Juno News - May 19, 2023


Where is Woke Ideology going？ ｜ feat. Joanna Williams


Episode Stats

Length

28 minutes

Words per Minute

162.43149

Word Count

4,564

Sentence Count

169

Misogynist Sentences

9

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Rupa Subramania show. I am Rupa Subramania. My guest today
00:00:21.440 is Joanna Williams. She's founder and director of the British think tank CHEO, which in Latin
00:00:27.900 means to ignite, to spark, and to set in motion. Joanna is a weekly columnist for the online
00:00:34.420 magazine Spiked and writes regularly for numerous other publications, including The Times, The
00:00:41.080 Spectator, and The Telegraph. She's also author of the book How Woke Won, The Elitist Movement
00:00:47.640 That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance, and Reason. Joanna was in the news here in Canada recently
00:00:53.740 as she was due to speak at a public lecture organized by Canada's Society for Academic
00:00:59.580 Freedom and Scholarship on issues of gender identity and censorship. She was due to speak
00:01:05.880 at the taxpayer-funded London Public Library in Ontario. But the library canceled her event,
00:01:12.820 thus exemplifying the concerns she raises in her book. The event is now scheduled for another
00:01:19.080 venue. To talk about toxic woke politics, why her lecture in London, Ontario was canceled,
00:01:25.920 and her recent book, please welcome Joanna to the show. Welcome to the show, Joanna. It's great
00:01:32.800 to have you here with me. And I want to start by asking you to explain the circumstances behind
00:01:42.060 why your talk at London Public Library was canceled. What was your talk about? And if you could just
00:01:49.780 walk us through what happened? So it's the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship here in Canada
00:01:56.920 that's hosting their annual lecture. And they very kindly asked me to come along and be the keynote
00:02:03.600 speaker for this year's event. And I was thinking about academic freedom and what you can and can't say
00:02:09.840 nowadays, particularly on a university campus, but I think in society more broadly. And it seems to me
00:02:15.020 that the number one topic that is off limits for free speech is to do with sex and gender. Certain
00:02:23.600 things that have become real taboos that you just can't say nowadays. So to say a woman is an adult human
00:02:29.680 female, for example, to say that there's no such thing as a transgender child. I mean, it seems to me
00:02:35.320 that this has become a kind of modern day blasphemy. You know, these are things that you just must not be
00:02:40.820 allowed to say. So it seems like a good idea, if you're talking about free speech, if you're talking
00:02:46.780 about academic freedom, to actually let's have a discussion about where the limits are nowadays. So
00:02:52.360 that's why I proposed the title of my talk should be sex, gender, and the limits of free speech.
00:02:57.100 Traditionally, this talk is held at the public library, because it's aimed to get a bigger audience than just
00:03:04.380 university students and professors. And to me, this seems like such an important idea, fundamental
00:03:11.100 to democracy, that you've got a taxpayer funded library, universities, which are also heavily
00:03:17.640 subsidised. And you want to, you should, I think, want to bring debates out to the public to involve
00:03:23.340 more layers of people in a debate. But London University, London Public Library, sorry, clearly
00:03:30.220 didn't see it that way. And they wanted background information about me, they wanted a transcript of
00:03:36.460 what I was going to say. And having run various background checks, having pushed this through their
00:03:42.460 committees, they clearly decided that I wasn't a suitable speaker. And the Society for Academic
00:03:47.980 Freedom and Scholarship couldn't host their annual lecture at the library.
00:03:51.160 Incredible. And did they tell you why you were your talk was being cancelled? Why they were not
00:04:00.120 going to give you that space?
00:04:01.880 Well, they have done, but it's annoying, because they do these things in very cowardly ways. I think,
00:04:09.320 I think if they were really, truly confident of the moral ground that they were taking, I think they
00:04:14.600 would be very open about the reasons. Whereas these people, they tend to obfuscate behind bureaucracy,
00:04:21.720 behind policies, and they'll point to various policy documents that they think you're breaching,
00:04:27.160 which is really their way of saying, you know, of not saying we've made a political decision that we
00:04:33.080 don't like these views, they'll refer you to policy document, a subsection B, you know, bullet point 10.
00:04:41.320 And basically, they're trying to accuse me of being dangerous, potentially, a risk of physical
00:04:47.560 violence, they say, and also sexual harassment, which kind of really takes the biscuit, you know,
00:04:53.640 well, all of them, I find utterly bizarre. I mean, in my day to day life, you know, I'm a middle aged mum
00:05:00.680 of three, you know, I, I'm an ex academic myself, I write books and papers, the idea that I pose a
00:05:07.560 physical threat to people, you know, it's kind of laughable. So serious.
00:05:13.480 No, it is. And, you know, we chatted a bit before we started recording, and this is your first time
00:05:18.680 in Canada. And so it's unfortunate that this was your experience, your your initial experience with
00:05:25.560 the country. And we'll get to that a little later, because I really want to talk about,
00:05:30.600 you know, how Canada stacks up against the UK, for example, or even Western Europe, for that matter,
00:05:39.400 in terms of cancel culture and wokeism, we'll get to that in a bit. But you wrote in your spiked column.
00:05:44.840 So you're also weekly columnist for spiked online, I've had the great pleasure of writing for them as
00:05:50.440 well, once and, and, you know, a publication I grew up reading, actually. And, and you, you know,
00:05:58.200 you've been warning about censorship, and, and you just got censored. And, you know, how deeply ironic is
00:06:05.080 that, and that too, at a public library of all places, which should be a venue for open debate. But
00:06:11.720 clearly, that wasn't the case here. What, what does this, what does this event tell us about
00:06:17.160 where we are at right now, the state of these culture wars?
00:06:22.120 Yeah, I mean, again, I think this is something that is disguised by this hiding behind policies,
00:06:29.160 that this is actually a very political decision. I mean, it really is, as far as I'm concerned,
00:06:33.720 a culture wars decision that's been made here. And I think anybody who doubts that needs only to look
00:06:41.720 at the fact that this very, very same library, the London Public Library, they host drag queen
00:06:48.360 story hours, you know, they're very, very happy to run events like that, where a drag queen comes in,
00:06:55.160 and I would argue, essentially preachers gender ideology to children who are far too young to be
00:07:01.720 able to offer a reasoned critique, or even know what it is they're being subjected to. Now, I could
00:07:08.520 understand, I wouldn't agree, but I could understand if a public library said we're funded by taxpayers,
00:07:14.680 we think it's important to remain politically neutral. So we're not going to get involved.
00:07:19.160 So they would say no to me. And they would also say no to the drag queens, you know, and I wouldn't
00:07:25.160 agree with that, I think, in the interest of free speech and facilitating debate, they should have these
00:07:29.880 people there. But I would agree with it, you know, I could understand why you could make such a claim.
00:07:35.960 I think either you say if you're a taxpayer funded public body, you either say political neutrality
00:07:41.640 means no one is speaking, or you say everyone is speaking, and everyone has equal rights to speak,
00:07:48.280 you know, the drag queen can have an hour, I can have an hour. Whereas instead by saying the drag queens
00:07:53.640 can speak, they can talk about gender ideology, but I can't talk about sex based rights and censorship.
00:08:00.280 They're essentially taking a side in what is a very heated, I would say probably the most important
00:08:08.200 debate of our time, the library is very publicly taking one side of that debate. And not only are
00:08:15.880 they taking one side, but they're kind of trying to pretend that they're not by just resorting to
00:08:21.320 pointing up policies and documents. So it's cowardly, and it's biased, and it's one sided. And it's very
00:08:27.560 definitely the culture wars. But as always, the people who, who I think launched the culture wars,
00:08:34.200 they then sit back and deny that they're doing any such thing.
00:08:37.560 Yeah, I mean, this is a perfect segue, actually, to talk about your book, which I, you know, I've just
00:08:43.080 started reading it. And, you know, and I want you, I would like you to tell us about the impetus behind
00:08:50.760 your book, How Woke Won, The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason.
00:08:56.520 I'd like everyone listening to get your, get a copy of the book. It really is, you know, quite,
00:09:03.080 quite the, quite a riveting, riveting read so far. What is the main argument you're making in the book,
00:09:09.320 Joanna? And why do you think this book was necessary?
00:09:12.040 Yeah, so the argument I wanted to make was really just point out how pervasive this woke thinking is
00:09:20.440 now amongst an elite section of our society. So I think this is the case really across the globe,
00:09:27.800 that the people who are most powerful in our cultural institutions, so across the media, across
00:09:35.080 universities, schools, libraries, we now see museums, art galleries, all the cultural
00:09:41.480 institutions in our society, they've been essentially captured by a group of people who all share the
00:09:47.880 same political outlook. And it's this very elitist, but very kind of backward, I think very regressive
00:09:56.520 ideology that tries to present itself as being just a kind of nice variation on political correctness.
00:10:04.680 But it's actually anything but, you know, my big concern about some of these movements
00:10:10.040 is that it's actually rehabilitating sexism, racism, homophobia, you know, all of these
00:10:17.960 things that I've been involved in fighting against all my life, and now coming back under this kind of
00:10:26.440 guise of niceness and kindness. And they're coming back with the people who are running these
00:10:33.160 institutions, who are then ruling out all debate and all discussion on what it is that they're actually
00:10:38.520 doing. And I kind of wanted to write a book just to expose what's going on, trying to point out some
00:10:44.920 of the people in charge themselves, look, you are in a powerful position, because don't they try to deny
00:10:49.960 it, I think they often try to present themselves as victims, when they're actually very powerful people,
00:10:56.360 and try and point out some of the problems with this ideology that has become so dominant in our society.
00:11:03.560 Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, as you point out, you know, it's one of the deep ironies is that,
00:11:11.560 you know, of the people who are putting out this woke agenda out there, you know, are some of the most
00:11:17.960 privileged members of society, whether they're in politics, culture, academia, or business. And I believe in
00:11:27.480 your book, you say that this is a way for them to insulate their privilege, while appearing virtuous. Can you
00:11:34.760 explain? Can you explain how this works exactly?
00:11:38.200 Well, I mean, just thinking of an example off the top of my head, so walking around in Toronto today,
00:11:43.800 you know, I was a bit lost and found myself in the financial district. And the only way I knew it was the
00:11:50.200 financial district is because the lampposts have got little flags, which kind of tell you, you know,
00:11:55.000 this is the financial district. The reason why I only knew because of that was because the windows
00:12:01.320 of all of the kind of bank fronts, the financial centers, shop fronts, if you like, are all covered
00:12:08.040 in rainbow flags. You know, so clearly that everyone's gearing up for Pride Month. And these are,
00:12:15.560 you know, forget even culture for the time being, you know, these are the financial, this is the
00:12:20.360 financial district. These are economically, incredibly powerful, wealthy institutions,
00:12:27.480 employing high paid, wealthy, elite people. And they're absolutely bedecked, not just in rainbow flags,
00:12:35.000 but you know, it's the kind of the pink and the blue and the brown to be the kind of the ultra,
00:12:39.560 ultra inclusive pride flag. And you just think, you know, if this movement was truly radical,
00:12:48.360 if it was something that was truly going to upturn the kind of present social status quo,
00:12:57.400 it wouldn't be being adopted by banks and elite institutions. And it wouldn't be so readily and so
00:13:04.200 easily taken on board by all these elite institutions. And the fact that that they can take this on board so
00:13:11.000 so easily so and so desperate, almost to be seen to be having these rainbow flags and to be bedecking
00:13:18.520 themselves in this sets alarm balls ringing with me and it says this is not all it's cracked up to be.
00:13:24.040 So why this issue? Why is much of the Western world, and especially here in Canada and in the US,
00:13:35.880 you know, what is it about this particular issue about trans, the trans agenda that has gotten every,
00:13:44.280 you know, every one of these elite institutions on board? Why are people so passionate about it when
00:13:50.600 there's tons of other things that you could be fighting for? You know, there are so many legitimate
00:13:57.000 issues out there that require attention. But why this? I just, I've been trying to grapple with this
00:14:05.880 question and I'm really, I don't really have an answer to it. No, I agree. I mean, I think it's a
00:14:12.760 really fundamental question. And I wish I could say I had the definitive answer. I'd be lying if I said I
00:14:19.720 do, but I think for me, you know, it gets to the most fundamental premise about what makes us human
00:14:29.640 and on the basis on which we structure our society. So what I mean by that is that being kind of male
00:14:36.920 or female is absolutely the most fundamental characteristic that cuts across social class,
00:14:43.160 it cuts across racial lines, you know, it cuts across every other part of our identity. You know,
00:14:49.880 it's something that parents often learn when, you know, the mum's still pregnant, you know,
00:14:55.160 it's the first thing that the doctor says when we appear in the world. So, you know, it's absolutely
00:15:00.440 the most crucial thing as to what makes us human. And beyond that, it forms the basis for how we organize
00:15:07.240 society. You know, a lot of civilized societies have kind of girls toilets and boys toilets in schools,
00:15:13.800 you know, changing rooms, prisons, hospitals are often segregated along sex based lines.
00:15:22.840 But also it gets to the very heart of a family life, you know, families are still,
00:15:29.000 and probably be criticized for saying this, but it's just a truth that families are still most often
00:15:36.360 a male and a female parent, and they raise children acting as mum and dad become role models for the
00:15:43.640 children become sex based role models, you know, daughters kind of grow up seeing mum and emulating
00:15:49.480 mum, boys grow up seeing dad doesn't mean obviously they become carbon copies. But this is this is the
00:15:55.480 most fundamental part I think of what makes us human of how we organize society, how we organize
00:16:00.760 family life. So I think if you've got some kind of political project, which wants to completely
00:16:05.880 upturn everything we take for granted about humanity, about society, you know, you really want to kind
00:16:12.920 of have a blank piece of paper and start from scratch, then actually going for what we mean by human sex
00:16:19.640 is not a bad place to start from their point of view. And, you know, that I think that's probably one
00:16:26.520 reason why this has become such a central issue.
00:16:31.480 And that too, really in the West, right, and even within the Western world, it's a few countries,
00:16:40.280 you know, and so I wonder what's happening, like, you know, if you take countries like India or China,
00:16:46.680 China, is this is this issue really resonating there in the same way? I mean, they're not
00:16:51.240 are these cultural wars taking place? They're not to my knowledge. And but this is all we seem to be
00:16:57.320 talking about here, especially here in Canada. So is there something happening here that is uniquely
00:17:03.960 different in terms of identity, maybe lack of institutions, maybe I, you know, I'm just trying
00:17:12.200 to come up with, you know, some explanation for why it's so big here and not as big outside the Western
00:17:19.240 world? I mean, I think people like say who want to challenge the family want to challenge the social
00:17:25.400 structures that we have have latched on to this issue. And I think in them doing that, it's become
00:17:31.480 almost a litmus test, it seems to me. So where you stand on this particular issue, really says the extent
00:17:39.960 to which you are old fashioned, you could be written off as old fashioned for still saying
00:17:44.440 you believe that a woman is a biological human female. You know, it's, are you with us? Or are
00:17:52.120 you against us? And this becomes the ultimate test, it seems to me for where you stand, not just on on
00:18:00.600 this particular issue, but across a whole range of issues, it becomes a kind of sorting hat, you know,
00:18:07.080 for which side of this culture war you land upon. And you can see it also becomes a way of compelling
00:18:17.080 people to fall in line. So again, something else I noticed just walking around Toronto today,
00:18:21.400 in the public in the station, and many of the public places, they have sculptures or artworks,
00:18:28.360 and then they have a little piece of writing about the artist. And they always say, you know,
00:18:32.520 the person's name, and then immediately in brackets afterwards, she, her. And I've not noticed that in
00:18:37.960 England quite so much, but I definitely noticed it in Toronto. You know, and I think, again, it's,
00:18:45.480 it's this test that you, you go along with you subscribing, you can use it then to compel, you
00:18:51.640 know, bosses can use it to compel workers, you know, you must display your pronouns on a badge,
00:18:57.640 you must put your pronouns in your signature, which sends a message that, you know, you can't assume
00:19:03.080 someone's gender, they have to fall in line with this. And it would be, you know, it would be
00:19:09.000 unthinkable for a boss to compel their workers to wear a crucifix, for example, or to have to wear a
00:19:16.200 turban or some other kind of religious symbol. And yet, it's seen as quite legitimate for bosses to
00:19:21.800 compel workers to have to wear a pronoun badge or include pronouns on an email signature. So I think
00:19:27.400 it serves a lot of advantages for the people who are in charge of society or in charge of these
00:19:32.920 cultural institutions to really go for it with this issue. Yeah. You know, we frequently encounter
00:19:41.320 criticisms of woke narratives, particularly around gender from the small C conservative side of the
00:19:48.520 aisle. Roughly speaking, people who uphold traditional values when it comes to the definition
00:19:55.960 of what a man or a woman is. But it's also interesting that there's criticism from the left
00:20:02.840 as well, at least from two different quarters. You have the feminists and you have the Marxists.
00:20:09.560 Some feminists on the left are highly critical of the current gender narrative that endangers the
00:20:16.200 position of women by denying who we are. And then the Marxists would argue that debates about gender
00:20:24.280 and sexuality take away from discussions of class struggle and allow the woke elite to retain
00:20:31.560 all their privileges. What do you think of these criticisms? In some sense, you think that these are
00:20:39.720 allies in the I mean, do you have some sympathy for these criticisms coming from the left?
00:20:46.680 Yeah, no, completely. I do. And I think it's really, really important that these are heard.
00:20:51.720 I know that Britain has a reputation internationally for being and, you know, I'm sure your listeners will
00:20:58.520 have heard of this kind of turf island is the nickname, which kind of makes me laugh. But I'm also very,
00:21:04.520 very proud of that. And I think Britain probably far more than Canada and America has seen pushback
00:21:12.040 against a number of these policies in various different areas, which doesn't mean to say for
00:21:15.960 one second that the battle's won or that, you know, this is all over, or that there aren't still
00:21:21.480 victories being scored by the other side. But there is, I think, a lot of opposition to
00:21:26.920 gender ideology in the UK. And I think the reason for that is because it is not a party political
00:21:35.960 issue. Most, I would say, of the opposition to gender ideology in the UK does come from the left,
00:21:42.840 particularly comes from feminists. On the point you're making about Marxists, you know,
00:21:48.760 one point in my youth, you know, I would have called myself a Marxist as well. And one of the central
00:21:54.520 tenants that I took from Marxism was a belief in material reality, you know, in contrast to the
00:22:01.000 critical theory I was getting when I was at university at the time, you know, an actual belief
00:22:05.800 in the existence of material reality was an important principle of Marxism. And you don't get much more
00:22:14.680 real than biology, as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah, I think these criticisms, I think it's vitally
00:22:20.360 important that they heard because I think, I think the problem in some other countries is that when
00:22:24.280 the only criticism of gender ideology comes from the right or small c conservatives, even, it becomes
00:22:32.200 far too easy for this to be then written off as a right wing kind of cause, a right wing cause celeb.
00:22:39.080 And that, I think, silences other critics who don't want to, people who are, you know, perhaps a
00:22:46.840 little bit cowardly or, you know, just a bit nervous about being associated with that label of being
00:22:52.840 right wing. Yeah, no. And, and, and, you know, I wonder what the, you know, final question for you,
00:22:58.760 Joanna, what, what is the best strategy for those of us who want to restore common sense and tolerance
00:23:05.800 for different points of view? You know, how do we push back against this, you know, incredibly corrosive
00:23:12.600 and damaging narrative of woke narrative, which marginalizes and cancels anyone who disagrees with
00:23:18.360 them? You know, what is the way forward in this fight? Well, to come kind of full circle from where
00:23:24.280 we started this conversation, you know, I do think free speech is, is absolutely the most vital principle
00:23:30.120 because, you know, this is the way that the woke cultural elites win is by trying to put a discussion
00:23:37.480 completely beyond debate. And the more we insist that these things are not put beyond debate, that
00:23:43.400 we do have free speech, that we are allowed to talk about these issues, it allows us to shine the kind
00:23:48.840 of the spotlight of, of, of a disinfectant, you know, on this issue and actually let people open it up to
00:23:57.320 democratic accountability, let people in, let people have a say. And, and the more you do that,
00:24:04.680 the more you let kind of ordinary people to use a horrible phrase, have a say on these issues,
00:24:09.720 the more the elites come up against a big, big shock, which is that people are not on board with
00:24:14.600 these ideas. You know, and this is why I kind of tied with the title of my book a lot, you know,
00:24:19.720 How Woke Won, because it's won in the sense that it's been taken on board by a cultural elite,
00:24:25.080 the people running our institutions, but I really don't think it's won in the sense of being taken on
00:24:30.200 board by a majority of the population. And I think the problem is the cultural elite want to keep the
00:24:35.560 majority of the population out of the discussion, they'd like just to rule us out of the picture
00:24:41.160 altogether. So I think the more we insist on free speech, the more we insist on democracy and
00:24:46.680 democratic accountability, then the woke cultural elite will have to take account of the fact that
00:24:52.760 they've not they failed where they failed is in convincing the regular people on the street,
00:24:58.760 but their views are right. And that's the irony, if you like about the censorship that they're
00:25:03.240 enforcing. They're not convincing anybody by this censorship. They're just putting the topic beyond
00:25:09.800 debate, which doesn't actually win the argument for them in the long run. It just means the debate
00:25:14.920 can't be heard out right now.
00:25:16.760 So do you find yourself generally optimistic about this fight? I mean, you know, has wokeism
00:25:24.520 peaked as such, and that the pendulum is going to be shifting back? I sometimes feel very pessimistic,
00:25:35.240 and I'm not seeing that at all. But there are days I feel optimistic about it. What is your general sense?
00:25:41.320 Yeah, no, absolutely the same. I change hourly, you know, sometimes I feel very optimistic,
00:25:47.400 sometimes I feel very pessimistic. And it's very, very hard to say who's one. The only thing I would
00:25:51.960 say, you know, was that if woke people were truly confident in their own arguments, they wouldn't be
00:25:57.160 resorting to censorship. You know, I see censorship as a sign of weakness. Like I say, it means they
00:26:04.040 perhaps win the battle in the short term, but they don't win the war that way. You know, if they were
00:26:09.000 truly confident, they would say, we have the best arguments, you know, we will have this debate with
00:26:14.760 anybody who wants to come because we are so confident that we can beat you hands down, you
00:26:21.000 know, we can have these arguments and we can win because we're so persuasive, we're so convinced
00:26:25.640 we're right. Every time I hear about someone being no platformed or, you know, articles being pulled
00:26:31.560 from newspapers or some type of censorship, it actually does make me, you know, it's infuriating,
00:26:37.560 first of all, but then it makes me think, well, you know, you clearly you are so cowardly, you know,
00:26:42.840 you didn't dare let people have that argument out in public, because you know, that your own
00:26:49.160 arguments do not stand up to scrutiny. And so I guess in a funny kind of way, that does actually make
00:26:54.760 me a little bit optimistic. Well, yeah, I'm hoping that the that there is some common sense that
00:27:03.560 is restored in the debate. And, and, and I hope that happens sooner rather than later. But Joanna,
00:27:11.320 thank you so much for joining me for coming on the show and for sharing your thoughts with us. And
00:27:19.080 again, I apologize that on behalf of those people who canceled you, this is not the Canada that,
00:27:28.280 you know, I fell in love with when I came here many years ago. And it's certainly changed since
00:27:35.160 I've been here. And it's unfortunate what happened to you. But I hope that you've also received a lot
00:27:41.240 of support in the wake of this, of you being canceled by London Public Library. And I wish you all the best
00:27:49.000 and, and, and, you know, good luck with your talk on Friday. Thank you very much. Indeed,
00:27:54.600 it's been a real pleasure speaking with you. Thank you.