No.
How does the word “anti-vaxxer” marginalize women specifically? There are plenty of male anti-vaxxers, and there’s nothing sex-specific about being an anti-vaxxer, so I’ll thank her not to rope us into her bullshit.
But Steelclaws said it better.
Updating to add:
Hmm.
Is it simplistic or just simple?
Sure, “there isn’t one” is simple, and easy to say, and kind of bare bones – indeed boring, but that’s not really much of a reason to abandon atheism for christianity is it? Baroque complication may be more fun but that doesn’t make it true.
I don’t know. There’s too much empty space. Everything is way too far apart. None of it is cozy or manageable enough to make the human idea of a “God” at all believable. It even smells weird in space – a burnt metal sort of smell. That’s simplistic, if you like.
Again with this crap.
No, they can’t, because trans women are male people, so they can’t be sisters so we can’t find “sisterhood” with them. Men are not our sisters. That’s not some terrible thing, it’s just reality. White people shouldn’t run around flapping their hands and trying to force people of color to accept us as fellow people of color because we’re not. Same with women.
What ever happened to “respect boundaries”? Wasn’t that a thing for awhile?
You what now?
So the problem is that boardmembers of a women’s center want the women’s center to be for women?
That is, board members of a woman’s center don’t want to be “inclusive” of men, because it’s a women’s center. Morgane Oger finds this scandalous. If he were a woman maybe he would understand why women want to be able to organize and meet as women without having to be “inclusive” of men all the time, even men who tell us they are women trapped in male bodies.
Updating to add more information via a comment by Naif:
As a founding member of the Nelson Women’s Centre with a long history of involvement as both a volunteer and board member, I feel compelled to present the other side of this story.
When the leadership of the centre decided to change its mandate to include all genders, they contravened the West Kootenay Women’s Association’s constitution that for 46 years has guided an organization for women, serving the needs of women in the community.
At the 2018 annual general meeting, a resolution to include all genders in the membership of the society was discussed. The resolution did not receive sufficient votes to pass. Yet the leadership of the centre ignored this result and proceeded as if the resolution had passed.
The decision by the leadership to change this 46-year-old mandate without proper procedures and without respecting the membership resulted in disagreement and confusion. Questioning or challenging the new direction became defined as “bullying.” But the “bullying” referred to was not one-sided, as the article implies.
Women who’ve been long-term volunteers, former board members and supporters of the women’s centre have been “bullied” by being banned from the centre and some threatened with legal action if they come to the centre. So who is bullying whom?
Where does Goop come in?
Here, for one:
A mouthpiece for conventional obstetrics and gynecology, eh? As opposed to being a mouthpiece for Goop?
Jennifer Block is rallying her troops on Facebook.
Hey all, yes, my piece got pulled. You can still read it in the archive (see link in comment) and read The Daily Beast’s take on what happened (also in comment). It’s been a wild Thanksgiving! I need to say more and figure out in what forum. Meanwhile, Dr. Gunter has blocked me on Twitter (@writingblock if you want to follow me, though be prepared!) I managed to stay present, connecting with people in the real world for much of the holiday, and just this evening posted some responses to the criticism (some reasonable) and unfounded accusations. I guess I hit a nerve. Anyway, thanks for being here.
Uh huh the old “I hit a nerve” defense. Well, yes, it is true that telling a lot of hostile lies about a person is likely to hit a nerve, but that by itself does not make the lies true or valuable.
And now we can combine our two themes of the morning.
Some further responses from Jen Gunter:
Jennifer Block is angry that Scientific American removed her bad hit-piece on Jen Gunter.
Of course it’s not “anti-science to acknowledge people’s lived experience,” whatever that may mean, but it is anti-science to substitute “lived experience” for properly conducted research,
Wellllll no. Gunter’s “public rhetoric” is about substantive issues around quack remedies and “wellness” and Block’s piece made claims about those substantive issues.
Yes this is definitely an important hill to die on – the freedom to call women you don’t like “evil little cunt.” Our ability to reason and argue and discuss will wither and die without that freedom! Freedom freedom FREEDOM.
Good. It never should have been posted in the first place, but good that it’s been removed.
The post about me has been removed from @sciam for not meeting editorial standards. Thank you everyone for your support. Half truths, obfuscations, and lies help no person have agency over their body.
Note where the article used to be:
Editor’s note. The post that originally appeared here has been removed because we’ve determined that it doesn’t meet our editorial standards.
Jen Gunter a couple of hours later:
Removing this piece was important not just for me, but for health care. Naturopaths, anti-vaccine doctors, and people who claim they can “balance hormones” with food etc were celebrating my “take down” in @sciam seeing it as proof that they are right.
The acting editor in chief apologized to me by phone this morning and I have accepted his apology.
And so let’s move on to leftovers, puppy and kitten videos, shoes, coffee, wine and, of course, science.
Transitional Housing Unit Resident on Escape Status
The New Hampshire Department of Corrections announces that a minimum-security resident of the North End Transitional Housing Unit in Concord failed to return home as scheduled on Wednesday, November 27.
Shaun Cook, 41, was placed on “escape” status just after 6 p.m. Wednesday night.
Cook is described as a white transgender female, 5’8”, 179 pounds with brown hair and
brown eyes.She has a scar on her chin and left cheek. Cook prefers female pronouns and
will often go by the first name, Summer, however, that is not her legal name.Cook has been imprisoned for several crimes throughout the years. Most recently, she is
serving time for a reckless conduct charge in 2014.
Not “murdered woman’s body found in freezer” but “woman whose body was found in a freezer was a bitch.”
Women are blamed for their own murders.
Howard Jacobson remembers Clive James:
Clive James never failed to get a joke. Or to go on to make a better one. This wasn’t because he was overly competitive: rather, like Dr Johnson, whom he often quoted, he believed that conversation obliged us to keep the ball in the air. People lacking the grace that is a sense of humour also lacked common sense, he once told Martin Amis. “A sense of humour,” he went on, “is nothing but common-sense dancing.”
…
His practice as a critic, which was to abolish distinctions between high and low (but not between good and bad) was exemplary. The catholicism of his interests made his television columns for the Observer not only the most enjoyable but also the most discussed critical writing of the time, and it diminished his capacity to tackle the tough stuff (as witness the brilliant erudition of Cultural Amnesia) not a jot.
I found a copy of Cultural Amnesia in a Little Free Library a few weeks ago, not having heard of it but having a high opinion of Clive James. It sits on the stack waiting for me.
In an extra turn of the screw, the first named victim of the London Bridge murders was working on prisoner rehabilitation.
The first victim of the London Bridge attack has been named as Jack Merritt, a 25-year-old who worked for a programme aimed at improving prisoner rehabilitation.
Merritt’s death was confirmed by his father, David, who described him as a “champion for underdogs everywhere”.
Merritt worked as the course coordinator for Learning Together, a programme run by the University of Cambridge’s institute of criminology which had been running a course at Fishmongers’ Hall next to London Bridge on Friday.
Two people were killed and three were injured when 28-year-old Usman Khan launched a knife attack. Khan was arrested in December 2010 and released on licence in December 2018, wearing an electronic tag.
David Merritt posted on Twitter on Saturday: “My son, Jack, who was killed in this attack, would not wish his death to be used as the pretext for more draconian sentences or for detaining people unnecessarily.”
His words came as Boris Johnson, said the system of automatic release from prison was flawed.
Merritt said: “Cambridge has lost a proud son and a champion for underdogs everywhere, but especially those dealt a losing hand by life, who ended up in the prison system.”
A Facebook friend of mine taught him at Manchester before he went to Cambridge. He describes Jack Merritt in similar terms.
Jennifer Block explained the other day why she wrote that hit piece about Jen Gunter at the Scientific American blog:
I’ve been mulling this one for a while, about a troubling authoritarian streak in one prominent OB/GYN in particular. Then she went after Our Bodies Ourselves, as well as the fantastic Cosmopolitan Magazine piece on LEEPs, and Jennifer Lang wrote an open letter. So here’s my contribution.
There is no “troubling authoritarian streak.” It’s not “authoritarian” to say bullshit is bullshit; the reality is it helps people resist being conned and fleeced by people who sell quack “remedies” for big bucks. Gwyneth Paltrow is not being a friend to the downtrodden by peddling jade eggs and herbal miracle drinks. And as for Jennifer Lang’s open letter – Gunter points out that Lang is on the board of an anti-vaccine group.
Jennifer Block posted an hour ago to complain of being “trolled” on Twitter. What I’ve seen has been not trolling but reasoned criticism.
Thankfully I have a lot of support (and this Daily Beast piece calls my piece “the longest and most in-depth critique of Gunter’s work, drawing on the history of groups like Our Bodies Ourselves to explain how women taking control of their own health—and occasionally rebuffing their doctors—can be a feminist act.”) But damn, this is my first experience being trolled on Twitter. Wow what a cesspool. Thanks in advance for any supportive tweets/replies, but what a bad place for any meaningful discourse.
Meaningful discourse about the value of jade eggs and vaginal steaming, and the wickedness of saying they’re both useless and dangerous?
Hmm.
“Author David Thomas still lives as a man, but has begun the male-to-female transition that will eventually result in becoming a woman.”
It won’t you know. It can’t. It doesn’t. It won’t. A man can’t “become” a woman. You can call it the male-to-female transition all you want, but it still won’t result in becoming a woman. Not even eventually. Not ever. This isn’t because we’re too mean to open the door of the club house, it’s because that’s not how it works.
But hey, I’m sure if he “learns to stand and walk like a woman” no one will ever suspect that he’s a man, because having a special dainty but seductive way of standing and walking is just that crucial to the whole thing.
An Ohio state representative introduced a new bill last month, which aims to prohibit insurance coverage of abortions that occur where the mother’s life is not “endangered if the fetus were carried to term.” The bill includes exceptions, including one for a procedure that does not exist.
GOP Rep. John Becker introduced House Bill 182, which allows for two situations where insurers could offer coverage for abortion services. One is a “procedure, in an emergency situation, that is medically necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life.”
The other, the bill says, is a procedure for an ectopic pregnancy, “that is intended to reimplant the fertilized ovum into the pregnant woman’s uterus.”
Which can’t be done.
“An ectopic pregnancy cannot move or be moved to the uterus, so it always requires treatment,” according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
…
Ohio is no stranger to anti-abortion legislation. In April, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine signed the state’s “heartbeat” bill, an abortion ban that would prohibit the procedure about five to six weeks into a pregnancy, before most women know that they’re pregnant. The law is slated to go into effect on July 10.
This is some of that cis privilege we hear so much about, isn’t it.
Naomi Wolf is an interesting case study. Here I was thinking she had learned from the drastic mistake she made in her book and the fact that it was pointed out to her in a BBC interview. But just three days ago she tweeted…
This clip shows @BBC editing of audience laughter at Boris Johnson. My own @BBC
interview was edited to cut my stern, clear warnings to host that he was mistaken to state as a fact that men executed for sodomy in 19th c were mostly molesters, rapists.
Was that before the host pointed out her mistakes, or after?
It’s all the stranger that she’s so boastful of her stern, clear warnings when it’s only been a month since the news that her book is so full of mistakes that the US publisher canceled it.
The US edition of Oxford-educated author Naomi Wolf’s new book Outrages is being pulped after a number of major errors were discovered.
Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalisation of Love is based on a PhD thesis that Wolf wrote in 2015, in which she claimed to have found examples of “several dozen executions” of men convicted of sodomy in Britain.
But, oops, she hadn’t found that at all, she had simply misunderstood the meaning of the phrase “death recorded” in the records.
Wolf came upon the phrase “Death recorded” in Old Bailey records, and cited one case of Thomas Silver, “aged 14”, who was “actually executed for committing sodomy” in 1859.
“The boy was indicted for an unnatural offence. GUILTY – Death recorded,” she wrote, inferring that an execution took place.
However, in an embarrassing interview with BBC radio host Matthew Sweet – himself an author – which took place in May, it was pointed out that Wolf had, perhaps understandably misinterpreted the term “Death recorded” to mean executed, when in fact it means the opposite: that the judge abstained from pronouncing the death sentence and the prisoner was pardoned.
But now she’s back, and not just back but bragging on Twitter about how she told that very same Matthew Sweet what’s what in that very interview?
Matthew Sweet is not impressed.
Oh dear. Here we go again. With the usual apologies. No such statement was made, as we were discussing post-1835 executions for sodomy in England. Contrary to the emphatic argument of @Outragesbook, no such executions occurred.
Here we go again after her US publisher recalled the book from shops and pulped it. What is she smoking?!
Sweet suggests she make an official complaint:
If Dr Wolf has a genuine complaint to make about editorial standards on @BBCFreeThinking, she – or perhaps her own editors at @ViragoBooks – could make it directly to the programme, and if that fails to satisfy, to take it up with @Ofcom.
As ever, I look forward to the corrected edition of @Outragesbook. And the revised version of her @UniofOxford DPhil. I will be interested to see if Dr Wolf has found any evidence that the Victorian cases upon which she builds her argument involved consensual sex.
Is Naomi Wolf Trump’s cousin or something?
Two members of the public have died after a stabbing attack at London Bridge, in which police also shot dead the suspect.
The Met Police has declared the attack a terrorist incident.
The suspect, who died at the scene, was believed to have been wearing a hoax explosive device, police said.
Videos on social media appear to show passers-by holding down a man. An officer arrives, seems to indicate to the group to move, and fires a shot.
Because of the apparent explosive device, I guess.
The challenge for police and security services is that low-tech attacks – involving knives or vehicles – and often carried out by lone actors can be hard to spot in advance since they involve relatively little preparation and communication.
Little or indeed none. Lone actors don’t need to communicate.
But in the wake of previous incidents in both the UK and other countries, police have been prepared for this kind of incident and seem to have been fast to intervene, taking few chances, although members of the public were also involved in restraining the individual.
And what’s the goal? Probably the same as Putin’s – disruption.
