The Sunday Times - StrawMaid's Tale

[Melroses]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/culture/margaret-atwood-the-handmaids-tale-author-on-her-new-poems-qqpc9xmf5?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1604837071

twitter.com/thesundaytimes/status/1325411735226945541
"There’s a difference between belief and fact...You can believe all you like that trans people aren’t people, but it happens not to be a fact. It's not true that there are only two boxes."
@MargaretAtwood speaks to @ST_Culture

Has anyone a spare share token? I have run out of my week's free articles already.

Pink News have picked up on this as though it proves they are right.

But the very worst part of it is Margaret Atwood who is all about fact checking etc., etc., implies that gender critical feminism is saying trans people aren't "human".

Where has anyone said this. I can only think she has decided to believe this rather than have to answer the actually point about biological sex.

Which given her father's profession and her childhood she would have easily been able to discuss.

Last time this came up, I could only think she has a young relative who she desparately wants to be admired by so has concocted this none arguement to then provide a non answer to a non question.

Glad to see the comments on the article are just taking her arguement apart.

Thanks for the share token link.

I echo the disappointment of other posters. This one really hurts. How could she have written that book and not understand (or choose to ignore) how biology oppresses females.

She talks about her husband being a gent! Where's that on the spectrum I wonder?

[quote HaveaStock]The video ‘takedown’ of JKR’s views would have been the Jammidodger one as I remember her referencing it before - she said something like ‘two nice young people explaining it’ or words to that effect. It absolutely illustrates the level of thought and critical analysis she’s given the subject ie. very little. I think she got a bit of shit for not including any trans people in the Handmaids Tale and has been atoning ever since.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Avcp-e4bOs[/quote]
Oh they’re the ones who say “do we look like a lesbian couple?” so I guess they don’t think Alex Drummond et al are lesbians then - one of them has to be wrong!

Exactly. Facial hair is no barrier to being a lesbian.

@yourhairiswinterfire

I've never heard a single person say trans people aren't people What a fucking ridiculous statement.

Misinterpreting, probably deliberately, what's happening to fit their argument as per.

She's not talking to us, she's talking to American Christian fundies who believe that women are destined to serve their husbands & give birth in pain due to the original sin.

Why she's decided to lump JK Rowling, whose books have been banned by Christian fundamentalists for "glorifying witchcraft," in with them is beyond me. Maybe she needs to travel and meet new people more?

@Escapeplanning

The lies about Maya Forstater misgendering a colleague are repeated in that video.

If you have to lie about everything you have got nothing.

Quite.

Margaret Atwood linked the state of being trans to slugs, worms and clownfish in her bizarre series of tweets earlier this year. The only one saying transpeople aren't human is her.

Excellent point seahorses.

What a bizarre comment. Either she doesn't understand the GC feminist position at all or she is being deliberate in using hyperbole to stir up anti-feminist feeling.

She's lost the plot. Very sad to see.

I like strawmaid.

It's really bothering me because I can't find the reviews, but I remember when THT was published and Atwood was openly and clearly adamant that it was NOT a (radical) feminist novel. The clue comes at the start when Offred's mother joins the religious right in burning pornography. Atwood was and is a liberal feminist.

This is the best analysis I can find. I remember interviews with Atwood driving home this point.

www.researchgate.net/publication/237268394_Margaret_Atwood%27s_The_Handmaid%27s_Tale_1985_Cultural_and_Historical_Context

To be clear, Atwood the liberal feminist blames radical feminism (and its union with the new right and fundamentalist Christianity) for Gilead.

Ladies, you brought it on yourselves you know.

Having said that, there is a salient lesson there re thinking about who your friends really are.

I stopped watching the video when the woman described herself as a "cis-gender woman".
No, you are just a woman, so don't try to make the rest of us use compelled speech.

Unfortunately Margaret Atwood gives me the same vibes as people who suddenly strike success and will pay lip service to whomever they need to in order to cling on to that success. Their latest book 'The testament' is evidence of this I feel, incredibly disappointing.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

To be clear, Atwood the liberal feminist blames radical feminism (and its union with the new right and fundamentalist Christianity) for Gilead.

Ladies, you brought it on yourselves you know.

Having said that, there is a salient lesson there re thinking about who your friends really are.

I read elsewhere that it was a book exacting symbolic revenge. This has lead me down some interesting rabbit holes.

It is very real and has come from somewhere.

I have read one or two of her other books which do not seem to be about feminism but there is a sort of moral revenge theme running in many of them.

Speaking to authors falls in the same camp as speaking to actors: don’t do it if you want to keep the magic alive. There are some exceptions but even with them your are best avoiding the topic of their book or film. Your imagination fills in the blanks in these and that it best left alone.

[quote HaveaStock]The video ‘takedown’ of JKR’s views would have been the Jammidodger one as I remember her referencing it before - she said something like ‘two nice young people explaining it’ or words to that effect. It absolutely illustrates the level of thought and critical analysis she’s given the subject ie. very little. I think she got a bit of shit for not including any trans people in the Handmaids Tale and has been atoning ever since.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=6Avcp-e4bOs[/quote]
Well the obvious thing would be to say the Wives were actually trans hence “infertile” aka can’t gestate children. But she’s never going to do that because the optics wouldn’t fit the oppressed narrative.

I've always liked her writing, but Atwood makes no sense whatsoever in this piece. However, like the PP, I do worry that radical feminism has made deals with the fundamentalist Christians. That won't end well.

Well the obvious thing would be to say the Wives were actually trans hence “infertile” aka can’t gestate children. But she’s never going to do that because the optics wouldn’t fit the oppressed narrative.

She could have included transmen. If fertile they could be forced to detransition and become handmaids. But then she would have to admit that TMAW.

I don't understand why Atwood can't see this. How could she write a book about women being oppressed and not understand that it's based on sex, not 'gender identity'?

What deals Delphinium?
And what do you think will be the outcome?

Agreements on certain factual matters is what you'd expect, unless you are totally ideologically blinkered.

I think we need this again...

Agreements on certain factual matters is what you'd expect, unless you are totally ideologically blinkered. Yes. I agree with that and I appreciate @ErrolTheDragon's Venn Diagram.

The deals that worry me is when we let some org like Concerned Women for a Conservative America claim the message (which they recently did w/ women's sports) because then this is framed as only a very conservative women's issue, which it is not. The first order of business, IMO, is to convince liberal women that sex-based rights for women and girls should be US law (very few are). You will not convince left-leaning legislators that conservatives have a trustworthy plan for women.