Comments | khalinche: *jawdrop* am I misreading this or is Germaine Greer being epically nasty?

khalinche

jawdrop am I misreading this or is Germaine Greer being epically nasty?

Aug 20, 2009 17:14

Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women's names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn't polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man's delusion that he is ( Read more... )

feminism, gender

Comments 27

wildeabandon August 20 2009, 21:25:47 UTC

Eh, Greer in being epically transphobic shocker...

khalinche August 20 2009, 21:30:21 UTC

I know I might be new to the party here, but ugh!

wildeabandon August 20 2009, 21:32:50 UTC

The reason she left Newnham is because they wouldn't fire a trans professor. She's not quite at Bindel/Raymond levels, but not far off.

friend_of_tofu August 20 2009, 23:36:27 UTC

Actually, I suspect her previous actions were probably very influential on Bindel...certainly contributed to an environment in which transhate by feminists was a-OK, but importantly, the Greer/Nh kerfuffle broke outside the boundary walls and telegraphed to the rest of the country that feminists think it's fine to hate on trans folk.

biascut August 20 2009, 21:43:12 UTC

There's a section of A Whole Woman called "Pantomime Dames", which is basically about the same thing.

livredor August 20 2009, 21:48:48 UTC

Greer is, in fact, epically nasty. She has been personally horrible to several trans friends of mine, as well as frequently agitating for transphobic causes publicly in her career. (Plus, she traumatized a teenaged friend of mine who idolized her by snapping at her to find "a man or at least someone halfway competent" to assist her in the library where my friend was working. But that's just feminismFail, not transphobia.)

biascut August 20 2009, 22:15:23 UTC

It's also BasicHumanCourtesyFail..

This comment does not condone Greer's remarks... tealight_rookie August 20 2009, 22:04:35 UTC

...but I suspect she is defensively trying to retain a sovereignty of womenhood - a kind of "how dare the patriarchy oppress us and then have the cheek to want to be us". And I suspect there might be a little less hoopla if a man had made similar comments about FTM transgendered folk. However, as with much Greer these days, the reality is tactless and victim-y at best and yes, downright offensive at worst.

Re: This comment does not condone Greer's remarks... charleston August 20 2009, 22:31:24 UTC

Yes, this is very well put.

Re: This comment does not condone Greer's remarks... biascut August 21 2009, 08:58:46 UTC

That would be fair if it was just a one-off nasty comment that she hadn't really thought about, but Greer's got form. Including trying to get a trans woman sacked from a women's college at Cambridge.

wavestar August 20 2009, 22:38:29 UTC

Yow. Also, Fuck You, Germaine Greer. I knew there were plenty of 'feminists' out there who were adamantly on in the cause for women-born-women blah blah, but I didn't realise she was one.

I put feminist in quotes because I don't believe one can genuine be for and fight for the equality of all people, including women, and not be for trans rights, or gay rights, or, or...

wavestar August 20 2009, 22:41:07 UTC

err, genuineLY.

Also, if she's objecting to the patriarchy's oppression of us and then wanting to be us, she's not doing a very good job of distinguishing between individuals and the cultural system that systematically damages us all, men included. Transwomen are some of the very few people who really do mostly give up their privilege, instead taking on a great deal more danger.