All entries by this author

Solidarity with Afghan women

Aug 24th, 2021 3:23 pm | By

FEMINIST DISSENT STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFGHAN WOMEN AND WITH ALL THOSE FIGHTING FUNDAMENTALISM

Feminist Dissent sees fundamentalist movements as modern political movements of the far right which use religion to exercise authoritarian control, especially over women. The Taliban was never seen by us as simply a form of medievalist Pashtun tribalism, and certainly not as a liberation movement. The dominant views from the ‘anti-imperialist left’, Western ‘peace’ movements, Western governments and counter-terror establishments converge in ways that both stereotype and sanitise the Taliban.

The British Chief of Defence Staff Nick Carter’s claim that the Taliban want an ‘inclusive’ Afghanistan builds on the convenient myth that the Taliban are merely ‘tribal’, romantic men of honour who will keep order

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But this never happens

Aug 24th, 2021 12:08 pm | By

Ah yes certainly, I can’t see any problem with that. Bomber wants recognition of his new idenniny and oh yes a shorter sentence please.

The militia leader convicted of master­minding the bombing of a Minnesota mosque is asking a judge to legally acknowledge her transgender identity.

Emily Claire Hari was previously known as Michael Hari, who was found guilty last year of civil rights and hate crime charges related to the bombing of the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington in August 2017.

During the trial, prosecutors said Hari was fueled by a hatred of Muslims when he devised a plan to pipe bomb the building during morning prayers. While no one was hurt in the bombing, it spread

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Like dog

Aug 24th, 2021 9:27 am | By

According to her profile this person does standup comedy.

https://twitter.com/kathbarbadoro/status/1430018992014598144

Entire thing? No verbal humor? No ideas, just physical shtick?

No interest?

That time I went to a bookstore event with Michael Palin someone asked … Read the rest



Lots of differences

Aug 24th, 2021 8:59 am | By

Our Jolyon walks into these things.

Erm…Jolyon Maugham is white and “cis” and not all that young and – the one he carefully didn’t mention – he’s a man. (He didn’t mention it because mentioning it would remind people that women don’t have male privilege.) He’s not as poshly educated as Cleese, I’ll give him that – but then he’s not as clever, either.

To sum up, Jolyon Maugham is sneering at John Cleese for having kinds of privilege that Maugham himself mostly shares. It’s almost as if … Read the rest



Guest post: Zyklon B doesn’t give a crap about your pronouns

Aug 24th, 2021 5:30 am | By

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on What genocide is and is not.

Hitler didn’t wipe out 6 million Jews by calling them something else, he wiped them out by murdering them.

Exactly, it’s roughly analogous to arguing that:

Denying the existence of God

≈ denying that there’s such a thing as “God’s chosen people”

≈ denying the existence of that which the Jews are

≈ denying the existence of Jews

≈ envisioning a world in which Jews don’t exist

≈ advocating genocide.

Therefore atheism is just the Holocaust

I have never heard a single Jew make such an argument. If your kind has been murdered by the millions, you don’t have to resort to this kind of language-games … Read the rest



Time’s wingèd chariot

Aug 23rd, 2021 3:44 pm | By

Well this is horrible news.

James Underdown of CFI (the Center for Inquiry):

Tom Flynn, Giant of American Freethought, Has Died at Age 66

The world has lost a towering figure of American freethought, a man who was both on the cutting edge of secular humanist thought, as well as the foremost caretaker of its rich history. The entire Center for Inquiry family is anguished by the sudden and unexpected death of our colleague, teacher, and friend Tom Flynn at age 66.

Tom held numerous leadership roles during his more than thirty years with the Center for Inquiry, most recently as editor of Free Inquiry magazine, director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum and the Freethought Trail, and former

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And frame it as a “women’s issue”

Aug 23rd, 2021 3:16 pm | By

Woman who calls herself “transmasculine” gets all shaky-like when menstrual products say “for women” on the label. (If they do – I have my doubts that anyone who needs menstrual products also needs to be told at the point of sale that they’re for women.) Narcissism forevaaaaaaaaa!

My period has never triggered feelings of gender dysphoria as a trans masculine person, but the way people talk about menstruation and frame it as a “women’s issue” makes me experience feelings of dread and discomfort.

Really? It makes her do that? Or she does it because she’s conditioned herself to think she’s supposed to, by being exposed to 50 million stupid articles and tweets and videos like this. They’re all conditioning each … Read the rest



What genocide is and is not

Aug 23rd, 2021 10:52 am | By

More from the pyramid:

https://twitter.com/LtHarker/status/1429442555767246855

What is this imagined community that gender-skeptics defend?

Women, for one. Are women “imagined”? No. Women are real. I don’t refer to us as a “community” because I think that word is much overused and also manipulative (so in that sense I kind of understand the “imagined community” thing), but that doesn’t mean the word “women” doesn’t name a real category of people. Do we defend women? Sure. For more see: feminism, passim.

https://twitter.com/LtHarker/status/1429444893986852866 https://twitter.com/LtHarker/status/1429448406401835010

This is the usual warping of the word “existence” – pretending that skepticism about a label=genocide. Hitler didn’t wipe out 6 million Jews by calling them something else, he wiped them out by murdering them. There’s a difference.

It can … Read the rest



Ten years later

Aug 23rd, 2021 10:10 am | By

Stark truth.

It’s not even quite true that no one was held accountable – Hitler was sentenced to prison and served several months, during which he wrote Mein Kampf. So…

We’re in a race between global hotting and a fascist coup.… Read the rest



The horse-person interface

Aug 23rd, 2021 9:53 am | By

The FDA tells us Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19

First, snapshots.

On the left: no, not for you. On the right: yes, for you.

To be clear: 1: horse. 2: person. Horses take medication designed for horses, persons take medication designed for persons. Don’t swap between, don’t mix & match.

The FDA’s job is to carefully evaluate the scientific data on a drug to be sure that it is both safe and effective for a particular use, and then to decide whether or not to approve it. Using any treatment for COVID-19 that’s not approved or authorized by the FDA, unless part of a clinical trial, can cause serious harm. 

The FDA’s job, please … Read the rest



Without distinctions we are helpless

Aug 23rd, 2021 9:00 am | By

Hmm.

Wait. They didn’t go to “a transwoman’s place of work” – they went to a pub, a well known, popular, centrally located pub. They went to a pub, to get food and drinks. I think it’s extremely unlikely they knew it was “a transwoman’s place of work” because why would they? Why would anyone?

And the literature isn’t “anti-trans,” it’s pro-feminism and pro-reality. The gender critical view … Read the rest



Feeling “threatened”

Aug 22nd, 2021 5:36 pm | By

The Times reports on the “we don’t allow feminist women in our pub” story:

A leading pub chain has been dragged into a transphobia row after police were called to a city-centre pub when bar staff complained of feeling “threatened” by the presence of a group of campaigners who oppose extending women’s rights to transgender people.

Yet another bad lede. Why can’t reporters write decent first sentences? Is it part of their contract not to, or what?

Also a factual mistake, the campaigners don’t “oppose extending women’s rights to transgender people,” they don’t believe that men are women and they of course opposed extending women’s rights to men, on the grounds that it’s women who need them, not men.

A

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The water is lovely

Aug 22nd, 2021 4:31 pm | By

Says it all.… Read the rest



Look I gots a pyramid

Aug 22nd, 2021 12:00 pm | By

Perfect example of the frenzied dangerous rhetorical overkill.

https://twitter.com/LtHarker/status/1429441961094631429

To violence. What violence? In what way did they attempt to “escalate to violence”? BE SPECIFIC.… Read the rest



A group of women were told

Aug 22nd, 2021 11:44 am | By

The Scotsman allows itself a touch of skepticism:

A major UK hospitality chain has launched an investigation after police were called to one of its pubs after a group of women were told they had to leave because they were “transphobic”.

The women, who allege they were threatened by bar staff, left after officers were called to Doctors, on Forrest Road, on Saturday night.

However one of the pub’s employees, who describes himself as an “AGP porn addict male” on his Twitter account, said it was staff who felt threatened by the women who were “belligerent”.

There’s the skepticism. I’m not the only one who thinks a guy who calls himself a porn addict in his Twitter profile might … Read the rest



Unlawful to discriminate

Aug 22nd, 2021 11:23 am | By

And by the way…

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Twinkle twinkle little copper

Aug 22nd, 2021 10:13 am | By

Meanwhile…

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1429457790553231367

To report racist, homophobic, and transphobic incidents…but not of course misogynist ones, because they don’t exist, and misogyny isn’t even a word, let alone a thing.

Also what does the paint job on that car have to do with racism? What does it have to do with hostility and suspicion toward immigrants? What does it have to do with class? Why has Rainbowism & Pride displaced all other forms of human rights struggle?… Read the rest



Is it company policy?

Aug 22nd, 2021 9:55 am | By

But he had perfectly good reasons.

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The manager called

Aug 22nd, 2021 9:37 am | By

This is the guy who called Marion “terf” and told her to finish her drink and get out:

His profile self-description is…candid:

AGP porn addict male, cumbrained, submissive, moisturised and in my lane

they/she siad/sí

‘power brat & feral’

mildly nsfw

Porn addicted autogynephile man tells woman to get out of restaurant/pub because she’s a Known Feminist and he recognizes her.

He told his story last night:

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The more you push the less we will wheesht

Aug 21st, 2021 4:27 pm | By

More on that get out of our pub you bad bad woman incident tonight.

https://twitter.com/Obsolesence/status/1429216843508682760 https://twitter.com/tweepwitch/status/1429210429209956352 https://twitter.com/millar_marion/status/1429210678691303432 https://twitter.com/millar_marion/status/1429210438672293892 https://twitter.com/millar_marion/status/1429210346254897152

It’s all just revolting.… Read the rest