Mar 21

“The Mad Whale” – HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Watched The Mad Whale yesterday. The description was something like ‘Lunatics at a women’s asylum put on a performance of Moby Dick‘. I was hoping to see an expose of historical treatment of women vis-a-vis madness and was not disappointed. But I was delighted, further, to see a couple other unexpected (shame on me!) exposes and some female heroism. (It’s free on Plex.)

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Mar 20

Leigh Anne Jasheway – brilliant!

I’ve recently discovered the brilliant and hilarious work of Leigh Anne Jasheway. Her’s a great starting point: “20 Headlines from an Alternate Universe” But take a look through (ALL OF) her other posts! Share

Mar 15

John Varley’s Dark Lightning

It’s just space opera, but I love that the girls kick ass and the prettyboy hunk is pretty much useless.


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Mar 10

“When people say ‘trans women are women’…”

https://deadwildroses.com/2021/01/

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Mar 09

To permit ignorance

“To permit ignorance is to empower it.”  Edmond Kirsch in Origins, Dan Brown


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Mar 06

Just discovering Bill Bryson

“We wanted proper outback: a place where men were men and sheep were nervous.”

“I don’t know why, but every Olympics these days has a mascot.  Moscow had a bear called Mischa. Nagaon had some cute snowflake creatures.  Atlanta, I believe, had a person being shot on a street corner.”

both from In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson

 


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Mar 05

Jane Clare Jones on Transactivism: brilliantly funny

reposted from https://janeclarejones.com/2018/11/

Episode 1: The First War Begins. Scene 1: Cyberspace – probably around 2013

Trans activists: So hey, when we said we’d like you to treat us like women that wasn’t right, because actually, we ARE women and we demand that you treat us exactly like women because we are women and that you to stop violently excluding us from all your women things.

Women: Um, we thought you were male people who had to transition to help with your dysphoria?

Trans activists: No, that is out-dated and pathologizing. Women are women because they have a gender identity which makes them women.

Women: Um, we thought we were woman because we’re female?

Trans activists: No, you are women because you have magic womanish essence that makes you women. We have the same magic womanish essence as you, it’s just that ours got stuck in the wrong body.

Feminists: That sounds kind of sexist. Can you tell us what this woman-essence is, and how it gets stuck in the wrong body, because that sounds like a weird metaphys…..

Trans activists: It’s SCIENCE.

Feminists: Science says there’s ‘magic woman essence’??? Are you sure? Because feminism would…

Trans activists: Shut up bigots.

Feminists: Sorry? What?

Trans activists: You are our oppressors, you don’t get to speak. When you speak you oppress us, and it literally kills us.

Feminists: WHAT?

Trans activists: You are cis women, cis people are our oppressors.

Feminists: We’re what?

Trans activists: It’s your new name, it comes from Latin, and means you have a magic gender essence that matches your body, and because your magic gender essence matches your body you are privileged…

Feminists: Hang on a minute, women are oppressed because they are women, we’re not really sure that’s a privilege…

Trans activists: YOU ARE PRIVILEGED BECAUSE YOUR GENDER IDENTITY MATCHES YOUR BODY. Nobody knows the pain of being trapped in the wrong body. It is the greatest pain of all the pains that has ever happened to all of human kind, and everyone who does not know this pain is privileged and is therefore our oppressor.

Feminists: Um, were not really sure we’re oppressing you, we don’t have much social power to oppress you, we’d just like to ask you some questions about this gender identity thing….

Trans activists: ARE YOU DEBATING OUR RIGHT TO EXIST???

Feminists: What? No, we just wanted to ask you…

Trans activists: YOU ARE DEBATING OUR RIGHT TO EXIST. THIS IS LITERAL VIOLENCE.

Feminists: No no no hold on, we’re just trying to ask you a question…

Trans activists: WE WILL NOT DEBATE OUR RIGHT TO EXIST. YOU ARE TRYING TO EXTERMINATE US. YOU ARE JUST LIKE GENOCIDAL RACISTS

Feminists: What??? We’re like genocidal what??? This is fucking crazy. Can we just try and calm down and talk about this?

Trans activists: NO. There is NO DEBATE. Debating is literal violence and makes us unsafe. Repeat after us – Trans women are women. Trans women are women because they have woman essence, just like cis women. You’re not women because of your bodies. Bodies have nothing to do with being a woman.

Feminists: Okay, this is sounding nuts now, because we really think our bodies have quite a lot to do with our being woman.

Trans activists: Bio-essentialism!

Feminists: What? Essentialism is bad we agree, but that means thinking people with certain kinds of bodies have to…

Trans activists: No, essentialism is thinking male and female people exist.

Feminists: But male and female people DO exist.

Trans activist: FUCK YOU TERF. DIE IN A FIRE.

Feminists: Woah.

Trans activists: How many fucking times do we need to tell you this cis-scum? Your body has nothing to do with your being a woman. There is no such thing as female biology.

Feminists: WHAT THE FUCK????

Trans activists: The gender binary was created by white heteropatriarchal colonialism.

Feminists: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK???? WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?? WHICH ‘COLONIALISM’????

American trans activists who don’t know the rest of the world exists: Colonialism colonialism duh.

Feminists: How the hell is the colonization of North America responsible for the creation of male and female people? And while we’re here that sounds kinda racist…

Trans activists: Two-spirit people burble burble sex is a spectrum burble clown fish burble burble intersex people burble burble some women don’t have ovaries burble social construct burble Judith Butler

(Academics with cool-girl syndrome and assorted edgelords and wokebros: JUDITH BUTLER!!!!)

Trans activists: ….burble burble, there is no such thing as female biology and women are women because they have magic gender essence and therefore some women have penises!

Feminists: Okay, this is batshit. We REALLY need to talk about this.

Trans activists: WE WILL NOT DEBATE OUR RIGHT TO EXIST.



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Mar 02

aurora linnea on Ekman’s “On the Meaning of Sex”

An excellent review of an excellent book here. And because a link isn’t anywhere near sufficient … “On the Meaning of Sex reads like a forensic dissection, its forty concise chapters taking apart the corpus of transgender ideology piece by piece. No fallacy-wrapped riddle of a paradox is spared the nick of Ekman’s scalpel as she slits open all the standard trans talking points to point out the lethal flaws ulcerating their logic. The supposedly “progressive” return to retrograde Barbie-vs.-G.I. Joe sex-role stereotypes. “Overcoming” the gender binary through the reinforcement of a binary, dualistic gender system, the entrenchment of masculinity and femininity as the mainstays of human selfhood. The redefinition of biological reality (sex) as a “social construct” and of a social construct (gender) as a naturally occurring “reality.” Expunging essentialism by establishing gender as an “essence” emergent from one’s pink or blue brain. “Believing the science” of the scientifically unsubstantiated pink/blue brain theory. Individuality through conformity, corralling the “incongruent” individual into alignment with social norms. Being your True Self by changing yourself, by imitating others, trying to become something you are not. Self-acceptance through the rejection of your own body. Self-care through the infliction of self-harm through breast-binding or chronic-pain-inducing elective surgeries. Authenticity through artifice. Diversity through manufactured sameness. Transforming an oppressive culture by preserving that culture’s most foundational structures. Rebellion through compliance. Inclusivity through exclusion. Tolerance through violent threats against dissenters. Smashing patriarchy by re-centering men and demonizing women, courtesy of a “feminism” that prioritizes male feelings and desires. The lionization of men who pretend to be women by presenting themselves as caricatures of pornified, infantilized femininity, while white people who pretend to be black are condemned—and the slightest equivalency between the two practices is furiously denied. The “cis privilege” of women and girls to endure systematic birth-to-death, sex-based disenfranchisement, exploitation, and abuse. And then there is the refrain that echoes through our aching skulls: “Trans women” are women! Yes, “trans women” are exactly like other women in every single way, but also they must be acknowledged specifically, because to lump them in with other women would be to ignore their unique “marginality.” Men who say they are women are like other women in every single way, except more deserving of attention. They are also more womanly than “cis” women could ever dream of being, and more oppressed under patriarchy. But even these claims will be upended by the time we lurch, heads spinning, to the final analysis, when it is concluded that women do not, in any meaningful way, actually exist.” Share

Feb 25

One way to deal with it (sexism) (in science this time)

“When I go to a venture-capital group of only men,” Nacy said, “I do most of the speaking, and my chief business officer and I watch faces. If they’re incredulous about something I’ve said, he’ll repeat the same thing—and then it’ll be just fine.” Read the whole article here. Share

Feb 24

Women’s Work, Kari Aguila

An interesting novel, worth the read! “Think about how different our world is going to be when this generation of boys grows up, having been allowed to grow into whole, good, decent men. Nobody is going to tell them that they have to go through life being some stupid caricature of masculinity anymore. They can talk about feelings and beauty and love, and still be respected. We haven’t taken away your freedom, we’ve given it to you. You should be thanking us.” p127 Share