Jane Garvey and fi glover interviewing Eddie izzard

[resistingreality]

Did anyone else listen to this? It’s on Times radio so a bit niche. It was quite weird. At the end, jane said she had no problems using toilets with trans woman, from whom we had nothing fear. She claimed we should really be focusing on male violence and should stop “bickering”. For someone who has presented woman’s hour she quite spectacularly missed the point on safeguarding and I absolutely hated the implication that women concerned with this are “bickering”. They also let izzard talk a fair amount of shit. Massively disappointing but maybe it’s what I should expect.

I think this may be the Paris Lees interview I also remember.

"At the end, jane said she had no problems using toilets with trans woman, from whom we had nothing fear."

She'll be amazed when she catches up with the news about isla bryson.

Or is it that shes convinced that the men in her circles dont intimated and sexually abuse women and girls? Male celeb are fine?

All this- spot on.

I have friends who loved Fortunately with a passion to the point of going to the shows and having extreme excitement about it and I just do not understand it.

You'd think working at the BBC they'd have a more realistic view of male media types 🤷. Oh, but TWAW so would never be like that. Silly me 🙄

It’s put me off listening too. It’s not that I can’t handle different views, it’s more the strange sort of no view they have. It’s a bit … drippy. All this let’s not bicker stuff. Fine. But then discuss from a position of knowledge at least.

I did wonder whether Izzard being so equivocal related to an understanding that the debate is starting to change including in the Labour Party. But also fi and Jane are determined to keep it light and that can seem odd in discussions like these.

I listen to times radio and was interested when with a big fanfare fi and Jane moved from bbc. Not my cup of tea at all and I’m just a wee bit younger than them. This just makes me certain not to tune in again. Bit too much like loose women but there are only two of them.

times radio has gone down hill a wee bit especially on Gender debate.
Sharon Davis was on times radio the other day commenting on Seb Coe’s athletics announcement and Chloe Tilly really showed her lack of knowledge.

I really liked Gloria de Piero on times radio and was disappointed she left.

I can’t believe Eddie Izzard is getting airtime.

I purposely don't listen to them when they have a sleb on. They just turn into a pair of sycophantic luvvies and it's barely listenable.

They had Tim Minchin on Fortunately and he was just awful, they totally failed to rein in his delusions of grandeur - it was cringe.

And I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who likes his work.

I can't imagine how embarrassing they'd have been with Izzard.

I remember Jane Garvey being really irritated by Sally Hines on WH. That's saying something, if JG has actually been Stonewalled. She said something about TW and their 'living as women' not being the same as the life of many of the WH listeners - "facilitating the lives of others" was the phrase she used.

Agree with queen. There have been occasions where I thought JG was bordering on starting to get it. But then flounders and moans.

She certainly was compassionate on a trans widows piece a few years ago on Wh. And on times radio they were quite firm about the lunacy of the violent men In women's prisons snoop fuck up.

But it's clear from this that there's no real understanding of the issues, embedded cognitive dissonance and a willingness to throw women under the bus to suck up to the likes of Izzard. But the times radio is open to free speech and that's their opinion....

EB has been good on this while maintaining fairness. I also will
Have her sarcastic voice repeating the laverly book title "work of staggering penis" and the pregnant pause immediately after etched into my brain for evermore...!

Nuala was also clear that the "gender lawyer" hadn't answered her questions about what she wanted to hear from world athletics last week. And Sharron got a lot of air time...

As an aside WH are apparently doing a piece on RSE in schools on Monday that could be worth listening too.

That's interesting.

As pp say though, young adult daughters...

Give me someone like Emma Barnett any day of the week who will challenge Maya Forstater and then do the same to a believer in gender identity ideology. One of the reasons we've got in the current mess is journalists losing sight of what they're there to do and instead thinking that their role is to promote a progressive cause.

If anyone wants to hear what Emma Barnett is like on this issue, I'd recommend they track down the interview she did with Kathleen Stock.

https://twitter.com/BBCWomansHour/status/1455838464801394688

Yes I'd forgotten some of EB's interviews on this - she was very good interviewing a woman from Stonewall a while ago. Tbh I'd given up on WH since they weren't discussing the very topical gender issues I wanted to hear about. I emailed them about 5 years ago saying as a listener I wanted them to cover sex and gender more but to no avail.

Glad to see the issue is getting a small amount of airtime now.

To be fair to them, JG & FG are going for light and fluffy chat in this latest show not fierce interviewing technique which is why I enjoy them. Time and a place for both. I'm genuinely surprised JG is TWAW though. After all those years on WH!

I purposely don't listen to them when they have a sleb on. They just turn into a pair of sycophantic luvvies and it's barely listenable.

I was going to say the same. I used to fine JG mostly likeable enough on WH, but I think she is a fiercely intelligent woman and skilled broadcaster who puts on an act of being silly and fluff-brained and incompetent to appear 'relatable'. It's clearly served her well in a male-dominated industry, where women who speak uncomfortable truths get slapped down and sidelined (Jenni Murray.)

It was only when Emma Barnett took over at WH that I realised how saccharine and shallow the programme had been before, and how JG had perpetuated that stereotype of the middle aged woman with menopause brain being in awe of the younger cool girls and putting herself down. (I think perhaps I didn't notice as it's a trap of self-deprecation I've fallen into myself at times, before understanding how harmful - personally and politically - that is. I don't do it anymore.)

Sorry, that was a long and slightly incoherent way of saying that I think JG is prepared to switch off her critical brain for the sake of media brownie points, even if it means throwing women under the bus. And that is pretty shameful.

I’m just an ordinary middle-aged woman fairly new to the GC topic and this particularly debate, and the feminism boards, so please forgive me if I don’t use the right acronyms and terminology.

I’ve come on to say that I think we need to e-mail Fi and Jane en masse.

I’ve just listened to the episode and I am very disappointed having previously been a big fan of Fortunately.

F & J only put one slightly hard question to Eddie about safe female spaces to which he replied more or less, “I don’t purport to be the high priest of all trans issues and have all the answers” which was a disingenuous and convenient cop out! I am very disappointed that those two vastly experienced women, with a long journalistic track record behind them, failed to follow up and let him get away with that answer more than once.

They also kept the discussion entirely focussed on Eddie himself without straying in to the area of legal definitions which are so vital to the debate.

Eddie was very clear that he stood his ground when questioned so why couldn’t these two veterans of radio have been braver and stood their ground too?

I think there was a clear agenda from the outset that there was going to be a calm debate, which tbh is not a terrible objective. However, it was so calm and non-controversial that the discussion became meaningless and banal and they pussy- footed around the issues. I’m sure the programme just served the purpose of them being able to say “tick, look, we haven’t avoided the trans topic”.

I may not be popular on here when I say that I took Eddie’s point that there have always been trans people - in this case trans women - throughout history and probably always will be, who of course deserve the same expectation of safety and respect as anyone else.

However - and this is the point that Jane and Fi seemed to “deliberately” miss entirely, trans-women are not women. They just factually aren’t however much they say they are.

So when Jane said at the end, “Well I’m fine going to a public loo used by trans- women” she is basically saying “I am happy that any random man has access to women’s lavatories, even those who have malicious intent”.

You really let all women down at that point Jane you really did, whether you are conscious of that fact or not!

I agree. A really solid journalist.

The early Fortunatelys were enjoyable, and I found the lightness a good thing during Covid. Shame if they aren’t really women focussed underneath though.

If you want to email the programme, Fortunately is now called Off Air and you can contact Fi and Jane here:

[email protected]

I always thought Jane Garvey was too scared of her children, two young adult daughters, to say what she really thought.

^^ this email address takes you to a more general contact page if you scroll down btw.

One of the things that used to irritate me about JG on WH is her faux self-deprecation. She was so obviously not actually saying that she was stupid or whatever but came across very much as saying she was which really pisses me off. It's something that so many younger women do or have done (me included) particularly around men. But she was old enough to know better and it never rang true.

They may be fine using public loos with TW but other women from
Muslim or orthodox communities, or women who have reason to fear male bodies, or to feel embarrassed by having proximity to them when they have to deal with, say, heavy periods, may not feel fine about it.

Quite @Abra1t - or like me they may just not want to.

It’s funny but we have a shared toilet at work that has all cubicles but shared sinks, mirrors and hand drying and despite knowing all the men I work with well and not generally being someone who feels uncomfortable around men I do feel really unsettled about the loos.

I was chatting to DH about it and wondering if it’s just that I’m not used to it?
I can’t describe why it is I just know I really don’t like it and I sort of feel I should trust myself on that rather than question my socialisation or bias?