Elsewhere (176)
Christina Hoff Sommers on the fantasies and evasions of hashtag feminism:
Someone needs to tell [campus feminists] that most of [their] statistics are specious and that… they are among the most liberated and privileged — and safest — people on earth. Because their professors would not tell them, that someone turned out to be me; for this I was furnished with a police escort on more than one occasion… Too often, today’s gender activists are not fighting injustice, but fighting phantom epidemics and nursing petty grievances. Two leading feminist hashtags of 2015 are #FreeTheNipples and #LovetheLines. The former is a campaign to desexualise women’s breasts; the latter promotes stretch-mark acceptance. If the imprisoned women of Iran and Afghanistan were free to tweet, what would they say about these struggles?
Ah, but in terms of “oppression” and “patriarchal assumptions” – according to feminist scholarship – the average American campus is indistinguishable from Uganda and Somalia. What, you didn’t know?
John Leo shares a list of things that are apparently racist, including hoop skirts, raised eyebrows and Christmas dinner:
Writer Ron Rosenbaum said in Slate that racism accounts for the popularity of white-meat turkey over more flavourful dark meat. “White meat turkey has no taste,” he explained. “Despite its superior taste, dark meat has dark undertones for some. Dark meat seems to summon up ancient fears of contamination and miscegenation as opposed to the supposed superior purity of white meat.”
And Peter Fricke notes a progressive approach to shoplifting:
Everett Mitchell, a former assistant district attorney, suggested that communities of colour may prefer that police refrain from enforcing laws against theft from large retail chains because responding to such crimes leads to an increased police presence in neighbourhoods where shoplifting is prevalent.
Apparently Mr Mitchell prefers “restorative justice” and “community service” for non-violent offenders under the age of 25. Though one wonders how justice of any kind is to be achieved if criminals with brown skin mustn’t be apprehended.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
Two leading feminist hashtags of 2015 are #FreeTheNipples and #LovetheLines. The former is a campaign to desexualise women’s breasts;
Yeah, good luck with that. 🙂
Yeah, good luck with that. 🙂
Yes, I fear it’s a tad ambitious.
And Mick Hartley quotes Dominic Lawson on the ludicrous Jeremy Corbyn:
Make way for the Clown Shoe Left™.
I’m not sure what to link, exactly, but there’s been a bit of a… hubbub… at the Hugo Awards for SF/F.
In a nutshell: Until last year the diversely diverse diversifiers and literati snobs mostly had a lock on the awards, giving it to ideologically motivated trash like this story which belongs in a whole different section of the bookstore. This year two groups calling themselves the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies had the audacity to nominate popular works of actual SF/F for the Hugo Awards, rather than works ticking all the checkboxes of Gays Coming Out, Black Author, Female Protagonist, Story Is Written Without Gendered Pronouns, and so forth, and so farce.
The literati responded with “The Puppies hate women and minorities! Quick, vote them out!” and voted No Award for most of the categories on the political basis that they didn’t want wrongthinkers influencing the awards. The people managing the awards had to issue orders of “No booing!” during the non-award ceremonies. It’s a disgrace. What awards were given this year now have an asterisk by them. The Puppies are vowing they won’t let this go without a fight, and are threatening to either vote No Award right back (which might result in every single category going unawarded) or pull sillier stunts like nominate video game tie-in novels.
@Microbillionaire:
“SJWs burn down the HUgo Awards to prove how tolerant and welcoming they are.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/23/set-phasers-to-kill-sjws-burn-down-the-hugo-awards-to-prove-how-tolerant-and-welcoming-they-are/
6 of the 7 books listed in the Amazon widget on your homepage are by Julie Bindel. Does it work by scanning your webpage or is it based on my web history? In any case, our new computer overlords still have some way to go before they completely take over the world…
Does it work by scanning your webpage or is it based on my web history?
I’m assuming it’s influenced (sometimes loosely) by the content here. I remember this post resulted in a widget heaving with sports bras.
Speaking of bra adverts, this is worth watching at least once a year.
Weirdly, the ‘free the nipples’ campaign is a front for the Raelian UFO cult. See:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlian_beliefs_and_practices
Speaking of bra adverts, this is worth watching at least once a year.
*applauds*
Ahh! The old ‘dark meat’ thing.
Presumably they can explain the popularity of white steak.
Writer Ron Rosenbaum said in Slate that racism accounts for the popularity of white-meat turkey over more flavourful dark meat.
Now I’m confused. Is loving pork chops anti-semitic or islamophobic – or both?
As a Puppy (thats ‘Trans canine’ to you cis scum!) I think the Hugos situation gets far too little air time. Without boring you fellows and because you love crazy links these are recent Hugo award winners:
http://www.apex-magazine.com/if-you-were-a-dinosaur-my-love/
http://www.tor.com/2013/02/20/the-water-that-falls-on-you-from-nowhere/
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130107/selkie-f.shtml
http://www.amazon.com/Queers-Dig-Time-Lords-Celebration/dp/1935234145
David above says we wanted popular works but that’s only half true actual Science fiction and Fantasy stories and a decent standard of writing would also be nice!
John Leo is mentally ill.
John Leo isn’t agreeing with the list. Quite the opposite.
Apparently Mr Mitchell prefers “restorative justice” and “community service” for non-violent offenders under the age of 25.
Undoubtedly, Mr. Mitchell will see no correlation between such efforts and the unwillingness for business owners to set up shop in the areas where such “restorative justice” is pursued. Obviously, any such reluctance will be due solely to bad motives like racism instead of the fact that the government refuses to protect private property.
Also, regarding poultry, at least my heart is pure. I much prefer dark meat and substitute boneless thighs for breasts in all chicken recipes. They taste better and cost less.
Mr. Mitchell will see no correlation between such efforts and the unwillingness of business owners to set up shop in the areas where such “restorative justice” is pursued.
But if you aren’t even supposed to arrest criminals of a certain hue – say, by venturing into the neighbourhoods where said criminals live and then apprehending them, along with the stolen goods – the pious waffle about types of punishment seems beside the point. How will anyone know who deserves punishing?
Mr Mitchell, who now works as a “director of community relations” at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, seems to have difficulty with both grammar and basic logic. He says he “believes in the law” and “in equal justice for all.” Unless, that is, you’re someone whose store is once again being robbed by a black youth. In which case, we must avoid “over-policing,” i.e., upholding the law, and thereby “reduce disparities” in the arrest of young black males, regardless of how many young black males are actually doing the robbing.
Mr Mitchell says this is “in no way an endorsement of shoplifting.” He just wants special favours based on race for those who do it, and those who do it repeatedly. Presumably on grounds that if you don’t punish shoplifting when done by dark-skinned people it will somehow just go away and never happen again. And this immunity from normal consequences will never, ever encourage other, more serious forms of predation. And when quoted on this subject – accurately, it seems – he then claims to have been “taken out of context” by nefarious but unspecified forces, while essentially repeating the same incoherent and racially obnoxious bollocks.
. . .essentially repeating the same incoherent and racially obnoxious bollocks.
Indeed. He’s essentially saying, “we can’t expect black people not to steal,because, um, 1860 . . . so . . .”
Mr Leo neglected to include classical architecture:
http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_26742711/did-diversity-miss-train-union-stations-architecture
I seem to remember that this featured on here a few months back, and it got a deserved slating in the comments.
I am quite certain that if people preferred dark meat to white, that would also be a sign of racism and white people’s sense of true inferiority and closet cannibalism.
For the record, I have a slight preference for dark meat, especially when the bird has been slightly over cooked, but I sometimes prefer white when it is not too dry and there is adequate fatty skin to add juiciness. God only knows what Freudian shit I’m suppressing there. Or is that TMI?
“…a campaign to desexualise women’s breasts…”
Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work either but I don’t mind watching them try.
“…a campaign to desexualise women’s breasts…”
Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to work either but I don’t mind watching them try.
Oh, they’re just keeping abreast of things . . . .
a campaign to desexualise women’s breasts;
If I keep looking at them I’ll eventually become desensitized, right?
Christina Hoff Sommers on the fantasies and evasions of hashtag feminism:
Albeit noting the debacle of one variety of posing hipsters on campus doesn’t get helped with a fiasco of another variety of hipsters on campus . . .
Back when I was taking classes on one campus, no one of any consequence who I knew had anything to do with the greeks, and a bit later when hanging out with friends on a different campus, a definite shared reaction was and is I don’t get the point of greeks.
—Yes, of course, Greeks, upper case, would be the natives of Greece, not the infantile posers . . .
Liberalism really is a mental illness.
ISIS blew up Palmyra. Interestingly, some idiot (white) Americans said, “WE are responsible for the destruction of Palmyra,” I saw on Twitter. I didn’t know ISIS was a bunch of ventriloquist dolls.
“If you were a dinosaur my love” is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever read. Now, on to the rest!
“The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere” is a pretty good story, but it ain’t Science Fiction. On to further adventures. Or I could go read some Twain…hmmm.
Selkie thing also not exactly a dang Twain or O’Henry or indeed any damn writer’s good story. I say bah to the whole thing. What will be written about when GLBTQetc., becomes not trendy?
Presumably on grounds that if you don’t punish shoplifting when done by dark-skinned people it will somehow just go away and never happen again.
Another race hustler shitting on the ‘community’ he says he cares about. Does he think black people *want* to live next door to criminals?
Does he think black people *want* to live next door to criminals?
It’s a bizarre and incoherent position, but hardly original. Remember Sunny Drake? Sunny is a neurotically pretentious person of uncertain gender who frets about his/her “white privilege” and insists that if you should be mugged in a part of town where lots of black people live, you mustn’t call the police or attempt to identify your assailant, as this would prove your “ignorant racism.”
That a refusal to call the police may well result in someone else being robbed by the same mugger, most likely someone who lives in one of those “Black and Indigenous communities” that Sunny Drake frets about, apparently doesn’t matter. Again, allowing people of certain skin colours to escape the normal consequences of their criminal predation doesn’t seem likely to benefit the law-abiding people among whom the thugs and predators live.
Were not ‘breasts’ the original white meat?
Cheers
“Restorative justice” = if you catch someone walking out with a stolen iPhone shoved down his pants, he has to give it back.
Really now, is it fair to shatter his dreams and hopes that way? Doesn’t he deserve that iPhone? #blackshopliftersmatter
Another heartwarming article from the guardian feminists:
I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe
We’ve all been bothered by persistent guys who pester us relentlessly, believing themselves to be entitled to our company and more
I seem to remember Barbara Ellen writing pieces entitled “Smile Love? Not if you’re a sex obsessed creep” and “Post-natally depressed Dads, don’t make me laugh!”. I’m sure there’s a long list of such titles that need little further comment.
“Another heartwarming article from the guardian feminists:”
Henry: It’s good to know people like that are in fact in bed by 11pm. Presumably
after this time I can move in a society of well-adusted non-hysterics who are actually worth communicating with.
Actually I might email her and ask her if she can make it 10 pm. The bars mostly shut by midnight for goodness’ sake.
I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe
Does the male population, where Guardian women writers live, comprise straw men only?
The former is a campaign to desexualise women’s breasts
I don’t WANT my girls desexualized, de-eroticized, or made equivalent to the male chest. They’re cheapening the franchise, fer the sake of Pete.
I’m tired of being kind to creepy men in order to stay safe
Snarked at by Henry, Jonathan, james.
Um, dudez?
Just because you’ve never been the creepy guy doesn’t mean creepy guys don’t exist. The scenario and social dilemma she describes are real. As it turns out, the creepy guys don’t turn their creep on when Gentlemen are present, only when they find us alone.
So you probably don’t see it.
We’ve all been bothered by persistent guys who pester us relentlessly, believing themselves to be entitled to our company
Creepy guys reek of this assumption. They act as if we’ve committed a terrible offense when we try to ignore them, because any chick who is addressed by a dude is obligated to respond in a friendly manner.
We’re under pressure to be polite and manage their expectations.
Oh hell yes.
But they won’t take the hint. They’re entitled to a warm response, see. Who the hell does she think she is, brushing him off at first sight? Stuck-up bitch.
And of course we never know which one will turn out to be a stalker or beat us or worse, simply because we responded wrong to the wrong crazy dude.
Guys don’t understand how incredibly vulnerable women feel, walking around alone. On account of the fact that one bad path-crossing could result in some pretty terrible things.
@dicentra
Fair enough- points taken.
My gripe is not that I disbelieve that creepy guys exist: it is the axiom in many Guardian-type articles that because there are creepy men, therefore men are creepy.
Now, see, dicentra and james are being entirely too rational. Where’s the screaming, the insults, the badly-printed and probably misspelled posters, the ridiculous fight on youtube, the shaking of the fists and the swelling of the faces?
I didn’t know ISIS was a bunch of ventriloquist dolls.
And the fellow who murdered a young female journalist and a camera man in front of a live audience today was motivated by the inanimate object he held in his killing hand.
Had he picked up a screwdriver or a hammer before leaving the house, he might have instead spent the day repairing a neighbor’s shed, even had they been one of those typical white persons.
Dicentra:
Do you think the Guardian would run an opinion piece titled “I’m tired of being kind to crazy women in order to stay safe”?
Do you think the Guardian would run an opinion piece titled “I’m tired of being kind to crazy women in order to stay safe”?
Of course not. That’s counter-narrative.
Creepy guys still exist.
it is the axiom in many Guardian-type articles that because there are creepy men, therefore men are creepy.
That’s a valid gripe. Had the author been saved from a creepy guy by an intervening Gentleman, she’d never mention it to save her life.