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.

This is an excellent article, thanks for linking to it.

ZW is clinging on to the bitter end, isn’t she? She’s starting to look a little foolish especially with her comment on “living like a woman”. Zoe, what does this mean?

I love what CNA says about young people living in “a cauldron”, and her comment about books needing a trigger warning. My favourite though is her “No thank you”. I don’t know if CNA is deliberately echoing the female Olympian’s comment, and I don’t know if Zoe is aware of this succinct rejection of TW competing in women’s categories, but it is spot on.

I’m adding a couple of her books to my Christmas list.

I think it’s fascinating how the same people who bang on about ‘privilege’ seem unable to recognise their own. Instead, we get an elite white British woman insisting that her experience is what matters.to the extent that she should talk over the black African woman she’s interviewing. And describe her like a naughty child.

maybe zoe could have a think about that and actually listen to the woman she’s interviewing.

I think it’s fascinating how the same people who bang on about ‘privilege’ seem unable to recognise their own.

Interesting, isn't it? I don't hold it against Zoe that she went to a private school - it was her parents' choice, not hers - but she doesn't seem to acknowledge either the advantages it's given her or the way in which it's restricted her life experience. Part of being a journalist is, or ought to be, about listening to other people whose background is very different from your own and trying to understand their perspective. She just doesn't do that. She's very full of her own self-importance.

I think Emma Barnett's interview with Chimamanda was much better, but then I don't rate Williams:

www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-11-11/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-on-j-k-rowling-cancel-culture-and-beyonce

New to this site, so possibly this interview has already been posted. I suspect CNA is exasperated with the continuing questioning of her position on Transwomen. Barnett doesn't push it, and is respectful. Not so ZW.

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?

Exactly @TheGreatATuin - I'm so bloody sick of it. People who self-identify as Righteous, shamelessly waving the Inclusive Free Speech High Ideals flag yet simultaneously telling lies about anybody who doesn't parrot the One Bundle Of Good Beliefs and deliberately silencing them.

We break briefly so I can look at a photo of her brother, who is smiling, tall, bearded and handsome. .... I suggest that he would look different if he were living as a woman.

That is a prejudiced and ignorant statement by Zoe Williams. He might look different but a trans woman doesn't suddenly stop looking male by "livig as a woman". Most people who have been through male puberty still look male for years after coming out as trans. And most wont ever look unequivocally like women either. Even after medication and surgery and electrolysis and makeup and whatever else, indicators like height, build, extremities, gait... they don't all change and some can't be changed at all.

Yes, this stood out for me. No-one gives a toss what you think Zoe. The interview isn’t with you

Also, looking different doesn’t necessarily mean you are changed in substance.

He’d still be a biological man. He’d still have been raised as a man.

Maybe Williams does just think that totally superficial looks are all that matters.

Having read the round-up of Hadley Freeman's interviews in the Graun last weekend, I think Williams feels there's room for a new writer that makes themselves as present in the interviews as the interviewee. Freeman does this so well, what a treat her retrospective was. Williams, not so much.

ZW needs to learn that not everything is about her. My god, the arrogance.

I just looked up Williams wiki. She identifies as Welsh apparently, despite having lived her whole life in London. And she wrote an utterly bizarre article about breaking social distancing rules in a Wetherspoons and getting kicked out.

She really epitomises everything that the guardian is derided for.

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

"Useful" is a stretch.

Such classes definitely exist in South East London!

Zoe Williams wrote in an article earlier this year she had never come across women only exercise sessions in her local area.

In 2013/14 she wrote an article about woman only gyms. So, a liar.

Very much thought on reading the article!

Maybe Williams does just think that totally superficial looks are all that matters.

Well, to be fair, they were talking about appearence at the time. But her assumption that a tall handsome bearded smiling young man couldn't have been "living as a woman" is prejudiced. And it depends on a very narrow understanding of what "living as a woman" means - I guess that in her head it means "trying in every possible way to pass as a woman" but that's not what it means to all trans people, not by a long shot.

I think all you’re illustrating is the impossibility of ‘living as a woman’ as a concept.

*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.

Yes, this stood out for me. No-one gives a toss what you think Zoe. The interview isn’t with you*

Well said pps and I said similar on the Helena Bonham Carter thread yesterday. The art of feature writing, especially in the Graun, is pitiful as a result of this arrogant belief.

Rosamund Unwin's piece on HBC was clear, based in fact and let the subject speak for herself. A lesser writer would have shoehorned in their own thoughts on JKR or Johnny Depp but it was refreshing to see the reader be left to their own conclusion.

But if it's a lie told by a Righteous Person, apparently it doesn't count. Or something.

I think all you’re illustrating is the impossibility of ‘living as a woman’ as a concept.

Yes, probably! But Zoe thinks it makes sense and even on her own terms it doesn't.

Stands out every time. Disrespect for a woman's voice / experiences if she doesn't comply with your narrow views.

A bit of a derail but it occurs to me that the original intent of "living as a woman" was a trial period as a precursor to surgery. So the person proposing to go on a trans journey (for want of a better word) can try out what it feels like practically and emotionally to be perceived as a woman nut family, friends and wider society before they commit to irreversable surgery. Sort of a "try before you buy" situation. Which makes sense as a safeguarding mechanism for people considering surgery.

So it is more like "presenting in a way that means society reads you as female," rather than literally living as a woman would. But somehow along the way this has come to be interpreted literally.

I mean I am a woman and the only living as a woman thing I have done today is take a birth control pill.

Have just read the whole article and to be honest I am absolutely stunned. ZW actually has the nerve to try and frame Chimamanda Ngozi fecking Adichie as a "right wing" "troublemaker" whose considered opinions are "taken to the absurd"?

Dismisses their conversation as a "fight" that could go on all day, that CNA makes the same arguments as "enemies of free speech", that her kind of thinking splits the "unity" of the Left? (Oh Zoe, love..)

Also a lesser but unforgivable crime must be starting the whole piece with "I". Who would frame themselves as the most important thing to mention in the intro to a story that is supposed to be about someone infinitely more interesting?

Absolutely shameful piece of writing.

Righteous People do not tell lies, tsk. They are telling "their truth".

For those interested in reading her views without a journalist's patronising prejudices being all over them, here's a good interview with Helen Rumbelow - share token for a Times article:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bf65e1f2-44be-11ed-8885-043c27446b97?shareToken=ee878d86c98034433f6a4ccdf5938f32