If you'd told me even a week ago that the phrase "rainbow dildo butt monkey" would become so commonplace that it trips automatically from the tongue, I'd have found it hard to believe.
And yet here we are. I'm listening to Sheridan Sinclair's interview with Mr Menno right now. It's great already! Subscribe!
"Women have very little idea of how much men hate them". Yes.
I had some stickers with pics by Birdy Rose: JKR, Keira Bell, Magdalen Berns...people have gone out of their way to not just take the stickers down but the face part in particular is scratched off.
Although it could be handmaiden women doing it.
I ordered the Joyce book last night. Looking forward to reading that.
Drag has never been about anything except fetish and men making fun of women. The rebranding of drag as something that parents want their children to be near and do is one of the most bizarre and misogynistic things I've seen in my lifetime. I hope I live to see it reversed...
Oh, I forgot something else I wanted to say: what kind of 'progressive social movement' silences people in a smaller minority than themselves? TRAs have gone to huge lengths to tell detransitioners that they don't matter because they are a small minority, to stop them from speaking, to discredit them, to censor them, to turn people against them. Right side of history my ass.
I'm in fact reminded of a piece of hers from over 20 years ago when she wrote a piece about some drag queen in sequined dress who told her he could relate to women. Germaine was understandably quite irritated and pointed out to the man that he was just a caricature and rather more of a man's weird fantasy of what a woman should be. Truly ahead of her time.
Germaine Greer is forever on the outs for me for her position that rape is not violence, a mere annoyance, and should be decriminalized.
I can't help but think she's overcompensating because of her own experience, or simply projecting, and by following a patriarchal script at that (that it's "stigma" which causes psychological distress after rape, not the act itself).
She clearly didn't do even the bare minimum of research. After my experiences, and contracting severe PTSD- which is not "an annoyance," but an extremely deleterious, life-altering illness, which caused me then to contract several autoimmune disorders, one of them quite serious and potentially deadly (dying early of diseases after rape is sadly extremely common)- I did an enormous amount of research into the etiology of rape related post traumatic stress disorder, and into the long-term psychological, social, professional, and physical health effects on survivors. Anyone who had done even the slightest bit of research could have told her how patently absurd her position is. It's unscientific, and also incredibly anti-feminist.
So Germaine Greer, whatever her other positions, is completely out for me as any kind of feminist or role model whatsoever.
Yes, I completely understand your position. I was not aware of her stance on the subject. Sometimes feminists get it so wrong. Camille Paglia is another instance.
Absolutely! In a comment below I talked about this at more length, and compared her to Camille Paglia- and apt comparison given how all over the place she's been since she wrote "The Female Eunuch," I think.
Honestly, I do believe her book is coming from a place of being haunted, at the end of her life, about the rape she experienced, and in denial of it and that it shaped her life in any way, which is quite sad. I don't see any other reason to write an entire book which argues the rape of adult women which doesn't cause too much immediate physical damage is a trivial assault which should be decriminalized- not without first researching such a radical notion, to find out if indeed the physical/psychological damage to most women is in fact limited. Any cursory research- which in my opinion is absolutely necessary before writing an entire book suggesting decriminalizing rape, which, if she were wrong in her hypothesis that it's mainly an annoyance rather than an assault with grave repercussions, could have catastrophic consequences- would have immediately disproven such a hypothesis, so I can only imagine she wrote it rather defiantly, because her experience of rape did and does affect her.
Nonetheless, regardless of the reasons she wrote it, I find it highly irresponsible of her to have written such a book, and indeed, insofar as she failed to do any research to back up her position, morally repugnant of her to earnestly make such an unfounded argument.
I hear what you are saying, LinusAndLucy, and I truly understand the negativity of womanface. However, it does point up some of the grotesqueness that many women feel they must do in order to be seen as desirable? feminine? employable? I don't know because I've never done it. And when women do manface, it can be hilarious. I got to see The Club in NYC decades ago where women played all the parts in an all-male club; lesbians were swooning over the lead.
I've fought against Germaine for years, as I felt she hated men...and has caused so much upset twixt the sexes over the decades....but when I stumbled upon this quote, which *you* quote above, it really upset me, because these past few years I've come to realise how true it actually is in the case of way too many men...especially these young TRAs.
My Darlin' Dad was a wonderful, kind, gentle man, so it's been really hard for me to accept her words as true, but...they are. Not all men hate us, of course, and you are a prime example of that, along with other men now standing up for women, but there should be a Tsunami Of Men out there standing up with us.
Sadly, I think extreme feminism has left deep wounds and many men walked away, no longer knowing what women actually want from them....
I had a very sweet lad carry my shopping back for me last year, all the way to my home..He thanked me for allowing him to do this, as he loved helping/protecting women, but so many women see all men as predators now, don't want to be protected, want to do everything for themselves, no matter how hard that might be. He told me his Mum had raised him to always be kind to women, to help us...Anyway, he went away a very happy bunny, as was I, for it was a fair ol' walk to my house and he went out of his way to do this too, turning back the way we'd walked, after he left me.
I will always stand up for The Good Men & True, and more women need to do this too, even now, because I think men are lost, feel they can do nothing right...and it's not been healthy for a long time. Most women liked most men in my day, they were our friends, we all laughed together, and had fun together, but times were way more innocent and all this manic Gender Agenda wasn't even thought of.... We need to get back to those times, have more smiles on all our faces...but first, we have to defeat Tyrannical Tranworld and it's Sinister Misogynists..
Sorry to ramble, but yes, it has shocked me, as Germaine says in that quote.
the way the history is told about the seventies is that women walked away from men because the men didnt know how to listen to women, or couldnt face what the women were saying to them - so the women created a feminism for themselves. hopefully men can listen to what is being said by women supporting girls/womens rights in growing numbers. and when they can no longer stand to listen to the ridiculousness of 'gi' talk/shouting/debateless speeches.
it would be useful to know if anyone has kept track of greers writings. in the lean years, the local council still seemed to stock greers books in the local libraries i frequented (outside london). and most feminists will have read her book 'the female eunuch' years ago - does it offer an insights now? i thought her alignment with academia was more prominent after her peri/menopausal transition. and even i was surprized that she produced 'the beautiful boy' book (2003) - is it a 'feminist' book? or would it appeal to gay men than women?
I've been meaning to go back and read all her writing taken together, in order to write a book in rebuttal to her recent book "On Rape"- but since my life was so completely and utterly derailed by rape five years ago- and my health and functioning so terribly affected (now I have to contend with developing multiple autoimmune disorders, quite common after rape)- I have been unable to bring myself to read an entire book about how rape is not a serious assault.
Someday, I will. I did an immense amount of research (which I can only assume Greer did not do, if she wrote a book with such a preposterous premise), and not only from my own experiences and those of other women I know, but from reams of data I can tell anyone who is reading this that rape, even absent great violence, is an extremely serious offense. It is second only to torture in predisposing suffers to PTSD- around 50% of rape victims contract it, nearly double that of soldiers experiencing frontline combat. (One excerpt from her book that I saw was a direct comparison, saying there's no way a "simple assault" was worse than "seeing your friend's head get blown off"). And yet, data doesn't lie.
From reading about the etiology of rape-related PTSD, I discovered *why* it's so likely to result in PTSD, and, even in the absence of PTSD, in lingering symptoms of trauma and a change to a person's functioning which can alter the course of their entire life. It actually is a physical reason that has to do with dissociation- traumatic events which cause the greatest dissociation are the most likely to result in lasting trauma, and in contracting either C-PTSD (more common when something repeatedly occurs, as rape often does in abusive relationships, or when it happens to the same person over and over, as is frequently the case; another fact she doesn't seem to know- that there are certain women who are targeted over and over, for specific reasons, and that this is very deleterious to them), or full-fledged PTSD.
Rape, like torture, causes prolonged dissociation in most people experiencing it. I'd posit that's because it *is* torture. Torture involves some form of violation of bodily integrity, or prolonged psychological manipulation. Rape often involves both.
There are many, many accounts of the unique trauma of rape. Jewish women survivors of the death camps during the Holocaust have talked at length about how their most lingering nightmares and problems have been as a result of rape. Many domestic violence survivors describe the repeated rapes they were subjected to as the most traumatizing aspect of the abuse they experienced. I've read this and been told this by multiple women who work with domestic violence survivors.
From my own experience, rape often is the primary form of abuse, or the first form of abuse, in an abusive relationship. It's always accompanied by gaslighting and psychosexual torture. It's someone with whom you were once in love, or very affectionate toward, doing the most terrible things possible, while telling you they love you. This is extremely traumatic.
Rape in relationships nearly always occurs in the context of overall emotional and often physical abuse. It's not simply "lazy and careless exercising of conjugal rights"- another choice excerpt from her book (several writers criticizing it have picked out some of these excerpts, which put me off reading it entirely). It is incredibly irresponsible of her to say that rape in relationships is mere callousness, a mistake, or an annoyance. It is nearly always symbolic of a relationship that is abusive in more ways than one, and most relationship rapists- who are definitely a specific type of predator, good at grooming, often narcissists or psychopaths- rape repeatedly, while continuously gaslighting and emotionally abusing their victims. Oftentimes this escalates to physical violence. One woman told me she had never met a victim of domestic violence who had not also been sexually abused by her abusive partner.
That is the very definition of torture- to psychologically and sexually abuse someone over a period of time. It is domestic violence, it is torture, it is incredibly harmful to a woman's life and health trajectory even if she manages to leave the relationship. It is not a "careless" "mistake." It is nearly always part of a larger pattern of abuse, of a type which is quite specifically male-pattern violence.
I think Greer is doing this because of denial. She writes about her rape- a violent rape by a stranger in which she was viciously punched- saying it didn't really affect her, doesn't affect her anymore, and is not a big deal.
I think there's a delicate balance between flat-out denying how something affects you, and allowing yourself to forever see yourself as broken, or a victim (I am struggling with this)- although that's a part of PTSD- the inability to feel safe again, and move on from the event. I am being very proactive about treatment in order to try to beat this. My goal is to one day no longer think of this very much- to not have my life be about this anymore. I have to get my health back first, treat my autoimmune disease, and somehow get all the tension out of my body and soul (PTSD is a brain/body disease, and apart from the psychological devastation the most lingering effects, after nightmares and flashbacks have passed, are a huge amount of tension stored in the body. I think that's what predisposes people to developing autoimmune diseases, cancer, or having heart attacks or strokes after rape- the increase in inflammation caused by the changes to your limbic system). I read a lot about how rape and PTSD affect brain chemistry, hormone systems, the limbic system, and other major body systems.
I also have read a great deal about denial, its function, and how it manifests in victims, and I think it's an enormous factor in women going along with and excusing or even enabling patriarchy.
For example, queer theory feminists wrote against the judgment by a large international human rights body to recognize the rapes of Bosnian women during the Bosnian War as torture and as crimes against humanity. They wrote AGAINST this judgment, saying it "robbed Bosnian women of their agency" by assuming that the gang rapes of them and their daughters, often over weeks or months, often resulting in pregnancy, was a form of torture and a crime against humanity. How dare we assume they remain traumatized by this, am I right? (Jane Clare Jones wrote part of her doctoral thesis refuting this position, I believe- it's on her blog and really powerful reading).
I, on the other hand, am profoundly grateful to have found out about the existence of a feminist group who calls male violence against women what it is: non-state torture. Men commit violence against other men, too, but not the same way they commit it against women. When men commit violence against women, it is most often against their romantic partners or family members, and is a form of abuse that follows specific patterns.
Having someone acknowledge what I have gone through is torture makes me cry tears of gratitude, because I finally feel *seen.* Who are these "feminist" women to put words in the mouth of Bosnian women, saying they would not want to have their torture recognized as such, to receive a formal apology or reparations for what they have experienced?
Germaine Greer strikes me as doing much the same thing here. Since she's an important feminist voice, this book is, in my opinion, extremely harmful. It gives fuel to the fire of all the rapist men and their supporters who also think rape isn't a big deal and shouldn't be a crime.
I take her point about the abject failing of the justice system to deal with rape. While I absolutely think rape is a crime worthy of imprisonment, and that even the smallest sentence would be a huge deterrent- most rapists rape because they know they can get away it- we do have to find another way to reckon with rape in our society, and we haven't yet. The largely performative nature of the #MeToo movement meant that it unfortunately accomplished very little.
I don't know if she went into the many, many ways in which society encourages rape, in her book; would she even want to, with such an opinion? I don't know. I'll have to read it when I can bear it. I can't yet.
What's absolutely certain is that we must never, ever trivialize rape. It's trivialized enough, and too many women suffer in silence, with no justice, already. If she did not develop PTSD, if she did not have lifelong aftereffects from her experience of rape, she is *lucky.* Half of rape victims are not so lucky, when it comes to developing PTSD, an extremely crippling disease; the other half usually have lifelong effects, as well.
She strikes me as being in denial, though. I don't see what else would compel her to write such a thoroughly unresearched book on the topic. What she's proposing is radical and, if she's wrong about rape being a mere annoyance, potentially damaging enough to at the very least research- right? What are the long-term effects of rape? But it seems she did absolutely none of that, and instead wrote her opinion, in the guise of radical feminist philosophy. I can only think that at the end of her life this was led by the deepest denial. She doesn't want her rape to define her, so she wrote a whole book about how rape is no big deal.
She's right in line with other denialist feminists, which usually is the opposite of a radical feminist position. It does tend to be liberal feminists and queer theorists who are usually the denialists.
As for her oeuvre, she reminds me a bit of Camille Paglia in the sense that she's a contrarian who is a bit all over the place, and often contradictory, in her beliefs; and she produces a lot of work for shock value, it seems. "The Female Eunuch" I thought was fantastic; "Beautiful Boys" seemed to be about a reaction to men sexualizing adolescent girls. She quite specifically said she wanted to reclaim the right of women to "admire" (sexualize) adolescent boys. This, to me, is also bizarrely reactionary. I remember hearing a liberal feminist praise a TV show for showing women using prostituted men- that all that's needed to reform the institution is for women to do it more! How is behaving like the oppressor, and harming men and boys, going to help the situation of women and girls? Indeed, it just seems it will worsen the situation by creating more violent men, and that it will be harming men and causing them misery, without bettering the situation of women and girls one iota.
So yes- she strikes me as often contrarian, contradictory, and an agent provocateur, and in that sense she reminds me of Camille Paglia.
I still can't bring myself to read her recent book, but before I write mine, I will.
i have been thinking how academia (inc feminist academics) has been used to rewrite near-histories (on the counter culture and its influence on feminism)
- behind the 'freedoms' of the counter culture was a slackness in boundary keeping, an unshackling of relationships, and a promotion of 'free love', with girls/women available for sexual activity. lax boundaries left 'consent' as a grey area, with the sedations of drug taking inc psychodelics.
the separatists werent just right to leave these unlistening 'revolutionary' men for their own fight, but it was probably an act of survival (off-grid feminism?)- because if you know too much its difficult to be around people who will not speak the truth.
Yes, the book I want to write is actually quite sprawling. I suppose I could write a lot of shorter books, but in my opinion, rape itself is the underpinning of patriarchy, and in order to defend that position, the book needs to be quite sprawling- everything from "the big book of rape myths," to detailing the cyclical nature of the patriarchal pendulum that swings between public and private ownership of women under "progressive" and "conservative" governments (which, when it comes to women's rights and patriarchy, has always been an argument among men about how best to use women; leftists who criticize the patriarchal behavior of so-called "progressive" regimes/men have always been the real iconoclasts), to talking about how violent male sexuality has been used as a tool of control of both men and women, to writing about the far-reaching harms of rape itself, on victims, on society, and even on the perpetrators- with a discussion of the mind/body connection; to writing about what healthy sexuality might look like, and why a project to really figure out what healthy sexuality, deprogrammed from patriarchy, would like like, for men and women, gay or straight, and how this could revolutionize our society- including the metaphysical discussion of why sexuality is so important, and just how freely we should love, and under what conditions (having to bear in mind all ideological positions- with regard to children, women, men, monogamy or polyamory/polygamy, etc.; other cultures vs. Western culture; how we get so ahead of ourselves with Utopian visions that we open the door to more predatory, violent people who cause and perpetuate sexual dysfunction and dystopia; and so on). Gender certainly has to be discussed as a part of it, so I will have to briefly delve into the psychosexual origins of the whole trans thing, too.
I'm definitely going to include the push-pull between the free love movement and the women's liberation movement. As an older Millennial daughter of Boomers- one British, one American- who abjectly failed to protect their daughters from male violence due to Pollyannish, pie-in-the-sky hippie views of free love (which admittedly are beautiful, but the reality unfortunately not always so), in which all they ever said about sex was "making love is beautiful," and in which my mother sympathized with a child molester over the child- my best friend- he'd molested, and they failed to stop men from molesting their own daughters, and they failed to warn their daughters, give them boundaries as teenagers, or put a stop to grown men coming around for them- and seeing that the same thing happened to my older Gen X cousin, who was left to hitchhike to school in the 80's, allowed on a date with a Hell's Angel at 16, during which she was raped at knifepoint (and other assorted fun things, such as my dad giving her acid when she was 13, and her trying the whole trip to fly out the window, which she didn't tell him until a few years ago had been a joke to freak him out- serves him right)- her mom, my aunt, the one who failed to protect her, telling me recently how we have it so much better than she did because she couldn't get an abortion when she got pregnant at 19 (which is why she dumped her daughter off with a friend, and then her irresponsible little brother, so she could go to law school), and when I told her of the harms of porn, said there was nothing wrong with porn, she used to go to porn theaters with her (many, many) boyfriends and husbands and it was totally cool- and when I said it causes men to abuse women in relationships (talking about my own extremely deleterious experiences, unbeknownst to her), saying then the woman can just leave (yes! Helps so much to "just leave" after you've already been raped and abused)- I can see how *incredibly* damaging the "free love" philosophy was too all its female proponents, and unfortunately also to their children, the collateral damage.
It later came out that my mother and aunt have experienced molestation, sexual battery, attempted rape, and severe domestic violence, all of which they seem to have sublimated into the beautiful dream of "free love."
I see the modern liberal feminist "sex positivity" movement as a direct descendant of this idealistic nonsense. I so wish a free love movement could be either free (women could be free to say no to any man or act) or loving (the sexual use and abuse of women doesn't seem loving to me at all).
As far as I'm concerned, these idealists- whether free love hippies or liberal feminists- are putting the cart before the horse. If we haven't gotten rid of the problem that's causing predatory men, increasing sexual access to women (and children!) by encouraging them to "freely love" just increases the rate of abuse. We cannot and will not fuck our way to freedom. That has not ever been and will never be a way of gaining men's respect. We can only gain men's respect and thereby achieve liberation by resoundingly, strongly, in no uncertain terms saying "NO."
My older cousin (she's in her 50's now) has a daughter, my second cousin, a little younger than me. She was a beautiful girl and is a gorgeous woman. She escaped a lot of the direct violence I experienced and her mom experienced, because her mom told her directly why she put the rules she had in place. She was her daughter's best friend, but also a parent; she told her honestly that she didn't want her drinking at parties with boys, because they might sexually assault her. She told her honestly she needed to meet any boyfriends upfront, due to the same concerns. She told her to walk away the moment a man hits you- as she had from her daughter's father. As a result, my second cousin grew up canny, well-adjusted and mainly unscathed. This is also how I would be as a mother, were I ever to have a child (which seems unlikely now).
I think early pornographers did a really good job at tying the sex industry to both the free love movement and to the women's liberation movement, even though in many ways they were antithetical to each other- and voila! Add a bit of postmodernist deconstructionist Queer Theory into the mix, and you get third-wave feminism: pro-porn, pro-prostitution, pro-violent kink, pro-gender; the absolute antithesis of the second wave feminism which preceded it.
What you are talking about- progressive men talking about the "revolutionary" writings of de Sade- how "transgressive" or "subversive" he was- I'm glad they do that now, so I know to avoid them; but they're all so tiresome, just plain wrong and ahistorical at best. De Sade was not transgressive, just writing during a time in which libertinism had temporarily gone out of fashion (he would have fit right in a few centuries earlier, when rape was briefly decriminalized in France, for example, during an economic downturn, which is usually when governments did things like encourage prostitution and legalize rape- to keep young men who couldn't afford to "keep a wife" from getting any ideas about rising up from their rank as serfs and overthrowing the landlords and the bourgeoisie; then there would be economic growth, and rape and prostitution would be outlawed again, with women back to being protected private property, instead of unprotected public property). He also wasn't subversive in any way- in a society which sees women as subhuman, regardless of their status of public or private ownership, how is it subversive to write graphic tales of sexual violence against women? Because it offends religious men in addition to the women (who actually find it threatening)?
So it's neither transgressive in the sense of the prevailing paradigm of patriarchy, nor is it subversive in that sense, either. It's simply a celebration of men's sexual appetites (and perceived rights) to torment and torture women and children. There's nothing transgressive, subversive, or progressive about that. It's just the same-old same-old violent patriarchal writings. (Also incredibly uninteresting, uninspiring, and bad writing. So was Pauline Reage's "The Story of O." Mind-numbingly boring. Why these people are so obsessed with rote discussions of insertions, I'll never know).
As for drinking a lot being exposed to that material- absolutely. I have been drinking too much due to anxiety about this whole gender fracas (as Karen Davis calls it), and it's terrible for my health!
(And as for the dissociation and dissociative identity disorder you mentioned in your other comment- thanks for your insight. This is something I've been reading a lot about these past few years. I recommend "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, and "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Hermann).
Speaking of my health, one thing I HAVE to do- if I can ever write about anything I've learned these past years of study, which I only undertook in a desperate bid to understand what had happened to me, because I had nothing else to lose (once you have full-fledged PTSD, denial really doesn't help you)- is recover it.
I've been thinking I need to step back from this whole fight for a while, not even watch with bated breath and hopefully cheer from the sidelines, because every time I think about or write about these issues, or participate in groups with others talking about them, I get shooting pains all through my body (a symptom of my disease). I am very young to have developed all these illnesses, all within the past few years, after what happened to me (again), when I was 32. My body is telling me now is not the time to fight. I have to fall back, to fight another day.
When I am strong enough- when it no longer makes me so incredibly anxious to face the misogyny of society; when I can face reading Germaine Greer's book- I will write mine.
thank you so much for both your replies! please write your book - you write clearly and calmly about a subject that most people trivialise- because they cant face the truth. please write your book - because individuals like myself who have limited experience of life - are still at sea when diagnosed with - dissociative fugue state- i didn't listen to classical music and no idea what might be - i'm still not entirely sure what dissociation is exactly. there is a lot stuff out there about did, so the ptsd is harder to find and i usually find reading academic/trained writers writing about dissociation 'triggering'.so my first thoughts on reading what you said about ptsd, were to be careful to guard yourself from the 'flashbacks'.
(greer hasn't yet processed her 'stuff ' and i guess her allegiance to the counter-culture/libertarian 'freedoms' of her youth still holds strong). i mention the counter-culture because for a short time i worked in distribution -the distribution of books, from true crime to psychadelics, gay erotica to rastamouse. hardback coffee table bondage porn, alongside paperbacks of bdsm narratives were popular. the bigtime boss with his counter culture connections was a fan of de sade and got very excited over the the arrival of a new paperback edition of 'the philosophy of the bedroom'. after a time working there it made me feel a bit sick- we were gifted 8 bottles of beer at xmas and i went home and drunk them all in one sitting - i wasn't coping - and i was just 'near' this stuff all day long (i knew some of the 'texts', read as research and as preparation, before approaching the gay scene)- but i was *enabling* the distribution, by not putting a 'spanner in the works' - sensibly i had a breakdown to get out of the employment.
i am sorry about the digression - please write your book - when you can - and with terf funding self publish (crowdfund?) - you dont need validation from a publisher /they will just hold it up - wanting the book to be perfect and have a big enough audience- but you do need a good distribution network. thank you.
thanks great article! daren aaronovitch does mention the pesky owen jones ganging up on him with his million followers. the author wrote critically on the demonisation of wc people in his book about the 'chavs' and those up standing restaurant-smashing 'eton boys the establishment', was this just a passing phase? why does he fight for the ill-defined 'trans' movement, and against its unseen nemesis the 'transphobic movement' ? or more importantly as a child of Militant (trotsky style) parents, is the madness in the political methods he politically employs?
Demi Lovato recently had Alok Vaid Menon (he who thinks little girls can be kinky) on her podcast. Blaire White has done a video on it: apparently Alok is very influential in getting celebrities to realise their non binary identity. Why the fuck anyone would look at Alok and think "Yeah, that's me" I do not know.
It’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, by Helen Joyce.
"Dear Nicola Sturgeon, please read this plea from a sister feminist about the trans debate – Susan Dalgety
Dear First Minister, Forgive my directness in addressing this column to you, but as someone who describes herself as a “feminist to her fingertips”, I am sure you won’t mind correspondence from a sister."
I probably shouldn't say this, but your First Minister's name always reminds me of a river nearby: the Passagasawakeg. Yes, Europeans came and stole indigenous people's land then kept their names for natural features. It means "fishing for STURGEON by torchlight at night."
A mixed bag of good and bad but all very interesting. Lovely, as always, to see J.K. Rowling's support for women, and a great final quote by Simone de Beauvoir
I have posted a link to abn article written 6 years ago by a transwoman and to be found on the Gender Apostates site. Diana basis her argument against what she refers to as the transgenderists insistance of refering to women as cis from her re reading De Beauvoir's The Second Sex..This was our bible back in the 70s.
The influence of porn is everywhere: the dehumanization of women, the fetishization of everything, the lack of boundaries or basic human decency, the prioritization of sexual gratification over ANYTHING ELSE. We've got to call this out when we see it. It's a multi billion dollar industry that benefits a TON by becoming evermore commonplace.
great work! the analysis of the 'gender identity movement' as a cult is v convincing and demonstrates just how dangerous absurd beliefs can be. those who spout these absurd narratives need to be questioned critically, and allowed to process these critiques, so as they can realise for themselves how they have been misled.
encouragingly there has been a recent push to document established cults through documentaries and podcasts series. esp to compare different cults leaders management methods, and how prospective cult leaders develop new cults by researching past cult successes (in usa by ex cult participants - notably hollywood actors). 'piling on' is on such technique. i wont link to a website, but this critical analysis is relatively easy to find online.
however, i'm not sure how professionals, such as in education and medicine, are able to distinguish that individuals that are all absorbed by 'cult thinking' have a problem (to be solved), but cannot not recognise the 'gender ideology' extremism as deeply damaging.
sorry the above is a little unclear - the hollywood actor i alluded to created a documentary series exposing how a successful cult runs and iis structured.
Thanks. Oddly item is still listed on Reuters homepage, but same link so doesn't work. There's also a promo for the related video. I'd bet the ranch post feedback emergency editing is taking place :-D
To be honest, I'm ok with their set up and getting together. I feel that those farm hands do need to defend themselves as I suspect some locals are hostiles, but this is it, the actual trans-phobes who hate transsexuals (not cross-dressers) are that right wing blokes, the sort that put incendiary devices outside clubs. If transsexuals feel harassed by them, I understand. It's the other mob, the transgender frauds, who just hate women and call them and any men ally trans-phobes that I really hate.
"A man would never pretend to be a woman if he wasn't really trans". 🙄
Hmm, how does that work exactly if we MUST take someone at their word that they are female, even when our eyes tell us they're not? Not being allowed to question an ideology, of being accused of a hate crime akin to Hitler if you do, will inevitably lead to problems like this. Are only trans people allowed to tell us who is transgender and who isn't?
If you'd told me even a week ago that the phrase "rainbow dildo butt monkey" would become so commonplace that it trips automatically from the tongue, I'd have found it hard to believe.
And yet here we are. I'm listening to Sheridan Sinclair's interview with Mr Menno right now. It's great already! Subscribe!
Update! Rainbow Dildo Butt Monkey is on Twitter and reached out to me!
https://twitter.com/dildobuttmonkey
Well that's a brand new sentence.
"Women have very little idea of how much men hate them". Yes.
I had some stickers with pics by Birdy Rose: JKR, Keira Bell, Magdalen Berns...people have gone out of their way to not just take the stickers down but the face part in particular is scratched off.
Although it could be handmaiden women doing it.
I ordered the Joyce book last night. Looking forward to reading that.
Drag has never been about anything except fetish and men making fun of women. The rebranding of drag as something that parents want their children to be near and do is one of the most bizarre and misogynistic things I've seen in my lifetime. I hope I live to see it reversed...
Oh, I forgot something else I wanted to say: what kind of 'progressive social movement' silences people in a smaller minority than themselves? TRAs have gone to huge lengths to tell detransitioners that they don't matter because they are a small minority, to stop them from speaking, to discredit them, to censor them, to turn people against them. Right side of history my ass.
I'm in fact reminded of a piece of hers from over 20 years ago when she wrote a piece about some drag queen in sequined dress who told her he could relate to women. Germaine was understandably quite irritated and pointed out to the man that he was just a caricature and rather more of a man's weird fantasy of what a woman should be. Truly ahead of her time.
Germaine Greer is forever on the outs for me for her position that rape is not violence, a mere annoyance, and should be decriminalized.
I can't help but think she's overcompensating because of her own experience, or simply projecting, and by following a patriarchal script at that (that it's "stigma" which causes psychological distress after rape, not the act itself).
She clearly didn't do even the bare minimum of research. After my experiences, and contracting severe PTSD- which is not "an annoyance," but an extremely deleterious, life-altering illness, which caused me then to contract several autoimmune disorders, one of them quite serious and potentially deadly (dying early of diseases after rape is sadly extremely common)- I did an enormous amount of research into the etiology of rape related post traumatic stress disorder, and into the long-term psychological, social, professional, and physical health effects on survivors. Anyone who had done even the slightest bit of research could have told her how patently absurd her position is. It's unscientific, and also incredibly anti-feminist.
So Germaine Greer, whatever her other positions, is completely out for me as any kind of feminist or role model whatsoever.
Yes, I completely understand your position. I was not aware of her stance on the subject. Sometimes feminists get it so wrong. Camille Paglia is another instance.
Absolutely! In a comment below I talked about this at more length, and compared her to Camille Paglia- and apt comparison given how all over the place she's been since she wrote "The Female Eunuch," I think.
Honestly, I do believe her book is coming from a place of being haunted, at the end of her life, about the rape she experienced, and in denial of it and that it shaped her life in any way, which is quite sad. I don't see any other reason to write an entire book which argues the rape of adult women which doesn't cause too much immediate physical damage is a trivial assault which should be decriminalized- not without first researching such a radical notion, to find out if indeed the physical/psychological damage to most women is in fact limited. Any cursory research- which in my opinion is absolutely necessary before writing an entire book suggesting decriminalizing rape, which, if she were wrong in her hypothesis that it's mainly an annoyance rather than an assault with grave repercussions, could have catastrophic consequences- would have immediately disproven such a hypothesis, so I can only imagine she wrote it rather defiantly, because her experience of rape did and does affect her.
Nonetheless, regardless of the reasons she wrote it, I find it highly irresponsible of her to have written such a book, and indeed, insofar as she failed to do any research to back up her position, morally repugnant of her to earnestly make such an unfounded argument.
I had missed your other post. Sorry. But yes, I concur with everything you've written.
I hear what you are saying, LinusAndLucy, and I truly understand the negativity of womanface. However, it does point up some of the grotesqueness that many women feel they must do in order to be seen as desirable? feminine? employable? I don't know because I've never done it. And when women do manface, it can be hilarious. I got to see The Club in NYC decades ago where women played all the parts in an all-male club; lesbians were swooning over the lead.
I've fought against Germaine for years, as I felt she hated men...and has caused so much upset twixt the sexes over the decades....but when I stumbled upon this quote, which *you* quote above, it really upset me, because these past few years I've come to realise how true it actually is in the case of way too many men...especially these young TRAs.
My Darlin' Dad was a wonderful, kind, gentle man, so it's been really hard for me to accept her words as true, but...they are. Not all men hate us, of course, and you are a prime example of that, along with other men now standing up for women, but there should be a Tsunami Of Men out there standing up with us.
Sadly, I think extreme feminism has left deep wounds and many men walked away, no longer knowing what women actually want from them....
I had a very sweet lad carry my shopping back for me last year, all the way to my home..He thanked me for allowing him to do this, as he loved helping/protecting women, but so many women see all men as predators now, don't want to be protected, want to do everything for themselves, no matter how hard that might be. He told me his Mum had raised him to always be kind to women, to help us...Anyway, he went away a very happy bunny, as was I, for it was a fair ol' walk to my house and he went out of his way to do this too, turning back the way we'd walked, after he left me.
I will always stand up for The Good Men & True, and more women need to do this too, even now, because I think men are lost, feel they can do nothing right...and it's not been healthy for a long time. Most women liked most men in my day, they were our friends, we all laughed together, and had fun together, but times were way more innocent and all this manic Gender Agenda wasn't even thought of.... We need to get back to those times, have more smiles on all our faces...but first, we have to defeat Tyrannical Tranworld and it's Sinister Misogynists..
Sorry to ramble, but yes, it has shocked me, as Germaine says in that quote.
the way the history is told about the seventies is that women walked away from men because the men didnt know how to listen to women, or couldnt face what the women were saying to them - so the women created a feminism for themselves. hopefully men can listen to what is being said by women supporting girls/womens rights in growing numbers. and when they can no longer stand to listen to the ridiculousness of 'gi' talk/shouting/debateless speeches.
Germaine Greer hates WOMEN. She thinks rape is an "annoyance," not a violent crime, and should be decriminalized.
it would be useful to know if anyone has kept track of greers writings. in the lean years, the local council still seemed to stock greers books in the local libraries i frequented (outside london). and most feminists will have read her book 'the female eunuch' years ago - does it offer an insights now? i thought her alignment with academia was more prominent after her peri/menopausal transition. and even i was surprized that she produced 'the beautiful boy' book (2003) - is it a 'feminist' book? or would it appeal to gay men than women?
Part 1 of comment
I've been meaning to go back and read all her writing taken together, in order to write a book in rebuttal to her recent book "On Rape"- but since my life was so completely and utterly derailed by rape five years ago- and my health and functioning so terribly affected (now I have to contend with developing multiple autoimmune disorders, quite common after rape)- I have been unable to bring myself to read an entire book about how rape is not a serious assault.
Someday, I will. I did an immense amount of research (which I can only assume Greer did not do, if she wrote a book with such a preposterous premise), and not only from my own experiences and those of other women I know, but from reams of data I can tell anyone who is reading this that rape, even absent great violence, is an extremely serious offense. It is second only to torture in predisposing suffers to PTSD- around 50% of rape victims contract it, nearly double that of soldiers experiencing frontline combat. (One excerpt from her book that I saw was a direct comparison, saying there's no way a "simple assault" was worse than "seeing your friend's head get blown off"). And yet, data doesn't lie.
From reading about the etiology of rape-related PTSD, I discovered *why* it's so likely to result in PTSD, and, even in the absence of PTSD, in lingering symptoms of trauma and a change to a person's functioning which can alter the course of their entire life. It actually is a physical reason that has to do with dissociation- traumatic events which cause the greatest dissociation are the most likely to result in lasting trauma, and in contracting either C-PTSD (more common when something repeatedly occurs, as rape often does in abusive relationships, or when it happens to the same person over and over, as is frequently the case; another fact she doesn't seem to know- that there are certain women who are targeted over and over, for specific reasons, and that this is very deleterious to them), or full-fledged PTSD.
Rape, like torture, causes prolonged dissociation in most people experiencing it. I'd posit that's because it *is* torture. Torture involves some form of violation of bodily integrity, or prolonged psychological manipulation. Rape often involves both.
There are many, many accounts of the unique trauma of rape. Jewish women survivors of the death camps during the Holocaust have talked at length about how their most lingering nightmares and problems have been as a result of rape. Many domestic violence survivors describe the repeated rapes they were subjected to as the most traumatizing aspect of the abuse they experienced. I've read this and been told this by multiple women who work with domestic violence survivors.
From my own experience, rape often is the primary form of abuse, or the first form of abuse, in an abusive relationship. It's always accompanied by gaslighting and psychosexual torture. It's someone with whom you were once in love, or very affectionate toward, doing the most terrible things possible, while telling you they love you. This is extremely traumatic.
Rape in relationships nearly always occurs in the context of overall emotional and often physical abuse. It's not simply "lazy and careless exercising of conjugal rights"- another choice excerpt from her book (several writers criticizing it have picked out some of these excerpts, which put me off reading it entirely). It is incredibly irresponsible of her to say that rape in relationships is mere callousness, a mistake, or an annoyance. It is nearly always symbolic of a relationship that is abusive in more ways than one, and most relationship rapists- who are definitely a specific type of predator, good at grooming, often narcissists or psychopaths- rape repeatedly, while continuously gaslighting and emotionally abusing their victims. Oftentimes this escalates to physical violence. One woman told me she had never met a victim of domestic violence who had not also been sexually abused by her abusive partner.
That is the very definition of torture- to psychologically and sexually abuse someone over a period of time. It is domestic violence, it is torture, it is incredibly harmful to a woman's life and health trajectory even if she manages to leave the relationship. It is not a "careless" "mistake." It is nearly always part of a larger pattern of abuse, of a type which is quite specifically male-pattern violence.
I think Greer is doing this because of denial. She writes about her rape- a violent rape by a stranger in which she was viciously punched- saying it didn't really affect her, doesn't affect her anymore, and is not a big deal.
I think there's a delicate balance between flat-out denying how something affects you, and allowing yourself to forever see yourself as broken, or a victim (I am struggling with this)- although that's a part of PTSD- the inability to feel safe again, and move on from the event. I am being very proactive about treatment in order to try to beat this. My goal is to one day no longer think of this very much- to not have my life be about this anymore. I have to get my health back first, treat my autoimmune disease, and somehow get all the tension out of my body and soul (PTSD is a brain/body disease, and apart from the psychological devastation the most lingering effects, after nightmares and flashbacks have passed, are a huge amount of tension stored in the body. I think that's what predisposes people to developing autoimmune diseases, cancer, or having heart attacks or strokes after rape- the increase in inflammation caused by the changes to your limbic system). I read a lot about how rape and PTSD affect brain chemistry, hormone systems, the limbic system, and other major body systems.
Part 2 of comment:
I also have read a great deal about denial, its function, and how it manifests in victims, and I think it's an enormous factor in women going along with and excusing or even enabling patriarchy.
For example, queer theory feminists wrote against the judgment by a large international human rights body to recognize the rapes of Bosnian women during the Bosnian War as torture and as crimes against humanity. They wrote AGAINST this judgment, saying it "robbed Bosnian women of their agency" by assuming that the gang rapes of them and their daughters, often over weeks or months, often resulting in pregnancy, was a form of torture and a crime against humanity. How dare we assume they remain traumatized by this, am I right? (Jane Clare Jones wrote part of her doctoral thesis refuting this position, I believe- it's on her blog and really powerful reading).
I, on the other hand, am profoundly grateful to have found out about the existence of a feminist group who calls male violence against women what it is: non-state torture. Men commit violence against other men, too, but not the same way they commit it against women. When men commit violence against women, it is most often against their romantic partners or family members, and is a form of abuse that follows specific patterns.
Having someone acknowledge what I have gone through is torture makes me cry tears of gratitude, because I finally feel *seen.* Who are these "feminist" women to put words in the mouth of Bosnian women, saying they would not want to have their torture recognized as such, to receive a formal apology or reparations for what they have experienced?
Germaine Greer strikes me as doing much the same thing here. Since she's an important feminist voice, this book is, in my opinion, extremely harmful. It gives fuel to the fire of all the rapist men and their supporters who also think rape isn't a big deal and shouldn't be a crime.
I take her point about the abject failing of the justice system to deal with rape. While I absolutely think rape is a crime worthy of imprisonment, and that even the smallest sentence would be a huge deterrent- most rapists rape because they know they can get away it- we do have to find another way to reckon with rape in our society, and we haven't yet. The largely performative nature of the #MeToo movement meant that it unfortunately accomplished very little.
I don't know if she went into the many, many ways in which society encourages rape, in her book; would she even want to, with such an opinion? I don't know. I'll have to read it when I can bear it. I can't yet.
What's absolutely certain is that we must never, ever trivialize rape. It's trivialized enough, and too many women suffer in silence, with no justice, already. If she did not develop PTSD, if she did not have lifelong aftereffects from her experience of rape, she is *lucky.* Half of rape victims are not so lucky, when it comes to developing PTSD, an extremely crippling disease; the other half usually have lifelong effects, as well.
She strikes me as being in denial, though. I don't see what else would compel her to write such a thoroughly unresearched book on the topic. What she's proposing is radical and, if she's wrong about rape being a mere annoyance, potentially damaging enough to at the very least research- right? What are the long-term effects of rape? But it seems she did absolutely none of that, and instead wrote her opinion, in the guise of radical feminist philosophy. I can only think that at the end of her life this was led by the deepest denial. She doesn't want her rape to define her, so she wrote a whole book about how rape is no big deal.
She's right in line with other denialist feminists, which usually is the opposite of a radical feminist position. It does tend to be liberal feminists and queer theorists who are usually the denialists.
As for her oeuvre, she reminds me a bit of Camille Paglia in the sense that she's a contrarian who is a bit all over the place, and often contradictory, in her beliefs; and she produces a lot of work for shock value, it seems. "The Female Eunuch" I thought was fantastic; "Beautiful Boys" seemed to be about a reaction to men sexualizing adolescent girls. She quite specifically said she wanted to reclaim the right of women to "admire" (sexualize) adolescent boys. This, to me, is also bizarrely reactionary. I remember hearing a liberal feminist praise a TV show for showing women using prostituted men- that all that's needed to reform the institution is for women to do it more! How is behaving like the oppressor, and harming men and boys, going to help the situation of women and girls? Indeed, it just seems it will worsen the situation by creating more violent men, and that it will be harming men and causing them misery, without bettering the situation of women and girls one iota.
So yes- she strikes me as often contrarian, contradictory, and an agent provocateur, and in that sense she reminds me of Camille Paglia.
I still can't bring myself to read her recent book, but before I write mine, I will.
i have been thinking how academia (inc feminist academics) has been used to rewrite near-histories (on the counter culture and its influence on feminism)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-18896-3_6
- behind the 'freedoms' of the counter culture was a slackness in boundary keeping, an unshackling of relationships, and a promotion of 'free love', with girls/women available for sexual activity. lax boundaries left 'consent' as a grey area, with the sedations of drug taking inc psychodelics.
the separatists werent just right to leave these unlistening 'revolutionary' men for their own fight, but it was probably an act of survival (off-grid feminism?)- because if you know too much its difficult to be around people who will not speak the truth.
Thank you for that link- it's really interesting!
Yes, the book I want to write is actually quite sprawling. I suppose I could write a lot of shorter books, but in my opinion, rape itself is the underpinning of patriarchy, and in order to defend that position, the book needs to be quite sprawling- everything from "the big book of rape myths," to detailing the cyclical nature of the patriarchal pendulum that swings between public and private ownership of women under "progressive" and "conservative" governments (which, when it comes to women's rights and patriarchy, has always been an argument among men about how best to use women; leftists who criticize the patriarchal behavior of so-called "progressive" regimes/men have always been the real iconoclasts), to talking about how violent male sexuality has been used as a tool of control of both men and women, to writing about the far-reaching harms of rape itself, on victims, on society, and even on the perpetrators- with a discussion of the mind/body connection; to writing about what healthy sexuality might look like, and why a project to really figure out what healthy sexuality, deprogrammed from patriarchy, would like like, for men and women, gay or straight, and how this could revolutionize our society- including the metaphysical discussion of why sexuality is so important, and just how freely we should love, and under what conditions (having to bear in mind all ideological positions- with regard to children, women, men, monogamy or polyamory/polygamy, etc.; other cultures vs. Western culture; how we get so ahead of ourselves with Utopian visions that we open the door to more predatory, violent people who cause and perpetuate sexual dysfunction and dystopia; and so on). Gender certainly has to be discussed as a part of it, so I will have to briefly delve into the psychosexual origins of the whole trans thing, too.
I'm definitely going to include the push-pull between the free love movement and the women's liberation movement. As an older Millennial daughter of Boomers- one British, one American- who abjectly failed to protect their daughters from male violence due to Pollyannish, pie-in-the-sky hippie views of free love (which admittedly are beautiful, but the reality unfortunately not always so), in which all they ever said about sex was "making love is beautiful," and in which my mother sympathized with a child molester over the child- my best friend- he'd molested, and they failed to stop men from molesting their own daughters, and they failed to warn their daughters, give them boundaries as teenagers, or put a stop to grown men coming around for them- and seeing that the same thing happened to my older Gen X cousin, who was left to hitchhike to school in the 80's, allowed on a date with a Hell's Angel at 16, during which she was raped at knifepoint (and other assorted fun things, such as my dad giving her acid when she was 13, and her trying the whole trip to fly out the window, which she didn't tell him until a few years ago had been a joke to freak him out- serves him right)- her mom, my aunt, the one who failed to protect her, telling me recently how we have it so much better than she did because she couldn't get an abortion when she got pregnant at 19 (which is why she dumped her daughter off with a friend, and then her irresponsible little brother, so she could go to law school), and when I told her of the harms of porn, said there was nothing wrong with porn, she used to go to porn theaters with her (many, many) boyfriends and husbands and it was totally cool- and when I said it causes men to abuse women in relationships (talking about my own extremely deleterious experiences, unbeknownst to her), saying then the woman can just leave (yes! Helps so much to "just leave" after you've already been raped and abused)- I can see how *incredibly* damaging the "free love" philosophy was too all its female proponents, and unfortunately also to their children, the collateral damage.
It later came out that my mother and aunt have experienced molestation, sexual battery, attempted rape, and severe domestic violence, all of which they seem to have sublimated into the beautiful dream of "free love."
I see the modern liberal feminist "sex positivity" movement as a direct descendant of this idealistic nonsense. I so wish a free love movement could be either free (women could be free to say no to any man or act) or loving (the sexual use and abuse of women doesn't seem loving to me at all).
As far as I'm concerned, these idealists- whether free love hippies or liberal feminists- are putting the cart before the horse. If we haven't gotten rid of the problem that's causing predatory men, increasing sexual access to women (and children!) by encouraging them to "freely love" just increases the rate of abuse. We cannot and will not fuck our way to freedom. That has not ever been and will never be a way of gaining men's respect. We can only gain men's respect and thereby achieve liberation by resoundingly, strongly, in no uncertain terms saying "NO."
My older cousin (she's in her 50's now) has a daughter, my second cousin, a little younger than me. She was a beautiful girl and is a gorgeous woman. She escaped a lot of the direct violence I experienced and her mom experienced, because her mom told her directly why she put the rules she had in place. She was her daughter's best friend, but also a parent; she told her honestly that she didn't want her drinking at parties with boys, because they might sexually assault her. She told her honestly she needed to meet any boyfriends upfront, due to the same concerns. She told her to walk away the moment a man hits you- as she had from her daughter's father. As a result, my second cousin grew up canny, well-adjusted and mainly unscathed. This is also how I would be as a mother, were I ever to have a child (which seems unlikely now).
I think early pornographers did a really good job at tying the sex industry to both the free love movement and to the women's liberation movement, even though in many ways they were antithetical to each other- and voila! Add a bit of postmodernist deconstructionist Queer Theory into the mix, and you get third-wave feminism: pro-porn, pro-prostitution, pro-violent kink, pro-gender; the absolute antithesis of the second wave feminism which preceded it.
What you are talking about- progressive men talking about the "revolutionary" writings of de Sade- how "transgressive" or "subversive" he was- I'm glad they do that now, so I know to avoid them; but they're all so tiresome, just plain wrong and ahistorical at best. De Sade was not transgressive, just writing during a time in which libertinism had temporarily gone out of fashion (he would have fit right in a few centuries earlier, when rape was briefly decriminalized in France, for example, during an economic downturn, which is usually when governments did things like encourage prostitution and legalize rape- to keep young men who couldn't afford to "keep a wife" from getting any ideas about rising up from their rank as serfs and overthrowing the landlords and the bourgeoisie; then there would be economic growth, and rape and prostitution would be outlawed again, with women back to being protected private property, instead of unprotected public property). He also wasn't subversive in any way- in a society which sees women as subhuman, regardless of their status of public or private ownership, how is it subversive to write graphic tales of sexual violence against women? Because it offends religious men in addition to the women (who actually find it threatening)?
So it's neither transgressive in the sense of the prevailing paradigm of patriarchy, nor is it subversive in that sense, either. It's simply a celebration of men's sexual appetites (and perceived rights) to torment and torture women and children. There's nothing transgressive, subversive, or progressive about that. It's just the same-old same-old violent patriarchal writings. (Also incredibly uninteresting, uninspiring, and bad writing. So was Pauline Reage's "The Story of O." Mind-numbingly boring. Why these people are so obsessed with rote discussions of insertions, I'll never know).
As for drinking a lot being exposed to that material- absolutely. I have been drinking too much due to anxiety about this whole gender fracas (as Karen Davis calls it), and it's terrible for my health!
(And as for the dissociation and dissociative identity disorder you mentioned in your other comment- thanks for your insight. This is something I've been reading a lot about these past few years. I recommend "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, and "Trauma and Recovery" by Judith Hermann).
Speaking of my health, one thing I HAVE to do- if I can ever write about anything I've learned these past years of study, which I only undertook in a desperate bid to understand what had happened to me, because I had nothing else to lose (once you have full-fledged PTSD, denial really doesn't help you)- is recover it.
I've been thinking I need to step back from this whole fight for a while, not even watch with bated breath and hopefully cheer from the sidelines, because every time I think about or write about these issues, or participate in groups with others talking about them, I get shooting pains all through my body (a symptom of my disease). I am very young to have developed all these illnesses, all within the past few years, after what happened to me (again), when I was 32. My body is telling me now is not the time to fight. I have to fall back, to fight another day.
When I am strong enough- when it no longer makes me so incredibly anxious to face the misogyny of society; when I can face reading Germaine Greer's book- I will write mine.
Take care, tomboy! (I was/am a tomboy, too!) <3
thank you so much for both your replies! please write your book - you write clearly and calmly about a subject that most people trivialise- because they cant face the truth. please write your book - because individuals like myself who have limited experience of life - are still at sea when diagnosed with - dissociative fugue state- i didn't listen to classical music and no idea what might be - i'm still not entirely sure what dissociation is exactly. there is a lot stuff out there about did, so the ptsd is harder to find and i usually find reading academic/trained writers writing about dissociation 'triggering'.so my first thoughts on reading what you said about ptsd, were to be careful to guard yourself from the 'flashbacks'.
(greer hasn't yet processed her 'stuff ' and i guess her allegiance to the counter-culture/libertarian 'freedoms' of her youth still holds strong). i mention the counter-culture because for a short time i worked in distribution -the distribution of books, from true crime to psychadelics, gay erotica to rastamouse. hardback coffee table bondage porn, alongside paperbacks of bdsm narratives were popular. the bigtime boss with his counter culture connections was a fan of de sade and got very excited over the the arrival of a new paperback edition of 'the philosophy of the bedroom'. after a time working there it made me feel a bit sick- we were gifted 8 bottles of beer at xmas and i went home and drunk them all in one sitting - i wasn't coping - and i was just 'near' this stuff all day long (i knew some of the 'texts', read as research and as preparation, before approaching the gay scene)- but i was *enabling* the distribution, by not putting a 'spanner in the works' - sensibly i had a breakdown to get out of the employment.
i am sorry about the digression - please write your book - when you can - and with terf funding self publish (crowdfund?) - you dont need validation from a publisher /they will just hold it up - wanting the book to be perfect and have a big enough audience- but you do need a good distribution network. thank you.
Times book review for the excluded
https://archive.ph/O2sdo
This is a great article. David Aaronovitch has followed the same path as many of us. Great to see it in a national newspaper.
THANK YOU for the archive link. I already pay for 2 newspapers, the Economist, multiple patreons, Glinner, etc. This turnip is about out of juice.
Thank you for sharing. At last. An article which expresses what we’ve all been saying for a very long time!
Another good link, alan_b.
thanks great article! daren aaronovitch does mention the pesky owen jones ganging up on him with his million followers. the author wrote critically on the demonisation of wc people in his book about the 'chavs' and those up standing restaurant-smashing 'eton boys the establishment', was this just a passing phase? why does he fight for the ill-defined 'trans' movement, and against its unseen nemesis the 'transphobic movement' ? or more importantly as a child of Militant (trotsky style) parents, is the madness in the political methods he politically employs?
Demi Lovato recently had Alok Vaid Menon (he who thinks little girls can be kinky) on her podcast. Blaire White has done a video on it: apparently Alok is very influential in getting celebrities to realise their non binary identity. Why the fuck anyone would look at Alok and think "Yeah, that's me" I do not know.
It’s Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, by Helen Joyce.
"Dear Nicola Sturgeon, please read this plea from a sister feminist about the trans debate – Susan Dalgety
Dear First Minister, Forgive my directness in addressing this column to you, but as someone who describes herself as a “feminist to her fingertips”, I am sure you won’t mind correspondence from a sister."
By Susan Dalgety
Friday, 16th July 2021, 4:45 pm
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/dear-nicola-sturgeon-please-read-this-plea-from-a-sister-feminist-about-the-trans-debate-susan-dalgety-3310241?amp#:~:text=Dear%20Nicola%20Sturgeon,4%3A45%20pm
I probably shouldn't say this, but your First Minister's name always reminds me of a river nearby: the Passagasawakeg. Yes, Europeans came and stole indigenous people's land then kept their names for natural features. It means "fishing for STURGEON by torchlight at night."
I didn’t believe the Greer quote until 2 years ago. Now I often remember it and how right it is. I guess I originally I don’t want to believe.
A mixed bag of good and bad but all very interesting. Lovely, as always, to see J.K. Rowling's support for women, and a great final quote by Simone de Beauvoir
I have posted a link to abn article written 6 years ago by a transwoman and to be found on the Gender Apostates site. Diana basis her argument against what she refers to as the transgenderists insistance of refering to women as cis from her re reading De Beauvoir's The Second Sex..This was our bible back in the 70s.
Thanks. I went looking for the article and found this https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/12/gender-critical-trans-women-the-apostates-of-the-trans-rights-movement.html -
The influence of porn is everywhere: the dehumanization of women, the fetishization of everything, the lack of boundaries or basic human decency, the prioritization of sexual gratification over ANYTHING ELSE. We've got to call this out when we see it. It's a multi billion dollar industry that benefits a TON by becoming evermore commonplace.
GREAT blog by the way.
great work! the analysis of the 'gender identity movement' as a cult is v convincing and demonstrates just how dangerous absurd beliefs can be. those who spout these absurd narratives need to be questioned critically, and allowed to process these critiques, so as they can realise for themselves how they have been misled.
encouragingly there has been a recent push to document established cults through documentaries and podcasts series. esp to compare different cults leaders management methods, and how prospective cult leaders develop new cults by researching past cult successes (in usa by ex cult participants - notably hollywood actors). 'piling on' is on such technique. i wont link to a website, but this critical analysis is relatively easy to find online.
however, i'm not sure how professionals, such as in education and medicine, are able to distinguish that individuals that are all absorbed by 'cult thinking' have a problem (to be solved), but cannot not recognise the 'gender ideology' extremism as deeply damaging.
sorry the above is a little unclear - the hollywood actor i alluded to created a documentary series exposing how a successful cult runs and iis structured.
This person is about as far as possible from Simone de Beauvoir, but:
Part of the mechanics of oppressing people is to pervert them to the extent that they become the instruments of their own oppression.
Kumasi, Crips and Bloods, Made in America [great film, by the way]
Once again professional comedy writers are victim to gender ideology extremism!
"At The Tenacious Unicorn Ranch trans farmers raise alpaca & patrol for threats"
https://widerimage.reuters.com/story/at-the-tenacious-unicorn-ranch-trans-farmers-raise-alpaca-patrol-for-threats
Page not found, for some reason. But...
https://archive.vn/7OpTw
Thanks. Oddly item is still listed on Reuters homepage, but same link so doesn't work. There's also a promo for the related video. I'd bet the ranch post feedback emergency editing is taking place :-D
I read it on your link about 20 mins!? ago it was there.
To be honest, I'm ok with their set up and getting together. I feel that those farm hands do need to defend themselves as I suspect some locals are hostiles, but this is it, the actual trans-phobes who hate transsexuals (not cross-dressers) are that right wing blokes, the sort that put incendiary devices outside clubs. If transsexuals feel harassed by them, I understand. It's the other mob, the transgender frauds, who just hate women and call them and any men ally trans-phobes that I really hate.
Thanks, alan_b for the working link. I thought this was a joke! And notice how two trans end up with each other.
Just placed an order for Helen Joyce's book. I think the TRAs and allies will pull out all the stops to try and have it banned.
From the list of signs of a cult:
"A man would never pretend to be a woman if he wasn't really trans". 🙄
Hmm, how does that work exactly if we MUST take someone at their word that they are female, even when our eyes tell us they're not? Not being allowed to question an ideology, of being accused of a hate crime akin to Hitler if you do, will inevitably lead to problems like this. Are only trans people allowed to tell us who is transgender and who isn't?
Well they are controlling the language.eg CIS I love this transwoman's view on the subject. This was written 6 years ago.
http://genderapostates.com/cissexism-and-you/