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

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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

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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

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That’s…interesting.

Has the Green Party learned nothing from the Aimee Challenor debacle? A desire for inclusivity blinded them to shocking safeguarding failures. With Kathryn Bristow now elected as co chair of Green Party Women it looks set to make the same errors again 1/ pic.twitter.com/z7s5DkR2rq

— Danial Webb (@DanialWebb) December 31, 2020

GenderGP makes no background or DBS checks on its customer service advisors such a Kathryn Bristow, who are supporting often vulnerable children and adults as a time of considerable mental distress. 3/

— Danial Webb (@DanialWebb) December 31, 2020

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

In fact GenderGP’s lack of safeguarding is its USP; whatever your age, whatever your mental state, GenderGP

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Ha! Take that.

Honoured to have been given OBE for services to higher education. I want to use this opportunity to draw further attention to suppression of critical thought about gender identity ideology and trans activism in UK Universities – so here’s a thread. 1/

— Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) December 31, 2020

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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?

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

https://twitter.com/kathrynbristow/status/1343586332942032896 … 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.

https://twitter.com/zarakayk/status/1343474530480762880

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 (@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 #FreeZaraKay (@halimasalat) December 30, 2020

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

— Gita Sahgal (@GitaSahgal) December 30, 2020

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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

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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

Oh no, people questioning someone’s identity again. People are what they say they are! Unless they’re TERFs who object to being called TERFs of course; that’s completely different.

Last week, a Twitter sleuth sketched out how Hilaria Baldwin, the influencer wife of actor (and sometime SNL star) Alec Baldwin, has perpetrated “a decade long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person.”

Or rather, pretends to be a Spanish person. Impersonating one means a specific one, as opposed to a generic one. She was going for the generic.

The user, who goes by the handle @lenibriscoe, shared a number of damning videos of “Hilaria,” from a Good Morning America appearance where she employed a Spanish accent

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Graham Linehan asks the age-old question: Is Eddie Izzard a lesbian?

Alright, everyone, let’s get out there and start asking our favourite celebrities the following question: “Is Eddie Izzard a lesbian?”.

Ask everyone you can think of, from intellectuals like Jameela Jamil and Frankie Boyle all the way across to such LGBT giants as Michael Cashman and Linda Riley. Let’s get people on the record as saying that Eddie Izzard is a lesbian.

Because, by now I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that, yes, this is literally what is being proposed. It is why lesbians have been lying down in front of Pride Marches and such. It’s why Maya Forstater lost her job. It’s

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More than 13 years later and it’s still pissing us off.

As it should.

In 2007 I was a college sophomore returning to campus from winter break and I picked up a Vanity Fair in Penn Station and read Christopher Hitchens' article "Why Women Aren't Funny." Here's how it began. This is a real article printed in a real magazine by a (formerly) real man. pic.twitter.com/f4sA240krt

— Bess Kalb (@bessbell) December 29, 2020

So she got a job writing comedy.… Read the rest

A tedious conversation:

But everyone isn't free to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit. We can't define ourselves as heads of state, doctors, pilots, many more items, unless we really are those things.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 29, 2020

I'm not, I'm responding to the words of the tweet.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 29, 2020

No I'm not, I'm replying to "Eddie Izzard, who is free, as is everyone else, to define herself in whatever terms she deems fit." You're not free to define what I said and meant.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 29, 2020

I know what I said, and that I said it in response to a wild claim that we can define

… Read the rest