Margaret Atwood

[MummBRaaarrrTheEverLeaking]

twitter.com/MargaretAtwood/status/1450429768067846145?t=8q-A8MlvzZsx6pt4Vu1_LA&s=19

Has retweeted an article from the Toronto Star "why can't we say woman anymore" and bloody hell are they coming for the latest witch burning in the comments!

Ranging from disappointment to the usual sweary abuse. I thought oh how long till the capitulation begins, turns out I didn't have to wait long!

She's following it up with retweets about 'we can say people when it's accurate and inclusive' and then defending the article because the writer isn't "a terf"???

Not really sure what she's trying to achieve here, anyone?

I know that this will seem spurned if she recants but coolers need to know there is a community ready to acknowledge and receive them.

This is so important. I bet a lot of people on here are only here because they had a "This is stupid" moment and found other people who thought the same and told them "you aren't crazy, we agree with you and will support you."

www.spiked-online.com/2021/10/21/were-all-terfs-now/

I have a friend who is a trans rights activist and she keeps getting distressed because if she says the wrong thing , or asks a controversial question, she gets called a t and is told to re-educate herself until she’s a better ally (this is coming from her trans friends).*

I think that allyship in the TRA movement tends to attract the kind of women who cling to violent men and abusive relationships. At some level, they believe that they deserve the abuse because they just aren't worthy of being treated decently, so they just keep whimpering out apologies and begging not to be beaten too violently.

It's rather like this.

She is a fine novelist (or was- everything from the dreadful Madaddam onwards has been pretty crap tbh) but she never seems to think through anything she says, yet happily takes fees for badly-written op-eds on myriad subjects.

I suspect, having read most of her output bar the poetry, that she also has a masochistic streak and not only a fascination with but a kind of odd reverence for male violence.

So, I suspect she is poking this hornet's nest quite deliberately.

Her poetry is good. I prefer it to her novels, tbh.

I probably read the wrong stuff. The poems she includes in her novels (such as eco-psalms in The Year of the Flood) is sheer doggerel and I wasn't at all sure that we were intended to view it as such.

@Kokeshi123

I know that this will seem spurned if she recants but coolers need to know there is a community ready to acknowledge and receive them.

This is so important. I bet a lot of people on here are only here because they had a "This is stupid" moment and found other people who thought the same and told them "you aren't crazy, we agree with you and will support you."

🙋‍♀️ I spent a really long time trying to figure out what was wrong with me, because I "knew" that TWAW was the "right" thing to believe, but i just couldn't (even though I tried to do a good job of parroting what I thought I was meant to believe)

It was JKR that really turned me around, and I think that must have been when I discovered you guys. And FWIW this board always felt like a safe space for someone who was really very ignorant about the whole issue.

Try this, Whisky:

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47789/marrying-the-hangman

I'm amazed she hasn't recanted yet.

I'm waiting around 'cos I'll hear it here first, whatever happens.

I'm checking regularly! No recanting so far!

..... maybe she is hurriedly googling JKRowling and reading her essay....

I suspect, having read most of her output bar the poetry, that she also has a masochistic streak and not only a fascination with but a kind of odd reverence for male violence

Agreed- although I would have said sadistic streak.

@ArabellaScott

I'm checking regularly! No recanting so far!

Eh? She's just said it was ok to read the article because the writer isn't a TERF.

@rabbitwoman

..... maybe she is hurriedly googling JKRowling and reading her essay....

I love this idea,

“In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.”

So said Margaret Atwood according to The Guardian www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/15/margaret-atwood-feminist-backlash-metoo

Nuance is dead. We can’t protect women without throwing transwomen to the wolves. If we try to protect women only spaces then we are figuratively sending transwomen to death according to the TRAs. So women have to be sacrificed instead. We can’t allow men to claim those spaces and protect women. We can’t allow transwomen to speak for women because they don’t have the experiences that women do. The notion of womanhood is being eradicated.
We know this and can’t say it outside these safe spaces. Anyone who speaks up is labelled and cancelled, subject to death threats and disgusting abuse. We are not allowed to think, discuss or question the trans dogma.
It is sickening and that is why I am here.

I think the TRAs are really making her think. She just posted this on her twitter feed:

"Trans rights? Yes. Toxic, in-your-face activism? No"
www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/opinion-trans-rights-radical-activism-1.6220106

rise up!

I'm more and more wrong in my expectation of Atwood the longer that this continues.

I'm delighted to be so wrong.

I think she has learned a lot this week.

I can't see the responses without logging in and don't have an account anymore ... how are people reacting?

But that's amazing. A completely different reaction from her than I was expecting.

According to the responses to her latest tweet, you only get change by ruffling feathers. That's true. I remember MLK going to court to insist women wax his balls or criticising little girls who stare at penis flashers in women's changing rooms. Or Emmeline Pankhurst changing her campaign for votes for women to include men.

The opinion article that MA posted is worth reading - it's by a transwoman and presents a relatively balanced view.