That the Tories and Unionist establishment would attempt to land a sexist smear on Alex Salmond for calling a woman a, err, woman, is unsurprising. That they are joined by a number of ludicrous feminists is unsurprising too.
It is probably the case that it is a more frequent use in Scotland and Northern England than in Southern England to add “man” or “woman” after an injunction, but anywhere from Grantham northwards “Behave yourself, man!” or “Behave yourself, woman!” is a perfectly unexceptional expression. That the use of “woman” in this sense is sexist is absolute nonsense. “Behave yourself, human” would not be a normal expression. The idea that Salmond calling Soubry “demented” was in some way anti-woman is even more ludicrous. Women have no monopoly on demented behaviour. In fact it is a rather anti-feminist idea that women should be protected from robust verbal exchanges when men should not.
None of which will stop the feminist nutters from having a go at Salmond. Feminism appears unique in breeding acolytes who have no notion whatsoever of wider social questions. They are therefore perfect tools for the establishment to turn against anybody who threatens authority. The feminist stampede to condemn Julian Assange on the basis of quite ludicrous charges orchestrated by CIA asset Anna Ardin is one example where feminists delight the hearts of the powerful. Their turning on Tommy Sheridan was another. Now they fly at Alex Salmond. They are, men or women, stupid, and the most useful of idiots to the forces of wealth, power and privilege.
I regard myself as a feminist but not an extremist feminist. The problem is that the label “feminist” is so often used to describe only those with extreme views and thereby becomes a pejorative term.
What you say, Craig, about the use of the words “man” and “woman” in northern areas shows how one should take into account the local vernacular when taking meaning from speech. Merely jumping on a particular bandwagon because a certain word has been used shows up one’s own prejudices.
“Therefore we have the insanity of a society where a decent person can be attacked for a perfectly non-discriminatory remark,”
He wasn’t attacked he was criticised as he knew damn well he would be when he said it. He didn’t make any secret of his intentions to make a name for himself when he went to Westminster and there wasn’t any doubt about what sort of name it would be. So long as his face is all over the papers Salmond doesn’t give a damn. He’ll throw his weight around in Westminster then play the oppressed poor victim to the Scots.
I think he graduated from the Jeremy Clarkson school of public relations.
Fred must have been ‘mummy’ to a big, hairy arsed, SNP Scotsman at his boarding school.
The trauma has obviously never left him.
John Spencer-Davis
I read this short discussion of a book and wondered if it would be of interest to you.
The Therapy Industry
Paul Moloney
( http://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745329864 )
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1433453221.html
“Fred must have been ‘mummy’ to a big, hairy arsed, SNP Scotsman at his boarding school.
The trauma has obviously never left him.”
Fuck off and die retard.
More on Israel.
Palestine solidarity campaigners dominate annual meeting of G4S
Posted by The Editors on June 5, 2015, 10:56 am
PSC’s Amena Saleem writes for Electronic Intifada on how yesterday’s G4S annual general meeting was “a massive failure for G4S…and a success for campaigners determined to see justice for Palestinians and the other vulnerable people of the world.”
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/amena-saleem/palestine-solidarity-campaigners-dominate-annual-meeting-g4s
Three cheers!
God bless you Fred. Anytime i’m feeling fed up, I can rely on you to cheer me up. 🙂
Mary
05/06/2015 11:31am
Yes, most grateful to you, Mary, I will probably buy that book. Moloney sounds very similar to the late David Smail, who I have posted about before. Thank you.
Kind regards,
John
Mary
05/06/2015 11:31am
Aha, Paul Moloney co-wrote David Smail’s obituary in the Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/aug/17/david-smail
Kind regards,
John
Thank you for that John. It comes through that David Smail was a kindly man who cared for and cared about his fellow humans who were in distress. Also professionally innovative.
Not denying kindly people in any walk of life, the therapist, i.e. any therapist, needs a therapist.
Don’t analyse that too much! 😉
A couple of days ago Canada’s “Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission” issued a report stating that what happened in these schools amounted to “Cultural Genocide”. Here is what the Washington Post has written in its article – Did Canada commit a ‘cultural genocide’?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/05/did-canada-commit-a-cultural-genocide/
Cultural Genocide in Canada!!!. – These are strong words and yet in my view entirely appropriate in this situation.
The key is that in this instance the report makes (successfully) its case for the use of such strong wording as cultural genocide. However these days pejorative wording is all too often made to smear and attack enemies without any substance behind it.
Smearing, without explanation, has been the tactic of the demagogue throughout the ages.
Just one further comment. Smearing is used as a weapon to weaken or destroy one’s opponents – and it works. When the details of this recent attack on Mr. Salmond are long forgotten, the smear will still stick to him.
Those who believe in freedom and democracy should never tolerate smearing unless the pejorative smears are backed up by reasoned argument. Yes, sexism, racism, anti-Semitism, etc. all exist far too often and should be identified and opposed wherever they do. But these words are also sometimes used wrongly to smear and silence innocent people. The forces of wealth, power and privilege are experts in using smears and disinformation for their own purposes to stifle debate and attack opponents.
‘They are, men or women, stupid, and the most useful of idiots to the forces of wealth, power and privilege’. Hm. I have to say I’m quite upset by this notion that feminists are stupid. I hope you realise what a massive generalisation you’re making here. I agree it’s obvious what’s going on with this particular incident. They’re trying to find anything they can to slander him. And of course feminism can be used as a tool to detract from other issues and destroy opponents, but no more than anything else. I agree that ‘feminism’ is used by people who quite clearly couldn’t give two shits about equality (Cameron and internet censorship come to mind), but that doesn’t mean feminism is the problem. And in fact, I believe that making otherwise fair people like yourself condemn feminism because of incidents like this could well be the desired result or at least a handy added bonus result for maintaining the status quo, which is a patriachal society.
They may be attempting to reprise the dyanmic wrt the Gordon Brown, “she’s just a bigoted woman” comment (General Election, 2010) in a different way. Becky and Emily, among others, make some excellent observations and points on this thread. This type of thing ought to be expected. Imperialism never gives way easily (in recent times, we can see that if it can start a war and destroy a country on the basis of obvious lies and history demonstrates that nothing is beyond it) and it will use all the many tools at its disposal, including smoke and mirrors.
What good is feminism doing today? At best, it is a distraction, which focuses on empowering only one gender, usually over the other gender, and on a par with other isms like racism. At worst, it is a chemical weapon in the hands of the authorities. The only good feminism would be the one that serves to bring men and women together against the common enemy of the state. It is not doing this when it focuses on trivial things with the aim of creating divisions.
I am a feminist. There, I’ve said it. I’ve been one for forty years and I’m not going to stop now. What I am NOT is the kind of snivelling, victimhood- assuming, knee-jerk idiot that sees attack in everything any man says and is too busy whining about trivia to pay attention to the fact that austerity hurts parents of any gender disproportionately; that there is still, in the 21st century, a gender-gap in earnings and that, worldwide, hundreds of millions of women are still disenfranchised, controlled, treated as property and abused by men. That is what my feminism stands up against – I don’t care about a nasty piece of work liked Soubrey being rightly slapped down. If it had been a bloke he would have said “Behave yourself man.”, just like the Speaker has in the past. Non-story, punted to distract attention from the real issue of that day’s parliamentary business – another huge round of cuts that will further impoverish the already struggling and lead to more deaths from the consequences of poverty and hopelessness in one of the richest countries in the world.
I am sick of so-called feminists who never step out of their comfortable, middle-class, political-theory bubble to see how their poorer ‘sisters’ live. If you want to call yourself a feminist, support the women – and men – living in council high-rises in their struggle to raise their families in an environment degraded by drug use and neglect, offer to teach reading classes to women from immigrant families, campaign against religious oppression of women, campaign for equal pay but don’t waste my time complaining that someone called a woman a woman – and, while we’re at it, calling someone demented has got nothing whatsoever to do with demeaning people who suffer from dementia. That’s just another, knee-jerk, ‘ooh, you can’t say that’ piece of nonsense. If you care so much about those with dementia – do something to help them instead of just tutting!
Feminism has been a celebrity cause for pop stars such as Mylie Cyrus, so we are told. The MSM, never asking who would like to be portrayed as a role model, whether its to induce the young, women or any other factions in society, spreading moral rectitude like cream cheese, has got a lot to answer to.
The SNP and Alex Salmond are a target for this Government, this is just a small aspect of their attention to the man, I fear there’s more to come.
Emily I agree with you its a very stupid generalization indeed and one has to ask the question of whether such a movement would exist if it were not for the fact that we are still living in a patriarchal society. To write the whole movement off as stupid because of one political points scoring incident is something I would not have expected of you Craig.
I thought I had broken the glass ceiling in the 1970s when I became the first of my gender to work in a technical capacity in waste management in the north of England. Then I moved to Germany back into the dark ages where women were still cooking hot lunches for their children who came home from school at lunch time. That situation has changed but women are very often employed in Mini jobs at 450 or 480 per month with no health insurance contribution and job security.
I am not very sure what its like in the UK these days but do not be fooled by the Angela Merkel phenomenon its pretty abominable for equal opportunities here. And by the way anyone who thinks that rising children and keeping house (while trying to earn some money and keep the grey matter alive) is an inferior occupation should just try it for 30 odd years.
Surely this should be ‘pseudo feminism’, at the very least. Thanks, Alex, Suhayl, Emily & Johnstone.
Craig- sorry to see you buying into the lazy all feminists are bad trope.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of Tommy Sheridens’s political career, you can’t have forgotten how he used a number of women he had sex with in his court case against the the Sun. He didn’t need to put these women in the witness box and have them publicly humiliated.
Anna soubry is not interested in feminism and standing up for women, she just wants to shut up Alex Salmond and the snp by any means-don’t fall into her trap.