Gender Discussion #40

That shouldn’t really be newsworthy should it what a messed up world we live in.

Tiare Tahiti said:

So I'm Jewish, and I loved reading Enid Blyton's books when I was growing up in the 1990s. I definitely picked up on the sexism, classism, snobby Englishness, and downright racism in the books. Brown people were always either dirty, ridiculously superstitious or childish, etc etc
Yes, it bothered me. I knew it was wrong, and thought that it was stupid and cringy when I was reading the books. I also remember wishing it wasn't in the stories because I knew deep down that the Famous Five would judge me or not want to hang out with me. I still loved and love the books. They're fun and exciting, and the atmosphere is wonderful.

Where does this leave us? I would personally argue to leave the books as they are. Most children who are raised right will pick up on the racism and conclude it's stupid on their own, just like I did. Those whose bigotry is reinforced by the books have bigger problems, most likely racist parents and environments.
And I wish there were more adventure books in the style of Enid Blyton that are more, eh, truly "inclusive". Where girls do dangerous stuff, where brown, Black and Asian people are just part of the group without it being super obvious or constantly discussed.
---
Also, I'm curious why the TRAs haven't yet picked up on George, "the girl who wants to be a boy". Wouldn't she be a poster child for the entire trans kids thing? I'm surprised there are no debates raging on about her.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with you. I remember that Gypsies always got a hard time from Enid Blyton too.
I read loads of Blyton's books as a child and was often appalled at the snobbishness of the characters but always enjoyed the adventures.

Sometimes changes should be made e.g. Agatha Christie's '10 little xxxxx' is now 'and then there were none'. That's a necessary change, but unless something is outright offensive then it should be left.

People should remember the time period and context of when things were published instead of applying today's values onto everything.
I once had an argument with a woman who complained that all Jane Austen wrote about was marriage and how she wasn't a feminist (to her disgust). I said that Jane not marrying herself and trying to earn her way as an author was a pretty good stab at 'feminism' during that time.

Revisionism is erasure of history and we can't learn from history if it has been eradicated.

soph30 said:

hmmm

Click to expand...

Which twat is this and can we bombard them with spam ?

soph30 said:

hmmm

Click to expand...

They don’t realise it’s Pan as it frying pan then morons

soph30 said:

hmmm

Click to expand...

what do they use to cook? a frying them

Tui said:

They don’t realise it’s Pan as it frying pan then morons

Click to expand...

I don’t believe it’s a real thing. It’s good for a laugh though

weeweegie said:

Thankfully there is more diversity in kids books these days although main characters are still far more likely to be white boys. It is slowly changing though. I try and choose books for my son with girls as the main character if I’m buying a book but he gravitates towards stories with boys like him (Tom Gates is an example, written by a woman Liz Pichon).

Click to expand...

There was a huge push twenty years ago to get boys reading as they are usually less keen than girls, so writers responded with even MORE boy protagonists. I used to select the texts for my Year 3 to study and it’s really hard to find books with girls at the centre, they are usually the sidekick.
However The Land of Roar and its sequels are brilliant for 7,8,9 year olds. The main characters are twins, a girl and boy (the girl is the feisty one) and they are black. I’d highly recommend.
Also I urge all of you to read Varjak Paw, even though it’s for junior age children, every parent at parents evening whose kids I taught said they loved it as much as their children did. There’s a brilliant female character in that as well as male, but they are cats. Best children’s book ever.

Haven’t posted on here in a while cos I get too wound up and got too much other shit going on.
I’m currently on Mat leave and one of my colleagues messaged me the other day and said her teen daughter has come out as trans. I honestly didn’t know what to say, despite having read so much on here and just feeling deep in my soul that you can’t change your biological sex ( that is such an obvious statement and yet is somehow controversial!?) I wanted to be true to my beliefs but I also felt it would be so hard to be honest as my opinion is ‘wrong’. I know there are often posts like this in here, but it really is a tricky thing to navigate. I’m probably being too much of a ‘nice girl’ and not wanting to offend anyone I guess!

I’m so confused as to why a co worker would message you that - are you friends outside of work? If you don’t know what to say - I would say nothing. It’s just information to you, you don’t have to express an opinion if you don’t want to affirm or hurt feelings.

Re Roald Dahl - the the sentiments are so outdated etc eventually it will stop being used in schools, parents will stop reading it etc. Much like you don't see loads of Enid Blyton stuff about. It will be replaced with more modern literature. That's what I understood Phillip Pullman to mean - as in leave the text as it is, let the books die out. However that wouldn't make money for the estate/publishing company. That's what this is about, they don't want RD to get "cancelled".

Also, who decides what gets to stay in and what goes? On the radio this morning the person on thought for the day pointed out they they've removed "fat" but kept in characters with big noses - an antisemitic trope from a well known antisemitic author.

Thanks for the recommendations for books though!

Tired of this crap said:

Haven’t posted on here in a while cos I get too wound up and got too much other shit going on.
I’m currently on Mat leave and one of my colleagues messaged me the other day and said her teen daughter has come out as trans. I honestly didn’t know what to say, despite having read so much on here and just feeling deep in my soul that you can’t change your biological sex

Click to expand...

I find it really hard, upsetting even, when trans stuff (especially trans teenage girls) steps into real life instead of something I just see online. Of course you don’t want to upset people, but your instincts are also screaming that this is so profoundly wrong and why are you letting your daughter be captured by this cult? It’s really hard.

ElektraWintour said:

I love theatre but having to read news announcements like this is painful.

Click to expand...

Is Rancom (they/them) a person or a company!?

emmer_moans said:

Does Roald Dahl (from the grave) consent to his intellectual property being tampered with?!

Click to expand...

The Roald Dahl estate is owned by Netflix now so I imagine they feature very heavily for the reason about these changes to his books. Im sure there was some sort of past scandal with them when they were editing shows in order to change storylines, not just cutting scenes, and didn’t have permission from the owners.

If the motivation censoring something is to try to avoid kids learning that evil women are usually ugly (or overly sexual), or evil people come more from specific ethnic groups, I don’t think it helps to completely censor historic fictional examples of it - it’s better to help kids question why it’s been written that way should they pick up the book. As it stands people’s critical thinking skills are pretty crap hence all this trans activism BS, hence liberal feminists refusing to question the need to be feminine.

I’m not saying at all that people should continue to write books that insinuate evil women look bad - id rather they didn’t - but I don’t think retroactively wiping everything helps either.

A huge part of reading properly is to assess it rather than just mindlessly consume whatever comes your way. For me being able to do that started really young and picking up a book I found I had a problem with. You need to see problems to develop the skills to identify them IMO, and to have the motivation to argue their importance in a cogent way, which is an important life skill!

it’s up to each parent whether and when they want to give their child a book with problematic elements to it. I don’t think it helps things for the publisher to make the decision for everyone; surely it’s best if people have the capacity to assess things on their own. I also worry about the potential to censor things that aren’t so cut and dry once a precedent like this has been set.

Have taken a break from here for a bit so don't know if this has been covered but Dublin had a vigil for Brianna Ghey https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland...elfast-in-memory-of-brianna-ghey-1433543.html,

Funnily enough nobody turned out with candles in support of those that were flung into the mother and baby homes, our government voted "no" to 24,000 people to qualify for compensation and mental health supports, From the article

Around 34,000 people will be eligible to apply for redress under the scheme, which is estimated to cost around €800 million. However, some 24,000 survivors are excluded from the scheme.


It doesn’t include people who spent less than six months in an institution as a child.


The scheme also does not specifically cater to people who were boarded out as children, a precursor to fostering; people who were subjected to vaccine trials; and people who experienced racism or other discrimination in the system.


There have been repeated calls, nationally and internationally, for the scheme to be extended.

Click to expand...

What a surprise that there is so little support for women who were punished for the one thing that only biological women can do, get pregnant.

15 per cent of the approximately 57,000 children who were in the 18 institutions investigated by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission died during their time there.


But who even knows what a woman is anyway right, it's just a "feeling" and we should all stop being Terfs and mean.

MiamooMoo said:

TransGinger that’s fecking brilliant

Click to expand...

I would be offended as a cisginger(?!)

HockyRorror said:

The Roald Dahl estate is owned by Netflix now so I imagine they feature very heavily for the reason about these changes to his books. Im sure there was some sort of past scandal with them when they were editing shows in order to change storylines, not just cutting scenes, and didn’t have permission from the owners.

Click to expand...

Whoa, is it? That explains everything. I had no idea the family sold out. But it explains why no one has a vested interest about preserving his legacy. The extracts I’ve seen feel like they’ve been butchered.

Re Roald Dahl, I'm assuming whomever bought the estate are a business and don't have blood ties with the name. I can't imagine them agreeing to the edits otherwise.
I forsee these far left big money companies doing this now as a matter of course, buying out artists estates and inflicting their own version of virtue on everyone. It's all very puritan.

Scotch Mist said:

I totally agree with you. I remember that Gypsies always got a hard time from Enid Blyton too.
I read loads of Blyton's books as a child and was often appalled at the snobbishness of the characters but always enjoyed the adventures.

Sometimes changes should be made e.g. Agatha Christie's '10 little xxxxx' is now 'and then there were none'. That's a necessary change, but unless something is outright offensive then it should be left.

People should remember the time period and context of when things were published instead of applying today's values onto everything.
I once had an argument with a woman who complained that all Jane Austen wrote about was marriage and how she wasn't a feminist (to her disgust). I said that Jane not marrying herself and trying to earn her way as an author was a pretty good stab at 'feminism' during that time.

Revisionism is erasure of history and we can't learn from history if it has been eradicated.

Click to expand...

She had a circus girl Carlotta in the St Clare’s books who was wild and a Spanish gypsy, all the girls loved her at St Clares. What loved about Enid Blyton books was how she featured girls who were tomboys, they now seem to have been eradicated nowadays. She also made me want to go to boarding school and have midnight feasts

I don’t like Enid Blyton at all tbh. The outright racism and snobbery just make her books thoroughly unenjoyable to read for me personally. She also wrote a book about 3 gollywogs called golly, woggie and n*****, which I believe has since been changed. Shocking stuff.

In primary schools Ofsted pointed out in the last few years that children didn’t have a good enough understanding of archaic language because they were only reading authors like David Walliams and Tom Gates type books, so we were instructed to use older texts such as Stig of the Dump or the Railway Children, Secret Garden etc
There are difficulties with older books such as race and class and so as teachers we explain that. I shall be very interested to see what Ofsted thinks about all this sensitivity reading rubbish because those rewrites in the Dahl books just seemed like dumbing down as well as woke.