Matt Walsh Thinks He's Leading the Woman's Movement

[Delphinium20]

I've seen a lot of respected feminist posters excited about this documentary, which on its own may contain useful content. But I want to ask, why promote a misogynist just because he has the right talking points on gender ideology? Women are about to lose abortion rights in my country. Matt Walsh has said women who are pro-choice are "repulsive."

twitter.com/mattwalshblog/status/1521549440406155264?s=21&t=ItXp9--3s8_3_0S8LFNc9w

I urge you to check out this thread on Ovarit where women have documented all the work feminists have been doing already, and how Walsh ignores us. Walsh sees this GC issue not through feminist eyes, but as a way to push his own brand and claim himself leader of this issue. Please stop falling for it.

ovarit.com/o/Radfemmery/91809/matt-walsh-is-literal-proof-of-male-privilege-you-re-not-a-savior-and-many-women

There aren't prizes for who said it first.

This is so childish.

What is the aim here?

If there was a prize for who said it first who would win?
Germaine Greer?

Has anyone watched the What Is A Woman video yet? It's behind a paywall so I am waiting for reviews.

Lots of people who've seen it seem to agree that it's done more for the feminist movement than feminists have done in 100 years which makes me even more interested!

All the clips I've seen are hilarious.

This one for starters.

twitter.com/khendriix_/status/1532193965667233793

twitter.com/khendriix_/status/1532193965667233793

holy fuck. who is that interviewee?

I saw the movie very negatively reviewed on Ovarit but I have to say, that clip and the one where he's talking to the Maasai tribe are both hilarious.

Ohh, I didn't know this was out now.

I'm looking forward to watching, it's great to see a man standing up for women at last.

More: twitter.com/HJoyceGender/status/1532356921558192128

“Does a chicken cry? Do chickens commit suicide??” And how does she know that they don’t have gender identities, the bigot!! What happened to produce people like this?

Oh gosh, she said we assume chickens who lay eggs are female.

I'm late to this thread and have not RTFT.

As a PP alluded to, I think the fact that the US is so politically polarised is bad for gender critical feminism. It's so much more tribal over there than it is in the UK, and unfortunately in the US you have liberals who believe trans women are women, conservatives who don't believe trans women are women, and not a lot else.

That puts gender critical feminists in a difficult position because we are constantly having to defend ourselves against accusations of being allied with the far right, and playing into the hands of people who want to take away our right to an abortion.

Women in the US have a binary political choice between a party which recognises what a woman is but doesn't think they should be allowed to have abortions, and a party which defends female people's right to have an abortion but otherwise refuses to acknowledge that they exist as a category.

In the UK, by contrast, the choice is between the parties on the political left such as Labour, the Lib Dems, the SNP and the Greens, who are all more or less aligned with the US liberals, and the Tories, who are really nothing like the US conservatives at all.

On the one hand, nobody in the Tories is threatening to take away our right to an abortion. On the other hand, they are also not immune to gender ideology, and a lot of the things gender critical feminists are concerned about have happened on their watch.

Back to Matt Walsh, I agree that he and gender critical feminists make strange bedfellows. We really have nothing in common besides not believing in gender ideology. And in many ways, American conservatives have more in common with gender ideologues than either of these groups care to admit, such as accepting the legitimacy of gender roles and believing in things which cannot be proven.

It is odd to see someone like Matt Walsh forensically taking apart gender ideology, knowing that he belongs to a religion which believes in transubstantiation. I wonder whether his current path might lead him to reconsider his own religious beliefs in any way. Or perhaps it might lead him closer to becoming a feminist, or feminist ally, if you don't believe men can become feminists.

Either way, and whatever you think of Matt Walsh as an individual, some of the clips from his movie are incredible. The woman saying chickens are assigned genders... top level batshittery!

Is that the opinion of someone from the US?

Because I think that US feminists are very bad at feminism, as evidenced by the fact that they are fighting for trans women's rights whilst actual natal women in the US still lack basic rights that women have in every other developed country in the world.

I watched this insanity for about 5 years now and I still would not have believed that conversation actually happened if there wasn't video footage of it.

I've

It's almost nutty enough to make you wonder whether these are real people or just actors.

It is odd to see someone like Matt Walsh forensically taking apart gender ideology, knowing that he belongs to a religion which believes in transubstantiation. I wonder whether his current path might lead him to reconsider his own religious beliefs in any way. Or perhaps it might lead him closer to becoming a feminist, or feminist ally, if you don't believe men can become feminists.

I was just thinking that this is one person with a religious belief trying to pick holes in the logic of another person with a quasi-religious belief. The only difference between them is that we are currently lucky enough to live in a secular society where it is acceptable to be critical of religion but somehow gender ideology has managed to embed itself into all our institutions and to be critical is a sin. How is this being allowed to happen?

I find it really odd that you find it odd that MW is Catholic but can think clearly on this issue. There are plenty of people who are well known philosophers or scientists or writers who can foresnsicly take apart bad thinking, who are also Catholic and could even give a good account of the idea of transubstantiation. Ivan Illich, Graham Green, Alistair McIntyre, none of them American either.

Not to say Walsh is at the same level as Ivan Illich, or a GK Chesterton, or a Schumacher. But clearly being an orthodox Catholic is seen as intellectually coherent by plenty of extremely intelligent people who are committed to critical thought.

With the caveat I haven't watched it, the reviews suggest that isn't the case.

What Matt is doing is pitching religious conservatism against gender ideology. It's Trad Life vs Queer Theory and for once it makes uber conservatism look the saner option of the two.

It's not feminism. It's two types of oppressive to females dogma battling it out with each other.

The film does serve a wider purpose, particularly where children are concerned.

Despite our differences in world view I do believe Matt and other conservatives like him are genuinely horrified by the medicalisation of children. Most people are when they realise how damaging to health it is and on that point I don't think it matters whether you are religious, atheist, feminist or whatever.

I suppose the thing with religion is that people can compartmentalise those beliefs (which are usually supernatural) and be perfectly rational and evidence based in the rest of their lives. MW is entitled to hold his belief and whoever that woman is should be entitled to hold hers, however whacky it is. However neither belief should be influencing policy or medical decision making. At the moment, in the UK at least, most of us are free from religions having unwanted negative influence in our lives. The same cannot be said for gender ideology.

I suppose I find the manner in which he is doing it quite curious. He reminds me of Richard Dawkins.

Hilariously, when Richard Dawkins, famous evolutionary biologist and atheist, came out and said that male people can't become female people and he doesn't believe in gendered souls, there was a disappointed outcry among his atheist fans who have nonetheless fully bought into gender ideology.

As if it is surprising that someone who doesn't believe in something for which there is little evidence also doesn't believe in something else for which there is even less evidence. (Personally I am more open to the idea that God exists than I am to the idea of gendered souls.)

Yes, I find it astonishing that in such a secular, sceptical country, so many people have accepted this belief system as though it is scientifically proven.

🤯

After much struggle, we eventually managed to put religion into its box and establish the principles of a secular society.

The problem is that not enough people have figured out that this new religion is actually a religion and should be treated with the same toolset.

Religious people themselves, like presumably Walsh, are also generally in favour of secularism, as a sort of truce, because they don't want other people's religions forced on them, and they've conceded they're not strong enough to force their own on others (so it might not be 100% principled...)

So it's unsurprising that they should push back (like all of us) when they get this new religion pushed on them.

The new religion is currently thinking it can force itself on everyone, but it's rapidly unravelling.

Exactly @NecessaryScene.

It's the new religion for people who think they are too clever to believe in God.

It's the new religion for people who think they are too clever to believe in God.

And of those who have fallen for it, it shows they were more invested in "rightside norms" than "accuracy norms".

Piece on that by Jesse Singal from a few years ago, that's worth a look if you haven't seen it. Going off on a slight tangent from this thread though:

Rightside Norms, Accuracy Norms, And Internet Garbage-Fights

There was an article in The Atlantic that interviewed different people on gender ideology (sorry, can't find it, but similar vein to Singal's). The quote from a man in his mid-thirties really resonated with me, "Talking to people who believe in gender identities, I realize I'm listening to religious conservatives who don't realize they're religious conservatives."

That's very interesting, I hadn't heard of that theory before.

It immediately made me think of JK Rowling, and the people who believe that she is transphobic now combing through the Harry Potter books looking for evidence that she is also racist, homophobic and God knows what else.

There was all that stuff about the Gringotts goblins being an antisemitic trope, when the only real evidence people had to support that claim was the depiction of the goblins in the Warner Bros films, which were produced by the grandson of German Jews who fled the Nazis in the 1930s, and the fact that the location used for the bank in the films allegedly has a Star of David on the floor.

As if JK Rowling personally chose Australia House, which has a six pointed star which represents the six states of Australia and looks nothing like the Star of David, to be the location setting for her fictional Jewish goblin bank.

There is literally nothing too far fetched that it cannot be used as proof that JK Rowling is A BAD PERSON WHO MUST BE BURNED AT THE STAKE.

Matt Walsh is reporting that The Daily Wire has been subjected to a cyber attack to sabotage the premier of the documentary and Twitter are suppressing the whatisawoman hashtag every time it starts trending.

No other marginalised group in history has gained enough power to effectively oppress the majority. Cyber attacks go beyond aggressive activists on the street, who is behind it all? They have a terrifying level of control.