Sarah Ditum reviews Grace Lavery’s book

[SpiderVersed]

She’s got a point, the pun in the title is very good. But otherwise Lavery is saying the quiet part out loud.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d95d9e92-85e7-11ec-b939-57ea9f594ba1?shareToken=8d58838e7b97ce21a4181d7bff0f91df

There was another very pro trans ideology book by a transwoman recently which also obsessed (I want to use a stronger word) over miscarriage, wasn't there? It is, in very plain sight, an utter contempt for the lives and experiences of women.

I do not accept "I identity as a woman" from males who write this sort of thing. It is sick.

I could have had so much empathy for a male who didn't fit in at a posh boys school.

Well I genuinely hope this will be widely read. The sad thing is that I have a couple of "be kind" friends in mind whose eyes would really be opened by this book. But I could never recommend it because, like many women, they've actually experienced the devastation of miscarriage.

@Helleofabore

Oh my!

Mumsnet gets a mention too.

That is going to be quite the read. It is surely so deliberately confrontational and offensive to get it talked about.

I wonder if that debate with Helen Joyce is going to go ahead. Roll on Lavery's promo tour.

I want tickets to that

I do find it extraordinary that families save up for years to send their children to supposedly prestigious, world-famous universities to be taught 'how to think' by someone like this.

@Melroses

I think people need to read and understand this.

This is the world young transitioners are being drawn into, whether they understand it or not. Grace is just articulate and says the quiet bits out loud.

I'll read it, @Melroses. Doubt I'll understand it, but I do think it is important to read the "other side".

Agree, that is written to provoke outrage. It's a boring analogy. As if a disappointing erection could be anything like equivalent to a miscarriage - what an absolute buffoon.

I tried with Shon faye's book. Failed, but I tried. Same with Juno Dawson's. What is stark is how BADLY they write.

I am going to start buying these books as amulets against bookshelf inspections by Gwent police.

Of all people to provoke, why choose women who have experienced miscarriage?

Womb envy. Lavery enjoys the idea of inflicting distress and pain on women who have done what Lavery never can do, which is create life.

It is really depraved, almost unfathomable depths of misogyny. Even most men wouldn't be able to dream it up. Probably only fellow AGPs can relate to the impulse that made Lavery write that sentence.

@FannyCann

I feel Sarah deserves a for her commitment to the team, reading all these books and reporting back so the rest of us can avoid.

Agree.

Though I've not seen the school celebrating GL in the way they do Lee Child, also a former pupil.

Can’t think why.

It is really depraved, almost unfathomable depths of misogyny. Even most men wouldn't be able to dream it up.

Agreed. They make even the awful men seem almost benign because their misogyny is so visceral and seemingly unending.

@Abra1d1

The bit about the semi-erect penis and the miscarried foetus...

How insulting to women who've lost pregnancies. Biological women. Actual women, I mean.

Yes. Deliberately setting out to wound women. Funny, that.

I could have had so much empathy for a male who didn't fit in at a posh boys school

Privileged white male finds a way to justify sadistic misogyny.

Oooh! That was quite a read!

Hahahaaaaa! Oh, how I’ve waited to read reviews of this. Sadly I’m not on Twitter anymore to watch the fall out in real time.

@Helleofabore I have a feeling Lavery will weasel out of that debate.

Crikey, @Clymene.

Crikey.

@Clymene I’ll be relying on them for commentary on the inevitable breakdown.

Thanks for the share token SpiderVersed, that's one hell of a review!

Double and Lilith -

@Doubletoilandtrouble so sorry for your losses and pain too, I can't imagine what it is like to go through it more than once.

Thanks to all the women who understand, even if you haven't been through it. What I can't get my head around is women who defend the likes of Lavery, especially when they come out with this sort of woman hating shit, which frankly is not unusual for this movement. Seriously, what's in it for them to side with a person like this? Why give them that power and authority over you?

Clymene The details about the spouse are very alarming.
I remember reading her - she still identified as a woman then - "women in art history" posts at the Toast. Often commenting on male creepiness like this:
the-toast.net/2015/02/10/women-inexpertly-groped-western-art-history/
the-toast.net/2016/03/28/oh-no-my-thing-is-happening-women-leaving-tactfully-in-western-art-history/

[quote Scraggythang]@Clymene I’ll be relying on them for commentary on the inevitable breakdown.[/quote]
How interesting to discover multiple people here are apparently regular visitors to a forum whose explicitly stated purpose in life is to bully and harass individuals to suicide.

Anyone who uses disgusting and offensive similes about miscarriage (particularly when they refer to their own miscarriage when they can never or could never experience the horror) does not deserve defending

Yes I know Lavery intends to shock but as a woman who experienced a loss at 14 weeks, I am furious, not shocked.

How dare Lavery exploit women's pain for shock value. Odious human being.

I hope Berkeley parents pull their children out in droves.

How interesting to discover multiple people here are apparently regular visitors to a forum whose explicitly stated purpose in life is to bully and harass individuals to suicide.

Yeah, Incel run Twitter, Reddit and Youtube is full of the worst kind of people, isn't it.

And then, @SevenWaystoLeave, there's the respectable doyens of the TRA movement, who want to, inter alia, punch a terf, for women to die in grease fires, for women to suck on their lady cocks, and for women to generally enjoy their erasure? I'm sure they'd know all there is to know about bullying and harassment. You didn't come back to the Rachel Johnson thread. Started any new and interesting threads about important women's issues in Feminist Chat yet? Or are you just here to bully and harass us out of speaking freely again?

Here on this thread we have multiple gender critical feminists on Mumsnet admitting they also hang out on a far right troll site which openly celebrates having driven at least three individuals to suicide. This peels back a mask on the kind of people who are embedded in the GC movement, and the kind of behaviour they find acceptable, and may even participate in.

Do you read Mumsnet FWR because you agree with it, then, Seven?