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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The misogynist Billy Bragg

214 replies

Maaate · 12/09/2023 18:38

About time he had his own thread to document the anti-women statements he comes out with. First up:

The misogynist Billy Bragg
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NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 23/09/2023 16:53

Billy.

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 23/09/2023 16:54

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 12/09/2023 20:38

Billy Bragg in 2014, speaking to the Daily Telegraph to promote the first Being a Man festival.

extract

Now he will have a chance to explore these ideas further at the first Being A Man festival - a weekend which will see Grayson Perry, Alastair Campbell and others discuss their experiences of masculinity as well as featuring workshops on subjects like depression, promiscuity and race. Bragg will appear for an evening of music and discussion with the rapper Akala, comedian Phill Jupitus and singer Tom Robinson, which will close the festival on Sunday evening. He will also take part in an event on the Saturday evening with novelist Nick Hornby and designer Wayne Hemingway.

“I think men need a place where we can talk about things that are a problem,” Bragg explains when asked why he was so keen to be involved. “I don’t think any man who’s watched the news since Christmas can feel comfortable with what’s been going on with Operation Yewtree, with Lord Rennard, with those men who were convicted in Peterborough. I look at the TV and I despair for my 20 year old son.

“I don’t think any of us can be complacent. I think there’s a responsibility for all of us to be putting out a message. I’m hoping that Being A Man will open up a can of worms and allow us to start talking about these issues.” Bragg bemoans the lack of a "blokesnet" - a Dadsnet does exist, but it has nothing like the same scope as its female counterpart - and other online forums where this discussion could otherwise happen.
But despite his interest in the festival and the issues it is is likely to raise, Bragg is quick to play down the notion that men are undergoing a "crisis of masculinity".

“When men went off to fight in the First World War, then came back and women were working in factories and had the vote - that was a crisis of masculinity,” he says.

“What we’ve got now is a change, and changes happen all the time. The only reason it’s being called a crisis is that middle class white blokes are having to change their attitudes about some things, and a lot of middle class white blokes have columns in the newspapers.”

From Billy Bragg: I look at the news and I despair for my 20 year old son

This is the group in Peterborough he was referring to: Peterborough sex gang's 'sophisticated' grooming tactics

Still unsure why reading about men being convicted of sexually abusing teenage girls would make you despair for your young adult son.

The artist in his own words.

AutumnCrow · 23/09/2023 16:56

'You are philosophically wrong because you're wearing a frock that I personally don't like on you, woman.'

Yeah, cheers, Professor Billy Clawhands.

RichardArmitagesWife · 23/09/2023 17:03

Louise handed him his arse pretty spectacularly.

Tinysoxxx · 23/09/2023 17:17

NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision · 23/09/2023 16:54

The artist in his own words.

There’s something quite moving about waistcoated Billy standing against a graffitied wall that now appears to say ‘trike’ and ‘aga’ in The Telegraph. Posh toddler metaphor?

PorcelinaV · 23/09/2023 18:06

RoyalCorgi · 23/09/2023 16:46

And of course he knows full well that she can't appear in left-wing publications like the Guardian because they're not interested in publishing her story. Of course, not so long ago Bragg wrote a piece for the Guardian saying that cancel culture doesn't exist, it was just making people accountable for their opinions. So in other words having endorsed a decision by left-wing publications to refuse to platform certain women, he then attacks those women for daring to speak to right-wing publications rather than left-wing ones.

He really is the most loathsome hypocrite.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/free-speech-young-people

Carved into the wall beside him is a quote from the preface of Animal Farm: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

It’s a snappy slogan that fits neatly into a tweet, but whenever I walk past this effigy of the English writer that I most admire, it makes me cringe. Surely the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four would understand that people don’t want to hear that 2+2=5?

They also don't want to hear that they themselves are guilty of promoting something on a similar level to 2+2=5, but it's kind of important that people can say that to them.

"Accountability" is all very well, but when one side has disproportionate power, a wildly exaggerated sense of its own moral righteousness, and an inability to conceive that it could be wrong or that opponents could be acting in good faith, and they then use that power to try to destroy people over something that they only invented 5 minutes ago and refuse to debate, then yeah people are going to be complaining about "cancel culture".

'Cancel culture' doesn't stifle debate, but it does challenge the old order | Billy Bragg

Speech is only free when everyone has a voice, says singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/10/free-speech-young-people

RavingStone · 24/09/2023 11:25

https://twitter.com/Glinner/status/1705877833296273457

Interesting story from Australia about misogynist Billy.

I actually hope it's not true. If it is then Billy is more vile than I could have imagined.

If it's true then Billy isn't anti Nazi. How can he be when he's using Nazis as weapons against feminists?

https://twitter.com/Glinner/status/1705877833296273457

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · 24/09/2023 11:43

That man gets worse every day, doesn't he.

CouldNotResist · 24/09/2023 12:11

What a hypocritical tool he is.

Can I just say though - I hate the way the Daily Mail goes for the colour-coordinated, often body-conned, homogenised wardrobe whenever an article featuring a collective of women appears. Their stylist is obviously stuck in some sort of Trinny and Susannah, regional boutique vibe. I often wonder if the women are told ‘if you don’t wear our awful clothes you can’t be in our paper’.

I imagine they all gritted their teeth and chose the proffered wardrobe choices for the greater good of getting their stories out there. It does just drum home how women are battered by these sexist tropes. It’s the reality of the world we live in and battle against. But thanks Billy for sticking your misogynist oar in for good measure.

MavisMcMinty · 24/09/2023 13:05

Could someone with a Twitter account screenshot that Glinner thread, pretty pleeeeeease?

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · 24/09/2023 13:10

I've sent you a PM, Mavis.

ArabeIIaScott · 24/09/2023 13:11

C&P:

'"In April this year, Bragg was booked to play at a venue that I managed 30 years, and I had worked with him then. I had attended the Perth Let Women Speak event and it was a success but by the time Bragg arrived here, the Melbourne event had happened and we were all still in shock. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon when I saw a man walking ahead of me who looked familiar. I noticed his very pale white legs, and thought that's gotta be him, as only a man who works at night could show such a deficiency in Vitamin D. So I caught up with him and introduced myself. He seemed pleased to be recognised, as here in (city in Western Australia) we're very laid back and tend not to fawn over celebrities.

Anyhoo, I then mentioned that I was one of those women he was calling a Nazi and I didn't appreciate the danger and risk he was putting us in by perpetrating the lie that we were affiliated with them. I explained that my grandfather was in the British Intelligence Corp in WW2 and was involved with annexing Iceland and liaising with high ranking German prisoners. His second wife witnessed Kristallnacht and was involved in the resistance in Denmark. That it was her friend Victor Borg who came to her aid when my grandfather died and to recklessly use what those men did in Melbourne as a way to silence us was deeply offensive. He said that we shouldn't have invited them. I said we hadn't. He said we should denounce them. I replied so should you.

I then added that I believe he really doesn't understand what he's doing by endorsing an ideology that serves very few. He waffled on about a marginalised community needing rights. I countered it by replying women need support services that are sex specific not gender and if these continue to be eroded there will be a backlash. That I had already noticed it and was concerned about the trans people I know feeling the brunt of it, and by default the LGB too. He referred to his wife, a life long feminist who "doesn't see it as a problem". And I said good for her but she can't speak for all of us. And then he said his mate Julie (Bindel) agrees too and that "she doesn't like Kellie Jay Keen either" I just raised my eyebrows. He obviously hadn't spoken to her for a while.

This allowed me to point out that three English people expecting a country like Australia to accept a belief system is very reminiscent of colonisation. The notion that you can change sex is something that does not exist in the Noongar country we're standing on. The Noongar women I know are really worried about their youth and are too scared to speak up. This was the first time he showed any semblance of confusion in his position. It's not an uncommon reaction I've had. I can't speak for these women but I can relate to others what I've been told and gender identity is just a new variant of a poison blanket to these communities that have struggled to survive.

Anyway, at that point he brought us back to KJK and somehow made her the reason why these women are being silenced. This showed me that not only does he not understand our culture, which is no surprise, he has an unhealthy obsession with KJK. He showed me screenshots of the neo nazis that were meant to prove they were affiliated with Let Women Speak. I laughed. The audio of the leader had been dropped the day before and I said he needed to update his intel. He pointy jabbed the phone at me, I laughed again and told him in 5 years he'll remember this moment and when he does I expect an apology. I told him to remember my name and remember that Joan from X gave you the heads up but you ignored her and all the other women speaking. I wished him a pleasant stay in my hometown and walked away.

As I crossed the road he called out my name, I turned and he was sieg heiling me with his finger under his nose and goose stepping. I stood and watched him for a few moments, shook my head and walked away."'

EdithStourton · 24/09/2023 13:11

I am also intrigued to know what is in that Glinner thread....
But popping back to correct a typo I see I x-posted with Arabella.

ArabeIIaScott · 24/09/2023 13:11

I added para breaks.

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · 24/09/2023 13:13

There was this added to the end.

The misogynist Billy Bragg
ArabeIIaScott · 24/09/2023 13:13

Julie Bindel has commented:

'What an utter wanker. I couldn’t despise that man more. I have never, ever spoken to him, except when I debated him (and wiped the floor with him) at an online event where he was arguing that there was no such thing as cancel culture. We didn’t mention KJK ever. He’s a lying toad and I might just send him an email.'

Thelnebriati · 24/09/2023 13:13

I wonder if BB knows what a poison blanket is.

ArabeIIaScott · 24/09/2023 13:15

I've only read about them in relation to American colonialists, I'm guessing it's the same thing?

MavisMcMinty · 24/09/2023 13:20

Thanks all!

EdithStourton · 24/09/2023 13:20

Julie B has adequately described BB, I feel.

MavisMcMinty · 24/09/2023 13:22

EdithStourton · 24/09/2023 13:20

Julie B has adequately described BB, I feel.

Heh, hasn’t she just!

Any response from the misogynist Billy Bragg? To either the author of that tweet or to Julie Bindel?

BezMills · 24/09/2023 13:24

I think I much prefer any of the Trans Billy Braggs to Cis Billy Bragg.

LoobiJee · 24/09/2023 13:43

ArabeIIaScott · 24/09/2023 13:13

Julie Bindel has commented:

'What an utter wanker. I couldn’t despise that man more. I have never, ever spoken to him, except when I debated him (and wiped the floor with him) at an online event where he was arguing that there was no such thing as cancel culture. We didn’t mention KJK ever. He’s a lying toad and I might just send him an email.'

That’s all very well.

But wasn’t it Julie who wrote an article about some group in the US, issuing dire warnings against any woman’s rights campaigner having anything to do with them when campaigning about the harms of gender identity ideology? I think Jane Clare Jones might have had something to do with it too? And then there were repeated threads on here by posters identifying as socialist + feminist issuing dire warning about having anything to do with KJK and claiming she had far right connections / was being used by the far right / would blacken the reputations of all right-minded feminists / undermine the efforts of the socialist feminists to persuade their misogynist brethren to consider women as actual humans with rights?

And now we see that, apparently, that thread of connections has enabled BB to decide that JB objecting to US anti abortion groups = JB being opposed to KJK in all she does = JB agreeing with BB that females do not have the right to single sex spaces away from males = anyone who disagrees with BB is a fascist.

RavingStone · 24/09/2023 13:46

Vegemiteandhoneyontoast · 24/09/2023 13:13

There was this added to the end.

Yeah no shit!

Its incredible what people will mindlessly do and appropriate in the name of trans rights.

Sometimes I wonder if TRAs are holding Billy's family member hostage or something. Because surely SURELY there comes a point when you think "this ain't right" EVEN if you genuinely believe transwomen are harmless delicate and magically incapable of doing anything remotely male.

LoobiJee · 24/09/2023 13:47

“This allowed me to point out that three English people expecting a country like Australia to accept a belief system is very reminiscent of colonisation. The notion that you can change sex is something that does not exist in the Noongar country we're standing on.”

Note that the only thing that caused Bragg to pause for a moment was finding himself at risk of being found guilty of racism / colonialism.

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