I found the end of it really interesting actually - shame we can't be privy to the contents! This is pretty much all I want: Discuss it with honesty and a desire to actually find out what the other believes, where we agree, why we disagree. It has been
shockingly hard to do this pretty much anywhere on the internet when the subject is 'gender'.
...Atwood surprises me with a plot twist. Just an hour or so later, she sends me several emails, some about the Galloway case, others elaborating on her thoughts about gender. This becomes an ongoing back and forth, in which she lays out her views, patiently and thoughtfully. Most of it is off the record, but I think she won’t mind me saying that, ultimately, we both want the same thing, which is truth and fairness.
The more we email, the more I realise we are not arguing about this the way I’m used to arguing about it, ie the social media way, which is just shouting at one another and not listening to the other’s point of view. We are genuinely curious to understand one another and send each other links we think the other will find interesting. After several days of this, I become self-conscious about how much of her time I am taking up, time she should be spending on her new book of short stories, and I apologise for being so stubbornly argumentative. She writes straight back: “Don’t worry, Hadley. Some people won’t really discuss things with me because they are intimidated. I agree with Orwell: the truth does matter.”