J.K. Rowling: Emma Watson Poured Petrol on Trans Attacks Against Me and is “Ignorant of How Ignorant She Is”
J.K. Rowling has accused Emma Watson of “pouring more petrol on the flames” of an attempt to cancel her by trans activists and said the Harry Potter actress is “ignorant of how ignorant she is”. The Telegraph has more.
In a post on X, the Harry Potter author claimed the actress who played Hermione Granger in the film series had participated in the “trashing of women’s rights”.
She also revealed that Watson had given her a handwritten note saying “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through” at the height of the threats against Rowling.
The author wrote: “Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one-line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.”
Last week, Watson insisted that she “treasured” Rowling despite a public fallout over the author’s gender-critical views.
Rowling said: “Emma and Dan [Radcliffe] in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right – nay, obligation – to critique me and my views in public.
“Like other people who’ve never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she’s ignorant of how ignorant she is. … I wasn’t a multimillionaire at 14.
“I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women’s rights, in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated, means to women and girls without her privileges.”
Worth reading in full.
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Suicidal empathy towards trans ideology is the real pandemic in our society. Like it’s sister Critical Race Theory, trans ideology is a plague that needs eradicating… fast!
What does poverty have to do with women’s rights?
What rights did JK Rowling not have as a woman at any point in her life (rights. – not claims of discrimination – rights)?
I hate to say this and it will no doubt bring all sorts of vitriol my way, but what I see from this is a woman with some pretty muddled thinking in the midst of a storm of self-victimisation.
Perhaps her point is that being rich just gives you a better life in many ways – which is true – but I don’t see what it has to do with the beef they have with each other, as far as I understand it*.
Being charitable, because I don’t know the woman or much about her, I would say she’s just grabbing at ways to hit back. Muddled, perhaps.
I’d like to see a debate between the two, moderated by someone who could pick both of them up on logical inconsistencies.
*I’m not honestly sure beyond knowing that Rowling correctly states that men are men and women are women and sex is immutable, and presumably Watson either doesn’t think that or thinks that in any case people “identifying” as women should be able to use spaces that have traditionally been reserved for women. I’m with Rowling on both of those things.
JKR was making the point that Emma Watson has, since about the age of 10, has been fortunate to live in wealth luxurious isolation from the consequences of her beliefs. Further that she had joined the Trans thinking bubble, again with no thought of the consequences to the individuals that it harms, rather than those it purports to support. I didn’t find that hard to understand from reading her comments. Maybe you should read it again without prejudice. Maybe my my English Comprehension is just better. I dont know.
I understood all that.
But she also said that her growing up in poverty somehow gave her insight into “the trashing of women’s rights”.
Why? What does women rights have to do with poverty?
Because it’s the ordinary women/girls who live in the real world who are primarily affected by all this trans garbage. It is they, not the rich and famous, who now inhabit a totally different standard of living and are far removed from the reality on the ground, who have their sex-based rights trampled on due to all single-sex spaces for females now becoming essentially ‘mixed sex’ spaces. J.K remembers a life before she was rich and successful, Emma, in contrast, does not, so cannot relate to the experiences of regular females. I read somewhere that Emma had millionaire parents before she was even famous, therefore is well out of touch with how ordinary, working class folk live. I can’t stand these entitled, spoilt, virtue-signalling, vacuous idiots, personally. Maybe some more context from her comments will help; ”She’ll never need a homeless shelter. She’s never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I’d be astounded if she’s been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her ‘public bathroom’ is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a… Read more »
She has also written that she is “a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor.”
Well, that’s terrible if it’s so. But that has nothing to do with poverty and nothing to do with “rights”. I think I can safely say that for JK Rowling’s entire life the law has not allowed the abuse and sexual assault of women (or men).
I think I can safely say that for JK Rowling’s entire life the law has not allowed the abuse and sexual assault of women (or men).
Well, it happens nevertheless, happens more frequently in the lives of poor people and is more serious there. Eg, domestic abuse by a violent male partner the woman cannot leave without making herself homeless because she’s both dependent on his accommodation and income.
In the extremely unlikely case that Watson should ever have problem with a violent partner, it’s probably going to be in her house and even if it isn’t, she could easily relocate to a hotel with security at a moments notice and would be none the worse for that except some relatively minor, temporary inconvenience.
That’s obviously still bad enough but miles away from having to rely on a mixed sex homeless shelter regularly frequented by criminal men “under influence.”
JK Rowling didn’t have to experience any trans garbage growing up in poverty because there wasn’t any trans garbage then. So just because she grew up on poverty doesn’t – as far as I can see – give her any special insights into that particular “trashing of women’s rights’.
In fact, she has experienced the entire trans lunacy from the very same position of privilege as Watson since throughout that time she has been as rich – nay, way richer than Watson.
Well done to Rowling for standing up to trans stupidity. But I still fail to see why her being poor means she has special knowledge about the plight of women without rights. What rights did she not have because she was poor?
That’s the wrong question because it’s not about rights Rowling didn’t have because she was poor but about protection against violent men and protection of female privacy poor women will need more often than rich women which are nowadays no longer generally available to them but still used to be at the time when Rowling wrote her original novel.
The last paragraph of the comment you’re replying to has that actually already all spelled out.
She used her talent to achieve her success and wealth. Now she has actors and actresses who have used her genius to earn money and trash her because their Agents and hangers on support the latest fad.
Sorry I had not read your further posts. I agree that women’s rights and the defence of them has nothing to do with the financial background of an individual, its the same mantra as Labour uses to excuse the behaviour of “working class” Angela Rayner.
However I do think that perhaps what Rowling might have meant is that she grew up in a “normal” environment, where the sort of luxury thinking that these two young people will have never known, effectively they have been steeped from birth in a very elite, very luxury beliefs sort of world where reality has never confronted them.
Wheras Rowling before she became super rich has experienced reality with regular, normal society.
I apologise for the above comment as I realise you are not a magical thinking believer.
Thank you, you’ve phrased it better than I could have.
I suspect the author’s name offers a clue as to her suspicion of prejudice against women (writers) as well as male dominance from the outset of her career. Using an ungendered name to avoid misogyny is common practice among female writers.
What’s muddled about there being 2 sexes a male and a female chromosonally different as throughout the mammalian species, and the Lion does not become the Lioness because he shears his Mane.
The muddled reference was to Rowling somehow equating poverty or lack thereof with the ability to understand the importance of “women’s rights”. I think that was pretty clear. I am sure stewart understands the difference between male and female and knows that Rowling does too.
That’s based on a misinterpretation or misunderstanding what Rowling pretty obviously meant when she wrote about “women’s rights”: Not legal rights granted by the state but the informal/ conventional right to single-sex spaces for a variety purposes, from rape crisis centers to changing rooms of public swimming pools. Some of these rights even didn’t really exist not that long ago. Eg, one can easily gather from certain Sherlock Holmes stories that a violent, drunk man taking it out on the womenfolk (“… and the women ran for it”, The Adventure of Black Peter) was pretty much considered an unfortunate domestic problem certain people just have to cope with in Victorian times.
Application of the so-called principle of charity¹ seems wanting here, namely, an attempt to interpret what someone wrote in a way which makes sense and then criticizing that instead criticizing and interpretation which doesn’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity
self-victimisation?
Here’s her whole statement from 2020.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/
She escaped her first, violent marriage and experienced a serious sexual assault in her twenties. Whether by the same man I’m not clear. In both cases her legal rights clearly weren’t respected. She was obviously traumatised and still jumps at sudden noises.
All this was before she wrote the books and became rich.
I’d say there’s at least some connection in her mind between being poor and having her rights ignored.
From the quote you were critiquing I sort of get your point, but I think it rather uncharitable. You could have read other sources beforehand.
Poverty is very much linked to the loss of agency for women. Worth considering that the crash of 2008, the hideous financial constraints placed upon Greece led to an explosion of prostitution in and around Athens as women sold the only thing they had left. The links between poverty and prostitution is the absolute proof of the erosion of women right when you ave nothing left to sell but your dignity.
I get that you don’t like her, but her comments about the ungrateful brats and trans activists are spot on.
Off-T – a fascinating look into the madness of Net Zero, Kathryn Porter on Triggernometry. She knows her stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzCiEHGVMwA
Is Watson that mousey kid that Rowling created a life for. Ungrateful brat.
She was already from a wealthy background, Rowling just facilitated her earning her own multi millions.
She is also the actress who can’t act. Her performance in Little Women was lifeless and wooden.
In the The Order of the Phoenix, Hermione Granger spends a great deal of the book as an activist campaigning for the rights of the oppressed House elves. Perhaps Emma Watson is still ‘in character’. It’s rather harsh for Ms J K Rowling to describe Emma Watson as ‘ignorant of how ignorant she is’ when Hermione Granger is the swot of Hogwarts. ‘Unexperienced’ with life, would be more accurate. And kind; respectful of the mutual friendship both once had, and in pity for its end. But then the wizarding world was always a bit odd. One had to be born into it. Hogwarts was never egalitarian; it could not be entered by merit. The good people are always good and the bad always bad. Of the bad, there is never anything of merit about their complaints about how this exclusive world operates. Perhaps the impressionable child that was Emma Watson took on too much of its mould. There’s a little something of the trans in the way that the child characters can take on the appearance of another person by drinking a potion made with a part of that person’s body; though they remain the same sex. That this enables… Read more »
I would never refer to Emma Watson or Daniel Radcliffe as Actors, as evidenced by their lack of careers since the Harry Potter series finished. They were both children whose Parents position in the Industry gained them access to the roles, and neither were even mildly proficient as child actors.
Theis lack of gratitude towards J.K. Rowling and their subsequent trashing of the rights of the biological female demonstrates their utter removal from the reality of the normal majority in society and their own spoilt kidadult view of the world.
As Alan Rickman noted ‘They don’t know their lines and Emma’s diction is this side of Albania at times,”
Emma is irrevant as the Agents and hangers on control them and their money .
Trans is the fad du jeur and am sure will soon be replaced with something else.
My bet is we have Arfo Carribeans copied by white folk using black makeup and taking the jobs for black folk and no one dares say a thing . Lunacy on ster
Exactly!
This wilful ignorance of the young can be summed up in the very simple philosophy of another entirely fictional character.
”Stupid is what stupid does”. Forrest Gump.
Young people today have an arrogance to their ignorance. They think they earned wealth of resources that surrounds them by their sheer entitlement, ironically, refusing to listen to the previous generations who created it all.
They think old people have nothing to teach them and they have nothing to learn because of the internet and all their fellow geniuses on social media.
There’s another old idiom they might want to reflect upon. Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
A good article and food for thought. Something hungry minds might want to consider.
No one is born with wisdom and it is often thrust upon people in adversity and very rarely those who have been cushioned by wealth. Look around at the powers that be in our crazy times. Such a concept is bound to hurt a few wealthy narcissists.
I mean it’s not as if Emma Watson could ever act! Nor Daniel Radcliffe. Wooden doesn’t come into it.