Sarah Ditum Review of Laurie Penny's Book

[Igneococcus]

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

I really enjoyed the review, and I have even less intention of reading LP's book than I had before. The time spent on this and other reviews are more than enough without devoting any more precious hours to pretentious word salad by a member of the wokerati. Glad LP enjoyed Berlin. I'll go off and enjoy my own weekend without being preached at about womanhood by someone who doesn't feel like a woman.

@FingerbangingInBerlin

Sometimes some people become associated with a particular phrase, so I can never see mention of the person without recalling it.
Sex with Lord (fatty) Soames being described as having a wardrobe fall on top of you with the key sticking out is one.

The Berlin weekend is another. Hard luck Laurie. I'm always going to think about your weekend in Berlin every time I see anything about you.

Fingerbanging in Berlin is my new favourite phrase

I’m not sure whether to offer Sarah a saucer of milk or a glass of champagne - so well written and such a takedown 🤣

Also loving some of the comments.

@PermanentTemporary

I'm interested in any book that is stirring up such a reaction. I agree 'need' was an overstatement. I'm particularly interested in books that are about women who no longer see themselves as women, as I have 2 18-year old friends who are doing this.

Women not calling themselves women because they think 'woman' is a particular set of stereotypes they don't associate with, does not actually stop them being women, being seen as women by everyone else or being oppressed because of their sex.

Fools pretending that problems will disappear if they pretend they don't exist.

What would be more radical would be if all these young women where proud to be non conforming women and actually fight their real oppression in a patriarchal society rather than pull a face like a toddler refusing to eat broccoli, because they think being a woman is icky.

They are not different or special and are, in fact, helping inforce the sexist stereotypes by going along with the nonsense of removing being a woman from our sexed bodies.

someone on Twitter pointed out that Sarah had written the whole piece without using pronouns.

Close but no cigar: "Joan Smith in her 2019 book Home Grown..."

I know what I think is going on with these women Whatsnewpussycat. I'm interested in what these women think is going on.

This is the funniest tweet I've seen on the subject so far

twitter.com/sexbasedrights/status/1487187905290416133?s=21

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.”

If your mouth is full and you're trying to swallow something else, why would putting batter and sauce on it make it easier? Wouldn't liquidising it be a better idea? Or microdosing?

I don't understand tra logic...

"The nicest thing you could say is that Penny wraps the polemic in some jaunty sentences." 🤣

Mmm currywurst
Does the sexual revolution that Penny describes involve girls being nice and averting their eyes from male flashers?

It is true that some people would like us to believe that they have been the centre of the 'most erotic event ever' but that that usually sadly comes down to, 'got vigorously frotted somewhere in public'.

Penny has now turned the reviews into another shilling opportunity, saying that evil transphobes are attacking the book, but that we can help the “fightback” by... boosting Penny’s bank account by buying copies.

Mmm: you should definitely buy this book cos people are saying it’s rubbish...

Poor penny.

Have to say, feminist writers who really knuckle down on the actual issues don't use this ploy.

I can’t stop singing fingerbanging in Berlin to the tune of star trekkin across the universe. Ditum is a great writer. Penny isn’t.

Actually I've read the article Laurie Penny wrote about falling in love with man and getting married, and it's well-written. A but me, me me, and unoriginal but hey, it's rather sweet. She's ooops they're obviously embarrassed about being so conventional so is showing her, ooops, their, true self through this

As for what the “feminist fightback” should consist off, it is hard to say.Sexual Revolutiondelivers its injunctions in negations: “What is required is not a new set of rules about consent. What is required is a new set of ethics about consent.” I wonder how Penny would write a recipe: “What is required is not an onion. What is required is a whole new metaphysics of root vegetables.” Exciting to write I suppose, but not much help to someone who wants to know what to do.

I need no guidance about consent from Penny. My impression is that Penny finds it very easy to moralise about consent when it concerns a historical incident, and everyone else has already made it socially acceptable to describe the incident as abusive. But what Penny cannot do is risk personal social status to be among the first to stand up in defence of the abused.

There is nothing unusual in that; that's a human trait. But it does mean Penny cannot advise those of us who aspire to have the steel spine necessary to stand up against abuse, no matter the personal cost.

[quote Alekto]This is the funniest tweet I've seen on the subject so far

twitter.com/sexbasedrights/status/1487187905290416133?s=21[/quote]
Brilliant!!

“What is required is not a new set of rules about consent. What is required is a new set of ethics about consent.”

Does that actually mean anything?

@KimikosNightmare

“What is required is not a new set of rules about consent. What is required is a new set of ethics about consent.”

Does that actually mean anything?

It could do. If by rules you mean mechanical "If A then B" rules and by ethics you mean ethical principles. But if that is what you mean, then you are on dangerous ground, because thinking in this way requires dabbling in things like logic, reason and developed argument, which are anathema to many nowadays.

Sometimes some people become associated with a particular phrase, so I can never see mention of the person without recalling it.
Sex with Lord (fatty) Soames being described as having a wardrobe fall on top of you with the key sticking out is one.

So few words to conjure up such a vivid picture

This thread has made me laugh a lot. [Searches to see if @SexWithLordSoames is taken... ]