JKR - Private Eye podcast

[Brewdug]

Ian Hislop and Helen Lewis go head-to-head about Scottish hate crime law. An interesting listen. Helen gets it, but Ian and the other male host are appalled at JKR's 'misgendering' and defensive of Monroe Bergdorf in particular.

To me it seemed clear Bergdorf made the list for something specifically said, a deft example of exposing the ideology rather than Bergdorf's very existence, which is what they seem to think was being called into question.

Private Eye has its moments and obviously some very good GC cartoons but this explains why they have never really got stuck in. Still a blind spot for some.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/page-94-the-private-eye-podcast/id973958702?i=1000651416301

Plus it's not shameful. It's not shameful to have that response. The only shame is for the arsehole who assaulted you. X

Absolutely and this just really underlines how men and women's perception is so very different.

I mean how many times did Elmer Fudd get conned by Bugs Bunny merely wearing a wig? Ok so that's a cartoon trope, but there seems to be some truth in it.

This.

www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-203-trouble-on-terf-island

The only soft spot that I have ever had for Ian Hislop is Poole Harbour.

@BloodyHellKenAgain I’m with you. I used to think he was erudite and amusing. Now he’s just a jowly tosser.

I don’t think he’s scared of the TRAs, I think he just doesn’t care.

That's a great name @NonCrimeHakeIncident!

Don’t forget that Ian Hislop is rumoured to be paid a five figure sum for each appearance on HIGNFY. He’s hardly likely to queer his pitch (no pun intended) with the trans captured BBC by taking the unfashionable women’s rights side on this debate with so much money at stake.

Yes:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

(Upton Sinclair)

"Oh, Bunhilda, you're so wuvv-wy"

He never learned, did he? 😄

I think Hislop genuinely doesn't get it, a bit like other supposedly intelligent men such as Rory Stewart, Alastair Campbell, Philip Pullman, Jon Ronson etc.

Part of the reason is these men don't understand why women, particularly vulnerable women, should be frightened of men. They probably don't care either. Why would it bother them if a man occasionally gets undressed in a female changing room, or a male criminal is put in a women's prison? In fairness there are a lot of middle-class women who think like this too. They lack imagination.

The other, more interesting, reason, to my mind, is an inability to engage in mathematical reasoning. It's absolutely no coincidence that two of the most prominent critics of gender ideology are Helen Joyce (PhD in maths) and Kathleen Stock (professor of philosophy). People who can't think mathematically decide that because only a "minority" of people identify as trans, the harm they do is minimal. And because the majority of trans people aren't sex offenders, therefore we're only talking about a minority of a minority of people, which is hardly worth getting upset about.

What they don't understand is that, once you allow people to self-identity, any man can identify as a woman. In mathematical terms, the set known as "women" can, in theory, expand to include all women and all men - in other words, everyone. And of course the men most likely to take advantage of this are going to be men who intend harm to women: everyone from flashers and knicker-sniffers to paedophiles, and rapists.

It's tempting to blame our education system for churning out people who can get a degree in PPE or humanities from Oxford, but can't engage in very simple-level mathematical thinking. However, I'm not sure it's entirely the fault of the education system - I think some people just can't do that kind of thinking. It's an inherent failing in their brain, a bit like being dyslexic.

The bigger problem, unfortunately, is they don't realise that they have that failing, and imagine that because they have their posh education, they must be clever - thus enabling them to look down on people like JKR who is, frankly, several leagues above them intellectually.

I think Hislop genuinely doesn't get it, a bit like other supposedly intelligent men such as Rory Stewart, Alastair Campbell, Philip Pullman, Jon Ronson etc.

I think they get it - they’re just frightened of the mob and their reputations and income suffering.

I’m pulling this bit out of RoyalCorgi’s post-

Part of the reason is these men don't understand why women, particularly vulnerable women, should be frightened of men. They probably don't care either. Why would it bother them if a man occasionally gets undressed in a female changing room, or a male criminal is put in a women's prison? In fairness there are a lot of middle-class women who think like this too. They lack imagination.

Way before I used Mumsnet I used to read the website Cracked and I saw this framed in a really sexist way. Transwomen in women’s toilets was disliked by conservative men who didn’t want their wives seeing another cock was their take.

There was no understanding that women generally don’t like to see cocks unless they’ve actually consented to it. So it may be choosing to watch a movie where there’s male nudity or it may be with a lover they are comfortable with.

And I wonder where this lack of understanding comes from. Because I’ve seen unwanted cocks and it isn’t pleasant. I get why other women are discomforted if not outright threatened. It’s not the norm for us to see random penises and being happy with your partner’s doesn’t mean you’re ok with everyone’s.

Is it because men see other men in a state of undress- changing rooms, toilets, and in the way women are generally not perturbed by naked women in changing rooms assume all genitals are ok? Because that isn’t most girls/women’s experience.

I don’t have a clue what the stats on it are but I wonder how many women first saw a cock non consensually? And possibly as a child?

is this something many men are so clueless about they can’t empathise?

(I know that’s not all Corgi is getting at but it’s troubled me for a while.)

I think the not being frightened of anyone can be read in the context of the 'old' establishment rules and law fare. PE are used to being sued and all the rest. They will have a team of lawyers ready to do the modern equivalent of gentleman's duels when some public or political figure takes issue with something they wrote. They know the score on that one.

TRA's have managed to engineer a position that sits outside the usual rules and very often outside of the law. See the physicians conference the other week for example. Ian Hislop is no more prepared for unhinged activists in black masks outside his house, whilst the police do nothing, than anyone else is.

I suspect he knows this and when combined with a disdain for something he sees as 'wimmin's issues' he doesn't consider it worth the trouble.

TRA's have managed to engineer a position that sits outside the usual rules and very often outside of the law. See the physicians conference the other week for example. Ian Hislop is no more prepared for unhinged activists in black masks outside his house, whilst the police do nothing, than anyone else is.

Yes - and if I was famous I wouldn’t want unhinged activists threatening me and my family.
That’s why the people who are prepared to stand up to them are exceptionally brave.

I think Hislop genuinely doesn't get it, a bit like other supposedly intelligent men such as Rory Stewart, Alastair Campbell, Philip Pullman, Jon Ronson etc.

many DO get it.
which makes the whole issue very sinister.

This. I think it’s a simple as this. He does understand that men aren’t women, he’s not scared of TRA, he just thinks it’s no big deal because it’s just women

Yes it was Francis Wheen who was the terfiest at Private Eye. Long ago he was with Joan Smith. I believe he's a true philogynist (I would say feminist but I know some argue against giving men the label).

In terms of his attitude to women, I think IH is eyeing HL as his successor at PE. And I rate his intelligence, always have. I think PE still breaks even at least, maybe even makes some money, which is not bad in the modern media. But he's an Anglican. The Church of England promotes transition as a 'journey to wholeness'. I find it extraordinary, but I wouldn't underestimate it as an influence on him. Anglicans like people suffering attractively more than people shouting unattractively, however just the cause.

I do think HL believes there has to be a point at which everyone comes to terms with the idea that people transition. I agree, though I think the endpoint is probably not the same for me as it is for her, plus I can't forget some of the stuff that has been said and done in a way she seems to.

The word bore is of course the ultimate insult in PE world.

I think it's a bit of both - genuinely not 'getting' why women aren't happy to budge up and let men who think they are women in (because men are happy to see men who aren't masculine as non-men and women are also non-men so basically the same right?). Used to going through life without feeling the feeling the fear - so if they reverse the situation in their head it doesn't bother them to think of a woman changing next to them.
But there is an added element that if PE upset a politician/organisation then it's see you in court and a) they have very good lawyers b) they are well aware of what they can and can't say and know how far they can push and get away with it c) they will have a pot of money to pay damages when they are judged to have stepped over the line. But when you upset TRAs it plays out completely differently - it's cancellation, death threats and hate.
Who would look at how GL's life has been torn down and think yep I sign up for that? Who hears JKR say she has had enough death threats to wall paper her house and thinks I'll sign my wife and kids up for that?
It's like people who will happily take the piss out of the church of England but would never dream of publishing a cartoon of Mohammed because Charlie Hebdo.

It doesnt help that hes more focused on party politics, and because its not a staight split between labour and conservatives, its of no interest to him.

If Theresa May had suggested self id out of nowhere, and without labour support, he may have thought different. But that’s true of a lot of people.

I agree.

I think they are all Winston Smiths in this regard - "Do it to her, not to me."

I suppose there is no way of knowing whether people genuinely don't get it, or whether they get it and are too cowardly to say so. Or perhaps a bit of both - they don't get it because they don't want to get it.

But I tend to think that a lot of people, particularly if they've been brought up with privilege, find it difficult to imagine the lives of other people who are less privileged. I think that's probably the case with Hislop - he is basically fair-minded but he can't imagine what it's like, say, to be a terrified victim of domestic abuse stuck in a prison with a rapist, or in what's supposed to be a woman-only refuge with a man who claims to be female.

If you look at Ronson, on the other hand, he seems to me to be someone who, in the war of men against women, is firmly on the side of the men. Remember his response to Graham posting the picture of the trans woman on a sports team towering above the female team-mates? He thought Graham was being mean to the trans woman. He didn't even think about what it was like for female competitors.

But I don't suppose we'll ever really know what's going through these people's minds.

But I tend to think that a lot of people, particularly if they've been brought up with privilege, find it difficult to imagine the lives of other people who are less privileged.

I disagree. Privileged people may have had luxuries and physical comforts and never gone hungry, but there are plenty of privileged people who’ve had very dysfunctional and unhappy lives.

This. He knows on an intellectual level that people can’t change sex. He probably agrees that the undermining of free speech is appalling. But he isn’t in the slightest bit interested in the impact on women’s and girls’ rights, because those are issues that don’t concern him any more than fashion, or anything else he has categorised as trivial women’s things. He supports feminism in that he accepts that some women are as clever as clever men like him, and is happy to admit them to his elite circle. That’s as far as it goes.