Grace Campbell - Alastair Campbell

[BlueLegume]

If I have missed any threads already started about this then apologies.

I am literally lost for words on the post she added to her podcast along with Charlie Craggs.

My own daughter has been lost to this cause. I am hoping I get her back. How utterly vile can a young woman be - Grace Campbell - towards women who have worked so hard to give her such privilege. I might be ugly and a freak Grace with awful hair. But I am not a mean girl.

I stopped listening to the podcast when I had to listen to Alistair Campbell dismissing all women's concerns about the trans movement simply by saying that his daughter and her friends were happy to have transwomen in their toilets so obviously transwomen weren't an issue. This is a man who is paid to comment on what is happening in British politics. This was at the time of the Supreme Court judgement, and, without doing any research or giving it a moment's thought, he simply adopted his daughter's position. Apparently asking one woman in the UK how she feels about something is all the research you need to do on "women's issues". And he's self-righteous with it. Rory Stewart then commented that he had a transwoman friend who was nice. So that's that political issue done and dusted then.

Alistair Campbell is an intelligent man, he also has a large and influential platform.

I can't comment on his intelligence but the words, "cunning thug" spring to mind rather than "intellectual".

As for "influential". Is he really? Who does he actually influence?

Ali "Dodgy Dossier" and Rory just seem like fading has-beens trading off past notoriety, because neither of them have ever really covered themselves in glory.

Before that episode I was a regular listener and thinking of subscribing. Afterwards, not so much.

I do still listen from time to time. This week RS was plugging the Sarah McBride interview. He said something to the.effect that people who criticise them on gender issues really should listen to it, as it might change their minds. That could be a new one for the bingo card.

But now I am determined to give it a go.

Ever since their disastrous coverage of the US election, their star has been waning. They're just two opinionated, over confident blokes. There's zero special insight there, quite the opposite in fact.

Tom and Don on the other hand go from strength to strength.

In Grace's interview with Grace's mother, in addition to the part where her mother talks about maternal ambivalence and how annoying Grace is, there is a part with Grace asking her how she managed to look so young, and persistently saying how good/young her mother looked.

It is quite sad, really.

Oooh, I love TRIH!

Sorry, Tom and Dom 😂

As a Jeremy Thorpe scholar (we're a small but fun community) I will always love Tom and Dom for the episode they did on the Thorpe scandal.

It doesn't matter how attractive or not women are. The idea of there being some ideal women are supposed to look like in order to be acceptable to the world is a complete red herring. Internalised misogyny has very little, really, to do with looks. The world - the patriarchy - performs a complete number on girls and women, from birth, relentlessly negging them. Partly in order to sell vast amounts of unnecessary shite, but also in part as a way to keep women in their place.

I’m intrigued by what you’re saying @ArabellaScott, can you expand?

Because I’d dispute that the idea of an ideal woman being more acceptable to men/the world is not a complete red herring in this discussion. What constitutes international beauty norms and its associated benefits is a vast topic but looks is one key element of the patriarchy. Relevant to analysing their podcast precisely because of the words / topic chosen by Grace to dismiss the efforts of FWS ie being physically ugly = ugly personality.

And if not internalised misogyny, then what would you call it when women judge their own and other women’s looks on the beauty ideal?

I used to work with Fiona Millar back in the day and she was a good feminist. I suspect this isn’t an upbringing problem but a jumping on the bandwagon problem.

Patronisingly tells a woman to "Try to dig into it a bit deeper" and then confidently pronounces his views as being formed by three women. Not much digging there Alastair. What a twat. For this he’s paid a million £ a year.

Edited to add: I am sympathetic to Grace, it must be hard growing up in the spotlight and trying to find your place in the world with two successful parents.

You’d think that someone with such impressive parents (I’m not a fan of AC or Fiona Millar but they have done well for themselves) would be sharp, articulate, persuasive etc. She reminds me of an obnoxious teenager but she’s in her 30s. I’d be really disappointed if that was my offspring.

Yes I couldn’t help wondering about pots and kettles when the Nepobaby started on about ugly haircuts. Despite being aware of the irony in my thinking this. But neither of them looks like they’ve ever even had a haircut.

PS Whenever I’ve seen her in person at events, Naomi Cunningham always looks the sharpest dressed woman in the room

The truth of “we all judge” makes these comments even more baffling to me. Most people judge to a greater or lesser extent, mostly we keep those thoughts to ourselves - or share with a suitably close and judgey friend. You wonder what kind of arrogant faith in your own righteousness you have to have to make them out loud, on a podcast. Calling yourself a feminist while doing it is even more baffling. Can none of these people hear themselves?

They always remind me of a line from Dr Who (of all places) “no one has said ‘no’ to you for a very long time, have they?”

Genuine question ROGD: why did you feel the need to give your male opinion on everyone's looks?

Rory and Alistair are the very worst of left-wing overconfident blokes - they feel that they've looked at a situation, come to a conclusion and that's that. They're obviously right so what possible other viewpoint could anyone consider other than their own?

What is it they say about the confidence of mediocre men...

I avoid everything from Goalhanger except TRIH, I'd love it if Dom n Tom found a way to extricate themselves from the wingnut empire.

@DrudgeJedd, can I recommend The Bookclub? Also a Goalhanger podcast, and also Dominic Sandbrook (who, quite frankly, I'd listen to if he was reading out the blurb at the back of a cornflake packet) and one of TRIH producers, Tabby. It's excellent, even when it's a book I have no intention of reading!

Ah ok - so she’s never had to deal with a co-ed comp. Explains a lot. The boys defo know who the girls are - and in my experience the sexual harassment is fairly hideous

She’s apparently said in the past that the all girls environment was good for her! Ridiculous. Reminds me of someone I know who says she has a phobia of mixed sex bathrooms because she has OCD and has a genuine fear and paranoia of men being in the same facility as her. But apparently this doesn’t apply to TW because TWAW. I was going to suggest that she gets over her fear by just imagining that every man is actually trans but decided against it.

To be fair, I thought TRIP US election coverage was brilliant. Really brought much needed hilarity to an otherwise crap result. Dominic was great and really showed Alastair and Rory up which is always a bonus.

Plus this gives me an opportunity to re-share the moment Alastair grumpily gives Dominic the floor: "...as the person who got it right, what do you think we got wrong?" 😁

With Rory just looking stunned and just sitting with his "emotional support pen" - I remember another user came up with that phrase the last time the election special was discussed and I think it's perfect.

Sorry, I've worded this badly. Trying to explain:

'Internalised misogyny has very little, really, to do with looks'

Internal misogyny has very little to do with how one actually looks and everything to do with being oppressed by arbitrary and selective 'standards' that are far more indicative of status, etc.

What I mean is that girls and women are relentlessly taught to focus on their appearance and obsessively check it against standards. These standards are subjective, invented, and often impossible for most to achieve.

Thats on purpose, which keeps women focused on their own supposed shortcomings and flaws. 'Negging' by PUAs does the same. A form of gas lighting.

Greer in The Female Eunuch is great on this. But Grace couldn't possibly read someone so verboten.

GC“We are completely missing the main point that men are predators”.
CC “Yeah, not transwomen”

Nearly, Grace dear. I’m sure you can join the dots if you try really hard.

I think it’s a bit crass to name check her father in the title. Can’t a girl have her own identity?

Always a joy to rewatch that clip. I am more than a little bit in love with Dom S - partly the voice, partly the way he tends to remember that women exist and matter, partly because he's bloody funny.

And mostly, as here, because he actually bloody thinks. Thereby showing up Campbell and Stewart as the bien-pensant bloviators they are.

I think it will be really interesting to see how she feels if she ever has kids. I am 10 years older her. When I was her age (had kids at 35) I really think I would have felt the same. Before you realise how much your biology effects your ability to progress in the world, the respect you ge from medical staff, the sacrifices you need to make that men don't. For me none of that was apparent until I got pregnant . Life was easy and I really wouldn't have thought about gender or sex. I'd just have thought trans people should jus be given whatever the need to be happy.

Clearly . I'm lucky. I've never been a victim of sexual violence or had. men or been involved in proffesional sport. I think for a lot of you my prople like I was, the sex thing really doesn't make a difference. BUT IT MIGHT when you realsis the trans wome gets a promotion ahead of yo u as she wont have a child. Or when you see how you pain in birth or menopause is minimised or dismissed. Or when you have you bits out on the recovery ward post birth and people's husbands are wandering around.

its a bit like how feminism forgot that looking after a kid is a full time job and failing to answer the question of who does it if you and your partner (if you have one) are at work. They got women out the house physically but not mentally. Now we are all buggered with massive house prices because we can borrow against two salaries, still fighting for men to pic up the pace and still fighting for decent flexibility for all. The same thing will happen to these girls. They will realis we've hard way that ignoring inherent biology will HARM them.

Nobody would know who she was, though. And the irony of the comments are in direct relation to 1. Her father chiding women/femjnists for not being kind and nice enough, and supposedly 2. Her views on feminism are where AC gets his from.