Stephen Fry - What a repulsive, condescending misogynistic turd

[Absentmindedsmile]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14820209/Harry-Potter-narrator-Stephen-Fry-turns-JK-Rowling-TERFs.html

Yuk.

And not just a rich woman. A woman who is much, much much much. Much. Richer than them. Bwa ha ha..

I agree about the pic of JKR on her yacht with the cigar. It's enraging for them, because before JKR came along, their campaign of bullying uppity women had been pretty successful. I sometimes think about Helen Mary Jones, the Plaid Cymru assembly member, who once retweeted a tweet from Rosa Freedman asking people not to compare discrimination against trans people to the Holocaust. She was forced to apologise and ended up losing her political career.

And this kind of thing has happened time and time again - women being cowed into silence or apology out of terror. Even the brave ones who have stood up against the bullies found it took its toll - look at Allison Bailey, for example, or indeed any of the women who have had to endure the tribunal process.

And then JKR comes along - and the bullying doesn't touch her. Her books continue to sell, people still watch her films and buy Harry Potter merchandise, she continues to have success with her adult detective series, and she still rakes in millions of pounds a year, some of which she spends on supporting women. Or travelling on her yacht. It drives them to an absolute gibbering, incoherent fury.

That and having bigger tits. Fake and all.

Totally.

In fact, I would love her response to JM and SF, to be another yacht shot, glass in one hand, cigar in the other, head back, blowing smoke rings

Excellent post. I’m afraid most of us see through these attempts to misrepresent the discussion.

LOL at the idea of Jolyon Maugham calling other people “unwell”.

Glosswitch in unherd.

https://unherd.com/newsroom/its-stephen-fry-not-jk-rowling-whos-been-radicalised/

It’s Stephen Fry, not JK Rowling, who’s been radicalised

“She has been radicalised, I fear,” he told the podcast. “Perhaps by Terfs, but also by the vitriol that is thrown at her.” He added: “I’m afraid she seems to be a lost cause for us.”

Oh no! Not another weak lady brain destroyed by “radicalisation”!

The spectre of “radicalised woman” has loomed over the gender wars for years. When Mumsnet users first started to question the impact of gender ideology on women’s rights, it prompted a spate of handwringing articles about those poor, bored mummies, their mushy mummy brains poisoned by such terrible ideas as “there are only two sexes” and “gender non-conforming girls don’t need their breasts cut off”.

In her 2021 piece, The Road to Terfdom, the journalist Katie J.M. Barker claimed to want to know “why so many Mumsnetters […] were invigorated by an outdated and bigoted perspective on gender”. She wrote that “many of the posters wrote about feeling newly disenfranchised and isolated after giving birth for the first time.” Then, “through organizing around this ‘taboo’ issue […] they were experiencing solidarity and a sense of purpose that had been missing in their postnatal lives.”

Yes, that’s right. The women of Mumsnet only started thinking female prisoners shouldn’t have to share cells with male rapists because they were sick of watching yet another episode of In the Night Garden. It’s not as though these women could have reached the point of believing the things they did by interrogating all of the stories trans activists told them and finding them to be at best meaningless, and at worst hateful.

I have disliked Fry's style since long before gender became a thing, because posing intolerance dressed up as English poshness does not charm me. He was not the best thing about Bones. The suggestion that his fury with JKR started with his claiming to find it had to read a word in a book that has been enjoyed by millions of 10-year-olds is hilarious. Great brain, huh?

But this has been a weird thread. My internet was acting up yesterday - did the link in the OP go to Fry's view on Semenya or was that a 'look, a squirrel'? Is LimeFinch a hardworking collective?

Ive alway thought Fry a bit wet, so i predicted that he's going to come out with some waffle about what he said being taken out of context.

He is very much part of the bbc media bubble, though, and as a whole the bbc are still pretending its 2015, so who knows?

Archive:

archive.is/8ox1x

It was a ‘look, a squirrel’. So very tedious. (An actual squirrel would be interesting).

The topic of Semenya and Banda was introduced because it was supposedly examples of JK Rowling ‘attacking’ individuals who were supposedly not abusive people.

But JK Rowling didn’t even ‘attack’ Banda. She criticised the BBC.

So yes, dean it amounted to ‘look there is a squirrel’ while using it also as an opportunity to accuse MN posters of racism and using white supremist beauty standards to judge who was male and who was female. ie demonising women for correctly identifying two male athletes because apparently it can only be done because we use white beauty standards. Never actually scientifically explained body cues relating to movement and physiology.

Those of us who play Chronophoto had an image recently that this week on MN reminds me of. A LAN party evidently.

Type faster, the TERFs need telling.

The introduction of Semenya was weird. I’ve just gone back to it, and much of it centred on the fact that in the absence of cheek swabs being mandatory judgements were being made based on white beauty standards. Given that JKR supports and pushes for mandatory testing - and in doing so has like others been labelled transphobic - I’m not certain what the point is.

never mind needing the laugh button back, we also need a squirrel emoji

🐿 is allegedly a chipmunk. I suppose if one squinted.

The intro of Semenya struck me as a classic, Trumpian 'flood the zone' strategy.

Let's just fire in a load of references to black (male) athletes, try to smear the GC side as racist,

Sorry

Obfuscate on any sensible questions and then retreat.

I guess we need to just keep calling out these tactics as we see them. 🤷‍♀️

Please, what are the attitudes towards trans women and men that you so dislike?

But the way some people were “crowing” after the Supreme Court decision, as though they were football hooligans celebrating a team win

Gosh, women. Imagine celebrating your success. How can you be so indecorous and boorish?

First you don't just shut up and do what the men want you to.

Second you have the nerve to drink champagne when the law supports your position.

You should all be heartily ashamed of yourselves.

I also saw it as a tool to claim hatred through language.

Specifically that women were allowed to raise a general issue of ‘male people in female sports categories’ but hateful in raising that a specific male athlete was named if they were black. Because in doing so, and not using appropriate language, this was only resorting to white beauty standards.

By then not giving us examples of the appropriate language, this locks the discussion into permanent hateful discussion. But apparently we need to be educated, but no actual attempt to link to resources to change behaviour or to directly provide the language was given.

Thereby locking down any discussion as racist.

These are activist tactics that are only designed to silence and not to change behaviour. That it all was based on false information and false logic was just another aspect.

However, it was supposed to be justification of someone’s accusations about JK Rowling which supported Fry’s. Of course, that Fry has an appalling record with regards to children never seemed to enter the mind of any poster who has declared support for him. But hey ho.. anything to reinforce a prejudiced view of a group of posters

Erm, how do you know the ethnicity (or for that matter, the sex) of anonymous Mumsnetters online unless they specifically tell you? None of them had on this thread. So why is everyone ’white’? Where did that come from?!

Oh, well played! Totally works for Fry too... (They also had the screenshot set as a sensitive image 🤣)

From that unherd article

Fry avoids addressing a single one of Rowling’s arguments from then or today. Instead, the very fact that she has suffered such appalling abuse is used as evidence, not that those attacking her are extremists, but that she is now “a lost cause”.

Great comment. Very insightful.

It runs through him like a stick of rock. But it's very useful to see it described so succinctly.

Her reaction to the abuse is the problem.

Where have we all heard that before.

Late to this but having a good laugh at the idea that ANYONE could 'radicalise' JKR. A brilliantly intelligent women of vast life experience with her own incisive mind (gasp!) and her self-made fortune. She hasn't been 'radicalised' she's recognised the piles of evidence and incontrovertible truth that gender ideology is harmful to women and children.

It's just embarrassing how stupid and unaware (as well as misogynistic) he is. It's breathtaking misogyny that he absolutely would not apply to a man in JKR's position.

Maybe he's been 'radicalised' by the TRAs - has that occurred to him?

Stephen, JK wrote the books, she's the brains; you just read them and IMO not that well frankly. Let's hope this inspires a new audiobook version of the Potter books to be released with a better voice actor.

Why do men of mediocre intellect feel they can condescend to much more intelligent women in this way?

‘Let's hope this inspires a new audiobook version of the Potter books to be released with a better voice actor.’

Yes! Who do we think might work?

David Tennant? Just joking

Jodie Comer?

Johnny Depp?

Ralph Fiennes?