Why are some gender critical feminists praising Rod Liddle?

[Mouldemort]

Can anyone give any insight into why gender critical stalwarts such as Kathleen Stock, Julie Bindel and Rosie Duffield are praising Rod Liddle? He was a wife-beating misogynist who argued that it shouldn't be a crime to look at images of child abuse.

It could be they are excusing his behaviour because he was personally nice to them, but honestly I am not sure.

https://x.com/Docstockk/status/2084268019270684830

Oh, fuck this. Laters, dudes. Have fun!

It could be they are excusing his behaviour because he was personally nice to them

No 'could be' about it. Do you always struggle with comprehension?

Edited to clarify there isn't any 'excusing' behaviour in their tweets as far as I can see. Rather they are saying 'nice things' because he was personally nice to them.

Rod Liddle was paid to be a gobshite. That was his job.

Not to write about how kittens are fluffy or a cold glass of beer is delicious or sand feels nice under your toes.

His job was to wind people up by affecting a range of outrageous opinions & being a fairly clever writer.

He came out with some thoroughly unpleasant shit over the years, & also some rather thoughtful pieces.

Anyway, OP, what’s with the username?

Marian Keyes' chose the book title 'This Charming Man' because women who had been in abusive relationships with men often described their former partners as charming

Really? Surely she nicked the title from the Smiths hit?

Why is this user name allowed ? I thought bullying was banned?

Aaah, so it's another "GC feminists said something nice about this bad man, therefore, you must let men who say they are T&HW* in female single-sex spaces, or you will be approving of everything the bad man did/said" post.

*True and honest women.

Sorry OP, people still can't change sex.

I think posting endless goading guilt-by-association threads should be banned especially when using a shitty misogynist username.

I still don't think people can change sex.

Did you mean to say "nobody should find an adult [...] fucking funny"?

I don't know what kind of charmed life you'd have to live to literally believe that nobody in the world could find that funny. At a bare minimum, have you stopped to consider that lots of people are out there downloading child abuse imagery, and abusing children for real? Do you genuinely think they get offended by jokes concerning sexual activity with children?

While problems exist in all parts of the world, the United States emerges as a particularly high-risk area. Childlight’s new global index, Into the Light, found high levels of CSAM (child sexual abuse material) hosted there as well as the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, one in nine men in the States (10.9%, equating to almost 14 million men) admitted online sexual offending against children at some point in their lives. Representative surveys found the same said by 7% of men in the UK – equating to 1.8 million offenders – and by 7.5% of men in Australia (nearly 700,000).

Many more across the three countries said they would also seek to commit contact sexual offences against children if they thought it would be kept secret.

https://www.childlight.org/newsroom/over-300-million-children-a-year-are-victims-of-online-sexual-exploitation-and-abuse

It's weird when these threads happen. All sorts of usernames I don't remember ever seeing before on MN just magically pop out of the woodwork. Usually to condemn others.

Apparently the Guardian thought it was OK to publish. Maybe ask them?

I’m sad he died. He may have been flawed but he was a brilliant writer.

The pieces that have been quoted on here as ‘evidence’ of his wrongs, and anything I ever read that was near the knuckle, was pure working class irony. If you’re not from a WC background you won’t get it.

And like WC people, he could bluntly call out wank-think nonsense, and he did. Hence his GC stance.

RIP

I enjoyed his writing. He had the darkest humour and a sharp wit.

I also liked that he could effortlessly wind up the type of joyless and humourless scolds who never stop being outraged about life. Looking at you, OP.

May he rest in peace, and my condolences to his family.

FFS it was not a joke! Have you read the extract of him posted upthread, where he writes about shagging Y10s- they are 14/15 years old.

He was great at supporting women against the trans nonesense. We can also say he beat women up and fantasised about shagging teenage girls. In my world that makes him pretty awful person. Others will disagree but don’t fob off his awfulness.

Personally, I can't put any value on the opinions of people whose posts imply they are either unaware of the prevalence of child abuse, or that they assume that child abusers are tutting disapprovingly at Rod Liddle columns in between clicking on footage of children being tortured.

Society as a whole needs to stop positioning people as sinners and saints. People can hold wildly differing views on subjects and still find common ground and treat people with respect.

I imagine that if you appear on someone’s show, or are interviewed by someone who is polite, respectful and clearly has a lot of life in them, and then they die suddenly, you might want to share some kind words.

Why are you putting evidence in inverted commas? He literally wrote a non-humorous article advocating the legalisation of child pornography. Your working class relatives are very different to mine.

"How absurd the law is. But at least it is an appropriate reflection of our collective neurosis and confusion about paedophilia generally. The one laudable and necessary aim - to protect children from abuse - has become warped by our consuming, obsessive hatred for those who find children sexually attractive. There is no causal link between viewing child porn and abusing children. And even if there were, it would not be sufficient, within the philosophy of our judicial system, to simply assume that an unpleasant penchant for the former presupposes guilt of the latter."

I've read this several times to try and understand what you are saying. I'm sorry but I still don't know what you were trying to say.

Yes ASK THE BLOODY GUARDIAN

Never met Rod Liddle, never going to get the opportunity, can't comment on his qualities as a human being.

However the extract provided is definitely intended to be amusing and deliberately shocking at the same time. Whether you find that funny is a matter of personal taste, but I don't see the purpose in pretending he wasn't clearly trying to be funny.

Yeah fair enough. If he said that I can’t defend it. Still enjoyed most of his writing though. And I still think a lot of it was tongue in cheek agitating to stir up the liberals.

Damn those women for being generous enough to see someone’s good side.

I mean that we have multiple people in this thread posting absurd claims that no-one can find Rod Liddle columns funny.

To post such a thing and believe it means that one is ignorant of the existence of child abusers, the reddits devoted to jokes about sexual abuse, and Frankie Boyle's entire comedy career. No-one that ignorant of humanity and popular culture has anything of value to contribute.

The alternative is that they're lying and assuming that no-one will challenge them on their absurdities. By definition, liars don't have anything of value to contribute either.

What a load of nonsense... I bet you wouldn't take that view about Jimmy Savile