Stephen Fry - Stonewall "nonsensical"

[fromorbit]

Another Reverse Ferret dashes out of cover.

Stonewall ‘has got stuck in a terrible quagmire,' Stephen Fry tells Triggernometry. ‘I have no interest or support of this current wave of nonsensical… It’s shameful and sad.’

The Rise of the Right is the Left's Fault - Stephen Fry

Good to see on one level, but irritating at the same time Fry didn't support the truth when it was hard. He also slags off Dave Chappelle for truth telling in the same interview. Someone tried to kill him though. Thousands of women faced death threats for saying biology is real, lost jobs and opportunities. Kids had their lives ruined.

More to the point now Fry feels it is safe to come out it shows we are winning, but a LOT more to do and the genderists will resist every step of the way.

There are ways and ways of telling the world that you’ve learnt something and consequently changed your mind. Mr Fry does it in a portentous but ultimately half-hearted way.

And in an interview purportedly about freedom of speech, he says very little - almost nothing - about women as victims of the transactivists’ #nodebate closing down of freedom of speech. Or the women who’ve lost jobs because of this. For someone interested in philosophy, he doesn’t seem aware of the hounding of Professor Stock, for example.

Robin Ince is annoyed. Good

I’ll be more impressed if he hasn’t grovelled back to the TRAs by Christmas.

FriedGold32 When you see it amongst straight men, it tends to be more explicit because it tends to be sexually motivated and I think there's a widespread cultural belief that sexism and misogyny basically don't exist in gay men for that reason. But in gay men I've noticed a much more subtle dismissive attitude towards women, as if their concerns are of less worth.

I hope I am misunderstanding this, because it reads like misogyny in heterosexual men is in some way preferable because it is explicitly sexually motivated - which means, need I remind you, that it often expresses itself in sexual abuse, rape and violence against women- whereas gay men are ..dismissive?

Faced with a bear, a straight man or a dismissive gay man, I know which one I'd choose...

I think "preferable"is coming out of your own brain.

IMO misogynistic/dismissive straight and gay men both think of women as just service units, but the services they require differ in some respects.

And both get annoyed when the units show any sign of not providing those services.

Perhaps if men like him had been more inclined to take women’s viewpoints seriously and engage with the rationale behind our views

perfectly put

I don't mind people changing their minds on things, or realising that something was harmful/a big deal when previously they hadn't realised it was. Most people posting here have probably undergone a similar process (albeit several years earlier in many cases).
What does annoy me is firstly when people fail to acknowledge that other people did get their first especially when they personally slagged them of. But also, the slightly patronising air of "now that I am talking about this everyone else that isn't or I haven't noticed talking about it are at fault". You see it a lot in those videos titled "the left is in trouble" where self styled left wing chaps talk about how at fault "the left" is for identity politics but completely fail to acknowledge that 5 minutes ago they were as at fault as anyone else. They are the sensible left. Or even Elon Musk talking about how he felt "tricked" into initially supporting his child's transition. I actually have loads of sympathy with him on that but, having now seen the issues, he has turned it into a "war on woke". Because everyone else who may have been similarly misguided is evil or stupid and needs punishing. Whereas Musk was merely tricked but also infalible about everything now. And Fry suddenly seeing himself as the wise one outside the circle of misguided who can point the finger.

Its better late than never. But its not so much that women on mumsnet and elsewhere won't be acknowledged for having got there first in some cases (who cares frankly). But that "woke" will be laid at the door of women/feminisim/the left despite many women and some consistently left wing people sounding the alarm from the start. But that enables the Fry's and Musk's of this world to feel like they saved the day and push aside the uncomfortable feelings of ever having been wrong.

Maybe everyone does this. But politics seems locked in a cycle at the moment where everyone has a grievance and everyone is accusing everyone else of having a victim complex.

Its a bit like how, now, everyone remembers being against the Iraq war right from the start whereas I know for a fact some people were either in 2 minds or not at all engaged with the issue. I think we remember things differently.

Perhaps if men like him had been more inclined to take women’s viewpoints seriously and engage with the rationale behind our views

I agree with this, but also at least he has changed his mind now.
I have zero respect for Alastair Campbell, Ian Hislop and Private Eye journalists who claim to stand up to the establishment, speak truth to power, they’re frightened of no one etc. except they’ve kept their heads down on this one.

I think pascoe has a trans inlaw, so i dont think shes going to say anything anytime soon.

Ah. In which case I shall continue to enjoy her comedy while maintaining a wall of "no thank you" to her opinion on this.

I find I tend to do that if I already enjoyed the person's work before I knew anything about this stuff. Where I draw a very clear line on a personal basis is spending money in organisations that are pushing messages that cause harm. For example I give Costa a very wide birth after their appalling promotion of double mastectomies as a joyful lifestyle choice. I will spend my money elsewhere.

@MarieDeGournay

That's not how I read @FriedGold32 's post (but I may be misunderstanding). I think he's saying that while misogyny in straight men is often obvious, there's also a common belief that gay men aren't misogynist because they're not sexually interested in women.

If I'm reading Fried right he's saying that gay men are equally guilty of misogyny, it just not as obvious. If that's what he means, I agree because in my experience a lot of gay men see women as essentially worthless unless it's as a walking womb or other "woman work".

I hope I've explained what I mean (or what I think I mean).

Shameful? I'd say funding a teenage girl's mastectomy was shameful.

I suppose if you set yourself up in the public's mind as a Very Clever Person, it becomes difficult to publicly 'do a 180' (cos "if you're so smart, you should have realised"). So when/if you do, I guess it's going to be a fairly lengthy affair with plenty of verbiage.

'Hard to see how it's taken someone of his supposed intelligence so long.' Rank misogyny is the only explanation. He literally doesn't hear what women have been saying. Odd that he'd ignore JK Rowling as he's the voice of the Harry Potter books.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/real-life-stories/graham-norton-stephen-fry-helped-5115025

'Hard to see how it's taken someone of his supposed intelligence so long.' Rank misogyny is the only explanation. He literally doesn't hear what women have been saying. Odd that he'd ignore JK Rowling as he's the voice of the Harry Potter books.

Afaik he didn't actually throw her under the bus like so many others, at least, he worked with her on 'Fantastic Beasts: a natural history'. Maybe he knows who helps butter his bread but just wasn't interested in women's rights, idk.

Why are we still listening to this odious man? I honestly don’t know how he’s been held in such high regard for so long.
I try to ignore but he keeps popping up with snippets of his capricious little intellect.

i think he swings between thinking he is a 1920s bright young thing and a Greek god.

Remember his silly comment about all women hating sex and women know it’s the price they pay for a relationship.

His books and films are awful; The hippopotamus and it made into a film?!?!

my sil thought he was so clever because he presented QI.

he is quite friendly with Neil Gaiman is he not?

There are plenty of intelligent people who believe in gender stuff. Clever people came up with religions, political philosophies and oppressive regimes of all kinds including believing nonsense like women are inferior to men. Being clever doesn't make you good or wise. It takes a clever person to do something really really stupid.

A lot of not clever or well read people saw genderism as rubbish from the start. Standing against it 5 or 10 years ago took bravery - a virtue few have.

Great tweet I saw underlines what is happening here:

FeministRoar

If someone like Stephen Fry is prepared to publicly denounce Stonewall then they really are in deeper trouble than any of us thought. He represents the most centrist, run of the mill, go along with the crowd, unboat rocking demographic imaginable.

Winning involves a horde of reversing ferrets crossing the golden bridge. A lot more will be coming in 2025 and 2026. Ferrets are going to take the easy route but it was the witches and dinosaurs that built the bridge in the first place.

He might like the sound of his own voice but he's actually not that bright. Sandy.T and Boris too - all cut from the same cloth.

I don't think that's about intelligence. Some people are able to graciously admit they were wrong, and say mea culpa, etc.

This weaselling is the worst kind of pish, imo. He's scared that he's found himself on the wrong side of history, and he's trying to construct a version of reality that allows him to maintain the illusion of the moral high ground.

That is evidence of a lack of moral fibre.

Honourable people wouldn't do this. We all do stupid things. But the way we acknowledge it is another litmus test of character.

I've plenty of time for people who realise they're wrong and admit it.

Not so much those who fling fallacious insults (Dave Chapelle never said anything about 'trans kids' as far as I'm aware) to try and draw fire from their own failings, while also half-arsedly trying to put clear water between himself and the now apparently fatally holed Stonewall.

I watched that interview (okay, parts of it, I got bored) and it was fake and grotty and not redeeming.

His books and films are awful; The hippopotamus and it made into a film?!?!

I liked his time travelling alternate history one but The Tennis Player's Balls was the nastiest thing I've ever read - one of the few books I've binned.

I'm withe Julie Birchill - he's a dim person's idea of whar a clever person is like.

Yep. Outright misogynists thankfully seem to be a minority within gay men (many of whom relied on girls in school to offer friendship and give group protection against straight boy bullies which builds long term respect even when those boys become adults and build a support network with other gay men) but the gay men that are misogynists are often some of the worst misogynists out there, they just see women as surrogates and maids rather than housewives or fuck toys.

I sometimes wonder if boys-only schools play a role in the backstory of misogynistic gays, if only because they don’t have the opportunity to build friendships with girls as a side effect of being outcast by straight boys.

Which leads me to wonder if Russell T Davies will ever snap out of the Gender Fog? When he was doing promo for It’s a Sin he name checked (lesbian) Linda Bellos, who was already an out and proud terf at the point. I had hoped it signalled a secret terfiness of his own (especially as It’s a Sin has a GNC/cross dressing character who is very much still a man, seemingly modelled on Marsha P Johnson). However my hope quickly turned to disappointment when he made that nonsensical speech about missing letter T at an awards event, followed by the clusterfuck that was the most recent series of Dr Who, which at times felt like an enforced EDI training day at a very un-fun workplace.

Fry was in It’s a Sin, so I presume Russell T will be aware of the events documented in this thread at some point.

SF has said of himself before that he has an excellent brain but a poor mind. He remembers a great deal with east, but the original thinking part.... not so much. (It's in Moab is my Washpot and he used it in The Liar, about the character based on himself).

I don't know whether he's jumping on a bandwagon, in which case he's still useful, or whether he just took this long to understand. Whether he needed a specific tipping point. After all as a large imposing man it doesn't really threaten him, does it?