Also –

I can’t decide whether this is an old or new equation:

Services to higher education
=
Promotion of transphobia

— Feminist Killjoy (@SaraNAhmed) December 31, 2020

The effort to mainstream transphobia in universities in the UK needs to be met with every resistance we can think of and enact. I am speaking as a cis lesbian feminist of colour who chooses her trans siblings every second of every day over others.

— Feminist Killjoy (@SaraNAhmed) December 31, 2020

That last sentence in particular – I wonder about it. It’s typical enough, and I wonder about it. She “chooses her trans siblings every second of every day over others.” Why? It’s typical in the prioritization, and I wonder why … Read the rest

The bit where they said it and the bit where they took it back.

https://twitter.com/TriciaFrasman/status/1344966322673905664

The answer seems to be:

I’m proud to have several colleagues @OU_Philosophy with skin in different gender debates. As we support all of them & to ensure fair debate, we don’t take sides from our departmental account. I removed yesterday’s tweet in support & out of respect of all my esteemed colleagues.

— Manuel Dries (@manueldries) January 1, 2021

Except that’s not how that works, is it.

This is really sad. Congratulating someone on getting an honour is not taking sides in any particular debate on which they write.

Out of respect? I think you mean out of fear. pic.twitter.com/Iebs67bwvy

— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) January

… Read the rest

This William Clare Roberts fella wrote a long blog post in May 2019 responding to that Medium piece by a bunch of pesky feminist women.

This is a response to the essay published on Medium yesterday by Sophie Allen, Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith, Mary Leng, Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, and Kathleen Stock.

He doesn’t link to the essay itself, which is bad form.

I am not a woman. I am not trans. I am a feminist – my earliest conversion experience was reading Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon. I love very dearly a little trans girl who I hope grows up in a world where she is safe and free, or at least has a

… Read the rest

Some academics are not happy about Kathleen Stock’s OBE.

https://twitter.com/alisonphipps/status/1344580259862224899

I can usually work out why someone has received an award, even if I don’t like them or don’t think they should get it. This? I’ve got nothing, except for the obvious. It’s honestly sickening.

— Dr. Bodie A. Ashton (@manwithoutatan) December 31, 2020

You cannot “serve higher education” if you actively make HE a hostile environment for colleagues and students, especially those in a disproportionately vulnerable segment of society.

— Dr. Bodie A. Ashton (@manwithoutatan) December 31, 2020

Says, as usual, a man complaining about a woman getting recognition for defending the rights of women. It seems like only yesterday that men who wanted to be seen as progressive … Read the rest

Janice Turner reviews Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage:

In both the US and Britain, Shrier shows, adolescent girls have record levels of anxiety and clinical depression, expressed in spiralling rates of self-harm, anorexia and suicidal thoughts. Overprotective modern parenting has rendered girls less resilient while the iPhone in their pocket tells them their bodies fail Instagram’s feminine ideals and shows them graphic pornography in which women are debased. No wonder the geeky or less “girlie” girls we once called tomboys, especially those who are becoming aware they are attracted to other girls, “flee womanhood”, as Shrier puts it, “like a house on fire, their minds fixed on escape, not on any particular destination”.

The girls she describes — like those

… Read the rest

It’s so shaming.

2 House Republicans tell me they expect as of now that at least 140 Republican Members of the House will on Jan 6 object to and vote against the Electoral College results showing President-elect Biden won

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 31, 2020

Meaning, if they had their druthers, the election would be thrown out and they would make Trump the winner. They would like to cancel a presidential election entirely, and impose a criminal corrupt sadistic evil incompetent man on us for another four years…during a lethal pandemic which he has made vastly more lethal than it had to be.

Shaming.

Jake Tapper at CNN:

President Donald Trump’s Republican allies have virtually zero chance of

… Read the rest

What is this “toxic masculinity”? Summoning Google to assist I get:

Toxic masculinity involves cultural pressures for men to behave in a certain way. And it’s likely this affects all boys and men in some fashion.

Toxic masculinity refers to the notion that some people’s idea of “manliness” perpetuates domination, homophobia, and aggression.

Domination of what, though? Primarily women, surely. Men jostle for domination among themselves, but domination of women is deeply ingrained. It’s odd to mention homophobia but not sexism.

This idea that men need to act tough and avoid showing all emotions can be harmful to their mental health and can have serious consequences for society, which is how it became known as “toxic masculinity.”

“Their mental … Read the rest

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain has news on Zara Kay:

Zara Kay, an Australian citizen and founder of Faithless Hijabi, was summoned to the Dar es-Salaam Oysterbay Police Station on 28 December 2020 and was held in police custody for 32 hours without an initial clear indication of charges.

Zara is a well-known ex-Muslim and women’s rights activist. Faithless Hijabi, which she founded in 2018, supports women who have been ostracised or abused for leaving Islam. Whilst in police custody, Zara was asked about the work of her organisation and why she left Islam.

Farking hell can you imagine? Being summoned to a police station, detained for 32 hours, and interrogated about your views on religion? As if … Read the rest

What’s this now?

“A Teacher,” which presents a different kind of toxic femininity than the one we’re used to seeing onscreen, displays an admirable sense of responsibility and an alienating timidity. https://t.co/Msj9bgAcTz

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) December 31, 2020

What the hell is “toxic femininity”? Is that like “black racism” or “homophobic same-sex attraction”?

Let me guess – it’s what Karens have, right?… Read the rest

The Trump people are, of course, failing dismally to get the vaccines out there. No biggy, it’s only 4000 deaths per day.

The Trump administration’s Covid-19 vaccine distribution program needs a major shot in the arm because at the current rate, it would take almost 10 years to inoculate enough Americans to get the pandemic under control, a jarring new NBC News analysis showed Tuesday.

On the upside, by then the population will be a lot smaller.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading epidemiologist, told CNN on Tuesday, “Well, we certainly are not at the numbers that we wanted to be at the end of December.”

The Trump administration’s Covid-19 testing czar, Dr. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of

… Read the rest

That’s…interesting.

https://twitter.com/DanialWebb/status/1344573750591844352 https://twitter.com/DanialWebb/status/1344573753766924290

And by “supporting” they of course mean “encouraging in the trans ideation.”

https://twitter.com/DanialWebb/status/1344573756056989697 https://twitter.com/DanialWebb/status/1344573758762328064

In #6 he means “unlikely to be able to consent” [with full understanding]. They’re all too likely to consent, all the more so if urged on by a “Kathryn” Bigelow.

This is truly horror movie stuff.… Read the rest

Ha! Take that.

https://twitter.com/Docstockk/status/1344525004973682689… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Tim Harris on His plays harbor problematic depictions and characterizations.

‘Edward II’ has a very strong relationship to Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’ (one of my favourite plays, one that I have directed and acted in as Richard); it is the forerunner to Shakespeare’s play, and an influence on it, just as Marlowe’s poem ‘Hero & Leander’ (a wonderful poem) was a stimulus to Shakespeare to write ‘Venus & Adonis’. In ‘As You Like It’, Shakespeare makes a specific reference to Marlowe and ‘Hero & Leander’ when Phebe says:

Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might,

‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

The second line is a a line from ‘Hero & … Read the rest

Mansplaining feminism to feminist women.

https://twitter.com/twitone/status/1343573819303342087

How are women supposed to reject sex as a concept? What would that involve, in practical terms?

— Jo – Time for Tea (@joslyoung) December 28, 2020

Rejecting being defined by what you have between your legs, you should try it, feminists have been doing it for at least the last couple of hundred years.

— Kat Bristow (@KathrynBristow) December 28, 2020

… Read the rest

This made for a fine laugh this morning.

https://twitter.com/BrennanQC/status/1344248805370306562

Why it’s funny is because Timothy Brennan is head of Devereux Chambers, which Foxy Jolyon left as of midnight yesterday.

https://twitter.com/BrennanQC/status/1344259462018818049

Burn ALL the bridges down.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Papito on The influencer wife.

I once had a long conversation with a good friend of mine, who is a Japanese-American, about appropriation. She had been very offended that a group of white and Chinese protesters shut down an event at the museum that allowed visitors to try on, and take a picture of themselves in, a kimono. The protesters insisted that this was cultural appropriation, you know, all the usual, orientalism, the male gaze, whatever. My friend, let’s call her Keiko, insisted that it wasn’t their culture that they were talking about, and in her culture, Japanese culture, trying on kimonos and having your picture taken in them was something that people did. She … Read the rest

This happened.

Okay so going into the police station because someone reported me in for blasphemy.
Good luck

— Zara Kay (@zarakayk) December 28, 2020

She hasn’t been heard from since.

URGENT ACTION: Tanzanian government must drop all the politically-motivated charges against @zarakayk immediately and unconditionally#JusticeForZara #ReleaseZara #FreeZaraKay
@MagufuliJPhttps://t.co/kgKmyY2yFG pic.twitter.com/jMJdWXHriW

— Maryam Namazie مریم نمازی (@MaryamNamazie) December 30, 2020

@DeBalie @YoeriAlbrecht @sophierutnfrns @Ianth
Our activist friend @zarakayk who spoke at #CelebratingDissent event last year is in trouble.

Please join international coalition of #ExMuslims in calling for her release. #JusticeForZara #ReleaseZara #FreeZaraKay https://t.co/cRPKiBxRtL

— Halima Salat (@halimasalat) December 30, 2020

Drop all charges against @zarayk, they are politically motivated. #JusticeForZaraKay ,#JusticeForZara, #Tanzania, don't persecute @zarakayk https://t.co/kfItT7EbUq

… Read the rest

What if the pardon power conflicts with international law?

Donald Trump’s pardon of four American men convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated US obligations under international law, United Nations human rights experts have said. …

“Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,” said Jelena Aparac, the chair of the UN working group on the use of mercenaries.

The group said the Geneva conventions obliged states to hold war criminals accountable for their crimes, even when they are acting as private security contractors. “These pardons violate US obligations under international law and more broadly undermine humanitarian law and human rights at

… Read the rest

Kathleen Stock juxtaposes academic freedom and UK universities’ policies on The Trans Question:

The Education Reform Act 1988 describes the need “to ensure that academic staff have freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions, without placing themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institutions”. Most UK university statutes contain a similar clause.

Keeping that in mind, consider those policies.

Leeds for instance:

“Think of people as being the gender that they self-identify as.”

Er – no. A university might as well tell its staff to think of people as being the nationality or species or profession or celestial body … Read the rest

He has got to be kidding.

Or rather they have got to be kidding, since they wrote it and simply put his label on it. But still – he and they have got to be kidding.

Trump issued a ProclaMation flattering Thomas Becket and Religious Freedom and the right of religious bosses to tell the monarch to fuck off. Yes because Trump is so keen on being told to fuck off.

Today is the 850th anniversary of the martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket on December 29, 1170. Thomas Becket was a statesman, a scholar, a chancellor, a priest, an archbishop, and a lion of religious liberty.

By “religious liberty” Trump means the liberty to agree with him and do what … Read the rest