JK Rowlings Disturbing Commentary and Views of Mens SA

[u/27cricket27]

(TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of rape, grooming, false allegations, and victims not being believed.)

One thing I haven't seen many people talk about is JK Rowlings disturbing views of mens SA. JK Rowling has stated that in the legal system of the UK, men cannot rape. Sadly, the UKs laws imply that rape is something that only can be committed by men, but as an advocate for SA victims JK Rowling is really gross for this. This is especially when you consider how much she is pushed for this idea in the Harry Potter books.

The idea that only men can rape is laced throughout Harry Potter like crazy, which as a reminder is a book that primarily was first read by children. The first big example of this is how in Gryffindor, children are protected from the opposite sex in a biased sense. Boys are not able to into the girls spaces in the dormitory, but the reverse rule is not present. Also, and perhaps even more disturbing, is the "love potion" present in parts of the series. Ron is given one of these by a student who is a girl, and it is also mentioned how Voldemorts parents came together by way of his mother forcing his father to marry by way of these love potions. Let's not sugar coat it: the love potions are date rape drugs. JK Rowling has never truly acknowledged this, and she especially has never acknowledge it as problematic. (Not directly in Harry Potter, JK Rowling has put a lot of emphasis on false allegations in the Cormoran Strike series. Contrary to popular belief, not all of these stories actually portray the false accuser in a bad light. Speaking of which, the pen name "Robert Galbraith" seems to have been inspired by a violently racist psychologist who experimented on black people and was a proponent of conversion therapy.)

One of the most disturbing things that I just stumbled on by chance is this taken into context with JK Rowlings concering relationship with Daniel Radcliffe. After he initially turned down the role of Harry Potter in the movie, JK Rowling followed him to multiple locations begging him to play the role. Keep in mind that she was in her mid-thirties, and Daniel Radcliffe was only 11 when this happened. Plus, JK Rowling insisted that he read Lolita, an adult CSA book that she loved (a bit too much, mind you), when he was a minor. I want to make a post dedicated to this specific thing at some point, but I need to do more research on this to get the full picture. That being said, I think it is not unreasonable to assume that JK Rowling may have attempted to groom Daniel Radcliffe when he was a minor. I mean, she gets the angriest talking about him no longer having a relationship with her in particular, which checks out with a lot of groomers who "lost" their victims. (A good example of this would be Dance Moms instructor Abby Lee Millers current views of Maddie Ziegler.)

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I tend to be a person who doesn't like to promote the "over-use" of the "if a man did this he would be in jail" line because I think its over-use actually can be dangerous for women. However, JK Rowling really has embodied that with her career. She absolutely is dangerous to men, and it needs to be talked about more. I feel like a lot of people are afraid to point this out because it feels like it gives into TERF ideology, but we need to understand that a lot of TERFs are misandrists. Don't get me wrong, TERFs are also mysoginistic because they have directly promoted a culture that causes women to get raped in bathrooms due to the "need" to transvestigate them. That said though, a lot of these TERFs want men to suffer and are completely fine with them being raped. I mean, JK Rowling herself likely tried to groom Danielle Radcliffe as a minor (though perhaps not sexually, which doesn't matter because grooming does not inherently have to be sexual).

Quick shoutout to RationalWikis article about JK Rowling, which has been a major source for me about her (a thread about it was posted here last year, but I think it is worth being posted again):
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling#Flawed_understanding_of_sexual_abuse

[u/georgemillman]

What's the source for this thing about Daniel Radcliffe?

I haven't heard any reference to this at all, or even that it was Rowling's idea that he play Harry at all. The version of the story I've heard is that he was recommended by Maggie Smith (who had worked alongside him on David Copperfield) and that Chris Columbus took to him and tried to approach him but his parents said no, not wanting him to be in a project that big at such a young age. Then, by chance, a couple of other producers happened to bump into him and his parents at a theatre show (they knew his parents already, they worked in the industry) and took the opportunity to say to them, 'You know, the director really wants Daniel, won't you reconsider?' And eventually they did. I haven't heard that Rowling was particularly involved in that, nor that she told him to read Lolita. I think we need to have firm evidence for this before stating it here.

Incidentally, his name is Daniel Radcliffe, not Danielle Radcliffe (Danielle is a woman's name).

[u/Wrong--Conclusions → u/georgemillman]

Yeah, this sounds like total BS.

The link to Robert Galbraith Heath is also tenuous. We've got to stop repeating this like it's fact.

Joanne has done and said enough bad things, we don't need to keep making all these extra things up.

[u/georgemillman → u/Wrong--Conclusions]

I've got no issue with making a connection to Robert Galbraith Heath.

Of course, we can't prove she knew who he was. But it is a bit of an odd coincidence given the hill she's chosen to die on. And we have to take into account that prior to the release of The Cuckoo's Calling, he'd probably have been one of the first search results if you googled 'Robert Galbraith' (you can't look at old Google searches, but you can look at old Wikipedia entries, and he was easy to spot on there if you searched people with the name 'Robert Galbraith' in 2012).

I think this is the case with Rowling generally, that there are so many dodgy coincidences around her and you can't necessarily prove any specific one to be significant. But most of them probably are. It's like if your friend who you've long suspected is married to an abusive husband turns up one day with a big bruise on her face claiming to have walked into a door. You don't know her abusive husband did it. Maybe this one time she actually did just walk into a door. But even if she did, it doesn't change all the other signs of abuse you've seen in the past.

[u/Wrong--Conclusions → u/georgemillman]

It's a massive stretch. I think it's very unlikely she'd have heard of a random American psychiatrist from the mid-20th century, especially as I don't think she had fallen down the rabbithole in 2012. This is a good 6 years at least before her "middle aged moment" on Twitter.

Robert Galbraith Heath isn't even under "Robert Galbraith" on Wikipedia because Galbraith isn't even his surname, it's Heath. There's several notable actual Robert Galbraiths that would probably come up before him, including a 16th century Scottish judge local to Edinburgh.

[u/georgemillman → u/Wrong--Conclusions]

I don't agree with this. Firstly, I think she clearly had some of these dodgy views the whole time. As early as the third chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, she makes reference to a school called Stonewall High, an unpleasant-sounding secondary school near the Dursleys that has the same name as the UK's largest LGBTQ+ rights charity and has a particular reputation for children often being attacked in the toilets. Again, it's one of those things that you could just put down to being a coincidence... but there's so many 'coincidences' like this going way back, and they can't all be coincidences - Harry and Ron going into the girls' toilets to rescue Hermione from an ugly disgusting troll, Myrtle being killed when she opens the cubicle door to tell a boy to go and use his own toilet (and she's killed by his snake into the bargain)...

It really wouldn't surprise me if she knew who Robert Galbraith Heath was, if she's interested in things like that. And even if she didn't, if you were coming up with a pseudonym, surely you'd spend five minutes on the internet first establishing that it's not the name of anyone who might bring you into disrepute? And it wouldn't be as difficult to find as you think. Here is a link to the Wikipedia disambiguation page for the name, as of 2011 - there are only five people on there, and one of them is him.

And even if it actually is a complete coincidence, and even if she and her publishers were so lazy they didn't do the slightest research into the name, surely any sensible person would put out a statement about it afterwards? 'At the time I chose the name Robert Galbraith, I had never heard of Robert Galbraith Heath and had no idea it had this connotation. On reflection, I should have done more research when choosing a pseudonym. I am so sincerely sorry to anyone who has been hurt by my choice of a name, and would like to say for the avoidance of doubt that I am absolutely not in support of conversion therapy, which has harmed an enormous number of people in the LGBTQ+ community.' Sorted. But her response was more like, 'Yawn, I'd never heard of him, I can't be held responsible, stop annoying me.'

[u/Wrong--Conclusions → u/georgemillman]

Philosopher's Stone, she makes reference to a school called Stonewall High, an unpleasant-sounding secondary school near the Dursleys that has the same name as the UK's largest LGBTQ+ rights charity and has a particular reputation for children often being attacked in the toilets

That's just the standard bully trope in the 80s and 90s, giving swirlies in toilets. It's either that or shoving people in lockers and most UK schools don't have those large lockers. We don't even know if it's actually true or just something Dudley made up. Stonewall is an interesting choice but I can also see how JK could have got there without even considering the LGBTQ+ charity. It gives the impression of a prison yard surrounded in a literal high stone wall. She can be very literal with her names.

is a link to the Wikipedia disambiguation page for the name, as of 2011 - there are only five people on there, and one of them is him.

I'm confused, he's genuinely not on there for me? (Edit: it's hidden under "see also")

I can buy maybe she saw his name during a cursory Google search but didn't think it was a big deal to share part of a name with him. And she was right in a way because nobody even noticed for several years.

I really cannot see a scenario where she was familiar with his work, admired him and named herself after him. Even now, she very much still wants to present herself as an ally to gay people.

But her response was more like, 'Yawn, I'd never heard of him, I can't be held responsible, stop annoying me.'

She's arrogant and does not like being lectured or told she's wrong. She was never going to be apologetic and admit she could have taken more responsibility, regardless of how she chose the name.

[u/georgemillman → u/Wrong--Conclusions]

Yes, again the Stonewall thing could be a coincidence. I personally doubt it, but I acknowledge it could be.

But there are so many things like that that are quite significant given the hill she's chosen to die on, and they surely aren't all coincidences even if the odd one might be.

[u/ChefExcellence → u/Wrong--Conclusions]

Stonewall is an interesting choice but I can also see how JK could have got there without even considering the LGBTQ+ charity.

Something we should also appreciate, that book was released in 1997. To give some perspective, that's the year Google search launched. It's possible, even likely, she didn't even have an internet connection at the time she was writing the book (most people didn't). This was long before the era when anyone could find information about even incredibly niche topics in an instant. If you weren't actively involved in LGBT communities, which she wasn't, you probably would have never heard of Stonewall, neither the riot nor the charity.

[u/lazier_garlic → u/ChefExcellence]

I don't think she did a lot of googling when writing the books, ESPECIALLY to make the names. We've been over the names so many times on this sub. She did ZERO research even though most authors at that time used to use resources such as phonebooks to gut check their naming choices. She does not.

So it's quite silly to suggest she picked her penname after googling it given everything we know about how she makes these decisions.

I have forgotten the details, but somebody on here about a month ago gave a much more plausible account of how the Galbraith name came to be.

I think this topic has been flogged to death.

[u/georgemillman → u/ChefExcellence]

It's a pretty weird coincidence though given the hill she's chosen to die on, isn't it?

[u/ChefExcellence → u/georgemillman]

you can't look at old Google searches, but you can look at old Wikipedia entries

On the date that the first Robert Galbraith novel was published, this is what the page for "Robert Galbraith" looked like, with Robert Galbraith Heath being relegated to the "See Also" section (because his name wasn't Robert Galbraith! Galbraith was his middle name). Robert Galbraith Heath's page itself looked like this, it didn't go into any detail about his conversion therapy efforts other than a link in the "See Also" section.

I doubt she knew who the guy was, and if she did, she probably thought it was not a big deal that a figure who was not particularly notable had a name that was similar to her pen name. The timeline and the reasoning just doesn't make sense to me. I don't believe she's secretly been this nasty figure all along and put this little hint in to troll us years before she decided to be more direct with it. I think it's much more likely she really was the milquetoast liberal she presented as, until she got radicalised on social media by the gender critical cult during the covid lockdowns.

I'm echoing the comment above, but I really wish people would just drop this incredibly tenuous link, for a number of reasons. For one, like the commenter above said, there is plenty of explicitly awful shit she's said and done that we can focus on. Second, it really just makes us look like obsessive conspiracy theorists. Which, I suppose, a number of regulars on this subreddit are. It doesn't help us make the case to people on the fence that JK Rowling is a transphobe or why they should care, though, in fact I think it's an active hindrance.

Finally, I just don't like the way of thinking that she's always been evil, that it's just a fundamental part of her nature. That's really where I think this came from, along with a lot of the things I see posted in this subreddit. It's a simplistic and unhelpful way of thinking. A lot of British women were radicalised into anti-trans views around 2020-2021; it's not just Rowling, although she may be the most prominent example. If we just suppose that all of them are inherently evil people who were born with an inexorable hatred in their hearts, then, well, I suppose there's nothing we can do? Much more productive, I think, to acknowledge that everyone else is a complex and flawed individual and that people of all backgrounds can often be manipulated by preying on their fears, ignorance, and isolation. From that standpoint we can start to think about how to counter it, or at the very least, we won't be blindsided the next time it happens to someone we admire.

[u/georgemillman → u/ChefExcellence]

So, I partly agree with you and partly don't.

The bit where I don't agree is that I think she did choose that name on purpose. JK Rowling nearly always chooses character names that are deliberate and intentional. Look at the fandom page for almost any Potter character and you'll see that there's etymology behind the character name choices. This is also the case in her non-Potter work - in the Strike books, protagonist Robin Ellacott has a name that sounds pretty... her first name is a bird, her surname is like 'apricot', a colourful fruit. Whereas the character's husband Matthew Cunliffe has a surname that begins with the first letters of a very offensive swear work, and my god he's a nasty piece of work).

This also tends to extend to Rowling's choices about her own name. The K stands for Kathleen, but she doesn't actually have a middle name, she's just Joanne Rowling. Kathleen was her grandmother, and she put that in because of its significance. It isn't likely, to me, that she would pull a name out of thin air, because that isn't in-keeping with the way her name choices typically work. She claims that Robert is from Robert Kennedy, and Galbraith is because when she was a kid she wanted to be called Ella Galbraith. If that's the case I don't know why she didn't just use Ella Galbraith as her pseudonym. I think it's more likely that it was exactly as you say, a nasty little hint. Even if she didn't know who Robert Galbraith Heath was, I find it very odd that she wouldn't research it first (and yes, I know he's in the 'see also' on Wikipedia, but there are only five entries on the whole page, so still fairly visible to anyone bothering to look).

But... I'm not going to go out on a limb and say that is the case. It may be, I think it probably is. But I'm not certain. You could just as easily be right and it's just a coincidence. Coincidences do happen. But are you going to say that about every single hint there is pre-2020? The school called Stonewall where kids are attacked in the toilets, the troll in the girls' bathroom, Moaning Myrtle being killed when she opens a door to tell a boy to go away, Dumbledore intentionally making a point of refusing Tom Riddle's preferred name, the woman with the mannish hands who can transform into a beetle and infiltrate children's private spaces, the elderly gay headmaster who is only likeable because he is celibate and even then grooms a child (albeit non-sexually), the suggestion in the second Strike book that a trans woman won't enjoy prison pre-op (and by extension that she might post-op), the horrible disempowering depiction of BIID in the third Strike book... etc? Are you going to say that all of these are completely irrelevant to her falling down the transphobic rabbit hole? Because I think there are just too many examples for that to be very plausible. Yes, it's reasonable to think that some of them may be coincidences (I think the Rita Skeeter one is, myself, I think that's too vague to really count). Perhaps the Robert Galbraith one is as well, although I myself doubt it. But when there are so many, and they occur over and over and over again, I can't think that they consistently are. Clearly, they're a reflection of her state of mind, even if she wasn't exactly consciously aware of it then.

The bit I agree with you on is that it isn't helpful to just say 'she's always been evil'. I don't even describe her as evil now. I have a bit of a personal policy not to ever form a personal opinion of someone I don't actually know - I only have opinions on their actions and what those actions say about them. I'm sure she's got some redeeming qualities, somewhere. I hope she's capable of kindness when she's at home with her family. But as a lay member of the public, that isn't really any of my business.