What she saw as the more salient problem
Germaine Greer gave that lecture at Cardiff. Nobody melted or imploded or spontaneously combusted or turned into a pillar of salt.
Uniformed police officers stood guard outside the lecture theatre and security officials guarded the doors inside, but in the end only about a dozen people turned up to protest peacefully. Greer told the audience that campaigners had been “trying to frighten me off”, but added: “Here I am.”
She did not mention the issue during her lecture, entitled Women & Power: the Lessons of the 20th Century, but during questions was asked about the controversy. Greer said: “They [trans people] are not my issue. It should be perfectly clear why not. I think 51% of the world’s population is enough for me to be going on with. I do agree that calling people names may add to their misery but it happens to old women every day.”
…
Protesters outside included present and former Cardiff University students who criticised the institution for paying Greer for the lecture. Mair Macey, a former Cardiff University student who now works for HMRC, said: “I really care about transgender people. Having Greer here reflects badly on the values of the university. There is no way she should be invited to give a distinguished lecture.”
Author Elwyn Way said: “We don’t think she should be given a platform like this and go unchallenged.” Way said trans people were suffering emotional and physical violence and needed to be protected rather than vilified.
But her lecture wasn’t about trans people. Preventing her from giving the lecture she was invited to give wouldn’t have made trans people better off in any way. It’s all just performance – “look at me, look at how much I care.”
The saga has caused a fierce debate about free speech and the practice of “no-platforming” speakers whose views might make them unpopular. Quinn said she was frustrated that the free speech issue was overshadowing what she saw as the more salient problem: Greer’s views.
Well look at it this way – suppose you forcibly locked Greer up somewhere to keep her from expressing her views. It would not be surprising is that overshadowed your opinion of her views. The bullying of her for her views overshadowed your worthless opinion on her views – that’s often how that works out.
I get that there are some people who really don’t give a shit about free speech as a moral value.
What I don’t get is how anyone who considers themselves an advocate for any minority group can think it’s a good tactic to weaken the protections of free speech. Whose speech do you think is going to be banned first, that of people supporting the privileged majority, or those supporting the minority?
Look at all the Christians in the U.S. who cry about being discriminated against because gays can get married, and ask yourself who would be getting prosecuted in the red states if “hate speech” laws existed?
Screechy Monkey – it amazes me how many people I talk to who think that free speech supports speech that the majority agrees with, but speech that the majority doesn’t like is not protected because “majority rule”. They don’t understand the systems of government at all, and they don’t understand that the free speech protections so many countries have put in place are designed specifically to protect speech most people might not like. If the majority is in favor of it, it simply doesn’t need protecting.
I wouldn’t even say their opinion on her views are worthless… only that they made those opinions a side-issue by trying to keep her from speaking about more important things.
Suppose Bernie Sanders threw out a comment about Aspies using lack of social skills as an excuse to not be more active in politics, and was invited to speak on the issue of raising the minimum wage. Now, some Aspies would surely be highly offended that he was judging them on something they couldn’t totally control and often brought them discrimination. But the minimum wage is much more a part of his work, and the only topic of the speech, and a deeply important issue to students. If the Aspies tried to get him disinvited, rather than focusing on raising awareness of what they are capable of and alternative ways of being politically active, people are likely to see them as troublemakers who care more about their issue than something that’s a big deal for a majority of students. (And for Aspies, because getting a job isn’t about what you know as much as who you know, often times, so people with autism spectrum disorders are often under employed).
Well, that’s just, like, your opinion man.
Greer’s comments on trans people over the years have been deliberately inflammatory (because nearly everything GG has said has been deliberately inflammatory, it’s her way). You have to expect pushback when you shoot your mouth of on every subject under the sun.
“It’s all just performance – ‘look at me, look at how much I care’.”
I disagree. It’s about sending a message to everyone else, like putting someone’s head on a pike at the town gates: don’t say these things or we’ll be after you. That’s why they’ve gone for someone so high profile.
justinr #4
“(because nearly everything GG has said has been deliberately inflammatory, it’s her way)”
Nearly everything?
Greer has been active in academic and public life since what, the early 1960s. So that’s quite a claim you’re making.
Perhaps it is more the case that ‘nearly everything’ Greer has said *that you know about* is inflammatory or provocative, because it is that portion of her speech that is most widely circulated.
Had I been Greer, I might have mounted the podium carrying a large bale of bubble wrap.
While sucking my thumb.
Yeah, bitches should shut up, amirite? Nobody wants to hear what bitches think. That bitch has a fucking nerve shooting her mouth off on subjects.
As opposed to justinr, no?
Definitely. justinr must be heard.
Women expressing opinions about a range of topics = “shooting your mouth off on every subject under the sun.”
Men expressing opinions about a range of topics = “normal, reasoned, everyday discourse that has lead to the all the best things that have ever happened in the world.”
See also: women, keeping their mouths shut already.
It astonishes me how it’s OK for men to just gas on about whatever happens to be going through their stream of consciousness, whether they actually know anything about it or not, and whether it’s actually of any interest to the people they’re talking at or not. I just saw this in action today at a meeting. Even my favourite biographical subject Isaac Newton was subject to this–there’s a hilarious letter he wrote as an undergrad to a friend of his, giving European travel advice as if he’d ever been any farther from Cambridge than Grantham. I have encountered a handful of women who do this, but they’re generally perceived as clueless ditzes rather than authoritative experts.
But did anyone’s head explode? I was anticipating some exploding heads.
Am just now listening to this, seen on a tweet the other day; it’s semi-relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJqtUUDhaxA
Soraya Chemaly on the credibility of women’s speech.
If we weren’t crazy, Greer could lecture safely anywhere. AND her more obnoxious statements could be Duly Noted without deranged cries for pre-emptive silencing.
Rude about trans people? Yup. Weirdly multi-culti about FGM and ‘purity culture?’ Check. A distinguished writer and scholar who’s qualified to speak on dozens of topics without being screeched at? Hell yes.
Were any of the ‘offended’ even aware of the FGM issue?…..Almost certainly not. This High Moral Outrage is as phony as the Danish Cartoons ‘push back.’
I admit to being on the far side of this issue from many here. I don’t think that Greer (or anyone else) has an automatic right to a platform, and I think the students are within their rights to protest and call to rescind an invitation to someone they find morally reprehensible, even if the basis for that objection differs from the subject of the talk. There are few speakers, on any issue, so utterly irreplaceable that the same message cannot be delivered by someone without the associated baggage. This goes doubly so when the university is paying the speaker, with monies provided by the students. The administration is still free to decide, as they did in this case, that the value of the speaker is worth upsetting the students, but I think that’s a decision that must be made on a case-by-case basis, by administrators balancing multiple concerns.
And I do think Greer’s views on trans issues go far beyond mere ‘rudeness’. Her position that trans women are not part of the 51% percent of the planet she has taken to advocate for is about as offensive as deciding that the definition of the word ‘human’ is based on skin pigmentation. I can only ever see her as a transphobic bigot.
That said, once threats of violence and severe disruption (as opposed to simple protests) come into play, the situation becomes untenable. Such things have no place in anything resembling a just society, and to issue a threat of any sort is to reject the principles of higher education and social justice in the most hypocritical fashion possible. If you believe in your ideals, you should believe that you can win the argument without resorting to such tactics, ever.