All entries by this author
Jan 12th, 2018 4:57 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Jezebel posts a laughably wrong bad inaccurate headline:
The Backlash to #MeToo Is Second-Wave Feminism
You what? The hell it is. #MeToo is second wave feminism, and the backlash is third wave. Mind you I think all the waves are stupid because none of it is that simple – the resurgence of feminism starting in the late 60s was hardly monolithic. However if you’re going to talk about waves at all you should at least get them right, and second wave was a lot more radical than its predecessors; that was the whole point. Noticing and pushing back against sexual harassment was part of that. (Lately I’ve seen claims that no one had even heard of it until the Clarence … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
12 comments
Jan 12th, 2018 11:19 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Speaking of immigrants, speaking of immigrants from African countries, speaking of immigrants from what Donald Trump is pleased to call “shitholes” – news outlets today are talking about Emmanuel Mensah, who came to New York from Ghana.
The Times did a story on him on December 29th.
Emmanuel Mensah was a handsome, strongly built young man in his late 20s who immigrated to the Bronx from Ghana five years ago. He joined the Army National Guard but returned to his apartment on Prospect Avenue in December, after graduating from boot camp with the rank of private first class.
And on Thursday night, he lost his life trying to save people from his furiously burning apartment building, one of 12
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4 comments
Jan 12th, 2018 9:18 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump also lied about the US embassy in London.
Donald Trump has cancelled a visit to Britain next month to open the new US embassy in London, amid fears of mass protests.
The president claimed on Twitter that the reason for calling off the trip was his displeasure at Barack Obama having sold the current embassy for “peanuts” and built a replacement for $1bn (£750m). “Bad deal,” he wrote.
But the embassy’s plan to move from Mayfair to Nine Elms in London was first reported in October 2008, when George W Bush was still president.
He lies about everything, he lies as casually as he eats all the ice cream.
Trump confirmed on Twitter late on Thursday night
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Tags: Trump
Jan 12th, 2018 8:16 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Trump of course is lying about it.
I suppose he’s too thick to realize that all his many lies have the result that informed people won’t believe this one.
Anyway, there are witnesses.
Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, said on Friday that the president did use the term “shithole,” repeatedly, during the course of the meeting on immigration — which Mr. Durbin attended. The senator described Mr. Trump as saying “things which were hate-filled, vile and
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
3 comments
Tags: President Pig, Trump
Jan 11th, 2018 5:35 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Well at least President Shithole has canceled his trip to the UK, knowing how much they hate him over there.
Donald Trump has shelved plans to open the new US embassy in London next month, according to reports.
Concerned about the welcome he would receive in the UK, the President is understood to be sending US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson instead.
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Mr Trump had been due to come to London to open the new £750m embassy, but was said to have abandoned the idea as he feels unhappy about the scale of the visit and the arrangements made.
He is said to be unhappy about the lack of “bells and whistles” surrounding the event and the fact
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
9 comments
Jan 11th, 2018 4:48 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
But wait, it gets even worse. Chris Cillizza has new details.
On Thursday, in a meeting with a senators and House members on immigration, the President of the United States, asked this: “Why do we want all these people from ‘shithole countries’ coming here?”
Yes, he said “shithole countries” — apparently in reference to the fact that immigrants from places like El Salvador, Haiti and Africa were being protected in a potential bipartisan deal to preserve the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and secure funding for border security.
What’s even more appalling is that the White House didn’t even try to deny that Trump used that slur, which was first reported in The Washington Post. In fact,
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Tags: President Pig, Trump
Jan 11th, 2018 4:24 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Let’s get the take from somewhere else first. The BBC:
US President Donald Trump has reportedly lashed out at immigrants in a four-letter Oval Office outburst.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Mr Trump told lawmakers on Thursday, according to the Washington Post.
The remark was reportedly in reference to people from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries.
The White House did not deny the comment, which has been confirmed by other US media.
Wow.
We know that’s what he thinks, of course, but we didn’t all know he was quite that disinhibited.
Democratic Senator Richard Durbin had just been discussing US temporary residency permits granted to citizens of countries hit by
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog
Tags: President Pig, Trump
Jan 11th, 2018 1:43 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
The disgust-horror at menstrual blood kills another woman.
KATHMANDU, Nepal — The last time anyone saw Gauri Kumari Bayak alive, she was gathering grass and firewood. Considered impure because she was menstruating, she was about to sleep outside in a cold hut.
She never woke up.
According to the police, Ms. Bayak is the latest victim of a very old tradition in rural Nepal, in which religious Hindus believe that menstruating women are unclean and should be banished from the family home. She was found dead on Monday, apparently having asphyxiated after building a small fire inside the hut to keep warm.
Get outside, woman, with your disgusting shedding of the endometrium that is every human being’s first source … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jan 11th, 2018 1:16 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
Robert Reich offers some optimism (and a way to make a difference for those of us in the US):
Every time I post about another outrage perpetrated by Trump and his enablers, several of you ask “What can I do?” The answer is to do what hundreds of thousands are already doing – join with others in Indivisible groups to “kick the bums out,” as the old saying goes.
It’s working. Yesterday, one of the most right-wing members of Congress, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA 49), announced he will not seek reelection. Issa is the second California Republican to retire this week. He joins a growing list of GOP House retirements.
One reason for Issa’s – and the other GOP
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1 Comment »
Jan 11th, 2018 12:40 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
More on that arrest of a teacher who objected to a pay raise for an administrator.
Deyshia Hargrave previously spoke out against the Vermilion Parish School Board (VPSB) for voting to give the standing superintendent nearly $30,000 raise, which she claimed was a “slap in the face” to hard-working teachers who haven’t seen a boost in pay in years.
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Since those in attendance at Monday’s board meeting were allowed to comment on superintendent Jerome Puyau’s pay raise, Hargrave chose to make mention of the “serious issue” she had with such action occurring.
“I have a serious issue with a superintendent or any person in a position of leadership getting any type of raise,” Hargrave said before the board
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Jan 11th, 2018 11:42 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Mei Fong asks how much more are men paid.
About 50 percent, in the BBC journalist Carrie Gracie’s case. Over the weekend, Ms. Gracie quit as the broadcaster’s China editor and announced she was returning to London. “Enough is enough,” she wrote, in an astringent open letter, describing how she discovered last year that the BBC paid two of its four international editors — men, of course — 50 percent more than the female editors.
(I think it was closer to twice as much.)
It says something when it’s considered an advancement for women just to get to the bargaining table and ask for equal pay. Many of us never even get that far.
More than a decade ago,
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Jan 11th, 2018 10:10 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Brendan being Brendan, again.
If you want to see misogyny – real, visceral, woman-shaming misogyny, the kind that views women as incapable of thinking for themselves, or as possessors of such foul thoughts that they shouldn’t think for themselves – look no further than #MeToo.
Oh yes, that’s the one: Mr Predictable Paradox. The real misogynists are feminists! The real misogyny is a campaign to expose and end systemic sexual harassment! Gaze on the contrarian and be stunned.
His Cause of Paradox this time is a social media wave of anger at Katie Roiphe over a forthcoming article in Harper’s that was said to name the woman who created the Shitty Media Men list. I took a brief look … Read the rest
Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
2 comments
Tags: Brendan O'Neill
Jan 10th, 2018 5:15 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
There’s that teacher in Louisiana who was arrested and handcuffed for asking questions at a school board meeting about why an administrator was getting a raise while teachers hadn’t had a raise in years.
Deyshia Hargrave had a question for the Vermillion Parish School Board: Why was the superintendent getting a pay raise when teachers like her and other school employees hadn’t had one in years?
“I feel like it is a slap in the face of all the teachers, cafeteria workers and any other support staff we have,” she told the board in a public meeting Monday. “We work very hard with very little.”
What happened next might have stayed in the tiny Louisiana town of Abbeville, about 150
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
7 comments
Jan 10th, 2018 4:28 pm |
By Ophelia Benson
A little girl in Pakistan was raped, strangled, and thrown into a dumpster. She was seven.
As her relatives tell it, Zainab’s horrifying last few hours unfolded like this: The child had been staying with her aunt while her parents traveled to Saudi Arabia to perform the umrah pilgrimage. On Thursday, relatives say, she left home for a nearby Koran recital. She never returned.
On Tuesday, police found her body in a dumpster about a mile from her home in Kasur, a city in Punjab province. According to early autopsy reports, Zainab had been raped multiple times and strangled four or five days earlier.
She was seven. Seven. Seven.
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Jan 10th, 2018 11:33 am |
By Ophelia Benson
Another example of how not to amplify support for your cause: Pensacola Women’s March on Facebook:
Trigger Warning and Content Warning for comments:
Transphobia, Cissexism, Racism, mention of Sexual Assault, Genital Mutilation, Misogyny and Trans-Misogyny.
The Pink P*ssy Hats represent a very concentrated and thus, exclusionary sect of feminism that ignores, neglects, and ultimately harms the fight for global women’s liberation. The entire concept is based around the idea of biological essentialism and shared womanhood (Mia McKenzie, Black Girl Dangerous): two incorrect ideas that women are all on the same level despite conflicting classes, races, sexualities, etc. and are also bound by “the power of the vagina”. This is a very popular concept developed and expanded upon during the
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Posted in Notes and Comment Blog |
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