How else can we interpret ‘trans women are women’ in the letter you signed?
Agreeing with that statement means agreeing that ‘trans women’ should have access to any and all spaces for women. Sports, prisons, hospital wards, etc.
It has always surprised me, from her. She’s been allergic to smelly little orthodoxies throughout her career, yet somehow this extremely smelly one gets a pass. Why? Why has she always resisted being called a feminist but not resisted signing that utterly stupid letter?
Those stuck on nature being immutable divided into M+F should delve into slug sex.
This is not an argument any GC with basic understanding of biology would make. We are all well aware of the sexual variations among Clown Fish, Sea Horses, Earthworms, and yes, slugs. However, we are also all well aware that none of the above are mammals; humans are mammals and mammals are most definitely divided into “M+F”. A Lioness with a mane is not a transgender Lion, she is simply a Lioness with Hirsutism, a condition that an not insignificant number of female humans also have. Again, that does not suddenly make those women men.
We are all well aware of the sexual variations among Clown Fish, Sea Horses, Earthworms, and yes, slugs.
I seem to recall that Atwood was particularly taken with a fish called the barimundi as an example that would demolish our outmoded, binary concept of sex.
However, we are also all well aware that none of the above are mammals; humans are mammals and mammals are most definitely divided into “M+F”.
Showing that no mammal changes sex shows just how wide of the mark transactivists are, and how far they’re ready to reach to muddy the waters. Even within mammals, there are lots of behaviours and capacities that are beyond human ability. It would be like bringing up flight in bats, and deep diving in whales as examples of humans being able to fly, or being able to stay underwater for vey long periods of time. Some examples are more apt than others. Using ones that are irrelevant is a bad faith move designed to confuse and distract. You’d think she would know this.
It has always surprised me, from her. She’s been allergic to smelly little orthodoxies throughout her career, yet somehow this extremely smelly one gets a pass. Why? Why has she always resisted being called a feminist but not resisted signing that utterly stupid letter?
There’s your answer. Refusing to call yourself a feminist is not resinising orthodoxies – it’s just being contrarian. “Feminist” is the loosest of labels. Calling yourself a feminist is pretty much the bare minimum. (It’s not like there’s any feminist creed you’re forced to sign up to – all the endless manifestoes are entirely optional).
The problem’s not that there’s anything wrong with being contrarian per se – it may well be the starting place for great art. But we have to stop expecting coherent or even rational positions from people just because they’ve proven themselves to be great artists. It’s almost as if someone like Rowling whose imaginative world if carefully simplified to be accessible to the masses is in a better place to talk about these things than someone with a carefully curated persona as a great artist.
Yes, true, but in her case it’s not just because she’s proven herself to be a great artist – at least not in my case, and I doubt I’m the only one. I don’t even know if I would call her a great artist, but she does come across as a peculiarly intelligent and skeptical one. She’s a bit contrarian, a bit against the grain, but not in a smug fake way. I’m thinking in particular of Cat’s Eye, which teases some orthodoxies, but in an intelligent way. It just surprises me that she’s knuckled under to something so blatantly stupid and groupthinky.
Does she still write? is she dependent on book royalties? If yes, then that may be why she has fallen in with the “blatantly stupid and groupthinky”, the publishing industry seems to be well captured by these mendacious TRA thugs.
This is not an argument any GC with basic understanding of biology would make.
Her brother was* a research physiologist who worked with both invertebrates and mammals, and at least during the few years I interacted with him, although he took a reductionist approach in his work he would never actually confuse the characteristics of different species or claim that any macroscopic traits translated wholesale across species. As far as I know their family remain relatively close, so yes in fact his sister really should know better.
(*Past tense because he retired… I do believe he’s still alive.)
Yes, point taken about her intelligence and skepticism. (I only know her work by reputation.) I think my (perhaps modified) point is that art is always intelligence and even skepticism in service of an imaginative goal. Artists (maybe I’m thinking specifically of fiction writers) imagine what could. be true and try to imagine how it could be true. And that’s pretty the opposite of what would count as epistemic probity everywhere else. But it doesn’t matter – the great artists are simply the ones who happen to get it right. I’m sure the world is full of little-read novels of great intelligence and skepticism whish are just dull and wrong. I’m no fan of Plato but maybe one thing he got right was the thing about not trusting poets. [Goes off to write an elegant sonnet about the experience of eating dried figs!]
Well, apart from all of that evidence, when have I ever advocated…
This is not an argument any GC with basic understanding of biology would make. We are all well aware of the sexual variations among Clown Fish, Sea Horses, Earthworms, and yes, slugs. However, we are also all well aware that none of the above are mammals; humans are mammals and mammals are most definitely divided into “M+F”. A Lioness with a mane is not a transgender Lion, she is simply a Lioness with Hirsutism, a condition that an not insignificant number of female humans also have. Again, that does not suddenly make those women men.
I seem to recall that Atwood was particularly taken with a fish called the barimundi as an example that would demolish our outmoded, binary concept of sex.
Showing that no mammal changes sex shows just how wide of the mark transactivists are, and how far they’re ready to reach to muddy the waters. Even within mammals, there are lots of behaviours and capacities that are beyond human ability. It would be like bringing up flight in bats, and deep diving in whales as examples of humans being able to fly, or being able to stay underwater for vey long periods of time. Some examples are more apt than others. Using ones that are irrelevant is a bad faith move designed to confuse and distract. You’d think she would know this.
There’s your answer. Refusing to call yourself a feminist is not resinising orthodoxies – it’s just being contrarian. “Feminist” is the loosest of labels. Calling yourself a feminist is pretty much the bare minimum. (It’s not like there’s any feminist creed you’re forced to sign up to – all the endless manifestoes are entirely optional).
The problem’s not that there’s anything wrong with being contrarian per se – it may well be the starting place for great art. But we have to stop expecting coherent or even rational positions from people just because they’ve proven themselves to be great artists. It’s almost as if someone like Rowling whose imaginative world if carefully simplified to be accessible to the masses is in a better place to talk about these things than someone with a carefully curated persona as a great artist.
Yes, true, but in her case it’s not just because she’s proven herself to be a great artist – at least not in my case, and I doubt I’m the only one. I don’t even know if I would call her a great artist, but she does come across as a peculiarly intelligent and skeptical one. She’s a bit contrarian, a bit against the grain, but not in a smug fake way. I’m thinking in particular of Cat’s Eye, which teases some orthodoxies, but in an intelligent way. It just surprises me that she’s knuckled under to something so blatantly stupid and groupthinky.
Does she still write? is she dependent on book royalties? If yes, then that may be why she has fallen in with the “blatantly stupid and groupthinky”, the publishing industry seems to be well captured by these mendacious TRA thugs.
Her brother was* a research physiologist who worked with both invertebrates and mammals, and at least during the few years I interacted with him, although he took a reductionist approach in his work he would never actually confuse the characteristics of different species or claim that any macroscopic traits translated wholesale across species. As far as I know their family remain relatively close, so yes in fact his sister really should know better.
(*Past tense because he retired… I do believe he’s still alive.)
I wonder if she has a family member who’s “transitioned.”
@Ophelia
Yes, point taken about her intelligence and skepticism. (I only know her work by reputation.) I think my (perhaps modified) point is that art is always intelligence and even skepticism in service of an imaginative goal. Artists (maybe I’m thinking specifically of fiction writers) imagine what could. be true and try to imagine how it could be true. And that’s pretty the opposite of what would count as epistemic probity everywhere else. But it doesn’t matter – the great artists are simply the ones who happen to get it right. I’m sure the world is full of little-read novels of great intelligence and skepticism whish are just dull and wrong. I’m no fan of Plato but maybe one thing he got right was the thing about not trusting poets. [Goes off to write an elegant sonnet about the experience of eating dried figs!]
Ecce Gastropoda!