Helen Joyce in The Critic: Not so Keene on free speech

[DerekFaker]

An excellent, measured piece:

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2023/not-so-keen-on-free-speech/

"Keen, Bindel, Stock and Gaines differ a lot in politics, language and style. And yet the same people want to silence all of them. To me, this suggests there isn’t any way women who believe sex is real, binary and salient can make that message palatable to transactivists, so there’s no point trying. And so I’d like to propose an expanded version of Voltaire: I may not agree with what you say but I defend to the death your right to say it, wherever, whenever and as loudly as you like, using whatever words come naturally to you. "

I love Helen Joyce. She's such a brilliant writer and speaker. She's truthful, measured, thoughtful and really inspirational

Excellent article, thank you for sharing it

Fantastic article. Thanks for sharing. Joyce is a brilliant writer. She always nails it.

Clear and excellent as always.

I see Posie is going on Jordan Peterson's podcast soon:

https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/1652981049322774530?t=is6gYoon-QtSv0KxBWVwYg&s=19

Urgh, he just talks and talks and talks. I wanted to listen his interview with Louise Perry and he made hardly any space for her to speak. I gave up in the end.

Thanks for posting the article link, OP, I would have missed it otherwise 😀👍

I’ll also look forward to watching KJK on Peterson’s podcast but, by god, he does interrupt his guests a lot 😩

This reminds me of abusive men get ragey at something because of “it’s the way you said it”. It’s never about “the way you said it” (it’s about the contents of what you’re saying) - but that’s a convenient smokescreen because, unlike the actual words used, it can’t be assessed/measured/analysed. As Helen says, there’s no way you can express GC views that won’t be objectionable to the Traliban.

Love this article. So clear and so true

Agree it is an excellent article.

KJK is also on with Louise Perry here:

Began reading the article, and noticed that reference to Voltaire's quote. As far as I know, it was actually a quote by Evelyn Beatrice Hall who wrote a biography of Voltaire, not by Voltaire himself.

I agree, I find him infuriating as an interviewer. I actually think he's just rude.

He was better with Helen Joyce. And with Miriam Grossman, she just wouldn't let him dominate and led the conversation. I hope Posie is ready to take charge!

JP is a better lecturer than interviewer. He just talks at people rather than has conversations.

I do learn a lot from him though.

So an excellent quote by a woman is commonly misattributed to a man?

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

A good piece, though. Joyce is right that there is no possible way for gender critical arguments to be made which would not be treated as fascism, Nazism, being a turnip-head or having brain worms (I was called all those things on Twitter which was a new and quite hilarious experience for me in the world-turned-over sense).

That's because the gender identity ideology has one central main foundation and that is the need to erase the female sex from everything that can be talked about using civilised language. It's still going to be referred to in misogyny and sexism but the GI people don't care about that, just about colonising the country of women and ruling it.

'JP is a better lecturer than interviewer. He just talks at people rather than has conversations'

I loved his interview with HJ, but I think that was in spite of his interviewing technique, not because of it. She's always flat out brilliant, and he was saying some very interesting things too, but you're right that he talks WAY too much and at great length. The Triggernometry guys, for example, are way better at shutting up and letting people speak

I found this article really superficial, and written as though a space filler for some MOR media publication.

I assume from its title that its focus is about free speech, but given the actual reality of what is happening to women who speak up for women's sex based rights often on their own with out the glare of publicity, totally under-representing what is happening.

Just focusing on a few "names" blandly hides that what is going on in society as a whole is a bit more than TRAs turning up to shout at women.

I think media feminists can more often than not in meeting their media status objective rather than illuminating the issue, can be counter productive.

A glib easy read.

I really enjoy listening to and reading anything written by Helen Joyce, I'm so glad she's on our side.

I think the most important point of the article is that there is no way for women to speak that the TRA's won't find fault with so there is no point in trying to make the message palatable to them.

She also highlights that the feminists who think KJK is a bit much also face attempts to silence them by exactly the same people.

makes sense thanks for the link

I love Helen Joyce, really love her. And I was very pleased to see Bindel tweet she agreed with every word. We need all women's voices in this fight, Bindel, Joyce, Keene. And like the article says whatever your political affiliation, left or right, what you say will never be acceptable to the activists.

Helen Joyce is always so good. As for JP, I cannot stand his voice, he’s got the oddest high-pitched creaking voice, and his accent annoys me as well (I’m Canadian). I’d like to listen to him, but his voice gets in the way too much.

Really good article. Victoria Smith/ Glosswitch said similar years ago after JK Rowling spoke out: there is no female 'No' that is acceptable, no matter how polite, sympathetic, justified.

I see the WPUK lot and their wannabes are predictably up in arms. <shrug> Even Bindel had realised that you can't take women with you while scolding them for their lack of purity.

Another excellent piece from Helen Joyce. She nails it yet again.

Also, great to see JB and JKR amplifying the article by retweeting it.

'As for JP, I cannot stand his voice, he’s got the oddest high-pitched creaking voice'

It's true, he is hard to listen to. He says himself he sounds like Kermit the Frog! 😁

I agree, I really like Helen, and have listened to her for a few years now on this topic - her interview with the Spiked podcast a few years ago is brilliant, I still send it to people, as she speaks so clearly and coherently about the issues.

I think she has actually been a bit more hard line regarding this recently. She even said so herself in an interview that she started out trying to compromise, and realised it was futile (like many of us) and has since hardened her stance.

If we try and be reasonable and kind, we are just shit on. They don't actually care about compromising, they just want us to shut up and go away quietly. We need to just stay focused and stop wasting our time trying to negotiate.