It amazes me how they never really examines why women who are fighting male violence on all fronts disagree with them on prostitution. Almost like they is not actually listening to what we're saying.
'This is a story about how modern masculinity is killing the world...' she claims. But the men who dress up as women and call themselves women, non-binary or queer, and get their kit out in women's spas, loos, and even on the BBC on the strength of these made-up identities, are, by her analysis, some of the worst *victims* of this lethal 'modern masculinity'? No, Penny. They are the latest and arguably most misogynist manifestation of the 'modern masculinity' that is indeed killing and mutilating people, including children. Bloomsbury is a total sellout. Excellent review, JB.
Thanks Julie for saving us the trouble of shelling out for and reading Laurie Penny's incoherent (from the sound of it) thoughts -- not to mention the irritation of an apparent presumption that feminism began in 2017.
I've been thinking it's high time to read Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics" again, as the book that most influenced me in the early 1970s. And revisiting de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" after 60 years is quite a shock -- straight into Judith Butler land? -- about women brought up to "perform" gender... But of course this was where the Second Wave distinction between "sex" as biological and "gender" as cultural, took its cue from: to inform stereotyped sex roles.
Even so, this is uncomfortable but necessary reading.
This is such fierce and hilarious writing. In my life I know a few kinds of Laurie Penny. Often it seems not worth pointing out the inaccuracies of what they claim incontestably true. You make me wonder if I'm capable of confrontng bulllshit as perfectly as you do Julie. I learn from your example.
Neat review. I find with Penny that she seems to have a very limited and anaemic understanding of the world. She can't really go very deeply into anything substantive or meaningful in the "real world", with philosophy and political theory. As such she ends up in theories of everything, that ultimately explain nothing. Modern activists/authors box themselves into such small spaces.
I have not read the book, by by your description it sounds like a lot of supposedly 'academic' social sciences writing; grossly lacking in actual research and lived experience while tediously long on privileged classist assumptions about how the world works and who the 'victims' are.
It amazes me how they never really examines why women who are fighting male violence on all fronts disagree with them on prostitution. Almost like they is not actually listening to what we're saying.
Sounds like they is a revisionist, not a revolutionary. Both of them.
Lol: "my fingers lose their purchase on the ledge of the present.”
Don't you just hate it when that happens? Fingers losing their purchase on the ledge of the present is the worst!
'This is a story about how modern masculinity is killing the world...' she claims. But the men who dress up as women and call themselves women, non-binary or queer, and get their kit out in women's spas, loos, and even on the BBC on the strength of these made-up identities, are, by her analysis, some of the worst *victims* of this lethal 'modern masculinity'? No, Penny. They are the latest and arguably most misogynist manifestation of the 'modern masculinity' that is indeed killing and mutilating people, including children. Bloomsbury is a total sellout. Excellent review, JB.
Laurie Penny is a pork chop.
Ooh!
Thanks Julie for saving us the trouble of shelling out for and reading Laurie Penny's incoherent (from the sound of it) thoughts -- not to mention the irritation of an apparent presumption that feminism began in 2017.
I've been thinking it's high time to read Kate Millett's "Sexual Politics" again, as the book that most influenced me in the early 1970s. And revisiting de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" after 60 years is quite a shock -- straight into Judith Butler land? -- about women brought up to "perform" gender... But of course this was where the Second Wave distinction between "sex" as biological and "gender" as cultural, took its cue from: to inform stereotyped sex roles.
Even so, this is uncomfortable but necessary reading.
Laurie Penny is the Amanda McKittrick Ros of political pundits.
Thanks, Julie, for this thoughtful review. I wish you’d been teaching classes instead of the “feminist” academics who helped get us into this mess.
#ThemToo
Such a great review Julie.
I think her main shtick was precocity, the possibility of which was left behind about 15 years ago.
This is such fierce and hilarious writing. In my life I know a few kinds of Laurie Penny. Often it seems not worth pointing out the inaccuracies of what they claim incontestably true. You make me wonder if I'm capable of confrontng bulllshit as perfectly as you do Julie. I learn from your example.
Yep I'll 2nd that.
Neat review. I find with Penny that she seems to have a very limited and anaemic understanding of the world. She can't really go very deeply into anything substantive or meaningful in the "real world", with philosophy and political theory. As such she ends up in theories of everything, that ultimately explain nothing. Modern activists/authors box themselves into such small spaces.
I read about Suzanne Moores challenges with Penny and from then on would not credit penny with much bar her ability for dramatic effect .
I have not read the book, by by your description it sounds like a lot of supposedly 'academic' social sciences writing; grossly lacking in actual research and lived experience while tediously long on privileged classist assumptions about how the world works and who the 'victims' are.
Mmm, regards 'Pennyism'-- 'there's non so blind that cannot see'--- moreover, refuses to see-- in other words---
A great supporter of the 'patriarch?
My knee-jerk reaction when I see the name Laurie Penny is that I'm about to see or hear a whole lot of words, few of which can be taken seriously.