All entries by this author

Remove ‘women’s’ from title

Sep 7th, 2021 10:55 am | By

Now there’s a headline.

NWHL changes its name to remove ‘women’s’ from title

Yayyyyyyyyyyy wait what?

The National Women’s Hockey League is history. Welcome, Premier Hockey Federation.

North America’s first women’s professional hockey league to pay players a salary announced on Tuesday it is adopting the new name as part of a rebranding strategy.

Well then why not name it the Hotties Hockey Federation? Or how about the Pumpkin Spice Latte Hockey Federation?

“We felt it’s time for our players to be defined by their talent and skill,” Tumminia said. “It’s not like they’re female phenomenal. You’re just phenomenal.”

And the way to underline that point is, as always, to delete the word “women.” Sure.

Metropolitan Riveters captain Madison Packer

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We still don’t know who holds the paper

Sep 7th, 2021 10:37 am | By

Greg Olear starts with the Texas law and the Supreme Court’s “Sure, go right ahead.”

After a day of excruciating silence, the Court voted 5-4 to let it be, citing some pusillanimous procedural technicality. Chief Justice Roberts sided with the three “liberal” justices, but the five other Federalist Society stooges on the bench—Clarence Thomas, Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, and Brett Kavanaugh—gave Texas the green light to go full Fascist, thus confirming what most of us feared all along: that Roe v. Wade is not safe, that the government is at war with women, that the radical Catholics who took over the Court are pro-tyranny.

We’re stuck with them except maybe for Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh is different.

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Also it’s not true

Sep 7th, 2021 9:43 am | By

I’m reading Jesse Singal’s review of Helen Joyce’s book in the Times, and I’m interrupting my reading to say this one thing.

A primary goal of those who adhere to gender-identity ideology is to enact “gender self-identification,” or the idea “that people should count as men or women according to how they feel and what they declare, instead of their biology,” into norm and law. According to self-ID, as I’ll call it henceforth, once an individual reveals their gender identity, that trumps anyone else’s understanding of it. If you say you are a man or a woman, or both or neither, that is exactly what you are.

When followed faithfully, gender-identity ideology has important implications. 

Yes, it does, but … Read the rest



But they failed however

Sep 7th, 2021 8:56 am | By

Brazil could be having its own insurrection moment.

Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro pushed through police barriers to advance towards Congress in Brasilia on Monday night, the eve of a day of planned demonstrations to back the far-right leader in his dispute with the judiciary.

Trucks honked their horns as hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters dressed in the green-and-yellow national colors cheered them through, videos posted on social media showed.

But they failed however to reach their target of surrounding the Supreme Court, which some demonstrators have planned to occupy in a protest modeled on the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

Thousands of demonstrators are expected to march in the

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Life easier for some

Sep 7th, 2021 8:27 am | By

It’s announcing plans day north of the border.

Nicola Sturgeon is to set out the Scottish government’s plans for the year to come at Holyrood.

So she did that and @theSNP tweeted them all.

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The consequences of “rethinking” the category of “woman”

Sep 7th, 2021 7:39 am | By

Eliza speaks the truth.

For the sake of the Twitter haters I’ll just arrange the rest of what she said as an essay.

Gender identity problematizes, denounces, and confuses what women need to make clear: Our sex matters.

Women’s healthcare depends on the recognition of sex difference on the part of medical providers, scientific researchers, health communicators, and patients.

Gender identity trades clear language and targeted research into

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The man is a known sexual predator

Sep 7th, 2021 5:56 am | By

Speaking of that interview with Judith Butler…

And so she did. It’s an excellent letter.

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The category can change

Sep 7th, 2021 5:39 am | By

Judith Butler doing her tedious thing:

…what it means to be a woman does not remain the same from decade to decade. The category of woman can and does change, and we need it to be that way. Politically, securing greater freedoms for women requires that we rethink the category of “women” to include those new possibilities. The historical meaning of gender can change as its norms are re-enacted, refused or recreated.

Yes, of course: what it means changes, the category changes, and obviously securing greater freedoms entails that, not least because it’s the same thing. We change the meaning by gaining the freedoms. That doesn’t mean we “change” it by including men in it. That’s not change … Read the rest



SBM won’t correct the falsehood

Sep 6th, 2021 3:56 pm | By

Wow. Years of collaboration just torched as if they had never been.

https://twitter.com/jessesingal/status/1435005209776951296

They WHAT??

First, the claim:

Next, the email:

Is it August 2015 again? The echo is strong. There were three SBM editors and Hall was one of them, but suddenly a minor contributor becomes “an editor” to bolster the Gorski-Novella excuses for plunging the knife into Hall’s back.… Read the rest



True colors

Sep 6th, 2021 11:51 am | By

Republicans in the spotlight for encouraging violent sedition resort to threats to avoid attention for encouraging violent sedition. It’s a bit like pouring ammonia on a burn.

Top Republicans under scrutiny for their role in the events of 6 January have embarked on a campaign of threats and intimidation to thwart a Democratic-controlled congressional panel that is scrutinizing the Capitol attack and opening an expanded investigation into Donald Trump.

It’s almost as if bullying is literally all they know how to do.

The House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, decried the select committee’s investigation as a partisan exercise and threatened to retaliate against any telecommunications company that complied with the records requests.

Thus demonstrating what a law-abiding and conscientious guy … Read the rest



Monarchy without the gossip

Sep 6th, 2021 11:32 am | By

It’s always worth being reminded of how illegitimate the whole situation is. Bush 2 lost the popular vote, Trump lost the popular vote, McConnell blocked Merrick Garland because he could and then rushed in Amy Coney Barrett because he could. A minority rules over us.

The confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett did more than install a supermajority of conservatives in the court. The locus of power on the court shifted from the more mainstream conservatism of Justice Roberts to the more ideological and rigid extremes of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

As the Texas ruling underscored, this is a court far more conservative than the nation whose constitutional meanings it is meant to protect. And it is a court

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Into your worldview

Sep 6th, 2021 10:00 am | By

This one is hilarious – it’s so unabashed in its FOCUS ON ME rule for life. Hello world, unlearn everything you know to fit me into your worldview.

https://twitter.com/leannekmho/status/1434481765305958401

It’s 2021 people! You should have already been focusing all your attention on me! What’s the holdup?!

Also I love the time-sensitive aspect. What happens in 2022 I wonder? Will everything have been reversed so that we have to focus on “Them” in order to fit “Them” in our worldview all over again but opposite?… Read the rest



Obscuring the problem

Sep 6th, 2021 7:41 am | By

Huh. It’s not boys sexually abusing girls, it’s generic “children” doing it to generic “children” – according to the BBC.

Reports of sex abuse between children double in two years

Between children? Really?

Reports of children sexually abusing other children doubled in the two years to 2019, according to police figures obtained by BBC Panorama.

But were they reports of “children” doing this?

It’s not until paragraph 5 that we get

And overall, a big majority of cases involved boys abusing girls.

You don’t say.… Read the rest



A nuance too many

Sep 6th, 2021 5:30 am | By

Well of course they do.

Their “conceptions” of “gender” are “more nuanced” because that’s what’s available to them. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right. That question still has to be decided on the merits.

Sometimes teenagers are indeed in the vanguard in a good way: civil rights activists in the 1960s for example. Even then, though, there were plenty of teenagers on the other side, and besides that, not every vanguard is On the Right Side of History.

By “gender” Jack Turban means sex as well as gender. By “nuanced” he doesn’t mean “people can wear whatever … Read the rest



Trying

Sep 5th, 2021 4:21 pm | By

Elliot Kirschner on Lassen National Park, which he knows well from childhood summer vacations:

For those who have never been to Lassen, or maybe haven’t even heard of it, it is one of the true gems of the National Park system, although far less famous than its cousins like Yellowstone and Yosemite. It’s a place shaped by an active volcano, Lassen Peak, which last erupted a little over a century ago, and all the geothermal activity that goes with it. Its streams, lakes, meadows, and forests teem with wildlife and vistas both epic and intimate. As much as the sights, I remember the smells. Around the bubbling mud baths came the pungent odor of rotten eggs from the hydrogen

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Cat piss and mildew

Sep 5th, 2021 10:52 am | By

Bottom line? Women stink. Not just “stink”=are bad but STINK: smell of rotting fish.

The new misogyny is indistinguishable from the old misogyny.… Read the rest



Why is the store dummy so quiet?

Sep 5th, 2021 10:21 am | By

There’s a very simple explanation.

Melania Trump, perhaps the most private first lady in modern history, has retreated more and more from the spotlight since departing Washington last January.

…She views her husband’s continued impact on the GOP landscape as his job, not hers. “You’re not going to see her at rallies or campaign events, even if he ‘officially’ says he’s running again,” said another person aware of the disinterest Trump has shown in supporting the former President.

Lack of interest, not disinterest.

…so often was the answer “no” when Trump was asked by then-candidate Donald Trump’s staff to appear at events that eventually, “We just stopped asking altogether,” said a political operative who worked on team Trump in

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Those who deny the reality

Sep 5th, 2021 9:53 am | By

Alex Massie points out the familiar inconsistency:

This Scottish government has no time for those who deny the reality of climate change but it is an administration busy enthusiastically denying the reality of biological sex. We must follow the science on one matter but abandon it on the other.

I can see doing that in some contexts – there are some where science is beside the point. Moral conflicts for instance aren’t a scientific issue, although science may be able to bolster a case. But when the core issue is as brutally physical as this one, just drawing a big X through the science is stupid.

Nicola Sturgeon, of course, is “a feminist to her fingertips”, which makes one wonder

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A pregnant person and their physician

Sep 5th, 2021 9:26 am | By

This starts out seeming to be a serious and interesting analysis of a familiar slogan:

I’m a philosopher and bioethicist. My research suggests “my body, my choice” was a crucial idea at the time of Roe to emphasize ownership over bodily and health care decisions. But I believe the debate has since moved on – reproductive justice is about more than owning your body and your choice; it is about a right to health care.

I was interested because I got into a brief wrangle on Facebook by saying I’ve always thought the slogan was stupid, because it’s not true. Choices about one’s body are not always solely personal. A couple of men replied to call me stupid with no … Read the rest



Hilary Mantel is no “they”

Sep 5th, 2021 7:56 am | By

Hilary Mantel:

Mantel also waded into the controversy surrounding Rowling’s beliefs on transgender rights which have divided the literary world.

The Harry Potter author wrote a personal essay last year which included examples of where she believes demands by transgender activists were dangerous to women, which were described by LGBTQ+ advocacy groups as divisive and transphobic.

Later Rowling, Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood and others wrote an open letter warning that the spread of “censoriousness” was leading to “an intolerance of opposing views” and “a vogue for public shaming and ostracism”.

Mantel said the online attacks on Rowling after her essay were “unjustified and shameful”.

She added: “It is barbaric that a tiny minority should take command of public

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