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.

I find her sentences poorly constructed, and that distracts me. I should read again trying to ignore the odd syntax.

But tbh, ars longa, vita brevis.

Came on here to see what MN thought as I was fuming after reading that!

I do think though that this is part of the Guardian's discreet reverse ferret that's been going on since SG resigned/was sacked a few days ago. Think this is the third Guardian article in a row which is trying to present the 'trans/women's rights' issue in a more sympathetic way, getting figures like CNA that even those on the left, typical Guardian readers, will admire, to present the pro-women position.

Like the Guardian can't go from zero to full-on pro-women because their US readership will object, but I get the feeling they're trying to prepare the ground for saying shortly Oh no, we were always pro-women, always cared about sex-based rights too... As they know the shit is shortly to hit the fan re Mermaids, Cass etc.

So I think this is part of an attempt to reverse ferret subtly, so they can bring their readership along with them, and not get instantly cancelled themselves too.

A side note, one of the many casually obnoxious things with the article is that it starts not by praising the writing or thinking or campaigning of this famous feminist. Oh no, unbelievably Zoe thinks that the best way to start a report of an interview with CNA is to tell the reader that CNA is 'flawless to look at'.

FFS. Because that's really the most important thing about her!

Emma gets it though.

It's so cringeworthy!
Who cares what Zoe thinks?

Imagine getting to interview someone like CNA & then producing that 😵‍💫 quite apart from the content the writing is just off/odd/like she wrote for twice the word count then just removed words at random to get the count right.

RoyalCorgi · Today 16:59
Someone could or should point Zoe to the thread on Twitter about the trans police officers. I don't suppose it would do any good, though. She seems resistant to both logic and evidence.

To be fair being resistant to both logic & evidence is a key requirement for those of the gender faith - see Sturgeon et al

Absolutely! Williams happily defends the TRA position, despite being entirely ignorant of it. FFS!

I think we gained an interesting insight into Zoe's character here, when we were supposed to be learning about the glorious Chimamanda- Zoe is literally tribalist: if her brother were doing something, she'd be on his side no matter what!

Me, I would tell my brother off if he were an arsehole on this subject or any other. Just as I make my feelings extremely known to my children if I think they're the ones at fault in the latest playground fracas. Sadly, we all know parents who will back their kids up even if there is CCTV footage of their angelic offspring kicking someone's head in.

This! Hadley would have done a much more respectful and insightful interview by far.

No chance. The ground will die on this hill until Viner is run out of town by a pitchfork wielding mob.

That's an excellent interview - thanks, Saskihahaha.

ZW should watch and learn.

In a balanced argument you can’t just center it on your experiences and self. Other have to come into the equation. She needs to learn to recognise her privilege and see how it affects her beliefs and ideas. Fucking hate some guardian writers, self involved and obsessed twats.

The logical fallacies in Zoe’s argument / general lack of coherence are painful. Fascinating that she’s written it all out but still can’t see it. CNA’s responses are spot on.

Williams doesn’t come off well. I didn’t know much about Chimamanda before this interview but I think she rocks!

Guardian seem to be turning though. Did anyone see this article?

www.theguardian.com/film/2022/nov/28/helena-bonham-carter-defends-jk-rowling-and-johnny-depp?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Agree, this word-for-word re-hash of the recent Times interview, with Bonham-Carter defending JKR is one of the Guardian's current best-read articles. There was no need for the Guardian to just repeat verbatim a recent Times interview. But it's part of the Guardian trying to speedily reverse-ferret on feminism.

They still don't have the courage to own these views themselves - yet.

But they're bringing out the big guns, the CNA, the Bonham-Carter, the people they know their readership adore, to do the work for them.

They're clearly trying to give their readership a quick education in GC feminism - but with plausible deniability, by reporting others' words, rather than having the courage to own them. Yet.

But let's not forget, this is a huge turnaround from where they were even a couple of weeks ago.

The HBC article ends on a note that is critical of her young Harry Potter co-stars - and by implication, their young fan-base who support them in hating on JKR.

In the Zoe Williams article, while CNA's supposed heresy is challenged, SHE IS ALLOWED TO GIVE HER VIEWS. She is still spoken of respectfully, and the article does not attempt to cancel her or silence her. On fact, it's clear that Zoe is desperately keen to get CNA to talk about the ' trans issue' i.e. women’s rights, even when CNA makes it absolutely clear that she really doesn't want to. And when she doesn't provide the copy the Guardian wants, Zoe is clearly under instruction to just shoehorn it in anyway! But CNA is explicitly NOT cancelled for her views. They are presented as a bit silly and wrong - but views that an intelligent, admirable woman might reasonably hold.

I feel the end of No Debate is nigh. The HBC article is the fourth pro-feminist article in as many days.

Think we're definitely seeing a (speedy) reverse ferret here.

Bring it on!

I am baffled as to why Zoe seems so ignorant about stuff that she must, surely, be aware of, if she's paying attention. Surely she must know there are lots of men identifying as trans who don't even bother to try to pass? Men who just put on a dress and say "My name is Stephanie and my pronouns are she/her"? Social media is full of them. Not, incidentally, that I think it matters whether you pass or not - a male is still a male - but she seems unaware of the fact that many don't bother.

She also still seems to think it's all about toilets whereas if she'd paid any attention at all, she'd know it's about changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons, domestic abuse shelters, sport, diversity quotas. She must know that. Or is she in such an echo chamber she simply doesn't read or hear the stories about rapists in women's prisons or sexual abusers in women's changing rooms? Does she just literally block everything she doesn't want to hear?

In a balanced argument you can’t just center it on your experiences and self. Other have to come into the equation. She needs to learn to recognise her privilege and see how it affects her beliefs and ideas. Fucking hate some guardian writers, self involved and obsessed twats.

Slight derail but reminds me of LOJ collaring Jess Phillips at the Labour conference not so long ago. I don't usually watch him in action so found his approach ridiculous. He didn't want to listen to what she had to say, but push her into saying what he thought she should say. Not really journalism is it.

Clearly remember at one point she called him 'middle aged' and he tried to scoff and make a fool of her but was furious. If a man in his late thirties thinks that's some kind of affront it says something about their sense of reality really doesn't it.

the Guardian trying to speedily reverse-ferret

This won't go down well. Lots of loud, privileged people have done very well pontificating on this subject for the past few years; it's been a great chance for them to feel good about the Right Side of History and their own progressiveness, and many will very much not like the glimmer of realisation that they might be wrong. Too many bruised egos.

Not forgetting the US contingent of staff Arabella, who are often the ones kicking off about this (and often even more likely to shoehorn their personal opinions into copy)

True. Which is why they're trying to bring people along gently, getting other well-respected messengers such as CNA and Bonham Carter to do the work for them - so they can spread the message, while making it look as though it's not really them doing it or agreeing with it.

I reckon a few more weeks of this, and they might hope to have softened up their audience enough to be able to actually post something GC, in their own voice!

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.”

It would be dangerous to put a lit match anywhere near that argument.

I'm not threatened by transness but, in some situations, I find maleness quite intimidating. This is why language is so important.

I am baffled as to why Zoe seems so ignorant about stuff that she must, surely, be aware of, if she's paying attention. Surely she must know there are lots of men identifying as trans who don't even bother to try to pass?

It's interesting that she explicitly uses the phrase "reducing it to the absurd", which Helen Joyce as a mathematician uses in Latin as "reductio ad absurdem".

It's a means of proof of a theorem - you assume something is true, then demonstrate that if that is true, then you inevitably reach an absurd deduction (more accurately paradoxical or axiomatically impossible). Which shows that it cannot be true.

So some people look at the "absurd" cases and think they demonstrate why a rule doesn't work.

Whereas Zoe and others think pointing out actual absurd cases, or even suggesting that they're possible, is somehow offensive.

The very concept of "reductio ad absurdem" is kind of rude. Why would you do that to a perfectly innocent theorem? Just leave it alone, let it "live it's truth".

It's interesting that she explicitly uses the phrase "reducing it to the absurd",

Good point @NecessaryScene And maybe Williams was getting confused between the people who are doing the reducing to permit the absurdities to happen, and the people like Adichie who are calling out the reduction and the absurdities that are already happening as a result.

I used to assume that Zoe by virtue of the fact that she wrote for the Guardian was working class but then a few years ago I saw her on telly and was amazed to see an incredibly posh and incredibly patronising woman. So, yeah. Havne't been able to take her seriously since then tbh.

To be fair to Zoë, it's not just women's rights she doesn't research properly. It's anything beyond her immediate experience of being her, living her posh woman life in London. But she comes across as affable, maybe she's nice to have as a colleague and that's partly why she keeps her job? Don't quote me, but I think she refrained from signing witch hunt lettersb against colleagues.

Zoe Williams is probably the best journalist they have left after they hounded out all the good ones.