How it started.

How it’s going.

Ruthless anything for a buck capitalism in action!

Originally a comment by Freemage on But which people, which Americans, whose bodies?

“Karen” didn’t originally mean “aggressive female racist”. It originally (as used by the male black comedian who coined the term) was mostly about class-privilege (in, of course, a gendered way), about upper-middle-class women who made life tough for front-line service industry workers by complaining incessantly and immediately demanding to ‘speak to the manager’. So not about feminists specifically, and mostly focused on class, but with that sexist tag-along.

It didn’t really have anything to do with race until the New York Central Park incident, where the white woman calling the cops on a black man as a threat was considered the ultimate form of ‘speaking to the manager’. So then it became about racism, too.

And then, it took about 60 seconds to transform into ‘any woman, anywhere, who does something I want to criticize, and imply that the behavior is because she’s a woman, specifically’. (The term “Mary Sue” did a similar transformation–it started out as a critique of a specific form of self-insert fanfiction character, then got applied to female characters who were protected by plot armor–with the occasional slightly more aware critic pointing out that this also applies to Batman, etc–and then finally, “any fictional female character who does something I don’t like”. It’s almost like these gendered epithets are meant to be ultimately expanded to apply to all women, or something.)

And, of course, the original coinage of the term is, in addition to being misogynistic in design, also dead wrong. The reason a lot of service people encounter a specific behavior coming from white, middle class women is simple–women still do most of the shopping, and upper-middle-class women (who are disproportionately white, since this country is racist as fuck), specifically, are the bulk of people who round out their shopping by going to a cafe or whatever. I work retail–but since it’s home improvement, we have a much more gender-balanced customer base. And the behavior originally attributed to “Karens”? Yeah, it’s pretty much universal, as a small percentage of any human sampling will include people who are overly entitled, and seeking an edge in some way or another at the expense of the hourly wageslave who is just trying to make it through the end of their shift. Most of the folks demanding to speak to my manger, frankly, are named either Sergei or Patel (the home improvement contractors in my store’s area are mostly either Indian or Eastern European men).

I point this out to people, and I usually get some form of “Well, men can be Karens, too.” My rejoinder is usually, “Well, then, why don’t we use the word ‘asshole’, instead? That’s nicely non-gendered and really would apply to everyone.”

The incident of the catsup in the nighttime.

Same transcript via NPR:

LIZ CHENEY: The physical altercation that Ms. Hutchinson described in the Presidential vehicle was not the first time that the President had become very angry about issues relating to the election. On December 1, 2020, Attorney General Barr said in an interview that the Department of Justice had not found evidence of widespread election fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election.

Ms. Hutchinson, how did the President react to hearing that news?

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: Around the time that I understand the AP article went live, I remember hearing noise coming from down the hallway. So I poked my head out of the office. I saw the valet walking towards our office. He had said, get the Chief down to the dining room. The President wants him. So Mark went down to the dining room, came back to the office a few minutes later.

After Mark had returned, I left the office and went down to the dining room and I noticed that the door was propped open and the valet was inside the dining room changing the tablecloth off of the dining room table. He motioned for me to come in and then pointed towards the front of the room near the fireplace mantel and the TV, where I first noticed there was catsup dripping down the wall and there was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor.

The valet had articulated that the President was extremely angry at the Attorney General’s AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall, which was causing him to have to clean up. So I grabbed a towel and started wiping the catsup off of the wall to help the valet out. And he said something to the effect of, he’s really ticked off about this.

I would stay clear of him for right now. He’s really, really ticked off about this right now.

He was also 74 years old right then so you’d think he would have had time enough to learn to control his temper but apparently not.

LIZ CHENEY: And Ms. Hutchinson, was this the only instance that you are aware of where the President threw dishes?

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: It’s not.

LIZ CHENEY: And are there other instances in the dining room that you recall where he expressed his anger?

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON: There were — there were several times throughout my tenure with the Chief of Staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor and likely break or go everywhere.

It’s a funny thing: I happened to find a copy of Pete Souza’s Shade in a Little Free Library yesterday. It’s funny in a wicked way. The hook is to quote Trump or a news item about him and then one of Souza’s photos showing Obama doing something in a parallel context. He’ll have to do an updated version with a photo of Obama not pulling the tablecloth off the White House dining table.

NPR has a transcript of today’s hearing on the January 6 [attempted coup].

Bennie Thompson: In the weeks ahead, the committee will hold additional hearings about how Donald Trump summoned a mob of his supporters to Washington, spurred them to march on the Capitol, and failed to take meaningful action to quell the violence as it was unfolding on January 6th. However, in recent days the Select Committee has obtained new information dealing with what was going on in the White House on January 6th and in the days prior, specific detailed information about what the former president and his top aides were doing and saying in those critical hours, firsthand details of what transpired in the office of the White House chief of staff just steps from the Oval Office as the threats of violence became clear, and indeed violence ultimately descended on the Capitol in the attack on American democracy.

It’s an important — it’s important that the American people hear that information immediately. That’s why, in consultation with the vice chair, I’ve recalled the committee for today’s hearing.

New information. New, hair-raising information. Worth recalling the committee.

LIZ CHENEY: On January 3rd, the Capitol Police issued a special event assessment. In that document, the Capitol Police noted that the Proud Boys and other groups planned to be in Washington, DC on January 6th and indicated that, quote, unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of the pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counter-protesters as they were previously, but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th. Of course, we all know now that the Proud Boys showed up on January 6th, marched from the Washington Monument to the Capitol that day, and led the riotous mob to invade and occupy our Capitol.

In other words the Capitol Police warned them, and were proved all too right.

Then Cheyney moves on to the subject of weapons. The authorities were already aware of a flood of weapons on January 5.

LIZ CHENEY: Of course, the world now knows that the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th had many different types of weapons. When a President speaks, the Secret Service typically requires those attending to pass through metal detectors known as magnetometers, or mags for short. The Select Committee has learned that people who willingly entered the enclosed area for President Trump’s speech were screened so they could attend the rally at the Ellipse.

They had weapons and other items that were confiscated: pepper spray, knives, brass knuckles, tasers, body armor, gas masks, batons, blunt weapons. And those were just from the people who chose to go through the security for the President’s event on the Ellipse, not the several thousand members of the crowd who refused to go through the mags and watched from the lawn near the Washington Monument.

Refused why? Because they were carrying weapons.

The police were calling in reports of people with weapons. Mark Meadows was informed about the weapons, and seemed thoroughly bored to hear it. Trump on the other hand was deeply concerned – not about the weapons, but about the crowd looking too small in the photographs.

Hutchinson:

But when we were in the offstage announce tent, I was part of a conversation — I was in — I was in the vicinity of a conversation where I overheard the President say something to the effect of, you know, I – – I don’t effing care that they have weapons.

They’re not here to hurt me. Take that effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away.

In other words fuck security, what matters is the photos and their numbers when they attack the Capitol.

LIZ CHENEY: Let’s reflect on that for a moment. President Trump was aware that a number of the individuals in the crowd had weapons and were wearing body armor.

And here’s what President Trump instructed the crowd to do. [Begin Videotape]

DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down — [Applause] — We’re going to walk down any one you want. But I think right here. We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. [Applause] [End Videotape]

He knew they had weapons – lots and lots and lots of weapons.

And there’s the bit where Trump tried to attack an agent.

Tony proceeded to tell me that when the president got in the beast, he was under the impression from Mr. Meadows that the off the record movement to the Capitol was still possible and likely to happen, but that Bobby had more information.

So, once the president had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby, he thought that they were going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him we’re not, we don’t have the assets to do it, it’s not secure, we’re going back to the West Wing, the president had a very strong, a very angry response to that.

Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of I’m the f’ing president, take me up to the Capitol now, to which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel.

We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And Mr. — when Mr. Ornato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.

A very stable [____________].

End of part one.

And one more thing. (This day of the hearing is proving to be startling.) NYT reporter Carl Hulse:

Murmurs through the hearing room as Mike Flynn refuses to answer whether he believes in the peaceful transfer of power and whether the Jan. 6 violence was justified, citing his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

NYT reporter Peter Alexander:

To see a retired four-star general who swore an oath to defend the country and the Constitution plead the Fifth when asked if he believed in the peaceful transfer of power in America is another stunning moment today.

This country is in deep trouble.

Some observers are saying Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony indicates a seditious conspiracy.

Doing what? It seems the people attending the rally on the lawn were checked for weapons first, so a lot of them were shut out, because of ALL THOSE GUNS. So then apparently the White House or Trump ordered the magnetometers removed…so that heavily armed people could attend the rally and then head for the Capitol, heavily armed.

It’s…yikes.

They really have to. He has to be stopped, because if he’s not, he’ll be back. That must not happen.

So. According to new testimony from a Trump White House aide, Trump got violent when he was told he wasn’t going to the Capitol after the January 6 rally.

“I’m the fucking President,” he said. “Take me up to the Capitol.”

It’s a preview of the not at all distant future, too.

The number of people migrating globally has steadily risen in the past two decades as poverty, climate change and violence have led people to flee their homelands.

Climate change is only going to get worse, much worse and very fast, so poverty and violence will get worse too, and migrations are going to accelerate, and resistance to migrations will accelerate too. People roasted to death in the backs of trucks will be an everyday occurrence.

The bodies of more than 40 people who appeared to have crossed into the United States illegally were found on Monday in one of the worst episodes of migrant deaths on the southern border in recent years. The journey north for migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico is typically dangerous, and sometimes fatal. Smugglers often transport large numbers in trailers, vans or S.U.V.s through remote areas in sweltering weather.

Desperation is a powerful force.

Erase erase erase erase.

Menopause is for everyone.

The NHS has ditched the terms ‘women’ and ‘woman’ from its menopause guidance, despite ministers promising to crack down on woke gender-free language in medical advice.

…

Now MailOnline has found ‘women’ and ‘woman’ have also been omitted from official advice about the menopause, which is unique to biological females.

In its online overview about the menopause, NHS advice used to contain six gender-specific mentions. But it was updated on May 17 to remove the terms.

Experts have warned de-gendering medical advice could be dangerous for women by over-complicating vital health messaging.

NHS Digital, which manages health information webpages, told MailOnline it wanted to ensure language was ‘inclusive’.

One, the goal of health information is to inform, as clearly and fully as possible.

Two, being “inclusive” by removing the word “women” from health information for women is the opposite of inclusive.

A spokesperson added: ‘The NHS website provides information for everyone. We keep the pages under continual review to ensure they use language that is inclusive, respectful and relevant to the people reading it.’ 

Oh fuck off. It’s not inclusive to exclude women from health information that applies to women only. It’s not respectful to exclude women from health information for women. It’s not relevant to exclude women from health information for women. Use your god damn brains.

The word “women” is replaced by “you” throughout. That’s stupid and childish as well as insulting and dangerous.

Janice Turner cops to having grown up thinking the feminist women who preceded her generation were dreary old has-beens.

Other political movements respect their elders even when their views no longer align with modern mores. Black Lives Matter would never forsake Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X; the LGBT movement deifies those who in 1969 bravely defied homophobic police at the Stonewall Inn in New York City. Feminism alone lays waste to each preceding generation of leaders, campaigners and thinkers as impure, backward, irrelevant, wrong.

It’s true. That “second wave”? We weren’t really second at all, we just thought we were. I wonder often why feminism is that way, and if it’s rooted in the perceived need to Reject Mommy in order to be an adult, and if that perceived need is really a general need or just a cultural habit.

The Pankhursts: rich bitches. Marie Stopes: eugenicist. Andrea Dworkin: man-hater, fun-sucker and (most unforgivably) ugly. Germaine Greer: transphobe, no matter The Female Eunuch rocked the world. Hillary Clinton: privileged, white, pantsuit girlboss. Besides they’re all old, like your mother, the very worst thing a woman can be. So let’s wipe feminism clean and start again.

Oopsy, we wiped it too clean and lost it altogether! Trans women shoving us aside on the one hand and abortion rights disappearing on the other. Looks like carelessness.

But why would young liberal women think feminism has damaged their lives? Complacency, of course, about existing rights. But also the desire to please, to abnegate, to “be kind”, which is so strongly indoctrinated into girls that to demand a movement of your own in which you place your rights uncompromisingly front and centre is pushy, selfish, unkind. Moreover the term “Karen” has lately expanded from its original meaning of aggressive female racist to encompass any uppity woman who won’t shut up.

And any uppity woman who won’t shut up = basically all women.

In the US, feminism is increasingly a mean-girl game, a purity test in which those guilty of transgression are “called out”, their careers and reputations ruined. Looking from Britain at America’s broken, sclerotic politics, it is understandable that you’d go for the quick serotonin hit of getting someone’s book deal cancelled rather than address seemingly impossible goals, such as paid maternity leave or solid abortion laws, to replace the legal lean-to of Roe v Wade.

Understandable but a short walk off a very high cliff. Life is grim down here at the bottom.

I wonder too what making the very word “woman” so toxic that it is unsayable has done for feminism’s standing. Better stay away in case you misspeak on a placard. Or why bother with feminism at all when with just a change of pronouns you can identify out of womanhood. Notably when expressing outrage about Roe falling, US politicians including even Obama, plus civil rights bodies like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, all avoided describing abortion as a woman’s right. “People will suffer”; “Americans will die”; “We demand bodily autonomy.” But which people, which Americans, whose bodies?

The ones who must not be named. We can talk about men all day long, and far into the night, but the word “women” is an unexploded bomb…unless it refers to men.

This happened.

I can’t get the Twitter version to magnify but it’s readable if I copy it in here, so that’s what I’m doing, because we need to be able to read it.

“You cannot discriminate in the provision of services because you are prejudiced.”

Oh. Bump. How disappointing.

“Irrespective of what Stonewall has told you, I fear it is simply unlawful.”

“the cancellation was the product of misguided and systemically unlawful policy.”

Oh. Bump. Oops.

Boys and men get to be called boys and men, but girls and women don’t get to be called girls and women. Who made that rule I wonder? And why are so many people obeying it?

JL via The Spectator in A Week in the War on Women:

Young Scot is a publicly funded organisation which received a £975,000 grant from Scottish Government last year for various projects, one of which is the provision of information for young people.

Young Scot has produced advice about menstruation but there is no mention of ‘girls’ or ‘women’ in the text. Instead, it makes vague references to “Those of us that have both our ovaries and a womb” and “Half the world’s population”. It does, however, mention ‘transgender men and non-binary individuals’.

It’s like a burqa for language. Women and girls must be forcibly kept out of sight, but men and boys can stride all over the landscape as much as they like. New boss just like the old boss.

Similar information providing advice for young males about puberty refers to them as ‘men’ and ‘boys’. No vague or confusing language here.

Susan Smith of For Women Scotland told The Scottish Sun, “Once again advice for girls is offensively dehumanising: while boys and men get the dignity of a name, girls and women are reduced to body parts”.

A spokesman for Young Scot said, “We’ve worked in partnership with the Scottish Government to ensure we’re as inclusive as possible”.

No they haven’t. That’s ridiculous. Of course they haven’t. It’s not “inclusive” to conceal the existence of female people: it’s the antithesis of inclusive. It excludes female people – the ones without whom no one would exist.

I wish people would hurry up and get a fucking clue. We don’t have time for this grotesque and dangerous messing around.

Eilis O’Hanlon in the Independent (Ireland):

The coalition now known as Trans Equality Together launched last Monday with the stated aim of ensuring “trans and non-binary people are equal, safe and valued”.

By Thursday, it had secured the signatures of such august bodies as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Amnesty Ireland and the National Women’s Council on a letter denouncing RTÉ for daring to host a debate on Liveline with women who refuse to bend to the notion that anyone with a penis must be automatically accepted as a woman if they say they are one.

So that’s what equal, safe and valued mean? That women are not allowed to say men are not women?

I don’t have the rest of the article but Glinner has letters in reply:

It is notable that the overwhelming majority of letters are strongly supportive of the views expressed by Eilis O’Hanlon. Had we received more letters critical of the column, we would of course have published a selection of these in the interests of balance. What is on the page, however, is strongly representative of the views received.

Alan English, Editor, Sunday Independent.

Sir —A huge thank you to Eilis O’Hanlon. I am a working-class, middle-aged woman who is very concerned about what I see as the attempted erasure of the word ‘woman’ from Irish legislation.

I have fought and marched for women’s rights all my life, and also campaigned for marriage equality and to Repeal the Eighth. On social media, which I have now left because of the toxic atmosphere, I’ve been called a dinosaur, a bigot, transphobic and hateful, all for respectfully asking questions and attempting discussion. I have never been called anything close to these things in all my years, and it is extremely hurtful to say the least.

Women must be allowed to speak, and we must be listened to.

And much more along the same lines. It’s very cheering.

Emily Tamkin in The New Statesman on the overturning of Roe:

I could reiterate that the laws that will now go into effect in many states banning abortion in most cases will disproportionately impact poor people, and people of colour, who do not necessarily have the financial resources or the time to go out of their home state to seek an abortion. Or I could say that, though the impact will be greatest in states where abortion will be outlawed, the whole country will be affected; a burden will now be put on providers in states where abortion remains legal, and women in those states, too, will probably find it harder to schedule an abortion.

People, people, women. Why not women, women, women? Compromise? Some fish for the piranhas so that they won’t eat her? Confusion?

I could note that people will die, which is what happens when people are forced to be pregnant. I could note that abortion should be legal regardless of the conditions for women and children, but that it is particularly rich that this country has stripped our federally guaranteed reproductive choice from us in the same year that women have faced shortages of baby formula and of tampons.

Just random mix-n-match, I guess – but why? It’s stupid, and it’s counter-productive. It makes zero sense to try to talk about abortion and bans on abortion while trying to veil the issue of the subordination of women. It’s not random that it’s women who are affected by abortion bans, it’s the whole point. Trying to veil that is like trying to veil racism when discussing slavery.

I could try to tell any women in the United States reading this who have had an abortion that I know that they did nothing wrong. I know that they made the right choice for themselves and their families, because they made their own choice. Everyone loves someone who’s had an abortion, the saying goes. I could tell you that I know and love people who have had an abortion.

Mix n match again. One “women,” one “someone,” one “people.” Feed those piranhas.

Another win for theocracy:

The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of a former high school football coach from Washington state in a case about religious freedom and prayer in public schools. In a 6 to 3 decision delivered by Justice Gorsuch, the conservative supermajority decided in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District that coach Joseph Kennedy’s Christian prayers after the games were protected by freedom of speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment. “The Constitution and the best of our traditions counsel mutual respect and tolerance, not censorship and suppression, for religious and nonreligious views alike,” Gorsuch wrote.

But of course an adult in authority over teenagers is not just exercising freedom of speech and religion by praying in their presence. That adult is nudging the teenagers to pray too. That’s the whole point. The coach could just pray inwardly; doing it aloud and kneeling and in their presence is a hard nudge.

In a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Breyer and Kagan, Justice Sotomayor argues the decision rejects “longstanding concerns” about government endorsement of religion and “does a disservice to schools and the young citizens they serve, as well as to our Nation’s longstanding commitment to the separation of church and state.”

During the oral arguments in April, Justice Elena Kagan noted, “The idea of why the school can discipline him is that it puts some kind of undue pressure, a kind of coercion, on students to participate in religious activities when they may not wish to, when their religion is different or when they have no religion.”

To put it mildly. I think it’s all too obvious what kind of pressure it puts on.

The tweet has since been deleted but the screenshots live on.

A former friend of Ivanka Trump has taken to social media to claim that she supported her in getting an abortion when she was younger.

In the since-deleted tweet, Lauren Santo Domingo, a high school friend of Ivanka’s, claimed to have taken Ivanka, first daughter of former President Donald Trump and former senior White House Adviser, to get the alleged abortion.

…

“Ivanka Trump you are noticeably quiet today,” Domingo’s tweet read.

“The high school friends who took you to get an abortion are not.”

Pass the brioche.

The horrors are rolling in.

Got that? In Ohio it’s now ILLEGAL to end a pregnancy that will produce a baby that can’t survive.

Women must be made to pay, is that it?

Updating to add:

Another Savita Halappanavar, although this one survived – just barely, and no thanks to the Catholic hospital that tried to kill her.

I recommend reading the whole thing. There are a lot of details, so it’s a long thread. I’ll share just some.

It’s a Catholic hospital. Way too many hospitals are Catholic: the church has been infiltrating them on purpose, to force its revolting dogma on unwilling people who need health care.

She had to go back to the Catholic hospital, because insurance.

That’s how Savita Halappanavar was murdered. They refused to treat her until there was no heartbeat, so she died.

But oh no, the church doesn’t allow that. The church does however run a great many hospitals in the US, and uses its power to murder women this way.

Game on.

Julie in The Mail:

My planned talk was cancelled on the ludicrous grounds that my views on transgender rights are ‘at odds’ with civic policy. Without speaking to me, or bothering to discover what I actually believe, the council decided to deny me the right to speak on their premises.

So I am going to sue them. On behalf of every woman who is being told to shut up and stay quiet, during the worst misogynist backlash I have witnessed in my lifetime, I’m taking the council to court.

They’ll hear very soon from my lawyers. And there are a lot of us, because from the moment news began to spread on Saturday that I was barred from addressing the sold-out meeting at Aspley Library, my email inbox was pinging with messages of support and legal advice.

The Equality Act of 2010, articles 9 to 11 of the Human Rights Act and the recent ruling in the Maya Forstater case — where a woman who lost her job after saying transgender women are ‘not women’ won her appeal against an employment tribunal — were cited.

In layman’s terms, that all means Nottingham City Council doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

What they did to her is more outrageous than I knew. She was pleased to be asked to speak at Aspley Library, because it’s in a deprived area and at risk of being closed; she thought she was doing her bit to help it stay open. There was no fee, and she was paying her own expenses, including a hotel because there was a rail strike on the day. She was on the train when the organizers phoned her with the news the council had vetoed her. It’s astoundingly rude, and just plain mean.

To abandon the talk was unthinkable. Every ticket had sold, which meant there were dozens of women eager to learn how they could get involved in campaigning to end rape and domestic abuse.

So they held the event in the car park.

The self-proclaimed ‘trans activists’ were shouting abuse before I even started to speak.

It’s almost as if that’s all there is to “trans activism” – bullying women at every opportunity.

Well I’ll be darned, here’s one that doesn’t go all coy about mentioning the W-people. Of course that could be because they’re asking for donations, so it’s not in their interest to piss off the people they’re asking to donate.