Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie interview with Zoe Williams

[irishfeminist]

www.theguardian.com/books/2022/nov/28/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-bbc-reith-lecture-freedom-truth-trans-rights

Good for her, refusing to back down. Williams is a woman from a wealthy background who went to an extremely expensive private school and Oxford (like most Guardian writers) who revels in the virtue of her luxury beliefs. She doesn't offer anything or argue anything new here and I hope it'll peak a few more people.

Yes, I agree heartening that she hasn't backed down.

All that expensive education hasn’t helped Zoe with building a decent argument.

I’m not having that. “You couldn’t objectively say, ‘All women are threatened by trans women.’ I’m also a woman. That doesn’t reflect my experience.”

Talk about completely distorting an argument to the point of absurdity and then saying ‘but that’s not how I feel so it can’t be true’. People simply wouldn’t be objectively claiming that all women are threatened by trans women. 🙄

Wonder how Nicola 'feminist to her fingertips ' Sturgeon thinks of her now - she interviewed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at the Edinburgh book festival a few years ago and I think she said she was an inspiration.

“Someone’s useful idiot” sums up Zoe Williams.

I have so much respect for Adichie and gain more every time I hear something. She's sharp, compassionate and willing to stand her ground, while not trying to shut down the other person from expressing their views.
Much like JKR, she is just an amazing role model for girls.
This interview is quite fascinating as Zoe Williams has very much come down on the TRA side of things.
I think the seminal point for me is when they are debating trans issues and Adichie says, "Not if you consider women’s views to be valid. This is what baffles me. Are there no such things as objective truth and facts?"
and Williams just writes "I'm not having that" and then adds her response.
The entire lecture is about respecting and allowing different voices and opinions.
That's what the Adichies of the world are asking for and the Williamses are just "I'm not having that"
Sums up the TRA side doesn't it?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Queen.

It’s more than that @TheGreatATuin.

She’s not having a different opinion and she’ll invent a fairly silly straw man position so she can reject it because that’s not her own view.

But so many people are so poor at critical thinking, they go with the surface ‘ah. She got her. It isn’t everyone, so the whole argument is wrong!’ and fail to think ‘but that was never the argument about objectivity anyway’.

i do think this is what you get when lots of people have done not very good social science degree that taught them just enough to spectacularly miss the point while thinking they’re really clever.

Ooh. I learned that I can say ‘no you can’t generalise to all because I found one case’. No need to look any deeper! Gotcha.

What strikes me even further is that they had this discussion verbally, presumably with it being recorded so Williams could transcribe later. Its not a case of just half listening and arguing in the heat of the moment.
She actually wrote down Adichie's exact words on how women's views are valid and facts exist and then followed it up with "I'm not having that"
This entire thing is quite fascinating from a psychological perspective. It's clear Williams wasn't hearing a word at all.

I think better of Zoe Williams for interviewing her. But some very odd things in the introduction. A troublemaker? Adichie keeps making the point that she's not trying to make trouble at all and that if speaking about the rights and choices of women causes trouble she is distressed by that. But she can't not do it.

Although I suspect Zoe was well taught. She’s just regressed to the social media style of argument. And that flies a the guardian these days.

Oh absolutely!

I never was impressed by Zoe Williams and I'm less impressed now. She's startlingly naive and ill-informed.

Chimamanda Nzogi Adichie is totally the opposite. Must put her books I've not so far read on my Christmas list.

The Reith lectures start on BBC radio 4 on Wednesday.

I grew up in a town with a large fundamentalist Christian community (of the evolution doesn't exist and neither did dinosaurs variety), and arguing with trans activists feels like arguing with them.

Yes, "I'm not having that" really stood out for me, followed by the piss-weak strawman argument. Zoe might accept any man's claim to womanhood but doesn't care about women in prisons, shelter, public hospitals. Women who have experienced rape and violence from men. Or any woman really - they must be forced to comply. It's really shocking how callous she is.

I struggle with the arrogance of interviewing someone of CNA's stature and feeling you have to report what you said and your opinions as much as what she said.

I suggest that he would look different if he were living as a woman.

“But that’s the thing,” she says. “You can look however you want now and say you’re a woman.” And, she adds, anyone who might take issue with this is “outdated” and needs “to have the young people educate [them]”. I suspect she’s taking an argument – that trans people don’t want to be policed for how they dress and what stage of transition they’re at – and reducing it to the absurd.

There’s that phrase again “living as a woman” that nobody seems to be able to define.

And let’s face it the current trans style is for a 6ft 2 burley, bearded bloke to put on some nail polish and a flouncy summer dress and that’s it for transitioning. If that is what ZW considers “reducing it to the absurd” then she’s the outdated one in this conversation.

'I struggle with the arrogance of interviewing someone of CNA's stature and feeling you have to report what you said and your opinions as much as what she said.'

Absolutely. And cheapening her by describing her as 'a troublemaker' FFS. So childish

Well done to CNA for not backing down, and trying valiantly to keep women at the heart of the conversation

Yes it’s a weird interview isn’t it. Did she force the conversation on to trans issues just so she could shoehorn in her own opinion on the matter?

Zoe Williams wrote in an article earlier this year she had never come across women only exercise sessions in her local area. I lived in the same SE London area as Williams for six years and regularly attended women only swimming sessions and women only kickboxing classes, both at local authority run leisure centres.

She is either a liar or an idiot. Or perhaps both.

What strikes me about some of the people I speak with about this, and it seems to be similar with zoe Williams, is that they really think they have a choice at all.

I don't have a problem with it, they say, but are they thinking of Karen White when they say that? Or Katie delatovsky?

And do they appreciate that by making such a blanket statement, they are taking away their ability to protest and have a choice when (if?) a very obvious problem occurs. And they are taking away ALL WOMEN'S ability to chose. Prisoners, rape victims, my mum getting a bra fitted in M&S, we all need a process to protect us and to be able to say no at any time for any reason if we wish.

Thanks a billion, zoe

Absolutely, this really stuck out when reading the interview. The Guardian has far too many mediocre columnists with overinflated egos, but it comes over all the more clearly and poorly when they encounter people with actual talent.

What a shame the Guardian couldn't have sent Hadley Freeman to do this interview instead. Oh no wait, Hadley recently left the Guardian because she got sick and tired of this kind of tiresome shit

I think someone pointed out at the time that Zoe had even written an article about women-only exercise classes, so go figure.

I increasingly think Zoe isn't bright. She could have taken the opportunity of this interview to learn from someone who is vastly more intelligent and vastly better-informed than she is. She chose not to.

Oh. I just read it. How embarrassing for Zoe.