Sarah Ditum Review of Laurie Penny's Book

[Igneococcus]

In teh Times:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a63ee364-7ed9-11ec-8532-85a58274df7c?shareToken=18c412a5aaec75d84e179df684a9646d

Ouch!

It’s very funny. Especially the bit about Berlin…

@JustcameoutGC

Ouch!

That is exactly what i was going to say!

Another cracking review.

I wonder what LP really thought they would achieve writing about feminism as a person who no longer calls themself a woman, and cannot even abide someone using she/her in any sense about ‘them’ (unless it is a glowing review).

Maybe the hypocrisy will finally dawn on people.

But I suspect that will come in years to come when some women realise that labeling everyone who disagrees with them as ignorant and ‘haters’ was a very childish approach.

I need to read this book. Whatever LP calls themselves, they're still female and as such can write authentically about the female experience, which certainly seems to include rejecting being a woman.

OK maybe not! I do want to read Home Grown though.

Triple burn- Bindel, Moore and Ditum. Sorry Laurie should pop away from the adults and lick their numerous wounds but, like most unintelligent, boring straight queer-claiming identify-obsessed nutters, will probably just double down.

@JustcameoutGC

Ouch!

Ouch indeed!

Who is going to take the name curryworst first?

The layers of hypocrisy that LP writes over twitter is appalling.

On one hand telling everyone that people who are trans are hugely harmed and there stories and trauma should be amplified. (And by the way, I don’t disagree with this)

BUT

Women discussing their trauma and the impact of a group gaining access to spaces and even language is ‘weaponising’ and to be demonized. And that a young girl’s trauma of seeing a repeat sex offender’s semi erect penis less than a metre in front of them as that person enters the spa bath should be ignored. And that young girl taught to ‘just look away’.

Not sure how LP still believes they are any ‘friend’ to women.

oooh, that was fun. Sarah Ditum sure can write, and I'm delighted she read this book so I don't have to.

as for this from the book

a section dismissing the idea of any substantial evolved differences between men and women

er, what now? I'm pretty sure I'd win a baby gestating competition against any man in the world. Or the monthly 'bleed from your genitals and be fine' contest.

I wonder what LP really thought they would achieve writing about feminism as a person who no longer calls themself a woman, and cannot even abide someone using she/her in any sense about ‘them’ (unless it is a glowing review).

Exactly. Anyone - any woman - who won't call themselves a woman can FOTTFS (have I got the acronym right?) when it comes to discourses about feminism.

What a good read. Thanks for sharing OP.

I am still laughing out loud at the Berlin paragraph. There must be a unique journalism award for Sarah for getting the word “fingerbanging” published in The Times for the first time in its 237 year history 🤣🤣.

Oh weird isn’t it - opting out of being a biological woman to being a word salad.

At the same removing the ability for all the other women to voice their lived experience.

Isn’t this McCarthyism all over again?

Love this!

The Berlin paragraph is certainly a classic NotBadConsidering
It might win a record for drinks spat out laughing.

Also the cover blurb is absolutely vomit inducing. Ambition exceeding content in bucketfuls.

Penny would like to inform you that it can hardly compare to “the thrill of the single weekend I spent in Berlin in 2018”, which I suppose could refer either to an expert fingerbanging from a stranger in a fetish club or an outstanding currywurst.

I'm having a very nice oat latte after a shopping trip. This has started my day off beautifully.

I won't forget. I won't forget...

Brilliant piece!

Also, someone on Twitter pointed out that Sarah had written the whole piece without using pronouns. It just shows how elegant writing can be whilst staying away from pronouns, whereas, using they/them for a single person is so ugly at best and confusing at worst. I can't remember what I was reading recently but I struggled to work out whether the subject of the piece was the person being referred to at times.
Thanks to this board here I've got fairly adept at writing without pronouns but Sarah takes it to a new level we can all admire and learn from as a writing style. Hard luck to all those demanding their own pronouns. You're making yourselves invisible.

It is genius.

Penny tells us repeatedly that they is not a woman so I'm not sure why they is writing about feminism.

They / them pronouns force us all to be Ali G ffs.

“Crisp slices of genuine scientific inquiry are battered in the heavy crumb of convenient fictions, deep fried in received wisdom and smothered in the special sauce of popular prejudice so they’re easier to swallow for those who already have their mouths full of comforting lies.”

Oops! Laurie inadvertently slipped up here. Perhaps it’s Freudian. Despite all the coatings and word salad, she concedes that the very heart of our argument is based on genuine scientific enquiry.

She's hoping it's hidden beyond all recognition under all the currywurst.

@MiladyBerserko

Who is going to take the name curryworst first?

On it!