Grace Lavery versus three gender critical writers.

This is my reaction to Grace Lavery's review of books by Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce and Julie Bindel found here

Grace Lavery begins with a quote from Frances Power Cobbe "we must not fall into the absurdity of supposing that all women can be adapted to one single type, or that we can talk about ‘Woman,’ (always to be written with a capital W) as if the same characteristics were to be found in every individual species,”. Lavery claims this to be arguing "that the category “women” was a legal fiction that empowered men to deprive a class of their fellow human beings of legal and civil rights". If you read the essay you will find that Cobbe is simply saying there are many ways to be female. While Cobbe's feminist views are a thread that runs through the entire text, promoting the legal and civil rights of women is not the purpose of the essay. The "Final Cause of Woman" of the tittle is service to God and in her essay her purpose in considering the many ways to be a woman is reject all beyond that one. It's possible to infer that she envisaged the ways to serve God open to women should be as diverse as those available to men but she was not writing feminist theory.

That Lavery's interpretation of Cobbe's essay has so little relation to that essay is a warning to treat the rest of what she writes with caution.

Lavery follows up with a quote from Simone de Beauvoir. That is a more promising source for Lavery as Simone de Beauvoir was an existentialist and as such influenced by the ideas of Martin Heidegger who also influenced postmodernism and Queer Theory.

"The existence of heterogenetic gametes alone does not necessarily mean there are two distinct sexes; the differentiation of reproductive cells often does not bring about a division of the species into two types: both can belong to the same individual. This is true of hermaphroditic species, so common in plants, and also in many invertebrates, among which are the annulates and mollusks. Reproduction takes place either by self-fertilization or by cross-fertilization. Some biologists use this fact to claim the justification of the established order. They consider gonochorism—that is, the system in which the different gonads belong to distinct individuals—as an improvement on hermaphroditism, realized by evolution; others, by contrast, consider gonochorism primitive: for those biologists, hermaphroditism would thus be its degeneration. In any case, these notions of superiority of one system over another involve highly contestable theories concerning evolution. All that can be affirmed with certainty is that these two means of reproduction coexist in nature, that they both perpetuate species, and that the heterogeneity of both gametes and gonad-producing organisms seems to be accidental. The differentiation of individuals into males and females thus occurs as an irreducible and contingent fact."

Grace Lavery is not entirely wrong in interpreting this as an attempt to downplay biological sex. And it is true that it doesn't follow that a species where the gametes differ in size having small and large gametes will always have two sexes ( gonochorism) - that is individuals who bodies develop to support small gametes and others large. However that is true of all mammals so, sorry Lavery, we can use the fact of sexual dimorphism as a basis for the sexual classification of individuals or groups at least as far as mammals are concerned. That doesn't mean we shouldn't resist some of the conclusions that may be drawn from that reality. de Beauvoir doesn't say who were the biologists claiming from that justification of the established order nor what aspect of that established order might have been their focus. When de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, women had only had the vote for four years and if those biologists were advocating the right to vote should be allotted on the basis of biological sex then the relevance of sex needed to be opposed. If the issue is, as now, whether there should be female only categories of sport or female only prisons the relevance of sex is much much greater.

It is striking how completely Lavery fails to give the reader of her review (at least that is what it self identifies to be) any real impression of the contents of those books. She doesn't provide counter arguments to the arguments put forward in the three books, I suspect because to do so she would have to tell her readers what those arguments were. Lavery states "Strange, given the ubiquity and ferocity of “gender identity theory,” that Stock cannot find a single philosophical source for this “philosophical theory.”" What Lavery seems to be demanding of Stock is to produce a philosophical tome filled with as much jargon as Judith Butler as a contribution to a philosophical debate on reality that has been going on for some three centuries. Instead Stock is dealing with the arguments that are being advanced to justify changing the law so that legal sex is defined solely on the basis of someone's self identification. That involves her taking the whole chapter "What is sex" to refute the arguments that claim that the idea of what a woman/man is not related to biology. That does involve her mentioning such philosophers as Monique Wittig but she covers them in no more detail than needed for current debates.

Lavery is of course entitled to claim that Stock has reduced the arguments to strawman versions and provide instead the steelman versions. But that would entail Lavery revealing her own point of view which she avoids doing. She accuses Stock of misunderstandingg Butler (or misrepresenting?) quoting not from Stocks text but the subtittle: "Judith Butler, gender-critical enemy number one, shows up only to “tel[l] us gender is a performance”—a laughable misreading of Butler’s sense of the “performative” that snags many a first-year undergraduate, but should surely be within the grasp of the first philosopher since J. L. Austin to be entered into the Order of the British Empire." Lavery doesn't tell us what she thinks the correct interpretation is but her suggestion that first-year undergraduates are barely up to the task of understanding these ideas demonstrates the elitism of this movement. If you are confused as to why males should be allowed to compete in women's sport or why teenagers should be given opposite sex hormones without regard for their long term quality of life it is because you are not a professor in Gender Studies, Philosophy or English Literature.

Laws and public policy are made on the basis of ideas that are crafted to be beyond democratic debate and Lavery's review illustrates this.

It’s not democratic to drag Britain out of the EU without a final say

Broken promises

Let’s face in, politicians tell lies and when the don’t they spin. Even when they tell the truth a rival may deem it to be a lie. But in a normal election we can punish them for their lies at the next election. Brexiteers said Britain held all the cards and that the remaining EU countries would be falling over themselves to give us a good deal. Instead they have stood solidly behind remaing Ireland over Britain and chose to protect the integrity of the single market over trade with Britain. It’s time now to put those Brexiteer promises to the democratic test of a second referendum.

Not the same question

In 2016 the Brexiteers weren’t asked to present their plan. They used that to offer different kinds of Brexit to different groups of us. Now we know the reality. There’s Theresa May’s deal and there’s crashing out with nodeal. No one in 2016 knew what kind of deal would be negotiated in 2016. We know now. No Brexiteers were talking about nodeal in 2016. We now know is their preferred option. We have not had a say on those two options which is why to drag us out without us having say on the reality of Brexit would be a betrayal of democracy. All three options should be on the ballot paper and we’d be a second choice so we could choose between the two with the most votes if our first choice came last.

Neverendum?

A confirmatory referendum means that the legislation will already have been voted through by parliament. That legislation would include a clause that it would only come into effect if it was approved by a vote of the people. The result would be mandatory and implemented without further legislation.

What has been done by a referendum must be undone by a referendum

I’ve joined nearly six million signing the petition for revoking article 50 but that for me is very much on the understanding that it would be endorsed with a referendum. There is a strong feeling that it would be best to just end this madness and just forget the last few years ever happened. The Brexitometers organized by Remainers show roughly as much support for just cancel as for a second referendum. But to do so would in my opinion be a mistake.
What has been done by a referendum can only be undone by a referendum. That the first was marred by illegality with Putin putting his thumb on the scales for leave strengthens the case for another referendum but doesn’t change that to simply pretend it never happened would be undemocratic.
On top of that, just canceling would open the way for a future Bexit PM simply pulling us out to the EU without a referendum. The ERG have one third of the Tory parliamentary party - that is all they need to get their candidate into the final round of a leadership contest. The majority of the Tory membership are already backing a no deal Brexit. So the next leader of the Tory party is going to be a hardline NoDeal Brexiteer. As Britain has a First Past the Post there is every chance that eventually they will get their person into Number 10. However extreme the Tories become, the tendency of supporters to stick with their traditional party along with the way in a two party system that people will vote for one of the two parties to punish one of the parties despite misgivings about the other - Trump’s election should be proof of that.
And if that happens, by canceling Article 50 without a referendum we will have made their aim of dragging us out of the EU so much easier.

The Prisoners Dilemma facing the sane members of Parliament over Brexit

It is clear that Theresa May can’t get her deal through parliament. It’s clear that Jeremy Corbyn can’t get his General Election nor can he get his Customs Union Brexit. That should leave a Peoples Vote with a Remain option as the only alternative.
Yet both the deals of Corbyn and May stagger on in a zombie like existence allowing both Labour and Tory MPs to pretend they are avoiding the catastrophe of nodeal. Surely the Tory MPs especially have to be blind not to see that, after May backed the Brady amendment, May has thrown her lot in with the nodeal Brexiteers.
Sane Tory MPs do have a real problem. The Tory party membership now has a nodeal majority and the successor to Theresa May will almost certainly come from the ERG wing of the party. Any Tory MPs can forget about holding a ministerial post and will likely face deselection. We can tell them that they should country before career but their calculation will be quite different if their stand could actually bring about a peoples vote or merely be a symbolic vote that will only serve to open them up to revenge from the Brexiteer Tory membership. For them to do the right thing they need to be sure that enough other MPs who might be contemplating the same step are willing to break cover. So far only eight have had the nerve to do so.
For Labour the calculations are quite different. The membership is overwhelmingly remain and Labour is far better placed to attract remain voters. Given that there has been a significant swing to remain among the electorate, only those in especially strongly leave voting areas have anything to fear. Not surprisingly many more Labour MPs have come out in favor of a Peoples Vote. However, really a Peoples vote is going to need an overwhelming majority of Labour MPs and its hard to see that happening unless Corbyn swings behind a Peoples Vote. For Corbyn the problem is slightly different from that of moderate Tory MPs. It’s difficult to be sure but his inclinations are most likely for leave and possibly for a nodeal Brexit but given the membership of his party it is imperative for him to avoid having his fingerprints on the outcome. If all Labour Party MPs voted for a Peoples vote then with the current Tory supporters it would scrape hope - barely. So it is possible to argue that if no deal happens it will because Labour let it happen. However there will inevitably be some Labour MPs who will vote against a Peoples Vote even if Corbyn backs it so that seems to let Corbyn off the hook.

There are about twenty perhaps thirty Tory MPs who plausibly could come out in favor of a Peoples Vote. If just fifteen of them joined those who already publicly back a Peoples Vote, Corbyn would be exposed as enabling Brexit if he didn’t then come off the fence. But will they have the nerve to take the risk when Corbyn may stay firmly on the fence no matter what? The situation lacks the symmetry of the Prisoners Dilemma but it has the same catch-22 feel. The sane Tory MPs risk burning their boats for nothing unless enough of their fellows plus Corbyn do so. And unless those MPs take the risk, Corbyn can escape the blame for all that ensues.
But Corbyn really doesn’t risk a great deal in backing a Peoples Vote so by not acting first he shares the greater guilt.
What we can do to change things is to keep on doing what we are doing, campaigning for a Peoples Vote and the advantages of staying in the European Union. The clearer it becomes that Britain has changed its mind, the easier it becomes for the Tory MPs to back a Peoples Vote and the greater the pressure on Corbyn to get off the fence. And while time is running out that also helps us in that the closer we get to March the 29th the greater the fear of the catastrophe that will be nodeal will concentrate the minds of the sane Tories.