Yasmin Alibhai-Brown "Most rape is commited by men men"

[Alucard55]

Andrew Doyle explaining what the Supreme Court ruling means for women's rights. Yamin Alibhai - Brown stating that most rape is commited by "men men and not trans men".

I'm absolutely disgusted that women are still coming out and defending men.

I lost respect for Y A-B when she claimed that the Muslim community were being demonised as a result of Islamist bombings unlike 'the Irish community who were never demonised because of the IRA'.

She ignored the thousands of innocent Irish people interned without trial, the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four, the Maguire Family, including their 13-year-old child who was held in solitary confinement for a month, the Prevention of Terrorism Act - basically a period of 'Innocent until proven Irish'.

At the time I heard her making such an astonishingly inaccurate statement, I couldn't make up my mind whether she had genuinely never heard of the infamous and well-documented miscarriages of justice and denial of human rights involving innocent Irish people, in which case she's not very good as a social commentator, or whether she just thought that Irish people don't matter, in which case she's not very good as a human being.

Once you've heard someone stating something so obviously wrong, you start to doubt their opinions on everything else, and so it was with Y A-B.

@GiveMeSpanakopita
I don't know that I'd say the British Empire was most benign.
I think every country/empire has both good and bad points. Even the use of the word empire sort of implies subjugation. Over human history there have been many powers competing in the race to rule over and dominate others.

It's the double standards that annoy me. Where you choose a western country and concentrate soley on the negative aspects, while ignoring any positive aspects. Or where the west and other countries both did something bad together, and the west gets criticised and the other countries involvement gets swept under the rug and ignored. This incessant application of double standards is deliberately misleading and dishonest.

Aaaand another excellent one.
I once had a chat with an academic from a developing country. He said that he and his colleagues from similar countries sit around at conferences and compare their past imperial rulers - the French, the Japanese, the Belgians, the Dutch. 'And the British were best!' I told him he'd be hung, drawn and quartered for saying that in your average lefty UK history department.

Edited to add, that is not to say that the British Empire didn't do some dreadful things. Rather that, on balance, it did proportionately less than many other empires.

@GiveMeSpanakopita Another excellent post.

She is and always has been an absolute disgusting disgrace, on every subject she speaks about. Awful, disgraceful misogynistic woman.

@MarieDeGournay
Once you've heard someone stating something so obviously wrong, you start to doubt their opinions on everything else, and so it was with Y A-B.
I am acquainted with the work of some historians like that. When you catch someone widely read and well-regarded leaving words out of a quote that materially change the meaning, omitting key information that he must have known had he read his cited sources and relying on a biased source instead, getting names wrong, and failing to add up correctly, you lose all faith in him.

Which has a knock-on effect on your overall faith in the academic enterprise. I used to have confidence in academic work. Not any longer: academia has an awful lot of liars, charlatans and political truth-twisters in its ranks.

Same goes for journalists.

It's no wonder people are turning from from what used to be sources of reliable information and believing any old crap on the Internet, because the legacy media and academia have shown that they cannot be relied upon, despite the excellent work still being done within them.

Over the last few days a story has been running in the press about re-education camps for women in Saudi Arabia where disobedient women get any defiance physically beaten out of them, until they become compliant and obedient.

And yet it's America that's supposed to be become the land of the handmaidens. Any women afraid of America might also want to avoid Saudi Arabia. Probably should be higher up the avoid list than America to be honest just to be on the safe side.

"But the burqa empowers women!" - Doesn't seem to be empowering women enough to be able to leave the women beating camps to me. May I suggest running shoes might be more empowering.

I sometimes think it goes a bit deeper and the reason that MCKEBNIs constantly denigrate the West, is so that they can continue to hoarde all the cultural capital and resources for themselves.

Looked at empirically, Western culture has been brilliant for YAB. She's got a high paying job, loads of cultural capital, disposable income to do fun stuff, rentier capital from her property portfolio. So do we think she GENUINELY believes that Western culture is evil, when it's manifestly done so well for her? Or is it in fact a subconscious realisation that if she (and all her fellow North London dinner party circuit) were honest about how they climbed to the top of the social totem pole, they might also have to stop hoarding their cultural capital and let intelligent lower class people have a go?

But wait...This type of honest meritocracy might mean that the MCKEBNIs lose some of their wealth, jobs and social status, as WC people level up. Can't have that now, can we? No, far better to convince the lower classes that they live in a horribly unfair and racist and evil society, with no good stuff available for anyone, so there's no point trying.

It's like the Soviet leaders of yore who'd do photoshoots showing their humble hut abodes and basic daily diet, before driving off to their beautifully appointed dachas, replete with priceless art, bountiful foodstuffs, fine wines and swimming pools.

I remember several years ago (the internet tells me it was back in 2000) a hit job on Alibhai-Brown by the journalist Melanie McDonagh in the New Statesman. It was absolutely brutal. At the time it felt very unfair but now I think McDonagh probably had a point. Sadly no longer findable online.

Edited to add, that is not to say that the British Empire didn't do some dreadful things. Rather that, on balance, it did proportionately less than many other empires.

Agree. I'm not saying the BE was a bastion of truth, egalitarianism and kindness. But, in the real world, and using the empirical method which USED to underpin academia, you can only meaningfully compare an empire to other historical empires which have existed. And on that basis, the BE does quite well. Very well in fact. Surprisingly so, given all the nonsense that's talked about it.

And I can well believe her point, that she has been paid less than male counterparts, which they completely dismissed.

YAB mentioned the unfairness that she, a journalist who had won every award going in her many years in the job was paid less than her white male counterparts in response to Andrew saying that a meritocratic system would be better than a DEI type quota system.

Andrew then responded to her point with how that unfairness could be resolved with a meritocratic system. To which she replied 'there IS no meritocratic system'

So I don't agree that her point was completely dismissed. I found her irritating to watch - I have seen her on panels a few times now saying things along the lines of 'IF you'd let me finish / don't interrupt me' and then speaking over whoever is making a counter point, which she did here too.

Yes that's almost my exact take.

I'm loath to criticise women, especially since they generally do have to make more noise to be heard.

But she was wrong. And it's a little worrying that a woman who clearly gets feminism, doesn't get this. She's formed her opinion on the most superficial of takes.

Although, to be fair, Andrew Doyle is an absolute master when it comes to eloquence. Plus he's highly informed about this subject, and like Helen Joyce, can think on his feet.

I would've thought he and Jeremy Vine were polar opposites. But maybe Vine will listen to Andrew because he's a man.

I have seen her on panels a few times now saying things along the lines of 'IF you'd let me finish / don't interrupt me' and then speaking over whoever is making a counter point, which she did here too

YAB was a regular on the paper reviews that used to be on the BBC news channel (RIP) on Saturday nights. DH and I used to make a point of watching in the hope that our favourite pairing, Jo Phillips and Nigel Nelson, would be on - always sensible, wise, witty, and iirc they even managed to make some coded remarks that indicated their entirely sound views on the whole 'gender debate'.

Hearts sank if it was YAB because she was always shouty, yelled over people, hogged the airtime and generally made it all about her. I haven’t heard her for ages but she reappeared fairly recently elsewhere and I was actually shocked by how much worse she'd become in general terms of shoutiness etc. Now it appears she’s hitched her wagon to the BEEE KIIIIND BIGOTS juggernaut, and very much not to the good of anyone, least of all herself.

By contrast, I have the deepest respect for Andrew Doyle.

Are you sure about that?

https:#//web.archive.org/web/20110606051132/http:#//www#.newstatesman.com/200010230023

Delete the # symbols (included because MN softward often ruins archive links).

I'm another who used to like her, now I turn over when she's on because she doesn't listen and talks over people all the time.

See also Carole Malone.

I hate anyone who does that and the hosts that do not stop it but she has turned it into an art form. I am sure she practices.

I hate hearing debates about 'woke' as most of them never have anything like my take on it.

I am broadly in favour of social justice but do not think measures can be introduced by bullying or hectoring people. I also think every case in social justice needs to be argued on its own merit not bundled into one big intersectional baggage that people are either for or against. Essentially I disagree with #nodebate and the attitudes that surround it.

Generally they invite someone like YAB on who seems to think social justice is a new religion and they are part of a new priesthood and it turns into a daft bun fight

If you have Spotify premium, you can listen to The End of Woke audiobook on there as part of your subscription

We should definitely start breaking rape down into the inner identities of men. Then we should move onto hair colour, the percentage that wears glasses, and the number of hairs on their head. It's absolutely as fucking relevant.

As someone who considers myself on the opposite side to woke I would have no problem supporting your version of woke. We might disagree on some details if we got to talking, but everything in your post I agree with.
I think woke has a massive presentation problem. No one likes being lectured down to. Anyone getting to put any issue they like into the woke bundle without debate is a huge issue. The ends justifying any means is also a big no no for me e.g. violence to enforce tolerance.

As you say it is a modern religion. I think people with your attitude have far more chance of achieving positive change in the world than YAB. It's not possible to make someone change their mind with intimidation, force, and belittlement but it is with gentle persuasion and understanding.

The modern manifestation of woke to me is intolerant (the fixed and rigid set of acceptable views) and authoritarian and that's why I find it so toxic.

Fell down a Google and wikipedia rabbit hole and see that she has a niece in residence at a UK prison. I am stunned that, although she did say to Andrew that no she would not want ‘men men’ in women’s prisons, that the very fact that she has a relative - one with bipolar and other MH issues that means she is very much a typically vulnerable member of the women’s prison population - that she might have pulled her head out of her arse and considered what the impact of a Sarah Jane Baker sharing a cell with her might be?

My main problem with 'woke' is that people who consider themselves to be 'woke' think they are inherently incapable of being wrong because they're woke. Kind of like how left wing men think they're incapable of misogyny because they're left wing, or how it's presented that people with autism are incapable of being wrong because they're honest.

I’ve never been told that autistic people (not ‘people with autism’, we don’t carry it around like a handbag) are ‘incapable of being wrong because they’re honest’. Deeply ableist, as well as plain wrong.

See I don't even think this quite works because what does 'social justice' mean?

For Crystal, a middle aged transwoman from Brighton, social justice might mean getting access to women's rape centres.

For Dawud, an accountant in Bradford, social justice might mean the UK reneging on decades of settled foreign policy and cutting all ties with Israel and the US.

For Jess, a student in Cambridge, social justice might mean the immediate ending and retroactive refund of all tuition fees.

For Martin, a homeless army vet, it might mean swingeing changes to social housing policy so that army veterans get prioritised for housing over single mothers and asylum seekers.

'Social justice', like 'End war now' and 'Just stop oil' and 'Love is love', are verbal propofol, which sound lovely but have huge potential pitfalls if ever a genuine political effort was put into making them happen (unlikely, because these phrases don't mean anything).

But in the meantime they are thought terminating cliches which are dangerous because they prvent us from ever adequately naming problems and seeking real grown up solutions.

Nothing personal to you @zanahoria I just think part of the reason why our standard of public discourse has fallen so precipitously in the last decade is partly because of our collective addition to these saccharine, childish phrases (I am equally guilty. we all are.)