Billy Bragg: your misogyny is showing

[RoyalCorgi]

Apparently "expressing solidarity with the trans community will only provoke a storm of angry feminists (led by a male comedy writer) to harass you for days."

Because obviously we women are too pathetic and useless to organise ourselves and only do anything when a man tells us to.

They don't even bother hiding their contempt for women any more.

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=408380323983632&id=100044350033272

Aaaaah my near neighbour Billy, who quit the mean streets of Barking to live closer to the Tolpuddle Martyrs down Dorset way.

I read that earlier.

Silly little women can't think or organise for themselves they need a man to lead them. It reveals an awful lot about Braggs views on women generally

He is such a disappointment

He's pretty hard left though isn't he. So it would be a surprise if he wasn't blinkered

The blind spot these lefty men have is so huge! Must let other men have anything they want, even if it involves disadvantaging women. They have to treat our perfectly reasonable concerns as offensive to sort out their cognitive dissonance and ensure they still feel like the good guys.

Billy I used to love you and now I think you’re a tosser.

@GrrrlPwr

He's pretty hard left though isn't he. So it would be a surprise if he wasn't blinkered

I dunno. I retain this crazy optimism that people are intelligent enough to think for themselves. I don't know why, as it is constantly being knocked back.

Even Marx and Engels understood that women were oppressed, and that women's liberation was fundamental to socialism. But to people like Bragg and Talcum X, women are just a nuisance and an inconvenience. Can you imagine what Marx would say if someone could tell him that the big campaigning issue for today's socialists is the right for men to say they are women and use women's changing rooms?

I used to think you were one of the decent men on the left - decent men on the left should be sticking up for women, not joining in with their oppression - you are such a disappointment Billy now your misogyny is showing through.

Bragg spouts misogyny like it's his job. It's not that he genuinely thinks he's speaking up for another marginalised group or that he feels forced to follow some party line; he's a pusher.

I first saw this really starkly with his performance in the "cancel culture" debate he and Kehinde Andrews had with Julie Bindel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The 2 men had absolutely no first-hand experience and had done no research - they even tried to sneak in "but Rowling had a transwoman sex offender as the lead in the latest Cormoran Strike!" and the moderator had to tell them they're not allowed to lie in a debate - but tried to speak over everyone anyway (unsuccessfully). It was a very "God grant me the confidence of a mediocre man!" experience.

It's completely typical and telling that he actually thinks feminists are being led and organised by a man, because what woman could ever be capable of leading? He cannot possibly not know that little about feminism, and if he's somehow forgotten then he's not qualified to speak about it.

I'd love to contribute to the comments, but I'm too scared of using my real name! I would like to ask him "What rights do trans people want that they don't have?".Also, why are women standing up for their rights automatically anti-trans, because I'm pretty sure most of us aren't.

Ah fuck it. One of my teen heroes.
Possibly we have both lived too long now.

Even setting the issues aside, to assume that a man amongst a huge number of women must be the leader shows that he is deeply sexist. I've been dubious about him since "Tho I put you on a pedestal they put you on the pill' so not that surprised.

Stick to the day job, Billy

expressing solidarity with the trans community will only provoke a storm of angry feminists (led by a male comedy writer) to harass you for days

I've heard so many people call the 'male comedy writer' ''our leader'' or ''the king of the t**fs''. Laughable. Pathetic. We don't need men telling us shit, Billy, our little lady brains are more than capable of thinking for ourselves.

When he complains about 'woman becoming a dirty word', it's clear he's targeting the rights of the trans community

Huh? What 'right' is that targeting? Is talking about women like they're slabs of meat or nothing but fuck holes in the same way woman-hating incels do (''bodies with vaginas'', ''bleeders'') a trans ''right''? Seriously?!

Women's rights, and women talking about their rights, isn't anti-trans. It's just pro-women. Grow up and get over it.

I much prefer Kirsty's version: "Though I put you on a pedestal you put me on the pill". More accurate, IMO.

Why he thinks anyone has the slightest interest in his pompous witterings I do not know.

Teen hero of mine, and this is so disappointing. I saw him live last year and he really believes his own hype: long pontificating between songs and the audience supposed to be rapt.

What a Silly Billy he is.

Aw! Who had to go and mention Kirsty???

Now I have to play this:

And doesn't it mean something else today?

"Your laws do not apply to me..."

@ArtemesiaK

I'd love to contribute to the comments, but I'm too scared of using my real name! I would like to ask him "What rights do trans people want that they don't have?".Also, why are women standing up for their rights automatically anti-trans, because I'm pretty sure most of us aren't.

I am GC but this attitude is so out of touch. Have you seen how people treat transgender people in real life? They don’t have the right to not get glared at, sneered at, bullied, beaten up. I feel like if you think they are not a picked on group you are not living in the real world. The grief a trans woman gets is not the same as the grief women get, it’s very different types of predjustice we all face but it is there. I saw it happen just at the weekend. Would you say ‘what rights do gay people not have?’.

Men like Billy don't actually see women as people. I think that's the core of it. Men are men, the default, the standard. Women are an aberration away from the norm. Foreign, other.

He cannot comprehend women are people too.

Plus he can't actually sing.

He's got a point to the extent that almost anything a public figure says about trans issues results in a storm of messaging from one side or the other.

I wish it was possible to have a sensible conversation about it all!

They don’t have the right to not get glared at, sneered at, bullied, beaten up.

Can you stop anyone from being glared at, or sneered at?

Are you suggesting it's legal to beat up a trans person?! Assaulting someone, anyone is already a crime. Trans people, along with other specific groups, have an extra protection, because it would be treated as a hate crime.

I met him years ago and thought he was a jerk. No reason to change my opinion now.

But you could say the same against violence against women, does that mean we shouldn’t be campaigning against it? I feel this line of reasoning turns people off the gc viewpoint.

I used to like him but this is very disappointing.

I wonder if it's partly because he came of age in the 80s when gay rights were the big concern and he therefore automatically leaps to the assumption that vulnerable effeminate TW (presumed gay) must be the vulnerable minority most in need of his support?

I think women were always 'other' to him, as well, weren't we? People he fancied, put on a pedestal, but not ordinary, normal, real people like working class men. He's a very blokey bloke at heart.

Of course, his lack of empathy for or understanding of women is all horribly tone deaf, given what else is in the news at the moment...

@Lammysaurus

Bragg spouts misogyny like it's his job. It's not that he genuinely thinks he's speaking up for another marginalised group or that he feels forced to follow some party line; he's a pusher.

I first saw this really starkly with his performance in the "cancel culture" debate he and Kehinde Andrews had with Julie Bindel and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The 2 men had absolutely no first-hand experience and had done no research - they even tried to sneak in "but Rowling had a transwoman sex offender as the lead in the latest Cormoran Strike!" and the moderator had to tell them they're not allowed to lie in a debate - but tried to speak over everyone anyway (unsuccessfully). It was a very "God grant me the confidence of a mediocre man!" experience.

It's completely typical and telling that he actually thinks feminists are being led and organised by a man, because what woman could ever be capable of leading? He cannot possibly not know that little about feminism, and if he's somehow forgotten then he's not qualified to speak about it.

I remember watching this debate. The women were too polite. I'd like to see him debate Rexy.