Don't throw Foucault out with the Judith Butler bathwater

While I like Helen Pluckrose and agree with much of Critical Cynical Theories, here is an antithesis from the Genspect Bigger Picture Conference last month. 

Heather Brunskell-Evans, a Quaker and a philosopher, explains why we shouldn’t throw the Foucault baby out with the Judith Butler bathwater. The Confluence of Philosophy, Feminism & Queer Theory. 

Also at Genspect Bigger Picture Conference: Gender Ideology as a Religion with Colette Colfer.

Art or porn in Paris exhibition

"Ma Pensée Sérielle" by Miriam Cahn (17/02/2023 to 14/05/2023 at palaisdetokyo in Paris) has been criticised for appearing to depict an act fellatio on children. But it’s intended by the artist as a critique of rape as a war crime.

Qwoke Youth and Wise Elders - the Quaker Gender War

This post starts with a long, negative criticism of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and, I’m glad to say, ends with a positive affirmation of where we could be heading.

The bad old news is that many Quaker Meetings have taken decisions over the last few years not to hire their meeting rooms to people who wish to discuss gender issues.

The End of the World is Flat by Simon Edge

The End of the World is Flat by Simon Edge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great read. My favourite scene is on p321, where Mel advises Ginny how to write up the story so as to avoid the risk of her wealthy adversaries taking her down with questionable libel claims: "Fictionalise it. Dress it up as something else ... Find some other subject where a bunch of fanatics take incontrovertible truths and rip them up for some crazy ideology." Mel's suggestion is to have the fanatics "argue that biological sex is a false concept imposed on the world by racist imperialists. Or is that too far-fetched?"
I wasn't expecting it to be such a romping adventure with twists and turns of character. I found many characters credible and believable.
(Slight spoiler alert: stop reading here if you haven't read TEOTWIF yet). Shane was an exception, maybe, due to the way he turned into more and more of a callous, unprincipled villain. But still, he was the Love-To-Hate character and deserved what he got!

View all my reviews

Tatchell on children and consent

Here is Peter Tatchell again in The Guardian, Thu 24 Sep 2009, advocating for an age of consent of 14. He does not mention 9 to 13 year-olds, as he did in 1997.

Don't criminalise young sex - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/sep/24/sex-under-16-underage

 

All men are rapists

“All men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, their codes.” So says Val, a militant radical feminist character in The Women's Room (1977) by Marilyn French. I had to put up with this discourse in the 1980s while living in the Camdens and Islingtons of right-on johns and trendy wendys. It was, after all, the decade of the so-called New Man: where did he go?

Derrick Jensen on transgender

Derrick Jensen is one of my favourite radical environmentalists and I am glad to find that, in the transgender controversy, he is on the side of women who disagree that biological males who identify as “transgender” are women. Here is a link to a response by Derrick Jensen to a feature by John Stoltenberg on Andrea Dworkin (response and feature both from 2015): genderdetective.wordpress.com/category/queer-theory

Book Group on Peace News

Our Next Read is the last 2 issues of Peace News:

• Issue 2624 - 2625 | December 2018 - January 2019, especially on #XR
• Issue 2622 - 2623 | October - November 2018, especially on Transgender issues

gender identity science

Just been looking up some of the scientific studies in the “gender identity” debate – prompted by this lively discussion forum on my.greenparty.org.uk.

only a woman can be a mother

In 2015 Germaine Greer criticised Elton John and David Furnish for listing David as the mother on the birth certificates of their two sons.

queer theory critique by Sheila Jeffreys

Brilliant interview of lesbian feminist academic, Sheila Jeffreys, about queer theory by Derrick Jensen on Resistance Radio (21 Sep 2014) – even though, as an interviewer, Derrick sounds unprepared at times.

gender identity politics

I’m bewildered and confused by the public debate about gender identity. As a heterosexual man I have never felt troubled with my gender identity. I have my share of other personal issues, of course, as well as an awareness of being a privileged male in a patriarchal society. But gender has only become an issue in my life in the last few years: partly because of personal acquaintance with some trans gender people and partly because of the acrimonious debates in left liberal circles on the subject. I want to support feminism and at the same time I'm worried about being transphobic. But I don't want to fall in with the ideology,  as described in the blog gendercriticalgreens, that 'there is such a thing as “gender identity” entirely separate from one’s biological sex, that being a man or a woman is a feeling unrelated to biology, and that the only way to be supportive to trans people, and indeed to avoid being seen as transphobic, is to adopt this ideology.'

Cis and Trans

Rupert Read has been criticised for being offensive to transgender people. I think he was saying that trans women, ie men who identify as women, shouldn't dictate to cis women, ie women who are born as women, who is or isn't allowed to be identified as a woman.