What we really want
JKR going all-in again.
Like many women on the left, I despair that so many self-proclaimed liberals turn a blind eye to the naked misogyny of the gender identity movement and the threat it poses to the rights of women and girls. Walsh's film undeniably exposed what many leftists are too scared to, 2/4
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 12, 2022
Walsh believes feminism is 'rotten' and his default appears to be denigrating women with whom he disagrees. He's no more on my side than the 'shut up or we'll bomb you' charmers who cloak their misogyny in a pretty pink and blue flag. 4/4
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 12, 2022
JKR is right, and says everything with more grace and decency than I could possibly muster. Some of the responses are also marvelous:
https://twitter.com/JeckShep/status/1546853294768885760/photo/1
Victoria Smith:
I never paid much attention to Rowling; I wasn’t interested in her books. But boy, she turned out to really be something!
@2 same. I may outrage any HP fans reading this but I managed to get through maybe half the first book and found it boring and derivative. But her advocacy for women has been the absolute perfect blend of clarity, intelligence, grace, anger and humour, and I can’t help but be impressed by her skill.
I think an additional problem is that some self proclaimed “feminists” are no such thing, and they end up getting attention from Matt Walsh and others. You know the type, the champions of so called “feminism” that includes men who masquerade as women, like Laurie Penny does. If these dudes knew what feminism was really about and who the actual feminists are, maybe they wouldn’t be so arrogant.
@ 2 & 3 – also same. We’ve had quite a few conversations here about that. I really disliked the chunk of the first HP I read so I ignored the whole series (which apparently improved a lot as it went on), and I had reservations about the one non-HP I read, although it was interesting so I read the whole thing. But now, especially since The Lunch, she’s just getting better and better. A comrade.
twiliter @ 4 – That’s true in principle, but in the case of Walsh, he’s the conservative Catholic brand of anti-feminist guy, so I don’t think LP feminism is the problem.
I really like how JKR and others are being so articulate in praising the good aspects of Walsh’s documentary and stance while being steadfast in condemning his obvious misogyny. JKR gets the attention of the mainstream press, and she is taking wonderful advantage of her access. It is important that people be able to separate positions from the people who hold them, and good aspects of positions from bad. There’s entirely too much black/white thinking, “you agree on one thing, so you must agree on everything” kinds of nonsense.
FWIW, I like her books, I have been enjoying her Cormoran Strike books (especially the last one that won a Best Mystery prize last year), and I’ve pre-ordered the newest one. Those of you who don’t like her work, I won’t hold it against you, so long as you don’t hold my enjoyment against me. :-)
They might not be be so arrogant, but they’d be scared shitless because, unlike choosy-choice, individualistic, “sex-work-is-empowering” “feminism”, it puts women’s collective interests as a sex class first.
Sackbut, I won’t hold it against you. I know we all have different tastes. I don’t even hold my mother’s love for Zane Grey and western movies against her…but I didn’t borrow her books.
I doubt whether this is strictly in the context of this post in particular, but I want to say it anyway, as it concerns something I’ve noticed since I was a child in the 1950S, but was reminded of this week as I’ve had more occasion to use public toilets than I usually have.
Something that is absolutely obvious to anyone who is not an architect is that if you have separate men’s and women’s toilets you must have more women’s toilets than men’s, probably at least twice as many. If not, as is virtually universal in my experience, there is always a queue for the women’s and not for the men’s. It’s quite usual (and has happened twice this week) for me to be able to march straight in while my wife has to wait five or so minutes in a queue.
According to
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/
women’s toilets first appeared in England around 1850, so there has been a great deal of time to take account of something I started noticing in cinemas in the 1950s, confirmed many times since. It must be an obvious observation for just about everyone, but apparently architects and people who design sanitary services in public buildings are trained to ignore their common sense.
In the present woke world I wonder how a pretend woman copes with this when desperate for a pee. Seeing the queue for the women’s and no queue for the men’s does he stick to his principles and insist that he’s a woman, or does he decide that just this once he’ll decide to be a man? (Here in France it’s less of a problem than in many countries, because no one is normally shocked to see anyone in the “wrong” one; I’ve often seen women in the men’s, and occasionally I’ve used the women’s (normally only when the men’s is closed for cleaning).)
I suspect the lack of adequate women’s toilets has a lot to do with the fact that most architects are men. Also, the idea of equality extended to architecture, where things must match…and a lot of places probably don’t want to spend the extra money for more women’s toilets.
@ guest #3
I’m a sort of a HP fan. I enjoyed the books, a little less so as each went along. I thought the names especially were clever and hilarious. I have my critiques of the books, too.
But who the heck becomes “enraged” when people don’t always like the same things? What a dull world it would be. My brother and I disagree a lot about which movies we like or dislike, but we have some of the best times talking about them.
I greatly respect JKR’s ability to draw out a yarn. I appreciate the series, and am irresistibly happy when children love books. I’ve read them all, seen the movies, and despaired as first one, then the other child has shown no interest in reading them or any other novels.
I feel like she could have kept going if not for the problem of sex. I’m also kind of glad she stopped, because her choices at that point were to write about sex or to pretend it was unimportant to her protagonists. And nobody really wanted to read Harry Potter and the Condom of Doom.
lol
Alternatively you can read about two extremely damaged, dysfunctional people who solve mysteries…
Couldn’t get into the HP series, gave up after the first.
Really enjoyed the Cormorant Strike series, and am looking forward to the next.
last week I read “The Casual Vacancy” published under the JKR name and predating the Cormorant books. I saw it as her trying to break out of the HP mould but still being wedded to the idea of a series of sprawling characters. The Cormorant novels are sparser in characters and all the better for it.
@Rev #16 – Yes, the Casual Vacancy seemed to me to be a series of interwoven character studies. I kept on waiting for the REAL story to begin, and all the action was at the end. I enjoyed it because the characters are authentic.
Don’t judge the series by the first book. They get better as the characters get older. I read them all as an adult, and when I read the 5th book, Order of the Phoenix, it was hands down one of the most subversive things I have ever read. The Parkland students called themselves Dumbledore’s Army because that is what the students who stood up to the fascist takeover of Hogwarts and the Wizarding World called themselves. The message of standing up to authoritarianism was incredibly strong.