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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Support for J K Rowling

116 replies

Dances · 10/06/2020 12:11

I wanted to record journalists etc support for JK Rowling

Here is Nick Cohen retweeting boodleoops article, which is really worth a read

mobile.twitter.com/NickCohen4/status/1270638584740134913

Please add any you see

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nauticant · 13/06/2020 13:06

Andrew Lawrence came out in support right at the start:

twitter.com/andrewlawrence/status/1269686157090193408

In case you've not heard of him he's most famous for having his comedy career destroyed for crimes against wokery. With that background he doesn't seem to be inclined to tread very carefully in case anyone might be offended.

OunceOfFlounce · 13/06/2020 13:21

Not a sleb but channel 4 fact check has confirmed a fact

mobile.twitter.com/FactCheck/status/1271475504659521539

OunceOfFlounce · 13/06/2020 13:24

Ha, wrong thread but it works better being posted here.

contactusdeletus · 13/06/2020 14:00

@TheRattleBag

SirSamuel I'm sure Granny Weatherwax would have given short shrift to any TWAW nonsense! Grin
I hope so. I've always been a bit uncomfortable with the resolution of Granny's story in the last Tiffany Aching book. Her death was lovely - and Tiffany dancing with the bees made me cry - but I didn't like that her cottage goes to the first ever male witch after her death. It basically means a teenage boy takes over her job as witch in Lancre.

What woman would be comfortable with a teenage boy as her midwife? I understand that Tiffany was too of the Chalk to relocate to Lancre, but was there no grown woman who could step into Granny's shoes? Why not bring back Agnes, or have Magrat become a working mother now her daughter is a little older? Or if the point was that no-one could ever replace Granny and something totally unlike her was needed, then why not write a new female witch who just has a very different way of operating? Women aren't all alike, after all. Bringing in a man isn't the only way to shake things up.

The last two Discworld books (Raising Steam and The Shepherd's Crown) were hard to read for me as a Pratchett fan, because by that stage you could tell it had gone from writing-by-dictation to writing-by-giving-someone-else-the-general-outline-and-letting-them-fill-it-in. I understand why it was so important to all involved to finish the story, but I honestly find those books painful to read. You lose so much of the essence of what makes Pratchett Pratchett. Not just the humour but the way he had of getting right to the heart of an issue.

The "male witch" plot felt so half-baked. Half-there, half-finished. It was clear there was supposed to be some toxic masculinity stuff in there, and some "how do you live up to a big legacy" questions to ponder, but it never seemed to click into place. It feels like the character was written by someone else, or like something was lost in translation. Terry would normally not have a male character shoot straight to the top of a female led profession without making a point about it being the glass escalator in action.

SirSamuelVimesBlackboardMonito · 13/06/2020 14:07

@contactus I haven't read that far. I am deliberately staying away from the later books, partly as I honestly don't think I can bear to part with Granny Weatherwax yet, and partly because I have heard so many people say similar to you about the last few books, and I don't want to see (through reading) what Alzheimer's did to that brilliant, brilliant mind.

TirisfalPumpkin · 14/06/2020 07:49

I have seen a meme doing the rounds about how Pratchett’s dwarves are a trans metaphor. I think it’s a bit of a reach but, while I love him, some of his books were a bit heavy handed with the IRL left wing politics and social justice allegories. I could imagine him getting on the bandwagon because it looks superficially kind and inclusive. This is all speculative and I have no idea what his actual view was.

contactusdeletus · 14/06/2020 10:24

@SirSamuelVimesBlackboardMonito I completely understand. Raising Steam is the only one I would just say "don't read". The Shepherd's Crown and Snuff both waver in quality, but do have moments to make up for it. If you brace yourself for that going in I find reading them a better experience. But all the other books are still the Pratchett you know and love, and I recommend them wholeheartedly.

Glenda Sugarbean in Unseen Academicals is a special favourite of mine. I really enjoyed watching her realize that she'd been conditioned to a caretaker role by society, and decide that she doesn't have to be cold and selfish - that it's perfectly alright to have her own ambitions and go her own way, no matter what society thinks of it. The metaphor of "the crab bucket" really resonated with me.

@TirisfalPumpkin I've seen that too but always considered it a case of the point sailing right over the gender crowd's head. In the Discworld books, female dwarves are all of the female sex. And what they want is to be liberated from a one-size-fits-all dwarf society that pretends to be "unisex" but is actually just universally male. Female people living as if they were male is shown to have some benefits (status, respect, a position as the "default" in society). But time and again we see female dwarves longing to assert themselves as separate from the males. Longing for connection with each other. Longing for a different way of doing things. There's never any "born in the wrong body" stuff, just the belief that female is its own class and deserves to be treated as such.

I find it funny that so many of the non-binary crowd fix on the dwarves as representation, because their movement represents everything Cheery and the other dwarf women are trying to escape. A world where "gender neutral" = "male-coded" and there are literally no words for the female experience.

Pratchett wasn't perfect and it is possible he would have fallen to the genderists eventually if he'd lived. But I find it hard to imagine, after a book like Monstrous Regiment, or with characters like the dwarves, whose feminist movement is entirely sex-based. Claiming them is just wishful thinking from the genderist crowd, in my opinion.

SirSamuelVimesBlackboardMonito · 14/06/2020 10:30

@contact I was just coming on to write about the dwarves but you've said everything I wanted to, and so much better than I would have!

I will probably read them all eventually. But then I would reach that terrible point of having no more new, unread discworld! So I am going to stick to my enforced go slow. Am up to Night Watch, chronologically, but currently rereading Reaper Man.

merrymouse · 14/06/2020 11:12

Re: female dwarfs in disc world, sex still exists, and one type of dwarf still has to have the dwarf babies.

"All dwarfs have beards and wear many layers of clothing. Their courtships are largely concerned with finding out, in
delicate and circumspect ways, what sex the other dwarf is." Moving Pictures

Whatsnewpussyhat · 14/06/2020 16:29

Not GC but saying what the likes of Emma Watson etc could've easily said.

Support for J K Rowling
contactusdeletus · 14/06/2020 19:56

@SirSamuelVimesBlackboardMonito and@merrymouse : Thank you! That ended up being a bit of a rant but I see the "Discworld dwarves are all trans" take all the time and it really irritates me. It's like they read the books with their eyes closed.

TirisfalPumpkin · 14/06/2020 21:36

Thanks for the dwarf explanation. Been a while since I read the books; my favourites were always the wizards but I loved Granny Weatherwax too. I think she’d stare down this nonsense pretty quickly.

SunsetBeetch · 18/06/2020 08:50

Dana International

“Dear J.K. Rowling, I send you love and kisses from Israel,” [Dana] International wrote on her Instagram account after Rowling tweeted: “If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased.”

t.co/zQFEUGfkUC

SunsetBeetch · 18/06/2020 09:08

Kirstie Allsop.

Support for J K Rowling
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