The bit where they said it and the bit where they took it back.

The answer seems to be:

Except that’s not how that works, is it.

This William Clare Roberts fella wrote a long blog post in May 2019 responding to that Medium piece by a bunch of pesky feminist women.

This is a response to the essay published on Medium yesterday by Sophie Allen, Jane Clare Jones, Holly Lawford-Smith, Mary Leng, Rebecca Reilly-Cooper, and Kathleen Stock.

He doesn’t link to the essay itself, which is bad form.

I am not a woman. I am not trans. I am a feminist – my earliest conversion experience was reading Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon. I love very dearly a little trans girl who I hope grows up in a world where she is safe and free, or at least has a righteous and fierce community of people fighting at her side for safety and freedom. 

That is, a little boy, who is apparently being raised by people who subscribe to the dogma, which could make for a bumpy future for him.

3. ‘You want to reduce women to their genitalia, or to womb-possession’.“None of us,” the authors maintain, “hold a view according to which either a woman or a female is defined as such by her current possession of a particular configuration of genitalia, womb, or any other single primary sex characteristic, for that matter. … In the light of this, the correct question should be, not ‘Do we ‘reduce’ women to their genitalia, or wombs?’ but ‘Do we ‘reduce’ women to a cluster of primary sex characteristics?’”

I disagree. The real question is actually this: how do we police women? When and how do we – in our social and political arrangements and institutions – stop people and ask them if they are “really” women or not? The authors are concerned to keep (some) people who claim to be women out of (some) “women only” spaces and institutions. In practice, that means looking in people’s underpants. It means empowering the police, social workers, volunteers, and people on the street to demand to know what is between other people’s legs.

No, it’s not “policing” women. It’s just refusing to pretend that men are women if they say they are. It’s not subscribing to the view that one’s sex is a matter of assertion as opposed to a matter of fact. Yes it’s boring and humdrum compared to the exciting new approach of pretending that it’s all up in the air and we can’t assume that an obvious man is in fact a man, but then lots of things are boring and humdrum in that way. They sort of have to be if we want to have any kind of society at all. We have to have agreed meanings of words in order to communicate and interact. Roberts is trying to bounce us into agreeing with him by treating the category “women” as Open To All, like a Walmart.

4. ‘You think there is a “right way” to be, as a woman/ lesbian/ mother’ (etc.).The authors think that this objection “trades on an ambiguity between two separate senses of the word ‘right’: normatively right versus descriptively right (i.e. descriptively correct). As such, it’s another rhetorical move. It can quickly and unfairly bring to the reader’s mind a metaphor of our gatekeeping for a special club — ‘you can come in, but not you!’.”

The “gender critical” feminists object, “To say that we think there is a definition of femaleness or womanhood is not to say that there is a ‘right way’ for females or women to be, in any normative sense.” Ah, but it is to say that there are people who shouldn’t call themselves women, and that the police should be able to check your papers (or your genitals) to see whether or not you are authorized to call yourself a woman. The “gender critical” definition of womanhood is normative in this sense: it is political and enforceable. It is, indeed, gatekeeping, and it does say, precisely, “you can come in, but not you!”

That’s because there are people who shouldn’t call themselves women, just as there are people who shouldn’t call themselves Native Americans, or African Americans, or First Nations. It’s not “gatekeeping” and it’s not summoning the police, it’s refusing to have other people’s fantasies imposed on us.

Some academics are not happy about Kathleen Stock’s OBE.

Says, as usual, a man complaining about a woman getting recognition for defending the rights of women. It seems like only yesterday that men who wanted to be seen as progressive at least pretended to understand that women are a disproportionately vulnerable segment of society.

They seem so happy that now they don’t have to any more.

William Clare Roberts has locked his account since posting his rage, so an image has to do.

Women are the enemy, yeah? Let’s hope they all rot.

Roberts is a political science academic at McGill.

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 I’ve met since I started reporting on this three years ago — show no discomfort in their female bodies until puberty. Then at secondary school, when gender roles turn starkly pink and blue, these non-conforming girls feel lost. Online they quickly find forums that diagnose their problem: their “gender identity” is really male. They are encouraged to assume he/him pronouns and boys’ names, which would matter no more than becoming, say, a goth, except for the insistent accompanying narrative that only after testosterone and surgery will they find happiness as their true male selves.

…

Yet only ten years ago children with gender dysphoria were treated with “watchful waiting”, an approach pioneered in Canada by Dr Kenneth Zucker, who believed “a child or adolescent in distress is not reducible to one problem”. He found that over time this dysphoria faded for about 70 per cent of patients. But Zucker was hounded out of practice by activists and now transition is presented as a universal panacea. Even in more cautious Britain probing a child’s underlying trauma is classed by the memorandum of understanding that governs gender treatment as “conversion therapy”, akin to the barbaric practice of trying to brainwash a gay person straight. Except, argues Shrier, homosexuality is innate, prevalent in the most repressive countries. But “gender identity” is fluid, malleable by peer pressure or social contagion.

…

None of this would matter if transition made these girls happy. But while initially testosterone makes them fearless and swaggering, the Tavistock GIDS (gender identity development services) clinic’s own report shows no long-term improvement in psychological wellbeing. This rare piece of research was published reluctantly only a few weeks ago, perhaps because it threatens an entire ethos. In clinics from Finland to Australia red flags are rising. “Detransitioners” are speaking out. Medical negligence class actions will begin.

Let’s hope grinning doctors posing with teenage breast tissue in pickle jars will be consigned alongside other collective medical madnesses such as false memory syndrome or 1950s lobotomies. And that girls’ bodies, as Shrier’s fearless book bleakly reveals, cease to be collateral in adult culture wars.

Let’s hope so indeed.

It’s so shaming.

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 changing the result, only [the chance] to delay by a few hours the inevitable affirmation of Biden as the Electoral College winner and the next president.

There have been no credible allegations of any issues with voting that would have impacted the election, as affirmed by dozens of judges, governors, election officials, the Electoral College, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US Supreme Court. But Trump is determined to claim he didn’t lose — which he did, significantly — and many GOP politicians either share his delusion or fear provoking his wrath — even if that means voting to undermine democracy.

Both a House member and senator are required to mount an objection when Congress counts the votes. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said Wednesday he will object, which will force lawmakers in both the House and Senate to vote on whether to accept the results of Biden’s victory. Other senators — including incoming ones — could still join that effort, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has privately urged Republicans not to do.

It’s shaming and disgusting.

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 health; consequences for society” – still this strange avoidance of mentioning women. What’s the opposite of masculinity? Femininity. What would toxic masculinity be likely to teach men? To hate femininity, and the people who are stuck with it.

There are many definitions of “toxic masculinity” that appear in research as well as pop culture. Some researchers have come to agree that toxic masculinity has three core components:

Toughness: This is the notion that men should be physically strong, emotionally callous, and behaviorally aggressive.

Antifeminity: This involves the idea that men should reject anything that is considered to be feminine, such as showing emotion or accepting help.

Finally we get the word! But we still don’t get the people, only the adjective. The idea that men should reject anything that is considered to be feminine is naturally going to lead men to think women are rejection-worthy.

I know there’s the idea that men taught to fear and despise all things female can think they’re fine for female people, and just despise them when attributed to male people, and violently reject them when attributed to themselves. I know that’s one view of the matter, but I don’t believe it. I don’t think it works that way. One reason I don’t is decades of living in a world full of misogyny and generalized contempt for female people.

Another source:

A study in the Journal of School of Psychology uses the following definition to explain toxic masculinity: “the constellation of socially regressive [masculine] traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence.”

There we go. Thank you. It’s weird to avoid it when surely it’s a major part of what makes the toxicity.

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 it’s anybody’s business, let alone the police’s?

Zara was bailed on 29 December 2020 and told to return to the police station on 31 December. Her passport was also confiscated. This morning, at the police station, Zara was given permission to return on Tuesday 5 January 2021 with her lawyer. This is because stress caused by her initial police custody exacerbated Zara’s underlying health condition.  Late last night, Zara had to go to the local hospital where doctors reiterated her diagnosis of Generalised Anxiety Disorder.

There’s a list of three stupid charges – mocking the president of Tanzania, failing to return her Tanzanian passport after gaining Australian citizenship, using a family member’s SIM card.

These charges are politically motivated and believed to be initiated by those from the Khoja Shia Ithnasheri Jamaat who have threatened Zara with death for leaving Islam and for her activism in support of ex-Muslims and women.

Thus demonstrating how urgent it is to leave Islam. If you want people not to leave your ideology or religion, try not coercing them. It works wonders.

What’s this now?

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?

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 health and human services for health, told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday that the reported 2 million shots given already is “an underestimate.”

But he agreed that the government won’t meet the goal of inoculating 20 million people before the New Year.

That’s ok. No hurry. The longer it takes the fewer arms there will be to jab, so it works out well.

That’s…interesting.

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

In #6 he means “unlikely to be able to consent” [with full understanding]. They’re all too likely to consent, all the more so if urged on by a “Kathryn” Bigelow.

This is truly horror movie stuff.

Ha! Take that.

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 & Leander’. The dead shepherd is Marlowe.

I suspect the two young men worked together on some of the early history plays, which were not by Shakespeare alone, and in particular on ‘Edward III’, a play that is now recognised as almost certainly being in part by Shakespeare. They clearly stimulated each other. I put on and directed a production of it at the university I worked at in connexion with the British Council’s British arts festival in 1998, I think. It was the first production ever in Japan, and probably only the third or fourth full production for 400 years. The first half is, I believe, definitely by Shakespeare – it contains probably the first of Shakespeare’s great temptation scenes, when Edward attempts to seduce the Countess of Salisbury. In the second half, which is not so intimate and literary (by which I mean no criticism) but works wonderfully well as theatre (it is about the wars in France), there is one speech by Edward which has all the hallmarks of Marlowe, in its building and cutting away at the end almost to a kind of bathos. It was wonderful to work on a play that hadn’t been done thousands of times before.

The play of Marlowe’s I love best is ‘Dr Faustus’ (the first version), with Faustus’s final soliloquy, in which blank verse is used with a quite astonishing mastery, and an hour’s time is convincingly contracted on stage into a speech lasting about ten minutes.

Mansplaining feminism to feminist women.

This made for a fine laugh this morning.

Why it’s funny is because Timothy Brennan is head of Devereux Chambers, which Foxy Jolyon left as of midnight yesterday.

Burn ALL the bridges down.

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 was very bothered that people from another culture were preventing people from her culture from sharing their own culture with the museum visitors. The kimonos in question had literally been fabricated for the specific purpose of being tried on at a museum exhibit as a cultural event. But they were packed away, the exhibit was canceled, and the museum apologized for their cultural crimes.

In our long conversations about the matter, we decided that, like racism, appropriation can only happen where there is a power differential, or subordination. Japan does not see itself as subordinate to America, America does not see itself as subordinate to Japan, thus there can be no cultural appropriation by Japanese of American culture, nor cultural appropriation by Americans of Japanese culture. The question of whether Japanese can appropriate Black American culture is more complex, but let’s not get into that.

Can an American appropriate Spanish culture? What does that really mean? Can a Spaniard appropriate American culture? I tend to think no (either way), whereas an American can appropriate, say, Mexican culture.

My wife studies Flamenco, both singing and dancing. She adores it. She is of Cuban extraction, visibly Hispanic, but born in America. Is she appropriating Spanish culture? Are the many Japanese who study Flamenco appropriating Spanish culture? (Flamenco is hugely popular in Japan) The Spanish don’t seem to think so.

Hilarious pretended to be really Spanish instead of just loving Spain and Spanish culture. But I don’t think that can count as appropriation as much as flattery. I think the Spanish are much more upset that she stuck her foot in her mouth by saying that she’s a white girl, and there are lots of white people in Europe… as if saying that Spanish people aren’t white.

This happened.

She hasn’t been heard from since.

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 a global level,” it said.

Trump would just squawk that he has THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT to do whatever he wants, but to reason-capable adults it’s not so simple.

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 that they self-identify as. People’s individual private hidden unverifiable personal thoughts about themselves are just that, and it can’t be anybody’s business to tell us to share those thoughts, because it’s impossible. We’re all locked into our own heads. We can’t verify other people’s thoughts about themselves for them, and that’s all there is to it. The expectation that we can and that we must be told to do so is grotesque.

“A person should be addressed and referred to using the pronouns which make them feel comfortable. This could be he, she, they, per, hir or other pronouns. If you are uncertain, either listen to what pronoun others are using or politely ask what they prefer, for example “Hi, I’m xxx and I use the pronouns he and him. What about you?” Encourage others to use these pronouns too and if the wrong pronoun is used, apologise quickly and move on.”

This is grown-up professionals telling other grown-up professionals to do this nonsensical conversation-clogging absurdity. In a university.

“If a trans person informs a staff member that a word or phrasing is inappropriate or offensive, then that staff member should take their word for it, and adjust their phraseology accordingly”

I can’t see how that could go wrong at all.

Warwick:

“Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of their own gender and what feels right for them. This might be male, female, non-binary, genderless, or some other gender identity. All gender identities are equally valid” [NB: bold is theirs].

This is a university policy, for the staff – not a game for children. It’s baby talk, but it’s official policy.

There’s a lot more. It’s all just bonkers.

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 he says to do.

Before the Magna Carta was drafted, before the right to free exercise of religion was enshrined as America’s first freedom in our glorious Constitution, Thomas gave his life so that, as he said, “the Church will attain liberty and peace.”

Right because Trump is so good at paying attention to the Constitution.

When the crown attempted to encroach upon the affairs of the house of God through the Constitutions of Clarendon, Thomas refused to sign the offending document. When the furious King Henry II threatened to hold him in contempt of royal authority and questioned why this “poor and humble” priest would dare defy him, Archbishop Becket responded “God is the supreme ruler, above Kings” and “we ought to obey God rather than men.”

Unless the men are Donald Trump.

As Americans, we were first united by our belief that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” and that defending liberty is more important than life itself. If we are to continue to be the land of the free, no government official, no governor, no bureaucrat, no judge, and no legislator must be allowed to decree what is orthodox in matters of religion or to require religious believers to violate their consciences.

Unless their consciences tell them to criticize Donald Trump or win elections that Donald Trump wants to win.

On this day, we celebrate and revere Thomas Becket’s courageous stand for religious liberty and we reaffirm our call to end religious persecution worldwide. In my historic address to the United Nations last year, I made clear that America stands with believers in every country who ask only for the freedom to live according to the faith that is within their own hearts. I also stated that global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life, reflecting the belief held by the United States and many other countries that every child — born and unborn — is a sacred gift from God.

Unless it’s the child of asylum seekers from Central America.

To honor Thomas Becket’s memory, the crimes against people of faith must stop, prisoners of conscience must be released, laws restricting freedom of religion and belief must be repealed, and the vulnerable, the defenseless, and the oppressed must be protected.

The what? What was that again?

the vulnerable, the defenseless, and the oppressed must be protected.

According to Donald Trump???

Come on.

A society without religion cannot prosper. A nation without faith cannot endure — because justice, goodness, and peace cannot prevail without the grace of God.

So that’s an official insult to all atheists, handed down by the government. So much for religious freedom.

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 to a Today show stop in which she supposedly could not remember the English word for “cucumber.”

Further posts showed Hilaria’s mother discussing growing up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, and numerous articles pointed to how she had spent virtually her entire career practicing medicine in Massachusetts, where she’d served as “an associate physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School” until she “retired from both positions in 2012,” according to MassLive. (In a video interview she said she moved to Mallorca, Spain, in 2011, the same year Hilaria began dating Alec.)

And yet…

Hilaria Baldwin’s CAA speaker page claims that she was born in Mallorca, Spain, as does her IMDb bio and Wikipedia page. She said on a podcast earlier this year: “I moved here [to America] when I was 19 to go to NYU from… my family lives in Spain, they live in Mallorca,” adding, “I knew no pop culture.” She has graced the cover of Hola! magazine, a Spanish-language publication based out of Madrid, where she was identified as a Spanish person in both the interview and its press release. Alec Baldwin has repeatedly referred to her as “Spanish” online. And she’s made a number of appearances in Latina magazine, which she’s enthusiastically promoted (Spain is not a part of Latin America, by the way), and has referred to Spain as her “home.”

Wellllll maybe she meant it’s her spiritual home.

It appears that Hilaria’s real name is Hillary Hayward-Thomas, according to her old MySpace page and those who claim to be her old classmates. She attended the private Cambridge School of Weston, in Massachusetts, and in her senior yearbook is listed as “Hillary Hayward-Thomas.”

So, is there anything tacky about this at all? Does it qualify as appropriation? Is it comparable to Rachel Dolezal, or is it just someone who is smitten with a foreign country where she has spent a lot of time and likes to pretend to have deep roots in that country when she doesn’t? And if we’re all free to define ourselves in whatever terms we like, then why is this even a story?

Now about this word “influencer”…