Grace Lavery reviews Helen Joyce, Julie Bindel, and Kathleen Stock

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/gender-criticism-versus-gender-abolition-on-three-recent-books-about-gender/

Lavery is very proud of this piece. I've got halfway through and am going to have to have a wee break and maybe a nap.

So far, I gather that Lavery knows far more than these women do about womanhood, because Lavery has read a lot of books.

I rather enjoyed this review; it introduced me to some feminist thinkers I wasn't previously aware of and it's well written and amusing.

Sadly however, it's also total nonsense and (as a previous poster commented) is brutal reflectio

(Damn) a brutal reflection of the gulf between academia and real life

The screenshot of the Woman’s Hour episode brought me up short. Someone thought it was OK to book Lavery for the same episode that they covered the Nottingham maternity scandal? JFC.

I don't think a man who defines women as in the attached picture has any right to lecture anyone on feminism. 🤮

Yes I was fuming about that at the time

I thought lavery had left twitter? Anyhow:

This essay was initially commissioned, and then rejected, by a British periodical; I published an earlier version of it on my own website. I’m grateful to the @LAReviewofBooks for publishing and editing it; the work is stronger for their effort.

twitter.com/graceelavery/status/1686002098922455040?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

That's trolling. But he does think it.

Nasty wanker.

Lavery has been completing ratioed by Rudy, from his thread about his reviews.

twitter.com/theneonrequiem/status/1686141106738630656?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

A retort to Rudy who pointed out that as a male, lavery has no right to lecture women on how to woman, has brought this nugget from Joyce :

He must know what he's talking about; he said 'literally' twice.

What a daftie.

One sick puppy.

ah Grace. Lumpen in both appearance and the prose he extrudes

he really could not have chosen a less apt name

He is such a scumbag, and obviously not fit to shine any of these great, precise thinkers’ shoes.

Purely for shits and giggles, one of my fave ever tweets. (The execrable smugtwat Laurie Penny is an ex of Lavery, just in case you didn't know.)

One of my faves too. 🤭

It’s easy to make fun of Lavery but worthwhile remembering that this person is employed at a top US university and actually quite good at twisting and misrepresenting GC arguments in a way that at least some find convincing, especially in the US.

Some of the LARB essay is recycled from this piece: https://www.gracelavery.org/undermining-academic-freedom/

To my mind, one of Lavery’s most insidious arguments is that those who accurately point out a trans person’s sex are guilty of ‘sexual harrassment’. (Does this extend to everybody else? If not, why not?)

In a way, I’m fascinated by the sheer audacious dishonesty of Lavery’s writing. To take a 1940 statement of an American university professor organization, completely out of its historical context, and then lecture British GC academics on their supposed lack of understanding of academic freedom takes some chutzpah.

This person identifies as a serious academic. As we know, that is not the same thing as being one.

It’s easy to make fun of Lavery but worthwhile remembering that this person is employed at a top US university and actually quite good at twisting and misrepresenting GC arguments in a way that at least some find convincing, especially in the US.

This. I can’t laugh. How many women cannot get a publisher for their novel about what women’s lives are like in a mysogynistic world because “there isn’t enough romance in it”? I’m one and there will be many more.

Yet Lavery is employed and, even after writing an entirely penis and porn dominated book, is presumably getting another six figure sum for writing another.

Ironic that Lavery is envious of my tired female body, while enjoying the enormous privilege of the most privileged class there is.

How’s that escape from male abuse and cruelty going, Daniel?

Quite. If I wasn't so lazy I'd trawl KF for the tweet Daniel made about 'as the man my role is to park my male privilege and listen and be supportive' while Grace and Grace's girlfriend hold court. The misogyny of Grace's version of being trans, and of Grace generally as far as I can see, is absolutely blatant.

I do believe Mx Lavatory just signed Zir’s name to the footnote of history.

Probably in bubbly script using one of those pink biros for ladies.

that tweet was very cutting

I believe all this re-entrance back onto Twitter is because of the new book. Desperate measures to attempt to be relevant and earn the publisher some of the advance back no doubt. After the flop of the penis …( book that is.)

I expect Grace is eyeing up Andrea Long Chu’s Pulitzer green with envy…