I’m currently isolating in bed, on day seven of a second bout of Covid. I’m confined to my room so I don’t infect others. In conjunction with recent events in the grassroots feminist Twittersphere, somehow this experience is putting me in mind of a different kind of presumed infection: the implication of guilt-by-association. When you wield guilt-by-association as a weapon, or feel this kind of guilt yourself, the charge is that there has been association with Bad People, and that an infection has occurred as a result. And it might be contagious.
Your essay reminds me of Marilynne Robinson's essay "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion" (2008?). I highly recommend it, though it may not differ in any significant ways from what you have written. Still...
I could share any number of relevant quotations from her essay that I find germane, but I leave the closing words of her essay here:
"A great part of learning the argot of a peer group, which is a great part of claiming and assuming membership in it, is the self-editing that deletes disfavored language. All of us learn this skill in adolescence — learn it so well, perhaps, that we practice it unconsciously through life. This editing reaches deeper than mere language, and of course there is no such thing as mere language. The banishment of the word “liberal” was simultaneous with the collapse of liberalism itself. And however these events were related, the patient smile that precludes conversation on the subject means the matter is closed. To be shamed out of the use of a word is to make a more profound concession to opinion than is consistent with personal integrity. What is at stake? Our hope for a good community. Liberalism saw to the well-being of the vulnerable. Now that it has ebbed, the ranks of the vulnerable continuously swell. If this seems too great a claim to make for it, pick up a newspaper. Trivial failures of courage may seem minor enough in any particular instance, and yet they change history and society. They also change culture."
I appreciate your thoughts on this and, as futile as it might feel to examine such a frustrating and seemingly unstoppable phenomenon, there’s always value in naming what’s happening.
What’s interesting to me about how guilt-by-association operates within the context of gender ideology (and perhaps feminism) is that it doesn’t just aim to discredit the views of the ideology-questioning Associate; it also attempts to dissuade people – usually other adherents of gender ideology – from exposing themselves to the Associate’s ideas at all, thereby keeping the dissuaded locked in a kind of information silo.
In fact, I recently saw this happen in real time when recommending your book to two friends. They immediately Googled your name, scanned the first page of results, saw “transphobia”, “gender critical”, and “LGB Alliance”, and summarily dismissed the possibility of ever reading anything you write.
I burst out laughing and told them, “If you can be so thoroughly convinced by a 10-second Google search, there’s really no point in your reading anything she writes, so I rescind my recommendation.”
These “interesting times” are indeed very tiresome.
Kathleen, most of us involved in this debate do some iteration of ‘I don’t agree with this person on anything else but I agree on this’ all the time. That comes with the territory in the sex/gender debate, because it cuts across the left/right divide. Haven’t you noticed that the anarchists, leftists, trade unionists, Corbynists etc do sometimes work with Tories and people in the Lords? We get it. We are building alliances. It’s a strength of our movement. Haven’t you noticed WPUK tweeting loads of different things, including evangelical Christian Miriam Cates, when she's been excellent on RSE? The Baroness Nichol and Nadine Dories being thanked by women on the left? It’s the opposite of a purity spiral. We’re about the arguments, not the associations.
But the US isn’t the UK. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the radicalised Republican party – we have nothing like them in the UK. We don’t have open hatred of gays and Jews preached by any Conservative ally in the gender debate. We don’t have politicians preaching the ‘Great Replacement’ theory and inciting mass shootings that could be opening salvos of a civil war.
Why not engage respectfully with the content and arguments in the article you want to criticise? Let us know which organisations of the Christian nationalist right you think you could have a good chat with, and which, if any, you think are beyond the pale.
I feel like I read a lot of different tweets to you, and of course, Twitter being what it is, I may in fact have read a different but parallel debate. Politically, I am a centrist, although whether right or left of centre depends on the viewpoint of the beholder. I am quite certain that the feminist ,who is not Julie Burchill, who thinks that feminists could only be on the left, would probably not regard me as one, which saddens me because I have a huge amount of respect for her.
I used to work for one of the larger environmental charities. In environmental campaigning at the local level, working with Conservatives is often a necessity for a number of reasons. My most successful campaign left developers and government with the (correct) impression that if they attempted to build the thing, then not only would Swampy and Co be chaining themselves to every tree that was in their way, but the local Women's Institute would be keeping Swampy & Co supplied with tea and sandwiches. I don't recollect any guilt by association type accusations in those campaigns, although it is possible that some of the ultra-left were unhappy about their comrades' association with me.
There are a number of Conservatives prominent, and playing a very valuable role in, the campaign against gender ideology. Some of them are certainly anti-abortion. That doesn't unduly bother me, because I don't think the British consensus on abortion is seriously threatened by the overturn of Roe v Wade (although eternal vigilance is necessary).
But the recent debate (that I read) was about something more dangerous and complex, which was the advisability of working with the American right. This has nothing to do with guilt by association. It has to do with the very real danger of harming things we hold dear, not just women's rights and racial equality, but even the survival of liberal democracy.
In the last year or so I have become concerned by the apparent indifference that some of our leaders have shown to the wider political context. The most egregious example has been the failure to take into account that the very name of a Jewish Hungarian philanthropist is an anti-semitic dog-whistle, not just in the USA, but Hungary and Poland too.
'Working with the right' can mean working with a Harold Macmillan, but it can also mean working with Adolf Hitler. We need to think very carefully about what kind of right we are dealing with, and what their objectives are. Guilt by association has nothing to do with it.
A challenging topic. Your experiences at Sussex impelled me directly into public activism and speech on the dangers of gender ideology, and my experiences working with radical feminists in the US prompt me to return to this essay from time to time.
I was delighted to see Alex Byrne mention your name (and Holly Lawford-Smith's) in the concluding acknowledgments of his essays "Gender Muddle: Reply to Dembroff" (2021) and "The Female of the Species" (2022). An important public expression of professional respect. Well deserved.
Spot on. The current internecine war is bloody irritating, but the ‘how can you possibly expect to be taken seriously if you’re sleeping with the enemy’ line of criticism is also very much adopted by the men who run and ally with the gender identity cult. As I have said many times (indeed, whenever I get the opportunity), this is because lies, bs, misdirection, obfuscation, evasion and similar tactics are all they have. They cannot rely upon critical thinking, rational analysis or logic because the ideology requires the complete suspension of those faculties in order for it to take hold.
I love you!
Thank you for saying so beautifully and clearly what I have been trying to articulate to my Republican-hating friends for the past year.
Your essay reminds me of Marilynne Robinson's essay "The Tyranny of Petty Coercion" (2008?). I highly recommend it, though it may not differ in any significant ways from what you have written. Still...
I could share any number of relevant quotations from her essay that I find germane, but I leave the closing words of her essay here:
"A great part of learning the argot of a peer group, which is a great part of claiming and assuming membership in it, is the self-editing that deletes disfavored language. All of us learn this skill in adolescence — learn it so well, perhaps, that we practice it unconsciously through life. This editing reaches deeper than mere language, and of course there is no such thing as mere language. The banishment of the word “liberal” was simultaneous with the collapse of liberalism itself. And however these events were related, the patient smile that precludes conversation on the subject means the matter is closed. To be shamed out of the use of a word is to make a more profound concession to opinion than is consistent with personal integrity. What is at stake? Our hope for a good community. Liberalism saw to the well-being of the vulnerable. Now that it has ebbed, the ranks of the vulnerable continuously swell. If this seems too great a claim to make for it, pick up a newspaper. Trivial failures of courage may seem minor enough in any particular instance, and yet they change history and society. They also change culture."
I appreciate your thoughts on this and, as futile as it might feel to examine such a frustrating and seemingly unstoppable phenomenon, there’s always value in naming what’s happening.
What’s interesting to me about how guilt-by-association operates within the context of gender ideology (and perhaps feminism) is that it doesn’t just aim to discredit the views of the ideology-questioning Associate; it also attempts to dissuade people – usually other adherents of gender ideology – from exposing themselves to the Associate’s ideas at all, thereby keeping the dissuaded locked in a kind of information silo.
In fact, I recently saw this happen in real time when recommending your book to two friends. They immediately Googled your name, scanned the first page of results, saw “transphobia”, “gender critical”, and “LGB Alliance”, and summarily dismissed the possibility of ever reading anything you write.
I burst out laughing and told them, “If you can be so thoroughly convinced by a 10-second Google search, there’s really no point in your reading anything she writes, so I rescind my recommendation.”
These “interesting times” are indeed very tiresome.
Hope you feel better soon.
Kathleen, most of us involved in this debate do some iteration of ‘I don’t agree with this person on anything else but I agree on this’ all the time. That comes with the territory in the sex/gender debate, because it cuts across the left/right divide. Haven’t you noticed that the anarchists, leftists, trade unionists, Corbynists etc do sometimes work with Tories and people in the Lords? We get it. We are building alliances. It’s a strength of our movement. Haven’t you noticed WPUK tweeting loads of different things, including evangelical Christian Miriam Cates, when she's been excellent on RSE? The Baroness Nichol and Nadine Dories being thanked by women on the left? It’s the opposite of a purity spiral. We’re about the arguments, not the associations.
But the US isn’t the UK. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the radicalised Republican party – we have nothing like them in the UK. We don’t have open hatred of gays and Jews preached by any Conservative ally in the gender debate. We don’t have politicians preaching the ‘Great Replacement’ theory and inciting mass shootings that could be opening salvos of a civil war.
Why not engage respectfully with the content and arguments in the article you want to criticise? Let us know which organisations of the Christian nationalist right you think you could have a good chat with, and which, if any, you think are beyond the pale.
I feel like I read a lot of different tweets to you, and of course, Twitter being what it is, I may in fact have read a different but parallel debate. Politically, I am a centrist, although whether right or left of centre depends on the viewpoint of the beholder. I am quite certain that the feminist ,who is not Julie Burchill, who thinks that feminists could only be on the left, would probably not regard me as one, which saddens me because I have a huge amount of respect for her.
I used to work for one of the larger environmental charities. In environmental campaigning at the local level, working with Conservatives is often a necessity for a number of reasons. My most successful campaign left developers and government with the (correct) impression that if they attempted to build the thing, then not only would Swampy and Co be chaining themselves to every tree that was in their way, but the local Women's Institute would be keeping Swampy & Co supplied with tea and sandwiches. I don't recollect any guilt by association type accusations in those campaigns, although it is possible that some of the ultra-left were unhappy about their comrades' association with me.
There are a number of Conservatives prominent, and playing a very valuable role in, the campaign against gender ideology. Some of them are certainly anti-abortion. That doesn't unduly bother me, because I don't think the British consensus on abortion is seriously threatened by the overturn of Roe v Wade (although eternal vigilance is necessary).
But the recent debate (that I read) was about something more dangerous and complex, which was the advisability of working with the American right. This has nothing to do with guilt by association. It has to do with the very real danger of harming things we hold dear, not just women's rights and racial equality, but even the survival of liberal democracy.
In the last year or so I have become concerned by the apparent indifference that some of our leaders have shown to the wider political context. The most egregious example has been the failure to take into account that the very name of a Jewish Hungarian philanthropist is an anti-semitic dog-whistle, not just in the USA, but Hungary and Poland too.
'Working with the right' can mean working with a Harold Macmillan, but it can also mean working with Adolf Hitler. We need to think very carefully about what kind of right we are dealing with, and what their objectives are. Guilt by association has nothing to do with it.
A challenging topic. Your experiences at Sussex impelled me directly into public activism and speech on the dangers of gender ideology, and my experiences working with radical feminists in the US prompt me to return to this essay from time to time.
I was delighted to see Alex Byrne mention your name (and Holly Lawford-Smith's) in the concluding acknowledgments of his essays "Gender Muddle: Reply to Dembroff" (2021) and "The Female of the Species" (2022). An important public expression of professional respect. Well deserved.
Spot on. The current internecine war is bloody irritating, but the ‘how can you possibly expect to be taken seriously if you’re sleeping with the enemy’ line of criticism is also very much adopted by the men who run and ally with the gender identity cult. As I have said many times (indeed, whenever I get the opportunity), this is because lies, bs, misdirection, obfuscation, evasion and similar tactics are all they have. They cannot rely upon critical thinking, rational analysis or logic because the ideology requires the complete suspension of those faculties in order for it to take hold.