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I'm glad the unredacted quote is doing the rounds, because it's a great illustration of the way accusations of lying about abuse (or using it to achieve unfair aims, which is a more complex form of saying 'bitches lie') isn't just nasty, it's dehumanising. Let's unpack. » https://twitter.com/ronanburtenshaw/status/1277019520687841280
The move is roughly:
1. She's lying
2. She's lying for a reason
3. I know the reason she's lying for
4. Because she's not a real person
I realise it looks like a big leap from 3 to 4, so bear with me. The key word to bear in mind in the passage here is "hate". »
1. She's lying
2. She's lying for a reason
3. I know the reason she's lying for
4. Because she's not a real person
I realise it looks like a big leap from 3 to 4, so bear with me. The key word to bear in mind in the passage here is "hate". »
When we accuse someone of lying, there is usually a reference to outside reality, & the lie can be verified. But LRM is accusing JKR of a very particular type of dishonesty: the dishonesty of taking real facts & using them in bad faith to achieve certain unfair aims. »
This is harder to verify - bad faith is difficult to prove - but it's still within the realms of intersubjectivity: two people contesting verifiable outside referents as moral equals. But then LRM adds the move that is fpunfationally patriarchal: she lied because she hates. »
Here there are 2 layers. The first, more vernacular layer is that men always accuse women who piss them off of being malevolent: witches, bitches, Trump's "nasty woman". But 'hate' is a big word. If you say someone is motivated by hate, you're making a serious knowledge claim. »
So to recap, LRM here is saying he knows 3 things:
1. JKR is using the abuse against her in bad faith
2. She's doing so to to gain a morally questionable aim
3. The morally questionable aim stems from her 'hate towards [trans people]'
That is rather a lot to claim to know. »
1. JKR is using the abuse against her in bad faith
2. She's doing so to to gain a morally questionable aim
3. The morally questionable aim stems from her 'hate towards [trans people]'
That is rather a lot to claim to know. »
And it's the fact that this is a lot to claim to know, as well as the fact that what he claims to know is such a big thing as the huge & dangerous feeling of hatred secretly harboured by a woman who denies it, that exposes the deep misogyny underneath the passage. »
One of the most important & dehumanising assumptions underlying patriarchy is that women do not have subjective lives that are as complex, as fully realised & crucially *as opaque* as men's. The privacy of the inside of our heads is denied us not as a bug, but as a feature. »
Men have always claimed to know what we are thinking & feeling, what our internal moral landscapes & mental abilities (& much more) look like. They know what we are thinking, because we don't have anything beneath the surface, anything that is inaccessible to their scrutiny. »
Three small pointers to support that claim:
1. Rape trials often fall on the assumption that men know women's internal state of 'consent', but juries can't reliably determine if the man really thought that or is lying
2. Until recently, only female authors are asked about how »
1. Rape trials often fall on the assumption that men know women's internal state of 'consent', but juries can't reliably determine if the man really thought that or is lying
2. Until recently, only female authors are asked about how »
well they thought they were able to write from a male character's point of view, while male writing flew under the radar with any amount of frankly comical 'she boobed at her own boobs, boobily'
3. Of all the claims of the trans movement, the most instantly acceptable & least
3. Of all the claims of the trans movement, the most instantly acceptable & least
contested one is that there are some name people who 'feel like a woman'. Note how *even feminist discourse* focuses on the 'what is a woman' part & not on the 'how on earth would you know what women feel like inside?!' part
Men are seen as people, & women are seen as objects. »
Men are seen as people, & women are seen as objects. »
So when LRM says JKR has hate in net heart against trans people - in a sub clause, it's not something he even thinks is sufficiently meaningful to engage with, never mind substantiate - he is participating in the age old denial of subjectivity to women. »
And he gets to that conclusion via the age old accusation of malicious lying:
Bitches lie; they want me to believe start the say is what they think; but I'm the one who *really knows* what they think, because unlike me, they're a legible object, not an inscrutable subject.
/end
Bitches lie; they want me to believe start the say is what they think; but I'm the one who *really knows* what they think, because unlike me, they're a legible object, not an inscrutable subject.
/end
