Just that one pesky majority
I wouldn’t call it reflection, exactly.
He doesn’t reflect on it so much as explain why he was right about it.
He tells us he found what Kellie Jay said deeply uncomfortable, and compared it to “the stereotypes and tropes that were used twenty years ago to describe gay people and to um not allow them the human rights that thankfully we have in today’s world” – about what’s taught in school, and predators, “it was all being repeated.”
And he thinks it’s the same thing, exactly the same thing, as we’re all supposed to think, as we’ve been coached to think by the addition of the T to the LGB. But it’s not the same thing. And he’s too uninformed to know that, so he just went with his gut, and talked a lot of ignorant dreck. And now he’s telling us how right he was, in defiance of our awareness of how completely wrong and uninformed he was.
After that he starts burbling about treating minorities badly, which allows him to ignore the fact that women are treated badly, because hey after all we’re not a minority, we’re just treated badly, and you have to tick both boxes for it to count. Yes, Mister Max, some minorities are treated badly, and so are women. (Not all minorities. Not billionaires. Not royals. Not clueless male radio hosts.) He never does grasp that point though. He mentions it, but as a grievance, not as a thing he needs to take into account.
@talkRADIO poll on twitter, asking “who is right?” As of this writing…
Kellie-Jay Keen 95.8%
James Max 4.2%
Find deep discomfort in that, dude. (lmao) :D
He has no interest whatso-frickin-ever in understanding the arguments being made. It’s only about protecting that precious minority, caving to all of their demands. If an argument involves referring to a trans-identified male as actually male, it doesn’t matter anymore what the argument might be, it’s simply declared wrong, it’s declared bigoted, it’s declared “uncomfortable”. Anything that groups all males together, and thus doesn’t group trans-identified males with women, is rejected out of hand.
James Max:
What does “how minorities are treated in society” got to do with being gender critical? Feminists are not the ones treating transgender males badly. Feminists advocate for the minority called “transgender” to have exactly the same rights and protections as members of any other discriminated-against class. That is, freedom from discrimination in employment, in housing, in access to commerce and other opportunities generally open to the public.
What about
don’t you get? How is ANY of that “treating minorities badly” for being different? (Answer: it isn’t.) Why can you not engage with the ACTUAL POSITION of the people you’re talking to or about?
Who treats badly the men who say they are women? It’s other men; it’s not feminist women. You’re blaming entirely the wrong party.
Who on earth would want breakfast, lunch or supper with James Max? Particularly breakfast.
It never ceases to amaze and frustrate how strong the conditioning is. All opposition simply must be due to ignorance, hatred, and bigotry, so engaging with that opposition honestly is right out. After all, one might then be fooled by it and become evil oneself.
Memetic protections built in.
Most women know that knowing and trusting a man, and being certain that he is not a sexual predator, does not mean that they want to take their clothes off in that man’s presence. They also know that even if they personally are happy to take their clothes off in the presence of this particular man, they still don’t get to demand that other women do.
I think most men know this, too. Because if the majority of men did not agree with this, there never would have been single sex spaces in the first place. But suddenly, we have this category of men like James Max who a) can’t have missed that there are men who do bad things to women – they do occasionally pop up on the news, b) live on the same planet as the rest of us so know full well that there are such things as sex segregated changing rooms, c) seemingly consider themselves to be entirely unremarkable on the gender front, and d) appear to not desire access to women-only spaces themselves (even if they self-identify as Not A Predator). And for some reason, these men – who I assume have women in their lives that they care about – take this position: “There are a small number of male people who have the absolute right to give themselves permission to enter the spaces where my mother / wife / daughter / other significant female person takes her clothes off”.
I can’t work out if they even know that’s what they are supporting.
All these men start to seem indistinguishable very quickly indeed.
In the last few weeks there have been James here… and Lib Dem councillor Stephen… and surprisingly inerudite author Mark in my timeline alone.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know who these people are (although shame on you for not following me on Twitter if you don’t), the point is that these men all have one thing in particular in common: they are absolutely certain they are right, even though they are brand new to the subject and haven’t given it more than a moment’s thought.
There are other commonalities to be seen.
All three had a damaging encounter with one or more smart, knowledgeable women, which seemed to spur their interest in the subject: they just had to prove those uppity women wrong at all costs.
All three came back from that encounter, after no more than a weekend, as a newly-minted self-professed expert on the subject.
In each case, it turned out that their hour or two of ‘extensive research’ proved they were right all along! And in Max’ case, he found out he was even righter than he’d thought he was!
The women who have been thinking and writing and activisming about this for decades need to educate themselves, according to all three.
All three display absolute and completely understandable contempt for (especially) women who disagree with them and shockingly fawning behaviour toward those who agree. Seriously, dumbfoundingly fawning. See also: Jolyon Maugham sliding into people’s DMs.
All of them use the factory-issue pre-stamped “its just like homophobia” argument.
And so on. These are all well-worn hallmarks of entitled men seeking adoration, like the guy who knows how to cook one thing, does it about twice a year, makes a bombsite of the kitchen in doing so (and is exempt from having to clean it because he cooked) and expects praise for it every single day.
I have a hard time believing that Max cares about minorities the least little bit or for the briefest instant. They’re clubs to hit women with, nothing more.
Catwhisperer has the right of it, I think. These men don’t know what they’re supporting. But I’d add this: they don’t care. This is not activism. It’s not social justice. It’s pushing women back into their corral and being adored in certain circles for doing so.
When the dust clears and the world begins re regain its collective mind, they’ll be able to say they were on the side of social justice and were lionised because of it. And that those women – and especially those fucking feminists were wrong.
‘Understandable’?
I meant ‘expected’. Oops.