Urban v's the Commentariat

[YouSir]

I'm only going if Laurie is there -I almost feel miffed on her behalf that she's been left out. Almost. But not quite.

There are other speakers too, maybe she just missed out on that headline spot. Check the 'TV I watched today' stage for her doing incisive cultural analysis.

 

[redsquirrel]

Alternative Party Conference - Soho Theatre

Let's go!

Come friendly bombs

 

[Bakunin]

Alternative Party Conference - Soho Theatre

Let's go!

 

[brogdale]

Alternative Party Conference - Soho Theatre

Let's go!

tbf....

All Day Passes:£25
Your Day Pass will give you access to the Conference for the full day.

You get the full day for the price of an all day pass! You can tell this is a progressive event.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I'm only going if they get Dan Hodges.

Is that 'get' as in 'gonna git got'?

 

[stuff_it]

Yes, apart from her piece about living in a LBGQT collective in East London everything she wrote since she returned from the US is not even hinting at anything substantial or interesting (and even that article was pointing out how radical she was from the safety of her middle class lifestyle). where are her articles about the junior doctors contracts, foodbanks in hospitals, the jack the ripper museum masquerading as women's history?

 

[equationgirl]

What's the smiley for?

 

[purenarcotic]

Have they said they dont want female pronouns used?

Yes, they have. One of their Twitter posts links to a blog on their website where they ask for they / their etc pronouns to be used.

 

[Bakunin]

tbf....

​

You get the full day for the price of an all day pass! You can tell this is a progressive event.

And if you sneak in without a ticket they punish you by making you watch the entire event on DVD.

 

[The Pale King]

Suzanne Moore the other day:

It's good to be genderqueer but don't forget the sexual radicals who paved the way

...article seems to be in response to Laurie Penny coming out as genderqueer, which rather passed me by I'm afraid (not enough hours in the day and all that). But what caught my attention was this:

"To claim oneself as “other” has a touch of the Rachel Dolezal about it. Who you choose to have sex with and how you do it is radical only if you believe sex is your essential self, your deep-buried truth."

...in which Moore seems to be comparing Penny to Rachel Dolezal, albeit quite obliquely . It has led to a somewhat passive aggressive exchange between them on twitter. That is all.

 

[equationgirl]

I explained what genderqueer meant to one of my work colleagues yesterday. An interesting experience for both of us.

 

[Bakunin]

I'm only going if Laurie is there -I almost feel miffed on her behalf that she's been left out. Almost. But not quite.

Suzanne Moore didn't attend, according to her Twitter, because they were charging admission but not paying the speakers.

Whether or not that also accounts for the seeming absence of our beloved voice of a generation, I couldn't say.

 

[andysays]

I explained what genderqueer meant to one of my work colleagues yesterday. An interesting experience for both of us.

I'm still baffled as to just what it does mean.

Is it simply someone who doesn't conform to all the stereotyped gender expectations, and doesn't wish to be pigeon-holed by their gender, or is there some more to it than that? And if it is just that (something which applies to me and I suspect a significant minority of people, male and female, gay and straight, etc), why should anyone really give a toss about Laurie Penny or anyone else coming out as or even just declaring their "genderqueerness"?

It strikes me as taking identity politics (which I'm not keen on at the best of times) to ever more ridiculous lengths in an attempt to demonstrate one's individual edginess - politics as a fancy-dress party.

(the questions are not directed specifically to equationgirl, BTW, they're general ones brought up by her post and a couple of earlier ones)

 

[rekil]

politics as a fancy-dress party.

Speaking of which...

Tensions at Yale University hit a boiling point yesterday after an email about Halloween costumes created a week-long controversy on campus.

Students called for the resignation of Associate Master of Silliman College Erika Christakis after she responded to an email from the school’s Intercultural Affairs Council asking students to be thoughtful about the cultural implications of their Halloween costumes. According to The Washington Post, students are also calling for the resignation of her husband, Master of Silliman College, Nicholas Christakis, who defended her statement.

 

[YouSir]

Speaking of which...

American universities seem like a horror show to me, how more staff aren't quitting them rather than bothering with the endless pointless outrage is beyond me.

 

[toggle]

I'm still baffled as to just what it does mean.

Is it simply someone who doesn't conform to all the stereotyped gender expectations, and doesn't wish to be pigeon-holed by their gender, or is there some more to it than that? And if it is just that (something which applies to me and I suspect a significant minority of people, male and female, gay and straight, etc), why should anyone really give a toss about Laurie Penny or anyone else coming out as or even just declaring their "genderqueerness"?

it can be. oir it can be more. it's one of those terms that can either mean a lot or very little.

i could very easily use the term to describe myself, cause stuff, but i'm with suzanne more on this one. its being used to indicate radicalism, through having some fun with who you want to have fun with and wearing what you want to wear, not much more. discussed a but about this when lp's article about her genderqueer collective came out. post 11667 and onwards a bit.

cause my feeling is that what suzanne more is calling them out on is the stuff that makes me feel nauseous about it. the bit where the priviagettes are collecting oppression points and its a relatively meaningless term that they can claim gives them another step away from cis-white-masculinity; another gorup they can be the voice of.

 

[ViolentPanda]

it can be. oir it can be more. it's one of those terms that can either mean a lot or very little.

i could very easily use the term to describe myself, cause stuff, but i'm with suzanne more on this one. its being used to indicate radicalism, through having some fun with who you want to have fun with and wearing what you want to wear, not much more. discussed a but about this when lp's article about her genderqueer collective came out. post 11667 and onwards a bit.

cause my feeling is that what suzanne more is calling them out on is the stuff that makes me feel nauseous about it. the bit where the priviagettes are collecting oppression points and its a relatively meaningless term that they can claim gives them another step away from cis-white-masculinity; another gorup they can be the voice of.

Another spoke they can claim on their personal wheels of oppression.

Fuck me, life is hard enough for most of us that we don't need to play oppression Top Trumps!

 

[Bakunin]

Another spoke they can claim on their personal wheels of oppression.

Fuck me, life is hard enough for most of us that we don't need to play oppression Top Trumps!

That won't stop Penny Dreadful and her ilk from politely reminding us to check our privilege.

 

[equationgirl]

Some of the commentariat appear to be using genderqueer as the the label du jour andysays I explained it to a colleague as not fitting in either of the boxes marked 'boy' and 'girl', and left it at that. I am certainly no expert.

 

[ViolentPanda]

That won't stop Penny Dreadful and her ilk from politely reminding us to check our privilege.

Of course not, just as it wouldn't stop me elucidating to her why being an Oxbridge-educated middle-class journo doesn't put her in a good position to tell us to check our privilege, despite her being female, being/claiming to be genderqueer, claiming to have a Jewish grandparent, and to live in a commune.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

it can be. oir it can be more. it's one of those terms that can either mean a lot or very little.

i could very easily use the term to describe myself, cause stuff, but i'm with suzanne more on this one. its being used to indicate radicalism, through having some fun with who you want to have fun with and wearing what you want to wear, not much more. discussed a but about this when lp's article about her genderqueer collective came out. post 11667 and onwards a bit.

cause my feeling is that what suzanne more is calling them out on is the stuff that makes me feel nauseous about it. the bit where the priviagettes are collecting oppression points and its a relatively meaningless term that they can claim gives them another step away from cis-white-masculinity; another gorup they can be the voice of.

Yeah. Given that it seems to be being waved about by some in the public eye to simply mean "hey I don't 100% agree with the expectations associated with my assigned gender and I'm more complex than that" I have sympathy with Moore's point that it's what you kind of expect, and it's true for everyone. It may be worth saying but it's an easy thing to say if your life is not being actively repressed, and, well, privilege and history need to be borne in mind.

The piece does fall apart a bit nearer the end though.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Some of the commentariat appear to be using genderqueer as the the label du journey andysays I explained it to a colleague as not fitting in either of the boxes marked 'boy' and 'girl', and left it at that. I am certainly no expert.

IMO the issue arises in the space between "not fitting in either of the boxes" (which is fairly common - many people deviate from the conventional gender definitions assigned to "boy" and "girl"), and declaring that you're genderqueer because you're comfortable fucking boys and girls, and take this to mean that you don't "fit in" with conventional gender definitions. Laurie was telling us she was bi long before she heard the term "genderqueer", and she's adopted the label as a mark of radical identity - a label she'll drop once it no longer facilitates her place in identity-political debate.

 

[andysays]

According to Wikipedia ( at self)

Genderqueer (GQ; alternatively non-binary) is a catch-all category for gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine—identities which are thus outside of the gender binary

genderqueer has been used as an adjective to refer to any people who transgress distinctions of gender, regardless of their self-defined gender identity, i.e. those who "queer" gender, expressing it non-normatively

I suppose calling yourself genderqueer and/or claiming that you're trangressing something does sound more exciting that simply saying you don't think people's lives and identities should be restricted by the socially imposed gender binary.

 

[weepiper]

I guess I'm genderqueer then, although I wouldn't use that fucking word if I was being paid to

 

[Thora]

Penny just means "I might be white, straight and middle class but honestly I'm not cis" (with a little bit of sneering at all the sheeple with their binary gender).

I'm sure when I first read her Buzzfeed article it said something like "the problem with feminism is it's obsessed with women".

 

[frogwoman]

I hate the word queer, what about all the people 'triggered' by the fact that when they were at school it was used as a term of homophobic abuse?

 

[CNT36]

I guess I'm genderqueer then, although I wouldn't use that fucking word if I was being paid to

I thought the point of lot of feminist discourse had been to free people from the need to fit into to narrowly defined gender roles. Creating a term to describe people who don't especially a fucking stupid one seems to shit on that.

 

[weepiper]

I thought the point of lot of feminist discourse had been to free people from the need to fit into to narrowly defined gender roles. Creating a term to describe people who don't especially a fucking stupid one seems to shit on that.

Yes, I agree that they seem to be essentially missing the whole point of feminism.

 

[J Ed]

'Genderqueer' is such an all encompassing term that I'm not sure that there is a single person in Britain who couldn't conceivably claim 'genderqueer' status.

Oh, he doesn't like football he must be genderqueer, she likes putting together flatpack furniture genderqueer... etc

 

[Bakunin]

the whole point of feminism.

Is building an 'ethical personal brand,' isn't it?