Sonia Sodha on “white feminism”:

Blaming women for the ills of the world might appear an odd feminist call to action. But an idea gaining traction is that the “white feminism” dominant in the United States and the UK is not only a driving force of societal racism, but responsible for a host of other bad things, from the war on terror to the hypersexualisation of women in popular culture, to the dreadful abuses of power we see in international aid. It’s part of a growing tendency on the left to look for scapegoats at the cost of building the solidarity needed for social change.

It’s that and it’s also part of a longstanding tendency on the left to … Read the rest

You have got to be kidding.

Starmer's moment of shame. https://t.co/V2oMeZ4x0f

— Joan Smith (@polblonde) September 26, 2021

It shouldn’t be said. It’s not right.

So I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that women are the ones who gestate and give birth to all human beings without exception. I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that men can’t do either of those things. I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that men have always sought to harness and control that ability women have. I guess it shouldn’t be said and it’s not right that men are also bigger and stronger than women, and that those two facts combined are why … Read the rest

So…

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1441859955196321798

So that letter is here, and published with permission. Atwood sent it to several people.

Hi Steve,

Harriet has told me that you stated that her article “dragged SBM into a raging controversy.” She feels, and I agree, that it was your retracting that article and replacing it by very bad articles written by advocates of “gender affirmation” that dragged SBM into a raging controversy. I’ve attempted to explain why previously, but here I’ll mention a couple of the most obvious reasons. 

You claimed that Harriet’s article was below SBM’s minimal standard for “high quality scientific evidence and reasoning to inform medical issues.” Yet you replaced it with articles stating things such as the following: 

“Biology is

… Read the rest

This very young MP is a piece of work.

We need to take a much tougher line on transphobia and for it to be unacceptable at all levels of the party.

We also need a programme of proper political education on this for all members.

These are things I am pushing for and will continue to push for. 4/6

— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) September 22, 2021

That might sound reasonable if you didn’t know what zealots like this novice mean by “transphobia.” She doesn’t mean cruelty or persecution of trans people, she doesn’t mean inciting hatred of trans people (although she probably thinks she does), she means not agreeing that men are women if they say they are, and … Read the rest

Yiiiiiiiiikes.

https://twitter.com/altweetsstuff/status/1441761654220328965… Read the rest

The Lancet’s “bodies with vaginas” tweet is getting scorching replies.

Still reeling from the @ACLU’s erasure of the word “woman” from a quotation by Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Now we see the medical journal @TheLancet using the vile phrase “bodies with vaginas” on its front cover.

Dehumanization is the prelude to violence.#WarOnWomen

— Bev Jackson (@BevJacksonAuth) September 25, 2021

On the same day National Public Radio erased women from a story on abortion rights.

https://twitter.com/coccinellanovem/status/1441508423472877573 https://twitter.com/ShirTruth/status/1441814646990819328

To many, yes. With another hole at the other end where anything we have to say about ourselves and discrimination is treated as the utterance of a person with mental health issues.

— Cathy Dalton (@DuBarry_Mme) September 25, 2021

https://twitter.com/yshmypk/status/1441741623382233088

Bodies without spines

… Read the rest

The Lancet has tangled with the wrong crowd.

Our new issue is here! On the cover—'Periods on display' and the cultural movement against menstrual shame and #PeriodPoverty.

Plus, @WHO air quality guidelines, low #BackPain management, community-acquired bacterial #meningitis, and more. Read: https://t.co/eP1Lx7D116 pic.twitter.com/DchfiHnYEs

— The Lancet (@TheLancet) September 24, 2021

The Lancet is the Last Straw.The magazine’s supercilious,demeaning,deliberately inaccurate naming of women in examining in print one of our most delicate and defining natural processes has destroyed my innate respect for today’s medical leaders.I cannot believe them now. https://t.co/9e0prNJnDD

— Emma Harriet Nicholson (@Baroness_Nichol) September 25, 2021

… Read the rest

God damn NPR.

The U.S. House on Friday approved a bill that Democrats say will protect a person’s access to abortion.

A WOMAN’S.

A woman’s, god damn it; if it were a man’s no bill would be needed. Say the damn word. Say our name.

Passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act to floor is a response to a Texas law that essentially bans abortion after six weeks, before most people realize they are pregnant.

WOMEN. Before most WOMEN realize they’re pregnant.

The Women’s Health Protection Act would protect a person’s ability to decide to continue or end a pregnancy and would enshrine into law health care providers’ ability to offer abortion services “prior to fetal viability” without

… Read the rest

On the one hand, global warming is rapidly getting worse, on the other hand…

Southern California is dealing with a traffic jam unlike any other, as a record number of container ships have been stuck waiting in the waters outside the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to unload cargo.

The bottleneck this week at America’s busiest port complex is the result of a shortage of trucks and drivers to pick up goods, coupled with an overwhelming demand for imported consumer products.

Let’s import all the things! Let’s ship stuff back and forth so that we can dump ever more carbon into the environment!

As of Wednesday, 62 container ships were waiting offshore to unload cargo, according to

… Read the rest

Evil mullah promises to continue to be evil.

The Taliban will resume executions and the amputation of hands for criminals they convict, in a return to their harsh version of Islamic justice.

Which tells you everything you need to know about their religion.

In an interview with Associated Press, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi – who was justice minister and head of the so-called ministry of propagation of virtue and prevention of vice during the Taliban’s previous rule – dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, and warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

…

“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi

… Read the rest

Aw imagine going to all the trouble of an audit only to find your opponent does even better.

A partisan, Republican-instigated so-called “audit” of the 2020 election result in Arizona has confirmed that Joe Biden did indeed beat Donald Trump in Maricopa county, the state’s most populous county, according to a draft report of the review.

A month-long hand count of the 2.1m ballots cast in Maricopa county, which includes Phoenix, found that Biden actually won 360 more votes than Trump than was reported in the November election. Biden won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes on his way to getting more votes nationally than any presidential candidate in history during the election.

I think “Biden actually won 360 more votes … Read the rest

https://twitter.com/SophiaDanielleD/status/1433683607374155782

She’s a senior editor at The Lancet. Her review starts well –

The silence, shame, and stigma surrounding menstruation are increasingly being challenged from various cultural domains…In some settings, period poverty, combined with shame and insufficient knowledge about menstruation, can lead to missing school, thus threatening girls’ education. From among a new wave of activists stepping up to address this issue came director Rayka Zehtabchi and producer Melissa Berton’s Oscar-winning documentary film, Period. End of Sentence. (2018), which follows a group of young women in an Indian village as they learn how to operate a machine that makes low-cost sanitary pads, empowering the women economically and challenging stigmas.

What a relief. Some people still manage to say the words … Read the rest

Why would anyone get Owen Jones onto a tv news show to talk about violence against women? Of all people? Owen Jones doesn’t give a rat’s ass about women. He’s one of the throwers-overboard, like Keir Starmer and the rest of them.

"Male violence against girls and women is the responsibility of men to deal with, not for women to change their behaviour to avoid it"@OwenJones84 says it's not enough for men to say "it's not all men" in response to the murder of Sabina Nessa.#JeremyVine pic.twitter.com/FOtnWG7n0c

— Jeremy Vine On 5 (@JeremyVineOn5) September 24, 2021

… Read the rest

Selina Todd says Labour should be the party for women but these days isn’t so much.

But recently it hasn’t been clear that a future Labour government would define women in a way that makes sense to anyone with a basic grasp of biology, let alone advance their equality.

Party activists and prominent MPs claim that men’s exclusion from women’s changing rooms, hospital wards and sports is ‘transphobic’. Labour backbencher Rosie Duffield’s support for women’s sex-based rights provoked threats. The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, remained silent.

By doing so he reminded women for the billionth time that we will be thrown overboard the instant the sea gets a little rough.

Until now. This week, Starmer’s spokesman announced that Labour

… Read the rest

Good bit of No thanks Choss, aka lèse-majesté:

Channel 4 News has turned down an interview with the Prince of Wales after refusing to sign a “draconian” contract with a string of demands including the pre-vetting of all questions and right to control editing.

They don’t half think well of themselves, do they, the royals.

The extremely tight level of control and censorship has not stopped some outlets from broadcasting interviews: Sky News ran an interview late last month covering topics including global warming. 

Why talk to Choss about global warming though? There are thousands of people who know more about it, so why talk to the son of the daughter of the son of the yadda yadda … Read the rest

Labour shenanigans tonight:

It’s my Labour CLP tonight. I’ve registered twice. Asked to speak as Women’s Officer. They haven’t sent me a link. They have ignored my request. Shame on you for keeping an officer out of a CLP meeting @ShefHallamLab

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) September 23, 2021

So here I am unable to attend my own CLP meeting for which I have registered 3 times. The leaders know. They still aren’t admitting me so 5 mins in I’ll put what I would have said here. As a Women’s Officer @ShefHallamLab and @LabourSheffield @Keir_Starmer … I feel we must …

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) September 23, 2021

Single sex services for women under the Equality Act 2010 which was guaranteed

… Read the rest

The ACLU website, surprisingly, has a section for women’s rights.

A look back at history shows that women have made great strides in the fight for equality, including women’s suffrage and inroads in equal opportunity in the workplace and education. 

Despite the tremendous progress made in the struggle for gender equality, women still face violence, discrimination, and institutional barriers to equal participation in society. 

Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, the ACLU Women’s Rights Project pushes for change and systemic reform in institutions that perpetuate discrimination against women, focusing its work in the areas of employment, violence against women, and education.  

I wonder if they’ll be updating the wording.

In the employment realm, laws and workplace policies that exclude

… Read the rest

Texas Freedom:

Natalie Wester and her husband were waiting for their appetizer to arrive when the server came to their table, not with the fried jalapeños, but an ultimatum.

Take your masks off or get out.

On Sept. 10, the couple left their 4-month-old son, Austin, with his maternal grandmother and went to Hang Time Sports Grill & Bar in Rowlett, Tex., a Dallas suburb — a rare night out for the young parents, Wester told The Washington Post…

]T]hey got kicked out in what Wester called a “bizarre” incident because they chose to wear masks to protect Austin, who has cystic fibrosis and is immunocompromised. The restaurant bans customers from wearing masks as part of its dress code,

… Read the rest

Oops.

Two Alabama YouTubers who became known for online resale tips and vaccine denialism have both died of COVID-19. Tristan Graham succumbed to the virus three weeks ago in Huntsville, and Dusty Graham died Thursday, according to the GoFundMe page operated by their children. In one of the final videos on their now-deleted channel, “We are ALIVE and still Reselling on eBay,” the couple discussed why they would never get immunized. Dusty said, “I’ve got my own passport. It’s called the ‘Bill of Rights.’ I think this will be all behind us in a couple of years.” The couple blogged under the moniker “Alabama Pickers” about the best ways to resell secondhand items on eBay.

They encouraged other people … Read the rest

Even shamans aren’t safe.

A Sri Lankan shaman who touted a potion which he said would protect people against Covid-19 has died with the disease, his family says.

Of the disease rather than with it, I think. The disease unfortunately is not dead at all.

Eliyantha White treated sports stars and top politicians with the potion, which he said came to him in a dream.

The sports stars and top politicians must be pretty dim. Medicine via dream is not really the way to go.

His potion was publicly endorsed by Sri Lanka’s former health minister, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, who subsequently spent two weeks in intensive care with Covid.

Former health minister endorses dream-based potion to prevent lethal disease. … Read the rest