The wokebro hypocrisy over Jeremy Clarkson

[RoyalCorgi]

There's a thread on Clarkson's comments about Meghan Markle in Feminism Chat, but not here.

I don't particularly want to discuss the comments themselves (I'm sure we all agree they're horrific) but I feel myself once more being pushed to the brink by the hypocrisy of wokebros and handmaidens all lining up to condemn Clarkson as a misogynist, having allied themselves with a movement that routinely makes the most vile threats of sexual aggression against women - and having belittled women's concerns about these threats as silly or irrational.

Talcum X has made a whole video about how terrible Clarkson is. This is a man who routinely blocks feminists on social media so he can't hear what they're saying about male violence. The rest of the time he's calling us bigots.

Zoe Williams (her again) wrote an article about Clarkson in the Guardian, but she's another one who refuses to see the misogynistic bile that pours out of trans activists towards women.

They're all congratulating themselves on how progressive and feminist they are. I don't think I can stand it much longer. I don't know if it's deliberate gaslighting or they're all just incredibly stupid.

I actually do think it could be read as homophobic. When the name was being applied to Shaun King, the “joke” was that he’s really white, hence “talcum” and an obvious play on a famous “actually” Black activist. When you take it out of the context of Black people and apply it to a gay man, then it’s no longer the white/Black “joke” that’s active, but more the idea of being feminine and soft. The slur “poof” or “poofter” may be derived from this sense of “powder puff” aka a feminized man.

Sealioning aside, this is more interesting than the majority of the Clarkson threads. I agree with @RoyalCorgi that so many people seem locked into the kind of narrow, lazy ideological thinking that takes a particular view because it traditionally belongs to the domain of left or right. There seems to be little recognition that this distinction barely exists anymore.

The ground, including centre ground, has shifted. That radical feminism is being aligned with the far right - Christian fundamentalism that seeks to bar women's bodily autonomy and deny them the right to abortion - would be hilarious were it not so serious and dangerous. Likewise, aggressive, militant Male Rights Activism on the left? 'You will believe as we believe or we'll dox you, threaten you, have you fired and send you rape and death threats', sounds far more akin to fascism than anything I've ever recognised as coming from the left. But it's all the same noise.

And it's a lazy distinction. The hard-of-thinking 'journalists' like Clarkson and OJ hate each other, each despising everything the other stands for. It's really amusing that they can't see they're looking directly into a mirror, that both are precisely similar as are the nauseating sentiments they express. OJ claiming to make a stand against misogyny is frankly hilarious.

The right stand by, laughing, saying 'the left is eating itself', but the recent onslaught against women and their rights isn't coming from the traditional left at all. It seems pretending that it is, in order to justify the most disgusting commentary made against dissenters, is a deliberate colonization, in the same way that the MRA/TRA lobby is a deliberate colonization of women. Then they DARVO, claiming they are the victims and that feminists now occupy the frothing, rabid right. What a crock of shit.

It's lies predicated on the notion that the left is traditionally the ground on which the battle for equality for minorities has been fought, and a betrayal coming from that direction stings the most. This, despite the OP's earlier comment about the grievous wrongs committed in the name of the left. And in this specific media context, there isn't a pin to choose between JC and OJ for sheer awfulness.

Rather than the left eating itself, or even having been swallowed up by the right, the distinction has blurred despite the protestations of each side as to how much they hate the other. In some cases, there's no difference and you can't make out the distinction between a Jones and a Pig.

As many of us who formerly leaned towards this particular political ground have said, 'I didn't leave the Guardian. The Guardian left me'.

Ds1 partner is a senior school teacher

when i ask ds1 his partner said the children use it in the playground to mean someone is being a bit of a baby

Only if you think it's a generalisation, based on his sexual orientation, as opposed to a reflection on his behaviour.

It's like saying a woman is a bad driver - it's misogynistic, if you're saying it because she is a woman, but not if she's just knocked down your garden wall and run over your cat.