Margaret Atwood Today Programme Radio 4

[gardenbird48]

I can’t listen to the full thing yet but someone might be interested. On this morning.

My husband has just told me that the person speaking (Margaret?) apparently was discussing JKR and mentioned the ‘people who menstruate’ quote and said ‘I’m 81 and I don’t menstruate, am I not a woman?’ We might have the wrong end of the stick here but I can’t imagine there being two 81 yr old ladies on this prog so Margaret is currently chief suspect.

Unfortunately I am not sure of the full context of this yet but it does sound intriguing.

I honestly question the intelligence of anyone who says shit like that. How fucking dense must you be to not get that that’s NOT what is meant. ‘I’ve never had a child does that make me not a woman?’ ‘I had a hysterectomy, does that mean I’m not a woman?’

I have had to scream silently inside so many times when hearing this ‘gotcha ’ ‘reasoning’

But hearing it from Atwood makes me sad because she’s patently not stupid. Maybe she’s just done her best work and wants to sit back and bask in a bit of adulation - and maybe she’s done with the analysis and is going with the group that will hand-feed her grapes and tell her how fabulous she is. Other women, especially old ones, probably hold up too much of a mirror to her.

She must be hanging out with the wrong crowd...

I wonder if there is a 'trans child' in her family - a grandchild or nephew or niece perhaps. It's the only reason I can see for anyone intelligent coming out with such total nonsense.

TRAs certainly view the recruitment of as many children as possible as the way forward. And by recruiting one child, you also recruit their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends... All of them now championing the 'trans' cause because they don't want to upset that one child.

The new golden children? Most families have one (and they don’t grow up - generally - to be nice and considerate adults).

MA hasn't been a feminist ally for a long time (if ever?). Personally I think she is being commercially careful and knows that the revival of The Handmaid's Tale has brought her a lot of new, young readers who have drunk the kool aid.

You can have a trans person in your family and still not bow down to the gender woo, so that wouldn't cut it as an excuse.

And 'womxn'
Just fucking kill me now.

Aye at the silent scream.

It's just so bloody rude.

How many biological males go through menopause?

How many biological males experience hysterectomy?

They are purely female experiences and to distance them from women is to make them even more taboo than they currently are.

I don't know who she thinks she's helping but its not women.

She doesn’t think she is helping women and she knows this.

And by recruiting one child, you also recruit their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends... All of them now championing the 'trans' cause because they don't want to upset that one child.

I should just point out that there are many parents - and family members - who don't go along with gender ideology. It is the hardest thing to push back against but many of us still do it.

Margaret Atwood is in Canada, yes? Where woke is all. The consequences of her not publicly going along with TWAW would place her in the same position as JKR, with the resultant abuse online worldwide and irl.

I bet the interview did not approach MA's view on the dehumanising language of calling women "birthers", "breeders", "bleeders", "cervix havers" "uterus owners" ..... how could she possibly defend such language without looking like a total hypocrite?

I hope that when I get to that age any shits I have had to give have been long given away.

@SisterWendyBuckett

And by recruiting one child, you also recruit their parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, family friends... All of them now championing the 'trans' cause because they don't want to upset that one child.

I should just point out that there are many parents - and family members - who don't go along with gender ideology. It is the hardest thing to push back against but many of us still do it.

I know from reading of the experiences of people on here that this isn't always the case, but as you say, it makes it very difficult for those people, and it must be a lot easier to just go along with it, even if you recognise the harm.

The TRAs know this and it's one reason why they've been pushing the 'trans child' narrative.

I've sometimes wondered if Margaret Atwood sees herself as an Aunt Lydia figure. Playing along with a system she thinks she can't change and willing to to execute other women to save herself... But enough of the fiction she is not stupid, she knows that by asking the question "i am not a women if i cease to menstruate" has no meaning. Did anyone at any time ever suggest pre puberty that girls were not of the female sex, that post menopause there is a switch flipped and suddenly you tits fall off - no. I have read most of her fiction and think she's a great writer but flawed - in language i would use "she's tuned to the moon". if you haven't read The Penelopiad give it a go it's a great wee book with a feminist take on Penelope's story on the return of Odysseus. The writer, the artist the musician are not their body of work - imo we would never read, watch, do anything if we scrutinised the creators of the work.
If Margaret Atwood - has a family member she's supporting - then best she say nothing on the subject than make clucking noises in favour of a position which denies the female sex as a class.

I think she honestly believes it.

She doesn't likely understand that the Scientific American article isn't really science. You see the same with people who point to the National Geographic that focused on transkids - many people believe that is science, or at least a good, reputable, reliable source of science journalism.

A heck of a lot of people have no idea how questionable a lot of science is, or how controversies and bad practice can get enmeshed in science. Look how many on the left, in Covid, have retreated to the "follow the science" mantra, without realising that it does not have clear answers about many things, and even if it did, it doesn't tell us clearly what the best or right thing to do is?

I've said before that I doubt Atwood has ever been really challenged on gender ideology, everyone she knows likely supports it. But I'd also argue about the intelligence business - I don't think she's been used to applying intelligent, logical analysis to many problems at all, and she no longer has the tools if she ever did.

Maybe because I don't really enjoy her books - I always feel they are missing a whole layer of reality - I'm inclined to think that way. But while she's educated I'm not sure I've ever heard any really insightful analysis from her about anything, including things where I'd tend to agree with her general conclusion.I'd not say she was stupid, but she says pretty much what I'd expect from the average CBC commentator.

Wasn't Margaret Atwood the woman who asserted that because her work did not include talking squids or faster-than-light travel it wasn't science fiction?

If so, she doesn't use reason in the way that most of us use it.

#############################
Yes, it was, more-or-less. A search reveals David Langford on the subject ansible.uk/sfx/sfx107.html

Atwood prefers to say that she writes speculative fiction – a term coined by SF man Robert A. Heinlein. As she told the Guardian, "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She used a subtly different phrasing for New Scientist, "Oryx and Crake is not science fiction. It is fact within fiction. Science fiction is when you have rockets and chemicals." So it was very cruel of New Scientist to describe this interview in the contents list as: "Margaret Atwood explains why science is crucial to her science fiction."

Play it again, Ms Atwood – this time for the Book-of-the-Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians." And one more time: on BBC1 Breakfast News the distinguished author explained that science fiction, as opposed to what she writes, is characterized by "talking squids in outer space."

Future-fiction is pretty-universally described as science fiction in Real Life as opposed to M Atwood's mind, though. So The Handmaid's Tale (which was good, if dark an an unpleasant read) won the Arthur C Clarke Award for the best science fiction book of the year, and I don't remember her refusing it because her work was not eligible. Ker-ching.

Atwood suggests that people should study "the science on gender". She gives the impression that she means biology but she would have said "science of sex" if she understood sex and gender. Meanings of words should be important to an author and poet such as Atwood. It's disappointing that words only seem to matter to her when they fit her anti-Trump agenda.

In June 2020, J.K. Rowling tweeted "'People who menstruate.' I'm sure there used to be a word for those people". Later that month, she wrote in her blog, "Moreover, the ‘inclusive’ language that calls female people ‘menstruators’ and ‘people with vulvas’ strikes many women as dehumanising and demeaning."

Today, when asked about Rowling's comments, Atwood said "We can't just throw truth as a category out the window. Is it true or is it not true? That's the first question you should ask about anything. And then, if it's not true, is it fair to say it is? Is it true, is it fair, those are the two big questions you should ask about anything that is put out there for your consideration. I, for instance, do not menstruate. I'm 81. Does that mean I'm not female? No."

I wish Atwood had stopped to follow her own advice: is it true or not true that J.K Rowling claims that old women who do not menstruate are not female? (It's not true).

Atwood might benefit from learning some logic, to help her understand that "only women can menstruate" (true) does not mean the same as "all women menstruate" (false) or "if you don't menstruate at the age of 81 then you are not female" (false) even though she seems to want these phrases to have the same meaning, so she can use them to ridicule supporters of women's rights.

I also wish Atwood had then stopped to again follow her own advice: if it's not true, is it fair to say that it is true? So, is it fair of Atwood to imply that Rowling thinks that post-menopausal women are not female? (I think Atwood is being unfair to Rowling).

Atwood seems to have various theories about words and truth, but she seems to have an extraordinary amount of difficulty practising what she preaches.

@WhatWouldBarbaraCastleDo

Really irritating, as was Martha Kearney's response (something like "fair point"). "Only women menstruate" is not the same as "to be a woman you have to currently menstruate". This is simple stuff. Since Atwood isn't stupid, I can only assume she is being disingenuous.

It’s like the ‘all racists voted leave’ comment. It doesn’t mean all leave voters are racist but you can bet that all racists voted leave.

Is "all racists voted leave" true? It's a bold claim that there wasn't a single racist in the whole of the UK who voted remain.

@TheClitterati

I've just listened again. It's about 8:44 (16 min before end of today show).

MA is asked about JKR. She has just been talking about importance of free speech, science, questioning & backing things up with evidence.

When MA is questioned about sex & gender she talks of "the science of gender" as evidenced in this article linked via her twitter:

twitter.com/margaretatwood/status/1280262917506641922?s=21

www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-new-science-of-sex-and-gender/

She's lost her freaking mind if she considers this evidence of anything.

I'm not looking for a sling do I can collect my jaw up off the floor and continue my day.

I just call that The Article now ,since it is the one they all point me towards. It must be the most amazing paradigm shift since Copernicus. Or maybe it's just a load of bollocks.

I've done Margaret a little diagram.

Here you go, Margaret:

All those who menstruate = women.

But not all women menstruate.

Women who menstruate are a subset of the category of women.

Men are a completely different category. None of them menstruate.

HTH.

:)

@nauticant

Is "all racists voted leave" true? It's a bold claim that there wasn't a single racist in the whole of the UK who voted remain.

I didn’t say it was true. I said that it’s a safe bet that racists would vote leave.

Unless they were intelligent enough to realise that the people they object to because of the colour of their skins mostly don't come from the EU, and that Europeans tend to be of the same basic race that the racists are themselves, ie white European.

That's exactly what came to my mind AskingQuestionsAllTheTime.

In just about any argument, if you're going to roll out "all X are Y" it's best to stop and think.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Unless they were intelligent enough to realise that the people they object to because of the colour of their skins mostly don't come from the EU, and that Europeans tend to be of the same basic race that the racists are themselves, ie white European.

Racist aren’t generally known for their critical thinking. Anyway, it wasn’t me who said it, it was Will Self.