Her views on the sex industry found hostility in a minority of the Goldsmith’s Feminist Society, and Smurthwaite alerted the Comedy Society to the potential for a protest of some sort. The show was cancelled and a statement put out by the Comedy Society: "Despite many complaints from students about the content of Kate’s act in the past we were planning to go ahead with the gig until Kate told me 24 hours before that there was likely to be a picket with lots of students and non students outside the venue. I couldn’t verify this. Up to this point we had only sold eight tickets so I decided to pull the plug."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/society/11386478/Kate-Smurthwaite-the-comedian-who-confused-no-interest-with-no-platform.html
― how's life, Sunday, 15 February 2015 12:52 (nine years ago) link
She take a different line in her blog, naturally:
http://www.cruellablog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/goldsmiths-and-me-full-story-proof.html
― Rainbow DAESH (ShariVari), Sunday, 15 February 2015 12:55 (nine years ago) link
Not just a different line to be fair. She has screengrabs of the whole conversation. The Goldsmiths promoter botched the whole situation and then tried to make her look bad.
― Minaj moron (Re-Make/Re-Model), Sunday, 15 February 2015 13:13 (nine years ago) link
In July 2010 Smurthwaite protested at the lavish funeral of writer and renowned user of prostitutes Sebastian Horsley with a sign reading "Where are the horse-drawn carriages for the VICTIMS of prostitution?",[21] attracting both praise and criticism.[22]
waht
― soref, Sunday, 15 February 2015 13:18 (nine years ago) link
xp: good catch
― how's life, Sunday, 15 February 2015 14:01 (nine years ago) link
xp - victims = prostitutes, presumably
― contenderizer, Sunday, 15 February 2015 16:03 (nine years ago) link
http://feministkilljoys.com/2015/02/15/you-are-oppressing-us/
"Whenever people keep being given a platform to say they have no platform, or whenever people speak endlessly about being silenced, you not only have a performative contradiction; you are witnessing a mechanism of power."
― cis-het shitlord (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 15 February 2015 17:57 (nine years ago) link
That's a good response. Though I'm sure Beard and Tatchell signed the letter in good faith, there are plenty of people on that list with significant media voices who have conflated getting stick on Twitter with 'silencing' in the past.
― Rainbow DAESH (ShariVari), Sunday, 15 February 2015 18:37 (nine years ago) link
yeah, and from what I've seen the largest part of the response to Beard and Tatchell that's been highlighted has been along the lines of "disappointed to see @marybeard and @petertatchell in there" rather than people proper 'avin a go.
― cis-het shitlord (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 15 February 2015 19:48 (nine years ago) link
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2015/02/university_speech_codes_students_are_children_who_must_be_protected.html
There is a popular, romantic notion that students receive their university education through free and open debate about the issues of the day. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Students who enter college know hardly anything at all—that’s why they need an education. Classroom teachers know students won’t learn anything if they blab on about their opinions. Teachers are dictators who carefully control what students say to one another. It’s not just that sincere expressions of opinion about same-sex marriage or campaign finance reform are out of place in chemistry and math class. They are out of place even in philosophy and politics classes, where the goal is to educate students (usually about academic texts and theories), not to listen to them spout off. And while professors sometimes believe there is pedagogical value in allowing students to express their political opinions in the context of some text, professors (or at least, good professors) carefully manipulate their students so that the discussion serves pedagogical ends.
lol pedagogy
― j., Monday, 16 February 2015 04:26 (nine years ago) link
http://i57.tinypic.com/raaliu.png
― Mordy, Monday, 16 February 2015 04:29 (nine years ago) link
the brane-plasticity point about teh youth is oft made nowadays in higher ed
― j., Monday, 16 February 2015 04:33 (nine years ago) link
my brain is now as hard as a rock. go ahead. punch it as hard as you can.
― Aimless, Monday, 16 February 2015 05:23 (nine years ago) link
lol @ law professors saying anything about undergrad pedagogy. then again, it's Slate, what else should I expect
― droit au butt (Euler), Monday, 16 February 2015 08:04 (nine years ago) link
In the responses to Beard and Tatchell that I read the problem seemed to be the assumption that if you sign a letter you're not just endorsing the words of the letter but the words, past and present, of all your co-signatories, thus implying that those two endorsed transphobia. I don't believe that's a reasonable assumption.
― Minaj moron (Re-Make/Re-Model), Monday, 16 February 2015 10:26 (nine years ago) link
I've come to distrust every account of what happens on Twitter because everybody quotes the worst abuse from their critics and ignores the worst behaviour of people on their side. To take one example from the Feministkilljoys essay, those "understandably strong reactions to Cathy Newman’s racist rant" included the foulest misogyny, violence and anti-semitism (even though Newman isn't Jewish afaik), which the writer ignores. Equally, Newman's defenders ignore the legit criticisms and quote only that foul abuse. Unless you can be bothered to track someone's mentions column in real time, you can never be sure what the mix of responses really was.
― Minaj moron (Re-Make/Re-Model), Monday, 16 February 2015 10:51 (nine years ago) link
The letter didn't appear out of nowhere, though. It's part of a vicious ongoing dispute in the feminist left and is going to look, to a lot of people, like an attempt from one side of that dispute to claim the moral high ground and paint its detractors as irrational and illiberal. It's a bit like signing a letter asking for a good faith debate on immigration organised by Migrationwatch and signed by half the staff of the Daily Telegraph.
It definitely seems like Beard and Tatchell signed in good faith, as it were, but I can see why people might be disappointed given the source.
― Rainbow DAESH (ShariVari), Monday, 16 February 2015 11:56 (nine years ago) link
I'm not sure a good faith debate is possible at the moment tbh but I like Beard's subsequent blogpost:
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2015/02/no-platforming-1.html
― Minaj moron (Re-Make/Re-Model), Monday, 16 February 2015 12:59 (nine years ago) link
There has to be a real word for "whorephobe" right?
― how's life, Monday, 16 February 2015 13:24 (nine years ago) link
I hope not to see the term catch on.
― NO CLOO (I M Losted), Monday, 16 February 2015 15:19 (nine years ago) link
can't ppl dislike something like sex work w/out the presumption that their feelings come from a phobia?
― Mordy, Monday, 16 February 2015 15:21 (nine years ago) link
like does everything have to be a phobia now? when you attach phobia to a word, is it even supposed to imply that you have a pathological response anymore, or is it just supposed to make u sound silly?
― Mordy, Monday, 16 February 2015 15:22 (nine years ago) link
I think it compares gay and trans people with prostitutes. No wonder I don't follow feminist stuff online. It's lost touch with ordinary women.
― NO CLOO (I M Losted), Monday, 16 February 2015 20:54 (nine years ago) link
The trans issue and sex worker issue are separate. It's typically framed as "exclusionary" rather than phobic.
― Rainbow DAESH (ShariVari), Monday, 16 February 2015 20:56 (nine years ago) link
is it just supposed to make u sound silly?
First google result for ephebophobe
― Aimless, Monday, 16 February 2015 21:02 (nine years ago) link
gay women, trans woman & sex workers are ordinary women
― flopson, Monday, 16 February 2015 21:06 (nine years ago) link
Sex workers aren't "ordinary". Their situation should not be compared to people who are born a certain way.
Also people who say this often spend ZERO time on class issues that affect a lot of women. We should be doing stuff for women struggling to make ends meet, not distracting people with controversy.
― NO CLOO (I M Losted), Monday, 16 February 2015 21:58 (nine years ago) link
Also, IMO there's a difference between stripping and hooking.
― NO CLOO (I M Losted), Monday, 16 February 2015 22:00 (nine years ago) link
lotta opinions in those two posts
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, 18 February 2015 21:36 (nine years ago) link
second-wave feminism: 'show us some women who are not sex workers'
― j., Wednesday, 18 February 2015 21:44 (nine years ago) link
Is the sw / trans thing as bitter in the US as it is in the UK? I don't seem to hear as much about it.
― Rainbow DAESH (ShariVari), Wednesday, 18 February 2015 22:17 (nine years ago) link
It's bitter here too, but most of the US TERFs don't have the kind of media exposure that, say, Julie Burchill has. Really, though, arguing with TERF trolls is tempting but seems exhausting and not as politically useful as other forms of activism.
― one way street, Thursday, 19 February 2015 00:15 (nine years ago) link
if anything US TERFs seem to be perpetually on the defense any time they rear their heads & get exposed
which is as it should be
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 19 February 2015 05:02 (nine years ago) link
Sectarianism in left progressive politics is almost as bad as in Protestantism.
― Aimless, Thursday, 19 February 2015 17:41 (nine years ago) link
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, February 18, 2015 3:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Haha
― deej loaf (D-40), Thursday, 19 February 2015 23:59 (nine years ago) link
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/02/why-our-children-dont-think-there-are-moral-facts/
― Mordy, Monday, 2 March 2015 19:18 (nine years ago) link
in the world beyond grade school, where adults must exercise their moral knowledge and reasoning to conduct themselves in the society
pity ppl who engage with the world like this, its like pua flowcharts applied to ethics rather than women
― ogmor, Monday, 2 March 2015 22:56 (nine years ago) link
Seems like a bit of a leap there
― ancient texts, things that can't be pre-dated (President Keyes), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 01:28 (nine years ago) link
If it’s not true that it’s wrong to murder a cartoonist with whom one disagrees, then how can we be outraged? If there are no truths about what is good or valuable or right, how can we prosecute people for crimes against humanity? If it’s not true that all humans are created equal, then why vote for any political system that doesn’t benefit you over others?
moral relativism has really easy and good answers to all of these questions
― een, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 01:35 (nine years ago) link
how can we be outraged if we can't be sure god is outraged with us
― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 01:47 (nine years ago) link
'how can we' uh how you been doin it all this time yo
― j., Tuesday, 3 March 2015 01:48 (nine years ago) link
Yeah, but he means 'how can we rationally,' right?
It is funny that he thinks some K-12 reading comprehension exercises are the main thing driving relativism.
― jmm, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 15:42 (nine years ago) link
People who complain about "moral relativism" are virtually always too simple-minded (or cynical) to actually apply their supposed moral universalism evenhandedly.
― walid foster dulles (man alive), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 15:51 (nine years ago) link
of course jmm but for some reason how can wes always leave out the fantasy about having unshakable grounding for every judgment we make when they get to saying 'how can we', which makes for a fairly different speech act in the practical context of moral alarm i suspect
― j., Tuesday, 3 March 2015 15:53 (nine years ago) link
xp isn't it possible to be hypocritical about your own moral universalism and still condemn a moral relativism totality?
― Mordy, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 15:57 (nine years ago) link
how can we dance when our earth is turning how can we sleep while our beds are burning
― A MOOC, what's a MOOC? (Bananaman Begins), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 16:07 (nine years ago) link
The blank stare on his face said it all.
― future glown (crüt), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 16:21 (nine years ago) link
It doesn't seem like moral relativism is the real target in that article. It comes up in passing, and it's clear he doesn't care for it, but the real beef is with the view that there are no moral facts at all. Relativists, as I understand it, tend to think there are moral facts, or at least moral truths of a sort.
― JRN, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 19:54 (nine years ago) link
huh? moral relativism is the view that different people/cultures will inevitably have different views regarding moral truth (and everything else). it seems predicated on the the idea that so-called "moral truths" are social constructs, local preferences, thus not factual in any universal sense.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 20:29 (nine years ago) link
author is a complete dork though:
When I went to visit my son's second grade open house, I found a troubling pair of signs hanging over the bulletin board. They read:Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake, I went home and googled "fact vs. opinion". The definitions I found online were substantially the same as the ones I found in my son's classroom.
Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.
Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.
Hoping that this set of definitions was a one-off mistake, I went home and googled "fact vs. opinion". The definitions I found online were substantially the same as the ones I found in my son's classroom.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 20:36 (nine years ago) link