Don’t mention the definition
Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon spoke at an event celebrating 30 years of the charity Zero Tolerance and its long running – and essential – commitment to ending violence against women. In a revealing sign of the times in Scotland today, organisers emailed those attending the event to warn them certain subjects should be ignored. As they put it: ‘We wish to create a safe and supported environment for our guests and ask you to support us in this aim by refraining from discussions of the definition of a woman and single sex spaces in relation to the gender recognition act.’
But…how then will they know what anyone is talking about? If they don’t know people are talking about women as opposed to women and men who say they are women, how can they understand the discussions at all? This is the problem, isn’t it. When you’re talking about a subject that affects women specifically, then it muddies the waters to drag in men who say they are women. This is exactly why it’s a bad idea to pretend that men can be women.
…for the moment and whether Sturgeon likes it or not, this is the hot-ticket women’s issue in Scotland. I say women’s issue but, really, it’s not just a women’s issue. It is, in the end, a choice between those who wish to inhabit a reality-based world and those who insist truth is an endlessly moveable, malleable, feast.
Yes but also no. The truth v fantasy aspect is very important, but it’s also very important that it’s women who are the Designated Enemy.
Sturgeon said:
‘Much of what I’m going to say today is about male violence against women because it is men who commit violence against women. In my long experience, most men who commit violence against women don’t feel the need to change gender to do that. Those who do, my argument is we should focus on them because they are men abusing a system to attack women. What we shouldn’t do is further stigmatise a group of women who are already too stigmatised.’
By which she means men who say they are women.
It’s not stigmatising men who say they are women to say they are men. The intrusion or offense or aggression is from the other direction. It’s an insult to women for men to insist that being a woman is just a matter of assertion. No, it isn’t: it’s a matter of being born with a female body, of growing up vulnerable to various forms of aggression from men, of being not as big or fast or strong as men, of being the prey not the predator. Women can no more afford to pretend men are women than gazelles can afford to pretend cheetahs are gazelles.
It would also be a relatively easy case to make to say that GC feminists are the most stigmatized group today. After all, we are all Karens, right? (Maybe the most stigmatized group today, at least unfairly stigmatized, is women actually named Karen.)
This is probably the wrong place to share this, but here goes: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has given the first Reith Lecture of 2022, and the recording has just been released. The there this year are FDR’s Four Freedoms, and her lecture and Q and A is on Freedom of Speech. Kathleen Stock was in the audience, and got to ask a question. I think this would interest many people who read and comment on B&W, so here is the link to the general webpage for the series. The lecture is also available as a podcast.
It’s a good enough place. I’ve seen much enthusiastic praise for the lecture this morning.
Very true. But human evolution by natural selection (or if preferred, God the Creator) saw to it that there is sexual dimorphism in all races of humans allowing men to physically dominate women, particularly in private (such as home) situations. I speak here with some authority, as from the age of 10 years I had to witness my own father bashing up my own mother in our family home, not once but many times, which in turn had a profound effect on me, and caused me to distance myself somewhat from him and to side always with my mother; which he in turn resented, complaining in private to a neighbour and close to tears that “I have lost my son.” Needless to add, he was never violent to me personally, but had precious little insight into himself, while at the same time having a hostile relationship with his own father, and being much closer to his own mother. Oh yes, and his violence towards her was a major factor in driving my mother to alcoholism, depression, and an early death. So it had its long-term consequences.
For the above reason, there is nothing that angers me as much as witnessing or hearing of male violence against women, and on the one occasion I ever saw it in a public situation, I gave the bloke involved a free and uncomplimentary loud-enough public character assessment, and was quite ready to flatten him should he try the same stunt on me. But unsurprisingly, he proved a coward in that situation.
My somewhat distant relationship with my father has also had its own rather severe financial cost to me, but I won’t go into that here. But his choice, and as I said, it had its consequences.
Omar, I grew up as a victim of violence in the household; it has shaped me as truly as your experience shaped you. When I witnessed violence against women, it was always excruciating. When I experienced it, the pain and horror expanded by an order of magnitude – at least.
Lest my somewhat vagueness in the previous paragraph lead to misunderstandings, yes, I was the victim of male violence, with a brother determined to subdue and dominate his sisters, and willing to use extreme violence to do it. I also experienced violence from females in the household, but that’s a topic for a day when we’re not being concerned with violence men commit against women.
Perhaps this shoud go in one of the Miscellany posts, it I could find it.
Here is a good summary of the sensible attitude to ‘trans’
https://markhumphrys.com/trans.html
It includes a link to this list of cases censorship of the gender critical, including violence against them.
https://bannedbytrans.wordpress.com/masterpost/
Leaving aside the unstated premise at the end there–it’s a nifty strategy genderists have going, isn’t it? Heads they win, tails their critics lose. First claim that no predator would identify as trans in order to predate and challenge skeptics to show evidence that it happens. When they do, claim they’re stigmatizing a vulnerable minority.
(Unambiguously trans-identified predators? Same thing. “No true trans woman would…Oh, so you found some examples? look at you, stigmatizing All Trans Women.”)
iknklast @#5:
Noted. I’s the perverse gift that keeps on giving in its own inimitable and nasty way. And at the cost to me of around A$1 million, I am still dealing with its financial consequences 68 years after it started happening.
Clamboy #2, Ophelia #3
It’s not entirely clear to me from the context if the following is from Adichie herself or part of a quote, but I found this admirably concise:
I believe it was Arty Morty who once made a useful distinction between tolerance based on actual understanding (the kind that comes from listening to the arguments form both sides and making an informed decision) and “tolerance” based on peer pressure and fear of ostracism. If the support of your “allies” is so dependent on which way the wind blows, what’s to prevent them from throwing you under the bus the moment there’s a change in the wind…