“Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart,” wrote Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter in their 1954 classic When Prophecy Fails:
Suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen?”
In Festinger et al.’s view, rather than renounce his belief, an individual “will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before”. To continue to hold the belief might be difficult, but it can often be far less mortifying and soul-destroying than facing the alternative.
I thought of this argument when watching a clip of British “comedian” John Oliver ridiculing all those who think female-sporting categories should be female-only. At one point, Oliver refers to swimmer Michael Phelps — as everyone losing an argument about sex difference in sports invariably does — and quips that Phelps “was allowed to compete with other swimmers despite being part dolphin”.
To be clear — I’m not suggesting Oliver thinks Phelps really is part dolphin. It’s just a joke, a riff on the fact that we’re all different and some people are bigger than others and that means, um, something or other! It’s at this point, though, that I couldn’t help wondering how Oliver felt, having to come out with all this nonsense.
Like many on his political “side”, Oliver was behaving like the cultist who, now that the ridiculousness of his beliefs has been exposed, only digs in deeper. The trouble is, I’m not convinced he does, or ever did, truly believe what he is claiming. It’s rubbish, and he’s always known it. It’s impossible not to.
It is a boring waste of time to have to keep stating the bleeding obvious
Believing sex doesn’t matter is not like believing in a second coming. There is ample evidence that it does. No one should be arguing over whether men and boys — whatever they call themselves — have an advantage over women and girls in sports. We all know they do, just as we know that sex isn’t randomly assigned at birth, radical feminists are not politically aligned with Donald Trump and gender identity is totally dependent on the very regressive stereotypes that Butler et al claim to be demolishing.
It is a boring waste of time to have to keep stating the bleeding obvious. Nonetheless, many of us have felt compelled to keep doing so because these nonsense arguments are being used to justify real harms, not just to female athletes, but to gender-confused children, lesbians, rape survivors. They’re being used to undermine the entire feminist analysis of male violence, human reproduction and power. Nevertheless, Progressive Man — that type exemplified by the likes of Oliver — is highly affronted that any of us should be making a fuss.
I think there are two reasons for this, neither of which have anything to do with any genuine conviction. One is the classic “misogyny is other people” position adopted by misogynist men of every political persuasion. Having grown up among right-wing men for whom “men in other countries” and “men of other religions” were the only real misogynists, I was, briefly, shocked to find that left-wing men use the exact same tactic, expecting a pat on the back for not being right-wing men regardless of their own behaviour.
Criticise Progressive Man’s attachment to gender ideology, and — not unlike a paranoid ex who can’t believe you just don’t want to be with him and must be up to something with that other guy — he’ll instantly accuse you of being on the same side as Andrew Tate and the Pope. It’s as though he thinks he can shame you into coming back to him, tail between your legs, promising never to you’ll never speak out of turn again. The misogyny of the right doesn’t appal him so much as function to deflect any form of self-analysis. Look! Over there! Elon Musk!
So, there’s that. There’s a second reason, though, and I think it’s to do with shame. It’s often struck me that the “trans debate”, however disastrous it has been for women’s and LGB rights overall, has at least had the benefit of highlighting certain dynamics in woman-hating that can otherwise go unnoticed. In this case, it’s often true when women speak out against the misogyny of “their” side — their class, their family, their faith, their club, their political party — they are punished not because they are disbelieved, but because the truth they are stating is so blatantly obvious. Everyone knows what is happening. Everyone always has, but as long as the truth was unspoken, those who ignored it could tell themselves they were good people. It didn’t matter if the stories they told themselves were weak and ridiculous — from “little girls always lie” to “boys don’t run faster or hit harder than girls” — as long as everyone on “their” side went along with them.
It’s embarrassing and shaming to know you have thrown your lot in with people, ideologies and practices that are irrational and harmful. An understandable response to being confronted with this is not just to pretend even harder but to lash at those who are bringing you face to face with your own lack of integrity. This is what we see in men such as Oliver.
He does not believe in the arguments he is deploying as much as he believes in his moral superiority. That is the thing that is under attack. How much does Oliver really think he is protecting poor, vulnerable trans girls from having their “right” to female spaces and prizes taken from them? He is, I would imagine, half-mortified at having misunderstood what the issue was initially about, half-terrified at tugging at that thread of logic that would place him on “the wrong side of history”. But mainly, he’s pissed off at the fact that some selfish women and girls haven’t stuck to the “all misogyny is Donald Trum”’ script. After all, he’s been willing to take the hit to his dignity that comes from pretending you don’t really know whether being bigger and stronger is an advantage in sport. If he — an important person, a clever person, an actual man — can feign stupidity for the sake of the cause, why can’t some lowly females suck it up when it comes to enduring actual bodily harm?
One of the many bitter lessons of feminism is that many men are not so much ignorant of the harm they do to women, as raging at us all the more for the fact that this makes them feel bad. We think for a while that as long as we explain it — as long as we make them understand — this will change things, yet they come back at us with the most convoluted, ridiculous excuses, ones which we know they themselves do not believe. This happens with violence in families, with sexual abuse in institutional settings, with the impact of pornography and the sex trade. It is happening when we point out the enormous cost to women of being asked to pretend some male people are female.
I don’t think there is much point in trying to make someone such as John Oliver feel embarrassed and ashamed. I think he already does. But now we are faced with a bigger problem. How does one go about deprogramming a cultist — and there are lots of them — who might never have even believed to begin with? For whom pretending isn’t the secret, but has become the entire point?
