What Price Free Speech?

The superb film Suffragette certainly makes you think. It also made me thankful for our democracy and our freedom of speech. In one hundred years you could argue that we have come a long way – especially in the emancipation of women.   However there are disturbing signs that the democracy and free speech we so take for granted are under threat.

Germaine Greer, once the young fiery feminist author of The Female Eunuch, has found herself at the centre of a free speech storm in the University of Cardiff. Greer, now 76, has been faced with demands for her to be banned from speaking at the University because of her ‘problematic and hateful’ views.   Rachel Melhuish, the Women’s Office at Cardiff University Students Union has labeled Greer as extremely transphobic. Greer had opined; “I just don’t think surgery turns a man into a woman. A perfectly permissible view. I mean, an un-man is not necessarily a woman. A great many male to female transgender people do not look, sound or behave like a woman”. This does not seem an unreasonable, unsafe or ugly example of hate speech. But according to Ms. Melhuish “while debate in a university should be encouraged, hosting a speaker with such problematic and hateful views towards marginalised and vulnerable groups is dangerous. Allowing Greer a platform endorses her views and by extension, the transmisogyny which she continues to perpetuate.”
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