Misogyny in feminism debates around JK Rowling and sex and gender

[Bertiebiscuit]

I've always thought it, but this makes me see yet again that the attacks on J K Rowling are pure unadulterated unashamed misogyny, nothing less and nothing else. Hatred of a clever beautiful talented successful and rich woman who dares to challenge men. And how they hate her because they can't beat or silence her. Throwing women under the bus is the career tactic of feeble old hat untalented men right now.

The Onion has never been funny imo. Having glanced at when I first heard about it, I rarely looked at it again. This is JKR clickbait, it got a view from me at least. Nasty, unfunny, stupid. I'll be generous and assume whoever wrote it was stoned at the time. It's not satire, it's just purile.

Disgusting- not funny just plain nasty 😠🧅

Totally agree that this is a significant part of it, Bertie. And so sorry for derailing your AIBU thread. I thought it would get much more traction when people woke up.

On the money comment

I think it was pretty funny. The Onion is obviously satire and so painting JKR as a deranged lunatic underlines to me that she actually isn’t one, because if she was one they wouldn’t have done the article.

It definitely could have been improved- the bit about the dentist doesn’t quite hit the mark they were going for- they probably should have asked her to write it!

It’s not remotely saying “she isn’t a lunatic really” because if that was his intention (deliberately using a male pronoun because clearly a nasty incel has written it) then the target of the satire would be those who hound her for perfectly reasonable views. Instead it implies she sees danger in ridiculous circumstances, is paranoid, and dangerous. It’s absolutely vile.

I didn't read it that way at all. They make a point about her percieved obsession with trans people. Obviously it is hugely overblown but I think is reasonably accurate that she is consistently over-explaining her very reasonable views to the point which she wrote an essay about it. All this focus makes it seem like that is all she thinks about. Take her comments about Asexuality opression day. I completely agree this is fake opression and is ridiculous, but it was a bit of overkill to draw attention to it in the way that she did. In addition her comments on Daniel Radcliffe- again someone who I think is pathetic and spinless- came across as petty at best.

I think if you were reading it as insulting , it is pretty mild compared to all the other shit. If the intention was to make her look in anyway crazy and it hugely falls short of reaching that goal. I compare it to those disgusting placards and the refusal of public people such as Andrew Garfield from saying her name in a poor attempt to make her this modern day boogy man. I think that behaviour being tolerated in the mainstream, is much darker and more representative of actual misogyny than this mildly amusing imaginary story.

I agree with Julie Bindle that I think JK Rowling is on the whole a good person. She has never called for the harm or death of anyone who is trans, but is asking for hard won rights and boundaries for women to remain in place. I do stop at lionising or worshipping her or overstating any of the slights that she is experiencing.

'all she thinks about'

I wonder would anyone suggest that about a man who had spent that period of time producing huge, densely written, well-plotted, well-researched, allusion-packed, complex, novels was spending much time thinking about anything else other than his writing?

The misogyny shows up in not taking her work seriously.

or overstating any of the slights that she is experiencing.

”Overstating”? Are you serious? A repeat poster on this forum posted on Bluesky a post about sexually assaulting her with a “splintery rolling pin”. Do you think that’s a “slight”? Do you think that it’s “overstating” to call out how vile that is?

There are a number of famous men who have expressed mildly GC views at one point or another, but of course it's the woman who has become Public Enemy Number One, constantly vilified like some kind of cartoon devil, dragged into discussion to insult her at the drop of hat, while the men largely manage to go unmentioned.

And of course all the very famous men who have said and done far worse but this all gets conveniently ignored.

And yet all the losers - fading old hat slebs mostly - post nonsense about JKR knowing that it's just rage farming clickbait, they are quite happy to use her name to try to step into the hallowed spotlight for their last 15 minutes of notoriety. Pathetic misogynist no marks.

Can you define 'over-explaining', please? Is it 'I wish she'd stop doing it?' If so, then if you stop reading about her it won't bother you any more.

No one is making you read it. People are trying to make women treat men as if they were women and share facilities that the Supreme Court say should be biological women only with them in the interests of being kind.

If they stand complying with the law then JKR won't need to talk about it and your perceived problem is solved. (Remember, i before e except after c and when the sound is e.)

Remember, i before e except after c and when the sound is e.

Or the word is species, or weird?

Victoria Smith has written about this in the Critic (it's behind a paywall)

https://archive.ph/kCLqW

https://thecritic.co.uk/chopping-the-onion/

She's right, one side of this is ripe for satire. The Onion is too cowardly to go there though.