Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
No. My point is that this book is a classic exercise in victim-based rent-seeking. It creates a mentality of oppression and victimhood that simply doesn't reflect the fact that - while not perfect - the west in the early 21st century is basically the best place in history to be a woman. No ifs, no buts - it just is.

And by all means let's find ways to make things better, but let's look at everyone's problems, shall we? Not just pretend everything is hunky-dory for men while banging on about the first-world problems of enormously privileged white women.

And also, they do make female test dummies. And kiddie ones. I've seen them.
Right. So next time you bring up a topic about some problem you care about, I should say, "ah but what about the Delhi steet kids" and we should just consider every problem in the world together?

Straw man whataboutery, B.

And you didn't answer my 3 questions. I know they now have all 3 dummies. The point is that the rules were originally made on tests based just on men.

As I said, I found the research fascinating, and I detest ID politics at least as much as you do. In fact, I almost certainly hate it a damn sight more as my entire adult life has been about trying to show that we are all equals.

But you're obsession with modern, leftwing culture means you are determined to see this book solely through this prism and as such, given your culture wars absolutism, this book is part of the enemy camp's armoury.

Neither you nor I like ID politics. Would you support a study about knife crime and gang culture which looked at why it's almost exclusively black kids and howwe should fix it? Cos I would, despite that being by your definition "identity politcs."

Yes, it a political issue looked at in terms of one specific ethnic group. But it's not about creating division and a hieracrhy of victimhood. It's about stopping the problems that cause these differences.

This book isn't about creating victimhood. It's about trying to find what is wrong, why and doing something about it.

The fact that this is about white middle class women in no way invalidates this any more than my beloved making films exclusively about marginalised, brown skinned Asians invalidates her work.

But by your hippy "let's look at everyone's problems together" idiocy, my missus should then have to make half the film about middle class white bints and this bint would have to write half her book about young boys living on the streets of iDelhi.

Which is a pathetic argument.

I know you're just trying to play a character but you normally don't push it so far that the character collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.

No-one is allowed to write a book about one subject in isolation. Dear God.