Keira Knightley has punctured the bullying pretensions of authoritarian ideologues
Margaret Atwood never wrote “men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them”, though in a 1982 essay she made observations to the same effect. It’s hardly surprising that over the years the quotation has been tightened, repeated, made into its own meme. It’s one that goes straight to the heart.
Men don’t fear women will murder them; the threat we pose is that we might, as Virginia Woolf put it, cease to function as “looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size […] Take away [the looking-glass vision] and man may die”. Women’s disregard can kill men, metaphorically at least, especially if we’re taking the piss out of them.
Atwood’s laugh/kill comparison features in Gavin de Becker’s 1997 bestseller The Gift of Fear, as part of the author’s discussion of why “the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different”. Women’s concerns, he writes, “are frequently the subject of critical comments from the men in their lives. One woman told me of constant ridicule and sarcasm from her boyfriend whenever she discussed fear or safety.” We’re mocked by the opposite sex for having more to fear from the opposite sex than mockery alone.
The belittling of women’s fears of men’s violence, alongside the exaggeration of the “threat” posed to men by women’s words, has not improved in recent years. On the contrary, now that worrying about assault in enclosed spaces is a “TERF dog whistle” yet words themselves are considered violent, one could say that the position has gained full “progressive” approval. Once it is accepted that women’s speech — or simply their refusal to take you seriously — pose an existential threat, threats of physical violence become self-defence. Feminists have been told this repeatedly by those who claim to represent women’s interests. Don’t make male people feel small and they won’t have any reason to want you dead.
Sometimes, though, you’ve got to laugh all the same. Not because what men do to women is trivial, or because the consequences of laughter aren’t serious. It’s because when it comes down to it, patriarchal beliefs — those that are used to justify the oppression and exploitation of half the human race, however such beliefs are presented — are so plainly ridiculous. Patriarchy is built on double standards so glaring and absurd it has to rely on violence for anyone to keep a straight face.
As a social construct, femininity is so stupid — and so subject to tweaks and changes the moment one facet falls out of fashion — that it’s mad to see so many supposedly clever people insist it defines a woman. What the Taliban are doing right now, in plain sight, to women and girls is not funny — it is an atrocity — yet the leaders themselves, with their regular “discoveries” of another thing female humans aren’t meant to do, are utterly ludicrous. If you are a female human, experiencing your own humanity with every breath you take, it is very hard not to see how thin and weak every patriarchal “truth” is. You know you’re not a doll, an object, a breeder, a non-player character. You can feel a little like a mother nodding along politely as a toddler tells you a make-believe story, only the reason you don’t laugh in their face isn’t because you’re being kind. It’s usually because you’re afraid.
I thought of this when Keira Knightley dared to laugh in response to an interviewer seeking to shame her for taking on the role of Dolores Umbridge for a new edition of Harry Potter audiobooks (having listened to Stephen Fry do “high-pitched and silly” for every female character on my son’s Harry Potter audible books, I’d say this cannot come soon enough). Was Knightley “aware that some fans are calling for a boycott, given JK Rowling’s ongoing campaign against trans people?” Such a question is designed to scare the life out of any actress, before prompting some self-serving waffle about standing with trans people (but taking the money anyways because you like stories or something). You’re not supposed to find this question as daft as it actually is (“do you feel happy taking on the role of a character created by someone who thinks women should have their own toilets?”). Only Knightley refused to play along.
She didn’t say “what ongoing campaign against trans people?” (a reasonable question, albeit one which would only have provided another opportunity to make vague accusations against the author). Instead, Knightley responded with a sarcastic “I was not aware of that, no. I’m very sorry”, before laughing (then finishing with a serious comment about the need for us all “to learn how to live together”). It is implausible that she would have been genuinely unaware of the “controversy” surrounding anything Rowling-related. Still, that some have chosen to see her response as ignorant rather than lightly mocking is an indication of how much preferable that would be. You can school an ignorant woman, but what can you do with one who sees straight through you and isn’t going to take your nonsense?
If women’s laughter is so terrible … maybe it’s time for patriarchy, in all its forms, to stop being so laughable
For the past five years, the trans activist response to JK Rowling’s initial essay on sex and gender (and subsequent “crimes” such as setting up a woman-only sexual violence support service) has been vicious, spiteful and deeply misogynistic. Like all witch-hunts, it’s also been utterly ridiculous. Recent headlines inform us, for instance, that “UK’s ‘most remote pub’ The Old Forge cancels Harry Potter-themed Halloween party after backlash”. God forbid anyone enjoy a night of “magic and wizarding wonder” as long as it’s in some way associated with thinking female humans exist as a sex class. It’s terrible, but it’s also very silly.
Knightley has not clarified her own particular views on sex and gender. Naturally this has not prevented her from being denounced as a TERF. She laughed when she was supposed to be contrite. She spoke of getting along when she had been directed to smear another woman. Her “I’m very sorry” is possibly the worst thing of all. In saying it, she parodied the script, repeating the same lines uttered by so many women bullied into pretending they just didn’t get it.
While I’m not sure her response has “just shown how the trans mob can be defeated”, it’s been deeply refreshing. Let’s hope it encourages similar responses from others. And if women’s laughter is so terrible — so violent, so annihilating — maybe it’s time for patriarchy, in all its forms, to stop being so laughable?
