And there it is: soft intellectual optimism at the end. It ends on openness rather than certainty, and that makes the whole discussion sound thoughtful, compassionate, exploratory, instead of ideological, and that lowers resistance dramatically. --MJ Murphy
The two women on the panel under review are Monica Lewinsky on the left, commenting about her interview with Dylan Mulvaney on her show called Reclaiming, and Lena Dunham on the right.
The #MeToo movement was such a complicated moment where women . . .
TRANSLATION: let me begin in the safest possible moral territory so nobody questions me this is a classic credibility setup
And we're not only confronting men but also confronting each other . . .
All right, this is a sneaky pivot. We started with male misconduct, and now somehow women disagreeing with women is the real emotional issue.
The way that they had failed each other and then we moved past that . . .
We moved past that. So the translation here is the enlightened people evolved. Keep up. Progress. Nobody wants to sound left behind.
And what's interesting now is these conversations about now we have more conversations than ever about what gender is . . .
Notice how she just skips proving any of it. We go straight from "gender identity exists" to "let's discuss the complexities." That's the NLP bypass. Skip the foundation, start at the conclusion.
But also this sort of tease every internet word gatekeeping of what being female is which is . . .
Calling biological definitions "gatekeeping" is hilarious. Women defining womanhood is now apparently running security at the nightclub.
This is kind of you know we know the word turf like what it is to say if you haven't been female in this extremely specific way that it is involves biology . . .
"extremely specific way involving biology" is such a funny way to describe being female. Say that to the women in Afghanistan. "That's like calling gravity a very rigid falling preference."
And you are not welcome at this party . . .
And there it is. There it is again. Boundaries become cruelty disagreement becomes exclusion policy becomes Mean Girls behavior.
I had Dylan Mulvaney on recently . . .
Celebrity emotional shield activated. Once a likable personality enters the story disagreeing suddenly feels socially dangerous.
And you know it's it's an amazing her story is amazing . . .
Now we're going to do the gratuitous "she" and "her" pronouns. This is just emotional preloading. You are being told what to feel before you think.
I think what she's . . .
. . . she's incredible and what she experienced . . .
. . . also publicly
. . . publicly . . . and she did so elegantly...
He, him. We are not dissociating from reality, ladies. We are not doing it. Dylan Mulvaney is a little faggot. Yeah, I said it. He's a little faggot. If someone is polished enough, audiences confuse presentation with truth. A TED Talk voice can hypnotize half the internet.
And as someone who . . .
But not without a cost.
I'm pretty sure he cashed in pretty good. But disagreeing now sounds like we're hurting vulnerable people. This is emotional armor plating.
Not without a cost. And you know, as someone who has, you know, has multiple nuclear trans family members . . .
Oh yes the rhetorical infinity stone I know people personally now Chris is him feels like attacking Thanksgiving dinner.
It's been a big, a big education for me . . .
TRANSLATION: I evolved. Maybe you should too. Every persuasion campaign has a conversion testimony.
For me, to see, to be around that, I think, you know, I got to go speak at Trans Day of Visibility in DC last year with this amazing group called The Christopher Street Project, and the thing I expressed was just how having a trans sibling, having trans people in my life, has really opened up in this most expansive way. It's like, I feel like I see in 4D now.
This is spiritually hilarious. We went from discussing public policy to "I have ascended dimensions." Disagreement now sounds spiritually unevolved.
About the possibilities of what . . . all of us hold this incredibly complicated . . . each of us have our own specific gender.
No we don't. Once every person has their own personal custom gender, the category means literally nothing anymore. We are basically at Build-A-Bear identity theory.
. . . That has to do with our experiences. It has to do with how we felt as little kids. It has to do with how we see ourselves, how we see other people, how we want to interact. And so I think it's interesting. Right now, feminism has never been more multifaceted and nuanced . . .
Notice the coding. Notice the coding. Expansive equals good. Nuanced equals smart. Biology equals mean and narrow. The language does all the work emotionally before the argument even starts.
Expansive but it's also deeply under threat...
And there's our threat framing. Very common persuasion move. Expand the emotional stakes until disagreement feels dangerous.
And we are having these conversations yet can't seem to dictate actual laws that affect our bodies . . .
Interesting switch. Five minutes ago "womanhood was a floating metaphysical energy field," and now, suddenly, "our bodies." The rhetoric toggles between identity and biology depending on which helps emotionally in the moment.
So it's a really, really, it's always a complicated time to be a woman . . .
Yeah, after redefining Womanhood beyond recognition, we circle back to good old female solidarity again. It's rhetorical jazz.
It's a very I think a very complicated but has a real rich vein of possibility at least for dialogue I'm curious how you feel.
And there it is: soft intellectual optimism at the end. It ends on openness rather than certainty, and that makes the whole discussion sound thoughtful, compassionate, exploratory, instead of ideological, and that lowers resistance dramatically.
