“She looks like a flea ridden old bitch anyway!”
One thing about the peculiar, fraught, often venomous politics of trans activism – sometimes it just looks like nothing but a “progressive” excuse for vomiting out torrents of misogynist abuse just like the horribly familiar trolls who haunt our blog comments and Twitter feeds.
An example: a public Facebook post by Pink News yesterday linking to a Pink News story on Germaine Greer:
She compared trans women to claiming you’re a dog.
Germaine Greer on trans women: I could call myself a Cocker Spaniel
Feminist author Germaine Greer has continued to defend her anti-trans…
There are 223 comments as of this moment. Many of them are indistinguishable from bog-standard misogynist abuse.
Mikey Mcmahon I’d be happy to treat her like one in any case. The sick old dog needs putting down.
Steven Powell If Germaine Greer thinks that having a fully functioning vagina is what defines a woman, she is absolutely not a feminist.
Donn Spanninga Steenkist But Bitch, you can claim you are a cocker spaniel but you will never ever feel like one….though I DO think you are a dog….
Dave Basora May want to rethink that. Dogs are mans best friend. Is she?
Donn Spanninga Steenkist True!! Ok….errrmmm…. I think she’s a cunt!! That better??
August Phoenix The old bitch must be really craving publicity to come out with such inane comments.
Problem is she was out of touch by the 80s and can’t handle that
Go back home and raise kangaroos, they might want to listen to you.
Of more concern is the bbc getting more and more anti lgbt. Ought to be made a pay as you go channel. Then it might have to face reality instead of its pathetic line up of programmes.Jodie Martin She’d be closer if she called herself a c**t! You can convert to Judaism and it would take more than a fur coat to trans into a dog. Is she out of her fucking mind?
Donn Spanninga Steenkist It’s menopause lol!!
Christiaan De Wet Cocker spaniel = bitch? Lol, that seems to be what i want to call someone that is so closed minded.
Nicky Hann Shes just an old ignorant women, where lgbt in her decades were prosecuted and not talked about.
Michael Bonham Carter Ignore her. Just as we all do. A pointless women that has only ever lived in world that all goes on in her own head.
Gabby Nowten she could call herself a cocker spaniel but she would be better off calling herself what everyone else does
Matthew Thatcher Well she is a dog and a c*nt but who cares, at one point thought she was a drag queen !!!
Nico De Bruin Freud would have something to say. COCKer Spaniel? A touch of penis envy perhaps?
Sissi NorthQueen This hideous b***h would pale and cry in front of some incredibly beautiful and xxtimes more feminine than herself transwomen and I like the “political” statement of men who want to quit the ranks of their “look-at-my-dick” peers…
Owain Pritchard Well. She would be welcome to call herself a Cocker Spaniel. After all, she looks like a flea ridden old bitch anyway!
That’s just from the first 50.
Imagine Jesse Jackson said what Greer said. Do you suppose people would post flamingly racist comments on Pink News’s wall in response? I don’t know the answer, because it’s a hypothetical, but I sure as hell doubt it. I don’t recall seeing any racist attacks on Bill Cosby as the news started to come out – and you’d think actual rape would be quite a lot more serious and anger-inducing than having the wrong opinion on trans women is.
But somehow loathing of women becomes instantly respectable if she has the wrong opinion on trans women.
I wonder why that is…
I can’t bring myself to read much of this sort of gubbins. For people who spend their lives insulting people they show very little originality; instead they spend their time re-cycling the some old memes in various combinations. I get it that they don’t agree with Germaine Greer and maybe feel offended, even deeply offended, but that’s no excuse for acting like a gang of 7-year-olds taunting the odd child out.
Good post. Misogyny is acceptable in our society simply because woman hating is part of patriarchy. It’s part of our society and taught through gender. This is why gender has to be obliterated. Gender is the engine of this behaviour.
The entitlement of the dramatically offended includes permission to recycle the worst nastiest crap about women. The one who said Germaine has not “moved with the times.” And it seems their definition of “move w/the times” is “never try to think about anything related to trans issues, even if they have nothing whatever to do with you, and aim for the most misogynistic comments you can find.”
“[Y]ou’d think actual rape would be quite a lot more serious and anger-inducing than having the wrong opinion on trans women is.”
You are making the cardinal error of believing that women are human beings & that crimes against their selfhood matter. Of course Greer is treated like more of a pariah than Cosby. What she does upsets people with penises. Those are the only people whose feelings are allowed to matter.
What did the bit about converting to Judaism even mean? I’m not sure if they are comparing gender to religion or trying to say something anti-Semitic or what?
Also, wow, Sissi hates women and men, both– thinking women are valuable only for their appearance and all cis males are toxicly masculine.
@ 4 Samantha Vimes
No, it’s in the thing they’re responding to. Greer says (bizarrely) she always wanted to be a Jew but couldn’t.
Is this being included because you just took a chronological capture? If not whats misogynist about it ? In a lot of places in India – women who cant have children i.e. those without a fully functioning vagina are considered incomplete. I’d absolutely say thats not feminist.
No, I did not take a chronological capture, I selected the worst ones. What’s misogynist about it? In context? Everything.
Actually, I did see racist comments about Cosby–but not from progressive quarters. Instead, they were either from explicitly right-wing commenters (MRAs tended to split the difference–half decided the women couldn’t be believed, just as they do when a white predator is accused; the other half opted to go the “See, it’s black men who are natural rapists” route) or they were obvious trolls on progressive sites.
I’m absolutely convinced that there’s a lot more active misogyny on the left than there is racism. It just seems to have an easier time hiding here. And it’s not just among trans activists; I see it in all sorts of forums and comment threads with ostensibly liberal communities. Gendered slurs are just considered somehow more acceptable than racial or sexuality-based varieties. (Consider the language used by many to talk about, say, Ann Coulter. She’s a horrible, awful, disgusting individual, but that doesn’t make using her gender as a weapon against her remotely acceptable.)
Exactly. I assume most people commenting on Pink News’s Facebook page consider themselves progressives, even with due allowance made for trolls. The ease and speed with which they go for blatantly misogynist epithets and insults is all too typical of a lot of people who consider themselves progressives.
@Ophelia
Sorry Im not being dense here –
The article reproduces her views (though I doubt its a comparison of trans-people to dogs ) – and someone responds to that saying *if* Greer believes a fully functioning vagina is needed to be a woman then she is not feminist – what context makes that misogynist ? Im asking because I happen to agree with that statement (and I gave you an example why).
Also to be clear, I agree that a good number of the comments are misogynistic – and its reflective of society at large – even among so called allies.
Deepak, for one thing, the torrent of disgusting misogynist abuse makes that question misogynist. For another it comes from someone with a male name; we don’t need men telling women what women are or what’s feminist, especially not in a thick atmosphere of ugly unabashed misogyny. For another, the fact that he said “if” doesn’t make his question genuinely conditional. Etc.
Also, by the way – infertility does not mean not having “a fully functioning vagina.” That’s a ridiculous strained justification.
@Ophelia
Ok thats fair
I doubt you’d disagree if I said CFH isnt a feminist. You can use Greers analogy though – Calling herself a cocker spaniel doesnt maker her one – why should “feminist” be any different?
What is the in principle difference between someone saying motherhood completes a woman and vagina completes a woman ?
that should be christina hoff sommers not CFH.
@ 14 Deepak Shetty
One is a behaviour, the other is an attribute.
I’ve certainly heard an argument that there’s a certain overlap/parallel between MRAs and trans(woman)-activism.
@ 17 Knight in Sour Armor
Piffle. Paul Elam is not exactly the Champion of the Trans People.
MRA-types are the most transphobic fuckers I’ve come across.
The only way it could possibly be stretched to say there is a parallel between MRA’s and some trans activists is that MRA’s and some trans activists seem to think feminism should actually be all about them.
Other than that they’d a be a mile apart and neither have the interests of feminism at heart anyway…
For the record, when people compare certain trans activists to MRAs, I think what they’re referring to is the conviction that women have it easy, women are privileged, women get undeserved special treatment. Just put “cis” in front, and you see the similarity.
Likewise, one could draw a comparison between the rhetoric of Greer:
And Milo Yiannopoulos:
But I hardly think that makes it fair to say there is “overlap/parallel” between second wave feminism and hipster misogyny.
What she does upsets people with penises
Nonsens. There are a lot of men who admire Greer for her frank in-your-face attitude. When Greer gets all snarky her snarkiness is usually well justified. She cannot tolerate stupid people. And yes, some stupid people just happen to have penises.
And to be honest, even back in her heyday as a first-order ball crusher, a lot of men paid attention. She was and still is a brilliant and entertaining speaker.
.
@SilentBob
Being pregnant or a mother is not an attribute ? In any case you can use an essentially biologically female attribute (like say menstruation) and see how that works out as a feminist view.
Good points although I do strongly disagree with using racism an example or benchmark as it’s problematic and distracting and one of the main issues I’ve with feminism when it does this. With the Bill Cosby case there was a tremendous uproar within the Black Community over Janice Dickinson which resulted in victim shaming, maybe you did not see this because you aren’t in that community. With that said the comment directed at Germaine are disgusting and atrocious.