Wait, are you saying that a fictional character’s being named Hershel Fink suggests that the character is Jewish??? The Royal Court theatre is shocked shocked to hear it.

[Al] Smith, the author of a new play coming to the Royal Court theatre this week, had given a lead character the name of Hershel Fink. But publicity for the production prompted angry complaints about Jewish stereotyping. In response, the famous venue on Sloane Square in London has now apologised and agreed to change the name, admitting that it was “unconscious bias” that had led to the Silicon Valley billionaire in the work being given this identity.

Being given this name, I think that should read. The Royal Court people … Read the rest

Discouraging.

I want to talk about how misogyny is often framed as edgy jokes. I want to talk about how this guy is comparing battered women to dogs in an animal shelter and mocking how traumatized and easy to manipulate they are as a result. I want to talk about why men think this is funny. pic.twitter.com/yfwCMIVSz9

— feminist next door (@emrazz) November 6, 2021

I want to talk about how tossing out lazy, bottom of the barrel, vitriolic misogyny online is always done in the key of “king willing to say what we’re all thinking,” and that it’s a common part of the discourse among young men, and especially among progressive or leftist men. pic.twitter.com/udu4jBiV8K

— feminist next door

Huh. That’s quite a nice salary for helping men harass women.

.@UniMelb is advertising a Gender Affirmation Advisor position that pays over $100,000 annually to "provide support to staff and students wishing to affirm their gender" and to handle "external reporting or complaint processes" pic.twitter.com/x4XFZKjLea

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) November 5, 2021

… Read the rest

LSE has an explainer for Athena Swan too, mostly quoting Athena Swan (or Athena SWAN as they call it) but tweaking the wording a little in places.

Athena SWAN was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employed in higher education and research.

So far so good.

In May 2015 the charter was expanded to recognise work undertaken in the arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), in professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students. The charter now recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, rather than just barriers to progression that affect women.

Ok wait.

I once … Read the rest

What is this Athena Swan Charter? According to Athena Swann:

The Athena Swan Charter is a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research. Established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment, the Charter is now being used across the globe to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.

Ah, that’s very helpful – they tell us what treacherous idiots they are right in the first paragraph. They used to campaign for women and now they know better, now they look beyond “just barriers to progression … Read the rest

This is how it’s done – make yourself part of the Diversity N Incloosion infrastructure and bam, you get to make your crank ideas mandatory for all people who are part of that infrastructure. Stonewall seem to be the best at it but they’re not the only ones.

Lawyers and campaigners say that a university training scheme on gender identity is “totalitarian and unlawful”.

Imagine having to attend university training on “gender identity” when you don’t believe that’s a meaningful concept.

The latest row centres on a scheme called Athena Swan that is offered by Advance HE, formerly the Higher Education Academy, a charity that advises education institutions.

How do people get to appoint themselves “charities that advise education … Read the rest

“Oh but you can’t lump me in with the cishets, I’m QUEER.”

I am going to respond in some detail as soon as I am off deadline. This deserves a considerate answer.

— Julie Bindel (@bindelj) November 6, 2021

I’m a bit sore about this today, TBH, because I got reminded it’s been five years since I first got called a sexual tourist in the Guardian and taken the piss out of in the press for coming out as genderqueer (by @suzanne_moore).

— Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) November 6, 2021

I bet Laurie Penny’s not “glad to hear it” any more.

.@PennyRed OK. A thread in response to your statement, 'Presumably if the people in question are calling themselves

Gregor Murray, the unhinged man who shouts derogatory abuse at women on Twitter, is still a Dundee councillor.

Funny thing about that – you can’t tell from his official page that he’s “non-binary.” Nobody looking at that page would have any idea that he’ll flip all the way out if you call him “him” or address him as “sir.” People looking at that page are going to just assume he’s a man, because his name is Gregor and he’s dressed in the business uniform for men and he has a beard and a receding hairline and so on – they’re going to assume it because he “presents as” a man.

So…is the “non-binary” thing just for after hours? A hobby? … Read the rest

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has more details about the abuse of the female goalie.

Armstrong principal Kirk Lorigan said the school is “appalled and embarrassed” at the actions of the student section and chants that the students used during Thursday’s game at Belmont Sports Complex in Kittanning. One of the chants was sexually explicit, and Mars coach Steve Meyers said his goalie was in tears after the second period. Mars has played five games this season and the female goalie has been the starter for all five games.

…

Lorigan did not attend the game but said he was “disgusted” that no one — from Armstrong parents to two security personnel — did anything to stop the chants.

What are the … Read the rest

How is this ok?

This is the world women experience. This kind of sexualized & sex-based harassment happens in full view of an audience. But we shouldn’t even blink at demands to allow boys & men into our school bathrooms, change rooms, sports teams, gym locker rooms, prison cells, rape shelters. https://t.co/UEbanYKtIf

— Candice Jackson (@CEJacksonLaw) November 5, 2021

It’s what male people say to gender critical feminists, too – suck my dick. Remember that sign at the FiLiA conference?

But please, tell us again how men who say they are women are the most oppressed Of All.… Read the rest

Trumpian hack refuses to answer.

Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark stonewalled the House Select Committee investigating January 6, responding to a subpoena demanding he appear for an interview with the panel, but not answering questions posed to him, sources familiar with his appearance told CNN.

He should be locked up then.

Instead, Clark provided a letter from his attorney Harry MacDougald that claimed he could not provide testimony until a court declares that his interactions with former President Donald Trump are not protected under attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.

Attorney-client privilege!!!

He worked for the country, not Trump. He was a DoJ official, not Trump’s lawyer. He never worked for Trump. Trump was never his client.… Read the rest

It does, doesn’t it.

The word ‘victim’ seems awfully misplaced here… pic.twitter.com/PpRtnYcyXN

— James Dreyfus (@DreyfusJames) November 5, 2021

That’s Kathleen Stock he’s calling calling a cretinous vile excuse for a human being.

Gregor Murray, in case you’ve forgotten, has a habit of verbally abusing women, so much so that he was suspended from his job as a councillor for it in 2019.

Scotland’s only openly transgender councillor has been suspended for two months over derogatory online remarks.

Derogatory remarks, eh? Like calling a woman philosopher who is both smarter and more humane than he is “a cretinous vile excuse for a human being”? Seems to be a hard habit to break in his case.

The standards commission said the

It’s an insurrection and price-gouging! Multi-tasking taken to a new level.

On December 19, Trump tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Almost overnight, the cheapest room in his D.C. hotel on that January evening surged from $476 to $1,999. Just over a week later, prices hit $3,600, before eventually climbing to $8,000.

Makes it sound like the weather, something that just happens, as opposed to a greedy human being jacking up the prices because he can. Treason with one hand, grabbing all the dollars with the other.

Guests included insiders working to overturn the election from the “war room” down the block at the Willard hotel—as well as the president’s two eldest

The Financial Times on this mess we’re in:

Just over a week ago, Kathleen Stock resigned from her post as professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, following a relentless three-year campaign of bullying, harassment and character assassination.

…

“I can’t keep working somewhere where . . . there’s such toxicity,” she had told me the previous week, when I’d gone to speak to her at the home she shares with her pregnant wife and two children. The strain Stock was under was palpable — she broke down in tears twice during our conversation; several days earlier, she had been signed off work by her doctor because of stress. At one point, we were interrupted by the delivery

A comrade responds to Grant Buttars:

God help any woman who works in Scottish higher education who says that sex is immutable and is relying on University and College Union (UCU) Scotland Executive member and Branch President (UCU Edinburgh) Grant Buttars to defend her if some students demand she should be sacked.

In the post-Trotskyist version of a witch trial Buttars produces some of the most appalling arguments ever adduced by a man to justify the sacking of a woman. After a long set up referencing a case of a racist advocate of paedophilia in “When is it right for a union to support dismissal?”, Buttars explains it is OK when the target is a racist, an advocate of

What are unions for? Holding workers up for the mob to stone, is it?

‘I don’t feel the need to back anybody’, says Jo Grady head of the of UCU when asked whether she backed @Docstockk against the harassment she has suffered. Why would anyone belong to such a union? @BBCr4today

— David Aaronovitch (@DAaronovitch) November 5, 2021

That is just extraordinary.

— Dr Mike Ward – @Schroedinger99@social.anoxinon.de (@Schroedinger99) November 5, 2021

… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Djolaman on What legal rights?

There’s a distinction between a ‘right’ in the sense of something you are entitled to do within the law and a ‘right’ in the sense of something that may not legitimately be denied to you.

For instance married couples in the uk can have their income tax liabilty evaluated so that some of the money earned by the higher earner is considered for tax purposes to have been earned by the lower earner, which often means it’s exempt from income tax as it falls below the tax threshold. This is a right in the sense that married people are perfectly entitled to claim this tax deduction. However, if the rules were … Read the rest

I’ve watched this twice today, and I think it will probably be a good idea to watch it at least daily from now on. Via Cameron Larios.

Info:

This quirky short film by Iqaluit filmmaker Becky Qilavvaq has caught a wave of viewers around YouTube recently. Feel the Inukness stars actor Anguti Johnston step dancing around Iqaluit to a Celtic jig, which is said to be similar to the footwork at Inuit celebrations. The work was well received by youth in the town, and Qilavvaq was awarded Ajjitt Media’s emerging filmmaker of the year.In an interview with Nunatsiaq Online, Qilavvaq spoke of a deeper message in the work: “It’s about being ourselves and embracing who we are … The

Joan Smith talks to Jo Phoenix:

Jo Phoenix is a widely respected academic. Since 2016, she has been professor of criminology at the Open University, where her focus is on vulnerable women in the criminal justice system. Phoenix does not think of herself as vulnerable and she certainly never expected to be where she is now – diagnosed with acute PTSD and suing her employer for failing to protect her after what she describes as two years of harassment from colleagues. “I’m exhausted,” she tells me – and she sounds it.

…

Her voice breaks at some points in our conversation, as she describes how she became a hate figure, metaphorically put in the stocks by colleagues who accuse

I asked OJ what he meant an hour or two ago. It’s a futile exercise, because he has too many followers to answer questions, but I did it anyway.

What exactly are "trans legal rights"? What legal rights are specific to trans people and no one else?

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) November 4, 2021

OJ and people like OJ want to insist (and do insist) that it’s about bad women wanting to “abolish” the legal rights of trans people, while feminist women counter-insist that we’re seeking to protect our rights, and that some claimed “rights” of trans people are not actually rights.

As far as I can tell the issue is that [some] trans people want it to be a … Read the rest