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?

(Following complaints last night and this morning, ACAS has now deigned to use the word 'women' in its advice on the menopause a couple of times.)

After what she’s said in the past I have no doubt that she will capitulate and issue an apology very soon

Many comments on the Twitter post have a very 'all lives matter' vibe.

And yet they don't see it.

@Signalbox

How long until the grovelling apology?

Stalin must be looking up from hell and having a good laugh.

Starts countdown timer for apology and throwing of article author to the wolves..

"I actually feel a tiny bit sorry for women like Atwood, because it must be like walking on egg shells all the time"
Women have lost their jobs and been hauled up in court for less. So, no, I don't feel sorry for her.

She can't be particularly intelligent if she hasn't realised that any questioning of gender dogma brings out the frothing zealots demanding fire and brimstone upon the herectic.

Oh, that's very interesting. And it will be even more interesting to see how she reacts to the 'burn the witch' mob.

Come on Margaret, don't cave!

She thought that they were just asking women to budge up and make a little room for the poor old TW.

She thought that she could keep on doing what she was doing and just say TWAW.

Now she's seeing that no, language itself must submit. She can't have a Handmaid's tale any more - Transphobe! Not all people-forced-to-be-inpregnated-by-religious-zealots are women!

Everything she ever wrote about feminism and women which is often centred around the physical realities of womenhood and how this is used to oppress women, must be de-gendered. Good luck with that.

Maybe a little light will come on but I'm not holding my breath.

She's trending now, they are absolutely gunning for her. Surely she must see. That layer of protection you think you have is gossamer thin. One breath out of place, it all goes away and what they really think of you comes tumbling out. What they always think of women who don't parrot mantras or keep their mouths shut.

You can try and stitch it back together with a grovelling apology but it'll never be the same. Much better to tell them all to eff off.

She can't be particularly intelligent if she hasn't realised that any questioning of gender dogma brings out the frothing zealots demanding fire and brimstone upon the herectic.

She lives in Canada, and as I understand it, the chances of actually getting an accurate picture of what's going from their normal media is slim - particularly in this area, but also many others.

If she's made no effort to actually dig into it, she may well be totally oblivious. She's written on the area a few times, but she's always seemed very out of touch with current events (like Butler) - just writing in vague handwavey ways.

She must have surely noticed the weird language contortions increasingly common in Canadian media, and maybe they've somewhat annoyed her and triggered this, but she may well have no conception that complaining about it is enough to make you a TERF.

This is interesting. Not because of her reaction to the pile on, it's a given that she will try to appease and do the whole 'I'm not like those women' dance.

It's interesting because despite all her efforts to be a good TWAW ally something is clearly niggling at her consciousness. That something won't go away, even if she renounces her sins this time around, it will grow bigger over time.

No sympathy for her whatsoever. Replying that the writer isn't a terf is a real 'Do it to Julia!' moment. Don't come for me! Burn those women!

I know she didn't write it, but she was a producer on the second season of The Handmaid's Tale, when they had to shoehorn in a pro-commercial surrogacy storyline, just in case the viewers mistakenly thought the show was in favour of those bad feminists who don't think the rich have the right to exploit poor women's circumstances. There were lots of problems with that show but that was the moment I gave up. I don't expect all the culture I consume to be feminist, but I hate it when things use feminism to gain an audience, and then just aren't.

I am gratified to see several people reminding her of the letter she signed denouncing JKRowling.

@EsmaCannonball
I’d be very interested to read critical reviews of the 2nd+ series... can you recommend any?

@NecessaryScene

She can't be particularly intelligent if she hasn't realised that any questioning of gender dogma brings out the frothing zealots demanding fire and brimstone upon the herectic.

She lives in Canada, and as I understand it, the chances of actually getting an accurate picture of what's going from their normal media is slim - particularly in this area, but also many others.

If she's made no effort to actually dig into it, she may well be totally oblivious. She's written on the area a few times, but she's always seemed very out of touch with current events (like Butler) - just writing in vague handwavey ways.

She must have surely noticed the weird language contortions increasingly common in Canadian media, and maybe they've somewhat annoyed her and triggered this, but she may well have no conception that complaining about it is enough to make you a TERF.

But she uses Twitter. She must have seen the outrage generated when people like Richard Dawkins asked simple questions. You don't have to wade deep into the 'other side' to get a sense that any form of dissent is met with howls of rage.

If she's eager to denounce heretics while making zero effort to dig into it, then again that doesn't reflect well on her. A couple of years ago it would be understandable if you weren't aware of the violent and authoritarian tendencies of transactivism. Less so now.

‘TERF’ with its explicit condemnation of radical feminists is such a sexist term.

It’s the 2021 version of ‘I’m not one of those man hating dungaree wearing bra burners’.

It's interesting because despite all her efforts to be a good TWAW ally something is clearly niggling at her consciousness. That something won't go away, even if she renounces her sins this time around, it will grow bigger over time.

That's what I thought as well. Clearly she has had some sort of 'impure thoughts' on this issue.

Like JKR, she's big enough not to get cancelled however much TRAs try. But I'm not getting my hopes up that she's going to tell them where to go.

She clearly didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

I don't feel sorry for her at all. She's rich to the point of untouchable and revered worldwide as the sage on dystopian societies. She could have been a voice in support of women living in this terrifying dystopian present. She's betrayed all women.

Gosh.

@TreXX

Many comments on the Twitter post have a very 'all lives matter' vibe.

And yet they don't see it.

I haven't read the whole Twitter thread but the idea that because women technically aren't a minority, they can't be marginalised or exploited and therefore must be the oppressors is pretty mainstream now. It used to be mostly in places like Reddit and 4chan but now it's everywhere.

Fits nicely with other lines AWAs like to push: women have it easy, women don't have to pay for "dates", women can always get sex and incels men can't, women are so lucky they can make easy money doing porn, women routinely lie about rape, women have too much leeway when it comes to suitable work clothing, women have nicer lavatories and better prisons, women have too many rights 🥚🦕🥚🦖 etc.

To these people, talking about womens' rights are saying women should be treated as human IS the equivalent of "all lives matter".

@NonnyMouse1337 yes, you’d really think she’d see some parallels between what’s happening and y’know… the things she actually WRITTEN. 😂

But so far, she not managed to fill in the blanks.

That ExcelPope article is brilliant. There are so many pertinent literary analogies for what’s happening now, but I’d forgotten about Catch-22’s Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade. Captain Black reminds me of a prominent media personality.

My opinion of Atwood has gone way up. I thought she was massively cynical, but it looks like she was simply fooled by the TRA propaganda machine. She’s got to be at base camp by now.

If this goes on for a little while longer, everyone will just KNOW that Atwood is a violent terf. She will notice that her words do not matter at all, no matter how much she tries to placate the activists - no one will read them.

Just like JKR and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.