Guilty Feminist on Triggernometry

[CornedBeef451]

I’m trying to listen to Deborah Frances White on Triggernometry but having to do it in very small increments for the sake of my blood pressure.

Konstantin is remaining incredibly calm, Deborah is losing her mind via passive aggression, and after only 15 mins I was shouting “but which ones have the babies Deborah?” at my phone.

Its worth a listen even if just for entertainment value. It’s quite long so I think it’ll take me a week to get through unless I start day drinking.

31 minutes - DFW makes scare quotes as she says 'people', for no apparent reason. Hand gestures are not making the feeble arguments any more convincing.

Religious ideals are 'draconian'. This is bad. Indigenous people are 'archaic'. This is ... good?

'... I made lots of really interesting new arguments you'd never heard before.'

Holy Hubris, Deborah.

KK: 'at the very beginning I said that there is some confusion, I think, in in our discussion here, between people who don't fit into the stereotype of what a man should be and a stereotype of what a woman should be, and someone who claims to be the opposite sex. That's, I think, quite an important distinction'

DFW: 'I don't see it as the opposite sex - I don't think there's opposites, I think that I think it is far more fluid than that and I think - '

KK: 'You don't think there's opposite sex, so you don't think there's male and female?'

DFW: 'I, I just think it is more fluid than that, and I, and I trust people when they tell me that is not how they feel inside'

He has literally JUST SET OUT the difference between gender non conformity and biological sex, Deborah!

Why the fuck can't these people see the difference?!

This is similar to the claim that Native Americans (treated as a single homogeneous group rather than many different groups with different traditions) and Samoans accept trans identies. What is actually shows is that these groups had their own definition of masculinity and men who didn't meet that standard were considered other (like the Fa'fafine in Samoa). Aboriginal culture still know sex differences and there are and were differences in attitudes to gay and lesbian relationships within different communities

The fact that she obviously has never once listened to one of the feminists who don't agree with her is like a beacon shining brightly.

She really hasn't done any work on this.

Read the blurb on Amazon and it has all become clear:

“Why do we find it so hard to say 'No'?
How can feminism be more inclusive?
What can rom-coms tell us about taking charge?

The Guilty Feminist will challenge you, reassure you and empower you to see the world differently.

From inclusion to intersectionality, #MeToo to men's rights, rom-coms to pornography, Deborah Frances-White tackles urgent questions for the modern woman. Featuring interviews with activists, businesswomen and all-round inspirations, The Guilty Feministexamines how women can abandon their guilt, say No (when they mean it), say Yes (when they want to), and to change the world - and ourselves - for the better.”

She has confused feminism with self-help.

'She has confused' just about covers it.

It looks like having an argument with a faulty hairdryer.

She has confused feminism with self-help.

This is likely the root of the problem.

From inclusion to intersectionality, #MeToo to men's rights, rom-coms to pornography, Deborah Frances-White tackles urgent questions for the modern woman.

This actually reads like satire. Forget about abortion rights, prostitution, domestic violence and women's health care. DFW is here to ask the urgent questions about rom-coms.

That review is totally cracking, and completely on point. It really did show that KK is not on top of this as a subject, and has just stuck it in the woke nonsense box, not the fundamental dismantling of women's rights that it actually is.

I wonder will he reflect on this. And do fucking better.

Deborah? I suspect nothing will make her wonder past the end of her massive glasses.

And the end of the interview is totally manipulative. The tone is, guys, if only you understood yourselves better you would agree with me, but you are so personally stunted and limited by your experiences, you will never understand the true truth revealed to you by the carefully selected indigenous peoples.

yes - whilst she was infuriating, he totally missed whole mountains of easy wins of argument.

Recent interview with Davina Mccall was even less watchable. Utterly anodyne tedious whiffle, and the most screamingly boring bullshit I've seen in a while. It was like watching the therapy session of a pampered socialite with a therapist that knows indulging the endlessly self centred obsessions of their client ensures their continued paychecks.

I watched under a minute, and even then DFW failed to answer a direct question. Her powers of deflection are almost admirable.

It brought to mind the advice to not bother playing chess with a pigeon because theyll just knock all the pieces over, shit on the board, and then strut around on it like theyd won.

Yes, but...

(1) How long would the interview had gone on for if he had picked her up on everything?
(2) I think the point of the conversation is more about teasing out her opinions, and challenging them and creating entertaining content. Not winning. Is a slam-dunk of a response necessarily the best way of acheiving their aims?

(3) If their aim to is to let the audience see who she really is, then batting back her nonsense gently so she comes back from a different angle might be better than stopping her in her tracks. If this was their aim they did a very good job of letting her expose her own arrogance, lack of depth of research or thought, lack of intelligence, lack of ability to argue without getting emotional, lack of ability to argue rationally, gaslighting, amateur psychology, lack of compassion or empathy. The bit where they were asking what "hard right" meant and all she could do is list things Trump the baddie is doing... FFS authoritarian crack-down on protest is (a) not necessarily bad if the protests are effectively violent anti-jew protests; and (b) authoritarian - which can be right or left - not simply hard right.
(3) It is incredibly hard to come up with the perfect response in the moment all the time. KK is good, not perfect.

'Recent interview with Davina Mccall was even less watchable'

I listened to that podcast episode and actually didn't mind it - it's a very nurturing, supportive kind of podcast so she wasn't being challenged on anything and we were spared her tortured attempts to explain trans ideology via clowns driving buses etc. She has been through some really traumatic stuff with her JW experience and I found that interesting and very sad

Ah well, I appear to have an allergy to 'nurturing and supportive'. Maybe especially when it seems performative.

I watched yesterday. Although she was infuriating, from what I’ve seen of KK in the past I think he could have handled things more productively.

She’s utterly ridiculous, with her ‘new’ ideas & ill thought out arguments. If KK could have parked his obvious dislike of her (understandable) it would have been a far better conversation. I think he could have cleverly dissected the nonsense coming out of her mouth. One of the few things she said that I agreed with was how he was treating her at points throughout the interview.

The part at the end where she was trying to psychoanalyse them was excruciating 🤦‍♀️

The most obvious point to make to someone who calls themselves a feminist is: feminism is about advocating for women's rights, and if you don't think there is such a thing as women, and that sex exists on a spectrum, how can there be such a thing as women's rights? It's completely meaningless.

I tried, I really did, but I only managed about 15 minutes. DFW is tedious, patronising and rude. These are all excusable faults if she had even the semblance of a sensible argument to make. But it was all such bloody nonsense.
I can't remember the last time I listened to her podcast (although it was probably about the time when Sofie Hagen left), so I'm not sure if she talks to everyone like they are slightly wayward toddlers, or that's an attitude she brought out just to flog her book (you might have missed that bit, did you notice that she has written a book?).

I think the people like me who managed more than 15 minutes are basically rubber-necking a car-crash, and/or marvelling at just how insane people can come across and just how bad their critical thinking can be. Worth watching to the end (in some ways) but on the other hand if you want to only watch the worthwhile arguments you've already watched 15 mins too much.

Kudos to Francis, he sits there listening for two hours and then is devastatingly succinct in response to a fairly offensive line of questioning.

It's weird that James Marriott didn't mention Francis Foster, who landed one of the most memorable points of the conversation. FF is often good at bringing the conversation back down to earth, a foil to KK.

She keeps starting to explain a point, gets half way through, then talking about it from a different angle or introducing a new anecdote, then goes back to explaining. She is all over the place.

'This is some ideas in a book of ideas'

What?

'Theses are just words that that are tumbling out of my mouth'

Also, I managed 10 minutes and 55 seconds - is this a record?