I hate to use the Daily Mail as a source, but every now and then I do. This story on Saturday reports that an organization called Gendered Intelligence runs workshops in a few primary schools in the UK. Very few – the Mail says “up to 20” schools a year get the workshops. Well 20 is a tiny number. Minuscule. The issue I have isn’t with the quantity but with the content.

In one class, Year Six boys at Hotspur Primary in Newcastle are asked to describe the ‘girlish’ things they like to do, while the girls say what ‘boyish’ pursuits they enjoy.

Gendered Intelligence’s founder Jay Stewart, who is giving the class, asks the pupils if they think ‘life

Just fucking unbelievable. The Jack the Ripper “museum” was promoting the opportunity to take selfies with “Jack” and the facsimile corpse of one of the murdered mutilated women. Selfies with the corpse of a slashed woman. What is wrong with everyone?

The museum was promising Halloween selfies with models of his victims and the founder of the museum, who was dressed as Jack the Ripper.

“Dressed as Jack the Ripper” doesn’t mean anything, because no one knows who the murderer was. “Perp the mutilator” would be a better name for him. (Yes, I doubt the perp was a woman.)

On their website, they posted: “How about a picture with Jack in Mitre Square together with the body of Catherine

I find it hard to believe this isn’t satire, but people tell me it’s not. Ok then – meet The five young revolutionary feminists you need to listen to.

“Just because you lop off your dick doesn’t make you a fucking woman”

This is just one regressive comment recently shit out by Germaine Greer – Australian second-wave “feminist”, writer and author of The Female Eunuch.

Her shitty statements have incited a rally of essays rightfully calling out her attempt to pitch transgender women as imposters, claiming they don’t “look like, sound like or behave like women.”

Essentially, her violent comments attempt to erase, undermine and deny the identity of transgender people, many of whom fall victim

Take heed:

A poster with the message:

ATTENTION

BETA MALES

SUPPORTING

#heforshe:

Despite what you may have been told, your sudden newfound support of feminism will do absolutely nothing to get you laid. Indeed, feminism has a long, bloody history of despising feminist men. They find them sexless, unarousing, and boring. BUT THEY WON’T TELL YOU THAT. They want your help, not YOU.

I love the “long, bloody history” part. It’s bloody to say no to sex?… Read the rest

Well this is hilarious.

A friend pointed out a comment on a thread at Pharyngula discussing feminism.

It’s one thing to criticize an artist for racism or transphobia. It’s quite another for who knows how many people to create over 3 dozen blogs and use social media to target an individual without social, economic, or political power. That’s disproportionate to any offense she caused. This isn’t a case of thousands of people taking to Twitter to mock and excoriate someone like Pharmabro Martin Shrkeli. He is a public figure in a position of power with a lot of privilege and a distinct lack of empathy who’s actions could impact a great many people. Zamii is nothing like him. She doesn’t

Kate Smurthwaite at the Jack the Ripper “museum” protest today:

… Read the rest

Maryam gave her talk at Warwick on Wednesday. The Student Rights blog reports:

Namazie’s visit to Warwick first gained media attention last month when the Student Union attempted to bar her from speaking on campus.

Thanks to a vocal campaign by Warwick Atheists, Secularists and Humanists (WASH), which saw widespread media coverage, the ban was overturned.

The president of WASH, Benjamin Davids, welcomed a packed lecture hall to the event on Wednesday, before Namazie spoke about the need to challenge Islamist groups – stressing that too often these movements are wrongly conflated with Islam and Muslims.

I have friends in and around Coventry. They were probably there.

Student Rights also spoke to Davids, who said that:

“

Laurie Penny explains about feminism to a wondering world.

First of all there’s the subhead, which is probably not her doing, but it does rather set the tone.

Feminism’s focus on women can be alienating to queer people and anyone questioning the gender binary. But it doesn’t have to be.

“Feminism’s focus on women” – pause to savor that. How dare feminism focus on women? Other people have problems too ya know! And yet would BuzzFeed remark that anti-racism’s focus on people of color can be alienating? Would it fret that the labor movement focuses on labor?

I don’t think so. It’s only feminism that the libertarian left is so relentlessly eager to ostracize. It’s as if feminism has somehow … Read the rest

The IHEU has more details.

In what now appears to be a coordinated attack, at least one person has been killed and three people have been injured, in two attacks on publishing houses in Dhaka, Bangladesh this afternoon.

First, three men, all secular bloggers, one also a publisher and another also a poet, were attacked at Shuddho-Shor, a publishing house for progressive and secular books in the Lalmatia neighborhood of Dhaka. The attackers were armed with machetes and firearms, and it is likely the publisher Ahmed Rashid Tutul, who had received direct death threats from Islamists unhappy with output, was the primary target. The six or so attackers appear to have tricked their way in representing themselves as book-buyers.

The BBC reports terrible news from Bangladesh:

A Bangladeshi publisher of secular books has been hacked to death in the capital Dhaka in the second attack of its kind on Saturday, police say.

Faisal Arefin Dipon, 43, was killed at his office in the city centre, hours after another publisher and two secular writers were injured in an attack.

They are the latest victims in a series of deadly attacks on secularists since blogger Avijit Roy was hacked to death by suspected Islamists in February.

Both publishers published Roy’s work.

I can only swear and swear and swear.

Earlier on Saturday, armed men burst into the offices of publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul.

They stabbed Mr Tutul and two writers

Happy gendered Halloween, girls and boys. (Did you see what I did there? I put girls first. That’s very rebellious of me. Girls are supposed to come second. It’s boys and girls, not girls and boys. Isn’t that funny?)

The New York Times has such a fun scary story about how gendered everything is in kidworld, and how badly it fucks everything up. All that work we did, undone by marketers. Oh well – I guess we’ll just have to do it all over again! Or you will, because I’ll be dead by then, and your grandchildren will, if the glaciers haven’t all melted yet.

A web search for Halloween costumes of scientists produces only boys wearing lab coats and

There’s this:

And there’s this:

Notice anything?

The male figure is standing straight, hands in fists.

The female figure is at an angle, head tilted, one foot partly off the floor, one knee bent, palms outward.

Now this – a photo of women scientists who are spending eight days in an experimental capsule at Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems,

the latest in a lengthy series of tests carried out by institute specialists studying the effects on human physiology and emotions during life among the stars.

Well no, not among the stars. Outside earth’s atmosphere, but still 93 million miles from the nearest star. Anyway, the photo:

What on earth? They’re adult scientists, not teenage cheerleaders. Why are they bending their … Read the rest

Eaves Charity is closing down as of today.

Eaves has been a member of the End Violence Against Women campaign – an unprecedented coalition of individuals and organisations set up in 2005 who are calling on the government, public bodies and others to take concerted action to end violence against women.

But Eaves has been operational since 1977 and is particularly known for its specialist services for helping and supporting women victims of violence.

These include the Poppy project, the London Exiting Advocacy and the Alice project.

The Poppy project has supported some 2000 women victims of trafficking since its inception and helped 45 women bring their traffickers to justice, obtaining combined sentence of 423 years.

The London Exiting Advocacy

From the Independent: IS is shutting down gynecology clinics in Raqqa, clinics which are more than ever needed because IS is also raping little girls. A one-two punch.

Isis is believed to have ordered the closure of all women’s clinics supervised by male doctors in its Syrian heartlands in its latest assault on the rights of women.

A culture of rape, forced marriages for child brides, the persecution of doctors and the exclusive use of medicines for militants have resulted in a crisis for women’s health under Isis’s brutal regime.

According to activists, Isis has drastically restricted the work of male gynaecologists in accordance with its leaders’ belief that men and women should be kept apart at all costs.

Oy. Seen on Twitter –

I match 3 items under “you have a male brain if” and only 1 under “you have a female brain if.” I must be trans!

Or wait, maybe the list is bullshit.

 … Read the rest

At the Saudi embassy in Oslo today:

Ensaf reports that Raif was not flogged today – which is a big relief after the news that the flogging was going to resume. But that’s only this week…… Read the rest