Douglas Murray asks: Does Owen Jones have a woman problem?

[RoyalCorgi]

I think we know the answer:

unherd.com/2021/08/does-owen-jones-have-a-woman-problem/

'In the first place , I have long been of the opinion that the Socialist movement elsewhere was to a great extent hampered by the presence within its ranks of faddists and cranks , who were in the movement not for the cause of Socialism , but because they saw in it a means of ventilating their theories on such questions as sex , religion, vaccination, vegetarianism etc and I believed that such ideas had or ought to have no place in our programme or in our party.....And that therefore, we were as a body concerned only with the question of political and economic freedom for our class. We could not claim to have a mission to emancipate the human mind from all errors for the simple reason that we were not and are not the repository of all truth.' James Connolly 1904.

Sorry the above was a response to @SmokedDuck on Marxism and ID politics! Of course Connolly wasn't proposing a blanket ban on these questions - after all he insisted on the inclusion of ' Irishwomen ' in the proclamation of Independence. But you can feel his impatience with a lot of what used to be called ' bourgeois deviations' . The full article from the Socialist , June 1904 is both fascinating and witty. It is entitled On Wages and Other Matters. Old Ned Ludd here can't link it alas

I suspect OJ would agree generally with the principle that it's for black people and those from other minority races to define what is racist, similarly it is for gay men and lesbians to define homophobia. Its not acceptable to whitesplain or straightsplain these issues.

It strikes me that there are 2 issues where OJ doesn't think this principle applies misogyny/women's rights and antisemitism. He does the classic 'but some of my best friends are women' to excuse his awful behaviour and blocks or incites pile ons with any women who doesn't agree with him.

That tells me all I need to know about OJ.

OJ seems to be one of those gay men who uncritically accepts that the T naturally goes with the LGB and therefore feels they must reflexively support the trans side of the debate out of a sense of "we're all in this together".

fat activists' thinking was eerily reminiscent of TRAs.

I saw a Twitter thread that ended up with a declaration that it should be adjacent to a criminal offence not to date fat people from OLD and that if you've never dated a fat person IRL then you should accept that you're fatphobic.

It strikes me that there are 2 issues where OJ doesn't think this principle applies misogyny/women's rights and antisemitism. He does the classic 'but some of my best friends are women' to excuse his awful behaviour and blocks or incites pile ons with any women who doesn't agree with him.

Indeed, this is all we need to know about him. I’m going to stop thinking of him as Little OJ and more as OJ the big misogynist, because thats what he is and this part of his character influences him a lot.

It's interesting that the fatphobia/HAES thing is brought up in relation to this.

I've been on the internet (and fat!) since I was a teenager in the mid-90s and have seen this movement go the same way as the trans crowd.

Back then fat acceptance started as something completely different to what it is now. Originally it was just to say 'we're here, we're fat, we're normal people, don't abuse us' type thing, ie fat acceptance of other people without abuse. Health At Every Size actually started by saying, 'yes, we're fat but that doesn't mean we can't exercise and do healthier things, do what you can and make a start on getting healthier'. Nothing like what it is now.

Then the usual militant lot start getting involved, purity spirals and identity politics ahoy, and it ends up being what it is now. As I've just said on another thread, most of this stems from American culture, you sort of have to pick a group and follow everything to its furthest possible end. Not just agree with what you want and leave the rest.

There's a lot of overlap with the self-diagnosed mental illness fanatics, self-diagnosed autistic people, the polyamorous crowd, the kink crowd, you'll even find it on pet-owning groups, hobby groups, etc.

It all follows the same pattern. It starts as a simple group for people with like-minded interests and it gets taken over by power-hungry people that change the direction into something completely different and other people get carried along with it.

Sorry for the long, offtopic post, it's been interesting to me for a while and I can see how this all started back before the internet was popular.

@NotDavidTennant

OJ seems to be one of those gay men who uncritically accepts that the T naturally goes with the LGB and therefore feels they must reflexively support the trans side of the debate out of a sense of "we're all in this together".

This is part of what fascinates me.

Take Alan Turing. The man was prosecuted for being gay - in the UK. He accepted being chemically castrated over going to prison, which just makes me sick to my stomach. He then committed suicide - do we really think he wouldn't have done so if he was allowed to live his life as an openly gay man?

Surely, if he had been living under current rules made up by Stonewall and the likes, Turing could have found himself a partner (or partners) who had a female (sexed) body and a male gender identity. No, that's not the same as being free to love who you love, but there would be several individuals to chose from and he could have avoided a large degree of persecution, one would imagine. It's not quite equality but it's a decent step up from the barbaric treatment he received. He could live his life with some nice 'man' and other people would go about their business.

Why does OJ not look at that and want to argue passionately in favour of how sexuality is innate and how if you are a gay man you are attracted to other biological men? Because that's my response as someone with little skin in the game (aka, I'm not male and I'm not gay). It isn't acceptable to me to tell homosexual people that it's ok, they can just pick a partner based on gender and never mind if they're actually the opposite sex as it's meaningless.

And I'm totally with you Imnotaclownfish. It's something that's been concerning me for a really long time now. Honey Kinney, Jonathan Ross's daughter is very caught up in it and is a good example of the crossover the movement has with with BLM/trans/sex positive activism work. And Eresh, thank you, that documentary sounds interesting, I'd missed it.

Interestingly, if you watch this documentary, it shows how one of the lead scientists who has promoted the more toxic elements of HAES is non-binary (and incidentally, not overweight - good for her enjoying her good health while she damages others). It is a good documentary - they have done so much damage.

Sofie Hagen is another one. I think identifies as non-binary now too.

If we take OJ's rebuttal piece seriously (and he hasn't always been a good faith debater), I wonder if part of the problem is that women / feminism doesn't really fit into what he classes as his socialist world view of automatically backing what he sees as the oppressed party no matter what - as there are fewer trans people than there are women OJ will always back the former.

(On a similar note there was a featured comment on the Guido Fawkes site where someone explained how it was hard for those with a Marxist approach to deal with the ISIS as Marxism has no religious aspect. I took this to mean that, rather than consider them religious fundamentalists looking to inflict their beliefs on the rest of the world, those whose worldview is always through this rigid prism could still see them as the oppressed minority as a racial or cultural group. Obviously this is on a different level to the current trans debate but I do think the connection is the limitations of always considering issues via a simple oppressor/ oppressed approach - I know it's possible to argue that women are the oppressed party in the trans issue but my personal view would be that it's better to abandon that game rather than try to win it and focus rather on the safeguarding angle - the practical angle will do better with the general public than a theoretical one).

doesn't really fit into what he classes as his socialist world view of automatically backing what he sees as the oppressed party no matter what - as there are fewer trans people than there are women OJ will always back the former.

I don’t think socialism can be intrinsically based on supporting minorities, given that workers are usually in a majority.

The idea that only small groups can be worthy of support is more right wing. It’s more of a ‘giving alms to the poor’ view of society.

Socialism is also theoretically a worker led movement.

merrymouse

! would agree with you - it's just that OJ has rather strertched the definition to include his worldview in his attempted rebuttal of DM's piece to move away from a class-based / economic approach to that of chopping up society into different interest groups and sorting them into a hierarchy of oppression:

'Support for trans rights, of course, has nothing to do with misogyny at all. In my own case, the basis for it is the requirement, as a socialist, to use your platform to support the rights of oppressed minorities, the same principle I apply to Islamophobia; and as a LGBTQ person to stand with trans siblings as they are subjected to the same horrors cis (i.e. not trans) gay people were historically subjected to in a media landscape which is overwhelmingly hostile to them.'

“Overwhelmingly hostile” ffs.

Even comparing the broadly compassionate way trans people are written about in 2021 to the way lesbian and gay people were written about “historically” is offensive. I’m old enough to remember homophobic slurs routinely used in newspaper reporting. That is nothing like the media landscape today, where a small number of media participants try to discuss the conflict between women’s rights and self ID. Generally, the media is pretty TWAW. It’s the general public who aren’t convinced.

Jones is becoming increasingly more preposterous by the day. Will he ever pause his motor gob and just think for a minute?

LizzieSiddal- could you not think of him as Little OJ the Big Misogynist?

Will he ever pause his motor gob and just think for a minute?

No. If he did he would understand that there are two parts to equality. The first, which is the only one he sees, is the need for acceptance. The second is structural - different groups have different needs e.g. men just aren’t affected by access to contraception etc. in the way that women are.

Either that or he just doesn’t like women.

Petition @UKParliament to record bio-SEX of all #Rapists &sexual/violent offenders approaching 10,000 necessary to trigger @Govuk response and well on the way to 100,000 to trigger a debate on the floor of @HouseofCommons thanks to @MBMpolicy petition in @ScotParl petition.parliament.uk/petitions/590123

Spiked have an article on LOJ today

www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/08/the-self-defeating-rage-of-owen-jones/

Even comparing the broadly compassionate way trans people are written about in 2021 to the way lesbian and gay people were written about “historically” is offensive. I’m old enough to remember homophobic slurs routinely used in newspaper reporting. That is nothing like the media landscape today, where a small number of media participants try to discuss the conflict between women’s rights and self ID.

I agree. When articles are written by thoughtful people like James Kirkup and Janice Turner they are at pains to clarify that they don't think all trans people are responsible for the excesses of the political gender ideological movement, and they use respectful language to speak of people.

It's just hyperbole. As you say, the general public, especially men who are not socialised to centre the feelings of others, are much blunter.

Hostile to trans activists being handed everything they demand without question maybe, but of course we all know that's literally violent.

[quote Tesla73]Spiked have an article on LOJ today

www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/08/the-self-defeating-rage-of-owen-jones/[/quote]
'Mimimum opus' is worth the price of admission, there.

IAmNotAClownfish: "Back then fat acceptance started as something completely different to what it is now. Originally it was just to say 'we're here, we're fat, we're normal people, don't abuse us' type thing, ie fat acceptance of other people without abuse. Health At Every Size actually started by saying, 'yes, we're fat but that doesn't mean we can't exercise and do healthier things, do what you can and make a start on getting healthier'. Nothing like what it is now."

This is what I recognise too. I didn't realise fat acceptance had become a full on ideology. When I introduced HAES into my workplace it was more like, "Instead of always banging on about losing weight, which often isn't a practical proposition, we should be offering people the best possible care and encouraging evidence based healthy behaviours irrespective of their body size," which seemed eminently compassionate and commonsensical. The big difference is that no other group was put directly at risk as a result.

[quote Tesla73]Spiked have an article on LOJ today

www.spiked-online.com/2021/08/08/the-self-defeating-rage-of-owen-jones/[/quote]
That is brilliant. Love it.

Sofie Hagen is another one. I think identifies as non-binary now too

She is queer

metro.co.uk/2020/10/02/pansexual-only-slept-with-men-not-less-queer-13320599/

but only sleeps with blokes

there is nowt as queer as heterosexual queers