If we can't define what a woman is, how can we organise politically? Suzanne Moore in the Guardian!!

[stumbledin]

Well - have the wheels turned a bit at the Guardian or what???

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/03/define-what-a-woman-is-organise-politically-suzanne-moore

I'm sorry, but no volume of articles about material reality will change my mind about The Guardian now.

They are not just on the wrong side of history; they are on the side of evil. And I do not use that word lightly.

Once you publish articles that suggest something as basic and real as biological sex does not exist and that the concept has no use in culture or society, then you will publish anything, you will advocate for anything, you will support anything so long as you perceive it to be in your favour.

As human beings, the only stop we have before the gates of hell is the ability to recognise material reality and speak the truth of it. It is the only thing that anchors us to sanity and the winding path of progress.

The Guardian published and supported writers that advocated for what were little more than contemporary superstitious statements about the nature of the soul that twisted language into knots, and elevated those statements above every other consideration, be they economic, cultural or social.

They essentially supported the birth of a new religion that came with a priesthood and an Inquisition already in place.

I hope that newspaper collapses in infamy and becomes a morality tale for future generations.

@Packingsoapandwater Amen to that

@Floisme

Great article but I had to go hunting through the graun website before I found it - couldn't see a link to it on their front page. It's still at number 6 in the 'most viewed' list though so if they were hoping to hide it away, it's not working .

It was there for me. Right on the front page. I almost fell over with shock.

Now that's interesting Flamingo cos I looked for ages before and I'm damned if I could see it. sure as hell it But thank you

Excuse nonsensical wording - trying to write too many posts at once.

Just surfing the internet and this quote from 2015 popped up from Catherine Mackinnon:

"I always thought I don’t care how someone becomes a woman or a man; it does not matter to me. It is just part of their specificity, their uniqueness, like everyone else’s. Anybody who identifies as a woman, wants to be a woman, is going around being a woman, as far as I’m concerned, is a woman."

Kind of surprised a 'radfem' like MacKinnon would hold that view, does anyone know if Catherine still holds this position? Has she talked about the trans issue more recently?

They’ve also got this

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/aug/04/shecession-coronavirus-pandemic-economic-fallout-women

The article was very strong in places but I don’t think that respectfully using people’s pronouns as they choose is adding to the problem. if we can’t name ourselves correctly and others then it adds to the deception that is occurring and where rapists are suddenly female and women cannot name the men who actually attacked the. No, no respect for bullshit.

Obviously i meant to say think, not don’t think in the first sentence!

I'm a lib dem member and just had to abstain in their leadership contest because I can't vote for Layla Moran and her idiotic gender waffle. Ed Davey has nothing about him

Quentin It's not "Layla's" gender waffle, it's Lib Dem policy. Ed Davey is a TWAW man and fully on board with the genderwoo.

Quentin were you allowed to say you'd abstained, ie put it on the ballot paper?

Yes. It's the lib dems so they are all for choice

@AntsInPenzance - the Mackinnon quote is incredibly odd. It's very out of place in the context of her work. She wrote this furious article denouncing the damage that postmodernism was doing to feminism, so it is strange she would endorse queer theory. In 2018 she did an interview where she was adamant that discrimination against trans people is a form of sex discrimination - trans women are discriminated against because they are highly feminine males. That does seem to deviate from the standard party line that trans women are female because they say so.

I think Mackinnon is stuck in an older mindset that trans people all have dysphoria and surgeries. She seems deeply sympathetic to them. And I also think that Mackinnon has seen how bitter the debate has become and just doesn't want to get involved.

If we can't define what a woman is, how can we organise politically?

Got to be honest here, isn't the issue far more brutal than that? It's one thing to organise politically, but another entirely for a female not to even be able to guarantee female assistance when undergoing an intimate procedure.

Even highly repressive societies ensure females who need personal care are looked after by individuals of their own sex. Not even countries with wildly regressive attitudes put females in mixed sex psychiatric wards.

This must be very well buried. I scrolled through the entire front page of the website this morning and there was no sign of it. The "She-cession" article was there, but not this.

It looks like it's hidden on the mobile app (which the younger generation are more likely to use) and displayed on the desktop version and / or in the physical print copy. Guardian trying to have their cake and eat it too, perhaps.

I'm just guessing based on the screen caps and the experiences Mumsnetters have reported above. I'm on mobile and no sign of it.

Hmm I wasn't using an app but I couldn't see it on either my phone or laptop. I could have been mistaken but I looked very hard. But it's there now.

It wont be on the front page as they pack out the Guardian with so much opinion rather than news that it would have lost its spot on the front page within a few hours of being published yesterday.

What's more interesting is that since they closed comments on articles about women on the web site, they are usually open to comment on their facebook page.

Interesting this opinion article has not been published to facebook.

Probably because the Guardian knows that on facebook gender critical articles / opinions get far more support than trans.

In fact I think generally, even newsnight, news outlets dont publish on their facebook page articles by and about women as they usually get roundly trounced for being sexist, and too far over the rainbow.

Probably something to do with facebook now being the favourite social media forum of older people who are more likely to challenge to woke agenda!

Ed Davey is a TWAW man and fully on board with the gender woo.
That may explain why he hasn't replied to TWO emails I have sent him on this subject, beyond the automated one.

I think I'll have to go and abstain as well.

Just seen an interesting thread on Twitter about how this article has not been promoted by The Guardian at all either on Twitter or on Facebook and is also hidden in their mobile app

I think google as well. You only get 2 hits is you search by the title of the article. The article itself and this thread on mumsnet!

Oh wait and a thread on reddit!

If you search on twitter nothing comes up but they let you know you are being protected from "sensitive content"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It’s in the G2 section of the print edition, not the main section. I want Suzanne Moore to be my fairy godmother!

That may explain why he hasn't replied to TWO emails I have sent him on this subject, beyond the automated one.

Strange. He did a MN live chat last year and was very confident, shall we say.
His staff have probably filed you under Bigot