@oldwomanwhoruns
But I just don't see a 'golden bridge',
*@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus*??
Not in this context?
There's 'Sorry, I was blinded by kindness'
But don't be expecting us to say 'ok, you can have HALF of our private women's spaces'
I just can't see a golden bridge anywhere
What did you have in mind??
I've tried discussing what a golden bridge would look like but there isn't usually much engagement on what it might be.
The golden bridge is for people like Atwood who stop the TWAW mantra and realise that the women they have previously denounced as Terven actually have a point that reasonable people share. Maybe they do start to understand the wider social and political consequences for women. Right now, hey might not come out as GC but perhaps they don't join in the ritual denunciations of people like JKR? And over time this shifts - and people see what does/not happen to them.
At present, she can keep mumbling TWAW and keep the sign on her fruit and vegetable stall*, or she can signal that she is undergoing a shift of some sort.
Vaclav Havel: The slogan is really a sign, and as such it contains a subliminal but very definite message. Verbally, it might be expressed this way: "I, the greengrocer XY, live here and I know what I must do. I behave in the manner expected of me. I can be depended upon and am beyond reproach. I am obedient and therefore I have the right to be left in peace." This message, of course, has an addressee: it is directed above, to the greengrocer's superior, and at the same time it is a shield that protects the greengrocer from potential informers. The slogan's real meaning, therefore, is rooted firmly in the greengrocer's existence. It reflects his vital interests. But what are those vital interests?*
Let us take note: if the greengrocer had been instructed to display the slogan "I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient;' he would not be nearly as indifferent to its semantics, even though the statement would reflect the truth. The greengrocer would be embarrassed and ashamed to put such an unequivocal statement of his own degradation in the shop window, and quite naturally so, for he is a human being and thus has a sense of his own dignity. To overcome this complication, his expression of loyalty must take the form of a sign which, at least on its textual surface, indicates a level of disinterested conviction. It must allow the greengrocer to say, "What's wrong with the workers of the world uniting?" Thus the sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power. It hides them behind the facade of something high. And that something is ideology.
hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23