Suzanne Moore on International Women’s Day:

As a feminist, though, I would indeed like the world to be a better place for women – and by the world, I don’t mean north London or a campus in California; I mean Herat, Tigray, Guatemala. For all the arguments about equality for women amount to nothing if we lose an international perspective. Feminism is global, or it is simply an exercise in consumer power dressed up as politics. That is exactly what happened to Western feminism in the 1990s, when everything from brunching to boob jobs was “empowering”.

Seriously. You don’t see women in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or Nigeria running around exclaiming about their trans sisters – they have other … Read the rest

Meanwhile, we just can’t figure out what a woman is.

Woman’s Hour starting at 21:15:

Emma Barnett: And Labour’s definition of a woman?

Labour Equalities Shadow Minster Annalise Dodds: Well, I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is, I mean you look at the definition within the Equality Act and I think it just says someone who is adult and female I think but that doesn’t say how you define either of those things – I mean that said obviously you’ve got the biological definition, the legal definition –

In short we just don’t quite know. There are different definitions, it all depends, you have to ask around, there’s the legal definition … Read the rest

In London you can be fined for it.

Just one in every 1,000 drivers reported for unnecessary idling of their engines were fined in central London, data has revealed.

Toxic air pollution kills about 4,000 people every year in the capital and councils have targeted parked drivers who do not turn off their vehicles.

In Westminster, more than 70,000 idling drivers have been reported since 2017 via the council’s “report it” website. But only 63 fines of £80 were issued and just half of these were paid.

Damn I wish we could report it here. People do it more than they used to rather than less.

Air pollution may be damaging every organ in the human

The Vagina Museum kept its word, with 22 tweets celebrating men pretending to be women. Like…

Sisters LANA AND LILLY WACHOWSKI (1965-, 1967-) continue to smash box office records together in their careers as directors, producers and writers. Their 1999 film The Matrix is considered one of the greatest movies of all time, and is seen by many as a transgender metaphor. pic.twitter.com/vp7Xp22y61

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) March 8, 2022

That one in particular interests me because the man looks frankly scary. You wouldn’t want to be trapped anywhere alone with him – he has that “I’m just barely keeping my temper” look. I think the Vagina Museum chose that photo for that reason. I don’t understand why they did … Read the rest

One day. We can’t even have one day.

This #InternationalWomensDay we're going to talk about trans women in history. We've turned replies off, because we know some people would prefer these stories to be erased and silenced.

— Vagina Museum (@vagina_museum) March 8, 2022

They’ve turned replies off because they know this is a calculated, intentional, with malice aforethought insult to women. “This International Women’s Day we’re going to talk about men, so fuck you, Karen.”… Read the rest

Originally a comment by latsot on Sitting on the gender spectrum.

I’ve tried many times (as have others) to engage with gender identity fans on this point, asking them to state the GC position in such a way that a typical person broadly on the GC side would agree with it. A sort of Turing test. I’ve spent considerable amounts of time and effort on this and on trying to return the favour: on trying to state the TA position such that a typical TA person would agree.

You know what? I’ve never had the slightest success in either direction.

When they’ve even made an attempt to state the GC position with any honesty at all (rare), we’ve never … Read the rest

Oh and what else is Rowling up to today? Nothing much…

I will personally match donations to this appeal, up to £1m. Thank you so, so much to all who’ve already donated, you’re enabling @lumos to do crucial work for some of the most vulnerable children in Ukraine. https://t.co/XK8yTtB1nl

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Never?

I’ve never, to my knowledge, encouraged anyone to bully anyone else. And I can imagine only too well what Julie has had to face in her years of feminist activism. I think she’s more resilient than me- but she should not have had to be. Nor does it excuse the way she’s acting now.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 7, 2022

Where have I said that?

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 7, 2022

See TERF Wars: Why Transphobia Has no Place in Feminism, from June 2020:

Last week, beloved children’s author J.K. Rowling briefly became the world’s most famous transphobe. After the Harry Potter writer spent days defending transphobia on Twitter and in her blog, writing that she

Or to put it more succinctly –

oh. https://t.co/s4B6q5Cdfw https://t.co/pgcSLHNrGk pic.twitter.com/SVYkiOiTzz

— Admiral Invalidator (@Artofhunger75) March 7, 2022

… Read the rest

Another chapter in the crisps on a train saga.

Thoughts and prayers, Julie.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 7, 2022

Just in case you missed Apparently it’s considered unprofessional, or have forgotten the details, Laurie Penny tweeted to the world yesterday that bad reviews of her book set off her (putative) CPTSD. Julie is satirizing that absurd claim, and JKR is sharing the joke. So what does the putative CPTSD sufferer do? She makes a public fool of herself all over again. Somebody really should tell her she’s the source of her own CPTSD.

Hi Joanne. I’ve loved so much of your writing over the years. I’m the person whose mental health history is being mocked in this tweet,

How to react when your book is greeted with harsh reviews:

Wildly hateful reviews and straight-up personal attacks were placed prominently in a number of major broadsheets. The focus was almost wholly on my sexuality, my gender identity and sexual history. Everyone- my agent, my publishers, me- was taken by surprise at the viciousness. >

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 6, 2022

Apparently it’s considered unprofessional to respond to reviews. But in this case, those involved in the hit-job are the ones who behaved unprofessionally. I’m done pretending otherwise. They knew exactly what they were doing, and frankly they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) March 6, 2022

It’s unprofessional to write a review saying Laurie … Read the rest

The ACLU tells us:

Families in Texas are worried that supporting their transgender kids will lead to a report of child abuse. We are already seeing families being investigated. Gender-affirming care is medically necessary, saves lives, and shouldn’t be the subject of an investigation.

Supporting transgender kids is one thing, and letting them get amputations and/or puberty blockers and/or cross-sex hormones is another. The ACLU does not know that what it calls “gender-affirming care” (i.e. amputations, puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones) is medically necessary, nor does it know that it saves more lives than it puts at risk. This is all new territory and it’s just not obvious, let alone established, that there won’t be thousands of people who regret … Read the rest

Trump said we should bomb Russia and pretend China did it. Sound and reasonable as ever.

Former president Donald Trump mused Saturday to the GOP’s top donors that the United States should label its F-22 planes with the Chinese flag and “bomb the shit out of Russia.”

…

“And then we say, China did it, we didn’t do it, China did it, and then they start fighting with each other and we sit back and watch,” he said of labeling U.S. military planes with Chinese flags and bombing Russia, which was met with laughter from the crowd of donors, according to a recording of the speech obtained by The Washington Post.

Hahahaheehee it is all such a great joke.… Read the rest

Charlie Porter is a fashion journalist who thinks he’s a gender-rebel.

I am 48, a midlife point that gives me perspective on what I maybe didn’t realise before. I have always used clothing to poke at the assumptions of gender. As a kid, I had safe parameters from my whiteness and middle-class upbringing within an accepting family. Where I sit on the gender spectrum is like a comedy version of “male”, which has allowed me to pass lightly in this patriarchal society.

Others, he hints, are not so capacious in their thinking.

According to gender-critical feminists, men who voice their trans-inclusive beliefs on gender identity are bullies and misogynists. It is common among such men to desire the dismantling

Originally a comment by Green Eagle on Capture.

“Gender” is a linguistic term, not a biological one. Words may have a gender; something which is far more understandable to people who speak languages like French, German or Italian, where many words have genders unrelated to the sex of the creatures they refer to. “Equus,” or “Alumnus, for example are words of the male gender, regardless of whether they refer to male or female horses or graduates. There is no such thing as an equua, and the term alumna is a construct.

Whether a person is male or female is a biological question, not a linguistic one, and is capable of being answered correctly by any minimally qualified geneticist. People … Read the rest

How not to help refugees fleeing a war on civilians:

France has accused Britain of “lacking humanity” in helping fleeing Ukrainians join their families in the UK via the French port city of Calais.

French interior minister Gerald Darmanin, in a strongly-worded letter to his British counterpart Priti Patel, urged London to set up a proper consular presence in Calais to issue visas after 150 Ukrainians were turned away and asked to obtain visas at UK consulates in Paris or Brussels.

Paris and Brussels are not across the street or around the corner, they are a hefty train journey away. These are refugees, not tourists.

The French minister, in his letter, said the UK’s response was “completely unsuitable” and

Zelensky did a Zoom call with a group of Congress people yesterday. The Congress people were told, emphatically, not to share anything about the call during the call so as not to endanger Zelensky. Two Republican senators said nah we’ll just go ahead and endanger Zelensky.

Two US senators have come under fire for sharing photos of Volodomyr Zelensky on social media after they were reportedly asked not to for the safety of the Ukrainian president.

Democratic Rep Dean Phillips slammed Republican Senators Steve Daines and Marco Rubio for their “appalling and reckless ignorance” after they each posted screen grabs from a Zoom call between Mr Zelensky and a group of US lawmakers on Saturday morning, where he had

It seems Bill Barr has written a book in which he brags about how fiercely he stood up to Trump.

In excerpts published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump’s former attorney general recounts how he bravely stood up to Trump about his bogus claims of election fraud, telling him: “The fact is, we have looked at the major claims your people are making, and they are bullshit.”

The courageous Barr hit Trump with another expletive: “I’ve told you that the fraud claims are not supported. … But your legal team continues to shovel this shit out to the American people. And it is wrong.”

And another! “’Mr. President,’ I said, ‘the reason you are in this

When even George Will is harsh…

We are the sum of our choices, and Vladimir Putin has provoked some Trump poodles to make illuminating ones. Their limitless capacity for canine loyalty now encompasses the Kremlin war criminal. (The first count against Nazi defendants at Nuremberg: “Planning, preparation, initiation and waging of wars of aggression.”) For example, the vaudevillian-as-journalist Tucker Carlson, who never lapses into logic, speaks like an arrested-development adolescent: Putin has never called me a racist, so there.

J.D. Vance, groveling for Trump’s benediction (Vance covets Ohio’s Republican Senate nomination), two weeks ago said: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” Apparently upon discovering that Ohio has 43,000 Ukrainian Americans, Vance underwent a conviction transplant, saying