Suzanne Moore - How Progressive Misogyny works - Spectator

[highame]

www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-progressive-misogyny-works

I like her writing just a flavour...........

You can say the word ‘-intersectionality’ as much as you like but, if you do, then defend Raquel Rosario Sánchez, the 29-year-old doing a PhD at Bristol on men paying for sex, who has been bullied for two years because she attends Woman’s Place meetings. Disciplinary hearings were closed down when balaclava-wearing trans activists appeared. Students yelled verbal attacks at ‘Terfs’, chanting: ‘SCUM! SCUM! SCUM! ............

As you say, she is getting some flack in the comments. The highest rated commenter says there would be more sympathy except

You reap what you sow. Sorry, I have no sympathy with anyone keen to expouse identity politics. Sure, it starts all coarse-grained, divide and conquer, bestow 'favours' on the righteous groups. Then, the horse-trading and the arguments startBefore long, academics take sides, all seeking a slice of the funding pie for their non-job sinecures
Then the coarse-grained is atomised and inter-sectionality creates contradictions

This is the culmination of years of leftist Marxism on campus and pushed by The Guardian. We all remember how feminists and lefties gave Aayan Hirsi Ali the cold shoulder for speaking up about an oppressive religion whose members are favourite pets of The Guardian. Now they have some new pets in the shape of trans women. Women like Suzanne and Aayan are obliged to turn to conservative organisations and outlets to give them a voice. Oh, the irony

Have to say, I follow Moore on Twitter and I don't remember her saying that about Peterson. Which of course doesn't mean it didn't happen but it doesn't sound like her style.

She tweeted a few weeks ago that she'd written a piece the Graun wouldn't be interested and was looking for a publisher. I don't know whether this it it, with a mention of Sasha White shoved in at the last minute, or whether that's still to come.

She tends to write in a newspaper which doesn’t disguise its intolerance of opposing views. When she writes in the Guardian, there is never a comments thread where posters can voice disagreement. She is always given a free ride with opinions which are often off the top of her head

Welcome to our world Ms Moore. A world in which the expression of any conservative opinion on human relations can lead to social ostracism and loss of job and pension rights if employed by the taxpayer (unless you happen to a member of the religion of peace in which case- have at those deviants and infidels while we cheer you on

Perhaps now you will understand what thinking conservatives were saying 30 years ago. I suggest you join Toby Young’s Free Speech Union. You might even get used to interacting civilly with people who don’t agree with you

I think some of those comments are fair enough to be honest. I've had to hold up my hands more than once and admit I've been a knob about some of the centre-right press.

mobile.twitter.com/suzanne_moore/status/1226964018646200322

Was it this one?

floisme
I don't recall her making that comment either, but then I don't read her in The Guardian, nor on Twitter. Maybe she didn't? I think there is a sentiment in the comments that cancel culture has been on the march against Conservatives for some time. And there was very little criticism from journalists of the left. But now the Robespierre faction has reached this phase:

Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children

@Floisme

I think some of those comments are fair enough to be honest. I've had to hold up my hands more than once and admit I've been a knob about some of the centre-right press.

Well said floisme

Ha ha yes indeed Bovary and the laugh's on people like me.

Looks like DanielRadcliffe has found the tweet and I have to admit, 'gleeful' is a good word for it.

floisme
I think that one of the consequences of the fanaticism which dominates contemporary discourse is that it alienates women who have been 'life long socialists' and it actually encourages alliances between people who have political differences, but aren't totalitarian. The Robespierre faction, their finger wagging Manichean certainties, their compulsion to dominate and silence? It's so frickin tiresome.

I mean nobody would accuse me of being a lifelong socialist, but I have been treated kindly by posters on this board like LangCleg and yourself even though we have political differences. And I think that is a really positive thing.

The funny (sad) thing is, there was a time not so long ago when I would have described myself as a lifelong socialist, and yet here I am, finding more common ground with conservative voting feminists than I do with many on the left. Strange times! But interesting too.

Strange times! But interesting too

Yes, these are really strange times. Things that would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago, like the dictionary definition of 'woman' being remotely controversial are now causing people to be cancelled. It's quite extraordinary

@Justhadathought

As you say, she is getting some flack in the comments. The highest rated commenter says there would be more sympathy except

You reap what you sow. Sorry, I have no sympathy with anyone keen to expouse identity politics. Sure, it starts all coarse-grained, divide and conquer, bestow 'favours' on the righteous groups. Then, the horse-trading and the arguments startBefore long, academics take sides, all seeking a slice of the funding pie for their non-job sinecures
Then the coarse-grained is atomised and inter-sectionality creates contradictions

This is the culmination of years of leftist Marxism on campus and pushed by The Guardian. We all remember how feminists and lefties gave Aayan Hirsi Ali the cold shoulder for speaking up about an oppressive religion whose members are favourite pets of The Guardian. Now they have some new pets in the shape of trans women. Women like Suzanne and Aayan are obliged to turn to conservative organisations and outlets to give them a voice. Oh, the irony

You'd think that none of them had mother or daughters or sisters of granddaughters, wouldn't you? No girls and women in their lives whose rights and futures they feel any concern for.

This for me is the scary thing. Because they are male and unaffected they see it, just as a hard-left who are driving it, as all about 'isms' and not about the daily life and comfort and safety and rights of women — not even the women they know, let alone love.

All political discourses can be presented in an extreme ideological way - all of them. It's not the preserve of the left, though those discourses founded on the pursuit of truth and justice (great liberal enlightenment principles that developed in the West) can spectacularly implode and crush supporters and always have to deal with the people who don't seem to have understood the truth (false consciousness - now articulated as 'educate yourself' 'do better').

Whereas, right wing movements were more likely to be based on hierarchical power structures allowing someone to 'naturally' dominate and lead without presuming you could bring everyone along with you.

Bit simplistic but it's just the danger of being too ideological about anything. At the end of the day, Toby Young is a neo-liberal idealogue (see also Dominic Cummings) - so why I'd want to align myself with him, I have no idea.

Also I think Marx would find it beyond a joke that a modern day University campus was a hotbed for his theories.

buttonhole BovaryX a bit of copy and paste. Hope it includes the bits you wanted. Used to be hard left, then left, then centre left. Like this board. As you say, everyone with varied opinions on all sorts and yet our commonality - Women's Rights is an extremely strong binder. What a mish mash we are, but I really am benefiting from the excellent posters we have here. Also subscribe to the Spectator because some very good articles on women. My dad will be turning in his grave

We don’t. We fear what we have always feared: male violence, in whatever cosplay it chooses. We fear losing our incomes. We fear that womanhood is such a scary place that some young women will be medicated out of it.

Why all this now? Perhaps because the left, having lost its big battles, is keen on some expulsions and re-education. The Labour party would rather be pure than in power. It’s deeply peculiar.

Gay men I know are rightly worried about the homophobia inherent in some trans activism. Wouldn’t you rather have a daughter than a gay son? Look at Turkey or Iran if you dare. We now have Stonewall supporting the right for trans women to bust the skulls of natal women playing rugby.

I thought this quote from this article was very revealing:

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/pride-prejudice-and-a-problem-that-struck-at-corbyns-core-mwjpl36s9

Andrew Murray, the trade unionist, said: “He is very empathetic, Jeremy, but he’s empathetic with the poor, the disadvantaged, the migrant, the marginalised . . . Happily, that is not the Jewish community in Britain today. He would have had massive empathy with the Jewish community in Britain in the 1930s and he would have been there at Cable Street, there’s no question. But, of course, the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous.

I don't think all people who describe themselves as socialists think this way, but some clearly do, (or Murray wouldn't believe this is some kind of defence), and they don't understand why its a problem.

According to this philosophy, equality is only for the little people, 'the most oppressed', ergo any group that is no longer in the category 'most oppressed' no longer deserves equality. Grant yourself the ability to define oppression, and you can restrict 'equality' to a very small group of people indeed. ("of course the Jewish community today is relatively prosperous" makes me want to vomit)

In practice its very difficult to see much difference between this and old fashioned Conservative noblesse oblige. Throw crumbs to people who aren't a threat, but maintain the status quo. Jeremy Corbyn's 'empathy' didn't extend so far that he questioned why in 2019 the leader of the Labour Party and so many of his allies were white man from privileged backgrounds.

Also I think Marx would find it beyond a joke that a modern day University campus was a hotbed for his theories

Why? His theories were embraced by intellectuals. And implemented by totalitarian thugs. Like Stalin. Marxist theories have dominated social science departments for decades. From the rubble of the collapse of communism in 1989, the millions of working class voters who put Thatcher in Downing Street and Reagan in the WH were switched out for a new hierarchy of victims. After all, the working class have always been a massive disaster to middle class Marxists. Butler et al penned the incoherent script. Three decades later, the results of the this are everywhere to behold. As some wag said: We are all on campus now

massive disappoitment

highame
I absolutely agree with your post. Your sections from the article are great. The thing with rugby is so absolutely barking mad, it's incredible that anyone possibly supports it. It made me laugh that one of the clearly male commenters said that there was no way the rugby integration of trans women could ever happen because of the danger it would pose to natal women. Some of the Spectator's core audience don't realise how far down the rabbit hole we have gone. One said he didn't understand any of the language (cis etc) in the article!

equality is only for the little people, 'the most oppressed', ergo any group that is no longer in the category 'most oppressed' no longer deserves equality.

Which is not actually a belief in 'equality' as a value at all. Merely a belief that you patronise and philanthropise your most currently fashionable and preferred group of 'others', and you have your 'in' people who you espouse as mattering, and your 'out' people who you have no interest in. Bad things, inequality, injustice, oppression happening to your 'out' people.... meh. Or you may even be actively in favour of bad things and oppression and societal punishment of them. Because, fun. It's nice to let loose your inner witch burner, get to be really nasty while still feeling virtuous and enjoying being part of the in crowd. And of course that means your 'in' people whom you enjoy patronising (which involves looking down on them, not seeing them as any kind of equal but a noble 'cause') may change with your views and the weather.

That isn't socialism. It isn't Labour values. It isn't equality or diversity or inclusion. It's definitely not progressive or new. It's just one of the oldest and nastiest facets of human nature resurging. It in fact makes you no different at all to those many groups in history who had their 'in' people and their 'out' people. Those in favour of the slave trade for example, in their opinion had their 'in' people who mattered and the 'out' people who just had to suffer for the betterment of others, or frankly deserved all they got. Rights and care only for 'our' kind of people. If you just shift around the characteristic or facet that puts someone in your 'in' group or 'out' group, what's the difference? You're as morally bereft (and as arrogantly superior) as they were.

If she tried to publish this (excellent) article in The Guardian, I imagine Ben Beaumont-Thomas and friends would be scuttling around putting their names to another poison pen letter.

I imagine they still may be.

Agree, Justhada. I've recently taken out a trial sub of the Spectator. Interesting writing. A bit London-centric for me, perhaps, but often angles that I hadn't considered before. I think it provides interesting comment on news items.

Still not really found any one paper/media production that I feel really is as acutely insightful as I long for. The Times/Telegraph are also pretty self satisified, with a few honourable exceptions. The Guardian is awful, again with one or two exceptions.

Our media doesn't feel like it's very robust right now. Another weakness in our democracy - we need a strong, brave 4th estate that is willing to ask difficult questions and hold people to account (note that is a very different thing from 'cancelling 'them).

Our media doesn't feel like it's very robust right now. Another weakness in our democracy - we need a strong, brave 4th estate that is willing to ask difficult questions and hold people to account

I think this is a really important point. The abject failure of the fourth estate is one of the reasons why we are where are. This failure was manifest back in 2003, where instead of forensic examination of the casus belli, there was fawning and abdication of duty. A significant chunk of the media simply refuses to report problematic news. The category of problematic news is a rapidly expanding sector. It is why Brits know nothing about Antifa. It is why The 'news' section has shrunk to two pages, while the bloated opinion sections stretch across pages. It is why people no longer trust the media to actually report events.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/iraq-war-media-fail-matt-taibbi-812230/

Yes, Bovary. So how do we do that? I think there is a chasm in the market for insightful, intelligent analysis, as well as solid investigation. I would happily pay my old Guardian sub for something that offered it. I don't know if it's just how people consume news these days that's the problem? Not enough money to support journalism?