Owen. Not getting it or goady? Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

[viques]

Article in the Guardian about why homophobia against straight men needs to be addressed. Apparently straight men are at risk of homophobic abuse if they “violate the boundaries of masculinity”, which according to Owen include, being kind and empathetic and “ by not objectifying women or treating them as equals”. Blimey, that will put the frighteners on the guardian readership even faster than news that quinoa is in short supply.

He also challenges ( if that is the word) “perceptive discrimination” when people are treated unfairly on the grounds that they are ‘perceived’ to have a protected characteristic, he gives as an example Sikh men( not, you notice Sikh women, or even Sikh people) who are abused because they are perceived to be Muslim. Not sure where “perceptive discrimination” leaves women, but am pretty sure it is low down on the pecking order as usual, though also in todays guardian interestingly enough is an article by a transwoman who is apparently astonished at the unwarranted verbal sexual harassment she gets, which apparently didn’t happen at all when she wasn’t a transwoman. Maybe she ought to get together with Owen for support.

Anyway good to know that straight men have such a champion in their midst. I hope they can all breathe a little easier knowing that OJ is on their side. He has done such amazing things for gay and transitioning men after all.

He’s trying to create a ‘straight men’ v ‘everyone else’ divide, so he can equate homophobia with misogyny and make out that female people are not a group that needs political recognition.

The real problem is appearing feminine. Not being female. Men can therefore experience misogyny too.

I think he's just pointing out that straight males that don't conform to gender stereotypes get picked on, same as non conforming females.

Sorry, Noble, is that what you think or OJ?

‘I think he's just pointing out that straight males that don't conform to gender stereotypes get picked on, same as non conforming females.’

They do but it’s not misogyny. Misogyny extends beyond gender to the female body.

I think he is just getting paid by the word.

(To be clear, OJ has a vested interest - in my opinion - in trying to pretend that female people and gay men experience the same prejudices. Which I don’t agree with.)

It's quite obvious his gambit is that misogyny is about 'gender' not about sex.

Has he only just noticed a kind of discrimination that's written into the Equality Act?

He is currently trying to dig dirt on a girl who claims she was driven out of school because she didn't agree with trans ideology

twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1526547038413922304?cxt=HHwWgICx2bCcsa8qAAAA

That tells us everything we need to know about OJ.

Does being empathetic, not objectifying women and treating women as equals only happen when a man has a more feminine appearance? Can’t muscly, hairy men with beards and deep voices also be empathetic, not objectify women and treat women as equals ? Or do the markers for “ violating masculinity” not apply to them? Owen makes life so hard for the rest of us by firstly being so selective in his parameters and then drawing them so precisely . So many people get left out , or get included , who actually really didnt want to be defined by Owen in the first place.

Foul, absolutely foul

God that's so reprehensible. Transparently so!

remind me again, we are discussing this odious bad faith creep because....?

Whenever I read the latest interesting article put out by OJ I often wonder what his parents and upbringing were/are like😂

His upbringing seems very middle class.

Can someone tweet the Guardian to call off their dog?

Middle class is a broad church though. I mean I wonder what his parents are like as people to have produced him the way he is.

OJ HATES women. Really, really, really HATES all women.

Just look at how he's trying to further harm a child bullied out of her school. It really says it all about him - and the Guardian should be firing him for this sort of shit.

It's always worth remembering his utter hatred of women when reading anything he's written.

Growing up where he did, it would be mild and white as milk. If he was suspected to be gay at school that would potentially have been hard, and, I imagine, being closeted would bring its own issues. He has my sympathy for that. I think I read on another thread his mum is a lecturer and very twaw. Stockport is not Moss Side and it's a very 'southern' part of the North. Bramhall/Cheadle Hulme is a very 'southern' part of Stockport.

My large, hairy DH who could never be mistaken for a woman no matter how many hormones or dresses you gave him is empathetic and does not objectify women.
Strangely he has never been subjected to homophobic abuse because of this

His utter hatred of women and it slips out all the time, in todays article for example, he points out that Sikh men are often misreligioned ( I think I just made that word up) and called Muslim/ subjected Islamaphobic abuse and attacks. I am pretty sure that happens to Sikh women too but that doesn’t seem to occur to Owen, I expect in his mind it comes under “ Stop Whining, What Do You Expect If You Have XX chromosomes?”

This is absolutely awful. He is a vile vile person.

@Rainbowshit you're not wrong. There is something utterly repulsive about a grown man with a platform publically bullying a child.

You'd think the Guardian might reel him in, but I won't hold my breath.

The argument that misogyny is about being feminine and not about being female is false

a) because laws banning women from various activities were never written on the basis of femininity but on the basis of sex, and
b) masculine women are not getting any kind of pass in misogyny; rather, they can be harassed for both being female and for violating the gender rules assigned on women

If what I read here is correct, Owen is making a trans theory argument which tries to erase the concerns many have with the trans activists' attempt to erase all words for the female sex.

If they could make us believe that sexism and misogyny are not about sex at all but about femininity, then there's no giant problem in making it impossible to address sex-based oppression!

But if that were the case, then women and girls in Afghanistan could just put male dress on, perhaps draw a moustache on their upper lip, and be freed from all the Taliban rules.

In short, what Owen seems to be doing is very dangerous and very woman-hating, because sex IS the foundation for the mistreatment of women.

Femininity is sometimes the cause for harassing effeminate men as they make it harder to police sex, and it can be used to harass women on the next level up from sex, i.e., to argue that the way women are taught to dress and act is in itself somehow ridiculous.

But that is derived from the sex-based contempt many feel and the way the gendered behaviour assigned to women is used as shorthand for female people in general.

I don’t agree with a lot of what Owen writes and find his disregard of women’s concerns callous - not to mention his actions - but I’m struggling to see a word in this particular article I disagree with. I don’t think his conclusions that homophobic abuse is no less homophobic if the victim isn’t actually gay and that homophobia relates to the taboo of nonconformity with societal gender roles are new or contentious, are they? Nor that the hatred of gender nonconformity is strongly linked to misogyny.

The phrase ‘patriarchy hurts men too’ was one I saw a lot when I was first exploring feminism years ago. This is exactly that.

I fully agree that the trend to lump everyone who is not a non-trans, non-gay man together is both disturbing and intentional since it handily does away with the category of biological woman and makes it impossible for us to focus women as a group with distinct needs. And I’m sure Owen is fully on board with that trend. But in and of itself there is nothing in that article that is inconsistent with a GC feminist viewpoint. There are commonalities and links between misogyny, homophobia and - yes - transphobia. Recognising that doesn’t mean signing up to the whole TWAW shebang and everything it entails.