Interview with Margaret Atwood

[Kit19]

I don’t know if it’s just me but she makes zero sense on feminism & trans rights. On the one hand scoffing at women saying do they think it’s like psycho & a man dressed as a woman will stab them in the shower & saying start with biology & then saying biology supports more than 2 sexes.

However when the interviewer challenges here (I know! In the guardian) she starts in about how important it is to speak truth to power

Honestly I think she’s got a massively superficial grasp on what is happening residing in the be kiiiiind camp or she approaching it from an intellectual ivory tower POV

Anyway she’s yet another person to massively disappoint (I know she wasn’t GC but honestly the mental gymnastics and blindness to consequences from somone who wrote the handmaidens tale is mind boggling)

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/sep/12/margaret-atwood-if-youre-going-to-speak-truth-to-power-make-sure-its-the-truth

I wonder why she didn’t write a book telling the women in Gilead to be kind & think of men’s feelings

I thought she came across poorly in that interview. Very pleased with herself.

I have heard her interviewed a few times. It is disappointing.
I think she just doesn't get it.

I think she's living in a rich, secure, privileged bubble.

Honestly I think she’s got a massively superficial grasp on what is happening residing

This. That section of the interview was quite bizarre.

I'll admit I've not read the interview in question and also that I am SO DISAPPOINTED that she seems so far from reality on this - but I keep thinking about how it is not that long since her husband died and how that might be affecting her.

As in - GC women will feel let down but we won't relentlessly troll her or threaten her or worse but the so-called trans rights brigade would rip her apart if she did a J K Rowling (now a useful shorthand expression for standing up for women and the reality of biology).

I think if I was grieving for the love of my life I might not take this battle on - or it could be that being bereaved has addled her brain?? (I say that as someone who was hit like a train by losing both parents in one weekend and whose heart goes out to those who lose partners).

I saw her interviewed on newsnight recently and it seemed that she just didn't want to be put on the spot. I wondered how much living in Canada and its over the top wokeness has got to her.

For someone who is so sharp about power imbalance she seems to go out of her way not to acknowledge what is happening. ie she doesn't even have to be overtly GC, but she should be standing up for freedom of speech whether in the virtual or in the real world.

It's disappointing but I see it more in terms of any number of women have contributed to the development of feminism, which out necessarily having set out to do that. But just because one book is useful doesn't mean we have to always support the writer, or that the writer is obliged to continue to write books that please us!

Doris Lessing was another one. Early books so spot on about women's lives being over powered by men, but later she would go out of her way to disown feminism.

She’s a dingbat.

I lost faith in Margaret Atwood twenty five years ago and nothing she has said or done since has changed my mind. She almost single-handedly destroyed CanLit with her actions in the SG case (and no, it doesn’t matter whether SG was guilty or not guilty, MA’s letter was a catalyst that caused a massive explosion in every English department and publishing entity across the country, and prevented female writers and industry professionals from raising concerns)
I have a lot of respect for her writing, but her actions were indefensible.
She’s basically Aunt Lydia.

She's not all that nice a woman I think. However, I think she is quite honest about not giving a shit about what the popular opinion is. That's not why she is taking the approach she is.

My take is that in terms of TRA related subjects she is very much a product of where the public knowledge and discussion is on this topic in Canada. She likely is still seeing this as a medical issue based on the "old" style of gay male transexuals, she has little sense of how this is working politically or about things like men in women's prisons in Canada. All of that is completely out of the public eye here, no one really knows about it. She is accepting the idea that there is some sort of science supporting the idea of trans persons and even kids who identify as trans. She is unaware of some of the crazier things about single sex sports being at risk.

I don't know that she really ever has considered herself a feminist as such. That's not to say she's not interested in women's issues, but she wouldn't see constraining herself to acceptable feminist positions as important in itself.

I've never liked Margaret Atwood for a number of reasons
(a)like Sophie Hannah the blurbs on the back of her books always sound better than the books actually are;
(b) Whilst I would never read or not read a writer because she is or isn't a feminist I'm a bit sceptical about Atwood's feminist credentials;
(c) The Handmaid's Tale is such a misogynistic, miserable concept. I am sceptical about her claim that everything in it has happened somewhere. It strikes me that to write it requires a degree of not really liking women that much to inflict such misery on her characters
(" internalised misogyny" as feminists might put it ?)
(d) I wonder if her reputation as a feminist is built on little more than her being a succesful woman; being a woman who doesn't seem bothered about conforming to feminine beauty standards; and being a woman who writes books about awful things happening to women. She is far more feted than Edna O'Brien, who, for me writes far more sympathetically about women. O'Brien however is a very beautiful woman who has always conformed to standards of beauty and seems to enjoy doing so.

(e) Atwood has in the past made ridiculous comments about stripping being "empowering" . I can't take her seriously for that. A woman saying this is far worse than a man simply arguing that a woman is, and should be, free to choose to be a stripper. A man is unlikely to run the "empowering" argument or even think of it;
(f) For me anything which perpetuates the idea that sex is a bargaining tool or a commodity which women use to get their own way or for financial advantage is a hindrance for women's equality and liberation ; ergo a woman talking about "stripping being empowering" is hindering that.

I admit I've posted this before but generally the opinions of Atwood on anything are pretty irrelevant to me.

@Oxyiz

I think she's living in a rich, secure, privileged bubble.

I think so. That's why she can spout rubbish like stripping being "empowering"

Have just read the interview and it looks like she is really digging her heels in after her tweet about the "science" of sex being a spectrum.

Now I am wondering if it isn't just living in Canada but that whole young people (ie I want to ingratiate myself with my grandchildren) are the future.

I read the Edible Woman and it as much as anything made me recognise the need for feminism. But that was as much to do with her accurately describing the conflicts for a young woman - not her setting out some feminist manifesto.

Many writers who accurately portray a facet of life which provides an echo to someone's life aren't necessarily the ones to help you find you way out of it.

A very different example would be Freud who accurately record the distress of women. The problem was as a died in the wool patriarch his "explanation" as to this distress of course never in any way entertained the idea that it might be men causing the distress.

When people like Atwood say "read the science" to justify the absolutely batshit, unscientific idea that sex is a spectrum, it feels exactly like all those 5G and coronavirus conspiracy theorists who can point to reams of supposedly "scientific" articles proving their insane ideas.

Anyone who says stripping is empowering is truly a dingbat

@DidoLamenting I very much disagree with you in the quality of her books. I've read most of everything Atwood has written and studied her intensively as an undergraduate. I feel she deserves all of her literary honors and some she missed out on by being in second place. Yes, I'm biased because I also deeply love her fiction and I evolved into a feminist because of her and other literary writers like Adrienne Rich.
I'm not going to jump in on the bandwagon of dissing Atwood because her recent comments on gender critical thinking are foggy at best, embarrassing at worst. Atwood isn't gifted in PR communication and her thoughts aren't always audience ready when she is interviewed because she is much better at framing her ideas by writing them (which duh, she's a writer).
Recently when I've heard her speak, I'm also noticing less academic rigor from her in the moment. Not that she's not still producing great work, I just think Twitter and interviews aren't her best medium and I suspect age/health/grief are also at play.

@RoyalCorgi

When people like Atwood say "read the science" to justify the absolutely batshit, unscientific idea that sex is a spectrum, it feels exactly like all those 5G and coronavirus conspiracy theorists who can point to reams of supposedly "scientific" articles proving their insane ideas.

The difficulty is that is what they are hearing from trusted sources around them. We all do it to some extent I think, we don't know about everything, we are used to some topics being more complex than what we can get really navigate alone.

I know it seems crazy but when the whole of the CBC, which is a hugely respected institution among Atwood's demographic, says that the science is supporting this, she is likely to believe them.

I really love Atwood's writing and admire the breadth of her writing talents. She seems to move effortlessly from dystopia, to historical fiction, to short stories. But she's clearly batshit crazy on the trans stuff.

Yes, I'm biased because I also deeply love her fiction and I evolved into a feminist because of her and other literary writers like Adrienne Rich

I've never liked Atwood- that dislike goes back many years. I don't think she actually likes women that much.

I'm not sure what point you are making telling me you studied her as an undergraduate. You like her work- I don't.

I don't think Atwood considers herself a feminist, I read somewhere she rejected feminism long time ago because she was criticised for liking to wear pink tutus.

I didn't like HT and don't think it's feminist literature, Offred's mother, the second wave feminist, who fights aginst pornography, is described as someone silly , for example.

I find it mind-boggling how so many otherwise sensible people simply don't get the women's rights (and the protection thereof) issues.

It's just baffling. It's a complete disassociation between fact and ideology. The only comforting thing is that realisation is a one-way street. Once people see it they don't go back, so as the years go by the numbers of gc people can only go up.

Many years ago I was forced to separate the writer from the book. She is a walking talking masterclass in cognitive dissonance.

I refuse to let the person take The Edible Woman, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin or Oryx and Crake from me.

It's too late. I read them, they helped shape my feminism.

The Handmaid's Tale is such a misogynistic, miserable concept. I am sceptical about her claim that everything in it has happened somewhere. It strikes me that to write it requires a degree of not really liking women that much to inflict such misery on her characters

I agree with most of your post, @DidoLamenting, but can't agree with this bit. What Atwood describes in THT, has happened in Iran and Afghanistan. Women in those countries, at least in urban areas, had freedoms that were ripped away by conservative religious governments. OK, they aren't being forced to breed for other people, but millions of Afghanistan women have been forced into marriage and repeatedly raped while still children. If you are being raped and forced into pregnancy, I'm not sure whether it makes much difference whether it's for your husband's family or the Commander.

And, in fairness to Attwood, without wanting to give away spoilers, the book version of THT ends on a much more optimistic note than the TV version.

I think most people who are high achievers are arseholes to some extent, because achievement usually requires a degree of ruthlessness and selfishness. Attwood is probably no exception.