Accused of
Look at this stupid chain of “accused of”s and “previously criticized”s and “branded as”s all linked up to make a hearsay accusation of Wrongthink against…you’ll never guess…a woman. Funny how reliably it’s a woman these days.
A HISTORY professor accused of being transphobic will head a new women’s rights initiative at Oxford University.
Oh accused of; well what more do you need to know. It could be some random crackpot in the pub just before closing, but do let’s make it the basis for a story in the Oxford Mail because hey, it’s only a woman. Also why does she get to be a history professor when the inquisitors on Twitter don’t? What’s so great about her besides brains and education and discipline?
Professor of Modern History at Oxford University Selina Todd is one of the academics who will lead the research programme that was announced earlier this month.
But Prof Todd has previously been criticised by LGBT+ campaigners for holding ‘anti-trans’ views and supporting the group Woman’s Place, which was recently branded as a ‘trans-exclusionary hate group’ by the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights.
She’s one of the academics leading the research programme but wait wait wait SOMEBODY SAID SOMETHING.
Why is “somebody said something” even worth a newspaper story? Why do newspapers keep publishing them? The people who say this kind of shit tend to be very stupid and very blinkered and very aggressive toward women so why is it worth solemnly publishing their accusations in newspapers??
It is unclear how the new Women’s Equality and Inequality, which is part of the Oxford Martin Programme, will improve the rights of all women, including trans women, as both Prof Todd and Oxford University did not provide a comment when contacted by the Oxford Mail.
Improving the rights of all women does not entail improving the rights of trans women, because trans women are men. All this insisting that women can’t talk about women’s rights without being interrupted to be told we have to include men in women’s rights is such perverse backward-looking misogynist shit I can barely credit that we’re still arguing about it.
Also, “both X and Y did not” is bad English.
1. Could be a slow news day. 2. Could be good for sales. 3. Could stir up a response: even a newsworthy one, in which case: 4. go to 1.
“Both… did not” seems more and more common this days. Perhaps it requires a little less mental effort than “neither… nor”. But it’s a reliable indicator of sloppy thinking that doesn’t mean what the typist wants it to mean, as it doesn’t exclude the possibility that one of the parties did provide a comment or whatever.
The Oxford Mail could have written a viable story about trans rights loonies bullying an innocent woman, which would have been more newsworthy than the shite it did write.
Still, we can cheer ourselves up with the thought that Oxford is famously the home of lost causes.
Not guilty, you say? Are you meaning to imply that the Party would make baseless accusations? Are you questioning the righteousness of the Party? Comrades, you just heard the counter-revolutionary sentiment from the defendant’s own mouth! The prosecution rests its case.
If you want to say “both” instead of “neither” though all you have to do is say “both declined to comment.” Boom, job done.