I also noticed the Sunday Times foldout relating to diversity and inclusion in business. It had one article on trans inclusion (right at the back) with mention of the 'simple' solution of gender neutral toilets.

knittedgoldfish · 08/03/2020 13:27

I did read the whole article. The issues are being discussed from the following angle:

"His error was to have suggested in a thoughtful email sent to some colleagues that there might be both biological and psychological differences between men and women which had affected the failure of the company’s ‘diversity’ policy to increase the percentage of its employees who were female, particularly in ‘high-status’ positions and systems engineering."

How thoughtful of Damore to suggest that the reason there aren't women in high status positions is because they are biologically and psychologically ill suited to it. The other topics are discussed from that initial premise. For example, it mentions GG and says that the discussion of trans and women's rights is the "collision of Groupthink ideologies".

It's offensive rubbish which seeks to put women back in their stereotypical box. We are natural nurturers, not leaders or coders, apparently.

nauticant · 08/03/2020 14:59

Should we be free to discuss offensive rubbish, or if we see it must we not acknowledge it in any way?

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 08/03/2020 15:04

It's offensive rubbish which seeks to put women back in their stereotypical box. We are natural nurturers, not leaders or coders, apparently.

And here we are discussing it.

RoyalCorgi · 08/03/2020 15:20

I'm afraid I don't have a share token but this book, Our Bodies, Their Battlefield by Christina Lamb looks vital.

There's also a fantastic review of it in the Observer today by Peter Frankopan. It looks an incredibly painful read, though.

www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/08/our-bodies-their-battlefield-christina-lamb-review-women-war-rape-victims

Re: the Booker article in the Mail. The first half seemed to be to be very anti-feminist. The stuff about gender ID was better, though I initially wondered why he hadn't used more recent examples - and then I remembered that he died last summer.

knittedgoldfish · 08/03/2020 15:25

nauticant, I already addressed that in my first and second posts. It was shared without comment on a thread of links to good articles seemingly. Hence why I expressed surprise. I would expect it to be shared with comment about why it's not right. Never did I say it must not be acknowledged so I'm not sure why you're saying that.

Violetparis · 08/03/2020 15:28

Lots of deleted comments on The Guardian's IWD rolling coverage, their moderaters are being kept very busy today.

OldCrone · 08/03/2020 15:39

I did read the whole article.

What did you think about these parts of it goldfish?

Cardiff University students banned a lecture by the one-time feminist icon Germaine Greer. Their charge was that she was guilty of ‘transphobia’, for saying that she couldn’t regard a man who wished to switch gender as really a woman, because he hadn’t grown up with the experience of being a woman from birth.

...few were more resentful of the new transgender obsession than the more radical feminists, who strongly objected to the idea of men who had ‘changed sex’ being allowed to use women’s changing rooms or being sent to female prisons.

Of particular concern was the case of Martin Ponting, someone then calling themselves a woman but retaining male genitalia, who had been found guilty of raping two women. After insisting on being sent to a female prison, Ponting promptly began to make sexual advances to other inmates.

Meanwhile, in September 2017, when the chairman of the Commons Women and Equalities Committee was leading calls for an amendment to the 2010 Equality Act, to change the legal definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, a group of feminists arranged a meeting to discuss ‘What is gender? ’

This so outraged the militant transgender activists, who classified them as ‘Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists’ or TERFS (with such slogans as ‘TERFS must die’), that they determined to prevent the meeting taking place.

one 60-year-old bespectacled feminist photographing the scene was smacked in the face by a burly ‘hooded, male- bodied’ transgender, who smashed her camera to the ground. This was justified by other transgenders, who claimed that they were made to feel ‘unsafe’ by the ‘systemic violence’ of those who disagreed with them, and that physical retaliation was only ‘self-defence’.

Equally disconcerting was the experience of James Caspian, an academic and psychotherapist at Bath Spa University. Himself gay, he had become a respected expert on transgender issues.

However, he had been increasingly troubled by evidence that a rising number of people, particularly women, had, after ‘transitioning’ to the opposite sex, wanted to change back.

To pursue this idea, Caspian applied to his university for a grant to produce a study entitled ‘An examination of the experience of people who have undergone gender reassignment procedures and/or have reversed a gender transition’.

He said he was well aware that his findings would not be regarded as ‘politically correct’ but, with the issue being so one-sidedly promoted, he wanted to see the other side of the argument properly discussed.

Bath Spa rejected his grant application on the grounds that ‘the posting of unpleasant material on blogs or social media may be detrimental to the reputation of the university’.

knittedgoldfish · 08/03/2020 15:56

It calls to mind the phrase your enemy's enemy is not your friend. (Not that I actually think of trans people as in any way "the enemy", but you get my meaning I'm sure - I'd never endorse an article written from the slant that this one is).

ScrimpshawTheSecond · 08/03/2020 16:31

I want to know all the angles, all the views. I have no interest in maintaining a bubble that only reinforces what I already think/believe/know. So I will buy/read any paper, the more the better, and try to get as broad and nuanced a view of whatever topic as possible.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 08/03/2020 17:06

Most people are able to read things even if they don't agree with the content.
Are you not able to do this?

lionheart · 08/03/2020 18:09

Thanks RoyalCorgi.

FrogsFrogs · 08/03/2020 18:51

Mail article harks to a return to 'old fashioned values' and natural sexed roles in society

Not my cup of tea but share away by all means

knittedgoldfish · 08/03/2020 20:53

CaptainKirk... I have read it. Your post makes no sense as a response to the point I was making. It's also quite rude - I'm not sure what I've said to foster such a hostile response from you.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to have found the article pretty anti feminist. It's galling that it was published on IWD.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 08/03/2020 22:11

CaptainKirk... I have read it. Your post makes no sense as a response to the point I was making. It's also quite rude - I'm not sure what I've said to foster such a hostile response from you.

See this is strange isn't it, you assume it is a response to 'you' despite the fact that you know it makes no sense as a response to you.
We've not actually interacted at all on the thread.

It's actually following on the thought line from the poster directly above my post.

BeetrootRocks · 08/03/2020 22:29

I don't think there's anything wrong with knittedgoldfish original point that the mail article is a strange choice to post as a positive one on fwr. It is.

I've read it and that's how I feel too.

Nothing wrong in stating that, surely.

Goosefoot · 08/03/2020 22:40

I don’t think James Damore should have been sacked although I do think he’s wrong about coding

To me his ideas read as largely not being about coding itself but the work environment in tech - he thought they could get more women in if they made changes to make the work environment itself more appealing.

There is some reason to think that when women have the choice, they prefer a somewhat different work environment to men, that's not a crazy idea, it seems to be what happens in places where there is more equality around different types of work. I thought some of his ideas were likely to be a lot more effective at attracting women than the ones the company was pursuing.

Goosefoot · 08/03/2020 22:41

I think sometimes a thread starts with one post about something like an article the poster likes, and others may not all be in quite the same vein, it's more like one thing leads to another.

CaptainKirksSpikeyGhost · 08/03/2020 22:44

Nothing wrong in stating that, surely.

You'd think so but my post above defending knitteds right to state it was seen as hostile.

TheProdigalKittensReturn · 08/03/2020 22:49

I haven't even bothered looking at The Guardian, as it's going to be hard to cover IWD if you don't know what a woman is and I really didn't feel like scrolling through 50 "a woman is a vague amorphous blob of feelings that's probably attached to a penis" articles. Are they getting it in the neck from commenters? They've been just not allowing comments on gender related articles the last few times I looked, presumably because the deletions were failing to improve compliance.

That Times subscription has been worth far more than what I paid for it. Maybe when The Guardian eventually sack Hadley Freeman, or she gets tired of working for them, The Times can give her a job.

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