Quinn Norton Implodes – In The Interest Of Clarity
After the recent confusion caused by a statement heard on BBC Newsnight that “Men are raised to hate women” I decided to ask the journalist responsible for an explanation.
The outcome was unexpected and inspired me to pen this blog post, which in turn led to in my view, unfairly, hours of bizarre accusations from a tiny number of individuals
Although the overwhelming majority of (I realise this is not indicative of being right) people seemed to agree that clarification was necessary, and the initial statement was too much of a generalisation to be helpful to say the least, the very small number who did take issue with me seemed to fall in to two camps.
Some argued that the statement was perfectly reasonable and not deserving of question. And that it was actually my lack of understanding that was the real problem, or the manner in which I questioned.
Others seemingly fell afoul of a catastrophic inability to differentiate between the following two statements, (one genuine, one imagined):
“What exactly do you mean by that? Please explain”
And
“Sexism and misogyny are not genuine problems in society”.
I could not attempt a defence of the second statement, even if I were stupid enough to actually believe it, or want to.
Obviously there are a lot of good people who feel incredibly passionate about sexism and misogyny for incredibly valid reasons (captain obvious) and may have felt I was somehow denying the importance or existence of these issues. As explainable as this perception may be on some level, it is not even remotely accurate to anything I have said, implied or argued.
