Writer Naomi Klein says she doesn’t understand gender critical feminism

[PotteringPondering]

Canadian writer Naomi Klein was interviewed at the Royal Festival Hall this evening by the BBC’s Samira Ahmed, about her new book, Doppelgänger.

Most of the evening was about the book, in which Klein (a left-wing activist) reflects on being confused with writer Naomi Wolf (who now sides with the right and conspiracy theorists). This was fascinating.

At the end, a questioner in the audience asked her how ‘so-called feminists’ can be anti-trans. Klein speculated that it’s white women being seduced by the far right.

Samira Ahmed pointed out that the UK narrative is different, and one of the main legal cases here involved a black lesbian. Klein said she didn’t understand that kind of feminism.

I was shocked that such an articulate thinker, who’s spent years at the cutting edge of cultural issues, could say she simply doesn’t understand why any feminist would question gender ideology. Seriously?

No way would DEI have ever arisen in the UK, it's a pure American contraption. And now it's over here.

So why then did it take hold then? No one forced the UK to take it up. You can't say no to Americans? I don't get this line of reasoning-it seems like a "Johnny made me do it."

@Rudderneck you are correct re “I think it must require a pretty healthy dose of self-delusion and willful blindness to believe that among the American public only white people have more culturally conservative viewpoints”. The Democrats make this mistake at their peril. Many Hispanic/Latino and Black Americans are socially very conservative.

Ha ha, brilliant. I assumed it was deliberate. Significantly livened up my afternoon.

She’s just protecting her brand (and throwing women under a bus to do it of course). Right on sister.

I also think this is completely correct. Before Trump was elected, I remember certain left-wing commentators pronouncing with confidence that he would never be elected because the Hispanic electors would never vote for him. Well, they got that wrong - and how.

White liberals also seem entirely oblivious to the fact, for example, that labels such as "Latinx" which they regard as progressive, are despised by the people they apply them to.

The tribalism of North America has now reached absurd levels. The one thing that this business with Naomi Klein teaches us is that some people who are on the left would prefer to adopt beliefs that are literally insane rather than be thought right-wing.

And they are in fact well on their way to losing the Hispanic vote - they certainly can't consider them a dependable Democrat voting block anymore

Just as they have previously lost the working class vote, and before that, the Catholic vote to some degree too.

It's only a trickle now, but there are a lot of signs that they are on their way to losing the black vote as well, in the way they'd been able to count on it before. And this culture war stuff is a big factor.

Yes, it's a little short sighted to dismiss non belief in men being able to become women as right wing religious conservative bigotry when a significant part of your voter base are Hispanic and likely to be practising Catholics, isn't it?

IIRC there are something like 30% of Hispanic voters thinking of themselves as Republicans now. Including, interestingly, some of the old school Marxist voters, who thought Trump spoke more to their concerns than Hilary did.

Pretty low bar because, although Trump lied about bringing jobs back to the Rustbelt , Hillary didn't even go there.

Too busy dancing about with Ellen and Oprah. Talking about gender equality in the boardroom. A topic not of pressing urgency in eg Flint , Michigan where they don't have clean drinking water.

But , yeah the 'Latinx' is so insulting and patronising. As is the 2 Spirit stuff they foist on First Nation ppl.

I did think when I read 'the shock doctrine' that there was a failure to draw arguments together, though it was an interesting read. The thinking was a little fuzzy, was my impression.

I don't expect American to see anything from other than a US pov.

This is relevant to how Klein is able to maintain the ways she views the world:

And of course, Americans like this never have any insight into how culturally imperialistic they're being.

The tribalism of North America has now reached absurd levels. The one thing that this business with Naomi Klein teaches us is that some people who are on the left would prefer to adopt beliefs that are literally insane rather than be thought right-wing.

What is it about that? It's like people are terrified of those words.

I can’t remember my first thought. As I am sure you know it’s a bit of a web you have to work through. I remember my conclusion quite clearly. It’s shit for women for obvious reasons. And it’s also shit for trans.

As Ruth Bader Ginsberg famously said "A Court Ought Not Be Affected By The Weather Of The Day But Will Be By The Climate Of The Era." This issue is firmly weather. There’s no way it’s a climate thing because equality is not equal treatment, it is equal opportunity. The third space option gives everyone equal opportunity but they don’t want that. They want equal treatment. But that arguments been and gone decades ago. That is the climate.

The reason it’s super shit for trans is because you have a lot of youngsters (mainly female) transitioning based on being told this is a ‘climate change’. That’s unjust. No one can promise that and no one who really cared about them would make such important promises like that. How women are feeling now (being othered from their own identity), trans are going to have to go through that themselves when the weather reverses. That’s incredibly cruel. I am sure they have enough identity issues going on without setting them up to have these unrealistic expectations to fail. The people who promote this are unthinking and do not have any empathy or compassion.

Its a real sorry mess and sadly I am young enough I am going to have to watch the whole thing unfold.

My first realisation came around seven years ago when there was a big controversy in my locale, after a sticker saying 'Women don't Have Penises' was placed on one of Anthiony Gormley's figures on Crosby Beach, Liverpool.

The Mayor of the city was threatening the culprits with arrest for a hate crime. I couldn't quite believe it. I had been oblivious up until that point about trans activism - and when I left teaching in around 2010 there was no such thing as 'trans children' or a culture of preferred pronouns etc. None of this stuff was in the mainstream media that that point, and I didn't use social media, never looked at mumsnet etc.

That incident and the ensuing furore is what brought me here. Fortunately I was able to connect with a group of local women who were also blindsided by the whole business and was able to engage, discuss and learn more about the extent, and intent, of what was going on.

Of course she's got to say she doesn't understand GC views, because her grift is now popular subjects of the (current) left-wing politics that doesn't rock the boat, climate-change, Trump and now an obsession with the self (criticising another Noami). True left-wing politics would be to look at the profitable business model of gender transition.

Not really a radical thinker now, just keep saying stuff people want you to say.

I've seen too many left leaning individuals fall foul of the thought-police to then be labelled "far-right". For Klein you have a career of selling books to people who only want to be confirmed in their views, no point risking that if you're not a radical thinker.

Seems to me, it is actually a realistic possibility that Klein is being honest and really doesn't understand. That her whole theoretical approach cannot comprehend anything that doesn't fit a US centric paradigm.

It's just that she imagines her lack of understanding reflects poorly on other people rather than her.

Honestly, it's not difficult to understand.

If you look at Lia Thomas competing in women's sporting events and using women's locker rooms and then Riley Gaines being monstered when she dares to speak out and you don't see what the problem is, it's because you don't want to see.

If you look at male sex offenders being housed in women's prisons where they inevitably go on to assault more women and you don't understand what gender critical feminists are on about, it's because you don't want to understand.

Because seeing and understanding would then mean you had a moral obligation to do something about it. Speak up, at least. And if you do that you become persona non grata.

It's easier to pretend the victims of this ideology don't exist.

I agree with this. It seems to have become popular amongst ' intellectual' gender ideologists to state they ' don't understand the GC point of view' though.

I guess they have to. The other option is needing to counter what we say. And that never goes well for them. So best not bother by pretending they don't understand.

You're right of course.

But my sympathy is now at an all time low and I keep finding myself singing 'if I only had a brain' under my breath as I listen to these ridiculous people.

Commonly when people say they “don’t understand” they are asking for further explanation or clarification. It’s very unusual to say it as a stopper for discussion/interaction.

I agree with Frood and Margot. Just look at Naomi Klein. She is hugely intelligent and she is massively well-informed about politics and current affairs. If she has somehow missed the fact that rapists are being put in prison with women, or that young female swimmers are having to take their clothes off in front of, and compete against, a strapping six foot male, then it's because she has chosen not to know those things.

Or perhaps she does know those things, and has persuaded herself that putting rapists in women's prisons is a progressive position.

And yet I don't believe there is a conscious calculation going on there. I think it is genuinely a form of cognitive dissonance. Because if you were being calculating about it, you would probably understand that at some point in the not-too-distant future, society will collectively realise that the current manifestation of gender ideology is both irrational and immoral. And you'd take the opportunity to be ahead of the curve rather than risk looking massively idiotic and cowardly when the time comes.

And you'd take the opportunity to be ahead of the curve rather than risk looking massively idiotic and cowardly when the time comes.

I'm not so sure. I think the sensible thing for a calculating person, would be to protect their career now.

They could probably be forgiven anyway, if they contributed excellent analysis elsewhere.

I think I might question how well informed she is.

Her rhetoric about the American right, or Trump voters, does not actually sound to me like someone engaged with her opponents, at the grass roots level or with their public intellectuals.

She repeats the expected tropes and fits her analysis into them, but has she ever actually listened to the things that Trump voters, for example, real ones not ones being mocked on left wing youtube videos, say? About him, or about the Democrats? Or read, say, Andrew Sullivan or John McWhorter or engaged with their ideas?

I don't get the sense she has. I suspect she might not really be aware that there are men being put into women's prisons, because she is reading only within her bubble.