On my way out of Edinburgh University last week, where I’d just delivered a speech on how feminists should resist male violence, I was attacked by a shrieking “transgender person” (to cite the term used in a Scotsman headline). Had it not been for the three burly security guards surrounding me, I would have been punched.
I usually use female pronouns to refer to trans women, as a courtesy. But this is a courtesy I won’t extend to someone seeking to hurt me physically. This was a man—specifically, a misogynist who’d become notorious under the (since deleted) Twitter handle TownTattle. He was deeply offended that I’d been allowed to speak. That’s why he wanted to hurt me: for being a woman who opened her mouth.
The event at which I’d appeared was called Women’s Sex-Based Rights. It focussed on the threat to women-only spaces and organizations posed by gender activists who seek to erase any legal distinction in regard to the treatment of male- and female-bodied individuals. In the run-up to the event, trans activists and their allies (mostly men who are highly woke, as popular slang would have it) had been claiming that the meeting would cause harm to trans students, and that I would be promoting hate.
Before we took the stage, speakers were given an hour-long briefing by the university’s security team. We were told what would happen if the stage were stormed by protesters, or if it became necessary to vacate the venue. This is what it now means to advocate publicly for women’s rights.
As I arrived at the venue, I was greeted by a protest group shouting slogans such as “No TERFS on our turf.” For those in the enviable position of being unaffected by the campaign against women’s rights, “TERF” stands for “trans exclusionary radical feminist,” a misogynistic term of abuse that now is routinely deployed against women who do not believe that men can merely “self-identity” as women for purposes of, say, accessing women’s locker rooms, rape-crisis centres and single-sex hospital wards. Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest sporting heroes of all time, recently has been mobbed by the anti-“TERF” crowd because she dared to criticize male-bodied trans women being allowed to compete alongside females athletes. There is even pressure to buy the line that trans women get periods, and that they need cervical smear tests.
The reason the slur “TERF” has become popular is that it gives misogynists a tool to abuse and punish feminists without the stigma associated with such crude epithets as “bitches.” They can still pretend to be progressive and, as UK-based newspaper columnist and “trans ally” Owen Jones puts it, on the “right side of history.” The term generally is applied only to women, such as me, whose progressive, feminist ideals cannot be explained away as a symptom of right-wing hate or bigotry. It is telling that there is no equivalent popular acronym or neologism to describe actual haters of transsexuals, such as religious fundamentalists and homophobic bigots.
One of the most hideous manifestations of this movement is the popularization of such memes as “Punch TERFs,” which present violence toward women as a cool hipster hobby. And it has led to real misogynistic violence. In 2017, a British trans activist in his 20s violently attacked 60-year-old Maria MacLachlan as she was on her way to a feminist meeting. One of Wolf’s supporters, when asked by MacLachlan if she thought it was okay that that she had been punched and kicked by a man, responded, “It’s not a guy. You’re a piece of shit and I’m happy they hit her.” (Indeed, one of the calling cards of anti-“TERF” extremists is that they seem far more concerned about protecting pronouns than human bodies.) Earlier that year, trans activists stormed the opening of a feminist library in Vancouver, accusing the organizers of being not only “TERFs” but also “SWERFs” (Sex worker exclusionary radical feminists) before destroying books, tearing down posters and throwing wine on the walls. It was with all of this in mind that I had my guard up when I left last week’s Edinburgh University event in the company of Professor Rosa Freedman, a human-rights expert and fellow speaker. That’s when I was lunged at by the hater shouting “you’re a f***** c***, you’re a f****** bitch, a f****** TERF.”
My attacker, “Trans Tattle,” already was infamous for threatening feminists in the past. Yet reporters who cover such issues often tread gingerly in describing trans activists who engage in or encourage attacks against women. Sometimes they even suggest that these people have been provoked into violence. In my case, in fact, much of the coverage focussed on the fact that the day before my speaking event, the school’s entire LGBT+ committee resigned in protest.
“Jonathan MacBride, who was the co-Chair of the university’s LGBT+ staff network until the entire committee’s resignation this week, said the university had not consulted with them before approving the event,” read one report. MacBride also complained that the university failed to “give out any statement of support of its trans staff and students.”
In one particularly absurd salvo, MacBride claimed that “Instead of supporting us, supporting our position, [the university] chose to censor us.” That’s right: He is using the word “censor” to describe the decision to permit women to talk about feminism.
In fact, activists had spent weeks trying to get the event cancelled. “We are members of the University of Edinburgh staff and student community concerned about the rise of transphobia on our campus,” some declared in a petition. “We write this statement to unequivocally condemn transphobia. The recent announcement of a transphobic ‘Women’s Sex-Based Rights’ event hosted by Edinburgh University Moray House on the 5th of June is unacceptable. We are calling for this event to be cancelled immediately.” It is to the university’s credit that they denied this request, and even instructed the staff who were behind the campaign to stop putting out potentially libellous claims about the speakers.
The LGBT+ site, Pink News, which often is so misogynistic in its editorial policies that it’s known as Penis News to many lesbians, ran a report with the headline, “Julie Bindel misgendered a trans woman who she claimed ‘physically attacked’ her.’” The slant on this was so widely mocked—see the comments under this Tweet—that the editors later felt compelled to change it to “Radical feminist Julie Bindel claims physical attack by trans person.”
But it wasn’t enough to marginalize me. Pink News also tried to release the online hounds on a British MP, Diane Abbott, a black woman who has been subjected to all sorts of appalling racist and sexist abuse online. When she heard about the attack on me, Abbott tweeted, “Horrible. Hope you are now OK.” This apparently raised red flags among Pink News editors, who viewed it as evidence of anti-trans heresy. And so the site tweeted out—I am not making this up—”Diane Abbott asked if Julie Bindel was okay.”
Pink News is an extreme example. But even much of the mainstream press and social-media commentary on this issue seemed more focused on avoiding accusations of transphobia than covering an attack against a woman appearing at an event oriented toward protecting women’s rights. (A notable exception was a fair and accurate report in The Scotsman.) A number of Tweeters celebrated me almost getting a good kicking, while, paradoxically, also downplaying the incident because I hadn’t actually been brutalized. The hypocrisy here is rather rich, since anyone who questions trans orthodoxy routinely is accused of causing “literal violence” if they commit any one of a long and growing list of thoughtcrimes, such as misgendering or “deadnaming.” The very people seeking to shut down the Edinburgh University event even accused me of “putting lives at risk” because I make a distinction between trans women and natal women.
A century ago, suffragists were beaten and imprisoned for asserting their rights as women. Their attackers were conservative reactionaries who hated the idea of women being treated as equals. It is shocking to see this same spirit of misogyny re-enter the marketplace of ideas through the back door of faux-progressive trans orthodoxy. Many liberals—including feminists and lesbians—have been cowardly in calling out this noxious phenomenon, for fear of being called transphobes. It is time for all of us to be vocal in the face of this new threat to women.
Julie Bindel is a UK-based writer and activist. In 1991, she co-founded the group Justice for Women, which provides legal assistance to women accused of killing violent male partners. Follow her on Twitter @bindelj.
Featured image: Photo by Eleanor Hill at Vancouver Dyke March, Aug. 4, 2018.
Another essay in which Dr. Frankenstein gripes about her monster.
I’d normally be on Ms. Bindel’s side, but I notice in this piece and every other she’s written she never addresses how trans ideology is based on the radical feminist rules she worked so hard to set down.
They’re playing your game, by your rules, and winning, Ms. Bindel. I’d feel worse about it, but personally I’ve listened to far too much anti-male feminism to give the slightest crap about your profoundly well earned crisis. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Get back to me when you’ve disavowed the intersectional insanity you have eagerly embraced and wielded like both weapon and shield for so long. Until then… HAHAHAHA!
@Simon
I don’t like Intersectionality any more than you do, but let’s put this in perspective: we’ve created the police force that kills people with impunity. Should we just laugh at the victims or should we do something to change the way things are?
@Susanna
I’m not sure what you mean. I assume your reference to a police force killing with impunity is an analogy, but if so, I don’t see how something that extreme at all parallels the situation with Julie Bindel.
@Simon,
It doesn’t, but in the minds of most commentators here it does. That’s my point.
@ Susanna
One way or another, you’re making no sense. No one’s going to be impressed by your point if they never get past ramblings from your weird inner monologue.
@Simon H – The reference is that we all agree we need the police to protect us and sometimes they must kill, yet when the police act badly, we see the distinction.
There is enormous irony in your comment Simon…. Whilst the police continue to kill young black men as and when they feel like they are are also very keen to wade in on behalf of trans activists who feel the speech and writing of Julie Bindel, Martina Navratilova etc actually causes them injury. Notice these are the same police who at peaceful demos are far more likely to attack women and girls than men or boys.
Who is this “we”? “We” warned you this would happen. We BEGGED you not to give so much power to angry mobs. We TOLD you that eventually the mobs turn on everyone–that is the nature of the mob, and feminists gleefully called us misogynists and used the mob, their “police force” to destroy their opposition. Now they want allies as the dread of mob rule comes to pass?
No, I think I’ll go sit in my corner that I got forced into. Good luck. Maybe this is a lesson that NEEDS to be learned, because I was never able to convey it to feminists even with detailed accounts of others in history who thought subjectivity based mob rule would work out for them.
I see a real need to put the breaks on the trans-identity train, for a number of reasons, including those that Bindel mentions–that some male predators will use trans self-identity in cynical and dishonest ways to get access to female victims. We have one such person in Vancouver, who has been vexatiously suing waxing salons via the human rights tribunal for denying his scrotum and taint the Brazilian they apparently so desperately need.
I HATE that it is mostly people like Bindel (and Lierre Keith, and other radfems), who are so anti-male it’s not even funny, who are willing to really speak up about this.
My own position on transgenderism was always pretty tolerant. Then came the legislated pronoun issue, which is the opposite of tolerance.
Then I learned about rapid onset gender dysphoria, which afflicts mostly tween and teen girls on the autism spectrum. Then I looked into things more and discovered that a significant percentage of even trans-identifying youth who identified very early in life and persisted for years, “grow out of it” during puberty.
Then we had legislation come down in Canada, which makes it a potential “take your kids into care” offence if you, as a parent, do not affirm your child’s stated gender identity. And we had medical guidance come down for family doctors on how to deal with trans youth, because the the number of trans-identifying youth has increased 10-fold in 10 years, and there aren’t enough “gender specialists” to go around.
Then I looked into the guidance, and saw the most heinous and obvious contradiction ever, regarding treatment.
It recommends family doctors take an “affirmative” rather than neutral approach to trans-identifying youth, and to not be afraid to prescribe puberty blockers. This is ostensibly to “buy time” so the child can be 100% sure what they want before any permanent changes to the body occur that will make it difficult to pass as the opposite gender as an adult.
At the same time, the guidance suggests there is no time like the present when it comes to cross sex hormone therapy–that doctors should take into account the social stigma of not going through puberty at the same age as one’s peers, and should consider cross sex hormones as early as age 13.
Which would, if the kid changes his/her mind, make it difficult to pass as their birth sex as an adult.
And of course, none of this really takes into account the health risks associated with cross-sex hormone therapy or puberty blocking drugs. One doctor I spoke to said a kid came into his office (with his mom) wanting puberty blockers, with a note from his psychologist recommending them. The doctor asked him if the psychologist had informed him of the health risks. The kid said no. So the doctor pulls out the pharmaceutical compendium and begins reading the list of adverse effects and long term health risks. The kid changed his mind.
So here I am, thinking to myself, I already am not on board with puberty blockers. If going through puberty is the most reliable way to resolve gender dysphoria in a large number of sufferers, we’re essentially keeping some kids sick rather than letting them get better on their own because some of these kids won’t get better on their own. Being trans complicates a person’s life in so many ways, why would we be willing to sacrifice the future wellbeing of the kids who are destined to grow out of it, for the benefit of the ones who won’t?
But the cross sex hormone therapy as early as 13 thing? When a new phenomenon (rapid onset GD) has been identified but not yet thoroughly investigated?
When my kids were 13, they couldn’t legally drive a car, take up smoking, purchase alcohol, have sexual intercourse, vote, join the military, or get a job. As a mother, I would not have allowed them to make 100% of their own nutritional choices, decide what time to be home at night, or make any of a number of less consequential and permanent decisions.
More than this, I was a tomboy as a kid. Nearly all my friends were boys. Had an adult I trusted asked me, “you ever wonder if maybe you’re really a boy, not a girl? You know you can BE a boy, don’t you?” I have to wonder what ideas might have taken root in my head, and where I’d have taken them if I’d had carte blanche to do so, even in defiance of my parents’ wishes. I’m still a tomboy, but I’m comfortable in my own female skin, experienced pregnancy and motherhood as an honor, a privilege and one of the deepest joys of my life. Would I, at age 12, have thrown all of that away because I was a little more guy than girl at the time?
But here we are, essentially saying children as young as 13 are fit to make permanent, life-altering and life-complicating decisions that CANNOT be fully undone if they change their minds. And we’re doing it because it works (sort of) for a minority of these kids, while permanently and unnecessarily complicating the lives of the majority.
The fact that women like Bindel are on the front lines sounding an alarm regarding the runaway nature of trans-activism is so sad to me.
Her priority is how this ideology might lead to knock-off harms to cis-women and girls because she detests and fears males, and in her mind, once a male always a male. MAYBE she has some concern for trans-identifying biological female minors who are being led down a garden path filled with irreversible forks along the way. I don’t know.
What I do know is that I didn’t see anything in this article talking about those most vulnerable to trans ideology and trans activism. And that is the children whose health, bodies and futures are being sacrificed on the altar of some pie in the sky idea that, with enough drugs and surgery, anyone can be anything.
George Orwell once wrote, “ We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. “
I applaud your eloquence at re stating the obvious.
Take a few microns step back to see the larger issue … the post modernists are exploiting another sector of society, some of these are guys are extremely sick, for their own purpose.
The evolved totalitarians want your freedom. They are doing it by all means necessary.
Funny how often they get a government paycheck and pension along the way. That was Tony Gramsci’s idea. Evidently he wasn’t fat. They say he was a physically weak man, rather sickly himself.
When people say we should compromise, remember, we have compromised al the way to where we are now. Not one micron more.
I enjoyed your write it. It voices many of my own concerns of children being railroaded into making life altering choices.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I haven’t been able to get even close to this far when discussing the issues with my trans-ally friends before they try to shut me down with the TERF label or being called transphobic.
Karen, I am a parent of young children. I appreciate and understand your comments. You are corageous, and not alone. Stand up straight and hold your head high. Thank you.
A very passionate case, Karen. I will reserve my judgment regarding Ms. Bindel’s motivations because I know nothing of it, but I agree that it’s vital that we remember that children’s lives are being senselessly destroyed. It’s high time that we treat radical moralizing as a form of theology that is simply not acceptable for justifying positions in the general discourse.
I suspect that if a father, worried that his son was growing up effeminate, asked a dr. to prescribe testosterone for the boy to prevent it, he would be considered a bigoted monster. But the same father can ask a dr. to prescribe estrogen for the boy and be considered “woke.”
Hi Karen – Nice to hear from you here. Great comment. I’m in a strange spot here. I seem to be the only person here who finds Bindel to be so bigoted and hateful as to actually be beyond the pale. Her essay makes it clear – this bother her because trans woman are still biologically male (pesky chromosomes and then there are those 6,000 genes that express differently). Her view here is fueled by her extreme, rabid hatred of men. You’ve read her – she said she’d like to put me in a camp along with all other men.
Why on earth would anyone do anything but shame her for this here? She’s not the only person speaking out on this issue. Traditional conservatives are talking about the “personal pan pizza” approach to gender and hormone blockers. I don’t need to rely on Bindel’s voice, she’s not decisive. I get it though, she’s a big deal in feminism – I of course couldn’t care less about that. That’s a negative mark in my book these days, not a positive.
Amirite? She’s not just talking about patriarchy and oppression and slagging on men nonstop as so many feminists do, she hates us with a passion. She’s odious and should be run off this site by a riot in the comment section.
But nope. Talk about “male disposability”, the limp reaction to this hater says it all. A few people gave it to her good – but were then piled on by other comments. What a sick world we live in.
That deserves some recognition as one of the most insightful and well reasoned essays I’ve seen on the subject.
Anywhere.
I had a better time reading this than the article it is responding to.
Yeah – when they come for the kids, all bets are off.
I never believed that “age appropriate” is just a nice cozy conservation idea.
I always thought it was a very kid-friendly idea.
And I suspect a growing number of people out there who are decidedly kid-unfriendly, for all the sheep’s clothing they tend to wear, are licking their chops.
When pie in the sky becomes a growth industry capable of generating considerable profits………well, some people always have done pretty weird things for money.
Karen Straughan, once again, thank you for your intelligent and reasoned response.
Karen, I have always found your writing to be rather insightful and to the point. Please continue to ‘fight the good fight’ and know that there are good people who will support you along your journey.
I know the feeling you speak of quite well, the feeling of being forced into a corner because I’m a straight white male AKA the root of all evil. After years of seeing this kind of madness build and build to its current state of total chaos, I feel much the same as you do; why should I help these insane children masquerading as women at all? If they’re so strong and independent, why would they need my help, of all people. Let them lie in the bed they all made and know how it feels, sez me.
That was directed at @ServetusMM, by the way!
@Susana Well, I think the facts of your analogy here is incorrect, but let just say it is for the sake of argument. I’d say “yes” if I were speaking for Bindel. I did not create this problem. If she disavowed the ideas that got us here that would be a start. Your point hits Bindel harder than us commenters saying we don’t want to help her. I won’t be her pawn as she plays the victim of her own ideology.
“The police force that kills people with impunity”.
I always have a good laugh at this one. Someone has never been to a use of force inquiry, and the truly breathtaking amount of Monday morning quarterbacking that goes on.
@ Susanna
Nice comment. This place should be a refuge from the Twitter storm, a place where we can engage with ideas gracefully. However, I still think my comment about being a SMURF was funny (Smug Male Urging Rights Feminism).
If we help them fight the monster, will they stop and backstab us when the monster is only pushed back 10 years? Without evidence they recognize they opened Pandora’s box, they are too dangerous to help
What country are you posting from?
Also, obviously the irony of her calling those who have differences with homosexuals homophobic bigots while she whines about trans activist using labels against her. The world in general lacks self awareness.
@Jeffrey
I could say the same about you. You lack the same self awareness. No amount of justification allows for assault no matter what way we see or label other people.
@Susanna Krizo, how did I assault anyone or support assault in my statement? Can you provide an example?
How Dare you challenge her question with logic and pointing out her strawmen arguments??
I am literally shaking right now!! /s
@Jeffrey C
I was referring to your comment how she labels others and then she “whines” when she’s assaulted. Words aren’t violence, actual violence is. Don’t fall for the arguments made by the Intersectionals.
Once again Susanna when did I ever say words were violence?
@Susan Kristi,
When did I justify assault?
A classic straw man Susanna?
I imagine Ms Bridel that you avoid reading the comments, you are wise. I expect to disagree with you on most things but the harassment you describe is disgraceful.
When I’ve heard you speak or read your writing, it’s rare for me to see much common ground, however, I think you are an honourable person and, as it happens, I like your writing which is always lucid and direct
Depends on what you mean by “differences.” If you suspect you’re being lumped in with bigots, then perhaps you should be. There’s just no reason to worry about what other consenting adults do among themselves. Transgenderism, however, won’t be confined as such. It defies science and makes chaos of the landscape. It’s as if gay people started beating straight people to death for being straight, rather than the reverse as seen throughout history.
I sympathise with your post. And when you say that the trans activists are playing the feminists’ game, by their rules and they are winning, you’re right. The feminists who rightly complain today that hate-speech laws are being used to silence and harass them are the same people who cheered when misogyny was not only added to the list of hate-offences in some police areas but also defined so broadly that a misogynistic hate crime could be something as simple as overhearing a joke you felt was offensive to your identity as a woman, even though you weren’t the intended audience.
That said, this is a much bigger issue than just feminists being hoisted by the own hateful petard. Self-identification in particular seems to put women and girls at risk. Ms Bindel held her speech in Scotland, where just a few months ago a trans-woman (a man) entered women’s toilets twice, waited there until young girls entered alone, and then sexually assaulted them.
The last victim, a young girl, actually fought off her attacker. All credit to her and her strength and bravery. But she should never have been put in such a position of vulnerability. The fact that she was, stems directly from natal men being allowed to enter women’s toilets unchallenged. Until recently, we had strict taboos against this, for very good reason, and anyone breaking those taboos would quickly have been challenged.
So yes, feminists have the least convincing platform from which to argue against this and, in so far as it all stems from queer theory and Buterlian gender ideology, this mess is actually of feminists’ making. And yet they have the nerve to claim that it is something being done to them. All galling.
But we must see past that. Even women who are feminists, misandrists and hypocrites deserve to the safe from harm (though not, as they so often seem to think, scrutiny or criticism). And in any case. this dangerous and wrong-headed set of policies, which throws the basic principles of safeguarding out of the window, will potentially harm all women and girls, not just feminists.
@ James
well said
Thank you.
Feminism is not a monolith. Bindel is not a liberal feminist (the branch that encouraged this trans narrative), so for all blaming her ideology for the problem, you’re uninformed.
Many feminists who are now gender critical only became so when they realised what gender theory, itself a feminists invention, implied for the special privileges and exceptions they had carved out for themselves. And even then, they only acknowledge inherent differences between the sexes when this suits their agenda. So, differences in average rates of aggression or average performances at sports are acknowledged as being at least to some extent caused by inherent factors. But for some reason the same is not recognised as a possible cause in different rates of representation in different professions or of the much-parroted wage gap. Moreover, the shaming and silencing tactics used by the trans-lobby against gender-critical feminists were pioneered by feminists themselves, of all stripes. And it’s only now that they’re victims of their own weapons that some feminists find cause to complain of unfairness. Academically, it’s interesting to understand which strand of feminism holds which beliefs. In practice, it’s not that compelling to know which wave in this typhoon of malice and misinformation carries with it which piece of unfounded and discriminatory intellectual flotsam. And for a non-feminists, it’s tempting to simply shrug and say, “feminists brought this on themselves”. But even bigots and carpetbaggers deserve to be safe from harm. And in any case, all women will suffer because of self-declaration, not just feminists.
@Simon – when someone notices and sounds the alarm about the monster, I don’t think it’s productive to point fingers and bicker about who created the monster. It’s better to fight the monster together before it eats us all. Maybe along the way we can better understand each other and put the past behind us?
@Simon C. The problem with the Dr. Frankenstein analogy is in Shelley’s story, unlike Hollywood, the creation was not monstrous, however, Dr. Frankenstein was. He, the Doctor, was the one of questionable motives, who exploited his creation for his own personal goals and then turned on it when it no longer benefitted him. Unfortunately, similar to numerous other classics that are no longer taught because they are labeled as racist, or patriarchal or Eurocentric, people use the analogy without understanding the story. The have a caricature of the story, created by Hollywood screenwriters who may have never read the source material. They miss the point. They miss the deeper messages. Usually due to rather shallow understanding and simplistic, black and white, good vs evil mentality, tribalism. This tends to extend to their understanding of most things, i.e. the complexity of issues such as gender relations, immigration etc. This story is a perfect example of this.
Jeffrey,
I find this also true when people use the word Machiavellian. They obviously never read Machiavelli or, if they did, refused to understand. To go on, the problem stated in the essay is not the disagreement in beliefs, but the reduction to violence to stifle disagreement. If we’re to continue as adults instead of temper tantrum overgrown toddlers, we must allow, encourage, the police to sit these people in time out.
I must respectfully disagree. Miss Bindel is not pointing out the monster. She is complaining that other people are using it against her. She is still more than happy to use the monster against others, she just doesn’t like it when it’s her turn to suffer. If she was rejecting the monster entirely and saying we can’t do this anymore, I could have some sympathy. But this is an anti-intellectual thug complaining that her own tactics of hysterical victim seeking are being used against her. She and her tormentor are one and the same, and I will not favour her in this case. The fact is that this has happened to her several times now, and in each case she refuses to learn the obvious lesson that this is a reflection of her own behaviour. Until she does, the tough love of rejecting her plaintive cries will continue.
Here here! This is just like the case of Meghan Murphy. A hateful bigoted feminist angry that the outrage machine she helped create is getting used against her. These Feminist hatemongers don’t want a disarmament. They’re just upset that finally they are under fire themselves. Bindel and her ilk are sexist smear merchants that haven’t cared one iota about any of the people who have suffered at their hands and I’m not going to care about her suffering. Quite frankly I think Feminists owe a debt that needs to be paid in blood for all the lives they have destroyed through their gerrymandering of our legal system.
@Matthew You are a misogynist pig. Go kill yourself.
Agree 100%
OMG. Clearly you’ve never read or met Meghan Murphy to have described her in this way. Also, the fact that you think that Feminism is a monolith tells me you know nothing about it. I guess you also think we shouldn’t have been given the vote, allowed to attend university, or have the right to have our own bank accounts, hold property, etc. Feminism has allowed women to be free of mysogynists like you!
Exactly. No one on here disagrees with her that the trans movement is authoritarian and anti-speech, as well as anti-women. But instead of realizing that feminists helped create this monster with the “acknowledge my reality or you hate me” “I’m the objective arbiter of morality and what is acceptable” etc, she doubles down by blasting actual homophobes, you know, those evil religious people. She should try not trashing her allies. She and other feminists continue to insist that they’re fighting against men, when in reality, their opponents are all on the Left.
What is most baffling about GC feminists is that they don’t think people should be compelled to support transgenderism, but can’t take the logic a step further and realize that also applies to those of us that don’t want to be compelled to support feminism either.
The feminists that I know are all fighting for the rights of girls and women. That is not the same as ‘being transphobic’ or ‘fighting against men’
Even if these women have some good points, many people in the TERF group are making careers over provoking transgender issues online and then playing the victim when trans and non-feminists respond to their (numerous!) attention-seeking blog posts and articles.
Feminists are experts at the game of yelling “look at me!” “look at me!” by publishing (often subtly inflammatory) articles online that have open comments sections asking for feedback, and then saying “how dare you look at me!” when people comment that they aren’t impressed or persuaded.
There is a difference between trans people and trans activists, and TERFs often don’t care about this very important distinction and attack and blame individual trans people for a lot of shit that isn’t their fault. I would possibly respect them if they didn’t deliberately inflame tensions between men and women, attention seek via clickbait titles, and traffic in pathetic teenaged snark on their blogs and subs, while at the same time claiming to be crusaders for “women and girls”.
They see themselves as – righteous feminist academics educating the world!- but the actual level of TERF discourse is pretty low, even by crap internet drama standards. They make fun of TG being narcissistic and mentally ill, but the TERFs are truly legends in their own minds.
If you are a woman who disagrees , they will put on their MOST strident feminist lecturer voice and threaten you if you mock them, which is really funny though. Their public behavior on reddit is obnoxious and the sub is full of vindictive feminist nutcases who see even the most minor criticism as a threat from their “enemies”.
You aren’t my enemies GC ladies – I’m just commenting on the shitty articles and other materials you put out there under your internet brand called “GC feminism”! Sorry the words of other women are so threatening to you feminists, but if you don’t want comments, you should ask the people who publish your articles to close the comments ahead of time so you don’t have to get your censorious radical feminist! panties in a wad.
What’s even funnier is is I am actually one of these bathroom stranger rape victims they claim to be fighting for, but they certainly don’t like me very much! ha. They only got on my radar because they claim to be white knighting for people like me but didn’t bother asking if we wanted help from radfems or to represented in the media by them.
Also when called on their exploitation of non-feminist victims for themselves and their movement, they move the bar and claim straight faced that “feminism isn’t concerned with individual women, but the liberation of women as a class” which is a fancy way of saying, “We’ll use your personal trauma as a haymaking tool to bolster our own social standing and financial gain, but you have no right to complain about it”.
So I consider it a moral duty to give TERFs a hard time in the comments of their attention-seeking articles since they are making careers and money off exploiting “bathroom fears” and claiming to speak for women like me. I don’t like the bathroom debates, but the gender genie isn’t going back in the bottle, and frankly all politicians, activists and journalists should stop making it worse by making toilets into the site of a new, even-stupider-than-usual culture war.
At any rate, as one of the people they claim to be fighting for – my opinion is that TERFs are more likely to try to rally their friends to threaten me for making fun of them on the internet than they are to help with the bathroom issues. I don’t even bother hate reading GC any more since having a little fun at their expense – they are too unhinged and vindictive – however, like scruffy, happy Tramp in in that old Disney movie, I just can’t help but take a good run through the feminist henhouse and ruffle some feathers every once in a while!
I do think it’s hysterical how mad GC got that someone accurately described their public behavior and how they quickly tried to hide it when I pointed it out by changing usernames and toning down the open misandry and rudeness and trying to pretend they don’t revel in banning and treating people like shit on their own turf.
They responded predictably with cries of Strisand effect and being happy about getting more views and trying to write subtly threatening comments to me. Quillette is absolutely welcome remove any of my comments about GC feminists if they are so offensive or against TOS – I was simply stating what I had observed of GC behavior online which is not a crime, in response to an author who wrote an article about being banned from social media because of their shitty GC behavior.
I love how all her GC friends (or pr people?) attacked my comment on MM, but I was just matching standard “TERF tone” which is snide, bitchy, and arrogant. BTW how did that Twitter lawsuit work out anyways? lol
To be fair, MM isn’t the worst of the TERFs and since she likes to give interviews where she brags about how many well-connected friends and how much personal love and support she has, I’m sure she’ll be fine. It’s unfortunate that trans people and others that TERFs target in their online wars often don’t have such abundant resources and an entourage of supporters. This is why her demands for random people to support her come off as entitled and clueless.
In fact, getting GC feminists to show how badly they react to minor criticism while they have the gall to complain about social media being heavy-handed WAS my whole point in making those comments. I am glad GC cleaned up some of their shitter behavior on reddit due to my comments and that’s what I hoped it would accomplish. They have some good points, but they undermine their own movement with their love of hyperbole, misandry, ganging up and the snark.
I just thought more people should see how GC feminists act on their own turf when they are running around publishing articles saying, “you should support us and care about our concerns because we are just caring about women and rape survivors!” when in fact they are actually pretty shitty to rape survivors who don’t bow down to them, and they are rude as hell to anyone who is not feminist or just passerby to gendercritical that dare say they aren’t on-board with their crappy worldview that divides everyone into saints and enemies based on political ideology.
They certainly dish it, but they can’t take it.
As evidenced by this essay, they are as strident as Christian evangelicals about their cause. I’ve seen them try to set up shop at various forums and push their ideology, and it’s usually welcomed until the forum realized that are one-trick ponies and they gunk up the forum with hundreds of trans posts.
I would have no clue who these people are if they were not promoting themselves all over the internet. When I noticed the TERFs were saying they are operating on behalf of bathroom assault survivors, I was and am rightfully offended, because I don’t want or need radical feminists to speak for me.
TERFs also are very provocative online, which they downplay in these victim articles, and they pretend that they are just being targeted by mean people. In fact, they run a huge network of blogs and social media posters that are extremely provocative and attention seeking, yet they call the people who find and engage with them via random google search or even their own forum links as “trolls” and “harassers”.
They could eliminate this problem completely by not seeking attention via inflammatory blogs and victimhood articles and doing their activism the old fashioned and respectable way. Instead TERFs go with the clickbait/internet war method, which means you are asking for attention from random people, which opens them up to criticism which they love to dish, but can’t take.
In reference to the elderly woman who was assaulted, I don’t condone violence against anyone- even my least favorite GCers like Meghan Murphy, and I disagree with posters saying feminists deserve to be physically hurt, even if they are damned annoying and provocative. TERFs are undeniably assholes, but people can easily use mean words to combat their mean words, no one should be punching anyone or resorting to violence over this dumb shit.
Part of the problem is that both sides in the terf/trans war take themselves too seriously, and most of these women could avoid their “harassment” problems by not making careers out of insulting transpeople and non-feminists online. If they weren’t running around begging for attention by writing articles online they wouldn’t have to worry about being “harassed” by having to read comments that describe how absurd they appear to people outside their echo chamber.
@ Peter G
You wrote: “I don’t think it’s productive to point fingers and bicker about who created the monster. … Maybe along the way we can better understand each other and put the past behind us?”
First, there’s no bickering or disagreement about who created the monster. Modern feminists started it, full stop. Bindel remains very enthusiastic about it. Please don’t suggest there’s any confusion about the source of this insanity.
Bindel is now crying to the world that unfair tactics are being used against her. But these are the tactics she and her movement invented and refined for years. The tactics she is STILL USING daily to maintain cultural power.
Forgiveness comes AFTER the crimes are over. Bindel is still actively, unrepentently doing to others (especially men, but huge numbers of women, too) precisely what she’s complaining about receiving.
Maybe put a pause on that reconciliation campaign and spend more time watching what Bindel is up to when she’s not tearfully appealing to your better nature on Quillette.
@Peter G
My point exactly. Thank you.
But we’ve been silenced so we can’t help fight the monster. If you’ve been fighting the monster all along but being called every kind of -phobic, know that the mob can see you jobless, harrassed when trying to eat at a restaurant, blacklisted and blackballed, and otherwise bullied into silence, is there any wonder why others are perfectly content to sit back, enjoy their popcorn, and watch the good Dr. fight their monster alone?
We’ve been down the helping rode before and been smeared and threatened all along the way. In 2010, if you disagreed with some policy put forth by Democrats — it was because you were racist! You must have a Klan robe in your closet! Quick, call his employer and have him fired. 2016? Didn’t vote for HRC? You clearly want to enslave women, force them to have your children ala The Handmaid’s Tale, you probably have a Hitler Youth knife under your pillow while you sleep!
Speak up now? No thanks! We told you so, but were shouted down as fascist — by fascists. Orwell just got the date wrong, must have used the wrong calendar system.
@Peter G
The problem is that it appears that feminists were quite content with violence, suppression of speech and abandonment of all rules of civility when they were the ones allowed to throw the rocks. The main complaint here doesn’t seem to be the loss of civility, just the loss of the privileged position. She’s not complaining about the throwing of stones, just about who gets to throw them.
I don’t know. Maybe if the victim acknowledged some shared responsibility for creating the circumstances she now describes she might earn a more sympathetic hearing. Failing that, I have my popcorn (and Walther).
@peter, it’s always productive to get at the source of the problem. It’s where solutions come from. Most activists can’t afford-to do that because their living comes from being a victim of something.
Well said.
@Peter G – There is a concept in warfare, where if you are presented with multiple enemies who are keen to fight against themselves, it may be best to stand to the side. When the ‘others’ have exhausted themselves and your strength has remained, you may then take them both with less effort than otherwise would have been required.
I believe this is a case where feminists have created a monster and that monster is keenly focused on the feminist. Neither the feminist, nor the trans-activities will be saved from fallout, and it is best for me to conserve my force and press forward without either.
“The enemy of my enemy is NOT (in this case) my friend”.
You are so wrong it’s hard to know where to start.
Radical feminism has always been at odds with both liberal feminism and queer theory. Trans ideology is as opposite of radical feminist ideology as you can get. Trans ideology posits that we have a “gender identity,” whereas radical feminism doesn’t believe in gender, and radical feminists are usually gender abolitionists.
Intersectionality is a feature of liberal feminism, not radical feminism. Now, other aspects of liberal feminism–its lack of class analysis and its neoliberal identitarianism, in addition to its defense of institutions and industries which harm women on a grand scale–are thoroughly rejected by radical feminism; however, intersectionality is not one of them. Intersectionality has always been practiced by radical feminists, who advocate for and help women as a class, especially the women who need help the most; those women tend to be poor, overwhelmingly women of color, mentally ill or otherwise disabled, and in other ways marginalized, as women who are marginalized by more than just their sex are the most disadvantaged by their sex, as well (other axes of oppression and discrimination compound the usual sexism women experience). Admittedly radical feminism has had a problem with listening to nonwhite, non-neurotypical, or working class women; it’s had a problem with lifting up their voices. This is something that is still being worked out among radical feminists and which has long been acknowledged, and it’s something that’s a problem in every social justice group, as intersectionality applies to far more than just feminism (for example, Black Lives Matter has had a sexism problem, which to the credit of some of its chapters and members has been addressed, as well). Intersectionality is, at base, a useful concept for naming the particular form of discrimination and oppression a person might face for having overlapping categories of marginalization and disenfranchisement, and that’s all it is. It’s not a prescription for anything but awareness of possible power imbalances in well-meaning social justice movements; it’s a PSA for us to keep an eye out, and to stop centering the default white or male voice in our conversations about justice. It’s not conspiracy that’s out to get anyone, it’s simply a model for describing a phenomenon.
Identity politics, similarly, came out of the work of black feminists and black women involved in civil rights movements in the late sixties, seventies, and eighties. It was about an oppressed class declaring themselves the owners of their own identity, their own narratives, rather than being spoken for and given an identity by the ruling class. Both intersectionality and identity politics have been co-opted and bastardized in the name of neoliberal values, to defend people’s personal preferences, which is far from what they were originally intended for.
Unlike intersectionality queer theory is, at its core, incompatible with radical feminism. It advocates for sex with children, dismisses the damage of rape, and defends the sexual rights of men to use children and women as they see fit. It’s a victim-blaming philosophy that has very little in the way of any coherent vision, as it’s mostly postmodern twaddle, and it reifies gender while dismissing sex, as if to talk about class-based oppression is actually to cause it, and if we just stop talking about it, and deconstruct our entire reality–including the reality of biological sex, and its implications in a patriarchy–then we’d have no more problem. Queer theory thinks playing with definitions is the way to deconstruct harmful constructs. This is not its worse sin, though; embracing gender while denying sex–which undermines women’s ability to organize, or to even correctly name the oppression we experience–in addition to the defense of pedophilia and rape are queer theory’s worst sins. Queer theory has absolutely nothing to do with radical feminism at all, and again, the two camps are at odds with each other.
I hope this helps clear things up for you.
Calabash, I dare say you inhabit a very cloistered and partisan intellectual atmosphere if you believe that “trans ideology is as opposite of radical feminist ideology as you can get.”
I think the argument could easily be made that the trans/queer theorists just took radical feminism’s anti-essentialism a step further, applying it to the biological sex distinction itself.
Anyway, it seems to me the disagreement between the two camps is mainly over strategy.
Do you think I’m wrong about this?
Breathnumber
Do I think you are wrong about this?
Yes, totally
Feminism is the pink KKK. It is a bigoted hate movement just like the real KKK. And just like the real KKK it has plenty of useful idiots. There were People who would say “oh it’s just a community organization” in regards to the KKK. Similarly today we have people going around saying that feminism means equality when if one examines The evidence it most certainly does not. Feminists and more specifically academic feminists believe so much absolute nonsense. And it’s such a high technical nonsense that you have to be really educated to believe this nonsense. Intersectionality is a cult. If you’re feminist you should abandon your hate movement.
@Matthew,
Your logic fails. You say feminists are the new KKK essentially equating hate with feminism, yet you urge them to adandon their hate movement, essentially abandoning their identity as feminists. It would be more constructive to say SOME feminists act like the KKK, and there is no doubt about it. But not ALL feminists agree with their hateful rhetoric. There are a lot of us who write against the Intersectional cult (and yes, it’s a cult). There’s a lot of work to be done to advance women’s rights around the world in areas where women have little or no rights as human beings. I fully agree western women have gone haywire and are only looking for attention since they have no real battles (since they won’t support religious women who are still in the mire of heavyhanded misogyny). Words matter, let’s try to use them constructively.
Well said. I’m a white conservative male, and I really like your reasonable feminist statement here. I agree with you, one can care about marginalization without going full “we here in the West are just SO oppressed” intersectionality victimhood obsession as many on the Left have. Have you ever read stuff from Medium? It’s literally “omg I’m sad, I’m the most oppressed person in the world” fauxlectualism. It’s good to know there are reasonable feminists out there.
@Susanna, ” (since they won’t support religious women who are still in the mire of heavyhanded misogyny)”
Are you alluding to catholic religious women? As I used to be a catholic religious woman for a period of time, I can tell you straight out that religious women, except for a few, do not want any “help” from feminists. Why? It is because the feminist movement is seen as a hate group that has no Christian values and in fact for the most part is quite anti-Christian. You seem to think that women religious need rescuing from the “misogynistic” leadership when in fact women religious can take care of themselves. They are not the downtrodden masses feminists believe they are.
One of the main reasons as well that women religious do not need any help from feminists nor want it, is that they are opposed to abortion. Since that is the one issue that feminists will never negotiate on, that is why WR will not accept nor partake in the feminist movement. There are other ways besides pussy hats and rallies headed by disgustingly immoral harpies for WR to address any needs they want to change. They follow something bigger than the trash coming from feminists.
“There’s a lot of work to be done to advance women’s rights around the world in areas where women have little or no rights as human beings. “
If only that is what you guys were doing! Strange how so many victim feminists, especially Christian ones, have embraced Muslim patriarchy while raging against Western patriarchy. But fighting real female oppression around the world would get you guys killed. Better to shame and write about it. Lol.
You’ve been exposed to too much Bolshoi history (or post-90s Buckley-ite history which is almost the same thing).
Reconstruction was an absolute cluster-f**k. A complete and total break down of order as was anticipated by southerners before the War. More African Americans, up to one million, died of disease and starvation while under Union Army supervision than at any time before or since. There was, in reality, no true organized political entity to establish order and no operating police force. The South was in a state of anarchy for years.
As with the Wild West, vigilante groups took over the administration of ‘justice’ in the absence of an functioning government and the KKK was one such group. Whites and blacks alike were targeted, mostly for the commission of crimes or at least the accusation of having committed crimes. Both races were punished or lynched and in approximate proportion to today’s crime differentials. Were there political murders? Yes. Were blacks disproportionately targeted for political murders? Probably. Were political murders the dominant cause of punishment? No.
Feminists might be vigilantes of a sort but not much like the KKK. For one thing explaining the KKK era as ‘hate’ is mindlessly reductive in a particularly ‘current year’/ Bolshoi sort of way and would have gotten you laughed off the stage at any time where those with first hand knowledge were still around to correct you. Always be suspicious of historical memes that only first appear after those with first hand knowledge are dead or in their dotage.
Fuck off you misogynist idiot.
@xina08 Why do you even bother leaving responses? “Kill yourself.” “Fuck off you misogynist idiot.” You are clearly a semi-sentient angry simian fool. Why even waste words? Just piss off. Seriously. Just piss off.
@xina08
Would you like to borrow my penis and be a man for a bit ? Or is it easier to scream nonsense like a fool ?
Yes, it is clear you do not understand what the word liberal means. Intersectionality is not compatible with liberalism, as liberalism is focused on the freedom and rights of the individual. Intersectionality on the other hand is a theory for simplistic bigots who want to split the world into groups, pretend those groups are homogenous, and then act on their own prejudices to treat people as part of that group regardless of their individual circumstances.
Err, do you realize how ridiculous you sound? I realize that I may not be intellectually up to the standard of other posters here (I’m still constructing my PhD thesis), but would it be misogynistic to suggest that this whole thing smacks of the emperor’s new clothes? I find it hard to laugh through my tears. But thanks for clarifying the matter.
Well articulated … those attacking JB are demonstrating a wilful lack of knowledge and ignorance about RF. All that crap about ‘ being hoisted on ones own petard’. Facts matter…when men use vile profanity at women it has only one purpose ‘control’ then resort to physical attack and then blame the woman for their loss of control, it’s all Classic male pattered verbal and physical abuse laced with gross misogyny.
Only cowards blame women, when their own. Behaviour is at fault and their fake outrage is bolstered by irrational allies that believe with their Queer ideology they can create a seismic shift that crashes the Overton Window….maybe to a slight degree, but full on access?
@ Laix Khan
Thank you for providing a perfect example of the problem. Rather than deal with reality, which is Bindel and her tormentors are the same sort of people arguing over different things, you launched into an ignorant sexist screed where reasonable observation and conclusion is dismissed out of hand due to your own prejudices. You then have the gall, due to your painful lack of ability to interpret reality through anything other than your sexist feminist lens, to accuse others of your own obvious deficiencies. Ignorant bigots who are so lacking in intellect that they think they are good people, such as yourself and Bindel, are a big part of the problem we now have in society. And what Bindel is suffering is what bigots like she and you have made others suffer. I would be happy for both her tormentors and the pair of you to disappear, as you are all the same ilk.
Laix Khan,
Concealed carry is the great equalizer. (Wink)
@Calabash
The feminists idea that there’s no difference between genders is of course rubbish. The idea that a person can change his or her gender is also rubbish.
If a person truly believed that they were a bird or a fish, you would hope that someone would help them get over their delusion. You wouldn’t want (I hope!) to see people grafting on feathers or scales to their bodies and then telling them to try jumping off a cliff, or for them to go and try breathing water.
The way that people with gender confusion are exploited today is disgraceful. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.
You can call me all the names you like; but that doesn’t change the fact that the emperor has no clothes on. Your gender is a scientific fact; not an opinion.
Identity politics is also rubbish. Groups don’t suffer; individuals suffer, and everyone suffers in different ways. You have no idea how a person has arrived at their point in life just by looking at the color of their skin, or their gender, or the way they talk. The first step down the road of violence is to dehumanize your opponent. Identity politics is all about stripping the ‘other’ of his or her humanity and focusing only on the accidents of their birth. Once you convince yourself that ‘the other’ is less than human, there’s nothing you are not prepared to do to them. History is rife with examples.
This makes sense to me, but what do I know – I’m just a “terf”. Trigger alert: Men are not Women. Deal with it!
@xina08 ‘Trigger alert: Men are not Women. Deal with it!’ You really are an angry feminist caricature. Get laid. It genuinely does help. 🙂
@AmyFibian – @xtina08 is just displaying classic GC feminist behavior in the wild. Don’t tone police her! j/k
This is a great example of the way GCers engage with people online when they aren’t trying to make themselves look respectable in mainstream outlets. When commenters respond in kind to the aggressive tone and insults, GC radfems claim they are being unfairly harassed. Many of them are provocative and openly hateful like this and they can’t figure out why some people don’t jump to their support? Truly a mystery….
Sounds like all the stupid ideas were divvied out equally among the several feminist factions.
@Simon H Amen brother.
Simon H – Exactly. Gender is a social construct. No wait, it’s not!
Honestly @SimonH – that was my thought as well. I mean isn’t this the same woman who wrote that she’d put all men in concentration camps….
Over the years I’ve read all sorts of men-are-evil (or toxic or whatever) propaganda from self described feminists, that watching these folks get served a plate of similar treatment is in some ways rewarding. Many of us from across the political spectrum have been saying for years that silencing critics, closing debate, not giving men an equal seat at the “gender rights table”, using violence and blind hysteria, and so on was going to come around and bite them in the ass when their number was up. And sure enough, we are seeing it happen today. We are seeing “TERFs” lose job prospects, we are seeing them being shouted down, etc. There is a lot of sour grapes in the paragraphs written in this article.
That said, I don’t condone the violence she experienced. The feminists and their ilk were [and are] wrong to employ violence for the last 20+ years. They were [and are] wrong to shutdown debate and discussion and demand that speaking invitations be rescinded. They were [and are] wrong to get people kicked out of jobs, conferences, meetings, and discussions if they don’t share ideological purity. Unfortunately, I’m guessing that many [most?] feminists don’t even see the irony. They have after all perfected the art of playing the perpetual victim.
Well, it’s not rewarding, it’s ironic. But it’s not rewarding; will it be rewarding when liberals get kicked off social media because it’s been happening to conservatives? No, it’ll still be terrible, we’ll just have company.
‘Unfortunately, I’m guessing that many [most?] feminists don’t even see the irony. They have after all perfected the art of playing the perpetual victim.’ This is correct. These angry, manhating loons have gotten their own mad way for so long they have forgotten that what they spew is utter bullshit without foundation, and seem inordinately surprised and confused and angry when this is pointed out to them. They can’t handle the cognitive dissonance and freak out. Julie Bindel is a manhating cunt. let’s face it. Fuck her, and her hateful kind. Making a career out of sexist hatemongering and dividing men and women, cos she’s gay and doesn’t need men and wants more pussy for herself. Arsehole.
@ Amy Fibian
Gosh, a bit strong Amy, but I loved every word of it. Thank you.
I, like previous posters above, just want to sit back, popcorn, laugh and enjoy the show (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha). Julie Bindel you’re reaping as you’ve sown. Play games with satan and you’re going to get fried. You’ve got to love their woke circus. Oops, is my toxic masculinity showing? Who cares, I’m still laughing.
Trans women are nothing more than boys in drag. A male person can take all the hormones he wants, have all the sec-reassignment surgery that makes it hard if not impossible to tell if a person is male or female. BUT, the DNA does not lie; trans women are male and their DNA says so as with trans women – the DNA does not lie. If a trans person stops taking the hormones, that person will return to their natural born state. If a natural born woman or natural born male, who doesn’t take hormones, it won’t matter, they remain as they were born. The DNA doesn’t lie.
So all of this crap the trans women engage in is just that, crap. Their efforts to silence natural born women is shameful and nothing more than hate. Trans women who harm natural born women by violence are little more than the boys in drag beating up a women. I hope they are arrested and charged with assault and put in jail where they belong.
Unfortunately it really isn’t that simple. I know a man who was once a woman. She was a very bad at being a woman. She didn’t understand or relate to them. She tried being a lesbian but had this problem, lesbians were still women and thought and acted in ways that seemed alien to her. The only people she felt comfortable with were men, as they were the ones that thought and acted the way that came naturally to her. And she fit in, often being mistaken for a young man or teenage boy, while not even doing anything to look like one. She had short hair, but nothing that would have seemed out of place on a more feminine woman.
So she transitioned. It was a long hard process, and he didn’t spend any time being an activist or demanding that others conform to his reality. He just went through the operations, took the hormones, hit the gym, and rebuilt a life where most people only knew him as just that.
And ai think this is what most trans people want to be, just normal people. I believe these flamboyant outspoken people screaming about how others need to conform to them hold no interest and are in fact resented by most trans people. They don’t want this drama, they just want to live their lives. They don’t want to tell everyone what they are or who they used to be. They want to be like everybody else, and fit in like everyone else, without this perpetual nagging feeling that something in their life is wrong all the time.
Fully agree with this statement. My wife knows someone who transitioned to a woman and has, and still faces, terrible abuse for it. But this person just wants to get on with their life, not tell others that they have a right to a woman’s safe space or bathroom just because they say they are a woman.
The vast majority of loud, obnoxious bullies just seem to be those who want a cause to fight and to be on the ‘right side’. They should be shouted down as the facists they are
There are many women who prefer the company of men to women and feel more comfortable around men then women. That doesn’t make them men. And there are butch lesbians and they dont’ act very femininely at all in my experience and dress like men. I’ll respect any adults wishes to live as they please however I will resist any and all efforts to try to codify into law the idea a man can decide to be a woman or vice versa and poof they magically are and its against the law or a crime to say differently.
I find it curious that she says she is being misunderstood and she doesn’t hate trans people… like those horrible Christians and men, who are actual haters.
Hmmm… no, it’s not even possible that she misunderstands them, the way she’s claiming to be misunderstood.
Only SHE deserves the benefit of the doubt. Everyone else is scum.
Exactly. I’M not a bigot, but I still get to say objectively who else is. She completely misses the point.
Yes, exactly as i see it too.
Terfs vs. RadFems is like the Iran-Iraq war. Best of luck to both sides!
Handbags at dawn! :p
I can hear millions of traditional, family-minded women lamenting of feminists: “That’s why [she] wanted to hurt me: for being a woman who opened [my] mouth.” This is what you get from feminists when you are a female and not a feminist.
I will bet that you have benefited from all the changes women have experienced over the last 50+ years due to the feminist ‘agenda”. Benefits like voting, jury participation, ownership of property, fairer child support and divorce laws, improvements in wage and salaries, opportunities for career and promotions at work, inheritance laws that treat women equally, improvements in resolution of domestic violence issues, reproductive freedom, etc. Women like you always take advantage of the work of others to benefit yourselves, then denigrade others for doing the work. I suggest you get grateful and just plain growup.
You elected Donald Trump who bragged on tape about using his fame to get away with sexual assault. 15+ women came forward when he tried to claim he was only joking.
The only comeback you have is to say “Well after he was elected Bill Clinton cheated on his wife… and he got accused by a woman who did so by contradicting previous statements under oath”.
Shame on you. You put a flat out abomination in the White House and sent a message to women everywhere that YOU DON’T CARE how many women he gets away with groping.
History will remember you as the people who sold their souls to win an election where most of the votes went to Hillary… and you had the nerve to claim “the people have spoken” when the people wanted someone besides Trump.
We will cleaning up your mess for a long time. And we will never ever let you forget the shame of what you did.
Trump said when you are a celebrity, women let you grab them. As we learnt with #MeToo, that’s just how Hollywood works. Women offer sexual services in exchange for career prospects. They go in expecting that. There are films about this going back decades.
I find that much less disturbing than Bill Clinton’s rape of Juanita Brodrick and exploitation of a 22 year old intern. Hillary’s victim shaming is much more disgusting, particularly from someone running on her gender.
Luckily, we elect Presidents not Popes, so squeeky clean moral character isn’t necessary. Many women thought Trump was better overall, even if they didn’t like his personal history with women. It is also impressive that despite the media’s best efforts, they never got a credible accusation of assault they could harp on (as you know they would, if they could).
Stephanie, facts are never important to people with TDS. I’m with you, I voted for a man that would never be the DC insider. I wanted a man with actual business expertise.
Feminists offer nothing to working class women. We already worked both in and out of the home long before feminism. Sleeping with men I didn’t care for was empty and soulless. I knew that all feminists stood for was way off. I was even stupid enough to leave my infant with my mother while I worked. The feminists never told me I’d cry in the restroom during breaks for missing my baby. I can’t imagine if I left my child with a total stranger. No wonder so many young adults still act like adolescents well into their thirty’s. Strangers watching over them. smh
I’ve been with the same man married and together over forty years. The love of a good man will always win over a bunch of cats. Trust me.
Robin, appreciate your comment. I had children late in life. I had a stellar career that required traveling. After my first, I had to be away a week. I had dinner one night on that trip with an older very successful woman. She found out I had a 6 mo old baby. She point blank asked if I saw the baby’s face everywhere. I was stunned because I did. She said, I wish I had a do over. I would have stayed close to home.
I considered it good advice. And did just that. No regrets!
@Noneyo, I disagree. (I’m a woman, before I go on.) Trump spoke to a man ten years ago in what he thought was in confidence and bragged how, when you’re rich, women throw themselves on you and you can just have sex with whoever you want. It’s crude and gross yes. But I didn’t read his comment as assault although I see how it can be read that way if you already hate him. He wasn’t stating, “I have walked around assaulting women.” He was saying, “Women throw themselves on me cause I’m rich and all I have to do is reach out and take ‘it.'” I was recently at a Siicon Valley billionaires birthday celebration, and the Democrat guy sang a song about how awesome it is that women throw themselves on him for sex (he was recently divorced). Everyone laughed and clapped. Democrats and Republicans alike do this –why do you think beautiful young women marry wealthy older men? Why are there groupies? Trump was stating an ugly fact.
I was an adult when clinton’s behavior with Lewinsky et al came out and I well remember how Hilary attacked the female accusers (“bimbos”) and Bill lied, and the media at the time repellently covered for them, gleefully slut shaming Lewinksy, who was only 22 to the world’s most powerful man. The message was very clear then and I found it disgusting at the time, even though I then voted Democrat, particularly as I’m a sexual abuse survivor. What I learned as one is that people care very much about power and their own connections to the accuser as opposed to the crime itself–my father was a well respected doctor with many friends. People cared much more about his reputation and their own friendship with him, and twisted themselves into knots defending him and attacking me. It is far easier to believe I”m delusional and hysterical than to believe that the man they thought they knew was a pedophillic rapist. For Democrats who supported clinton and who gave their ‘side’ power, it is far easier to pretend clinton’s behavior was ‘cheating on his wife’ as opposed to supporting his multiple victims.
Ask yourself: Why are you so livid about Trump’s sexist bragging (when he wasn’t a political figure then) but not clinton’s predatory harassment and accusations of rape as a political representative? Why do you excuse this as merely ‘cheating on his wife’ – imagine for one moment Trump getting blow jobs in the oval office with a 22 year old intern, and his wife calling her a ‘bimbo,’ and be honest about your reaction – and ignore the accusations of literal rape? If you are anti-sexism, then you would be anti-sexism no matter who committed the action. But you are not. Ask yourself why.
Sorry but you don’t get the moral high ground here. I have no love for Trump, but to the objective observer Hillary was no better. And once the Democratic Party embraced identity politics then they became the morally worse alternative.
I understand you won’t agree with this, but I hope to at least make you understand that the people you oppose are not evil caricatures. That they are human beings who made their own moral judgements, and that there was enough deficient with what the Democrats were proposing that even if not seen as good, Trump could absolutely be seen as the lesser of the two evils.
@noneyo Yeah see this is exactly how we got here. Make sure you don’t ask yourselves how you lost hearts and minds, just keep shaming them. People love to be shamed, right? Well you’re shaming them into a loyal brotherhood while you eat your own, this is a perfect recipe for Trump Term 2.
“Donald Trump who bragged on tape about using his fame to get away with sexual assault.“
English isn’t your first or even second language is it? Next time request an interpreter before posting.
Bill Clinton was a rapist and serial predator. Hillary used her power to intimidate Juanita Broderick for years. Hillary was the worst form of enabler- she used her power to actually intimidate his victims. That’s post modern feminism for you. The MSN protected her for decades so people like you would be ignorant.
” Hillary was the worst form of enabler- she used her power to actually intimidate his victims. That’s post modern feminism for you. The MSN protected her for decades so people like you would be ignorant.”
They still do. How many articles are written about Hillary’s morally corrupt position have been written compared to articles written praising her attributes? Bill Clinton sexually assaulted women. There’s plenty of evidence to support that. Hillary Clinton worked to protect him and his position.
The Left has never broadly repudiated them, and I suspect won’t till after they are both dead.
Completely agree with you Simon. Bindel is part of the problem, indeed has been instrumental in helping create it.
Over the last few years I have on occasion been in the presence of some mad dog “progressives” whom I could see were just aching to find something evil in anything that anyone said. It didn’t matter if you said the sky was blue, these people could find some way of interpreting your words so as to claim you were racist, fascist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
These self righteous, sanctimonious puritans could only justify themselves by being nasty to others.
Once or twice in the beginning I mentioned the concept of free speech and of being open to debate. But “progressives”don’t think any speech other than the type they approve deserves to be heard. So they just shout over you and get nastier if you try the free speech argument.
I soon learnt that the best way to get back at these people is to tell them that what they are saying is unacceptable and that they need to shut up because they are violent and evil. If they persist, I then shout them down. One or two them tried to assault me, but I managed to send them running.
The whole point is that these people do not understand reason and logic. They have been taught a lot of sophistry about how to detect bigotry and revel in using that “skill” to make themselves feel good. The only way to deal with them is to get offended back at them for denying you a voice. You have to deplatform them, but only in self defence.
This is a tactically questionable response. I remember laughing at Rushdie’s problems with Islamists for the same reason. I was short sighted , seeing his discomfort and indeed fear as little more than ironic and kind of deserved. I was wrong then and you are wrong now. We are all Bindels now.
I guess there’s an awful lot of us feel the same way. Hoist by her own petard. Chickens coming home to roost. What goes around comes around. I don’t believe that she should be no platformed, because I don’t believe in no platforming. But I’m struggling to feel any sympathy. At least Germaine Greer is intelligent. JB is just full of vitriol.
@ Ms Bindel,
I haven’t laughed so hard in forty years, I’ll tell you a tale about why.
Back in the time of the evil patriarchy there were only two genders, every and their was peace and harmony because both had learnt to live in peace and harmony. So much peace and harmony that they reproduced, and created more in their own image.
And then came feminists who destroyed the peace, and encouraged breaking all the negotiations made for thousands of years. They wanted what the other gender had, but without fear of failure. They wanted to break the sacred code. They fought to kill their own babies with no regard of the other genders opinion.
And God said, this is bad for the women, but they will not listen to me, So let the men be women and make the women deal with them???
Still Laughing.
A circular firing squad. As a gentle reminder, Robespierre’s head ended up in a basket as well.
I see your point about Julie Bindel’s radical feminist ideas and would be as critical of them as you are. However, the thing about Bindel is that she is arguing her case in writing, speaking and engaging with others. In other words, she is respectful of the rules of engagement.
Wikipedia: ” A critic of identity politics and what she calls “the emergence of feminist preciousness”, Bindel argued in 2014 that call-out culture had replaced political activism”.
It’s important to distinguish her right to her own extreme ideas and the manner in which she is expressing them. As far as this article goes I’m with her 100% against the noxious woke joke.
Here here. Ms Bindel played the group identity game where one tars and feathers the group for the bad acts of some members (violence becomes “male violence”) and now she doesn’t like where it gets her. Time to cast off your “female ignorance” (as you would no doubt put it) and start being more careful to treat people like individuals instead of representatives of a group who necessarily have to think and act the same and take responsibility for each other. Hard to feel any sympathy for you. Mend your ways.
I’ve been happy to disagree with Julie Bindel so many times in the past but on this I’m more happy to be able to support her. I support free speech, her right to disagree with transgender dogma, and her right to both without the fear of violence.
This is exactly right and needs to be repeated. Feminists have spent the last 50 years claiming that gender and gender roles are social constructs, and that there is no biological basis for sex-specific behavior, preferences, aptitudes and the like. The only thing they haven’t denied is that there are actual physical differences related to the arrangement of our reproductive organs. They’d simply denied all the science that shows there’s a lot more to the differences than that. The trans brigade has now taken them at their word and they don’t like it. Cry me a river “ladies.”
@ Simon.
Took the words out of my mouth. Her opening statements make it clear that she is still very much entrenched in the ideology of identity politics.
“He was deeply offended that I’d been allowed to speak. That’s why he wanted to hurt me: for being a woman who opened her mouth.”
As if the silencing of a woman is somehow a particularly egregious crime because it came from a man (trans or otherwise).
What matters to her isn’t the principle that people shouldn’t be silenced for their opinions. What matters is that a woman was silenced by a man. According to the hierarchy of oppression, that’s not ok.
Well guess what, according to your own intersectionality nonsense, trans women are more oppressed. So take your privilege and suck it up!
Not a hint of realization or self-awareness about the fact that she has become a victim of her own ideology.
You made your cake… now eat it!
well said. It’s like Trotsky or Yagoda complaining about nasty Mr. Dschugaschwili.
It sure seems that a miniscule amount of people have way to much influence in this country, last time I checked. Trans people in this country are .06%, yet the whole country has to bend to their will, want extra rights, not the same rights and frankly that .06 figure seems high. I’ve never even ran into one before. Spare me the “you probably have and didn’t know it” argument, seen plenty on t.v and haven’t been fooled.
Getting tired of this non sense, all these genders and hoe gender is a social construct. NO IT ISN’T, YOU A MAN OR WOMAN, THERE ARE NO OTHER CHOICES, PER SCIENCE!
Hear hear!
Exactly what I was thinking while reading the article. Well put.
You created this monster ladies, now you deal with it.
As someone said wisely: “If a man in a dress is a woman, what does he transition to when he seeks surgery?”
Does a woman not remain a woman if she seeks surgery ?
@Valerie,
The question is: why the need for sugery if a man can declare himself a woman without it? What does a man who says he is a woman transition to? An anatomically correct woman? But then there is a difference between a self-identifying woman, an anatomically correct woman, and a biological woman, something trans theory denies. It all leads to a rabbit hole of “what is a woman?” and this is question trans people won’t answer, because they can’t. If we can simply say, “I am—” we dilute the meaning of the word and the word becomes meaningless. When the word becomes meaningless, so does the whole idea behind the “I am—-” This has been discussed here on Quilette plenty, and if you need additional help, Plato discussed the meaning of words extensively as well.
I strongly dislike Bindel who is , in my opinion, a misandrist, but obviously she should have the right to express her views so this kind of intimidation against her is appalling.
We have to be able to name the truth. This is male violence against women in its new guise. Any MRA can now claim to be a woman and attack women and infiltrate their safe female only spaces with impunity.
MRAs are no different than feminists. Does this mean feminists have been infiltrating make safe spaces with impunity to harass and destroy them? Hmmm, as soon as wrote that it became obvious they have. The real question is why do you hate on MRAs while giving feminist bigots a pass?
Yeah, MRAs don’t actually do that. At least, I’ve never seen an example of a self-identified MRA who has ever done that.
Go and be a slut somewhere else. White power.
Obvious troll is obvious. Do not feed.
Welcome to the pit, Julie. I hope you enjoy being down here with us ‘misogynists’ and ‘nazis’.
Wonderful
There’s no accusation made about trans activists in this article that can’t also be made towards Julie Bindel on a regular basis. Maybe she should reflect on her own behaviour before lobbing stones out of a very brittle greenhouse.
Bindel regularly tries to physically assault trans activists?
She suggested (well, “suggested” is too soft a word–she stated outright) that all men should be put in concentration camps under armed guard until they can learn how to act like human beings.
She’s a huge bigot who has targeted men for a barrage of hatred and fear-mongering for decades, using claims to “women’s marginalization and oppression” as a defence and an excuse.
Now that she’s the target of another “more marginalized and oppressed” group, who are invoking their victim status as an excuse for their hostility and bigotry, she’s crying foul.
I don’t think that’s true. I don’t recall Julie Bindel assaulting trans activists.
@James
It’s not a question of who Bindel has assaulted in the past. It’s a question of does she think assaulting people is appropriate. For her to make the case that assaulting people just because you don’t agree with what they are saying is wrong, she would surely have to start with an apology to all those towards whom she has behaved in exactly the same manner.
But she isn’t saying that. She even complained that the people assaulting her aren’t assaulting the people who don’t agree with her with the same degree of venom, all those religious nuts out there who ‘are the real haters’.
Let’s be clear, she’s not complaining about violence, only violence towards her. I would be quite willing to forgive her if she was saying that she now knows this behavior is wrong, but her ‘it’s okay for me, but not for thee’ arguments are unpersuasive.
Many people who claim to oppose lynchings are really just demanding their turn holding the rope.
Definitely a case of feminism getting bitten in the a** by its own ideology. So, women aren’t the same as men after all, aren’t they? Could it be, then, that they also have different priorities and a different approach to life in general? The answer is YES and yet, each day feminists are promoting their agenda of equality of outcome, quotas and whatever “gaps” they can come up with… trying to make the same what is different, what most of us, men and women alike, love to be different. Sorry, feminists, but you created this monster.
Hear! Hear! I for one am damned good and tired of being attacked for “toxic masculinity,” “mansplaining,” “manspreading,” and any other nasty thing these women can come up with. They’d better be glad that Western men with adequate testosterone exist, else they would be speaking German, or worse, Farsi.
Men occupy 95% of all dangerous, dirty, or physically demanding jobs. The buildings these “woke” femininazis operate out of, the power grid that brings electricity for their little laptops, the pipes that bring their water and take away their poo – all designed and built by men. I’m tired of hearing it. Some pissed-off peckerless man punch you in the face? Well, Sweetie, punch him back! Don’t come to me – my toxic masculinity might offend your delicate sensibilities.
Progressives didn’t really think things through when they reduced gender to the question of what people identify with. If it’s fine to do that to one thing that’s a combination of biology, social role and identity, it’s presumably also fine to do that the other such things, like race.
If I say I’m a proud black man, how do you prove me wrong? You can’t point to my lily-white skin, because that’s a physical trait and the argument would be based on hateful bioessentialism. You could say that I’ve lived my whole life as a member of majority ethnicity in my country, and don’t have any personal experience on how the African minorities live. You could even get woke and say I am, from my privileged position, appropriating an identity of a marginalized group. Except, that’s exactly the line so-called TERFs use on transwomen, and if Western tolerantsia has taught me anything, it’s that TERFs are the lowest form of human filth.
So, join me this year in celebrating Kwanzaa, niggas. And yes, I get to say that, cuz I’m black. Racist haters can just shut it.
@Daath,
Interesting theory. I agree with you that self-identification must for the sake of consistency include race as well, which trans theory denies. But I must say I disagree with your theory that TERF’s argue transwomen appropriate a marginalized group (if they do, they are mistaken), since the question isn’t about appropriation, which can easily be reversed at any time. It’s about the reduction of “woman” to a non-entity that can include any trait. So when trans people talk about “erasure,” they are actually the ones who are erasing women as a category in order to get away with their self-identification which would be impossible if “woman” as a category was immutable.
Trans activists (as opposed to who I consider to be true transgenders, who not only want to be female (or male) but do their very best to blend in with their preferred gender) are sex-addicted power-hungry perverts who have borrowed Alinskyite logic and tactics to force their way into female-only spaces in order to get their kicks. They are the ones who ought to be kicked, knocked and held down, and beaten to a pulp. After a couple of pastings they might get the idea that they are not wanted there. What makes it so horrible is that too many in authority are buying into their insanity out of fear of being considered unwoke and putting millions of women and girls at risk for the sake of a few psychopaths. And they wonder why vigilante justice is getting popular?
Heh heh, I know that several years ago there was a big push on the American right to make “Alinskyite” a thing, but y’all kinda failed on that front. Move on.
Hahahaha, oh (biological) man, that is funny!
As others have said: normally I would fight for anyone’s right to free speech. But feminists have been no-platforming, sometimes violently, men & women trying to talk about men’s issues for years. So instead I’m gonna sit back and enjoy watching feminists get a dose of their own medicine.
TERFs are the worst type of feminist, but that’s just like saying the Gestapo were the worst type of Nazis. (I mean actual WW2 Nazis, not the feminist/Leftist meaning of “Nazi” as “anyone I disagree with”).
If different groups of feminists want to fight each other, including with censorship and no-platforming, then I’ll get myself some popcorn and enjoy the entertainment.
Interesting that the author should be an activist who provides legal help to “women accused of killing violent male partners”, i.e working to condone female violence against males, but complain when someone is violent towards her.
You reap what you sow. No sympathy.
@Closed Range
The key word is “violent.” A lot of women end up killing their violent male partners after years of physical abuse. I assume you’re not a person who would stand idly by if someone took a baseball bat to your head once a week?
Erin Pizzey, the founder of the first shelter for the victims of domestic violence, had to run after getting death threats from the feminists for daring to state that violence is not a gender issue and more than 60% of women in her shelters where themselves violent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey
Susanna,
Nice rhetorical question, which falls flat given that the opposite to “standing idly by” isn’t necessarily murder.
So do men get that excuse too? She was violent to me all this time, but rather than leave I killed her? You’re fine with that?
Feminism = gender (=sex) differences are socially constructed…i.e. sex is socially constructed)
Transactivism = taking that idea seriously
Clash between feminists and tranactivists = hilarious chickens coming home to roost
How about TERFs= trans exclusionary real females?
It’s not like only radical feminists don’t want men in their shower, and the rest are ok with that.
The accusations of -phobia are also interesting coming from people who are so afraid of women’s events they want to cancel them.
@Julia
Touche!
@julia, who wants to cancel them except the transgender folks?
That’s the thing about progress, I guess. Lesbians must be an outdated model. Wonder what they’ll come up with to replace transsexuals?
Lonelymiserablewhiningnonsexuals? (LMWNS to the in crowd)
Multi-gendered (or non-gendered) otherkin. And don’t laugh or you’ll be considered an interspecies bigot!
Shhhh. you’ll anger the dolphin.
For all I know Julie Bindel may have good personal reasons to campaign against male on female violence. Where she loses my support and respect is how she often polarises the debate into criticising all men for everything that upsets her.
And yes, however regrettable, she is experiencing chickens coming home to roost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Bindel
‘When she was 17, Bindel moved to Leeds and joined the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group, which was campaigning against pornography.[11][12] Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, was still on the loose; from 1975 to 1980, he attacked at least 20 women, several working as prostitutes, and murdered 13 of them, in Leeds, Bradford and the surrounding area. Bindel describes being followed home one night in November 1980 by a man with a dark beard and wiry hair. She ran into a pub to get away from him and reported what had happened to the police, who either asked her to complete a photofit or dismissed her.[13] The following day or following week[13] the body of Sutcliffe’s final victim, a 20-year-old student, Jacqueline Hill, was found less than half a mile from where the man had followed Bindel. When Sutcliffe’s photograph was published after his arrest the following year, Bindel realised that her photofit looked almost exactly like him.[14][15]’
She’s been trying to prove she’s not a whore, and fighting this could-have-been attacker, for decades bow, She’s clearly a total nutcase.
‘First they came for the white male…’
Feminists have made it clear that they no longer need men for anything, that they are an impediment to progress and on the wrong side of history. Any attempt to voice their concerns has been labelled ‘mansplaining’ or expressions of toxic masculinity. Now that good men are being sidelines, narcissistic and evil men are taking their place. These are a new breed of men who have been taught that women are superior and are now appropriating the female form to reap the perceived benefits.
When a society neglects its men, sooner or later it will eventually neglect its women.
If I’d been there I would have done my best to protect the author. I agree with feminists when they say that men need to stand by women, but this can only happen once feminists stop berating men and start to truly love them again.
WRT your last graf. I would have, too, but I’d probably have felt bad about it afterwards. Feminists need to carry a card. It’s wallet-sized, on heavy stock, laminated and glows in the dark. When the feminist is in trouble, she gets it out and shows it to passing men. It says, “You know all that stuff I said about men? I didn’t mean it. Really. Truly. Honest.”
“…and so you think strong men are dangerous, just wait until you see what weak men can do.”
-JBP
Preventing people who have different views from speaking is wrong unless they are directly advocating violence or other criminal acts. Violence and intimidation is wrong.
Stating uncomfortable or upsetting views paticualarily when they are views backed by science and logic is not violence and it is dangerous to conflate this with true violence. The idea that gender is unrelated to biological sex is nonsense and it is not possible to truely transition gender.
Having said that Julie Bindel is as unsympathetic figure as you can get for this. She is a extremist bigot who advocates for extreme discrimination against men. She is now being subject to the same treatment as she has supported for decades. I won’t say she deserves it, it is wrong, but it would be nice if she were to apologise for her own dreadful behaviour and support for anti-male bigotry and discrimination rather than pretend she herself has not supported and encouraged exactly the sort of behaviour and ideology she is now subject to.
“Violence and Intimidation is wrong.”
This was true when violence and intimidation had concrete specific meanings. But today the bunch of “wokes” call “violence” even the mere presence of someone they disagree with; and even worse if the person they disagree with dares open the mouth, be ready for holocaust type extermination of that poor soul.
I’m not much involved in this feminazis vs transnazi brohahua for me they can all be packed into a cage a sent to mars or whatever, but I agree with other posters calling this a “chicken coming out to roost” type situation…
As Bill Maher correctly pointed out when the trans protested and banned the “Vagina Monologue” because is “discriminatory to ‘women’ who don’t have vaginas”: he said “you don’t need vagina, you are already a giant p.ssy”. Lol.
Remember those pussy hats at the Women’s March? Yeah they banned them. For the same reason. Crazy.
By the way, can you tell me what the Women’s March was about? I don’t know, and neither do they.
Most of the women I’ve spoken to who are worried about the current anti-female climate aren’t feminists. They’ve never deplatformed anyone, or protested anything and a lot of them were allies of transgenderism until recently. But there are enough issues jumping up to their attention to make them think that perhaps… just perhaps… the issue of self-id needs thinking about. Hampstead Ponds has lost its female only pond, transwomen are increasingly winning in female sport and the pressure to have no female-only spaces increases by the day. That’s without mentioning transwomen in prisons, women-only shortlists and awards and any concerns about ROGD and gay conversion therapy.
I’m a realist: I can’t say that I believe a man can become a woman physically, even through drugs and surgery. I do think there’s a need for female only spaces, for emotional and mental support. I think there’s a need for trans-inclusive spaces as well, for the same reasons. The debate for all women and men is how far those two overlap, a debate that too often gets shouted down as transphobic. Legitimate concerns get wiped off by transallies as bigotry and by men as ‘no more than feminists deserve’.
Women are asking for proper, open, inclusive and polite discussion. They are asking whether one view necessarily is the only ‘correct’ view, or whether in our tolerant society there’s space for everyone, including the women who can’t or don’t want to allow men in. Is that wrong?
Apparently you speak for all women. Congratulations ! When was the election? I must have missed it.
@hyggejem
“in our tolerant society”
Which/what society are you referring to?
“the current anti-female climate ” Kindly describe this. I haven’t noticed it.
Just out of curiosity, how many male only ponds were there? Because if the answer is none then women losing there’s is just the equality they say they want. Indeed, to have a pond specifically for their gender only would have been very privileged.
An insight into a disordered mind. Julie Bindel is a deeply tribal conspiracy theorist, who’s obsessed with gender and lives for conflict.
Guess what ? She’s encountered another set of tribal conspiracy theorists, who are obsessed with gender and live for conflict. What could possibly result ?
I am very suspicious of the recent exposure given to Bindel in the conservative press e.g. the Telegraph or Unherd. I don’t believe this is results from positive motivations on her part or their’s.
Nothing suspicious about it. She wants a platform to speak, they want to sick the crazies on and against each other. The motivations are pretty understandable and even rational. Is it a good idea? Well that’s something else.
I may hate third-wave feminism and intersectionality- but free speech and the right to free enquiry, free from the threat of violence, is a far more important principle of civilisation- I’m a SMURF on this one- smug male urging ‘rights’ feminism.
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OK, everyone, come on. Is this how we welcome someone willing to put herself out there and actually write for Quillette? Does anyone think she’s getting lots of positive feedback from her traditional friends for coming over here? Props to Ms. Bindel for doing this.
Ms. Bindel, it sounds like a horrible experience, and I’m sorry you went through it. There is an obvious connection between the fury of the transactivists and the weakness of their argument. The disorder in their behavior is matched by the disorder in their minds. They are deeply unhappy people who have latched on to an exotic answer to their unhappiness, when the far more likely answer is probably some combination of medications and—well, I would normally say psychotherapy, but psychotherapy seems to have been corrupted.
The Best of Luck to you going forward – on this issue, at least.
100%. Comments have been really disappointing.
New here are you?
Haha a very infrequent visitor BTL
It is not our duty to provide Ms. Bindel with positive feedback. The nearly universal indulgence of schadenfreude among the comments is because Ms. Bindel is an enthusiastic purveyor of a toxic brand of feminist dogma that has contributed mightily to promoting the moral and intellectual degeneracy of the transgender movement. In a word, we cannot help but notice she is injured by the recoil of her own gun.
Naw. You’re just a bunch of incels filled with resentment and hatred of women. Just like trans. Surprise surprise!. You’re male, they’re male.
And you speak from some major degree of ignorance about what feminism is and what Bindel has done. You’re really bringing Quillette down. I know the eds here support free speech, but I’m betting they cringe every time they see your addies. How will they over come the stupid?
@Five eleven.
What would term someone who disregards there sexual identity? And using derogatory terms such as incel go describe those whine you disagree with? Maybe you out to think about this a bit more.
That first sentence should have read: what would you term someone who disregards another person because of their sexual identity? This was in response to xe’s comment about all the commentators being incel and males. Pointing out the irony of this bigoted statement.
Ooooh look! Ignorant shaming language by someone who can’t grasp the point. I’m totally going to change my ways now that an ignoramus who is unable to see another point of view thinks I’m a bad person. Because I respect petulant anti-intellectual emotion based complaints much more than arguments based on reason and logic.
@five eleven
Ad hominem attack: the first refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.
This internet comment board trend of labelling other commenters “incel” is just dumb.
Yes indeed, it reflects a distinct lack of thought. Also, my wife will be quite surprised to learn I am an incel.
It’s not schadenfreude. I don’t feel ashamed in the least about my joy at watching the far left assault the far left. Heck, it was the far left that came up with the idea that speech is violence! Why should anyone be surprised when the far left uses violence in self-defense?
See: http://www.dailycal.org/2017/02/07/violence-self-defense/
See also: Lisa Feldman Barrett, a psychology professor who was given a platform and thus a tacit endorsement by the New York Times, defending the idea of speech as violence. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/opinion/sunday/when-is-speech-violence.html
@A B I dunno – I have mixed emotions on this. Part of engaging in a community where “Free thought lives” is recognizing that you sometimes have an obligation to say, “Gosh – I was wrong. I’ve examined the evidence and recalibrated my thinking.” Bindel’s article just smacks of someone storming into such a community, after years of bashing most of its members (male and female), and screaming, “I’ve been harassed!!! Can you believe it???!??” It sounds like one more complaint in an exhausting litany of complaints that feminists have had with men over the decades.
My response isn’t so much “Serves you right!” as it is “Meh…whatevz, lady.”.
I have no problem with her writing. She is free to write. I am free to laugh as she is hoisted by her own petard. Every body speaks freely and no one is hurt. Sounds ideal.
She’s yet another far left activist who spent her life silencing those with which she disagreed – and now that she’s hoist by her own petard, she comes crying to a free speech platform because nobody else will touch her.
I have been reliably informed right here in Quillette comments to previous articles that only racists and Nazis claim free speech protections. So which is Bindel?
Thank you! First sensible comment on this thread. As a newcomer to Quillette, and as someone with mostly liberal/Democratic leanings who has recently begun to depart in crucial ways from typical liberal positions on key issues, I’ve been finding much of the previous commentary a serious turn-off. Silly, factually wrong, hysterical anti-feminism, and a certain amount of actual glee at the violence this woman encountered. Ick.
I’m with you that it takes a certain amount of guts for someone like her to publish in Quillette to begin with. It’s definitely not going to warm the hearts of her pals or win over anyone else on the liberal side, who are just lost to reason when it comes to the whole transgender discussion. There’s risk for anyone making basic, true statements about transgenderism (e.g. men can’t turn into women). If we want to have a meaningful impact on this debate, we should support folks who are willing to say these things, not trash them.
Transgenderism is based on the idea that appearance instead of biology is what makes a person male or female, which is perfectly in line with traditional views of gender, not feminist views. TERFS simply believe that sex is biologically determined, not something you wear or personality.
ElynnKy, that sex is biological is a scientific fact. Only the trans/queers and supporters believe it is a social construct. It is why theyre called a cult.
Taking pleasure at this seems very easy but very short sighted. If society as a whole is to move beyond the worst manifestations of identitarianism then it will need the whole of society to do so. That means calling out violence such as this, and supporting the victim here which is Bindel.
Bindel is not the victim. Bindel is the problem. If she was rejecting the thought process behind what is happening to her it would be one thing. But she is not. She’s just whining that what she do s to others is happening to her. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
By speaking she was doing violence to the trans community. This means violence is justified in response. Words can harm people as much as sticks and stones can, the argument goes, so slights, insults, and even intellectual debate that harms victim groups should be treated just like violence – authorities should prevent it, and when they fail to do so, activists should use violence to stop it themselves.
That’s what’s happened here, and Bindel and her ilk backed it all the way.
This is utter madness, this is regressive, where are all the 30/40/50 year old women/men transing? Where are the TransMen demanding access to men’s bathrooms and prisons? These people need HELP and LOVE and not immediate AFFIRMATION, HORMONES, etc…Shame on all of us for not standing up for reason and logic especially those in power like doctors/psychiatrists, etc…This is madness!
“Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways.”
Julie Bindel
Call me old-fashioned Julie but here’s an older quote…
As you sow, so shall you reap. Galations, VI
Suck it up Julie! Spare me your crocodile tears. You don’t get to set the house on fire then complain that is burning and fire hurts. Jeez what next? Going to call for a return of the Patriarchy to protect someone as empoered as you? LoL
This is probably the best article I have read in a decade!
LMFAO!!
I’m not very informed on any of the issues brought up in the article or the comments, but I do believe everyone has a right to be heard as an invited speaker. Heard and listened to. No one deserves the heckler’s veto nor especially to be physically attacked.
Suck it up, Bindel. For decades you and your ilk have spewed hatred at anyone who believes traditional values have merit and should not be summarily destroyed.
Now the ideology you championed is applied to YOU, and you come to Quillette to whine about it.
Zero. Sympathy.
Fact check
1. It is what is between your ears not your legs that defines who you are.
2. Transgenders are not men or women
3. Transgenders are human beings like everyone else just born different
4. You are what you are and other people are who they are.
5. Men have penis
6. Women do not a penis.
7. Attacking woman who say women do not have a penis is a hate crime against women
8. Heterophobia is a hate crime just the same as homophobia.
9. Psychopaths will always seek power to dominate and control others through hate and division
A reminder of Ms Bindel’s views:
“All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot,”
“I mean, I would actually put them all (men) in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans,” “I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.”
“I hope heterosexuality doesn’t survive”
She should have the right to expres her views free from threats of violence despite teh disgusting nature of those views.
What is perhaps most profoundly depressing is that it was not these shocking views which caused the protests and abuse directed at her but much more moderate views about the essentially biological nature of womanhood. No one really cared when she suggested men should be locked up and shot or that all heterosexuals ceased to exist.
You know, it’s not just the intense hatred, the hypocrisy, the complete divorce from reality that feminism the ideology espouses. I think it appeals to folks who are psychologically damaged. Severe narcissists, apathetic and psychopathic.
I find it odd so many find it appealing. I suppose there is nothing quite like finding an ideology that says your not responsible for anything and you are a perpetual victim. It’s awfully convenient actually… particularly for the intellectually lazy.
And yes there is the fact the Bindel, Solanis, de Beauvoir, etc. are treated as heroines by their movement. It speaks volumes about female nature and in particular their lack of morality. One of the key pillars of which is reciprocity. They whine extra hard when they get a taste of their own medicine.
Cry me a river Bindel!
You are so stupid. It’s called “taking the mickey”.
@AJ
Why the vehicles? Because men really like vehicles?
Ms. Bindel resorts frequently to the term “misogyny “ to describe those who disagree with her views on transgenderism. I think the word is inadequate. I prefer such terms as “demented”, “lunatic”, “disturbed”, “delusional”, “intrinsically disordered”, “objectively dysfunctional”, “manifestly irrational”…well, you get the idea. I wonder if it might ever dawn on Ms. Bindel that it is the deep philosophical confusion of modern feminism that has allowed the camel’s nose of the transgender movement under the tent.
Ms. Bindel resorts frequently to the term “misogyny“ – I counted. Five times on this blog. She needs to expand her vocabulary.
Schadenfreude is not always an unhealthy emotion. I try to suppress it most times. Not this time.
Get all the cosmetic surgery you want. But you’re never going to change sexes. Just like ‘lizard man’ (Erik Sprague ) isn’t a lizard no matter how much body-modifications and tattoos he gets.
As for feeling sorry for this sorry excuse of a human, but it’s just not possible. Not to a person who believes men should be locked up in concentration camps and that heterosexuality shouldn’t exist.
It’s Time for Everyone to Protect Sanity Instead of Julie Bindel.
TERFS, SWERFs, TIRFs… it’s the RF that’s the problem.
Another big mouthed loud feminist showing her deep capacity for empathy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvByTdMXlPM&has_verified=1
Allow me to offer you the same advice…
Cry me a river Bindel!
“Had it not been for the three burly security guards surrounding me, I would have been punched.”
Just to be clear, of course these burly guards were wimin. Bindel would not call on Patriarchy to protect her, would she? In fact, any male who ever offers to help wimin in any situation whatever is guilty of the crime of Patriarchal condescension no? And no true feminist would ever ask for such help anyway because she is Wonder Woman and needs no help from the Oppressor, yes?
Beautiful, Ray.
Dear author, I’m certain I don’t agree with many of your views personally. I however support your right to have the opportunity to speak and engage with people in good faith and peaceably. I mean that in complete sincerity.
If you find a method of preventing particular groups of people who appear to have the latest moral high ground from “de-platforming” you, please let us know.
P.S A bit of forewarning, we will use these same mechanics against you, if successful, when you inevitably try to “de-platform” others.
P.P.S Please don’t use the “I’m the real victim” technique as it does not appear to work nor is same available to certain classes of peoples. The victims are the people trying to “de-platforming” you.
P.P.P.S My heartfelt and genuine acknowledgment of your problem is all I’ll ever give you as the likelihood of you reciprocating any actual action to prevent the “de-platforming” of other people is zero.
P.P.P.S Don’t you think it strange that you, in a manner of speaking, now seek refuge and support from a base of people whose vested interests you sought to prejudice at one stage? Maybe at one point you were just trying to have a discussion but eventually fell into bad faith.
P.P.P.S Perhaps this is a moment of introspection for yourself and you could acknowledge that classes of people have competing vested interests and we should understand that constantly espousing one particular sex, race or any other persons potential challenges can at times be alienating and unconstructive?
The other day I encountered the dreaded sign outside the locker room at my local YMCA: It is a “human right” to use the locker room that corresponds to your gender identity or expression.
There go my rights, I thought. Now I’m uncomfortable.
Bully for you, “trans” person.
This coming from someone who’s had a trans friend or two (some were the gender ambiguous who didn’t make a federal case out of it back in the early 90’s, but preferred — and I mean PREFERRED to live on the fringes.) The one self-identified trans friend — M to F– was clearly mentally ill, irrational, a pathological liar, and prone to inciting violence. She died young, with grieving accolades from friends far and wide, virtue signaling their adoration for what amounted to a nasty person, honestly.
So even “acceptance” can’t stop the mentally ill from going down the tubes as fast as their anger and delusion can carry them.
Sure, I can find empathy for them, but clearly it doesn’t work the other way. Hence my contempt for people with whom I once “identified.”
But I digress.
Penises belong in the penis room, even if that penis is clothed in a dress. Vaginas in the vagina room. Yes, after you get your surgery, you can access the female space, although we will all know it’s not REAL just by looking at you.
There lies the irony. A huge part of this affliction is the need to control how others see you. But you can’t compete with the uncanny.
The very idea that more people should suffer discomfort in order to alleviate the discomforts of a delusional minority has to be one of the most irrational phenomena in all of human history. I still can’t wrap my brain around how this happened.
@Blackberry Blackberry
It started innocently enough with PC — just politely pretending to believe things you know aren’t true but which all nice people wish were true (eg. that women are as likely as men to be mathematical geniuses). But then polite pretending stopped being sufficient to signal virtue — one had to demonstrate one’s commitment to the imaginary. This is wokeness — when PC must be acted on, not merely mouthed (so there must be as many women teaching advanced mathematics as men).
So whereas previously it was sufficient to admire the emperor’s new clothes, we must now take those clothes to the cleaners and have them repaired and ironed and laid out and help the emperor get dressed — and it all gets very difficult to sustain continuity because of course the clothes don’t exist. Eventually it gets too complicated to sustain and it will all come crashing down but for the moment we carry on. Correctness remains our state religion and wokeness is our agenda. Nothing is more virtuous (for now) that devoutly believing that one is whatever gender one wants to be.
@Ray Andrews.
Your ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ analogy is very well put. Kudos.
“The very idea that more people should suffer discomfort in order to alleviate the discomforts of a delusional minority has to be one of the most irrational phenomena in all of human history. I still can’t wrap my brain around how this happened.”
Thank you. A brand new high school principal, 6 years ago, saw a male student exiting the female restroom. He called him out asking why he was in there. He was fired. Career ruined. All because no one told him they had been looking the other way for one guy out of 1800 students for a year.
I do not believe that I am a vindictive man, but when the immortal gods take a hand in the matter it is pardonable to observe the result with complacency © Somerset Maugham
This is what happens when the lunatics are allowed to run the asylum, but the lunatics are clearly using the feminist playbook to take down “oppressive” obstacles to their “equality”, and the author is clearly chagrined to find out that she is deemed to be one of the obstacles.
“The event at which I’d appeared was called Women’s Sex-Based Rights. It focussed on the threat to women-only spaces and organizations posed by gender activists…”
There was once a time when there were many male-only spaces, organizations, and occupations, but radical feminists have attacked each and every one of them for being exclusionary, including female journalists who insisted they needed to get into male locker rooms to do their jobs. Men (and “traditional” women) who fought back against the female intrusions into male “safe spaces” were labeled sexist dinosaurs or worse, and when such opposition was overcome by popular pressure or court order, the feminists started to attack the male members of these now integrated clubs for not making women members comfortable. It seems these men often told sexist jokes and stories, slapped each other on the butt, engaged in heavy drinking, had sexy girl calendars on the wall, and they had the audacity to continue these practices even when women were present. Furthermore, sometimes the men slapped a woman’s butt, or looked at them with a lecherous manner, or even asked them out on dates, but almost never asked women with sufficient vigor and frequency for their inclusion into business deals or investments or other networking stuff that would lead the female members to fame and fortune they sought in joining the men’s clubs and organizations. Therefore, it became the feminist mission to make sure male members started acting more like women in order to make the females feel welcome, safe, and equal in any former male only bastions.
And now for the first time ever, (former) males (aka transwomen) want to join/invade women-only spaces and organizations, and any feminist who opposes is labeled transphobic or even physically attacked by “women” who tend to be bigger and stronger than they are, and feminists are unhappy about this course of events. Boo Hoo – thy shall reap what thy sows.
Never has so much ink been spilled about so few. “Transgenders” are estimated to be AT MOST 0.04% of the population. Many revert to their natural sex later, 41% supposedly commit suicide. This leaves a MINISCULE number of people making a very outsized noise. Why do we pay so much attention? Writers especially should STOP calling themselves “cisgender.” Given the relative numerical proportions, I think it’s quite safe to assume everyone we meet is “cisgender,” as it’s been since forever. Not likely to hit many unicorns with your truck, either!
Militant “feminists” are probably also less than 5% of the population, though I have no citations for proof. Outside of the recent media noise machine, I’ve never met one in 60 years. Again, why are we letting looney-fringe “groups” dictate our cultural mores? Are we that insecure in our OWN beliefs and lifestyles?
Remember that any fool with a FB page today can declare themselves a “group.”
As Saul Alinsky so aptly put it: the squeaky wheel gets the grease. No groups are squeakier than a feminists, transgenders, or homosexuals.
The squeaky wheel is greased by money. A whole lot of money. Money needed to pay for multiple operations, clothing, physical therapy and psychotherapy, and oh yes, lots and lots of drugs. Very expensive drugs. Paid for by, guess who? You, the taxpayer. And amazingly, a good bit of that money comes back to the politicians who vote for these lunatic policies via campaign contributions, lucrative memberships on NGO boards, etc. etc.
There are some very wealthy people who have been financing this charade. The Pritzker thing, for one. And now its cousin is governor of Illinois. It’s not looking good for the Land of Lincoln.
Oh here’s that Alinsky bullshit again. Give it a rest. “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” has been, at least in the US, a common expression for over one hundred years.
Sparkles – you are correct that the expression is old, but it also summarizes almost totally the Alinsky playbook, so I’ve saved you having to read his bullshit.
‘Writers especially should STOP calling themselves “cisgender.”’
I make a point of it to never speak or write the “cis” designation except as criticism of its use or existence. It is a truly stupid contrivance.
Seriously tho:
“They can still pretend to be progressive … a symptom of right-wing hate or bigotry … actual haters of transsexuals, such as religious fundamentalists and homophobic bigots.”
Sorry Ms. Bindel but your trannie-positive comrades are indeed progressives. It is you who have fallen behind. You make a brave effort, but trying to blame this on the religious fundamentalists and homophobic bigots is not going to fly even in this post-fact world of ours. No, the Bigots oppose both trannie madness and your misandry and hatred of all that is natural and normal. As others have pointed out, you created this monster. Even now you continue to wield the same magic words that have been turned against you: BIGOTS! you shout. But a Bigot is anyone who opposes the latest wokeness and that, right now, is you. Please stew in your own poison, bigot.
BTW, having written for Quillette is a crime for which you comrades are unlikely to forgive you. You have consorted with the enemy. You have appealed to reality. I think your career as a feminazi is over. I’ll have a cloud macchiato double frappucchino grande, thank you miss.
Excellent point!
Nothing is more ruthless than a feminist on the warpath and Bindel has crossed over… now what did they do to Errin Pizzy for daring to suggest that domestic violence was reciprocal and that women were as much prone to violence as men?
Lets see… they sent her death threats, boycotts, got her banned from the refuge she started and shot her dog. Ultimately they forced her to flee her home in the UK.
Do you hear that Bindel? It’s your playbook after all and they are coming for you!
If you do have to resettle in North America could I suggest the West Coast? The weather is nice, the people are very left wing and you would be far, far away from me! Ideally it would be great if you and another nut job could be confined to Mar A Largo but I suspect you won’t get along. Other than that go even further West and explore the Australia and New Zealand options. Lots of employment opportunities in the food services industry or you could even work as an exotic dancer in a nightclub! (Perhaps not the latter…it requires pole dancing skills…)
“Follow her on twitter…”
Oh dear. http://archive.is/DALn0
The described treatment of Julie Bindel is a shame.
But it’s a classic Julie Bindel text: Emphasis on blaming men, that’s her mission. Women are at worst cowards (“Many liberals–including feminists and lesbians–have been cowardly in calling out this noxious phenomenon, for fear of being called transphobes.”) There’s no mention at all that lots of feminists are actually buying into the ideology behind those excesses and probably see nothing wrong in the attacks on her.
Chicks with dicks are men.
People born with dicks are men.
And also the actors on some apparently popular web sites …
I really find it hard to muster any sympathy. Feminism elevated womanhood to something sacred, and now different factions are arguing over the one true god, as expected. TERFs and trans activists, both calling each other misogynists, laying claim to Woman.
When it’s a man who gets u-locked in the face, it’s just political violence, but when a woman sticks her neck out and gets flak, it’s violence against women.
It is particularly funny that social constructivists are now finding themselves having to argue why men who biologically transition using hormones are nevertheless not true women.
@Sam,
Actually, you’re referring to the “Eternal Feminine,” a philosophical construct, which feminists set out to deconstruct.
In the words of Dr. Ishiro Serizawa “Let them fight.”
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend. You are against me, yet want me to come to your aid? No thanks, hopefully you’ll take each other out. Modern feminism is cancer.
Sometimes this all sounds like the People’s Front ofJudea fighting with the Judean People’s Front. Only far more authoritarian then Monty Python ever advocated for. Interestingly enough John Cleese had been targeted for ire from this crowd (as has other comedic greats such as Mel Brooks and Rowan Atkinson).
Life of Brian has been banned due to transphobia. The part where Stan wants to be called Loretta and have babies? And Reg calls him an idiot? Yup, it’s gone. Just like Mrs. Doubtfire.
Yes. Right next to Blazing Saddles and The Producers.
What do you mean by “banned”? It’s still available for sale and streaming on Amazon. Words mean something.
It’s socially unacceptable because it promotes transphobia. That Amazon is behind the times is scarcely surprising. Get woke or go broke.
My favorite part is how she can’t stop screaming misogyny long enough to finish demanding that white knights protect her. This is like watching two socially maladjusted bullies pull each other’s hair on the playground. Wake me when science is allowed to discuss the behavioral, preference, and demeanor differences between men and women in a rigorous fashion.
So you call all men as misogynist, sexist, patriarchal, atni-woman, racist, bigot, etc but when you are called back you complain about it?
Sorry but this is your problem. Feminism created this angry environment where one “must have their power back” over “the enemy” (basically, everybody who disagrees with you – mostly men).
They are playing agast feminist using feminist ideology and they are winning over you.
Want another step? A city in California cancelled their Women’s march because “too much white people”.
Another step? Black feminism.
My answer to this: sit and laugh. The left will end eating each other.
I agree with Ms. Bindel’s argument here 100% but Ms. Bindel herself refuses to recognize her own role in enabling this ‘woke misogyny’.
She has spent nearly her entire career supporting women who murdered men, claiming (truthfully or not) abuse. Note that she is not talking about active self-defense, say in the case that a man puts a gun in a woman’s face and threatens to shoot, and she stabs him to stop him. Instead she is talking about a highly sexist view of women and men in which a woman may murder an abusive man, but a man may not murder an abusive woman, nor may a man murder an abusive man, or a woman murder an abusive woman. So her whole career – just to use this one example among many – is spent on an illogical, hate-based legal theory that rests on the assumption that a man is inherently so evil and so powerful compared to a woman that -as though the woman is a slave -the only recourse is to murder him if she wants to leave. Then she is shocked when some very unbalanced men, seeing the methodology she and others use, and the power gained thereby, appropriate it.
I myself was raped by my father for 7 years so I can speak without hypocrisy here when I say the obvious: Murder is always wrong. If I had murdered my father (unless he were in the process of violently raping me) – as opposed to what I did, walk away and cut ties – I would be morally wrong and would not deserve anyone’s defense.
If she wants to be taken seriously, she needs to address this. Otherwise, all this amounts to, “My argument applies to thee, and not to me.”
@d
Good for you, despite your hardship you were strong enough to cope but not everyone is so lucky.
Maybe some don’t agree in long term trauma being taken into account in such cases but many do. Opposing view point doesn’t automatically equate to immortality but resistance to it does.
@Anj, thanks for the reply. I’m not sure what you’re saying? I’m not saying an opposing viewpoint equals immorality; I’m saying murder is always immoral unless in self-defense, but self-defense is already on the books.
I’m not saying I was strong enough to cope either–unless by that you mean I was strong enough not to murder my father? I don’t see that as strength. I do have long term trauma. Wouldn’t anyone in my case? This trauma is not, however, an excuse to murder someone, particularly when trauma is applied based on sexism (ie, if you’re a woman who is abused it is defensible,but if you’re a man who is abused, it is not; or if you’re a woman who is abused by another woman).
I do appreciate your thoughts however.
@d
I appreciate you believe all killing is immoral unless in self defence & not all self defence is equal.
Women traumatised by violence & rape for years are often fearing for their lives at every instance of abuse with reason. They aren’t just raped, they are savagely choked, beaten etc. & verbal threatened with death of their selves & children over long periods. It’s not unreasonable to understand a violent reaction & by the amount of domestic murders they probably saved themselves.
Mostly women have found themselves in these situations not men so yes it usually applies to women.
However there are many instances where men get off shooting home invaders who have not hurt them over long periods but only threaten to take their property. Go figure…
My point about morality is is its hypocritical to pontificate about morality when one can’t accept opposing opinion. The cornerstone of morality is free speech.
Peace be with you tho, Im so sorry for your pain.
@ANJ, please define the ambiguous term “mostly women” have been the victims of sexual assault. According to a 2005 CDC report 1 in 6 males will be sexually assaulted in their lives. As with women, the vast majority of these are young people, under the age of 12. If we limit it to rape, men make up at least 1 out of 10 reported rapes, however, since this is reported rapes, based upon criminal investigation, most experts believe this number is underestimating the true nature. Men are far less likely to report rape. And in the case of female on male rape (which does occur) the police and or DA are far less likely to treat the charges with the same seriousness as female victims of male on female rape. Male on male rape is actually increasing. And is often extremely violent resulting in severe injury. Often times it is used to attack the victims sense of masculinity and as a humiliation tactic. It often involves multiple attackers and repeated assaults. There are also far less support groups created to assist the victims. There is even some evidence is some areas, that because of the stigma of homosexuality (far more likely in less developed nation’s) or out of fear of being seen as persecuting homosexuals (in more “progressive” cultures) that male on male rape is also taken less seriously by the authorities.
@Anj, thats why I am pro concealed carry. The great equalizer. You don’t have to be a victim.
I almost murdered my rapist and intensive therapy helped me to delay it and ultimately not go through with it.
I do think there are some women who are more comfortable being the victim (most, probably) and others who are more assertive. I think my reaction was fairly normal considering my more aggressive personality and the fact that my school counselor, administrators, and police all swept it under the rug. There is a point where you want to take justice into your own hands and I understand it. It would have been a moral act, in my opinion. A difficult one, but someone must deal justice in an immoral society.
But I didn’t do it, probably better for my long term health and life outcomes. He’s a pediatrician now! And you won’t find me outing him or meToo-ing it up … nope … society can deal with it. Not my problem anymore.
@Izzie, I’m really sorry for your experience, but I am rather insulted by your implication that to not want to murder your rapist (not in fantasy, in fact) is somehow “less assertive” and a sign of being “comfortable being the victim”.
I didn’t want to murder my rapist because murder is morally wrong and had I done so I would be guilty of a terrible sin that would impact the rest of my life on top of trauma of the abuse. That is all. I certainly wasn’t comfortable being the victim” – how insulting.
I couldn’t bring him to justice at the time because he was careful to provide no hard proof (no semen, no penetration) and he manipulated my compassion and respect for him and fear I wouldn’t be believed. He is long dead now, so it is moot.
In your case, I’m sorry the police swept it under the rug, but does that mean you too didn’t have hard proof? I agree that that is awful. It was my trauma as well, not being believed. However, no matter how ‘aggressive’ you are, it is wrong to murder someone – as your therapist helped you see.
Had I murdered my father, I would have done so with the expectation of being in jail. IT would be what I deserved. That would be the trade off. I perhaps might expect some consideration of the trauma itself in the sentencing, but I would not expect to have special treatment because I’m a woman and he was a man–unless we give the same special treatment to all people who are abused, eg a lesbian partner by her lesbian partner, a man by a woman and so on.
Interesting how quick some are to blame Bindel as if voicing feminist concerns equates to intolerance. I don’t always agree with her but I don’t recall her being a fan of no platforming or violence. Seems it’s not only trans gender ‘activists’ that that have an unreasonable fear of feminism.
Also cute how the sky is falling down over a few college footy fracas when meanwhile in the real world any utterance of female concerns is heresy.
Jules, you’re barking up the wrong tree…
@ANJ.S has called for the jailing of all men (especially heterosexual males), labeled all heterosexual males as rapist and has even voiced support for killing all males and eliminating heterosexuality.
@JEFFREY C
Sources?
Oh, & even if that were true, expressing an opinion regardless of how bizarre is not the same as facilitating a climate of violence against free speech.
Know where you are Jeffrey?
‘Free thought lives’ ring any bells???
First start with he editorial for the Guardian titled “Why I hate all Men” then go to her August 2015 interview she did for “rad-fem” etc. It’s not really hard to find. Additionally, did I call for violence against free speech or the curtailing of her right to speech? Not in the least. No, I was responding to your assertion that she has never called for violence against those whom she disagrees with. This is a factually inaccurate statement. As is your straw man retort to my statement. You seem incapable of understanding that people can both disagree with the trans-activist attacking her, while also understanding that she also is guilty of many of the tactics she is decrying. And is it possible your overreaction to my rather benign statement of fact, your complete misunderstanding (and mischaracterization of my initial response) is because you are lacking in your understanding of free thought?
@Jeffrey C
“The men who regularly get very offended on this blog, protesting that they have never hurt a fly, probably do not do an awful lot to stop other men harming women. Where are men’s voices of protest in this war against women? When can we expect your support in reducing numbers of females killed and raped by men? I will not be holding my breath, but in the meantime, I will say loud and proud, yes, today I hate men, and will tomorrow and the day after. But only the men who perpetrate these crimes against my sisters, and those who do nothing to stop it. Are you in either one of those categories? If so, then I despise you.”
– “Why I Hate Men” Julie Bindel
This is what you are whining to the point of abusive about?
Oh dear, you got it baaaaad….
@ANJ I see you completely ignored my other reference. And she states, without proof that the men who regularly get offended do not do an awful lot to protect women. She presents serious double talk, condemning all men but then drawing distinctions but then inferring even those who are excepted are still not redeemable in the quote you provided.
And once again, you totally ignored the more damning interview from August 2015 to rad-fem. And I stated these were only the beginning of her troubling statements.
I am not whining, rather pointing out how your original statement is not accurate. Also, how is pointing out her statements abusive? Are you capable of honest debate? Or are you compelled to resort to straw men?
“When can we expect your support in reducing numbers of females killed and raped by men?“
75% of my property taxes pay for criminal justice. Prisons are 70+% men. Is she unaware of these data points?
Another Source:
https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/07/29/scum-manifesto-perfect-summer-vacay-read/
Look, you not living in reality does not your arguments weight. People blame Bindel for being an intolerant, sexist, bigot, because she is one, not because she is voicing feminist concerns. They have also rightly pointed out the feminism she espouses is directly linked to the aforementioned defects of her character. As for your laughably erroneous claim that no one takes female concerns seriously, it should is so ridiculous that they me would think you would be embarrassed to utter it. Indeed in my own home country of Canada it has become quite clear to social scientists that women have societal privilege over men. Yeah, that’s right. Women have it so good that men can tell them to check their privilege and are the oppressed in the narrative. Not that there is any sign of them being allowed to socially of course. The problem with the victim game is that you only get stuff of you’re the victim, so feminists are busy denying men the place they have been occupying and taking advantage of, since to do so would be a loss of institutional power.
Nice bed you’ve made there. It’d be a shame if you had to sleep in it.
What we are really witnessing in LGBTism is the formation of a new religion with all the trappings right in front of us – it’s new, so the dogma is still changing rapidly, but that hasn’t decreased (and has perhaps increased) the zeal with which is goes after heretics. It has required dogma and a view of man, symbols of devotion (rainbow in color), holy seasons (Pride month), and high holy processions (Pride marches). Come to my college right now and you’ll even see some of its historical saints (with photos of them actually called “icons” by the college!) on display this holy month.
Interestingly enough, many of the warnings those opposed to normalizing homosexuality and gay marriage, are coming to fruition. This doesn’t mean I am opposed to homosexuals (I am bisexual myself). But the warnings were dismissed as being fear mongering. No one will be forced to participate in gay marriages, or forced to forced to use their property to host gay marriages. No churches will be threatened for not recognizing or conducting homosexual nuptials. But the ink wasn’t even dry on Obergefel before a church in Kansas was sued for not hosting a lesbian marriage (the church won, but for how long will that last). I wish more people recognized the idea of live and let live.
Live and Let Live – This!
Now you see why Voltaire preached views that aligned with the idea of “I disagree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”. Free speech is not a government granted right that only applies to the government. Free speech is for all to protect and stand up for, even if they disagree with the views, and protect them from those who will attempt to silence such speech.
You’ve made this monster, now if you want our help you’ll have to accept that you need to support the rights of even those you hate the most. Otherwise there will be no one to protect you from those who wants to silence you.
@DK Skull
As a principle, free speech should be protected, but it’s not an absolute. Shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater that causes a stampede in which people die does cross a line of what you are allowed to say. There is a limit at which point you void your right to speak what is on your mind and uttering it voids your right to say it.
Bindel has openly called for the mass murder of all men. She has declared that men should be put in concentration camps. She didn’t say those things in the context of the mutterings of the insane but rather an ‘intellectual’ picking her words carefully for maximum effect. It was not humor either. Open sexist violence calling for the murder of a gender crosses the line in my book. If you don’t think so then conduct a little test… call for the mass murder of all women and see if people think that is ok. If they do, then I guess I am wrong.
So Bindel, classic man-hating feminist demanding from others what she refuses to give herself. She shows no empathy for half the planet and has devoted her life to implementing man-hating policies into public policy. She didn’t just cross a line of acceptable speech, she crossed the Rubicon of no return! There can be no redemption for her regardless of what she conveniently may start to show for others. Her fake tears won’t erase a lifetime of hate. This “rapist” will show her the empathy she has shown me, none at all.
Morality doesn’t mean always forgiving, turning the other cheek or ignoring the wicked. It may be easier to do so but it is not moral. No Sir! Morality demands reciprocity so… she calls for my death because I was born male, I will not protect her when anyone goes looking for her.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
Actually the act of yelling fire (another analogy that is used inaccurately) is not the part you will be prosecuted. It and of itself is not a crime. But you are certainly legally responsible to a degree, for thr actions that occur as a result of your speech. Again, free speech is absolute, however, we do recognize that at times your are not free of the consequences of aforesaid speech, i.e. libel or grossly negligent speech which results in actual harm to others, if you know such speech is highly inaccurate (yelling fire in a crowded theater when no fire exists, resulting in a stampede that causes others harm).
Whenever I read similar articles I cannot help but recite in my mind a few verses by a Dead White Male:
Herr, die Not ist groß!
Die ich rief, die Geister,
Werd ich nun nicht los.
Or, for those who can’t read German:
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/der-zauberlehrling-sorcerers-apprentice.html
master!
I have need of Thee!
from the spirits that I called
Sir, deliver me!
World Literature offers all kinds of metaphors for the situation Ms Bindel and her fellow feminists have found themselves, but I thing Goethe’s Der Zauberlehrling is the best.
“The reason the slur “TERF” has become popular is that it gives misogynists a tool to abuse and punish feminists without the stigma associated with such crude epithets as “bitches.””
No, you asshole. It’s not ‘misogynists,’ implying men, who are the problem. It’s delusional transexuals who are your problem. Leave us men out of it. These people are not acting out of misogyny – they are acting out of their psychological delusion. And by taking in the ‘T’ to LGBT, you got yourself into this. So leave us straight men out of your reproaches.
Notwithstanding anything else that she have said or done in the past, I commend Julie Bindel for coming onto Quillette to make some reasonable and well-written points about the importance of being able to speak freely and to maintain safe spaces for women in places where they could potentially be assaulted by biological males posing as females.
Faced with the transgender phenomenon, it’s time to draw some lines between reasonable accommodation and cowardly submission. So far, we are seeing a lot of cowardice on the part of feminists – especially in protecting women’s sports from men who seek easy victories by posing as women. As a fan of women’s sports and as a parent of daughters, I strongly believe in maintaining the integrity of women’s sports by limiting them to women who were born that way. It would be nice if feminists would show some courage and speak up on this issue. Sports are very important for the development of young women and for the health of women at all ages, and they should not be subjected to unfair competition from biological males who have benefitted from testosterone for years and years, before deciding to present themselves as women.
I honestly think it is less cowardice and more a problem of poor ethical understand. The people who want transgender men to compete in women’s sports see themselves as being genuinely good people, and the ones who are against is being in the wrong. That is because they are holding inclusiveness up as the highest moral value. The problem is that others believe more in fairness, and it is clear that transgender men have an unfair physical advantage over women. It would be nice to declare that this is a moral failing on the part of others, but in reality I think it is clear they are true believers.
They are thinking more in terms of ideology and abstractions, where transgender rights become supreme, because they are rights for a category defined as oppressed. They lose sight of individuals – real human beings – namely, young women who deserve to compete on a level playing field.
John
People like her wouldn’t extend those free speech rights to men, so I don’t think she deserves any commendations at all. It would be better that she takes a moment to reflect on which parts of her activism and her movement have engendered (pun intended) this present day madness. Is there a chance she will realistically do this though? I doubt it.
I’m glad however that Quillette did publish her, so that we can all enjoy the quality comments down here.
It was once said by some dead male: Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Radical feminists have been “speaking up” on this issue for YEARS. Do some reading.
I know that Martina Navratilova, in particular, has spoken out on this issue, but I’m not seeing that she has gotten a lot of support, and has had to backpedal on some of her comments.
Looking at the state of Connecticut as an example, boys presenting as girls were able to win easy victories in track races. There has been push-back from parents, some conservatives, and some of the girls who were effectively pushed off the podium. Some feminists may have spoken on this, but not very loudly or effectively. Maybe someone can find some examples.
Meanwhile, HR-5 (the Equality Act) has moved through the House of Representatives, with overwhelming support from the Democrats. Some feminists did speak up in the hearings, pointing to the dangers for women’s sports (with gender identification as a protected category under HR-5), but they were completely marginalized and ineffective. Feminists (and others) who want to protect women’s sports will now have to rely on President Trump and the Republican Senate – how ironic.
Agree with the general stance about the need for segregation in some in some areas of life based on biological sex (medicine and sports in particular). However, not all criticism of female individuals is misogyny. In fact, almost none of it is. TERF is also not a misogynist term, it’s directed at a specific group of feminists because of the views they hold, not because they are women.
Nope. Women who say anything about transgender people, like saying that a transgender woman (born a man) is not a woman but is a man, or is male, gets called a terf. I got called a terf on fb for saying that a person born as a male shouldn’t get to be in women’s sports. I’m not a radical feminist. Not even a feminist, whatever that means. Just a moderate who says live and let live, be nice, don’t hurt people without cause. From what I’ve read, it’s just a way to call a woman a bitch or a cunt without using those words. It’s almost exclusively used against women, btw. Mostly by angry wokeblokes in frocks.
@Margo
Still not a misogynist term.
“In 2017, a British trans activist in his 20s violently attacked 60-year-old Maria MacLaghlan as she was on her way to a feminist meeting. One of Wolf’s supporters, when asked by McLaghlan…”
Who or what is “Wolf”? I’ve combed the first paragraphs for a “Wolf” and see none. Where is the first reference to this? Am I expected to GUESS that “Wolf” is the “trans activist in his 20s”?
Not trolling. I’m gone.
#copyeditor
Same here. Bad editing, I think.
More likely no editing. Just a kind of “rip and read.” But then, editors do have a bad habit of asking to be paid.
Thank you for your perseverance and bravery Julie.
My goodness, the MRAs are certainly out in force. Never have feminists claimed men and women are the same. Feminists assert that the basis of our oppression is our female body and reproduction system. This makes us different from men, but NOT inferior. We are the ones who bring children into the world. For most of history, and even now to a lesser degree we needed to create new people to keep society going.
This ability and the physical vulnerability that pregnancy, potential pregnancy and childbirth bring should not keep women from being able to fully participate in society and hold equal power. Capiche?
This is also where the main conflict between women and trans women arises. There are conflicting rights when trans women claim to be the same as women and want access to all spaces and services formerly reserved for women. We need those spaces and services because we either have been historically oppressed or have a particular vulnerability due to our biology, ie, our reproductive capacity. Women have fought long and hard for the gains and protections we have, We have had these things, including the vote, for a very short time and most of us are not willing to give them up. Equality has not been achieved. Men have not proven themselves to be safe for us. In fact the WHO has just reported that levels of male violence against women are higher than ever.
Women like Julie Bindel and Rosa Freedman are treasures. They are brave and do important work. They deserve enormous credit for not allowing violent bullies to silence them.
The definition of woman is an adult human female. The only thing that makes one a woman is her body – her biology, beyond that a woman may have many different traits and ways of being but the one thing and the only thing we have in common is the unique vulnerability of our female reproductive capacity, actual or perceived. Men who identify as women do not and will not ever have this and will not experience womanhood because of it. That is reality. That is also the source of this rage. It is the one thing they cannot ever take from us no matter how hard they try. At the end of the day we all know where babies come from. They need us yet they hate us for it.
As for the women who go along with them, there are always handmaidens. There will always be people who go along to get along because it seems like the popular or most expedient thing to do at the time, but the fact it we all really know the truth,
Women are women trans women are trans women. All people deserve to be treated with equal rights and dignity under the law but no group should be allowed to usurp and colonize another’s definition just by claiming to feel like they are a part of that group with no material or physical evidence to justify that claim. Woman is not a feeling or a performance. It is a biological reality.
They deserve enormous credit for not allowing violent bullies to silence them.
“All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot.”
— Julie Bindel
The smoking gun: http://archive.is/DALn0
How can you just pretend that Bindel is not a genocidal maniac? You call a human like this a treasure? What went wrong in your life where you can say something like this?
@Harland
Why don’t you show the context ie trolling the trolls?
Oh, thats right…
Ah, of course. Clown nose on, clown nose off, right? And sure, let’s have Bindel be judge, jury and executioner, deciding who’s “misogynist” and deserves to be imprisoned and shot, and who not. Let’s have her decide, singlehandedly, which men have “done nothing” to stop violence against women (and for that matter, what counts as “violence” for that purpose – as we’ve often seen, that term has been stretched beyond any reasonable meaning), and which have not. She’ll of course give each man a full and fair trial before shooting them in the back of the head, right?
Oh…she’s ironically calling for genocide. Well, that makes it OK then! Thanks for clearing that up for us.
Dear misogynist trolls I’m going to make things easier for you – save u some time. All men are rapists and should be put in prison then shot
Her entire quote. Please show where context makes the quote any better.
@Jeffrey
Well it’s like this Guber, she’s paraphrasing what hysterical petals want to believe she believes & by your relentless jumping at shadows she was spot on…
@ANJ your debate style is fairly peurile. You make a factually inaccurate post. Get called out on it. Double down. Get further taken to task and then you resort to sophomoric ad hominems and straw men. You’re a product of the participation trophy generation, who relies on buzzwords and pseudointellectualism to cover for your underdeveloped reasoning skills. You have yet to make a valid point, however, you have convinced yourself that spotting widely held but mistaken talking points.
“Trolling the trolls” is the new “Pretending to be retarded.” It’s like when one of my friend gleefully recalls trolling the “chuds” in the r/incel community. Brewing up another school shooter, are we?
Perhaps all these ace jokesters and their irony should unironically stop using social media, if only to stop them from ironically self-destructing unironically.
Ironic, isn’t it?
How does a troll troll others trolls?
You can’t claim both equal rights and special rights. If women-only places exist for a reason, then men-only places might also exist for valid reasons. Once you violate the principle of equality in your favor, you open up violations of that principle against you. For example, married women historically did not work outside the home for biologically reasons. Since husbands were the “public face” of the family, and in that sense, the “head of the household,” one could therefore plausibly argue that women should not be allowed vote.
You seem rather ignorant of reality. Let me clarify it for you.
Just because you are speaking against an irrational and illogical screed does not make you an MRA. Just reasonable.
While some feminists may not deny there are biological differences between men and women, many others do. The whole gender is a social construct idea came from feminism. Pretending it has nothing to do with it is intellectually dishonest.
Bindel is a misandrist sexist bigot. Bigots who hate others based on their gender are not heroes.
People women may make babies, but they need men to make them. They do not have some mystical superiority in the process. The two sexes need each other.
Just because someone goes along with something you do not agree with does not make the a “handmaiden”. They can have reasons for what they do just the same as you, and you don’t get to ignorantly assume they are in the wrong.
For a definition to be of use it must be objective and agreed to. Claiming that groups should get to define themselves suffered two problems. First the groups are not homogenous and this do not agree on the self definition. And second no other group can take the definition seriously as there is no criteria to base it on other than self declared statements. It just doesn’t work.
‘My goodness, the MRAs are certainly out in force.’ Men’s Rights Activists are the male equivalent of feminists. They want equality for men in many areas where it has been taken away. The men here are not MRAs. They are just normal, average men, not activists. Educate yourself. Watch The Red Pill, and challenge some assumptions you have made. Not that you will, mind you.
“Call me old-fashioned, but I thought the one battle we feminists won fair and square was to convince at least those left of centre that gender roles are made up. They are not real. We play at them. We develop traditional masculine or feminine traits by being indoctrinated, not because we are biologically programmed to behave in those ways.”
Bindal kind of implies here that men and women are the same, that it’s only a matter of socialisation (or rather, “indoctrination”) that make men and women behave differently. By rejecting biology-based differences she helped pave the way for the trans movement, which takes that thinking to the next logical level and removes biology entirely.
Disparaging people as MRAs because they aren’t keen to come to your rescue after you’ve spent your career insulting them is terribly funny. It’s like you can’t even grasp you’re still doing exactly what got you into this message, but feel entitled to the help of the people you persecuted while you were top victim.
@Stephanie, great point.
It makes sense that feminists (the radical sort, I suppose, though I’m not an expert on the million flavors of feminism) and trans-activists would clash. One would like to do away with all gender stereotypes (or at least their effects on those who radically deviate from them) while the other leans heavily on those stereotypes to define gender categories and identity.
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Anyone else wonder if this extraordinarily popular delusion that’s gripped the modern west is motivated, at least in some cases, at least to some degree, by a desire of certain men to climb down (which is to say up) the intersectional victim hierarchy? I can understand the frustration of being told that your opinions don’t matter because of your privileged status, and that your accomplishments are not really yours while your failures are all your own. I can empathize with the frustration of having your sex demonized as toxic by the culture at large. Not nearly to the point that I’d consider cutting off my johnson and injecting estrogen into my body, mind you. But I do understand.
What I cannot understand is the mentality that equates disagreement about a point of fact with violence. I suspect that the more apt you are to resort to violence in defense of a proposition (for example, that you’re a woman with a penis) the more apt you are to motivated by unconscious doubt that it’s true. You convince yourself by convincing others, by threat of force if necessary. Probably the same psychology that underlies religious and ideological fanaticism.
Maybe I think that because I’m a straight white male though.
Also, anyone else wonder if trans-mania is related to the strange contemporary “sex recession” among young people? I can’t but think there’s a strong connection.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/
@Aristodemus
I’d guess the sex recession has a lot to do with the demonization of male sexuality that is most deeply ingrained in the younger generation. Young men do not wish to be “toxic” so they do not pursue young women as avidly as in previous generations. That and the amount of life now being lived online, so that in-person human interactions have become less important. Online porn probably takes the place of sex to a significant degree.
For the surge in transgenderism, at least in the male-to-female case, I think a lot of it is based in an overpowering autogynephilic sexual fetish. Specific transgender women (m to f) that I’ve known seem often to be heavily into porn and/or a bdsm lifestyle. People don’t actually have a strong innate urge to wear any particular sort of clothing unless there is a sexual basis for it. Otherwise for most people clothing is just worn for practical purposes such as fitting in in various settings or attracting romantic partners. Without a sexual element, there’s no intrinsic thrill or repulsion associated with dressing a particular way.
Here is a very NSFW video that explains the overpowering autogynephilic sexual fetish. It’s more of an essay than a video, but it is deeply insightful and was obviously written by a man with a lot of experience on the topic. He knows what he’s talking about. I have the same fetish myself and this video described me to a T. If there had been someone in my life like this when I was 18 I wouldn’t have stood a chance.
How to turn a beta boi into a sissy sex slave: https://xhamster.one/videos/how-to-turn-a-beta-bi-boi-into-a-sissy-sex-slave-11176745
Interesting you may enjoy Men Trapped In Mens Bodies compiled by a postop autogynephile MD…
I agree BTW, an 18 yr old autogynephile doesn’t stand a chance against stuff like this…
@ex-Beta boy
I have a similar fetish myself, and would have chosen to be a woman if that were actually a possibility (which it isn’t). But I have no delusions that this in any way, on any level actually makes me a woman. However, like you, if this transgender stuff had been popular when I was a teenager who knows to what ideas I might have been susceptible.
Overmedication with estrogen mimics which get into the general water supply probably don’t help.
I believe it is A) autogynephilia going mainstream and B) sensitive guys mainly gay who can’t tolerate being considered toxic and must adapt
Also, Janice Raymond called it the Medical Indistrial Complex... and I agree ... capitalism's worst forces are pushing it... (am not an anti capitialist)
Apropos of nothing…
The number of young straight men experimenting with gays and trans is rising
Trans are becoming a hot commodity and will become moreso yet…
As trans becomes more and more accepted, more and more and more young men will experiment with them…
The hateful comments towards women and bindel here are disgusting. Regardless of whether you care for her politics or not, it’s shameful to dismiss the very real concerns she is presenting. Crowing with glee about bindel “reaping what she shows” ignore the very real problems that she is trying to present to you. Ignoring the message because you dislike the messenger is intellectual lazy. It’s clear many of the commenters here, really are misogynists who don’t care one lick about women. How do I know this? Real conservatives (and, interestingly enough, old-school actual Nazis from the 30s/40s) actually respected women tremendously, and would care and frankly would be alarmed, at the idea that any man in a frock would be allowed into the women’s toilets, women’s shelters, women’s locker rooms, women’s sports, etc. Do none of you have wives, daughters, mothers, sisters, girlfriends? Do none of you give a crap that sex-based rights are being eroded? I mean, unless you actually are misogynists, and think that women are inferior beings who belong pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, all of what bindel is expressing should cause you great alarm.
Bindel is telling you there is a wildfire that is potentially out of control, threatening to consume not just her house, but everyone’s houses. Even if you think she and/or radical feminism (which it’s not like she’s some official spokeman for) started the fire (patently untrue, but to each his own opinon), it’s astoundingly stupid to to say: “hey b*tch, you started the fire, so now you can roast in it, even though the fire will consume us all and we’re all going to burn in it.”
Like I said, only a true misogynist would crow with glee at such a situation, while the flames threaten them and their families.
it’s an old internet adage at this point that blogs eventually get the commentariat they deserve. This he man woman hating club comment thread shows how true it is. Quillette has ambitions to be a bastion of independent thought, but what that actually means in practice is having the occasional Julie Bindel or Meghan Murphy leavening the doughy neocon mass of the site. If you are here in desperate search of thoughtful conversation, might I recommend the podcast Woke Capitalism with Angela Nagle? It is great. If somebody knows of a blog run along similar lines, I for one would really welcome a recommendation.
I see no signs of a he man women hating club. I see people who are responding to an illiberal hypocrite by pointing out she is the thing she is railing against. The hate is towards double standards and logical inconsistency, not women. The problem is that you are misunderstanding what is happening, and then ignorantly ascribing to others evil intent based on your erroneous belief. Quite typical of the self righteous woke, and why it is difficult to have an educated or adult conversation when they are around.
Let’s compare. Have any of the supposedly “woman hating club” commenters here said that Ms. Bindel should be locked up in jail, or shot, or that they themselves would punch her, etc.? Well, she herself has said such things about men, as documented in these very comments. So who’s the hater?
(Keep in mind, Kathleen, that Ms. Bindel is not a Kaspar Hauser suddenly showing up without a known past, or a character created for a novel or a movie whose past is unknown and irrelevant to the audience. Her past views and writings are very much relevant here, and it is the so-called “he man woman hating comment”ers who see Ms. Bindel as a real person with a real past, as opposed to you, who sees her as a cardboard cutout.)
“Do none of you give a crap that sex-based rights are being eroded?”
That’s actually kinda funny…. considering. One wonders what sort of men’s “sex-based rights” would Bindel support? I mean old-school conservatives, anti-feminists, and non-egalitarians have been saying that for years. And of course we already know from her writings that Bindel has never been a fan of “male-only” spaces, activities, etc.
So yea, your hyperbole and man-shaming aside, there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here. I mean she’s experiencing what any number of folks from across the political spectrum have been experiencing for years if not decades. I’m guessing she – and her ilk – don’t even see the irony.
Margo (and Kathleen too)
To use your imagery, commenters on Quillette have known that the house of free speech has been on fire for years, it is the reason Quillette exists and I support it. Bindel isn’t telling us anything we didn’t know already. Actually, the first to notice this were called all the -ist names in the book for pointing it out. And now you want our support?
Also, your attempt to label people here as misogynistic for criticising Bindel just washes off us, and it keeps pushing any sympathy even further away. Have you ever considered that insulting people doesn’t win you friends? Also, nice try on using the same old “criticising a particular woman=misogyny” trope. Doesn’t work here though.
Who is the “you” in this comment? You know nothing about me. You assume, because i’m concerned about transwomen (men) in a women’s toilet or lockerroom, that somehow i’m a feminist, or any other -ist?
You’re projecting.
Margo
The “you” is you and Kathleen, since you both decided to label others here as misogynists for criticising Julie Bindel. In fact she is a bully who has come up against another bully of the same variety.
Remember writing this: ” It’s clear many of the commenters here, really are misogynists who don’t care one lick about women. ”
Kathleen wrote: ” This he man woman hating club comment thread shows how true it is”
See my reply above – insulting others is not a great way to make win people over. And no, criticising Bindel for the flawed individual she is does not amount to hating women, misogyny. This behaviour of name-calling those you disagree with is part of the bully tactics book we are criticising Bindel for.
Did you read some of the comments here? Did I say ALL commenters? Don’t tell me you think that at least some of the ugliest comments here about both bindel and “feminists” and even women are not likely written by misogynists. Don’t tell me you think those disgusting comments are written by thoughtful men who are respectful of women. It’s an internet comment section, the sewer of the internet.
If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it. I didn’t say everyone is, so don’t put words in my mouth. There are plenty of pretty gross insults towards bindel and foul language and sentiments about women expressed here. Why are you defending it? If it has nothing to do with you, and you didn’t say it, then there’s no need for you to address it.
margo, I’d bet that most readers here are well aware of, care about and are alarmed by the very real problems Julie Bindel is trying to present here. As indeed they are likely aware of the very real problems Ms. Bindel is propagating herself. Do try to keep up.
Ah, the typically unselfaware screed of the dim witted. It is exemplifies everything you complain about and then projects your short comings onto others.
So, let’s get the first thing out of the way. Just because you are laughing at Bindel is not the same thing as laughing at women. If you weren’t the intellectually lazy person you accuse others of being that obvious false equivalency would have been caught.
As for the assertion that she is trying to warn people, no she’s not. Because you can’t warn people who already know. The people on Quillette are the sort who have seen the fire burning for a while, and every time they try to warn people get called a misogynist, or racist, or fascist, just for pointing out where this will all lead. Bindel is the hateful person we have been warning others about, so when she starts crying about things being bad out there the response is “No shit Sherlock.” The fact that she clearly has no intention of not being the the thing that now torments her; that her only complaint is that she must now suffer as she has made others suffer; that she exemplifies the thing she is railing against; and does all this to people who already know the problem makes her ridiculous. Hence the laughter.
OK we are through the looking glass here, people. A feminist just praised the Nazis for respecting women. Not spelling nazis, not soup nazis, but actual Nazis. Something that would get you banned on any progressive (i.e. far) left platform.
And then calls people misogynists for failing to support the Nazi position.
This is why I love Quillette comments. Free speech lives!
I know, right? They would put transgender people in death camps, but at least they respected whamen. If you made this up no one would believe it. I half suspect a troll, but things have become so stupid who can even tell anymore?
Where exactly did I say I was a feminist? You are asuming I am, based on…what, exactly? Because I dared to suggest that, whatever one thinks of bindel, what she is writing about is a real problem?! Prety bizarre that you’d assume I’m a “feminist” simply for advocating that women not have to share a public toilet with a dude in a frock, or have a lad with a penis showering beside me at the local gym. If that’s feminism, then that makes almost every rational person a feminist.
Also, where did I praise any Nazis? I said that, interestingly enough, the “original” Nazis actually had, as part of their philosophy, a respect for women. So did old school conservatives. I didn’t say I lauded them for that, I was pointing out a fact. Hitler was a vegan and so am i…does praising veganism mean i’m praising hitler?
If you’re actually interested in learning something new, rather than doing what many commenters on here do (a right-wing version of performative virtue-signalling), you might do some reading on the topic of how the modern alt-right and neo-Nazi movements diverge in important ways from the ideology of the original Nazi orthodoxy. One of these ways is the adoption of a particularly virulent misogyny, and general disrespect of women. The Anti-Defamation league, for example, has researched and written on the “intersection of misogyny and white supremacy.”.
For someone who’s not a feminist, you sure speak the exact same language as them. You use the word “misogynist” multiple times in your posts. As a matter of fact you seem like a radical feminist of the author’s camp, the kind that denies trans people human dignity and equal rights. Which state was it that had all its businesses pulled because it did as you suggested and prohibited women from the women’s bathrooms?
You talked about Nazis in a way that didn’t harshly condemn them. That means you are at the very least problematic. Haven’t you learned anything the last couple of years? The Nazis wanted women barefoot in the kitchen, pregnant, creating more Aryans to fill the lands in Russia that they emptied out by genocide. Why’s it so hard to lob a few bombs their way to demonstrate how much you despise them? They’re literal Nazis.
a right-wing version of performative virtue-signalling
I thought that was a GOOD thing? You far leftists do it all the time. You’re arguing against yourself – and losing.
so because I use the word “misogynist”, I’m a feminist, radical at that? Yet I’m also a right-wing Nazi supporter because I “didn’t condemn” Nazis to your satisfaction (as though one must, whenever Nazis are mentioned, signal their virtue by strenuously condemning Nazis and Nazism, lest a complete stranger think they are somehow a Nazi)?? Yet I’m also a far leftist?
You’ve lost the plot. You’re arguing against me — and losing.
I won’t be checking your reply to this message, as it’s clear you’re unable to debate in good faith.
The NSDAP only respected women who obeyed and stayed within their proper roles; ‘Kinder, Kuche, Kirche’. Mothers of good little Aryan pre-men. Straying from assigned roles could be deadly, unless you were married to an elite.
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. What I meant was that unlike the virulent misogyny of the modern alt-right and neo-Nazi movements, old school Nazism was not, despite not being a model for equal rights (that’s putting it extremely mildly) did not advocate for, nor tolerate, hateful rhetoric and misogynist epithets against women. Women were elevated as paragons of virtue and deserving of respect as mothers and wives. I’m not defending Nazism (sad that I have to make that qualification, but here we are, on the Internet, where anything can be misinterpreted). The reason I brought it up, is to point out how it’s mildly amusing how even actual Nazis had more “respect” for women than the alt-right and neo-Nazi movement and the many misogynists who comprise those factions, referring to women as btches and cnts, etc.
@Harland: Actually feminists supported the Nazis in the 1930s:
https://historyatkingston.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/blackshirts-and-women-new-study-looks-at-suffragettes-who-became-fascists/
There are more articles on this if anyone’s interested.
Margo. You are hearing disdain and glee from people who sounded this alarm and conveyed this message years ago (no radical feminist guidance required) and were told to shut up, sit down and check their privilege. Now, someone who has advocated the same basis for exclusion from any conversation is appealing to those same people for support because she has been told to shut up, sit down and check her privilege. Now that she is on the receiving end, her tactics (if not her specifically, the broader radical group she champions) suddenly seem to her unfair. It is not misogynist, it is human: just desserts are always sweet. Nobody has changed their view on the underlying issue and their alarm is just as intense and real as it has always been.
Yeah, fair enough. But a decent number of comments say things to the effect of, “haha, so what, reapt what you sow, karma’s a bitch.”. The problem with that of course is that Trans ideology’s effects aren’t limited to harming bindel; they affect everyone, especially women. Most of whom like me are not radical feminists nor even necessarily feminists at all, but are just middle of the road people who think penises belong in the men’s room. I get that many commenters see the threat that transgender ideology presents, and still dislike bindel and don’t have sympathy for her. Fair enough. But my issue is with the commenters who dismiss her arguments just because of who she is and what she has stood for in the past. That’s where my comments about misogyny came from. That anyone who upon hearing what she says, still don’t care about the message, regardless of the mesenger, must not like women very much, to not care whether their mothers, sisters etc. will be forced to accept men in their bathrooms. A person isn’t a misogynist Bc they dislike bindel. They might be though if they don’t care what happens to women, most of whom aren’t radical feminists or bindel supporters.
I think you are mistaking mockery of a person for agreement with her enemies. Please understand that nothing is further from the truth. It isn’t that people think what she is arguing against is good. It’s that they understand what she is arguing against is merely the logical extension and conclusion of what she was previously arguing for. I am certainly taking some delight in the fact that she is now being forced to eat her own shit. But that does not mean I agree with her tormentors. They both suck. I also find it logically erroneous to claim that disagreement with her means you have a hatred to women. That is a statement I find to be completely irrational and most likely why many assumed you to be a feminist. It is the sort of emotional slur that one has become accustomed to seeing from them.
I see a lot of gleeful dancing around and celebrating that the “bitch” got what was coming to her, but I don’t see a lot of thoughtful discussion about what to do about it.
And I highly doubt the majority of commenters here (readers maybe, commenters, no) are engaged in action, either social, political, or otherwise, to combat the danger of transgender ideology. I guess I was hoping for more nuanced and thoughtful discussion about the problem, and instead read through an unending stream of comments calling names and calling feminists man-hating bitches, and accusing anyone (like me) who thinks women’s rights are important as being a feminist. I guess feminist is the new witch? Anyone can be accused, and tarred with that name. But that’s my fault, expecting thoughtful dialogue in a comment section on the internet. Lol.
Also, I didn’t say anyone who disagrees with her is a misogynist, I said one might be a misogynist if they don’t care about what happens to women, esp if the reason they don’t care is because of their hatred of bindel.
Margo
You keep putting the B-word in quotes as if other commenters have used that word, but actually a little ctrl+F search on this page shows that, at this time of writing and outside the main article, only yourself and someone called Outraged have used that word. This Outraged person also called others transphobes so there is little doubt it’s one of the intersectionalist loons and can be safely ignored and is an example of the exact opposite of the values Quillette espouses. In other words, no regular Quillette person here has used any such terms, and yet you somehow imagined that this was being said and invented false quotations.
Ultimately, I think we all agree that men don’t belong in women’s bathrooms. But I think you should also unlearn the reflex of imagining and accusing others of misogyny at every turn. It’s hard to unlearn bad habits which I’m sure you’ve been unwittingly indoctrinated into, but being aware of these paranoid habits is half the battle towards overcoming them.
So, to answer your question above about why I get involved when you make accusations of misogyny against other people, but not me. The answer is we’ve learnt now that we do need to stand up,a speak out and defend those who are falsely accused, in this case the Quillette community generally. It is usually the accusers who are crossing the line, and we are all sick of others trying to silence us with slurs of various “isms”.
No one has, as far as I seen, said anything hateful about women in general (unless you are equating radical feminist to women in general). As for Ms. Bindel, few are excusing the attack on her. Instead, most have condemned the attacks while pointing out the irony of her being attacked in much the same manner that she has attacked others. You can hold both views. To quote Voltaire, supposedly (though probably should be attributed to Hall in 1906) “I may not agree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it to the death”, e.g. I can both condemn the attacks on her while also condemning her politically and feeling some shadenfraude that she is the victims of tactics similar to her and her compatriots own tactics. I can also hope that this brings her some enlightenment, however, considering her phrasing to describe Christians and males who she disagrees with in this essay, I believe that is a slim chance at best
@margo, I’m a woman and a classic feminist, by which I mean that I believe women should have equal opportunity with men, and both are equally human. I agree that historically in nearly all cultures for millennium, women have had fewer outside opportunities than men. I also firmly believe that now, in our country and a few others, is the best time for women in nearly all history and across cultures. Far better than when I was a kid even.
That said, I disagree that women are passive victims – in many cultures it is the women who are largely responsible for bringing other women down – nor that victimhood is a zero sum game – women’s traditional roles have negatives, men’s have many negatives too, ie, being disposable in war, being disposable in work and as the dregs in society. Guess what–life is hard, unfairness abounds. I don’t believe in this giant zero sum gender war. We are far too complex for that, and women are every bit as adult as men and therefore every bit as responsible.
You seem to strangely assume that all commentators here who call out the author’s hypocrisy are men. I find that odd. It doesn’t take a penis to point out hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness. This is what some commentators are pointing out. I myself wouldn’t be gleeful at the loathsome and troublesome attacks by trans ‘activists’ – and cowardice on the part of the media and others – and 100% agree with the author that this is a woke form of misogyny.
But most commentary here is not gleeful. Most simply point out her hypocrisy and her refusal to self-reflect her own loathsome violent-endorsing position on men. I agree that it’s counter productive to leave her to her own and say in effect, Sorry sucker; but you must see that this is a natural response from people she has been hatefully attacking based on their gender for years. No one is saying she is a spokesperson for all radical feminists, btw; they are saying that based on her own words, she is being hypocritical and un-self-aware, and now the chickens are coming home to roost and she still doesn’t see it. What she is saying sounds an awful lot like, ‘This behavior is fine for thee but not for me.” I wonder why you resort to name calling (accusing commentators you don’t know one iota of misogyny when they are by no means saying anything misogynistic). It is far better for you to make your point without resorting to that.
As far as your asking “do none of you give a crap that sex-based rights are being eroded”–That is a classic passive group based accusation. “Being eroded” by whom? The answer is why people are reacting to her hypocrisy. Do people care? Hell yes. Most people have objected to this radical trans movement for years, but in point of fact, many intersectionalists and far left wokescolds attack anyone who dares open their mouths (as the author unfortunately has found out). The final thing I’ll point out is your bewailing “sex based rights” is staggeringly sexist in and of itself, as the attack on men (the ‘patriarchy’) has been relentless and loathsome.
I’ll end with turning your words around: Do you not have sons? Brothers? Fathers? Do you not see the repellent attacks on hetero men and their role – as husbands, fathers, son – as incredibly dangerous as well?
I’m still rather in shock by your alarming praise of “old school Nazis” and their treatment of women. It is profoundly ignorant and offensive. Or do Jews and Gypsies and others not count as women to you? Those old school Nazis raped my aunts and female cousins and tortured and murdered them.
Overall, I really wish people would stop being enamored of lockstep group identity based on very shallow markers (skin color, genitalia). We are all human.
What praise of nazis?!? Stating a fact is praise? I am Jewish, so I don’t know what the actual f you’re talking about. Look up ADL’s report on alt right and misogyny, google “anti defamation league when women are the enemy”. It’s a good starting point for the topic. There was a recent article about the editor of the daily stormer, also an avowed misogynist who is pleased that misogyny is turning out to be a gateway drug for more clicks and membership in their twisted movement.
I don’t assume everyone who comments is a man. Maybe you skipped over a few pretty horrid comments about bindel, women in general, feminism as a cancer, and other dehumanizing language towards women. You have to admit, some of the comments here are pretty hateful and use fairly foul language.
I support men just as much as women. I don’t accuse men wholesale of all crimes against women. But since I’m not some rabid feminist I don’t get why you’re even asking me this question. I read the article as saying, trans ideology is a danger to women and humans in general, let’s do something about it.
I didn’t even say a thing on patriarchy btw. One thing that I do agree with feminists on is that I think women should have the right to have their own bathrooms, their own sports competitions, and that a bloke in a frock shouldn’t get to identify as a woman, whatever that means. It’s demeaning and reduces womanhood to lipstick and a dress. I’m not enamoured of “lockstep group identity”. Humans should be equal. But there are differences, and it makes no sense to erase those.
“Do none of you give a crap that sex-based rights are being eroded?”
Yes, I do. I think it’s wrong and dangerous that natal men should be allowed access to women’s facilities on the basis of self-declaration alone. And it’s highly unfair that women’s sports are now open to natal men.
But where was your concern when men’s and boys’ organisations were being forceable de-segregated one by one?
Why, for instance, does the UK have the mixed-sex Scouts and the single-sex Girl Guides? This has very real consequences. The Guides has effectively become a feminist lobby group, working with feminist legislators to secure special funding and preference for girls. The Scouts, meanwhile, has also been taken over by a self-declared feminist, Ann Limb, who said this on taking office:
“We want to grow the numbers of girls and young women, and scouting has to reflect society. When I was young, there was a certain type of person who went to Brownies or Guides or Scouts. That is changing… The position of young girls and women is such at the moment that unless young boys understand what it’s like to be a young woman then you won’t get them to change their behaviour.”
So even Scouts now operates on the assumption that boys are defective and must be remoulded, in the interest of girls. There is literally no space left in which boys are now subject to this feminist-inspired shaming and in which they are not told to subordinate their needs to those of girls. The Scouts movement is only one example. There are many others. I fully support the right of women to single-sex spaces in which their needs are prioritised. I have yet to meet a feminist who returns the favour.
If boys or men are numerically dominant in any field, this is instantly seen as a problem which must be remedied with funds, campaigning and preferential treatment for girls and women entrants. There have, for instance, been massive efforts to get women into STEM, even though women already dominate STEM if you include the life sciences (which campaigners never do) and even though women dominate every other subject at university. The same is not of fields which women numerically dominate. This is always “celebrated”, even when – as with fields such as teaching or psychology, there is good evidence that the dominance of these fields not just by women but by feminist-inspired theories and practices is harming male service users.
And if you agree that opening women’s sports to men is unfair, then you should also have reservations about quotas and preferential promotion for women in occupations such as the emergency services and the armed services. Feminists can’t on the one hand say it’s unfair for women to have to compete in physical activities with men, because men have a natural advantage, and at the same time say that the low numbers of women in physical and dangerous occupations can only or primarily be explained by discrimination.
As for hate and misogyny: open a mainstream news site such as The Guardian, The Independent, CNN, or even the BBC and you will see anti-male comments worse than anything here and you will see them above the line. Have you ever objected to that?
Feminists are quick to pour scorn on men, when men don’t support the rights of and equitable treatment for women and girls. But they have a total blindspot for the rights of men and boys.
Great comment James. You should write up the Scouts/Guides story for Quillette. It’s an indefensible situation.
Thank you.
The Scouts/Guides thing is really complex. I think it came about because Scouts wanted lottery funding and Guides decided to do without. But the outcome is as described. And if a women’s or girl’s organisation had been subject to the same dynamic, with the same outcome for girls well-being and representation, we’d recognise that as institutional sexism.
Are you ‘the’ Cathy Young? You don’t need to answer (online privacy and so on; no intention to pry). But, on the off chance that you are, it might amuse you to know that I realised shortly before last Christmas that I might have been reading your Twitter feed too much.
I was standing in clothes shop, waiting while my wife tried some things on. A sign in the shop caught my eye. That’s weird, I thought to myself, why the hell would this clothes shop have an “otter of the week”? What kind of nonsense if this?
It took me fully five minutes to realise it was, of course, the offer of the week.
So let me get this straight. The woman who said she’d put men in concentration camps …. is now complaining about her treatment at the hands of other activists? I don’t condone the violence – if indeed it happened – but she has been playing the women-are-perpetual-victims card for years. She has demonstrated herself to be a hateful human being. She is emblematic of one of the worst sects of modern, mainstream, gender feminism. That is her right. But as professional activists such as herself are fond of saying: words have consequences. Therefore, I’m perfectly fine disregarding her musings (a credible witness she simply isn’t).
I feel for you ms. Bindel. No one should be subjected to violence based on mere ideas. But I do find it rather ironic that you berate your ideological opponents for inventing a derogatory term for you: a TERF, yet you constantly use the equivalent: a misogynist. Both are just smears.
“Do none of you give a crap that sex-based rights are being eroded?”
That’s actually kinda funny…. considering. One wonders what sort of men’s “sex-based rights” would Bindel support? I mean old-school conservatives, anti-feminists, and non-egalitarians have been saying that for years. And of course we already know from her writings that Bindel has never been a fan of “male-only” spaces, activities, etc.
So yea, your hyperbole and man-shaming aside, there is a bit of the pot calling the kettle black here. I mean she’s experiencing what any number of folks from across the political spectrum have been experiencing for years if not decades. I’m guessing she – and her ilk – don’t even see the irony.
I would think reasonable people would agree that women and men both deserve to have their bodily autonomy respected, that sex-segregated spaces such as public toilets, locker rooms, etc. should exist, that both men and women should be free from harassment and discrimination based on their sex. I don’t know what bindel’s version of sex-based rights are. I don’t know much about her.
The gist of my comment was encapsulated in the 2nd to last paragraph. Regardless of what you think of bindel, she is talking about a serious problem, and I find that many in this comments section prefer to ignore her message just because of their hatred of her.
If a person doesn’t care about a woman’s right to use a bathroom free from incursions by men, and if they really don’t care that women’s sports, etc., are at risk, then yeah, that might well make them a misogynist. I’m not a radical feminist, i’m a moderate who feels betrayed by both right and left. So don’t project on me. You know nothing about me.
Margo. I would venture a guess that 99% of the people posting here do agree with your first sentence and your points about the underlying issue. You make the assumtion they don’t because of their distaste for the author. You did the projecting:
“It’s clear many of the commenters here, really are misogynists who don’t care one lick about women. How do I know this?”
For what it’s worth, I don’t know you, but you seem a decent and thoughtful person – much like the majority of the people commenting here.
It’s not because of our hatred of her. It’s because of her hatred of us.
You, ma’am, are sick with the same disease you accuse your opponents of having. A strong case can be made that they caught it from you.
Jeez, lighten up Harlan
A misogynist is someone who hates women. I think at this point if you don’t care about these issues it can hardly be blamed on hate. Society has made it clear it doesn’t care about men’s issues. Why should men then care about women’s? You are mistaking righteous apathy for hostility.
This piece is hilariously bad, and it seems to me that many people in the comments agree.
Dear Ms. Bindel, you are now the “victim” of your own ideology, and many (including me) simply have no sympathy for you.
You are trying to fight the transgender lobby by using the feminist-Marxist framework of men oppressing women. It does not matter how much you randomly throw around words like “misogynistic”, and “oppress” in your piece, it will NOT work. Transgender people have more intersectional pokemon points than you.
Moreover, the very fact that you are using that ideological framework means that you have basically learned nothing from what is happening to you right now. After decades of aggressively asking for equal outcomes(not equal opportunities), denying any genetic differences between men and women, and arguing than everything is a social construct, why are you surprised by this outcome? remember Simone de Beauvoir “on ne nait pas femme on le devient”?
To properly fight the transgender movement would require a deep ideological reckoning from people like you, but you do not want to do that. You think you can win by playing the victim again.
“Transgender people have more intersectional pokemon points than you.”
Made me smile. It seems like Bindel is complaining that she is now losing in the competitive victim-hood stakes, and can’t understand why.
Hence this shroud-waving around her nearly-assault.
Oh the irony!
Shrieking misandrist gets confronted by a mentally disturbed man who thinks he’s a woman following her talk on ‘how feminists should resist male violence’. She is then protected and saved from impending violence by 3 burly men who she would rather have shackled in a concentration camp for being born with penises and displaying toxic masculinity due to their career choice.
It seems the answer to her ‘how feminists should resist male violence’ is to enlist the help of large security MEN where possible as it seems they aren’t all bad based on this latest fracas.
Joking aside, if ever there was an example of being confronted with a mirror for your past behaviour this is it.
It’s staggering that the only people I genuinely see displaying hate and engaging in violence against the person on a mass basis is the collective that identify as being on the ‘liberal left’. All the marches, demonstrations protests outside universities are identical. Shrieking women and emasculated males holding up placards denouncing violence, hate, fascism, nazis (insert hypocritical statement here) and then acting in the manner directly associated with the term they proclaim they’re against.
I’m only 41 but the UK crowd 20 years my junior will not contain many humans who will contribute something positive to human evolution, we are literally regressing at an alarming rate. I genuinely despair for the future of this planet.
so a trans-woman is a woman when you like them and a man when you don’t like them?
It’s hard to feel any sympathy for Julie Bindel as she was one the instigators crowing on about ‘Destroying the Patriarchy’, ‘Marriage is Slavery’ and Males need to be reduced to 10% of the population,
Well, she got her wish and now society is going the way that she and the other Radical Feminists wanted.
Except – Now, she’s discovering that the new Radicals eat their old – and she didn’t up with the latest Progressive Insanity.
What’s funny to me is that she states that she was attacked by a Man, a trans-woman, and was protected by ‘Two Burley Security Guards’ – which means 2 MEN protected Ms Bindel. But she has a hard time saying that plainly.
Anyway – NO SYMPATHY from me.
This is what you’ve been campaigning on for decades – the ‘feminizing of society’, and now you’ve got it.
Males are now finding ‘Empowerment’ from becoming Females – and Julie Bindel doesn’t like it.
Are we not equal to men? And if so, why do we need special rights and protections? While these transgender ‘activists’ are annoying and their appalling narcissism should not be pandered to, they are only a real problem because we women cannot seem to hold our own against men even after a few generations of freedom. The optimist in me believes that this only appears to be the case because feminism is now peddling victimhood for its own ends and that most women do not need safe spaces or ‘ Women’s Sex-Based Rights’. Because the alternative is to resign ourselves to the protection of ‘good’ men (husbands and fathers in the old days, now ‘allies’).
Maybe it’s because my father secretly wanted a son (and I was the best he could do) but I was raised to assume I could take care of business when business needed to be taken care of. Yeah, I know, men are, on average, bigger and stronger…blah, blah. Maybe if I was 5′ tall and weighed 90 lbs I’d feel differently. All I know is so far I’ve managed to survive travelling through pervert infested Europe and running alone at night just fine. Maybe one day I’ll end up in some serial killer’s freezer but at least my last words will be ‘it was fun while it lasted’
On an additional note, nothing is more horrific than the thought of being trapped in a room (much less a society) dominated by these feminists (shudder). At least misogynists are kind of fun if you have a darkish sense of humor.
If it’s any consolation to you all my mother wanted was a girl and she got three boys.
Men and women should be LEGALLY equal. They cannot, and never will be physically, mentally, or psychologically equal. Does that mean women are inferior? No. It just means men and women are different. Different drives, different interests, different skillsets, abilities, etc. That through the slow evolution of the species and societies have made the two halves of the taxa complimentary. IMO women are smaller, weaker, and slower than men because they possess a valuable resource – the ability to bear children – that makes them worth protecting, which has also made men much more expendable to the species. If women were physically etc. equal to men, they would be more inclined to participate in risky tasks such as hunting, fighting, etc. A quick road to extinction.
Our sexual dimorphism has also led to some very monstrous societal arrangements, many of which persist today (and are being defended by the deluded and the ignorant), but we’re still here.
@ V 2.0
Haha best comment today. Truth is I’m 6’2” 190 and I’d be dead or in jail if I said some of the things I’ve seen 5’1” 90lb women say and do to men. Thank god serial killers are rare, it’s the boyfriend you have to worry about.
I look after my wife, sisters and female friends, and they look after me. It’s how most people live. Bindle wants to dictate men and women’s behavior. Read her screeds on prostitution and pornography, you women are hapless victims unable to resist men’s baser desires.
@ V. 20
Interesting comments and I commend you on not allowing yourself to be put into an ill-fitting and limiting box.
BTW, it’s possible your father secretly wanted a boy but please consider that observation is typically made when a man (especially of a previous generation) simply raised his daughter to be a self-empowered adult and taught her the requisite skills for that largely oblivious of whether said skills were generally thought to be ” feminine” or not.
Such behavior was often characterised that way despite no “secret” desire for a boy, perhaps a socially acceptable way to explain the refusal to constrain a daughter into those limiting sex-roles. I was jocularly of that way myself when raising 3 daughters despite it having zero basis in reality.
I had 5 brothers, no sisters and my mother became an invalid fairly soon. We boys quickly became responsible for shopping and cooking wholesome economical meals (feeding 8 is never cheap), doing your own laundry, waxing a wooden floor, replacing buttons and basic sewing repairs etc as well as house repairs and painting/wallpapering; lawn mowing and tree pruning, driveway shoveling, basic carpentry with power tools etc. No sex differences meant no sex-roles.
So when raising 3 daughters (and no boys) I naturally taught them all of the above and more (computer use and repair/maintainance; marinades, rouxs and degalzed sauces etc) without a thought about their sex. These are all skills which enrich an adult’s life help them make their own way in the world. How they each choose to develop or neglect such skills are now their adult decisions, not mine, But they came of age with these competencies so I feel I gave them a good balanced start in life.
Perhaps your father wanted merely to do the same for you? To get you into adulthood ready to fend for yourself; able to pursue whatever your inclinations were, unrestricted by having “missed something” when growing up and not requiring immediate dependence on a man to make up for his failure to outfit you well for independence. Such is a very common fatherly point of view…
I thought until a little while ago that I was reading a piece by Julie Burchill, but now see it’s by Julie Bindel.
Never mind. Skanks of a feather.
Pervert ridden Europe? How dare you!
“It is telling that there is no equivalent popular acronym or neologism to describe actual haters of transsexuals, such as religious fundamentalists and homophobic bigots.” …um, except for the fact that merely being openly religious often gets one automatically attacked as an innate bigot and a certain hater who is hateful and must be punished, no matter what one’s actual beliefs? It happens…pretty much all the time. My best friend of 14 years identified as gay. He passed away from cancer in 2016. I miss him every day. But because I’m a Christian: “Ugh, you BIGOT.”
So the hierarchy of victimhood gets changed around, now the victim becomes the perpetrator. Be patient, it will change again.
I’m willing to display my toxic masculinity by standing and protecting women any time they ask politely.
Feminism has been a important positive force but all that radicalism hungers for is power. Until the current revolutionary arc gets its reality check, this stuff will continue. They have seen the power of feminism and want a piece of it–or maybe even all of it.
I think a lot of comments are too hard an Bindel or at least they do not properly acknowledge the value and power of feminism. That said, I also wonder if Bindel feels as Robespierre felt as he was frog marched up to the guillotine.
To quote Nelson from The Simpsons:
“Ha Ha …”
Bindel is a man-hating stool. She can protect her bloody self, us mere males aren’t going to get bloodied on her behalf.
Feminists always portrayed conservatives as there adversaries, it’s a sad irony to see the most violent opposition to their messages coming from their own extrem woke side of politics
As the good readers of Quillette have taken the time to read Julie Bindel article, I think it would be good for Bindel to take a little time and read the comments. It would be useful for her to introspect a little about why she has so little support outside of her relatively small circle of followers not on a platform that actually agrees with her on the underlying issue. Where is she losing them?
From the comments, two things stand out.
The first is that readers are clearly comparing Bindels tactics to trans activists and saying they are similar. For instance, she says the term activists were using, TERFS, was misogynistic. Later, she claims that the mainstream press is scared of being shamed by the word transphobic. But isn’t Julie, by hurling terms misogynistic and misogynists, attempting to shame people in the same way trans activists do by using terms like transphobic and transphobia? Bindel routinely relies on smears and appeals to moral authority when she makes her feminist arguments, so why is it unfair for trans activists, despite some minor differences, to essentially do the same thing? If the tactics she employs are so unprincipled, ambiguous and shallow that they can be turned around against her, then she exposes her own faulty reasoning along with her opponents with her complaints.
The second thing that really stands out, especially after reading the comments, is the idea of compassion. What I think its important for Bindel to understand is that she will only get an amount of compassion proportional to what she gives, whereas act tactless and offending people, like, say, joking about genocide of all men, will reduce peoples ability to feel compassion towards her and the things she cares about. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that those who find Bindels joke about genocide, or any of the plethora of other comments she has made about men, offensive will not be compassionate towards her causes. She should try to write supportively for causes men are engaged in, and then she will likely find fellows who are more likely to reciprocate. Otherwise, she should only expect from those men as much as she gives to them.
Most of the comments on here are pretty good, even the mean spirited ones. I don’t understand the man-hating, incel like comments though. Not only is no one convinced by those, it further alienates the people that, ultimately, agree with you on the trans issue.
However much Bindel and many many many many ALL women might say they’d like to kill (men, a man, that man) we rarely do. As opposed to men, who kill women in slaughter, over millennia. Take a look at stats. You’re the people who love facts and stats right? You’re killers. Of women.
Look at the stats yourself Cora. Men are far more likely to kill other men. In fact, in a good number of patriarchal societies of the past, it was considered dishonorable, especially in western cultures, to purposely attack and or kill women as a male. You group all men together based upon the poor actions of a few. Women, according to the facts, are generally not the preferred target of men for murder, physical violence or death, other men are. Remember, it wasn’t very long ago that men lived by the motto “women and children first” in regards to whose lives were prioritized in a disaster situation.
cora,
Do you really believe that the history of male-female relations has been characterized by men frequently slaughtering women?
How can a person actually believe such a thing?
So you want to use stats? No, you don’t. If you really believed that, you wouldn’t be a feminist in the first place.
Know how much more likely a man is to be murdered than a woman? Wanna take a guess? Something like 9 times more likely. Now, don’t quote me on that but it’s a huge difference. And you don’t complain about it because you’re perfectly happy for men to be killing other men. When some woman just can’t shut up long enough to keep herself from getting killed, THAT’S when you claim to care. But you don’t really care about that either. You just care enough that it gives you a reason to complain. And let’s face it, if it weren’t for complaining, what would women have that they’re better at doing than men?
“As opposed to men, who kill women in slaughter, over millennia.”
Actually, no, they don’t. If they did the human race would probably have been extinct by now. In primitive cultures the usual fate of the women of a defeated nation (or tribe, or whatever) is enslavement and rape, so they can bear the children of the victor. Even in relatively cultured societies, like Classical Greece, it was customary, when a city was taken, to kill all the men and sell women and children to slavery. This was the fate of the Island of Melos in 416 B.C (sacked by the Athenians) and was almost the fate of Mytilene in 427 B.C. (conquered by the Athenians, again).
You are probably trying to say that in modern societies it is more often women are victims of men than vice versa. That is only natural, as men are far more prone to be the perpetrators of violent crimes than women.
Killing other people is a rare thing for men and women to do. Condemning an entire sex for the actions of an abherrent minority is just bigotry. It is worth remembering that most child abuse is committed by women. Should all women be condemned as abusers?
Clearly not.
Thank god we have irrational imbeciles to scream hyperbolic statements in the comment section. It really classes the place up.
Yes, men are killers. Mostly of other men. Which women like. Much better to be with a socialized killer than a weakling. Don’t blame us for your choices.
“Thank god we have irrational imbeciles to scream hyperbolic statements in the comment section. It really classes the place up.” Pure gold, love it. Defenstrator, when you’re good, you’re unbeatable. Thanks.
Yeah but we kill way more men, it’s not even close , so we can hardly be called misogynists.
Well said!
Thanks Kevin, that’s a pretty good summary.
This article gave me a feeling of warm satisfaction. Thank you for sharing, Ms. Bindel.
You reap what you sow.
@Daniel G
& what do you reap?
#believeher…
I was going to share this, but no. While I’m completely opposed to the trans movement invading women’s spaces, you go out of your way to condemn “religious bigots.” Trashing your allies, like me, great strategy. You don’t seem to see that you’re being defeated by your own intersectional, victim-obsessed culture. Until feminists like yourself and Meghan Murphy accept who your real adversaries are, you’re going to lose. You keep trying to blame men, when in reality the common characteristic of the “allies” and propagators of the trans movement is that they’re all on the Left. While trans women are men invading women’s spaces, it’s the Left that is allowing and promoting it. Men aren’t your problem; men and women of the Left are.
Wow! It’s hard to know where to start. First, like many of the commenters, I have to say that it’s sad to watch someone who has been happy to stigmatize others (like us religious bigots) crying about being hoisted on her own petard.
Second, when parents objected to having their daughters sharing restrooms with bearded ladies, you and all your “woke” friends called us bigots and cheered Target for giving us the finger. While I agree that they have no business in girl’s bathrooms or sports, it’s hard for me to sympathize when you complain that someone’s being mean to you.
Wow! Shared restrooms are your only great fear. Life must be very comfy in that bubble.
Never mind those parents who have to bury their daughters from abuse. It could never happen to you.
Careful, your complicity is showing…
Oooooh, a smear followed by a false equivalency, with a bit of shaming at the end for spice. So convincing! How about you go away and let the adults talk.
@ANJ
It’s obviously not his greatest fear, and life is not a comfy bubble.
So allow men into women’s spaces because some of those women were abused by men? Makes no sense
Anj, you are trying too hard to make a moral equivalency argument and it’s falling flat. I doubt you can see it.
@ Anj
Careful of hurling the stone marked “complicity.” It has a way of rebounding. You’re now a regular reader and commenter in Quillette, so you’re complicit in the tone and content of the comments here.
Most people under the age of 2 murdered by a parent are murdered by their mother. You are complicit in this unless you loudly and regularly decry it. See how complicity works?
@Rev
Ahhh but the difference is not ignoring those facts in favour of a defensive petty one uppance.
Where have I ever tried to silence or deflect negative facts regarding women?
Ohhh Wazoo, you are a regular reader & commenter here at ‘rationale’ HQ, show me the evidence!
See how hypocrisy works….
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I think the problem lies in the (progressive ideological) thinking that creating enough rules will force the world into harmony and herald the utopia where no one gets hurt and everyone is good. It won’t. The nature of being human is that these tendencies will arise no matter how many cracks you fill or walls you build around yourself or your society/community/culture. As displayed here. They thought they made themselves ‘safe’; but turns out they aren’t because there is always someone ready to abuse the system.
So many words in the comments to simply say that men do not condemn other men for violence against women.
What a shocker.
@Lynda
Yup, & this lot are the ones who purport to champion ‘rationale.’
God help us…
Well yes, because they are. I think it has already been explained to you, that just because you have irrational beliefs and poor comprehension skills, does not make other people bad. That’s just you projecting your own ignorant prejudices onto them. I understand you dob’t Want to deal with your own short comings, few do, but that doesn’t mean others have to agree with your vapid spewing.
@ Amj
“this lot are…”
Try seeing how lumping diverse people into allegedly homogeneous groups for the purpose of demonization or hagiography does little but divide people into warring tribes.
Try seeking some common ground and you might find more than you suppose. 100% tick-the-box agreement? No. But be careful wanting that, as Ms Bindel has discovered. You might find yourself behind the curve of “Progressive” ideology next week and lumped in with the regressive, right-wingers as she is now. She’s now a Conservative, transphobe and an internal misogynist, calling for the erasure of womxn because of her biological essentialism.
She’s reduced to trying to rally support in Quillette, See how that works? Don’t believe it’s not possible that you’re next. Like the song says,
“Be careful how you treat people
On the way up/
Because you might meet up/
On the way back down”
When they turn on you, we’ll still be here but would like to see a little sage contrition then, just as Ms Bindel would be wise to exhibit today.
Cute how you chose me for your ‘we are the world’ manifesto when the majority of ‘aggrieved’ commenters here refused to unite with the leftist who came a knockin’.
Oooh Rev, see how hypocrisy works (again)…
@ Anj
” the majority of ‘aggrieved’ commenters here…” may write as they choose, just as you do, they are not me but you certainly sound like an aggrieved commenter.
Shall I judge you to be part and parcel with them? You, after all, are a Quillette reader and frequent commenter, perhaps you’re angling to publish a piece? Then you could be a Quillette author as well, the only arrow missing from your quiver.
You are helping show me predisely how hypocrisy works: judging others by rules which don’t apply to one’s self, so keep it up; it’s very illustrative.
@Lynda Murphy
There are many comments condemning the violence and none applauding it.
There are many which condem Julie Bindel’s opinions but so what?
Would you be prepared to condem Julie Bindel’s suggestion that all men should be imprisoned and shot?
If not why not?
If that is honestly what you believe then bad news, your reading comprehension skills are completely shit. Nobody said violence towards women was good. What they said was an ideologue is complaining her own tactics are being used against her. Try to keep up if you want to be part of the conversation.
@Lynda, that’s your takeaway? There isn’t enough bubble wrap in the world to wrap you up safe enough. Better get trained for concealed carry. Lol. oh wait you probably want to take away my right to protect myself, too, you can complain about how horrible ALL men are.
Btw, there would have been no 19th amendment without those dead white men who voted to ratify it. One of them was my grandfather.
@Jeffrey
You mean this little gem:
“will heterosexuality survive women’s liberation?
It won’t, not unless men get their act together, have their power taken from them and behave themselves. I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.”
Poor Jeffrey, can only perceive literals (when it suits).
Geez, lucky we didn’t have to rely on the likes of you in War time…..
Oh ANJ you do depend upon people like me. Want to see my DF-214 or my father’s or my Grandfather’s. Hint, if you don’t know what a DR-214 is, look it up. While you were learning to parrot talking points without understanding, some of us actually were out there putting our lives on the line for what we believe in.
If you read her quote with even a modicum of critical thinking you would see she is resorting to generalizations and condemning an entire sex. This is her modus operandi. You have tried to defend her stances, but seem not to understand that besides her hyperbole, her need to condemn all men, to emasculate them and judge them based upon a caricature that she has created is even worse then her hyperbole. She dehumanises her opponents. She argued against straw men and twist facts to make her point. The additional quote you just provided of hers, further illustrates the point we are making. Your college 101 English professor with her coexist and Fuck Bush bumper sticker might give you top marks for you regurgitation of tired tropes, but those of us capable of more in depth thought see right through it. You are a pseudo-intellectual.
Big man, big man with a gun!
What exactly did you put your life on the line for Jeffrey?
It certainly wasn’t enlightenment values since you clearly can’t cope with any free speech that threatens your romanticised fantasy of what society should be like ie ‘men should be men’ & women who challenge them should shut the eff up without resorting to insult & degradation.
By your desperate repeated attempts to resist the possibility that there maybe some value in another’s point of view or engage in civilised discussion one can only surmise doth protest too much.
But what is it Jeffrey really fears?
Scared Julie & her pals will take your big gun & who or what are you then?
Play soldiers all you like but it won’t make you a man if you went there on false pretence.
You gotta make your own gun.
Put your big boy pants on for god sake & let go. Yield to & embrace the diversity within yourself & you’re halfway there. C’mon, evolution ain’t so bad.
Oh, & I don’t depend those who don’t believe in freedom only those who do.
Anj, what IS your point of view?
That all men are evil and guilty of something that harms all women? Do you understand that you are presenting a view of all women being virtuous and innocent? IOW, you seem to believe that all women are weak victims who can’t take care of themselves and the answer is to emasculate men. No thanks.
@Lydia
Where on earth did i ever say that?
My original point was simply I never recalled Bindel encouraging intolerance of free speech.
Her work mostly centres around domestic violence against women & the fact that it’s ignored in favour of a few clearly benign jesting comments is quite telling of the level disregard many here have towards women. End of.
Advocating for women who have been victims of savage long term domestic violence is hardly believing all women are victims or all men are perpetrators so off with their balls.
The only victim mentality here is the relentless pathetic infantile petty ‘look at moi’ the bad lady made a joke & hurty my feelings so let’s make her pay.
Cute that you think its emasculation setting them off when it’s actually the opposite they can’t contend with….
ANJ I am neither afraid of Julie or her pals. I am afraid of the loss of individual liberty her and her ilk support. I defended your right to make an ass of yourself spouting pseudo-intellectual sophistry. Do you challenge yourself to see how many buzzwords and woke catchphrases you can put in a sentence. How many ad hominems and caricatures and straw men you can create? I have never stated she can’t have her opinion, nor did I ever say she needed to shut up. And no I never said men should be men. In fact, you seem to be incapable of accurately representing what I have said and this has led to your peurile attempts to counter a point I never made. It is almost as if you are so angered that I dare to contradict your point that you lash out in the most incomprehensible manner possible. You obviously are not used to people questioning your assertions. If you actually bothered to respond to what I actually stated, and to accurately represent my stance, you would be demonstrating a level of critical thinking that you have yet to show.
You stated that you wouldn’t want people like me defending your liberty. But that is exactly what I did, so instead you chose to mock me and demean my service. You made assumptions about me which are neither accurate nor pertinent to the discussion we are having. You fail to counter any point I made but resort to personal attacks (which you have done from my first response to yours). You create a gross generalization of those who opposed you. You make unsupported assumptions about people’s motives. you attempt to appear more accepting of others but your debate style demonstrates you are incapable of empathy to any side but those who agree with you. You are in other words a sycophant and an intellectual lightweight, who has rarely ever been challenged. When confronted with mature dialogue that runs counter to your perception, you ignore what the person actually stated. Instead you substitute a version that is more in line with your world views. You accuse me of being incapable of understanding views different than my own, yet your above response would demonstrate that you are the guilty party in this regard.
@JeffreyC
Now we’re finally getting somewhere.
Relax mate, Jules & her pals are no threat to your ‘liberty’.
Domestic violence has been her life’s work & she can barely make inroads into women being beaten to death by their partner’s let alone thwart the majesty of male freedoms. She’s made a few colourful comments out of sheer frustration that’s it. Not unlike the ol’ ‘i could just strangle him for leaving the toilet seat up’.
The enemy is within here. Your defensiveness is certainly not your strong point. Stick to the offence mate. You are clearly born to act on behalf of the weak so don’t waste it. We need you.
And, bye the bye, I have the utmost respect, gratitude & reverence for military service when it’s not wasted on blinkered self indulgence.
In the immortal words of JP, ‘clean up your room’ first…
Peace be with you.
To claim he is resisting the idea that there is other points of view is clearly false. That there are other points of view is what he is explaining to you. Projecting your own deficiencies onto him is neither rational nor reasonable.
You then go onto make petulant insults, and ignore entirely the required use of force in defending free societies.
You are not smart. That you obviously think you are is tiresome, but not unexpected.
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No doubt that a great many transactivists have seriously gone off the deep end – misogyny in drag at best, or in large part. And Bindel is certainly justified in calling out their demented claims and egregious assaults.
However, as others here have argued with some justification, many “feminists” in general, and Bindel in particular, can be faulted for contributing to the dog’s breakfast that is transgenderism and feminism itself: having sown the wind with some seriously demented & untenable dogma of their own, they are now, to a not inconsiderable extent, reaping the whirlwind.
For instance, Bindel herself claimed that “Toxic masculinity isn’t the problem, masculinity is” with absolutely no qualifications at all, as if to say: “ALL masculinity is the problem”. Those “three burly security guards” that Bindel referred to might not have been quite so quick to rush to her defense if they had known what such a low opinion she had of of their “masculinity”.
https://twitter.com/FinneElizabeth/status/1068220726631690241
In any case, much of feminism is, in itself and quite unfortunately, largely incoherent twaddle and untenable dogma, and riven with the sectarian warfare that would not have been out of place in the battles between Catholics and Protestants of yore. For instance, Wikipedia lists some 19 different “Feminist movements and ideologies”, so many of which are at “swords’ points with each other over matters of creed and technique” that the whole lot “crumples to absurdity”.
In addition, just about every one of those sects has a different view on whether sex is or is not a spectrum; on whether gender itself is such a spectrum, or whether it is the “externally imposed set of norms that prescribe and proscribe desirable behaviour to individuals in accordance with morally arbitrary characteristics” (Reilly-Cooper; Aeon), or whether it has any roots in biology or is entirely “socially constructed”. If “we” can’t agree on terms of reference and definitions for “brute facts” then we should not be surprised if everyone winds up “riding madly off in all directions”; hardly a recipe for much progress.
So, “feminism” is mostly a bloody joke – a sad commentary on the sexism, self-serving vanity, anti-intellectualism, and self-aggrandizement that characterizes much of feminist “philosophy” – and must take a not inconsiderable amount of blame for the thuggery that Bindel herself has been subjected to.
News at 11:00, documentary to follow:
https://medium.com/@steersmann/reality-and-illusion-being-vs-identifying-as-77f9618b17c7
Lynda,
How do the comments suggest that men don’t condemn violence against women? Most of the commenters are classical liberals, leaning libertarian. They largely condemn all violence that isn’t defensive. They don’t have to enumerate all of the types of aggression that they condemn: they condemn them all as a matter of course.
Feminism truly is cancer. Bindel is a misandrist and an academic hack.
I don’t agree with what is happening to her, but I fucking love seeing feminist being eaten by their own.
Pity they’re too fucking stupid to see the irony. Toxic femininity at its best.
Wait a second here…didn’t you call for the murder of male children? Haven’t you been screeching about all of our “male privilege” for as long as you’ve been capable of screaming? Wasn’t it people just like you that insisted, first, that women and men were exactly the same? Wasn’t it people just like you that insisted that any space for men was inherently misogynistic and had to be destroyed?
Yup. You asked for this. Nay, you BEGGED for this. WE TOLD YOU what would happen. You called us dinosaurs, accused us having fragile egos, small dicks, and Oedipus complexes. So you know what? Fuck you. You’ve got this.
In defence of La Bindel it should always be remembered that the female brain does not recognise the reality of contradiction in thought. Two diametrically opposed views can be held simultaneously and both deemed to be “true”. Thus, there is no contradiction in JB’s condemnation of violence (attempted only) against herself while espousing violence against others, It is merely a feminine caprice. I’m guessing trans women are not similarly endowed?
Basically, violence and threats, bad. There are two sides here, those who support peaceful inclusive respectful freedom and those who want to shut down someone else’s arguments with bullying shouting or threats or outright violence due to perceived power imbalances. The struggle for a society in which we all have genuine egalitarian freedom, where power is held in check by consensual dynamics, will not be achieved by denying others their right to rise to the mean. My masculinity means I must step aside or use it to enhance inclusion, but never violence. The same goes for anyone whether trans or female/feminine who has power than prevents others from rising to the mean. Consciousness is everything.
Ms. Bindel is clearly a manhating lesbian feminist, and a nasty piece of work. Not excusing any attempted violence on her person, but, given the things she has said about trans people (I have no dog in this dogfight) I can understand why one would attack her. Attention-loving narcissist extremists like Bindel (and indeed the trans man who attacked her) should not be allowed to try and manipulate debates and dialogues, because they always end up driving things off a cliff. She will be pleased that this lunatic tried to attack her, because it will just confirm, for her and other manhaters, what she thinks about men. Sad and depressing.
Scottish politics is in a terrible mess at the moment, because of deranged extremists like Bindel. Her obsession with male violence seems to be pathological, coming from when she could have been a victim of the Yorkshire Ripper, and she now tars all men with a violent brush due to this mistaken-for-a-whore trauma. The political mess is also because of many mentally and emotionally fragile female extremists (who cynically wave past traumas around as a shield against criticism) in the Scottish National Party being given platforms to spread their tragic mental illness on. The trans legislation in Scotland pending right now in Scotland, due for a June 25th release, is a disgrace, brought on Scottish women BY Scottish women, ironically. Paid-up, card-waving feminist Nicola Sturgeon, an extremist ideologue, has a LOT to answer for in sowing societal discord.
@Amy Fibian
I’d always thought wee jimmy krankys obsession with the modern “men” in kilts to be a cynical grabbing at a passing progressive bandwagon to distract form the fact that independence has stalled? I don’t think she actually has a sincere bon in her body that believes in trans rights?
The pro trans legislation seems to have been put on hold now that she’s angling for another once in a lifetime indy ref.
Do you know of any Scottish political discussion forum’s ?
Men are men, and women are women, and if they could just stay away from each other for 50 years or so all humanity’s problems would just go away.
Good article. The constant bullying I now get from transgender women while I’m just trying to do my job has actually started to hurt my performance ratings, which has a direct impact on my ability to provide for my (very normal) family.
Keep up the good work!
The Scots are a weird bunch. Their attire is often non-gender-normative, their “games” are ridiculous, and don’t get me started on their food.
Thank you Quillette for “lifting the kilt”, so to speak, on these pressing issues.
Curious to know where you are from in the world, Al. They must put arsenic in the water to make you speak such braindead xenophobic crap.
Not arsenic, but fluoride, which is essentially the same thing. Both are designed by the government to destroy our precious bodily fluids
He’s just taking the Mickey. You know, poking fun. Please do not try to pretend your socially maladjusted moralizing is proper behaviour or that anyone intelligent should take your accusation of xenophobia seriously.
“Curious to know where you are from in the world, Al. They must put arsenic in the water to make you speak such braindead xenophobic crap”
Wow @Fib Amian, you really need to get a sense of humor. Or at least ask yourself why you immediately get so hostile and mean-spirited and utterly humorless with someone you simply disagree with.
Men and women are extremely different anatomically as I recently discovered to my surprise. Quillette is to be commended for highlighting this key fact despite the opposition by so-called “feminists”. Getting the truth out about this is important for those who manage to get to “third base” if you understand my drift (nuff said)..
‘Ken Allison’
‘Ken Alderson’
‘Al Kenderson’
‘Allan Derson’
How many more stupid fake names do you think this dumb troll fuck can conjure up? Somebody get this man a hobby, or aladyboy girlyboyfriend.
Amy Fibian
“Am I Fibbing][?]”
Sounds pretty fake to me …
What about Kevin Amberssen?
Amy, you appear to be a typically angry women’s libber with a deep-seated vendetta against the male race. If “Amy” is your real name, I have my doubts, based on your unladylike vocabulary.
‘Kevin Amberssen’ too. You just made up five different names with a common etymological root to answer on this post. I may hate men, but I couldn’t hate you, because you are by no means a man, or many men, as you fancy yourself. 😉
Thank you for your helpful thoughts on my post, they are much appreciated.
I suggest that instead of using the term “transgender women,” it would be clarifying to use the dictionary definition instead: “men-who-identifiy-as-women.” While a little longer and more cumbersome, this phrase makes clear that we are talking about men, not women, albeit men who have gender dysphoria.
@Douglas, I second that. I wish the media would do that for more clear communication.
Check your cis privilege, you stupid hypocritical transphobic lying bitch. Privilege is A-OK as long as YOU are the one who gets to exercise it, huh?
No one here has actually questioned if Bindel’s account of things might be a little less than the absolute, unvarnished truth.
However, it lacks ALL credibility.
https://medium.com/@Phaylen/anti-trans-radical-feminist-julie-bindel-accuses-a-trans-person-of-assault-327ecdc99740
Dear Outrage:
Bindel may well be a bundle of “stupid hypocritical transphobic” lies as you allege, but what she is not is a transvestite, which perforce makes the excrement she spews out, one gram less smelly than tranny crap.
Um, no, it’s not.
“Um, no, it’s not.”
Och, that is trenchant! You’ve cut me to the quick. How old are you? What grade are you in? In what part of your parents’ three bedroom bungalow do you live
Thankyou for posting that. The name calling, self righteous moralizing, and desperate attempt to be the victim of Bindel, and then claim that this is a sign that all society is a problem, makes it very clear there really are no good guys here. Just bad actors of the same sort fighting with each other. The clarification is most appreciated .
And thank you, Defenstrator, for that undeserved compliment, although to placate Outraged who might wish me harm, I should add that Jan Morris, CBE, formerly James Humphrey Morris, is an esteemed historian (Welsh) whose works grace my shelves; and indeed, I’ve another of his/her books on my Wish List:
Manhattan ’45, about a time when transvestites were only welcomed in society as night club acts.
“Whistling girls and crowing hens,
Always come to very bad ends.”
You’re welcome.
Captain: Not going to pretend I knew that piece of poesy before you posted it.
And the meaning is unclear to me, although I like to think it’s not sapphic.
Wow. Bindel’s post elicited a broad (no pun intended to us women) variety of comments from all camps (no pun intended to men wearing bras and false eyelashes).
Incredible and unexpected trans over-reach into society has resulted in entirely disparate demographics suddenly sharing similar issues, and they’re all laid bare in these comments.
I hope Bindel realizes that there’s a moment of opportunity for everyone IF she (or other people with platforms) can build bridges with groups she has alienated, and help build bridges between groups who are wide apart on other issues.
Beyond Bindel (who I’d never heard of until this post even though I’m a dissident second-wave feminist), a new Conservative government in Canada in October needs to incinerate Trudeau’s Bill C-16, and to work with the provinces to declaw the dangerous provincial human rights tribunals that are nothing less than totalitarian wrecking balls through the lives of good people.
Finally, my heart breaks for parents whose children are being sucked into transgender funneling by government-funded schools, government-funded mental health professionals, government-funded medical professionals, and legal courts. The damage being done to real lives here – all begun by critical theory and intersectionalism and now cemented into our institutions! – is nothing less than astonishing and horrifying.
Sydney,
You made a very important point.
At the moment progressive left wins. They change the law institutionalising psychopathic tyranny.
If we just “sit back, popcorn, laugh and enjoy the show (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha)” watching inner struggle of progressive radicals – we won’t have the last laugh. And I am sure if not they will serve popcorn in their concentration camps.
@Serenity
“…will [not] serve popcorn in their concentration camps.”
Absolutely correct.
The popcorn eaters remind me of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s lotus eaters, lulling themselves into complacency with the idea that they’re watching a funny theatre piece play out. They’re useless, these self-satisfied finger-waggers.
It doesn’t matter if Bindel and radical lesbian feminists rejected men or not. What’s important is Bindel’s argument, and the fact that real-life harm is being done right now to women and children (in a number of ways) by natal-male trans activists and their sick agenda.
@Sydney
Your funny Sydney. Really funny!! You are Bindel level funny… seriously! I got a real chuckle out of your post because like all feminists you think I owe you something. (Well I do but it’s not what you think…)
Build bridges?? Folks like you torched the bridges!! The bridges are ashes. They are gone. What you have left is the monster YOU created.
Trans overreach?? Not feminist overreach. Naw you didn’t do nuttin… LOL
Now you, Bindel and all your ilk expect men to clean up the mess that you created while all the time claiming the right to murder us. (Clearly you fail to see the irony in this.) “A moment of opportunity for everyone”…. you just don’t get that before forgiveness comes an apology and an expression of contrition. You have no capacity for it so don’t expect us to forgive your sins.
Well I can’t speak for all guys but I can tell you a large number of us have a ‘hands off’ and ‘not this time’ attitude. You empowered garbage are on your own.
I have an idea though… you consider yourselves courageous right? Edgy and forward thinking? Well it’s ok for you to demonize men why not the trans community? Go ahead and call for their murder too! I’d offer you the advice of ‘be careful what you wish for’ but you already ignored it so please continue down the path you started on…
@Robin
Nice try (and big rant), but big fail on your poor use of language, mind-reading, and general cluelessness.
Nope, dummy, the overwhelming majority of second-wave feminists were never against men, or even lesbian (not that there’s anything wrong with that, as the Seinfeld script went).
Also, I didn’t write a post; I wrote a comment. And if you were literate you’d know ‘your’ from ‘you’re,’ as well as other nonsense punctuated with pre-teen exclamation points and ellipses .
Now go peddle your low-IQ misogyny elsewhere.
Saying he is tired of feminists causing problems does not mean he hates women, it means he disagrees with an ideology. If you are going to accuse others of having a low I.Q. you should demonstrate some basic reading comprehension and reasoning skills first.
My, we are obsessed with ‘comprehension skills’.
Funny how every comment that triggers your insecurities is due to to poor comprehension.
Maybe it’s the ‘universe’ hinting a lack of comprehension of your obvious anger issues.
In any case get a grip on your projection & come up with some new misojo shit even if it’s still shit, you’re boring us all to tears…:
I
Prounoun assignment has become a new form of fascism.
I am proud to call myself “he” and the things that belong to me (such as my guns) “his”.
I make no apologies for having a penis, and you will take it from me out of my cold dead hands.
” Kent Amigudinov” [No results containing all your search terms were found]
Interesting: Your screen patronymic alludes to Mother Russia, which doesn’t have a penis.
Germans speak of their Fatherland.
Americans prefer a non-binary term of affection, homeland, but I don’t read anything into that.
@ johnhenry
Occam’s Razor suggests “Amigudinov” is the painfully obvious play on words/Russian names for “Am I good enough(?)” Similar to the 7th grade joke, “The book was named ‘Hole In The Sheet’
written by Mr. Completely” …
Seriously, folks.
Trans activism is going to drive a stake right through the heart of radical feminism.
Bindel realizes this, which why she is coming here for support. She is counting on the conservative impulse to protect women at all costs, and the disgust for any type of cross-genderism. This is the only reason why feminism has made as many inroads as it has.
Do not give it to them. Don’t be the useful idiots. Wymyn like her deserve NO support or protection from men whatsoever. She DESERVES to be no-platformed, and verbally attacked and insulted every way from Sunday.
Julie Bindel article? Shameless clickbait? Et tu Quillette?
Maybe there are sick men that dress and identify as women so they can abuse women, yet be considered victims themselves.
What a looney world the leftist like to live in, yet they built it and now they have seen it want even more special privileges for even a more diversified class, specifically what normies would refer to as just a woman.
At some point you folks will understand the individual is who deserves and should expect individual rights and that the classes you deem to put folks into or that even they put on themselves through the mass brainwashing of sheep is the illusion.
Speech isn’t scary it is how you define speech to meet your current needs rather than see the consequences you are building into that system through your definition of acceptable speech that has you writing long articles that were properly foretold by those of us who could care less what anyone has to say because we knew they had a right to say it no matter how offensive.
Welcome to the view from our side
TomCollins: I liked your 3rd paragraph. It wasn’t inscrutable (to me) after I read it 5 times.no commas and plenty of booze does not a sentence make. But booze makes me happy, so I will stick with it and work on the other =)
Considering that you’ve advocated for stripping men of their human rights and herding them into concentration camps, I’m disinclined to show you any sympathy. Welcome to the world you helped create, where you’re now in the crosshairs instead of the one holding the weapon.
https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/993621182732800000
Toujours la semiotique;
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2019/06/all-hockey-sticks-thats-fit-to-print.html
Has everyone seen this. Gender orthodoxy being enforced in a Scottish school:
https://youtu.be/kzEKw1YPec8
Thanks for that vid.
@ Bindel : This is your circus, and those are your monkeys.
Women are overprotected in our society. If something, we should start to make fun of nonsensical concepts such as ‘rape culture’ that Binden is fan of.
It is funny that women like Binden will never shut up about their right to say whatever they want about trans, but they will never defend MY RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER I WANT ABOUT WOMEN. They are just pro free speech in the way Richard Spencer is pro free speech, and Spencer is more charismatic.
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“A century ago, suffragists were beaten and imprisoned for asserting their rights as women. Their attackers were conservative reactionaries who hated the idea of women being treated as equals”
They were mostly democrats in the US. Descendants of those who had no problem Jim Crow, either. Never forget, Taney was a democrat. In the South, they were democrat party klansman targeting that movement. I know because my grandparents were suffragettes and told us how they were constantly targeted by them.
So, nice try. Do your homework.
Your lot created this monster and now want our empathy while insulting us. Good luck with that.
Hi Julie
I was at the protest before the meeting. It was planned as a silent protest with no shouting and there was none that I heard. When did you hear it? In your initial post on Twitter, you said that you were attacked at the airport but here you say it is outside the venue where you spoke. These two locations are several miles and at least 30 minutes travelling apart. They are hard to confuse. Which was it? I have seen that you said that you filmed the attack. Did you? If so, please give the film to the police so that they can act on it. No attack should go unpunished; I am sure you agree with that and that not reporting it and providing the evidence would only encourage other attacks.
To be clear, regardless of any opinion on trans rights and your opinions, physical and verbal attacks by either side are wrong. So are clear mistatements of fact. Please help by properlky reporting teh attack and by clarifying the inconsistencies in this story.
@Naomi H
Are you suggesting that you have been unable to locate any witnesses to, or any video of, the attack described in the article?
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Karen Straughan! I hope you are that Karen Straughan. Surely sounds like her. Remember when TERFs…. hm… I mean, lesbian feminists who take a lot of crap from trans activists, spoke at the Heritage Foundation because no other forum would let them? Two proclaimed “trans rights are men’s rights” meaning in their worldview something like “trans rights are nazi”. Of course I briefly looked into MRAs position on this and there was nobody defending the participation of trans women in womens’s shelters or bathrooms, or any of those issues that so worried the feminists. So you can’t drag the MRA movement into the mud fight of the radfem-radtrans quarrel.
@margo Here’s a hint: If you don’t want to be labelled a feminist/rad feminist, don’t express yourself like one. Pretty much the ONLY people who throw around the term “misogynist” the way you do are feminist ideologues.
I’m dumbfounded by at least two things. First, that this purveyor of actual hate and bigotry against men got published here, a place that is supposedly a redoubt for classical liberals. She’s worse than most know, google it, she’s called for all men to be placed in camps and that all heterosexual sex is rape and worse and on and on. I’m trying to imagine Ms. Lehman publishing a similar male author with an unabashed record of wanting to put women in camps? The question answers itself. Juile Bindel is not a classical liberal, nor does she support those ideals. She’s also likely not well psychologically. It’s already been showed the confabulated the “assault” story. Someone yelled at her and “lunged” – but didn’t touch her. In other words, just yelled at her aggressively. As far as I care, she’s got as much of that coming as possible.
The bigger question is why should I care? I’ve been shown by feminism that loyalty to my sexual tribe is righteous. The sexual revolution has freed me of my patriarchal burdens, such as providing for and protecting women on command. I mean, I’m correct in assuming that in order to “smash the patriarchy” I must stop seeing women as in need of my protection. Got it. Bindel has attacked men and gotten famous and rich from it for decades. She’s horrible, a terrible, awful person. But now she can cry for help from me?
Why on earth should I care what happens to Julie Bindel? I’m quite happy this is happening to her. Bring it on. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.
@letrangerblanc
It’s called female privilege.
No crime is too small. No insult is ever big enough. No level of their inane ‘arguments’ and hypocrisy is great enough. They are immune to criticism. They can never do any wrong. This is religion.
They are feminists!
Even in this scenario where you have the most vile man-hating POS given a platform to spew her butt hurt over being treated the way she treats others still brings out other butt hurt feminists to her defense. And your pointing out the double standard is noted but not unusual… in fact it is common currency. Indeed if any author who had called for the mass execution of women published anything similar they would immediately be listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a purveyor of hate. They would then move to have the website destroyed by attacking whoever is hosting it. Bindel on the other hand is treated like a heroine and given a wide access to audiences through various media.
Why should you care? Indeed that is the central question… the manosphere and red pill community has been struggling with that one… a lot. The MRA’s want to fix things through incremental change, Rollo Tomassi and the Red Man Group stay engaged while explaining female nature and using caution. The PUA’s are Red Pill aware of female nature and exploit it for temporary advantage. The MGTOW’s flip the finger at everyone and make precisely your point by disengaging. Then there is another group that has no name yet and no public advocates but some adherents…. Stephen Paddock. Nihilism. Flipping the finger and taking out a lot of people including themselves on their way out the door….
Why care? Because …. (this particular term is way overused)… society is a social construct. You exist in one surrounded by human males and females. Both have enormous creative capacities and a capacity to destroy. When socially organized we work together to create, when tribalized we kill each other. When men have no stake in society, they stop protecting it. When they are penalized for being in it, they have an incentive to tear it down.
Now the current Western society (and others) cater to females. Their needs are met and men are thrown under the bus. If you haven’t seen these yet, do yourself a favor and watch these movies, trailers linked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLzeakKC6fE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZTOT6DKfZ8
The weird thing about Red Pill knowledge is understanding that men support this system. They sustain it. Plenty of men support Bindel or various other flavors of feminism. Our wetware (evolution) is coded to protect women and throw other men under the bus. The feminists know this and exploit it. What they do is far, far worse than anything the PUA’s might do…. they can openly call for your murder and our wetware will stop us from acting on it. They can kill a man and our wetware will say that ‘he probably deserved it’. Human society is gynocentric.
So the individual man has a choice…. why care? Truly it isn’t easy. The traditional conservative answer, (Jordan Peterson, Brad Wilcox, etc.), is to suck it up. Jesus showed us the way and we should sacrifice ourselves!! If you just read the right biblical stories then make the right sacrifices and everything will work out. (The male suicide rate speaks volumes about what a bad idea that is). While I honor what the MRA’s do, they have had no success in spite of decades of trying to change things. PUA’s are exploitative of female nature and have no long term solutions. MGTOW’s express your point of view but go a step further and literally will not have anything to do with females. Nihilism is not an answer, it’s a quite literally a dead end.
So to answer your question and why I agree with your answer is that it is the moral thing to do. Morality is common among all social species including our primate cousins. The two pillars of morality are reciprocity and empathy. Bindel has neither so she deserves none in return. This is true of all feminists and gender supremacists.
Show me contempt, I show you contempt.
Show me respect, I show you respect.
You say I should be killed for having the audacity of being born male….
OK Bindel you want to go there? Lets see what you got! Don’t expect me to get teary-eyed and gushy if some trans women takes you out before you get to all 3 1/2 billion men on this planet!
@letrangerblanc
Where do you get the idea that Quillette is for “classical liberals”? My understanding is that it is a publication for ideas and discussions that other mainstream journals will not/ refuse to publish.
Regardless of the author’s history, the idea under discussion in this article doesn’t seem to be tainted with that same myopic filter.
I prefer Quillette’s editorial stance for discussing ideas rather than “polarised activism”.
Having said that, in this instance, as a straight white male, I’m more than happy to stand back and watch the intersectional left eat itself.
Now, where’s my popcorn?
You can watch a YouTube video of a (large) trans “woman” assault Ben Shapiro while both were on a televised panel discussing trans-mandated pronoun use. [Assault = inflicting physical harm or unwanted physical contact upon a person or a threat or attempt to commit such an action.].
Hypothesis: each and every sexual revolutionary, deep down inside, believed that the sexual revolution would stop precisely where he or she wanted it to. Like the epigones of every revolution, they are “shocked, shocked!” at what they have unleashed. Say goodbye to “women’s rights.” Say hello to “rights feminists” and “TERFs” and other feminist rejects joining other “left behind” liberals and leftists trying to find non-left outlets like Quillette to publish their cries for help.
@letrangerblanc
I hope that Quillette continues to post articles written by cultural refugees of every political leaning. Its readership will no doubt consist largely of classical liberals, but here’s the key idea to understand: while classical liberalism is, technically, an ideology, it’s a rather thin layer over raw reasoning. We can’t truthfully say that it’s 100% based on pure reason—regardless of what Ayn Rand believed, you have to have unproven axioms; you can’t derive anything interesting from tautologies alone—but it’s pretty damn close. You can get pretty far with only a few rather uncontroversial postulates, such as “You shouldn’t physically attack people who are keeping to themselves.” This minimalism gives adherents powerful flexibility in dealing with rival ideologies. Most ideologies are too laden-down with assumptions and ad-hoc rules that they can’t tolerate open debate, but classical liberalism welcomes and even demands it. Where other ideologies countenance violent suppression of rivals but refuse to debate them, classical liberalism is the exact opposite.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time, ie:
defend everyone’s legal right to speak free from physical attack, including those of neo-nazis, Julie Bindel etc
and
be morally unsympathetic for such people and their self-inflicted social problems
We can take seriously the enforcement of laws protecting free speech, freedom to associate etc
and
respect due process treating people as innocent until proven guilty.
We can treat accusations of violence with the gravity they deserve
and
recognize that false accusations do exist, rejecting the pernicious injunction to believe all women.
We can respect truths regardless of whose mouth speaks them
and
remain prudently skeptical when someone lacking credibility speaks.
Speaking the truth Rev.
These pathetic occurrences are the natural spawns of feminazi ideology, the same feminazis that have painted all men with one broad brush now must endure the shenanigans of activists even more deranged. Too bad.
Ocurre que los supuestos progresistas(retrógrados en realidad) se han erigido inopinadamente en guardianes de la libertad propiciando el pensamiento o idea de que todo grupo minoritario que se haya sentido menospreciado, o perseguido, en algún momento de la historia tiene la autoridad moral para exigir ser resarcido en la actualidad cuando, curiosamente, gozan de la mayor simpatía general. Suena a venganza…. en diferido…
Reading articles on the circular firing squad like this one always makes me a bit sad but also giddy in some sense. The big irony here is of course that it was radical feminists that laid the intellectual groundwork for the radical advocates that are ‘suppressing’ them now. The whole moral/philosophical framework, the language policing, the deplatforming, the accusations of hate (X-phobia) and the arbitrary flights into subjectivity all come straight from the radical feminist 3 ring binder. Sad story really, I don’t know what more to say.
As a gay man, and speaking to most gays and lesbians that I know, I’d say many of us don’t support trans activism and don’t regard trans people as having any relevance to our concerns.
One problem is that many of the old gay rights organisations and news outlets etc no longer have much to do, given that most gay and lesbian rights goals have been met. So they’ve been largely taken over by the trans movement and really ought to drop the “LGB” letters as they’re now of little relevance.
It’s probably fair to say that most gays and lesbians just don’t pay any attention to what these groups get up to these days. I don’t read “Pink News” or anything of that kind and always skip the Owen Jones articles in the Guardian because he’s frankly embarrassing.
Klaus, I am hearing the same from my homosexual friends and relatives. They find it embarrassing and want to distance themselves from it. Most of them have moved on from activism to building their careers and a family.
Owen Jones has never seen a photo of Stalin that he didn’t want to kiss.
Like Chronos, revolution eats its own. The author should be happy that the revolution has progressed to the stage where she is disposable and it is her turn to be eaten. At most, she should keep silent and enjoy her well-earned retirement, rather than seek the protection of burly men, like a dainty demsel in distress (aren’t appeals to chivalry passé?), and counter-revolutionaries such as dwell here, against the forces she has helped unleash.
@To the author
“That’s when I was lunged at by the hater shouting “you’re a f***** c***, you’re a f****** bitch, a f****** TERF.”
You should have punched him on the nose instead running here to whine about it. I would have respected you more.
Aside from enjoying the spectacle, I’m sitting out the TERF versus trans people battle. Women, in particular the leftist sort, are strong and independent enough to fend for themselves, or at least strong and independent enough to claim to possess these qualities, though why they keep running off to the authorities for legs up, set asides … well, it raises doubts, doesn’t it?
If the fish indeed decide they need a bicycle I’m sure they have the talent to build one fit to purpose. Or petition the government to give them one.
go gamba, Exactly! I always find it amusing when left wing feminists demand power while demanding we view them as perpetual oppressed victims. It’s their shtick, I suppose. Cake and eat it too?
If me being a hetero white male is the worst thing in the world and all I have to do is to announce my now identifying as trans to move to most revered status, I think I know my next move. Funny how feminists didn’t seeing this speeding train that EVERYONE warned them about coming at them. Enjoy your game at your peril. Irony alert, had you not pronounced white males as the worst thing in the world, we might have been inclined to defend you. Now its just entertaining to watch.
The 1950s weren’t all good times – but at least there did not exist mentally disturbed men who were claiming to be women while assaulting actual women.
@Anonymous
They certainly did exist in the 1950s, but they were rightly ignored by the mainstream news media and quietly confined to mental institutions.
@Anonymous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein
Judging by the lack of updates on the site, it seems that Quillette editors themselves are frightened by the tsunami caused by this blog 🙂
Goodness, there are an awful lot of comments for what should be a very small issue given the population dynamics. Well, here are my two cents for what it’s worth. As a transperson, I am sympathetic to the authors views as far as transpeople are concerned; however, I think that a number of radfems are really unnecessarily hateful towards transpeople. But, to be fair, there is alot of hate towards the radfems as well and where the buck stops, I don’t know. I do distance and have even been critical of the trans movement as it has gone so far to completely privelage what is, by any measure, a very unusual embodied existence over the norm and I simply can’t get behind that. Plus, with all the potential pitfalls of what all is now considered transphobic, I’m terribly afraid that people may feel they have to walk on eggshells to “affirm my existence (lol)”. It actually makes it more difficult to live a normal life than it otherwise would be.
@Huff
That’s because the ‘issue’ is not the issue.
The ‘issue’ is todays man has too much time on his hands & has never done a hard days work or extended himself becoming a pathetic shadow of his former self devoting all of his free time to porn & belly aching under the guise of ‘free speech’.
And he is aaaangry.
He is particularly angry at those that have taken the baton ie women & scared shitless he can’t compete because he’s lost the hunger to achieve.
And he reserves his fiercest out rage for those who defend them.
So whilst you may believe he has a point beware that in the long run you will only feed his spiral into hopeless victimhood by being used as ‘proof’ that the world needs to change not him.
I’m sorry but, I’m a little confused about your reply. Are you saying I’m enabling mras or something like that? I truly feel that free speech is far more important than people’s feelings though I certainly don’t go out of my way to step on people’s toes. The man you describe sounds pretty incompetent and whiny. If this is widespread then it truly seems like everyone, regardless of superficial grouping,wants to be a victim of some sort.
@Huff
No, not enabling. More they are exploiting trans & free speech.
Much like socialists use causes such as feminism, racism, the environment etc to unite opposition.
That’s not to say there’s no truth in the fact that some trans activists are fueling trans negativity further just that lets not get too cosy with the enemy of my enemy & become a pawn. As we have witnessed the exploitation of the above causes has eroded interest & good faith in them.
Yes, victimhood has become an existential cancer now eating away at masculine energy the latest casualty.
The first step is us all owning & handing in our victim cards.
Gentlemen are you strong enough?
@SaintLeRat:
While I kind of recognize the stereotype you put up, I don’t think men are suffering from any sense of perceived victimhood. It’s not considered appropriate for men to complain, not in the same way it is for other ‘victim’ groups. Most men I know just plow through and get on with things like working and looking after their families as best they can, however, I appreciate that others may not feel the same way about men.
@Huffingtonpostlol
I’m sure the only reason “there are an awful lot of comments” (almost 500!) for this article is that there has been no new article for three or four days now.
Ahhh, understood. Thank you for your response.
On one hand they would have us believe the ridiculous insanity that there is no such thing as male or female and absolutely no difference in males and females. On the other hand we are supposed to swallow the nonsense of toxic masculinity. WELL WHICH IS IT?? Men are different and TOXIC or both sexes are exactly the same. You cannot have your propaganda both ways. The culture of ignorant victim-hood has overstayed its welcome. Time for people to grow the hell up and find a real purpose in life other than bitching and complaining about nothing. Respect cannot be demanded, it has to be commanded. If you want to be respected, then be respectable.
Reality Check: About 98% of the “normal” world wouldn’t even know WTF we’re talking about. They have no exposure to and less interest in this stuff. I don’t know a single man, anywhere, and absolutely no socially functional women who consider themselves “victims” because of contrary ideas or opinions. “Toxic masculinity” and all the rest of this “feminist” claptrap is media-speak, and is confined almost completely to the chattering classes.
I was just looking for advice on buying the right tennis racket. Did I come to the wrong website??
Bindel has always been a misogynist’s idea of a feminist; discriminatory, misandrist and authoritarian. It would be easier to feel some sympathy for her problems if they had prompted any soul-searching about her prior views – but evidently her current predicament hasnt done so.
When mental illness is left unchecked, then accepted as normal human variation, it becomes a social contagion.
Interestingly, this thread shows 3 main currents:
1) No sympathy because she brought this on herself; is being hoist on her own petard
2) Regardless of her views, support for anyone’s freedom to speak is worth supporting
3) Shaming anyone not joining an internet mob to support Miss Bindell joined with the implication that the poster will dislike and diminish anyone who doesn’t agree with their political opinions.
The last is most intriguing because of it’s especially quixotic nature. Using shaming tactics, slurs like ‘misogynist’ and class guilt (“commenters here are bad so prove you aren’t by mouthing agreement with me or else I’ll say more mean things”) seems a tactic, whilst possibly successful elsewhere, doomed to failure on a site whose motto is “Free Thought Lives.”
Trying to get non-conformists to conform (?!) with online bullying is laughable on the face of it but excellently illustrates a mindset characterized by the desire to hijack communities by being the Alpha Meanie, able to weaponize dogma best.
But when dogma has no cachet, it’s self-serving nature becomes apparent, especially in the attempt to use the falsely perceived dogma of others against them: “You’re supposed to be Conservatives so when I say you must rally to (“your”) women being attacked you must rally to the cause as I’ve defined it. Even the reprehensible Nazi’s of old would have rallied to my call so you so-called Conservatives are lesser men even than they were.”
It took a lot of behavior modification/ positive reward experience in something approaching a lab to aquire the mindset that this would work outside the bubble where it was aquired.
@Rev. Wazoo!
Bindel and her ilk are hard-core radfems. The use of shaming language is indeed a tactic as well as hurling epithets towards anyone disagreeing with their narrative. It’s standard among feminists… not just the psychopathic ones. If anyone wants to ‘discuss’ any issue pertaining to gender feminists claim a monopoly on the topic and always feel the need to contribute their one-word explanation for everything. It’s all about “patriarchy” dontcha know!! Any counter-narrative always invites their epithets, belittling, shaming, ad-homs and straw-men attacks. Nothing invites their wrath more than suggesting that the complexity of human life, all of our lives in society, for all of human history might require more than one word to explain. It does make it awfully convenient for them though! One word doesn’t require much thinking. It’s religion.
I suspect their insults are usually successful, particularly the shaming. But when you understand that only someone who has at least a teaspoonful of respect for the other can be shamed by them, you then become completely immune to it. Their utterances are homicidal and display their psychopathy quite openly. Their use of shaming language evokes only contempt. Their epithets have the same effect as a child of a child stamping her feet when told she can’t have something in a grocery store.
Not sure that you can describe the readership here as “non-conformist” since from what I can tell posters come from all walks of life. What I am seeing though is that more and more readers are being pushed away from the mainstream media and into much smaller media outlets (or individuals) because an awful lot of us are tired of the manipulation, lies and general slop served up by the MSM. I think perhaps ‘thoughtful’ might be a good descriptor for the Quillette readership. There have been some very thought provoking comments on the threads which are very often better than the main story itself. This one is a case in point.
One last point. Bear in mind that any article Bindel might write is going to generate some polarized views. She evokes about as much sympathy as Ted Bundy and Hitler. There is bound to be some strong opinions voiced that probably would not have if anyone other than Bindel had brought up the original topic. Gender dysphoria is a serious issue but Bindel is radioactive. I’m not sure that this one article is representative of the whole.
Julie Bindel is a hero. Anyone who believes she wants to “put men in camps” is an idiot. It was a joke she made and during its telling it was clear she was thinking along the lines of Billy Butlin not Heinrich Himler. Feminists have been accused of being humourless, this is not the case with Julie or most of us.
I suggest you watch her panel discussion with Milo which I found hilarious but what would I know ? Sure I am just an oul’ Irish TERF who devoted most of my adult life to working with survivors of sexual violence, so of course I must hate men too?? Even though I have been married to the same one for 35 years and gave birth to three of them !!!!
@Eileen Calder: I think the problem we’re having at the moment is that social media and the mainstream media cheer on women while reviling men. This actually harms feminism rather than helps it. To many people it now appears to be a cultural movement based on revenge and subjugation of males (through mass media, education and entertainment) rather than equality. Instead of celebrating the differences between the sexes, it seems intent on eradicating masculinity and replacing it with femininity. To some extent it’s succeeded as this article points out.
There’s also this published in the Guardian today:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/19/masculinity-trap-why-more-men-should-wear-skirts
Articles like this these are pretty regular now. Of course, they aren’t to supposed be ‘taken seriously’ and it’s all meant ‘tongue-in-cheek’, but I’ve come to suspect that excuse now. In my experience humor and comedy are devices often used as a ‘Trojan horse’ by those with a more malignant purpose in mind. This article here highlights what I mean to some extent:
https://tvdeviance.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/deviance-in-tv-families/
Many people are totally unaware that there is a huge reordering of society going on at the moment and it was all going according to plan until Donald Trump and Brexit came about. The amount of undue media attention these events received is proof-positive that the people ‘messed’ up and voted ‘agains their own interests’. The problem is that those those going against ‘the plan’ are now being cast as political enemies: bigots, racists, fascists, neo-nazis etc.
Why do I bring this up? Because it’s linked to the war on men (or rather masculinity). While some women voted for these events, they mainly came about because of men. Right or wrong they were both a giant middle-finger to those who would seek to mold us in their image. Men can be unpredictable, violent, terrible and brilliant. While women can be too, most are too well-behaved. They seek security and comfort even if that means a reduction in freedoms.
The reason men are doing ‘badly’ now is that society has nothing to offer them except banal entertainment, dumbed-down education and a mindless job. While women are looking to be ‘equal’ in these things, most men have checked out and are looking for better alternatives. If these aren’t offered many men may find solace in far-right extremism.
@ Kencathedrus
“The reason men are doing ‘badly’ now…”
Thank you for putting “badly” in quotes. When any man opts for self-sufficiency ( alone a significant number of them) they get flack for failing to produce a surplus which could be diverted to more socially desirable than the men themselves.
He should be generating not merely enough wealth to support himself but a surplus to support children and a woman or so. Under the same roof or under someone else’s; their’s or someone else’s; single mothers and their kids, maternity leave, degrees on gender studies all need subsidising by someone producing a surplus.
Living simply (and sustainably), consuming little and therfore free from the need to work so much is great in theory and for those subsidised to do so but when enough men start doing the same thing then suddenly it’s different.
A man at 33 unable/unwilling to support more than himself simply and frugally is a slacker, failing society, somehow, nevermind that frugal lowgconsumption is constantly trumpeted as the way forward. That’s “for thee but not for me”; they want men to be producing a surplus which cab tapped (even if at the moment they’re spending it unwisely) and if they don’t then men are doing “badly.”
Never mind that a woman at 33 who can only support herself frugally is an independent, empowered one and a boon to society. Double standards have ever been a bane.
@Rev Wazoo
I am a 40 year old man living that lifestyle (sustaining myself comfortably but not making enough money to support anyone else) and definitely feel like a failure. I feel like I’d need to make at least three times what I make now to feel successful and worthy of a wife and child. As a man I think I’m completely undesirable under these circumstances. I’m constantly wishing that I’d been a woman instead. I think I’d have had a much more fulfilling life and been much less isolated.
@Asenath Waite: Thanks for your comment. You don’t have to support anyone else, besides yourself. There’s also a lot of freedom in not having a wife or child. Are you living in the US by any chance? Whenever I am there I always feel that women are considered sacred and have very few expectations placed upon them, while men are expected to be the ‘all-capable, always happy, ready-to-serve, family man’. It’s one of the few places I’ve been to where I experienced active dislike for men.
@Aseneth Waite
As Kencathredus says, there’s no need to become a family man ( let alone a married one); the life of the mins is its own reward. I’ll use the term ‘form an alliance’ in place of ‘marry’ etc as marriage laws etc are onerous and a partnership is an alliance not just an access to someone else’s revenue stream. But as you sound like you’d rather like to but feel shut out from it, then here are some suggestions:
1) You can form an alliance and a family with a woman who already has a kid or two just starting school and doesn’t want more (you personally use birth control!) and who’s collecting ample child support. There are a huge number of women in the dating scene in exactly this situation who just want a decent man to act as father to their kids. In fact, middle-class women are especially fond of singing the praises of single motherhood (zero men involved)! while quietly practicing a 1.5 men involved method.: child support/alimony and some limited weekend/ holiday child care from their ex (0.5 man) plus a live-in father-role man who also covers some rent, holiday costs etc. (1.0 man) it can be a good role so don’t rule it out
2) You can be a homemaker in an alliance with a higher- earning woman, for the purpose of having kids together whether or not she already has some. It’s a difficult but very rewarding role – especially after 20 years of the corporate grind – so strongly consider it. There are fewer looking for this but times are changing and if you suggest it, a significant number will seriously consider it.
3) You can be the breadwinner of a frugal family.
Really.
A 2-bedroom apartmen nearish to anpark and decent public schools is sufficient to raise a family of 4. Sharing a bedroom is good for kids (I did…) mOK , it’s not luxury but the best things in life really are free or atbleast the result of our own time spent. Counterintuitively, this actually works better with a breadwinner and home-maker; the sex of each not so important. Running two careers only makes sense if a lot of money is thereby coming in. When the costs of child-care, a second car and insurance/ gas etc, restaurants, take-out food, convenience food at home, Starbucks premium ‘coffee’, maybe a cleaner, replacing clothes instead of mending them etc is all taken into account, then the homemaker role more than pays for itself, especially when the benefits of actually raising children instead of them being factory-farmed is factored in. I did the math and was a home-maker for a decade.
Consider it! You already know how to live frugally but happily and there are women out there who aren’t bamboozled that working 10 hours a day is the only route to fulfillment so go find one…
@Eileen Calder
“Anyone who believes she wants to “put men in camps” is an idiot. It was a joke she made and during its telling it was clear she was thinking along the lines of Billy Butlin not Heinrich Himler.”
It clearly is not seem a joke if you read it in the context: http://www.radfemcollective.org/news/2015/9/7/an-interview-with-julie-bindel
The artile make it very clear that she thinks all women should abandon heterosexuality, that all men are not human beings and have all power taken from them. Bigotry and hatred of men as a class not individual men runs throughout the article. I have also read of of commenst from her where she talsk of converting heterosexual women to lesbiansim. She clearly has extreme unpleasant views not just against men but also the majority of heterosexual women.
In the same interview she says:
“Political lesbians are really crucial … We were the ones that said that all women can be lesbians and that heterosexuality is compulsory under a system of male supremacy.”
“Will heterosexuality survive women’s liberation?
It won’t, not unless men get their act together, have their power taken from them and behave themselves
“I would love to see a women’s liberation that results in women turning away from men and saying: “when you come back as human beings, then we might look again.”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/apr/16/why-andrea-dworkin-is-the-radical-visionary-feminist-we-need-in-our-terrible-times -> “Hey, let’s call a fan of Andrea Dworkin to write an article.” Because porn is totally the reason men rape. Of course, like said rape apologist Mary Koss, women doesn’t rape. God.
This litany of aggression that is being faced by feminists trying to resist barbarian raiders who are trying to take over female space and colonize their children, is producing remarkably similar laments.
Sheila Jeffreys wrote in the Guardian back in 2012 about what I call the ‘crushspeak’ of the transgen lobby and she speculated that, ‘the degree of vituperation and the energy expended by these activists may suggest that they fear the practice of transgenderism could justifiably be subjected to criticism, and might not stand up to rigorous research and debate, if critics were allowed to speak out’,
I would only add that while that is indubitably true, it is also because their agenda is a colonial form of aggression against and theft of territory legitimately held by others.
The CrosSOFs (Cross Sexual Obfuscator Fantasists) are not just into making a comfortable place for themselves in the larger sexual political firmament. Their NASTI (Noxiously Aggressive Sexist Trans Invasive) agenda is going after female space, security and benefits. They are going after our children to increase ‘market share’ for their brand of reality distorted sexual fetishism.
The ‘Transtapo’ tactics are what you would expect from any group that is attempting a hostile takeover.
Their blitzing success is a measure of just how weakened our reproductive and social centre has become. Power hates vacuums and the NASTIs are merely filling it, In some senses it is not their fault. If our social system hadn’t been systematically eviscerated by Indulgence based deregulation and privatization over a 60-70 year period, it would not cross their tiny minds to even think about trying it on….
And our problem is that we are now having to scramble to organize something that looks vaguely like a plausible defense, almost from scratch, because it has all been taken down in favour of the conformist totalitarian blandishments of publicrelationsmarketspeak and postmodernist Humpty Dumptyism, you know, “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
We have made that totalitarian ‘master’. And we have to take some responsibility for the mess that that is now creating for us to deal with…and the accumulated weakening and neglect of boundaries and enforcing them that is making it now so difficult to combat any social pathogen at all.
If one systematically tells people over a sixty to seventy year period that desire (and particularly sexual desire) and satiating it any cost is the ultimate meaning of life, this is what one gets; i.e., pandemics of out-of-control behaviour by people who have never been given the most basic moral toilet training by their mummies and daddies and have been brought up to become adolescent narcissists who become outraged at the slightest challenge to their overwhelming sense of entitlement….
And tranniemania is just the beginning. This plague is going to get worse.
No sympathy. Feminists went after male space, security, and benefits. Now they cry foul that men go after theirs. Too bad. Sew the wind, reap the whirlwind.
No problem Outraged. You obviously bitterly resent your male privileges being eroded. See you on the field of battle
Ah, I see. FEMALE space, security and benefits are perfectly legitimate and to be defended at all costs while MALE space, security and benefits are illegitimate male “privilege” and only bitter resentful people could possibly complain about it. You want a battle, you got one. You’re a hypocrite. And take your shaming language and stuff it up your ass.
I don’t mind my privileges being eroded as long as my disadvantages are eroded at the same time. But if you want the first without the second, NO DEAL.
@Chritopher Eastman-Nagle
A delightful tour-de-force of apt neologisms! CrosSOFs, NASTI etc are superb and I’d add LGBSQ+ (“S” being for ” Straight”) And I even agree with some big chunks of a blowing-chunks screed. Like trans-activists turning the tables on those who’ve employed a near-monopoly using shaming epithets to such powerful effect for so long, perhaps we should make complaints to youtube, twitter etc and the NYT, Guardian etc every time they publish some blatantly sexist or racist piece; machine-learning AI’s and human editors alike, after all, are only as good as the feedback they get.
Yes, we’ve all been leery to deploy snowflake-like accusations, keeping to the high ground without dirtying one’s hands with spurious smears (despite receiving the same regularly) but maybe some accurate characterization is long overdue. It would indeed be good to point out when authors and publications advance harmful stereotypes and engage in racial and sexual profiling; all those articles, tweets, videos etc denigrating whites and men for being white or male and/or using the sexual orientation/able-ist slur “cis-hetero” might diminish in number if their publishers got significant feedback pointing them out as such…
Couldn’t reply to above comments directly so I’m responding down here.
@Kencathedrus
Yes, I’m in the US. I’m not sure what the situation is like in other countries.
@Rev Wazoo
Thanks for your response. At this point I think I’ve become too accustomed to isolation and screwed up in my social skills to be able to sustain a long-term relationship or be a good father, so I think it’s too late. I always wonder what might have been, though.
Hey Bindel!
You’re a lying little toerag you.
Got anything to say about Mark Field assaulting that woman? No? Plenty to say about Cathy Brennan merely shouting at you, haven’t you, though?
Mind, if Cathy looked like you she’d hang herself. No one can surely be that ugly…
Like to mouth off at a friend of mine, Bindel? She’s transgender – male to female. then would you like to mouth off at her father? Her father is a 6ft 3 ex Para, nightclub bouncer with connections to gangland…
NOW would you like to mouth off…?
Trans women ARE women and trans men ARE men and there is f*** all you and the other TERF mongs can do about it.
This discussion is a very impressive demonstration of the devastating effects of the absurdities of tribalism! The fights (“struggles”) between the countless and exploding number of tribes prove that tribalism leads to violence basically without any exceptions.
Therefore exclusively grant human rights to humans and define this term as broadly as possible (maybe even include animals). “Every time identity politics has been used by any faction in human history for any reason violence eventually follows.” – William Ray, Dec 18, 2018 · Quilette
Hey Bindel!
My God, you’re ugly, aren’t you? You look more like a man than any transgender woman!!!
About Cathy Brennan. How can you be cautioned AND charged under law, you stupid bitch? It’s one or the other. And, stop your lies. Cathy has NOT even been cautioned never mind charged, you fat gimp.