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Giles Coren, what a cunt
Giles Coren: just fuck off
Giles Coren – star of food history programme The Supersizers, posh food critic, winner of an award for writing the shittest sex scene of any novel in 2005, “Fuck the Poles” racist and general snobby bastard (see his twitter at any one given time for evidence) – has authored an article for the Daily Mail today. About the sexist comments made by Sky sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray (and his caught-on-camera sexual harassment), two old misogynists unable to accept that women are real people with the ability to work competently, and their subsequent sacking/resignation. Coren starts from the ever-promising position of ‘I’m not sexist, but…’ and from there on blunders into a horrifying public display of loathing for women that would shock even Tommy Sheridan.
The article is actually so offensive it makes the rest of the Mail’s content look like it’s been written by the Teletubbies loved up out their bins on MDMA. I can practically see the eternally offensive Jan Moir, Bel Mooney and Richard Littlejohn hugging each other and intently discussing how they totally now really get why hate and fear is just a media ploy to keep us from joining together in happiness and song. Coren’s article is THAT bad. Yes, I know it’s in the Daily Mail, so I shouldn’t expect better. That doesn’t make it okay for something this sexist to be published, especially as Giles Coren often presents himself as some kind of average liberal middle class guy whose opinions educated people should listen to. It’s like he’s tried to pack every offensive trope out there into the one piece. How bad the article is really can’t be explained adequately second hand, so we’ll just have to show you exactly what he said. And demolish his pish line by line.
“So why is it all right for women to be sexist about MEN?“
That’s his title. The piece isn’t even started and he’s already talking out his hole. Let’s make this clear: sexism involves power relations. For someone to discriminate against someone else, they have to hold the power to discriminate in the first place. Men hold this power, women do not. So while I’m sure there are women out there who have said unpleasant or untrue things about men, there is no sexism by women against men. It’s not a thing that is able to happen because that’s not the world that men and women live in. Just like how racism by blacks against whites isn’t a real thing.
Two thumbs up if you're a cunt!
And besides, MEN (the concept, i.e how men as a whole act and are encouraged to act) ARE deeply unpleasant. There is no low to which the concept of MEN won’t stoop. That’s of course not to say that all men are horrible. There are many lovely men who don’t do nasty things to women, especially outright nasty things. However, the concept of MEN dominates, usurps and controls both the concept of WOMEN and real individual women’s lives on a day to day basis.
“Andy Gray and Richard Keys are a couple of dull, flabby, middle-aged football bores and are just the sort of doddering old clowns you would expect to relax off camera by swapping ancient prejudices and poking fun at women — in this case a female linesman — for not understanding the offside rule.
You shouldn’t pass unflattering remarks about women behind their backs because it is not a well brought-up thing to do, and they needed to be told. I would never do it myself. Not because I am a feminist, but because I am a gentleman.”
And his classist prejudices show through. I don’t give a fuck if you were “well brought up” you posh dick, and I don’t want you to be a “gentleman”, I think we’d all just like it if you could get your head round the concept of being a decent human being. That’s a lot more worthwhile than being a “gentleman”, an outdated and patriarchal view of the world being the property of men and a space in which to dominate women. But, so long as they hold open the door and don’t use sweary words cause that’s what poor people do, apparently gentlemen have the moral highground. On everything.
Bear that paragraph in mind, as Giles seems to do a pretty good job of demolishing all of his protestations that he’s a nice guy who doesn’t talk smack about women in the rest of the article…
“We will hear an endless shrieking to ‘kick sexism out of football’; a PE teacher will be fired for telling his goalkeeper to ‘stop crying like a girl’; and a hapless League One manager will be deported for describing a fight between players as ‘handbags at dawn’”
No you won’t. Stop making shit up. Your slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
“There will be the endless apologies, public soul-searching and self-flagellation. And as usual the rest of us men will be expected to atone as a sex for a couple of remarks by two fat, superannuated fools on the telly, and to grovel for forgiveness with every snivel and cringe of our waking lives”
See above response. God, Giles, you really fucking do hate women don’t you. Get over yourself. Not everything is about you.
“Not that that’s anything new. To be a man in this country is constantly to have to apologise for oneself and to be ever so very careful about every sentence we speak or write which contains any reference at all to members of the opposite sex”
Nothing seems to be stopping you Giles from doing exactly what you say you can never do here. No one is making you apologise for anything. But you do have a duty to recognise your male privilege. And your white privilege. And your straight privilege. You don’t need to apologise for it – it’s not your fault you were born with these constructed social, economic and political advantages over so many others – but you do have to accept it, challenge it, and move on.
“While at the same time, and this is the shame of it, we ourselves are fair game for women. While sexism from men is the outstanding social crime of the modern world, women can say absolutely whatever they like about us”
Sexism from men is not “the outstanding social crime of the modern world”. Do you EVER read newspapers? Watch TV? Listen to conversations about women? I can only assume not, because if you did you’d know that sexism is everywhere, all the time, and it never went away.
You have no idea what it’s like to be a woman. You have no idea what it’s like to have a man stand up to his full height and shout in his deepest voice to intimidate you because you said something that he disagreed with. You have no idea what it’s like to have men sneer at and talk over your contributions in classes and at work, male habits which are so ingrained many men don’t even notice they are doing it. You have no idea what it’s like to sprint from the bus stop to your front door because you are terrified that the man who is staring at you, jeering at you or following you (which happens so often you’d shit your pants if you had to experience it for a month) could hurt you.
Jo Brand: stabby stabby stabby manny manny manny
So no, Giles Coren, women can’t say absolutely whatever they like about men. MEN (the concept again) simply don’t allow it. But if a woman does make a point about the way that MEN behave, she’s perfectly fucking entitled to do so as I can guarantee it is based in truth and is brave, knowing the kind of boorish comments people like you will inevitably throw back in her face when they wish to reassert their authority of her. Whether that be physically, mentally, or through a pathetic and cowardly Daily Mail article.
“Only last week, for example, Jo Brand, the newly crowned Best Female TV Comic at the British Comedy Awards, was on Have I Got News For You and replied to the question ‘What’s your favourite kind of man, Jo?’ by saying: ‘A dead one.’ Oh, how the audience fell about. And the other contestants, all male, chortled away too.
I’m not saying it wasn’t funny. I’m just saying we live in a world where the thorough-going awfulness, uselessness and superfluity of the male sex is such a given, that a frontline television comic can get big laughs by saying she’d prefer it if we were all dead.
And I’m trying to imagine a world in which I am on that show and they say, ‘What kind of women do you like, Giles?’ and I reply: ‘Dead ones.’ I just don’t think it would get the same laughs, do you?
Here’s another of Jo Brand’s (excellent) gags. ‘What’s the way to a man’s heart? Straight through the chest with a kitchen knife!’ Again, not unfunny. But predicated on the idea that killing men is hilarious. Whereas killing women, as we all know, is a very serious affair and not to be joked about.”
Did you ever think that maybe it’s not funny for men to joke about killing women because that’s precisely what men do across the world every week? Women are raped and killed by men who don’t like them, BECAUSE THEY ARE WOMEN, with everything that entails for the patriarchal psyche of ownership, not-letting-women-step-out-of-line, etc.
More than 2 women each week are killed by their current or ex partners. 1 in 4 women in the UK will experience domestic abuse in their lifetime. Police receive a domestic violence call every minute, yet less than half of incidents are reported. Women are killed and harmed because of sexism. Men are not. And you think Jo Brand making a joke about men being useless therefore should enable men to make jokes/threats like that to women, when men are already out there doing it constantly? Fuck. Off.
And anyway, men DO make jokes like that all the time, to women’s faces. We’re back to Giles just making shit up again.
“It’s not just Brand, it’s all women. ‘What do you call the useless flap of skin attached to a penis?’ they joke. ‘A man!’ they all reply, and clink their chardonnay glasses and chortle till dawn. How on earth did this get to be OK?”
What Giles Coren is made of
And now, ‘women are all lushes’.
“I’ll tell you how. It is because pretty much from birth women are schooled by their mothers to deride men. They are sugar and spice, we are slugs and snails.
They are reflective and sensitive, while we run around kicking balls and shouting. And then as girls push towards puberty their mothers take them aside and tell them: ‘Boys are only after one thing!’”
MOTHERS ARE EVIL. EVIL EVIL WOMEN MOTHERS.
“The great lie. All men want is sex. Not so. If anything, it is women who think only of having it off. Girls on average lose their virginity much younger than boys and have more sexual partners in youth.”
OH MY GOD did he just say that the fact that young girls are pressured into early sexualisation and having sex with older boys is the same as women “thinking only of having it off”? There’s something seriously creepy about this statement.
“As a teenager, I was terribly shy about sex and yet girls were trying to do it with me all the time. I used to run, literally run, from their bedrooms when they tried it on. And yet women are allowed endlessly to harangue us with our supposed lechery”
And now we get to the crux of this whole article. Giles thinks he’s a “nice guy”, and therefore women are horrible. He’s got seriously issues with bitterness towards women, there’s a psychological connection of women with hate here. Giles is not a nice guy. See here for an excellent explanation of why the “nice guy” shtick is a misogynist bag of shite.
“And the prejudice festers. Harriet Harman says that men caused the banking crisis, and the harridan legions nod their heads. ‘If women ruled the world,’ they cry, ‘there would be no wars.’”
“Harridan legions”… FNASKJNFEKJNFHJESBFAKLM YOU ARE SUCH A SEXIST SHITEBAG.
“What nonsense. Women are far meaner, more brutal, aggressive, small-minded, jealous, petty and venal than any man.
If women ruled the world countries would be invaded because ‘she’s always been jealous of my feet’ and because ‘she looks down on me for going out to work’.
Millions would die, torture would increase. If women ruled the world there would be carnage.”
It’s getting to the point where I think I can just let Giles Coren’s deep rooted misogyny speak for itself. He’s truly horrible, isn’t he?
“And what sort of an insult is it anyway to suggest that most women don’t understand the offside rule? It’s true, for a start. Most women don’t. And most of them declare it proudly.”
Hang on, didn’t you start this article by saying how you totally didn’t approve of the sexist comments made by Gray and Keys? Did you forget about your ‘I’m not sexist, but…’ lie amidst all your mad rampaging sexism?
Oh and it is an insult, because beyond the casual sexism of the idea that women can’t be interested in or understand football, the person that Gray and Keys were saying didn’t understand the offside rule is a qualified linesman. That’s her job. She knows how to do it. They were suggesting otherwise because she is a woman, regardless of her obvious job competence. It wasn’t casual sexism it was a direct sexist slur on her abilities and character.
“Most of them use football as an example of one of their favourite gags, the one about how men never grow up, about how we’re all just children — most often manifested in the one where a mother-of-two says ‘I’ve got three children’, you raise an eyebrow, and she nods towards her husband. Hilarious.”
Did you forget your line on comedy gags about men, Giles? Jokes about killing men are okay, because they give you the opportunity to argue that jokes about killing women should be okay. But jokes about men being childish? How awful these so called “wives” and “girlfriends” must be if they find THAT funny. They should of course only laugh at what their man decrees is funny.
And nor are men, in this female narrative, merely puerile, aggressive and underdeveloped. They are hypochondriacs, too.
‘He’s got a touch of man flu,’ say the womenfolk and titter. But what nonsense is that? It is women who make a big fuss about mild discomfort, not men.
I have never had so much as a cold in my life, nor claimed to. I even suspect sometimes that the whole palaver about the pain of childbirth is a conspiracy to ride roughshod over men.
My own mother, a consultant anaesthetist herself, has always claimed that giving birth was a breeze but that she pretended it had been painful to build bargaining chips with my father.”
Did I miss the point at which this became a parody of sexist men? You seriously don’t believe childbirth is painful? Is it a ‘mild discomfort’? This is ridiculous because you obviously don’t believe that. You’re just saying that to get a rise. Conspiracy LOL.
So close and yet so far, ladies
And all this business about man flu – honestly, does any man really care if a woman suggests he has ‘manflu’? The vast majority of female partners will still act as caregivers for their poor manflued up partners, how horrible of them to make light of the fact that men are far less likely to feel pain on the level that a woman is throughout their lives.
“You look at shows like Loose Women and you wonder how on earth they get away with the terrible things they say about men. I went on once and it was horrific. I wanted to die.”
Next time, wish a bit harder.
“No male-hosted show could treat women the way those outsized harpies treat men”
“Outsized harpies”.. again with the ffskljnfhsebgjsbngkjsnegaak!!!
“They retire younger and live longer to such an extent that minor inequalities in pay levels are obliterated when you consider whose money pays for those 25 years of retirement. And it just isn’t fair that they are allowed to be so vile about us”
A 20% pay gap is not a minor inequality. Money might be alright for you, posh boy, but you’ve never had to live the life of a single mother.
Women are not vile about men. I like men who aren’t dicks, and I don’t like men who are. You don’t like any women. So get over yourself. Who knows how many men have raped, killed, hurt, humiliated or manipulated women, propped up by the heterosexual male dominated system, in the amount of time it took you to spit your misogyny at your computer and come up with possibly the world’s shittest article?
“I suppose, in a way, British men are like white people were in Nineties South Africa or young Germans after the Second World War.”
Oh here we go. No, British men are not like anything except privileged British men.
“We are expected to go through a period of atonement for the sins of our fathers. To be treated worse than we merit because of crimes previously committed in our name: in this case the crime of feeding, protecting, loving and nurturing women in accordance with our biological imperative”
Firstly, I think this article you’ve written proves conclusively that your sins when it comes to being a sexist prick are not your father’s, they are very much YOURS, happening right here and now.
Secondly, what? It’s not your ‘biological imperative’ to do anything, we are human beings capable of logical thought, not mating insects, who are probably more emotionally intelligent than you anyway. “The crime of feeding, protecting, loving and nurturing women”… there’s something about that sentence that is very controlling, very patriarchal, very abuse-enabling, and very full of shite.
“They don’t want that any more. They want to be linesmen. And so we have to let them tell us endlessly how they wish we were all dead.
If that’s not off-side, I don’t know what is.”
Yes, how dare women want to be treated with respect when doing a job that they’re qualified for and that they enjoy.
Weren’t you just saying how you found Jo Brand’s joke funny? Oh forget it, you’re obviously just confused about which unpleasant persona you’re playing at any one given time.
If you don’t want yet another row in the media about how you’re kind of a bit of a prick, maybe you should keep your pathological hatred of women to a more private arena. Your poor, poor wife.
Articles like this are not fun and games. They are dangerous. At a time when for once some sexist men have actually been taken to task for their sexist outbursts, people like Giles Coren come along on their white hetero middle class steeds of male honour and attempt to undermine it. Giles, you’re no good, and you have no place in journalism. And FYI Giles, when I’m harsh about you in this article, it’s NOT because you’re a man. It’s because you’ve said the disgusting things that you have. That’s your fault.
A public information announcment from Giles Coren’s brain.
UPDATE:
An SSP member sent this article to Giles Coren on twitter, and he gave this surprisingly uncunty response:
However, some of his twitter followers decided to go out of their way to prove just how sexist they could be:
No thanks, I'll stick with my vagina ta
No, but thanks for your confidence in women's ability to be legitimately angry about genuinely horrible statements regardless of whether they're bleeding or not
What a pleasant fellow
Thanks for entirely proving my point by firstly misquoting me and secondly calling me a 'poisonous bitch' for speaking an opinion that differs to a man's
Some people on the other hand, just don’t get it:
The idea that swearing delegitimises your argument is a heap of balls. Swearwords are some of the most nuanced and expressive language tools we have at our disposal. It's fine if you don't want to swear in your own points, but SSY likes to make use of swear words to express our real feelings better and without reservation. I don't care if you accept that or not.
No it doesn't. Lol. It just proves he said some out of order things, that's all. Men are not automatically right.
It's not challenging dogma, it's spreading lies intended to uphold patriarchy.
Lol, no, I'm really not a hippy
But thankfully there are some folk out there that get it, women who aren’t afraid to speak truth to patriarchy and who we’re very proud to share membership of the SSP with!:
Better not to link directly to Daily Mail content, I think stirring controversy as in part a deliberate ploy to drive up their hits/google ranking…
When I was a teenager EVERYONE WANTED TO HAVE SEX WITH ME BECAUSE I AM AMAZING but I turned them away BECAUSE I AM AMAZING therefore women are evil.
I have absolutely no problem with linking to Daily Mail content. A surprising amount of young people read it online because it is the only newspaper with an easy, well laid out website. And even though many know it’s full of shit, it’s still important to keep challenging it. If anything it’s a good springboard for our arguments. Target practise for when this stuff comes up in person.
Obviously he’s stirring controversy for himself, but so what? Do we let him go unchallenged except for a few meek twitter protestations? I’d rather rip his argument limb from limb.
SSY are in the business of using our opinions to generate website hits too yunno, so aside from getting to take sexist chumps down a peg or too it’s useful for us to make current replies to newspaper articles, be that Daily Mail or Guardian.
ahahaha at the “boohoo feminists said i was made of slugs and snails” argument!!!
The way little boys are treated and expected to be rough and tough is appalling and guess who is fighting against it…? That’s right, FEMINISTS!!!
Anyway, great article – I really like that is spelled out the difference between men (individuals) and MEN (the concept, the group that holds the power in society).
I think it was Angela Davis who said “I don’t hate white PEOPLE, I hate WHITE people” and the analogy works very well here too.
Coren, briefly, was a twitter friend of @SSPCampsie. A few months ago he made absolutely despicable right wing comments… and after a good few tweetersnailed him, he is no longer welcome on SSPCampsie’s twitter stream. Since that, I hear he has cried himself to sleep at the loss.
Just think one day you will grow up and leave the 6th form.
All you have proved with this “article” is a complete lack of humour and a deep seated persecution complex – well done.
Ack I gave up with this article as soon as you announced that black people can’t be racist.
Utter bollocks!
I take it this blog is meant to be a satire?
Surely nobody real could be that far up their own arse?
So the fuck what if women make jokes about us, there are easily as many broadcast about them but as they wouldn’t provoke Coren’s inferiority complex why would he notice them?
And also I love Giles. Witty, intelligent and not a humourless raving lefty.
And he’s cute. Sorry to say something positive about the Evil Male Gender!
what a bunch of cunts YOU lot are
heres an idea
pack up from scotland
move to england
pay for your own education
stop scrounging
stop whinging
a few deep fried mars bars and a buckfast should sort you out
Great work. Have RT-ed and linked liberally. I couldn’t actually bring myself to read the article, I value my mental health just a little too much to allow every moment of abject fail that crosses my path to actually enter my brain. Even in digest form, it’s excruciating. I applaud your well-reasoned response under the circumstances.
Wow, aren’t you over reacting a just a tiny bit. A bit too busy being angry to take the article for what it is and concentrating way to much on the fact it was in the daily mail. Did any of his point make you think, well actually that’s true or was he completely wrong in the entire article. He may be a cunt but at least he knows it. Do you know you may be too?
I’ve no desire to distract attention from the issue of Giles Coren being a sexist twat but this jumped out at me
‘I suppose, in a way, British men are like white people were in Nineties South Africa or young Germans after the Second World War’
He’s trying to say that men are discriminated against or whatever by women and the best comparison he can come up with is the white south africans after the fall of apartheid? What a a fucking racist dickstain
look you cant even be arsed to moderate on time
you know why..?
cos scottish students are now sitting in pubs..pissing their grants up a wall
and complaining about your hard life
idle bastards
Hi spam queue moaners. SSY have been out having a really productive meeting tonight and I’m not sitting moderating comments on my phone. You’ll get through later with your moaning. Maybe.
@sarah I didn’t mean you shouldn’t write an article slagging it off, I meant you shouldn’t actually create a hyperlink to the original in the post, but rather find a copy of it somewhere other than the Daily Mail’s website to link to. Obviously critiquing this sort of pish is really important, its just the way Google’s page ranking algorithms work the more hyperlinks to a given page the higher it will rank.
The most ignorant thing in all the above is the suggestion that men are not victims of domestic violence. Data from the British Crime Survey show that men constitute about 40% of domestic violence victims. This is more accurate than police records (which show lower levels) because i) there is a significant stigma associated with males reporting domestic violence to the police, and ii) such reports are often brushed aside by the police and not recorded. If you’re not persuaded by the hard data, then just go and speak to someone who works for victim support.
“Get over yourself. Not everything is about you.”
I think you might consider re-reading your own polemic with this phrase in mind. You appear to take the whole thing rather personally.
What a load of toss.
In your moderating are you only allowing posts that agree with your point of view? If not then I am amazed on two counts: 1. that you have no dissenting voices here and 2. you only have 5 comments considering the subject of your post (Giles Coren) re-tweeted your tweet at 7:52 this evening.
If you are then it is bad form and against the entire ethos of free speech on the internet.
Ahem, apologies for my previous comment – my browser had decided to only show 5 comments and not the rest! Please feel free to delete it. And this.
Dear oh dear, so we have the usual responses that the SSY are all useless students draining the system, the SSY are cunts and that Giles Coren is good looking. Yawn. Did any of you actually bother to read the article before slamming it. It raises some very important points about the power relations between men and women; about the fact that although women are still severy beaten down and discriminated in society, arseholes like Giles Coren can attempt to try and equalise the situation by arguing that if men make jokes about women, and women about men then we are all equal so what are women fussing about. He completly ignores the fact that women still have the role of second class citizens in our society. And also while men do encounter violence from women it does not compare to the systematic abuse women suffer and I would seriously question the source that says 40 percent of all domestic violence victims are men.
Great Article!
This is the best article I have ever read on this blog and there is a competition for this as I love this blog. Call the misogynists out!! You are a super star and This is brilliant.
Check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Katz#The_Bystander_Approach
Something we could discuss in the SSP – I know Zero Tolerance and Women’s Aid are doing Bystander training, if anyone is interested please let me know
This article has gotten a great response and an insanely high number of views considering I just decided I was going to point out, in typical SSY sharp/humourous style, where Giles was being really fucking offensive. It’s not a grand concept, it’s just taking some lies and then saying what the truth is.
It’s also quite novel for us to be inundated with English readers unaware of what we’re about and how we run ting. Quite funny really.
Okay, let’s deal with some points before the bile inside youse gets too pressurised and you all explode!:
“Just think one day you will grow up and leave the 6th form.”
We don’t have 6th form in Scotland, cultural imperialist. And I’m not in it, so, er, ha?
“All you have proved with this “article” is a complete lack of humour and a deep seated persecution complex – well done.” – actually, that’s pretty much exactly how I’d describe what Giles proved with his article, so let’s agree to disagree. Arsehole.
“Ack I gave up with this article as soon as you announced that black people can’t be racist.”
I clearly state in the article that it’s possible for black people to be deeply unpleasant and unfair to white people based on their skin colour. However, if they did, what actual affect would it have on a white person’s life? Absolutely fuck all, because white people still hold the power, the wealth, the opportunity of access, the freedom to not feel worthless due to their colour, the education, the ability to operate freely without being discriminated against for being ‘inferior’. It’s not racism, it’s just unpleasantness based on the social construct of race (invented by white people to justify the slave trade and inequalities). There are a variety of power structures in our society and for something to amount to discrimination the person saying something has to hold some of the cards, which black people do not in relation to white people, and which women do not in relation to men.
“Did any of his point make you think, well actually that’s true or was he completely wrong in the entire article.”
Literally the whole of his article was wrong and untrue, as you can see by the way I systematically went through each line and proved how it was sexist bollocks. It was ALL SHITE. Sorry if that’s hard for you to accept.
“heres an idea
pack up from scotland
move to england
pay for your own education
stop scrounging
stop whinging
a few deep fried mars bars and a buckfast should sort you out”
HILARIOUS AUTOMATIC REACTIONARY ENGLISH IMPERIALISM ALERT
“scottish students are now sitting in pubs..pissing their grants up a wall”
Actually we were in the middle of a brilliant meeting, we’re not all students, and we don’t get grants in Scotland. Thanks once again for showing up your prejudices and lack of knowledge of Scotland!
anthracite.. sorry, your statistics about 40% of domestic abuse cases being men are UNTRUE. offensively untrue.
“I think you might consider re-reading your own polemic with this phrase in mind. You appear to take the whole thing rather personally.”
I really don’t. I’m just lucky in that I am one of not many women out there who feel able to repeatedly counter anti-women abuse when it continually rears its ugly head. It’s not about me, it’s about all women. Unfortunately a huge number of women have been silenced into never speaking against shite like this.
The word ‘cunt’ -
Sorry, no, I will not accept lectures on the word ‘cunt’ from English people. You honestly do not understand how Scottish people/Scottish women like myself relate to and use the word cunt. So just calm down because we like using the word cunt to describe people who are cunts, and it is neither sexist nor the most offensive thing we could say. If anything it’s a wee smidge sexist that female genitalia is considered the worst most disgusting thing you can say to someone. Whatever. If we were really trying to offend and intimidate someone, we’d probably call them a prick, or possibly a wee prrrrick. The rolling of the rrrrr’s makes it a much more effective insult. Cunt is the appropriate term for us in this case, get over it!
This whole thing has been incredibly satisfying overall, so thanks for reading folks. Writing the article was the right decision – for the right kind of people (those who are open to challenging the systemic abuses and mistreatment of women), this article has clearly struck the right note. For those who hate the article – you’ve only proven what I said about it before I posted it – that only people who hate women would have serious problems with the article. Well done. Giles read it, lots of idiots got angry, it’s given our website loads of hits, and it’s been fun. All in all a good day’s blogging!
good article. made me think
Big turnout from the ‘Speak Your Branes’ all stars tonight I see.
Excellent post!
Brilliant article, I LOVE that we have stirred up the actual real Daily Mail evil people to come and hate us.
How much up your own arse do you have to be to think it’s rubbish being a man. It’s really not, society is tailor made for you. And I speak as someone who lives on a low income and doesn’t even have a piece of piss job eating food from the past on telly. I find it hard to summon much sympathy for a professional Edwardian banquet eater.
Oh and in addition to my novel of a comment:
I don’t care if Giles was making a joke, exaggerating for effect, or being ironic or whatever you want to call it. The things he said are not okay. There’s too many idiots like YOUSE out there who lap this shit up as evidence of male supremacy and how women are just twisted jealous bitches. And besides all else, I don’t really believe these things aren’t meant the way they’re stated, I think that’s a cop out.
I did appreciate his fairly nice tweet though.
YOUZ ARE ALL STUDENTS LOL
This is funny and angry, my favourite flavour
I had thought that perhaps this was some sort of satire after reading the following:
“Let’s make this clear: sexism involves power relations. For someone to discriminate against someone else, they have to hold the power to discriminate in the first place. Men hold this power, women do not. So while I’m sure there are women out there who have said unpleasant or untrue things about men, there is no sexism by women against men. It’s not a thing that is able to happen because that’s not the world that men and women live in. Just like how racism by blacks against whites isn’t a real thing.”
Alas, I see that this is not so after reading further. You make several carte blanche statements here without evidence or it seems reason; You say that for discrimination to occur a “power to discriminate” is required and only men have this power, but you don’t trouble yourself to explain what this power is. I have to assume that you mean the relative dominance of men in positions of power in society or perhaps you mean physical power? Consider situations where women occupy positions of power; if they make decisions based on or influenced by sex is this not discrimination? I must say though that the sheer scale of the shocking idiocy in the above quoted words leaves with a niggling doubt that it may be some form of satire after all, especially the last sentence, which is something special in it’s own right.
Mark – what can black people do if they’re racist against whites? Most politicians in the UK are white, most millionaires are white, most media barons are white, most polis are white etc.
If that situation was in reverse, then you’d have a point. But if my auntie had bollocks she’d be my uncle etc.
Andy – I’m not sure I understand your question, what do you mean by “what can black people do if they’re racist against whites?”. Are you suggesting that it is normal (proper even?) for a black person to have racist inclinations towards white people merely because white people occupy most positions of power in this country?
Let’s look at that argument. Suppose we have a population consisting of two groups A and B; A makes up 90% of the population and B comprises the remaining 10%. Now suppose that the population as a whole elects 10 representatives to make decisions on behalf of the population with regards to welfare, foreign policy, taxation etc.. We would expect that statistically speaking (ignoring any racial factors in the voting decisions of the populace) if these elections were held an infinite number of times that on average 9 representatives would be from group A and 1 from group B. No racist thinking has led to this situation, but by your logic above this would be reasonable cause for those of group B behave/think in a racist manner towards group A just because most representatives are from group A. Why is this fair when no one of group A has acted in a racist manner?
Sorry, but I’m calling bollocks on this; of course women can be sexist, and black people can be racist! And moreover it seems socialists and feminists can be reactionary, naïve, semi-literate, classist cunts. Or bawbags. Take your pick.
Shame on you for forcing me into the new and gut-wrenchingly vile concept of siding with a Daily Fail article.
I think what this boils down to is that Coren was writing a comment; a column for a newspaper (whereby surely he is allowed to state his own opinion and satirise the argument) and this article is simply focused on picking it apart in an attempt to demonise Coren. Sure, some of the things he said didn’t follow post-modern thought, but I think it’s a fairly intelligent argument from someone who hasn’t majored in sociology. This article tends to lean towards circular arguments (such as power relationships cause sexism, which is in turn leads to sexism) and you nullify your own arguments as you go through as well.
I also couldn’t believe that you stated as fact that ‘Women are killed and harmed because of sexism. Men are not.’
That’s quite a claim, would you like to support your claim with evidence?
I’m probably banned but heres my two pence your attacks of course seem personal and your feminist stuff comes over way too angrily. Black people can be racist just ask anybody whop has been stabbed or beaten up or any way been abused due to their colour of skin. your point is mute in many aspects for Racism is not just about mass level country wide racism it is also about individual criminal cases in which a person is attacked due to your skin colour.
Your theory on privelege may be right but then do you admit to your own privelege as a white women! I would argue most of us are priveleged in some form but I would say a white homeless guy is just as unpriveleged as a black homeless guy.
Plus your definitions of race are racist in themselves for example in Britain the most likely ethnicity sexual racial or religious to be attacked is catholic thus making it not a privelege to be a white catholic. Also Polish is a good example you draw exaMPLE TO Giles Coren comment on Poles so you must admit they have less privelege.
Also in terms economically Glasgow is the most unequal city in Britain due to a high level of high skilled jobs but not a heigh level of high skilled workers.
In the end I would argue instead of Racism sexism or homophobia the true problem in Brilliant is a crippling system of Classism. In a recent report Britain was shown to be the least mobile society with denmark being the most economically mobile.
Also Glasgow East is the most deprevated area in the whole of the Uk and potentially Europe, but notr goin g along with your racist definition of classism this is a majority white area. So wqhats the problem is it sexism, racism, sectarian or are you actually not attacking the real problem which is classism.
My point wrapped up is Giles Corren himself he attacks both men for being sexist because in essence they are lovers of footballers and obviously are working class oafs. This is true of most of the attacks levelled at Grey and Keys not that they are sexist because due to their upbringing it was obviously predeteremined but the fact that they are working class. Watch the lastest edition of ten o’clock news were Charlie Brookers again re-enforces the idea of working class buffons rather than men being sexist.
As a life long defender of socialism I am beginning to realise why we lost, pseudo intellectuals with such a lack of sense of humour are our downfall, women are oppressed, men are oppressed, children are oppressed no doubt but we lost the class war a long time ago when we allowed the state to remove the will of most of the best and become so obsessed with entitlement and so bitter. We are a lost cause, the liberals and conservatives lost nothing but most importantly retained a sense of humour. We can’t even laugh at things anymore in case they oppress us. Earnest young socialists living off the generosity of either the state or parents turn into liberals and then become class traitors, the last 20 years have shown us this, a little more levity and ability to recognise irony and satire prevent people from becoming a parody and actually making a difference. The world is unfair, grow up get over it and effect change in a positive way from within!
Speaking as a rape counsellor, may I just point out that this sort of rhetoric REALLY doesn’t help?! One of the hardest things that victims have to deal with following sexual assault is overcoming a fear and distrust of ALL men, including sometimes their own partners, and this can lead to lasting psychological damage. Articles like this that perpetuate the “all men are potential rapists/abusers/whatever” notion merely serve to make it harder for these women to relearn the trust that is vital to the healing process.
No doubt your instinctive response will be to say that if MEN hadn’t raped them in the first place they wouldn’t need counselling, but as long as such crimes happen, FALSELY tarring all men with that brush is simply more damaging to the victims than acknowledging the INDIVIDUAL responsibility of the attacker.
Sorry Claire, I find that an extremely unfair analysis of what I’ve said. I have never ever once said that all men are potential rapists or abusers, that is an extremely lazy reading of my article. I state clearly in the article the difference between men the concept and men as individuals. Moreover I even say something along the lines of specifically exonnerating a large section of the male population who do not treat women horribly. Does that mean they don’t have privilege? No. Does that mean I hate them or have said they are bastards? NO! I find it offensive and hurtful that you’d even suggest I want to make life difficult for rape survivors because of the fact that I want society to face up to the realities of the abuse of women and because I think that men have systemic privileges over women which they need to accept & challenge. That is NOT the same as saying ‘all men are potential rapists’, do NOT put words in my mouth.
hpl:
“I also couldn’t believe that you stated as fact that ‘Women are killed and harmed because of sexism. Men are not.’
That’s quite a claim, would you like to support your claim with evidence?”
In what way on this earth can you honestly think men are killed and harmed because of sexism? Of course I don’t need to find statistics to prove this point it is so demonstrably true. You’re the one that’s asking, I suggest YOU provide evidence for your claim. Which you can’t, because it’s bollocks.
Bob:
“Shame on you for forcing me into the new and gut-wrenchingly vile concept of siding with a Daily Fail article.”
No, shame on you for being so closed minded to the arguments of feminists that you’d side with the Daily Mail before you’d even consider that maybe, just maybe, we have a fucking point.
And can I just say to all the men making (bizarre and unjustified) attacks on my writing style, ability to comprehend arguments, intelligence etc.. fuck off. Well done, you must be so proud of yourself at the way you attempt to discourage women from speaking their minds.
I have not said anything in this article that is untrue. If you don’t like it that’s most likely because you don’t like feminist analysis (or perhaps just you don’t like the swearing – in which case I’d ask you to please understand that I see no problem with swearing and think it adds to explaining my anger pretty well, so please respect that). Luckily, this article isn’t written for people who hate feminists. It’s written for women who’d like to say this stuff but can’t, or people who appreciate seeing the arguments of patriarchy torn down. Yeah, it’s likely to encourage more bile than nice comments – but that’s only a reflection on the unpleasant nature of our patriarchal society, not in the slightest an indication that we should tone down our message. SSY and the SSP have gone a long time being vilified for being feminists – for saying the right things at the right times and not backing down from the truth about it. If you don’t accept that I really don’t care. You were always going to be a prick, you’ll continue to do so long after you’ve forgotten about my article. It is not written for you. About you, maybe, but not for you.
hpl – ‘I think what this boils down to is that Coren was writing a comment; a column for a newspaper (whereby surely he is allowed to state his own opinion and satirise the argument)
Aye of course he’s allowed to, just like Sarah is allowed to point out that what he wrote is load of sexist shite that’s riddled with dangerous lies. To be honest I’d have a lot more respect for all the people commenting if they’d just admit it bothers them when someone is called out for being a misogynist wank because they know in their heart that they’re sexist numpties too, instead of coming up with nonsensical arguments as to why Giles Coren is great and feminists are evil,
It’s been quite a week of ranting, hair-raising bollocks from the Mail – first we have the “gay agenda” bollocks article, then we get a woman writing about how “men should be allowed to be sexist cos football’s their thing” (or something… I couldn’t quite bring myself to read it), and then we have dear old sexy Giles, spewing a lot of sexist shite.
I don’t think my jaw has left the floor since reading it. I really, really don’t. It still jumps out at me in retina-singeing neon his claim that childbirth doesn’t hurt. Where’s Sue Perkins? Will she knee him in the groin? (and then, when he’s writhing about going “Owww, shit, that really hurts!” will she go, “Shut it, you big baby. Just try giving birth!”)
But then that brings up a point, doesn’t it? Have I just advocated violence against men?
I fully understand the idea that it’s impossible for women to be sexist to men bearing in mind social power structures, but I still think that misandry exists. You see it all the time in TV ads and there is a groundswell of people feeling sick of it. Like all those “stupid dad” adverts. “Oh dad, you’re so stupid, you can’t figure out how to use a washing machine! But mum can do it! Good ol’ mum!” And that’s pretty much it – the moment you open yourself to that sort of thing, frequently it involves women being pushed back into the domestic spaces women are trying to get out of. The “Loose Women” anti-men stuff cycles back into sexism about women, ultimately (the bitch, the harridan, the ranting woman with PMT). Which is why I, personally, don’t think Jo Brand is funny. I want equality for everyone and I don’t see that happening if we allow ourselves to be sexist about men (taking ‘sexist’ to mean, in this instance, very basically, one sex being mean about the other).
I do broadly agree with what you’ve said and I really thank you for writing this because you’ve said pretty much what I thought when he wrote this. I actually tweeted him and said “Jo Brand will continue to make unfunny jokes about dead men as long as Jimmy Carr thinks that the word ‘rapey’ is hilarious.” He did reply to that, because he clearly uses the word too, saying “I only say it about a dark alleyway like I’d say it was ‘stabby’ or murdery’.” Erm… To which I replied that, knowing someone who was raped, I actually don’t find the word funny at all. Didn’t get a reply to that cos Germaine Greer was probably throwing paint at his windows.
One thing I would say though is that domestic violence against men *does* exist. I can’t provide you with figures, but I do know men it’s happened to, who have been very badly bullied by women (anyone for boiling water poured onto their genitals?). Of course, sexism is at work to a degree here because men are scared to report it because women are seen from a patriarchal perspective as the weaker sex and so unable to perpetrate such abuse – and so the men are either disbelieved or mocked. But then I would imagine this is a rarer occurance than violence against women. I know you’re saying “women are killed and harmed because of sexism, men aren’t”, but it could be misconstrued as saying that men never suffer domestic abuse at all, but they do. I just wanted to say that.
Anyway, great article, and I wholly approve of the fucking swearing.
Once I lived in a country where anyone who joked a little about someone elses opinion or tried what is now called satire, got the sort of anger hatred seen by you. The worst thing was how all sorts of opinions were put upon the person being hated as if you already knew what he or she thought about everything without asking, it was all assumed. It was assumed the person that was not liked had everything wrong with their views they would be hated and vilifed and cast out. this was Albania in the late 1980s. Not a lot of humor and the last thing you ever wanted was for anyone to accuse you of not thinking right because then you would be accused of every crime they could think of including being a CIA agent. This is what it reads like its like the socialism i endured just cold heartless and putting labels of all kinds on people and groups. i hated one woman the most, Nexhmije Hoxha who was the wife of our hated dictator Enver Hoxha. She lied cheated stole and laughed when people told her how protestors were shot in the streets and how people are tortured. many men do horrible things but many women do too people should be judged on what they do not who they are. It is why i left albania because of the attitude of judgment of people because of background race religion as we were all taught to put people into groups of who is good and not good. i am a woman too but i hate the idea you might care about my views because of that because it doesnt change my brain.
you say women cant be sexist about men because it is about power, which is what the party told us about class, the workers could never exploit or harm the capitalists because they had power and every time some capitalist agent was found or someone who was anti worker was found, it was ok to punish them without mercy, the working class is never wrong. forgive me but your whole attitude is scary, i just thought giles was a bit funny and kidding around and i like that for once. socialism has been corrupted before by lots of hate and judgment please dont do it again.
Hi Helen, thanks for your comment, really appreciate it. Sorry for my very long comment but I think you’ve made some good points I’d like to reply to.
My thoughts on misandry – I know that there are some women out there who genuinely hate men – for some this may be justified as it’s up to them who they choose to interact with and if they’ve had terrible experiences with some men I wouldn’t blame them for wanting to retreat from men altogether (I also wouldn’t be too offended if a gay person said they hated straight people because of their supremacy, or whatever, because although I might think it’s unfriendly and unhelpful in the long run to making things better for all, I completely understand what would have led them to feel that way, and it WOULD be the supremacy of straightness, which isn’t something they are making up), for others who hate men it probably isn’t justified, because we’re all people and there are some women and some men who are always going to be irrationally not nice. I really think the number of women who are misandrists is vastly overstated though. I’ve never met one. I’ve met a lot of misogynists though (who pretend not to be of course but there are ways they give themselves away). I think it’s important to note as well that it’s probably unlikely for a woman to hate men without having been affected in some way by bad experiences (and therefore there’s some degree to which people should be able to understand it even if they don’t agree), whereas there are a LOT of men out there who hate women based on things that are in no way rooted in reality and fact, but just pure hatred of people that they see as inferior.
I agree with you about the adverts about men being too stupid to do domestic chores. But unlike the viewpoint put across in Giles’s article I’d say that (as you mention aout women being pushed back into domestic spaces) this isn’t because of women running rampant in the media banging on about hating men and how they’re stupid.. I think it’s more of a calculated attempt by a number of intertwined branches of patriarchy to reinforce the idea of gender roles – I think patriarchy is happy to accept the idea that men can be labelled as stupid, so long as this continues to confine women to carrying out certain tasks and reinforces the idea that it’s okay for men to sit on their arses while women clean!
I think it’s really just a modern expression of the idea that men shouldn’t do chores because they’re men. It used to be openly stated that the reason men shouldn’t do chores is because that’s below them and it’s a woman’s job. That idea has been repackaged as it’s a woman’s job because men are too stupid to do it. It’s a consequence of the popularisation of (awful and untrue) post-modernist arguments about women’s oppression and feminism no longer existing, which in turn serves to ensure that oppression is kept alive (cause pretending something isn’t happening when it clearly is is a form of oppression in an of itself). I think it’s a total misfire for journalists to be saying that this is an example of women treating men badly – just because a woman on an advert says something does not mean a woman (and especially not women as a concept or a whole) has really said it! And even if someone has said that in person, it’s all tied up with the continued media reproduction of bullshit gender roles, not a straightforward expression of man-hatey-ness. And it doesn’t hold true to any reality of how men are treated in actual society (not silly adverts) – men are NOT treated as if they are more stupid than women. When it comes to the workplace, the media or the PRIME EXAMPLE of political discussion forums, they’re often treated as though their opinions and points are more valid. So those adverts are just words really. They aren’t reinforcing any way that men are treated that is actually a structural reality of wider society. Conversely, adverts like the daft ones for Nuts or Zoo that imply that women are no good at doing DIY are ideas that are structurally reinforced in society – the idea that women are weak. There’s a difference in those types of adverts for while both types are stupid and not okay because they try to put us into unrealistic boxes based on gender, the Nuts ones are swimming WITH the tide of common opinion & misconception, whereas the ones that say men are stupid are just like swimming upstream or pissing in the wind, ideas that aren’t going to take hold and ideas that are just daft more than harmful.
Re: domestic violence against men. I also agree and am aware that it exists (my own father has been physically abused by an alcoholic female partner when he was younger so I am fully aware that it does happen and is not okay). I don’t think this happens because of sexism though. It doesn’t happen because of a matriarchally structured society that encourages women to treat men as their property and abuse them when they get out of line. It happens for a variety of reasons, most of which are caused by poverty, none of which are good thing to have in our society and all of which we need to tackle, like alcohol & drug abuse, depression and stress etc. I of course know that many men abuse women because of these reasons as well and I think that everyone would be a lot better off if we had a government that took dealing with social problems caused by poverty – i.e. actually tried to end poverty – seriously, but the reason it is so much more likely for a woman to be abused by a man than for a man to be abused by a woman is because on top of all of these personal reasons like depression and alcohol abuse, we also live in a patriarchy which (sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly) encourages men to treat women badly.
Sure, men can be discouraged to speak out because of societally enforced gender roles. But women aren’t encouraged to speak out either. I just get sick of anti-feminists trotting out the lines about MEN ARE ABUSED TOO! WHY AREN’T YOU TALKING ABOUT MEN YOU SEXIST! to attempt to disqualify all of the real concerns about violence against women. It is not as prevalent as anti-feminists claim. That doesn’t make it okay, of course I know that, and I know you understand that’s not where I’m coming from. I just wish the whiners in some of the other comments would attempt to actually think through what I’m saying and understand where I’m coming from without jumping to the conclusion that I hate and/or want to lie about men!
Also agree that Jo Brand is unfunny, but don’t think that’s anything to do with her gender jokes, I just think her jokes don’t hit the spot for me. I understand why a lot of women might like her jokes about men however, as sometimes if you don’t laugh about the realities of women’s oppression and try to turn it on it’s head, you’ll cry. And agree about Jimmy Carr, I wonder if someone counted the number of rape jokes in any one of his shows what percentage it would be.
“Let’s look at that argument. Suppose we have a population consisting of two groups A and B; A makes up 90% of the population and B comprises the remaining 10%. Now suppose that the population as a whole elects 10 representatives to make decisions on behalf of the population with regards to welfare, foreign policy, taxation etc.. We would expect that statistically speaking (ignoring any racial factors in the voting decisions of the populace) if these elections were held an infinite number of times that on average 9 representatives would be from group A and 1 from group B. No racist thinking has led to this situation, but by your logic above this would be reasonable cause for those of group B behave/think in a racist manner towards group A just because most representatives are from group A. Why is this fair when no one of group A has acted in a racist manner?”
Erm, that’s a bit ahistorical and meaningless don’t you think? You missed out the part where A’s travelled to the homaleand of B’s and enslaved them in their millions, took them to the continent of C’s (who had been previously mainly massacred by A’s), forced them to work for free and provide a massive economic surplus that allowed the development and empowerment of A society. Then later, after, slavery for B’s was ended, they were encouraged to move to the land of A’s to work for low wages and live in crap housing, where they are harassed by the A police force and the general behaviour of many racist A’s, plus the media and elected politicians of group A refer to them publicly as a threat. That might be a slightly more accurate analogy.
“Are you suggesting that it is normal (proper even?) for a black person to have racist inclinations towards white people merely because white people occupy most positions of power in this country?”
Nobody is defending random prejudice against anyone. But the crucial difference is that a black person feeling that way about white people would be a reaction to their personal experiences of racism and the centuries of brutal mistreatment of black people by Europeans. It would also be a prejudice that would not get any support from the many existing social structures that give backing to white racism. White supremacism on the other hand is based on an irrational desire to see black people continue to be subjected to the control and exploitation of whites.
“Sure, some of the things he said didn’t follow post-modern thought, but I think it’s a fairly intelligent argument from someone who hasn’t majored in sociology.”
I don’t see how recognising power hierarchies in society is necessarily post modernist. And it’s not an intelligent argument, it’s a series of untrue misogynist assertions backed up by no kind of evidence (because there isn’t any, they’re not true.)
I also couldn’t believe that you stated as fact that ‘Women are killed and harmed because of sexism. Men are not.’
That’s quite a claim, would you like to support your claim with evidence?
That’s a bit like the Flying Spaghetti Monster thing, it’s not really on Sarah to prove something DOESN’T happen, you’re the one asserting it does so it’s on you to prove that. Men are killed by female partners sure, but there’s no evidence you can provide this is part of a systematic social structure of misandry. Because it isn’t.
@muppet13, I actually can’t really make out what you’re on about, but this blog is full of irony and satire. There’s a difference between irony and satire and just a bunch of insulting, unfunny lies. I could point you to hundreds of articles on here that are much more funny, and satirical, than anything by Coren.
@Claire Middleton, I think you’d do well to think a bit more carefully before lecturing people you’ve never met over the internet about what abuse survivors do or don’t need, when you’ve no idea who you’re talking to or what their life experiences are. That’s the kind of sensitivity I hope would be displayed by a rape councillor! But more importantly, you completely misrepresented the points in the article, in a classic anti-feminist way that I’ve seen done again and again. The article is challenging the structures of male domination and masculinity, and was at pains to make the distinction between this and individual men.
@Helen – I think you actually correctly reach towards the point (but don’t quite follow it through) that stuff about “men are useless at housework/don’t know how to work the washing machine etc.” is in fact another manifestation of misogyny (and misogyny is a powerful set of ideas in society that are often expressed by women, including the Loose Women, as well.) It’s pretty much the same as saying that women are biologically set up to do housework and men are not. What it really reflects is people who have relationships where the man is just to much of a lazy bastard to work out how the washing machine works, and makes it more work for their partners to try and get them to do it than to do it themselves.
Can I just say that the following paragraph is one of the most accessible and best written explanations of why the future society I want to live in must completely dispense with our current idea of masculinity:
“And besides, MEN (the concept, i.e how men as a whole act and are encouraged to act) ARE deeply unpleasant. There is no low to which the concept of MEN won’t stoop. That’s of course not to say that all men are horrible. There are many lovely men who don’t do nasty things to women, especially outright nasty things. However, the concept of MEN dominates, usurps and controls both the concept of WOMEN and real individual women’s lives on a day to day basis.”
I think that for writing this garbage Coren should be made to shite out a solid lump the size of a baby and see how he enjoys it. Then again, given his career as a professional feaster you’d think he’d have more sympathy already . . .
My own father, a consultant anaesthetist himself, has always claimed that being kicked in the nuts repeatedly was a breeze but that he pretended it had been painful to build bargaining chips with my mother!
I’d appreciate if Claire would stop talking pish as a a counsellor and stop pretending she speaks for all victims. Such a nice twist to say that feminism is what puts barriers up for victims recovering!
hpl -
Recognising power hierarchies is the OPPOSITE of post-modernist which when it boils down basically claims that traditional hierarchies like class and race are irrelevant now (untrue). To help you out with the definition, I’ll paste you what wikipedia says and save you the trouble of looking it up yourself:
“Postmodernism is a movement away from the viewpoint of modernism. More specifically it is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the problematization of objective truth and inherent suspicion towards global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. It involves the belief that many, if not all, apparent realities are only social constructs, as they are subject to change inherent to time and place. It emphasizes the role of language, power relations, and motivations; in particular it attacks the use of sharp classifications such as male versus female, straight versus gay, white versus black, and imperial versus colonial.”
Now, I understand fully that gender & race ARE social constructs. However they are constructs which entirely rule our lives and our opportunities so I think it’s wrong to suggest that these classifications aren’t social realities which are major parts of our lives, as that attempts to remove the collective power of oppressed groups organising around their specific oppressions, which is the only real way to end them. But all that’s pretty irrelevant to Giles Coren being a sexist dick
@Sandino (aka Paul)
“I’m probably banned but heres my two pence your attacks of course seem personal and your feminist stuff comes over way too angrily.”
Calm down dear!
“Your theory on privelege may be right but then do you admit to your own privelege as a white women!”
Yes she does, and has done in arguments with you numerous times!
“would argue most of us are priveleged in some form but I would say a white homeless guy is just as unpriveleged as a black homeless guy.”
Yes a white homeless guy sleeping on the street is just as likely to get his head kicked in by random racists as a black guy.
“Plus your definitions of race are racist in themselves”
How? Nothing you say subsequently actually substantiates this point.
“for example in Britain the most likely ethnicity sexual racial or religious to be attacked is catholic thus making it not a privelege to be a white catholic.”
As I’ve said to you in this same argument in other threads before, I fully recognise the privilege I face because I am not from an Irish background, and didn’t grow up as a Catholic. I’ve never been abused because of my ancestry or attacked by Orange Marchers. That’s a privilege I enjoy and I recognise that.
However, it’s simply not true to say the most likely group to be attacked because of their ethnicity across the UK are Catholics. Maybe you could make a case for that in Scotland, I haven’t got time to dig up statistics and check, but across the UK people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin are by far the most likely to face racist attacks, followed by Indians and then Afro-Caribbean people.
“In the end I would argue instead of Racism sexism or homophobia the true problem in Brilliant is a crippling system of Classism. In a recent report Britain was shown to be the least mobile society with denmark being the most economically mobile.
Also Glasgow East is the most deprevated area in the whole of the Uk and potentially Europe, but notr goin g along with your racist definition of classism this is a majority white area. So wqhats the problem is it sexism, racism, sectarian or are you actually not attacking the real problem which is classism.”
We live in a fucked up society which is capable of having more than one problem.
All of this if fucking hillarious. “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE ATTACKING THIS MAN! HE IS NOT SEXIST AND NEITHER ARE WE YOU FUCKING STUPID BITCH-FACED SLUT!”
Mon tae fuck and take a look at yourselves. You’re hillarious.
Anyway, fucking brilliant article Sarah. I didn’t know who this nobody was anyway. Giles Coren, stud of Primary Three, when he had to defend himself from all the girls that wanted his boaby. Gies peace.
Also Claire, I gfully think you should be sacked if you’re a rape counsellor and can’t understand the concept that the male gender has fucked everything up. Patriarchy. It’s a thing.
It’s funny how Sandino/Paul says “So wqhats the problem is it sexism, racism, sectarian or are you actually not attacking the real problem which is classism.” to accuse me of being preoccupied with sexism and racism when all he ever talks about is how sectarianism is the worst oppression evar. I’m not saying it’s not horrible, of course it is. But like Jack says, society has more than one problem at once. Oppressions are not in competition with each other. It’s not who has the worst oppression. But we have to understand oppression and privilege in relation to who has what specific privilege & why, rather than ‘well they can’t be oppressed as a woman because they’re white so they get the privileges of that which is good’. All sorts of oppressions and privileges cross over each other all the time, but it’s not very often hard to separate them when you’re discussing them like we are here, some people just refuse to try.
Sarah:
No, shame on you for being so closed minded to the arguments of feminists that you’d side with the Daily Mail before you’d even consider that maybe, just maybe, we have a fucking point.
Wrong. I read the article, considered it, weighed both sides, and came to the hitherto unthinkable conclusion that the Mail’s article had a fuckton more of a point than you. I’m not at all anti-feminist; just anti-dipshit.
Riveting.
Jack – I was responding to the commenter who said that racism towards a group is acceptable if that group occupies the majority of the positions of power (he made no other qualifications), I believe that my response shows why this is irrational.
“Nobody is defending random prejudice against anyone.”
You aren’t but he was.
Why should history (as you seem to suggest) and not the present world and your own experiences in it dictate your behaviour towards groups? Using history to mold your attitudes towards present day groups when racism has become unacceptable in much of the developing world and elsewhere is somewhat archaic itself. When I meet a person I don’t inquire as to their family history so that I can form my attitude towards this person, why should I do this for an entire population when their culture has so plainly changed? A casual glance at the history of slavery in the literature will show that slavery was pervasive throughout most continents at some point in the past, so by your reasoning we should all hate (irrationally) the descendents of those who enslaved our ancestors, why?
With regards to your comments on white supremacy, I very much doubt that those who think this way do so because they wish/aim to subjugate other ethnicities, I imagine it’s solely based on a sense of group belonging and elitism (with imagine being the key word here). While quite irrational, this sort of behaviour is found everywhere in society and in all forms e.g. religion, politics, etc., even academia, there are schools of thought whose proponents believe that they are in the right and dismiss other schools of thought regardless of reason.
i am actually shocked at some of these comments and coren’s article. call me niave but some people’s points of view are beyond belief. good article thank you
LOL at the claims Sarah said all men are potential rapists.
Sarah is much too reasonable for that but I’ll go all out and say it:
ALL MEN ARE POTENTIAL RAPISTS.
This sentence does not mean all men have the potential in them to commit rape. It means that, to women, all men are potential rapists.
What this means is that women as a group are subject to such abuse by men as a group, that we are living constantly in fear – told not to walk home alone, don’t go up that alley, don’t go out after dark. Because when you are alone and you get off the bus and a man gets off after you and walks the same route home you do, in the dark, and no one else is there – you fear for your safety.
I have been in countless situations where I have feared that I am being followed by a man gearing up for an attack, when in all likelihood, he just happens to be walking the same direction as me or whatever.
The point is, so many women experience rape or sexual assault that we have to live on edge, watch ourselves, be careful, be suspicious of men’s motives – we have to behave like every man is a potential rapist, to try to keep ourselves safe.
And for those of us who are raped or attacked anyway, we are blamed for not being cautious enough – shouldn’t have been out alone, shouldn’t have drunk so much, shouldn’t have worn that skirt…
All men will stop being potential attackers when we no longer have to live in fear of attack.
http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-schrodinger%E2%80%99s-rapist-or-a-guy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-approaching-strange-women-without-being-maced/
man, i thought all the points in this article were almost too obvious to need to be written, it’s pretty mental that anyone’s even trying to defend coren on any grounds except possible satire/irony (which i don’t really buy – he might be hilariously exaggerating but it seems quite earnest at heart)
just a coupla minor points about comments though:
“I think it’s more of a calculated attempt by a number of intertwined branches of patriarchy to reinforce the idea of gender roles – I think patriarchy is happy to accept the idea that men can be labelled as stupid, so long as this continues to confine women to carrying out certain tasks and reinforces the idea that it’s okay for men to sit on their arses while women clean!”
- this might seem pedantic but i think it’s important not to personify “patriarchy” like this, because it gives the impression that “patriarchy” is some kind of secret powerful club of evil men plotting how best to oppress women. i realise this isn’t what you actually think but using phrases like “calculated attempt” and “patriarchy is happy to…” does create that sort of image, and i’d really disagree that there’s any “calculated attempt” by anyone at all. patriarchy (like all dominant ideologies) is sustained and reinforced by the unconscious and uncritical participation of the majority of people, both men AND women. it’s not a case of a bunch of ad execs sitting in a room saying “right, how can we best reinforce the idea of gender roles to prolong women’s oppression?” – it’s just ordinary people repeating a narrative that society takes as common-sense and natural, so the important thing is to challenge the logic and history of the narrative itself rather than some reified notion of patriarchy that’s controlling people’s brains. again, i’m quite sure you know all this already, but obviously a lot of people DON’T know it and don’t fully get what’s being said so i think it’s worth clarifying.
which brings me onto the next thing, which is quite tangential but it’s been irking me: every single use of the term postmodern in these comments seems to be completely misunderstanding most of the concepts associated with it. i mean it’s a pretty contested term that’s applied to a lot of very disparate stuff but this:
“Recognising power hierarchies is the OPPOSITE of post-modernist which when it boils down basically claims that traditional hierarchies like class and race are irrelevant now (untrue).”
is a really common and oversimplified misconception that simply isn’t true of the majority of postmodernist thought – what it might say is that traditional hierarchies like class and race aren’t as clearly defined and simplistically opposed categories as some people would like to claim, but it sure doesn’t say they’re irrelevant. the ENTIRE POINT of most decent postmodern/poststructuralist theory is to expose the conditions of power that inform everything we do and think and say, to investigate and challenge the hegemonic narratives that people take for granted (especially the ones that don’t seem overtly oppressive, like the fluffy capitalist narratives of “upward mobility” and “equal opportunities” in place of actual equality) and specifically to undermine exactly the kind of “objective” common-sense rhetoric that giles coren uses (eg things like: “women are a bit moody cos they have hormones – SCIENCE!” or “well, women shouldn’t really be involved with men’s football anyway, because objectively they’re weaker than men – SCIENCE!”). there are some very important and valid criticisms of postmodernism, like the fact that it’s sometimes too detached from people’s real conditions of existence, and that it doesn’t offer a stable position of critique or resistance and so might just lead to political apathy and a lack of any real conviction except that all convictions are questionable. but i still think it’s a very interesting and useful movement in terms of questioning the things that people have always accepted as truth and i think this blog tends to be a bit unnecessarily hostile towards it
Hi fitta, I actually think your analysis of those 2 points is pretty sound, and think confusion about my position on those is more just me phrasing myself quite badly (it’s hard to keep track of all of your lines of argument and watch your words when there’s so many idiots to respond to). I definitely agree about unconscious and unthinking reinforcement and acceptance of patriarchy, although I do think it is true to say that a great deal of men actively rather than passively perpetuate it (I understand the reasons they have for doing this are probably almost entirely down to having been brought up in a patriarchy, learning to do so) but I think there is still the active motivation there in many aspects of men’s oppression of women and I don’t want to let them off too easily with that (I know that’s not what you’re saying, but I think that’s where the word calculated came from in my head)
I think re: postmodernism your points are definitely true and I have had a rethink about postmodernism. I think I meant more that in terms of the arguments of people who call themselves postmodernISTS, they often do put across the view that old hierarchies are irrelevant. I’ve certainly had people calling themselves post-modernists say to my face that we live in post-modernity and that things like gender oppression don’t really apply any more. But they don’t necessarily have the correct interpretation of the actual theoretics of postmodernism. Which I think can be applied in a positive way if it’s used to get people to reconsider their notions of what race & gender are, because I certainly believe they are social constructs. I’m eywiz wittering on about how race doesn’t exist. But I do think that the criticisms that you raised when you said:
“there are some very important and valid criticisms of postmodernism, like the fact that it’s sometimes too detached from people’s real conditions of existence, and that it doesn’t offer a stable position of critique or resistance and so might just lead to political apathy and a lack of any real conviction except that all convictions are questionable”
are really quite important for me. The whole postmodernism argument is a big tangent really though I guess and it’s not something SSY often gets riled up about on our website, it’s just someone brought it up in a comment here.
Sarah, I don’t agree with everything you’ve said … but neither do I think you hate all men. I applaud your passion, your humour and your writing … you are not ‘taking it too seriously’. Ignore the Twitter/blogging nastiness and keep being angry. x
I also would never agree with everything (anything) anyone said. This is a great demolition of these people and them clutching at straws as their ship sinks.
The Daily Mail has lost this week…and badly. They lost out to poofters earlier in the week and now feminists. And they don’t like it.
This is, as everyone has said, about power relations. We know as socialists that power relations have a real material basis and can be changed by force and that is what we do. This week Daily Mailyins have been made to told to stop the bullshit sexist banter and let horny queens frolick around in the bedrooms of their posh country houses. We used the fact that we have limited power inside their instutions and within wider society. Sky TV were forced, as all companies can be, to pretend they give a shit about sexism because we excerted force to the point where they knew if they fucked with us we could do them damage – we (over many years and with much blood and guts) made them construct laws and policies which offered limited protection because they were worried we might take over. And we still might.
We want equality – not the scraps – we want all your power so we can share it out. If you are any kind of socialist you should by now have a grasp of power relations – why would you assume women would trust men to represent them any more than a worker would trust his boss to represent them? How can their interests be the same when one holds power and the other doesn’t? All the people who when they say they socialists on here yet always say that the only important thing is THEIR oppression need to learn this. Is shouting down women by saying what about sexism against ME a socialist thing to do? What about your oppression? Maybe you can only do one thing at once. What is it they say about men and multi-tasking? (oooohhh….sexist) We can oppose all forms of oppression because we realise the connection – power.
The Daily Mail speaks for the forces who before “political correctness went mad” could keep their wives in their places with the backs of their hands, criminalise other people’s sexuality and put “If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour” on an election leaflet. Is all this bitching and moaning from the group who are IN CHARGE of our society about how they can no longer do these things going to be tolerated? Hell no.
I want a much better balance away from censorship and towards freedom of speech and I fight for it. But until you stop attacking us I’ll tolerate laws that make you people behave yourselves. If you didn’t hold power over us we could have a reasonable discussion about this. When violence against women stops then we can take a bit of your fucking “banter.” People who know me, know I can take as good as I give. I do know that the arguments being put forward in this article and the Mail’s similar offerings over the decades lead to enforcing real hatred and confusion in our society. You basically scare people into hatred and the effects are devastating. Millions of people encounter this filth. I got the shit kicked out of me at School because of homophobic hatred printed in the papers over Section 28. Stop this…then we’ll talk. And then we won’t care what crazy nonsense you write because we’ll have taken away your power to do this to us.
Change hasn’t and wont happen by magic or through some stroke of fate…this is the result of a fundemental change in the balance of forces in our society which we have brought about and can continue to by taking back power over every aspect of our lives. These people have no plan for how our society should operate. Other than going backwards. They just bitch and moan about how they are losing power. And you are.
And there is something admirable to be said for dirty fucking propaganda and fighting hard to win…the Mail certainly do…for turning the bullshit arguments and rules constructed by the forces of priviledge against them. Saying “the best man is a dead man” “I think white people are stupid fucking hicks” or “I don’t hate straight people I just wish they didn’t ram it down my throat” etc. shows the utter stupidity of the arguments you all make. I am male, most of my friends are male, I am gay and pretty much all of my friends are straight. In fact with the exception of maybe a dozen people I have an entirely white, straight, male group of friends. But I detest heterosexuality, whiteness and maleness in equal measure…not because I hate myself or any of the people I love but because they are an irrational concepts and an entirely useless set of values to all of us – imposed on us by the people we serve.
So we shed no crocodile tears for Andy Gray – we ARE telling people to stop fucking with us or we’ll go for them. For too long the forces of the left, feminism and real socialist change in this country has been on the defensive over everything so its time to win for a change. YAAAAASSSS! ANGRY MAN ROAR!
“Why should history (as you seem to suggest) and not the present world and your own experiences in it dictate your behaviour towards groups? Using history to mold your attitudes towards present day groups when racism has become unacceptable in much of the developing world and elsewhere is somewhat archaic itself. When I meet a person I don’t inquire as to their family history so that I can form my attitude towards this person, why should I do this for an entire population when their culture has so plainly changed? A casual glance at the history of slavery in the literature will show that slavery was pervasive throughout most continents at some point in the past, so by your reasoning we should all hate (irrationally) the descendents of those who enslaved our ancestors, why?”
I think my whole point kinda was that racism is still alive and well in our society, something that you would think even the most blind and ignorant white person would be able to agree with. How arrogant do you have to be to assume that a black person’s potential dislike of white people would be based on an “irrational” reading of history, rather than their own lived experiences. A person who has been attacked by people because of their differing colour of skin doesn’t need to ask about family ancestry – I think they can connect the dots.
Bear in mind here that we’re having a hypothetical black person none of us have actually met in reality. You are trying to argue there is such a thing as a black person who hates white people but who has had no personal experience of racism and no reason to hate white people as a result of what has actually happened to them. I say that such a person doesn’t exist.
The history of colonialism and the slave trade is not over, it is not a closed event that occurred in the past. Slavery and colonialism continue to influence the world we live in in countless ways, from the underdevelopment of Africa (directly related to the prosperity of our society), to the legacy of the racist ideologies that were manufactured to justify them, to the fact that in Britain in the US we walk through cities every day that were either built on the wealth stolen from the colonies or in fact actually built by slaves. Institutionalised racism remains part and parcel of how imperialist states such as the UK and US operate.
“With regards to your comments on white supremacy, I very much doubt that those who think this way do so because they wish/aim to subjugate other ethnicities, I imagine it’s solely based on a sense of group belonging and elitism (with imagine being the key word here). While quite irrational, this sort of behaviour is found everywhere in society and in all forms e.g. religion, politics, etc., even academia, there are schools of thought whose proponents believe that they are in the right and dismiss other schools of thought regardless of reason.”
You imagine? Let’s look at the very simple wikipedia definition of white supremacy:
“White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that those of Caucasian backgrounds are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.[1] White supremacy, as with racial supremacism in general, is rooted in ethnocentrism and a desire for hegemony,[2] and has frequently resulted in anti-black and antisemitic violence. Different forms of white supremacy have different conceptions of who is considered white, and not all white supremacist organizations agree on who is their greatest enemy.[3]”
White supremacy was an ideology that evolved to justify the exploitation of other peoples and the destruction of their societies for the enrichment of ours. Today it remains an idea which is fundamentally about preventing progress into a better kind of world without racism and neo-colonial exploitation where there is greater eqauality for all. It is a movement that aims to preserve the dominance of whites over all other “racial” groups. They fear progress towards a society where racism is unacceptable, the kind of society you imagine we live in, but does not in fact yet exist.
And btw – academic elitism is comparable to racism? Srsly, come on!
When was the last time a functionalist anthropologist was lynched by a post structuralist?!
sarah – yeah i do think anyone who calls themselves a “postmodernist” is probably a bit stupid, because there isn’t really any such thing as “postmodernism” as an actual set of ideas or convictions – it’s just a loosely associated body of work rather than an ideology or worldview, and anyone who doesn’t realise that probably hasn’t actually read very much postmodern theory. although, to be fair, a postmodernist is preferable to a modernist. i guess the whole point is in the name: modernism was in a big way about establishing who owned culture, all about tradition and authority and elitism, and postmodernism more than anything else was a reaction to that mode of thought
BUT YEAH, this is all completely tangential to the point in hand. i know it’s not something you guys exactly get riled about but i think i’ve noticed the term in a coupla other feminist-based articles where i think it was used in a bit of an unfair way to denote something fundamentally anti-feminist – for example in arguments about porn or prostitution. now there’s most definitely no “postmodern position” on these things, but i guess it’s in reference to certain theories about women’s potential agency in these roles, which you disagree with. and i guess the basic problem is that “postmodern” feminism (always hesitant to use that term cos again it’s not really a coherent position as such) is sometimes about reassessing roles, narratives, ideas as abstract IDEAS and how those ideas are constructed or might be constructed by different groups, rather than dealing with concrete statistical realities, while your socialist-feminist position is about what those roles actually literally involve in real-world conditions and how that should be fixed. and really i think that both of those elements are incredibly important – although separate – and that it’s kind of dangerous to completely ignore one in favour of the other. i mean, for example, obviously the majority of porn that exists right now is horribly misogynist as an effect of the patriarchal context in which it is produced, but i do have a problem with the idea that feminists should be “anti-porn”, because i don’t think pornography as a concept is at all problematic and can potentially be quite liberating/subversive/feminist. i’m quite interested in your position on this.
sorry if this is total derailing, i’d just quite like to have an interesting debate sometime about contestable feminist principles rather than just reading and repeating the same old painfully obvious shite to people who aren’t listening
This is a truly excellent article and the fact that it has caused so much debate is evidential of that. What I find annoying about those who have chosen to be abusive about it is that they appear to overlook the fact that Giles Coren’s article was published in a well-known “newspaper” (I use the term in the loosest sense) whereas this is on a blog, therefore likely to have been read by far fewer people. Isn’t this evidence enough of male hegemony?
If Giles Coren is offended shows like Loose Women and female comedians he really needs to grow a thicker skin. LW certainly doesn’t offend me – personally I think it promotes a female stereotype however. Claiming that sexism directed at men from women disadvantages is ridiculous, whereas the pressure we put upon each other to conform to an artificially constructed idea of masculinity certainly does.
Also, I know plenty of women who know far more about football than I do, although admittedly that wouldn’t be too difficult since I have no love for the game.
“I take a certain delight in imagining one possible response to my arguments: How can we lump all white men, regardless of their differences, into one, seemingly monolithic category? The delight comes [...] from the irony of this question – what feminist woman wouldn’t laugh at this? what victim of racial profiling wouldn’t snicker at this payback?”
I thought I’d share this quote from Sally Robinson’s book *Marked Men: Masculinity in Crisis*. Giles Coren’s article definitely reflects this kind of ‘one possible response’, men are suddenly finding their positions of dominance questioned in popular culture rather than just in academic, scholarly sub-culture. The fact that men aren’t as dominant as they once were (although statistically do maintain the ‘privilege’ that capitalism has always granted them) can no longer be ignored, and it makes middle-class white blokes like Giles Coren very uncomfortable, since they are under the impression that they’re ‘entitled’ to this privilege, so much s that they refuse to acknowledge it as a privilege at all but think of it as a norm.
he idea that you have to have privilege before something constitutes sexism/racism/whatever, makes sense: since sexism/racism etc is the exploiting/taking-advantage-of existing of power relations, it’s not just the normal run of personal abuse (i.e. the difference between calling someone a “Bastard” and a “Paki Bastard” – the first doesn’t exploit power relations for its affect, the second does). Giles Coren did write a stupid article and it’s quite right for the SSY to reply to it. I think Sarah’s distinction between the concept MEN and individual men is also important – men are privileged as a group, exercise power as a group, and are institutionally and economically privileged as a group. fitta is right to say that this is not so much a ‘calculated plot’ dreamed up by a group of individuals at the top of the heirarchy, as a ‘subconscious’ effect of the heirarchies that capitalism and other exploitative social heirarches (which postmodernism has fragmented, but by NO MEANS eliminated – class fragmentation is one such example of this), depends on for it’s subsistence.
When it comes to postmodernism, the branch of postmodernism that has most to say about this sort of thing is poststrucutralism. Julia Kristeva, Helene Cixous and Simone de Beauvoir, the three leading European feminist scholars of the twentieth century, were also three leading poststructuralists. It’s impossible to seperate their ‘feminist’ writing from their ‘poststructuralist’ writing. Which makes perfect sense – in order to break down heirarchical gender relations, we need to break down existing ‘strucutres’ – economic, linguistic, social, etc. Hence why they’re all marxists an aw.
Also, Simone de Beauvoir was shagging JP Sartre. They’re my favourite academic couple ever.
But I do totally applaud this blog for bringing the debate out of the academic white tower, by referring to stuff in the rags and on the telly. This is definitely the kind of thing we should be doing as young socialists.
Giles Coren is an intelligent man who writes well, better than any other newspaper journalist out there in Britain at the moment, he’s also popular and has an extremely beautiful wife. If “Sarah”, the author of the above article, could swipe the enormous chip off of her shoulder and take off her green spectacles of jealousy of Mr. Coren, it might be easier to appreciate the point she has tried, but unfortunately failed, to make.
There are people including myself who take greater offence at the lunchtime rants of the Loose Women to the nation via ITV than at Andy Gray’s private comments to a colleague and were therefore surprised when Mr. Gray was sacked and made the centre of a frankly ridiculous spectacle in the media. Why would anyone tolerate Soccer AM’s Soccerettes’ feature and at the same time believe that Mr. Gray was anything other than naive and unlucky?
I’m tired so will leave it to others to deal with your shite about “jealousy”, having a beautiful wife apparently meaning something at all even though it’s entirely irrelevant to everything in the world ever, etc.
However, I’d like to point out that my name is indeed Sarah, no sarcastic quote marks required.
Dear “HJD Martel”, You feel the need to comment on the attractiveness of Coren’s wife in order to ehm?… What was your reasoning for mentioning that? It is in fact COMPLETELY irrelevant. As for that enormous chip Sarah (Yes that is her name) supposedly has… LOL, if Sarah ever has ‘green spectacles of jealousy’ for Coren, i will saw my own arm off with a rusty fucking spoon. Oh and that last ‘point’ you made. Of course you’d say that. You’re male. (Before you go off on one and call me up my own arse, or a big raging man hater feminist, or something, I’ll tell you that I have nothing against men. Just one’s who don’t realise the privilege they have.)
Summary of HJD Martel’s points: ‘omg how can you not like Giles Coren, everyone loves him and he shags a hot bird and he is clearly well educated.”
Clearly HJD Martel objects to us depedestalling this pillar of male privilege, simply because such a pillar of male privilege is a beacon for such as HJD Martel. Without the stability of figures such as GC, HJD Martel’s view of the world would crumble.
Crunble away HJD Martel, crumble away.
Robert Fisk? John Pilger? Apparently according to HJD they’ve got nothing on a guy who only got his job munching on the past cos his dad was that guy from Call my Bluff.
Dear Sarah,
Hello! Just a giant load of thank you from me. All my head could come up with in response to Coren’s “I just wanted to open _discussion_!” piece was a soul-rending, “EEEEYAAAAAAH, FUUUUUUCKEEEERRRRR!” I feel like you have so eloquently, accurately and with-humour-ly expressed all I thought and felt and more. I’m with you 100% and very glad I stumbled over here via Twitter, then via J.P.E Harper-Scott’s blog post (http://quiltingpoint.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/reasons-for-hope-despite-giles-coren/).
Cheers humbly,
Danielle
I think I know where SSY’s Camp Secret Squirrel profits are going: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GILES-COREN-TWITRELIEF-SUPERFOLLOW-PLUS-/250785888301?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3a6400f82d#ht_1050wt_1141
Hi Sarah!
Really enjoyed reading the artical. Very informative and I have to say I agree with everything said (I don’t want to sound like an arse licker but hey ho)
Anyway, I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind me using this artical for my sociology class?
We’ve been studying feminism and the family and i thought this might provide a good talking point?
No offenced will be taken if it’s not ok to use, just thought I’d ask first
While I’m not a marixist feminst, I am a liberal feminist.
I think this is partly due to the fact that I’m a) a homosexual and adore women and b) Have serveral very strong willed women in my life. One being my mother who magages to work part time as a nurse, maintain a house AND help look after her grand child.
The relivence of all that to my question or artical I’m not sure but thought you might like to know that about me :L
I’ll check back every now and then to see what your answer is
I’m not quite sure of the relevance of all that either, but everything on this blog is creative commons so feel free to reproduce it or use it or whatever.
Hi,
Of course you can use the article for whatever you like, all the stuff on the SSY blog is creative commons so if you ever want to use any of the articles as a resource no need to ask!
This blog is too insane to be taken seriously.
I’m sure i am not the only person to have given up entirely on any hope that you may have anything worthwhile to say the moment you claimed it was not possible for black people to be racist or women to be sexist. Power is not a pre-requisite for the ability to be racist or sexist. Racism or sexism, much like hate or love, are states of mind. The impact of that racism or sexism may be determined by status and power but your concept of power is extremely limited. Power is such an abstract and unquantiable concept. You seem to only take into account a broad, society wide definition of power limited to your observations of Western capitalist societies.
And even if we were to limit ourselves to your broad definition of power, to suggest ALL women are powerless and ALL men are powerful, or ALL white people are powerful and ALL black people are powerless (even in western capitalist societies) is incredibly stupid, narrow minded and in-keeping with the puffed up, ignorant and sanctimonious attitude of the ‘Socialist Youth’.
I really hate Giles Coren as well but your article is so contemptable i really sympaphise with the guy now. If this was your intention then congratulations.
Christ you are stupid.
All the best.
I thought i may as well read the rest of this drivel. It is confirmed, you are as unpleasant, if not more so, than Giles Coren, with a embarassingly self defeating victim mentaility.
I agree, women do face the threat of violence from a small minority of reprehensible individuals, as do men. This is NOT a gender specific issue. Growing up as a young white male in a predominantly black neighbourhood i was mugged and physically assualted many times, even racially abused on occassion. To re-assert my point, power is a subjective and nuanced concept. Powerless men (physically, economically or with influence) are as much the victim of powerful men as women are. To suggest men have it easy is to ignore the pressures, expectations and prejudices most men face on a day to day basis. They are different but not less significant than the pressures, expectations and prejudices that women face.
This is a society wide problem, a problem with our political/economic/cultural system, and to paint it as purely a gender issue is so so narcissitic and ignorant and really stinks of a personal victim complex you may utilise to excuse any and every failure you have in your life.
This is the problem with absolutist, dogmatic ideology demonstrated by people such as yourself – be it feminism, conservatism or socialism-, its narrow scope causes you to entirely miss the point. If you weren’t so obsessed with gender relations (which are by no means fair or equitable but not nearly as bad as you make out) then you would see that these are issues affecting men AND women and are symtomatic of deep rooted problems with our society.
So what my suggestion to you would be is to get off your high horse, open your eyes, drop the victim mentality and realise that it is not just women who have problems.
[...] The same structure that makes our current political situation hopeless should make feminists today hopeful despite Giles Coren’s stupidity. This week he wrote an obnoxious and offensive article in the Daily Mail (the only possible kind of article in that publication) in response to the removal of Richard Keys and Andy Gray, the two trivial and unintelligent nonentities who have been fronting Sky’s football coverage since it began in the dark days of Thatcherism’s first flowering. They had been caught on mike making misogynist comments about a woman referee, and it was delightful to see them losing their jobs as a result. Coren’s response – not original: it’s a standard idiot thing to say – is that their removal typifies a climate in Britain today which is virulently anti-men. We, he argues, are the new underdog, unable to function according to what he believes is our ‘biological imperative’ to belittle women. There’s a fine and well-reasoned evisceration of it by Sarah (I’m afraid I don’t know her surname) on the Scottish Socialist Youth website here. [...]