Pliny the in Between:

Originally a comment by Artymorty on Not so much an annoyance as a burning social injustice.

That sounds ridiculous. I’ve not heard of that before.

I know it’s not the same thing, but sanitary napkin disposal boxes became an issue at the concert venue I used to manage. Our toilets went “all-gender” a few years ago due to demands from our young hyper-woke employees. (This consisted of replacing the “Men’s/Women’s” signs with ones that read “Washroom with Urinals/Washroom with Stalls”.) The employees wanted us to install a pad/tampon disposal box in the former men’s washroom (like we have in every stall in the former women’s), since it was expected that women would start using the men’s stall. Naturally, no one got around to installing it, because naturally, women never want to use the washroom that consists of a wall of urinals and one not-very-private stall next to them. In practice, the men’s room is still the men’s room, and the women’s room is a spillover extra men’s room when the venue gets busy. Many men use the former women’s room even when it’s not busy — in some kind of gesture of progressiveness, or just to be jerks, I don’t know. In the end, what it means is women now have to wait twice as long to use the washroom, because of men. Great job, woke kids!

My board of directors asked me if I had been receiving any complaints from men since the bathrooms went all-gender. I told them there were none from men, but there had been tons from women right from the start: complaints about increased wait times, complaints about mess on the seats, complaints about discomfort, complaints from feminists. The board seemed completely uninterested in the complaints from women. (Which was extra surprising because the most active board members were women.)

It appears that women are getting too educated.

The gender imbalance in educational attainment is getting larger every year. That may spell good news, ultimately, for income and employment equality—but it presages increasingly problematic social conditions for generations of men and women.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, more than 57% of the class of 2018 who graduated with bachelor’s degrees were female. The gap for master’s degrees was even wider: 59% to 41%.

In terms of economic justice this is good news, Gerard Baker admits, but what about The Mate Quest?

Most studies of human heterosexual attraction suggest both that intellectual capacity and achievement is an important attractor and that people tend to gravitate toward a partner with roughly the same level of attainment.

But every year, the pool of eligible male graduates is getting smaller relative to the number of women.

What about when it was the other way around?

Well it’s like this. When it was the other way around, it was fine, because women aren’t supposed to be clever or educated.

Rosa Silverman on why toilets are a feminist issue:

Discussing “the tyranny of the toilet queue” on Emma Barnett’s BBC Radio 5 Live show this week, the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado Perez made a spirited and well-founded argument for why toilets are a feminist issue; not so much an annoyance as a burning social injustice.

“Everyone knows that women have to queue for the toilet and men tend to just walk in and out, and that’s because we have traditionally given equal floor space for men and women for their toilets,” she told listeners.

It might seem fair on the face of it but, she contended, it isn’t: “For a start, male toilets tend to have urinals in them, which take up less space and immediately mean men have more provision than women with equal floor space. On top of that there are all sorts of reasons why women both will need to go more often and also may take longer when they’re in there.”

As Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, went on to explain, women need to go more often when they’re pregnant; women are eight times more likely to suffer urinary tract infections, which means they will be going more often; they are more likely to be accompanied by young children (a time-consuming process indeed); and on any given day, a proportion of women will be menstruating. (Meanwhile, on any given day, some men can be found effortlessly relieving themselves behind trees or, in extremis, in the street.) So how can it be fair that the same amount of floor space be devoted to men and women’s facilities?

There’s also the anatomy aspect, which was perhaps awkward to cite on live radio, but it does add to the time women take.

Toilets are a feminist issue. As a blog post on the website of the charity WaterAid warned in 2017, “There are many times in a woman’s life when she particularly needs a safe, private toilet. When she doesn’t have one, the consequences are serious. Having a loo can mean the difference between living in dignity or shame, health or illness, between getting an education, or dropping out of school.”

Toilets are a feminist issue for the same reason period poverty is a feminist issue: because lack of provision holds girls and women back and affects both their health and their prospects.

Toilets are a feminist issue in this country too because we have had to fight for them. In Victorian Britain, the public sphere was for men, while the home was the woman’s domain. Since most public conveniences were for use by men only, women had to plan trips out of the house carefully. The Ladies Sanitary Association campaigned for women’s toilets from the 1850s onwards, and a few were duly installed.

When women entered the workforce in large numbers after the First World War, toilets were again a big issue, as workplaces had been designed for men, and therefore lacked women’s facilities. Some employers were reluctant to change this, fearful women were stealing men’s jobs.

I’ve posted some news stories about girls or women who were raped and/or murdered because of the lack of a safe, private toilet.

Kate Aronoff says what I’ve been saying:

The standard lines from Democrats about Hunter Biden and his business dealings in China and Ukraine have been consistent: Donald Trump has abused the office of the president by asking foreign leaders to investigate Biden’s son, and there is absolutely no proof that either Joe or Hunter Biden have done anything to break the law. Any questionable dealings by Biden’s son also pale in comparison to ethical breaches on the part of Ivanka, Eric or Donald Trump Jr, who have routinely blurred the lines between the extended Trump Organization – the family’s business empire –and their presence in the White House.

This is all true, and arguably these are the right lines vis-a-vis the long overdue impeachment proceedings. What’s harder to shake is the fact that Hunter Biden’s career is undeniably shady in the way that only the son of a longtime Washington insider could muster, failing upwards into positions of influence and power on the merits of his last name.

And that matters. Saying that Ivanka and Don Junior are worse is hardly an all clear. Hunter Biden failed upwards into a 50 grand a month seat on the board of a Ukrainian company because he’s Joe Biden’s son. We don’t need that. The fact that he was Obama’s VP is nowhere near reason enough to cling to him despite the shady doings.

I have a column in the current Free Inquiry and it’s one of the non-paywalled items this time.

It’s about Trump’s patriotism theater. It was fun to write.

Even if we can figure out exactly what we’re being ordered to love, it’s not actually the case that we’re legally obliged to do so. We’re not required to feel amorous toward “it” as a condition of being allowed to go on living here as citizens. We’re not made to undergo regular “love it” inspections to gauge whether our affection levels are above the red line. We don’t have to send monthly reports on our patriopassion on pain of expulsion. If we were born here, we get to live here, no questions asked. If we become citizens, same deal: we get to live here.

Granted there have been some feints toward the idea in the past. The House Un-American Activities Committee was a kind of “Do you really love us?” exercise, but even then, the outcome was not expulsion from the country. The Civil War was a serious attempt at divorce, and from that we got the anxieties about allegiance that led to the wretched custom of making children swear a solemn oath every school day as if we were hoping to create a robot army. But even then, allegiance is not the same as love.

It is true that adults who immigrate here do have to undergo a ceremony in which they renounce previous loyalty and shift it to this one. But that’s once; when it’s done it’s done. The government doesn’t phone the new citizens every day to ask, “Do you still love me? Do you really love me? What do you love about me most? Why were you making eyes at that other country yesterday?”

Dulce et decorum est, yeah?

1950 here we come.

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear June Medical Services v. Gee, a challenge to Louisiana’s stringent abortion restrictions. There is very little doubt that the conservative majority will use this case to overrule 2016’s Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, allowing states to regulate abortion clinics out of existence. In the process, the Republican-appointed justices will set the stage for the formal reversal of Roe v. Wade. The court’s decision to hear June Medical Services came with the alarming announcement that it will also consider whether to strip doctors of their ability to contest abortion laws in court. These aggressive moves augur an impending demise of the constitutional right to abortion access.

Oh well, it’s only women.

Also…Maddow had a good deal of innocent fun night before last with a large envelope that sported a weirdly baroque address (Secretary Pompeo attn Ruth – the “attn Ruth” was pretty hilarious too). Now I understand, via Josh Rogin:

Rudy admits to CNN he passed the packet of Ukraine conspiracy theories and attacks on a U.S. ambassador to Pompeo. “They (the State Department) told me they would investigate it.”

By the way, Rudy is admitting to manufacturing White House logos and sticking them on non-White House documents and pushing the real government to act on them.

Walter Shaub:

Josh, are you inferring that from his statement that he’s responsible for the packet, or is he literally saying he sat down and drew “White House” in the upper left?

Rogin:

He’s admitted to passing the packet to Pompeo. I don’t know who exactly worked the photoshop, but the presidents lawyer gave it the Secretary of State and this was not an official WH document.

Shaub:

Thanks! I asked because it doesn’t look Photoshopped to me, it looks hand drawn (which is insane). It’ll be interesting to see if he specifically says he created the fake logo. Compare the Pompeo package to an actual White House envelope.

Giuliani sent a package of conspiracy theories about the ambassador to Ukraine, to the Secretary of State, in a pink envelope with Gorgeous Scrolly Writing and a fake THE WHITE HOUSE in the corner.

In our wildest dreams we couldn’t…

This is disgustingly flippant and cynical.

Marco Rubio blows off Trump’s “Chye-nah should investigate Biden” as trolling:

This morning in the Florida Keys, @marcorubio was asked about the President calling on China to investigate @JoeBiden – see his answer↓

His answer:

I don’t know if that’s a real request or him just needling the press knowing that you guys were going to get outraged by it. He’s pretty good at getting everybody fired up, and he’s been doing that for awhile, and the media responded right on task.

A reporter repeated the question.

I don’t think that’s a real request. I think he did it to gig you guys. I think he did it to provoke you to ask me and others and get outraged by it. Like I said, he plays it like a violin and everybody falls right into it. That’s not a real request.

It’s the other way around. He pretends to be just needling, just gigging, just provoking, but it’s for real. There’s no way Marco Rubio doesn’t know that.

Can we drain that swamp?

And another “They did WHAT?” appears. Judd Legum:

“Two of President Trump’s top envoys to Ukraine drafted a statement for the country’s new president in August that would have committed Ukraine to pursuing investigations sought by Mr. Trump into his political rivals”

“Here, President Zelwhateveritis, here’s a statement where you promise to investigate Donald Trump’s rivals. Sign here please. Now please. We’re not discussing the javelins until you sign.”

The Times:

The statement would have committed Ukraine to investigating the energy company Burisma, which had employed Hunter Biden, the younger son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. And it would have called for the Ukrainian government to look into what Mr. Trump and his allies believe was interference by Ukrainians in the 2016 election in the United States to benefit Hillary Clinton.

The idea behind the statement was to break the Ukrainians of their habit of promising American diplomats and leaders behind closed doors that they would look into matters and never follow through.

It is unclear if the statement was delivered to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, but no statement was released publicly under his name. Around that time, the Ukrainian officials indicated to the Americans that they wanted to avoid becoming more deeply enmeshed in American politics.

It’s illegal six ways from Sunday, and it is no way to treat a friendly nation that is under pressure from Putin’s Russia.

Another item for the list:

President Donald Trump ordered the removal of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch from her post in Ukraine following complaints by his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and others, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Trump’s personal lawyer gets to decide who is ambassador to Ukraine. Interesting.

Yovanovitch, who was recalled months earlier than expected in May 2019, was accused by Giuliani without evidence of trying to undermine the President and blocking efforts to investigate Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden. According to the Wall Street Journal, a person familiar with the matter said that State Department officials were told that her removal was “a priority” for Trump.

Because Trump doesn’t think about “is she a good diplomat” or “is she well qualified” or “are US interests in safe hands with her.” All he thinks about is whether she’s doing what he wants for his reasons.

Asked on Thursday morning why Yovanovitch was recalled, Trump said, “I don’t know if I recalled her or somebody recalled her, but I heard very, very bad things about her for a very long period of time — not good.”

No he didn’t; he just made that up. He casually trashed her professional reputation because Giuliani told him she wasn’t anti-Biden  enough or some such shit.

The US President had also disparaged the former ambassador to Ukraine in his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that,” Trump said, according to a White House transcript.

Even though not a word of it is true.

Yovanovitch, a career member of the foreign service and who has served in ambassadorships under three presidents, was sworn in as ambassador to Ukraine in August 2016. Former officials who worked with her praised her experience and ability and the diplomatic community has rallied to support her.

Hillary Clinton did so on Maddow yesterday.

That didn’t go well.

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward is coming under heavy fire for the questions he asked while interviewing the Pulitzer-winning investigative team of Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey at a Washington, DC, event on Wednesday night. After Woodward repeatedly interrupted Kantor and Twohey and posited that Harvey Weinstein’s behavior could have been “weird foreplay,” audience members booed Woodward, and some attendees even walked out of the event.

Kantor and Twohey are the Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein story. They chose Woodward to interview them.

Some audience members began to yell back at Woodward as he repeatedly interrupted Kantor and Twohey, saying, “Let them finish!” and “Every woman deserves to be heard!”

And as the conversation veered away from investigative journalism and into sexual misconduct, Woodward’s questions apparently became less and less well-informed.

The most detailed account of what happened comes from Robyn Swirling, the founder of the anti-sexual-harassment organization Works in Progress, who wrote a long tweet thread describing Woodward’s questions. Swirling says that Woodward spent more than 10 minutes asking Kantor and Twohey why Weinstein harassed and assaulted women the way that he allegedly did. She also says that when Kantor and Twohey repeated that Weinstein’s actions were an abuse of power, enabled by a system that allowed him to silence women, Woodward accused them of dodging his question.

“So it’s about power? It’s about sex also, though, isn’t it?” Woodward reportedly said, asking whether Weinstein’s actions might have been “a weird foreplay.”

Ah yes, the old “rape as weird foreplay” kink. Don’t kinkshame the rapists!

“Work with sexual offenders has confirmed that the motivating factor for sexual violence is not sexual desire,” the World Health Organization states in its guidelines on sexual violence. “Although sexuality and aggression are involved in all forms of sexual violence, sex is merely the medium used to express various types of non-sexual feelings such as anger and hostility towards women, as well as a need to control, dominate and assert power over them.”

How could that not be the case? If you’re hungry you don’t go around assaulting people to get at their sandwiches. If you have a sunburn you don’t lock people in a room with you and force them to apply sunburn cream. If you’re bored you don’t pull a gun on people and tell them to entertain you. Yes, of course sexual violence is about power. That’s one major reason the whole “TERFs get trans women killed” trope is such utter bullshit: it turns the power differential inside-out.

And the question of what might have been going on in Weinstein’s head is missing from the pointedly titled She Said for a reason: Kantor and Twohey didn’t set out to analyze Weinstein’s motivations, but to focus on the effects of his actions on the women he is accused of abusing, and to prove through reporting that there was a whole system covering up Weinstein’s misdeeds and silencing the women he targeted.

The tension in the room was only exacerbated by Woodward’s repeated claims that Kantor and Twohey were dodging his question. “You could just feel the whole audience going into a defensive posture,” Amaria, the Vox visuals editor, said.

…

Woodward’s refusal to accept Twohey and Kantor’s answers to his questions — and his repeated attempts to talk over them as they tried to respond — was a refusal to accept their expertise as journalists, and a decision to prioritize his own understanding of sexual violence over theirs without any apparent education in the field.

Ironically, the conversation ended up replicating the very power dynamics that Twohey and Kantor were trying to explain, the power dynamics that let Weinstein get away with what he did for so long: a man exerting his own institutional power over the women in the room with him, just because he could.

And apparently not even realizing he was doing it. We’ve been pointing this shit out for fifty years now, and they still don’t get it. Woodward is dodging that question.