Macy Gray has capitulated

[Gogster]

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2022/07/macy-gray-apologizes-anti-trans-comments-misunderstood-today-show-hoda-kotb-piers-morgan

4 days. Just 4 days, Macy. "Do better".

I asked you if you were out and proud in your work place and you said you were, but you don't work.
I asked you if you were out and proud on all social media, and you said you were, but Mumsnet is social media, and you use a pseudonym.

I am hugely appreciative of Macy speaking up and sorry that she has been subjected to so much abuse and bullying for it.
I certainly will not judge her for being forced to backtrack. I think its very easy to tell her to stand her ground but it's the reality of TRA aggression that they'll have tried to threaten everything: her careers, her partner, her children. We don't know what her financial position is.
If she has been put in a position where she has faced losing her career and income, ostracised by people close to her and worrying about her children, then by god, I understand and wish her well.

And what's the site being anonymous got to do with it?

You must understand the point being made.

You are attacking a woman for being a coward, whilst keeping your own identity hidden whilst voicing your "opinions", whilst she herself is out there for everyone to see and know, and is getting the most vile personal attacks and the views she shares can be responsible for other peoples livelihoods being lost.

She is far from a coward !

Yes, recording contracts are incredibly onerous and the artists are assets of a grander narrative and are used to push messages, have been since the '50s when the music industry went very corporate.

Okay.

Your lack of insight and empathy for someone who (unlike you) does have a career to lose as a result of this kind of bullying is really quite staggering.

Like women giving men white feathers during WW1, safe in the knowledge that they themselves were never going to have to face machine gun fire.

Oh poor Macy, I detest these bullies. It’s so contradictory
Im currently being called names in a FB group for disagreeing with gender identity ideology. Yet the same people are all me too and believe her - until she’s saying something you don’t like.

They'll be some vague clause about bringing blah into disrepute or some wiffle. Record companies own artists. Just ask George Michael.

It's not 'just' her contract/career/money a risk, necessarily. JK Rowling recently had her family's address posted on SM along with pics of bomb-making equipment.

I wouldn't call her a coward as under that level of pressure that's what most of us would do.

But she hasn't been brave.

She hasn't been prepared to speak truth and make the sacrifice for it when the time came. We never really know if we're the type of person who will until tested, and most of us aren't.

Thank God for those that are though. Who will not be cowed and who make sacrifices the rest of us benefit from. There have been many on this road Maya, Keira, Alison to name three. And women in the public sphere like Martina and Sharon.

Macy for whatever reason hadn't done this she has capitulated like most of us would.

Most of us are not brave heros.
I speak out in public and professionally. I've been targeted at work for this. So I now don't use twitter under my own name and have taken some time off speaking up as it took a toll.

I'm neither a coward or a hero, just an average person finding a level I can tolerate.

You know what I feel most for Macy in this: that her lack of bravery and capitulation has been so public. She's found out the horrible truth that she's not very brave at the same time we all saw it.
That's going to be hard to live with.
The Bastards

Martina Navratilova was cowed enough to back off the first time she spoke about it.

Macy Gray has my total support and I think she's been very brave to do as much as she has.

If anyone disagrees with that and wishes to post using their real name plus an identifying photo then I will listen. To be clear, this is not a recommendation, in fact I strongly advise you not to do so, but there's something about having this discussion on an anonymous forum that I find really distasteful.

This is an anonymous forum, so anonymously is the only way we can discuss it.

And if you are suggesting we should only express an opinion if we out ourselves, there'll be many of us who wouldn't want to do that here because we've posted lots of other personal information it would make public.

But you don't know how much any of us speaks up in RL and puts ourselves out there publically in other forums or contexts.

This is an anonymous forum, so anonymously is the only way we can discuss it.
Not so, I have seen posters use their real name on here. I'm not suggesting we do - and to be clear, I have no intention of doing so, but that's exactly why I don't have a word of criticism or reproach for Macy Gray.

And if you are suggesting we should only express an opinion if we out ourselves, there'll be many of us who wouldn't want to do that here because we've posted lots of other personal information it would make public.
Correct. That's why we stay anonymous isn't it? I bet Macy Gray now wishes she'd thought of that.

But you don't know how much any of us speaks up in RL and puts ourselves out there publically in other forums or contexts.
Then maybe those public forums / contexts are the place for criticisms?

I realise it looks from my post like I'm saying we shouldn't talk about it at all on here. That's my bad and my fault for posting in a hurry when I'm supposed to be working. There are lots of things to discuss about this dreadful situation, I just think it's really off to be critical of MG - and particularly to criticise her for not showing enough bravery - while you've got the anonymity of Mumsnet as a shield.

But we discuss and criticise loads of public people anonymously on here?!
In fact that's pretty much all we do 😁.

Not sure why Macy Gray is an exception?

I do get having a protective human response to the obvious battering she's received, and I have no desire to kick her any more.

I intended my post to reflect the obvious common humanity most of us who aren't that brave should be able to connect to, and what bastards they are for doing this to her.

I can well imagine it could have been me.

It's not "expressing an opinion" that people are objecting to. It's labelling Macy Grey a coward.

That is their opinion.
So you're ok with opinions but just not that one?

Yes it's not a very complementary, and who knows on here if anyone is really in a position to throw stones, as nearly everyone is anonymous.

But criticising whilst anonymous is pretty much the main activity on Mumsnet.

Which makes me think I really should find something better to do...

The tras must be pretty thick if they think they can change somebody's mind by bullying them into saying the opposite.

We all know she hasn't changed her mind really.

Yes except changing minds isn't the goal, it's subjection.

You don't have to believe you just have to comply.

If they were actually relying on belief it would never have got off the ground.

There are 4 groups of people:

A tiny group who want to impose their belief through power.

A small group who actually get convinced by the tiny group.

A huge group who don't believe but will go along through fear of social rejection (in various forms). That's most of us.

A tiny group who will resist despite the consequences. Who we all imagine or would like to think we'd be, but most aren't.

Maybe Macy will be. None of our actions are defining and as @flo

And as @Floisme said other brave women such as Martina have been on a journey of courage.
It's not a static thing.

Thank you, that’s expressed it far more succinctly than I did!

Yes this board is all about opinions but, just like if we were going to criticise a post as incoherent and badly spelt, I hope we’d have the
sense and the decency to check our own writing and spelling first, well in the same way I think that, if I’m not prepared to stand up and identify myself before calling someone a coward, I don’t think I have any moral authority to do so.

Maybe it makes me uncomfortable because I’ve been conscious lately that I’ve been on here a long time and that maybe the moment is coming when I should stand up more and be counted. That’s for me to think about.

The only direct reference I intended to make to your post MalagaNights was the Martina mention. Otherwise it was about a number of posts.

That is their opinion
So you're ok with opinions but just not that one?

It's the hypocrisy of it. If you wish to call someone a coward from back tracking due to personal direct attacks on her, this is only possible as she is out there as herself putting her opinions out there. Not hiding behind a username with no photo.

If you would like your username to be your real name or your twitter/instagram link that everyone knows you by, then and only then can you have any credibility in calling her a coward.

Yes it's not a very complementary, and who knows on here if anyone is really in a position to throw stones, as nearly everyone is anonymous.

Exactly, all here attacking her from the position of security, and anonymity. She doesn't have that.

In fairness they think that putting on a dress magics you into being a woman.

Exactly, all here attacking her from the position of security, and anonymity. She doesn't have that.

This only works if you argue no criticism of anyone public whilst remaining anonymous yourself, was the position of this platform or posters arguing this.

Why's it ok to criticise Owen Jones,

...Jolyon Maugham or India Willoughby whilst anonymous but not Macy Gray?

Because you have more empathy with her position? Fine, but that's not applying a consistent principle.

(Sorry I keep posting accidentally too soon!)

This only works if you argue no criticism of anyone public whilst remaining anonymous yourself, was the position of this platform or posters arguing this

The OP claimed the above and that she is not a coward, as she labels MG. And subsequent posts also clearly show doesn't understand how much is at stake career wise for MG, the pressure she will be under from her record company or her responsibility towards the people she employs as her band.

It then transpires that not only does she not use her real name on all social media - which is what Mumsnet is - but she's a SAHM, so has nothing to lose in the workplace.

There's a massive difference between different celebrities. JKR is so rich as to be untouchable financially and has worldwide love over several generations of people, including the current teens. Even she wobbled, but ultimately, if she was silenced forever, she would not starve. Owen Jones uses the bully pulpit and (frankly ridiculous) reputation as a serious commentator and the voice of the left, and has the backing of all manner of unsavories on the SJW side, all of whom can say what they want without consequence in the workplace or on social media.

Every GC woman who is famous and goes public will be in for a torrid ride, social media and career cancellation and much more so than any man doing the same. It is not a fair fight on both sides, we knowTwitter, Youtube, Facebook only cancels one side,. We know that workplaces and schools have been indoctrinated by Stonewall etc, but have not had an equivalent set of training from the GC side, so the Pavlovian reaction to a GC person will be guilty until proven innocent. A GC celebrity female will have a bit of backing, but nowhere near as much as someone from the other side. MG isn't particularly well known outside those of us who remembered her from her work 2 decades ago. Who knows if she can afford to lose this career revival. She's probably already sunk, even with the recantation.

It's not a level playing field between people who are criticised on this board. MPs and journalists with platforms and propagandists at their fingertips are not equal to women with past celebrity, precarious employment and limited financial means.