Elsewhere (293)
Daniel McGraw on the self-inflicted sorrows of Oberlin College:
Activists on campus immediately concluded the arrest of the three students was evidence of racial profiling, which suggests an assumption that either the students were falsely accused on account of their race, or that Gibson’s [Bakery and Market] was happy to allow whites to shoplift but drew the line at blacks. I heard versions of these two theories during interviews I conducted with dozens of the student protesters. But, despite the students’ claims and the vehemence of the language with which they were made, police and others testified that there had been no complaints or allegations of racism made against the family business since it opened in 1885. Not one. […]
As the protests continued, Gibson’s annual revenue almost halved… Eight full-time employees were reduced to one, and family members have had to forego their salaries (and still do, pending the receipt of damages) since the protests began. The Gibson family testified that all they wanted was for Oberlin College to send an email to the community affirming that Gibson’s was not racist and to move on. But the school refused and doubled down on its support for the protesters and their defamatory allegations.
Oberlin’s decision to double-down seems in part an attempt to deflect Mao-ling discontent at the college’s own supposed sins of “imperialism, white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, and a cissexist heteropatriarchy.” Having encouraged students to cultivate woke psychodramas at every turn, the ensuing hostility had to be pointed somewhere. Which rather speaks to the character of those involved.
David Gibson, owner of the besieged bakery, shares his account of events here:
Police arrested the student. But the next day, hundreds of people gathered in protest. From bullhorns they called for a boycott. The sidewalk and park across the street from our store were filled with protesters holding signs labelling us racists and white supremacists. The arrest, they said, was the result of racial profiling. The narrative was set and there was no combating it… The shoplifter confessed to his crime and said the arrest wasn’t racially motivated. But Oberlin College refused to help set the record straight by issuing a public statement that our family is not racist and does not have a history of racial profiling or discrimination. The damage had been done. And the truth seemed irrelevant.
Inevitably, Oberlin’s student newspaper lays blame elsewhere, denouncing the media and an “increasingly authoritarian country” – one in which “sustained and brave student activism” – i.e., vindictive hysteria and attempting to destroy the livelihoods of entirely innocent people – might become more difficult and even have consequences. At which point, the words that come to mind are lefties project.
The student editorial is an exercise in double-think and demonstrable lies (notably regarding the involvement of senior administrator Meredith Raimondo). The authors are careful not to mention that the three students in question all pleaded guilty and admitted in court that their being apprehended for shoplifting, and the subsequent scuffle, had nothing whatsoever to do with the supposed racism of bakery employees. Indeed, the editorial even implies that guilt is not a “salient question.” Presumably, the protestors and their enablers should be able to wreck the lives and reputations of anyone they choose, regardless of facts.
It’s worth noting that Oberlin College is the Clown Quarter writ large, a leftist fiefdom, where woke psychodramas are normative, encouraged and institutional. And hence the delinquency and moral inversion – the ripened fruit of all that leftist psychology. Such that students were encouraged by staff to side with a trio of physically aggressive shoplifters – people stealing for fun – and to actively destroy the livelihood of a baker who would rather not be preyed upon by thieves. The expectation of lawfulness, of common civility, being repaid with libel, harassment and ruin. Activities that Oberlin’s administrators were happy to enable, using college funds, and often with bizarrely adolescent behaviour of their own.
As long-time readers will know, Oberlin has been mentioned here before, as when college staff were found to be complicit in fake “hate crimes” that were actually committed by leftwing student activists. Though my favourite incident was when one of Oberlin’s student Mao-lings, a lady named Della Kurzer-Zlotnick, was emotionally devastated by a two-letter word that was apparently unknown to her, and which she later described as “violent and triggering language.”
Tuition at Oberlin is $56,000 a year.
As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.
“Tuition at Oberlin is $56,000 a year.”
Not for long, I expect. ~:D Fire sale coming soon!
“Oberlin College is known for its ‘social justice’ activism and is considered one of the most PC colleges in the US… Oberlin town police reported that 83 per cent of shoplifting arrests were Oberlin students.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2019/06/18/oberlin-and-the-price-of-wokeness/
“Social justice”.
Here’s another person who got woke & went broke:
https://theothermccain.com/2019/06/23/ding-dong-the-witch-is-dead-the-broke-wokeness-of-anita-sarkeesian/
(Does anyone know the difference between “gaming” and “playing games”?)
Oberlin town police reported that 83 per cent of shoplifting arrests were Oberlin students.
And as the article notes, Oberlin’s students are overwhelmingly from wealthy families, the top 10% of earners, and are shoplifting prodigiously – and recreationally, for kicks – from people who are generally much less well-off than they are.
And yet they mouth pieties about “social justice.”
But the school refused and doubled down on its support for the protesters and their defamatory allegations.
$44 million doesn’t sound enough.
“sustained and brave student activism”
Like keying the cars of people who worked at the bakery and slashing their tyres.
$44 million doesn’t sound enough.
I think the jury’s total damage award was $33 million – $11 million in actual damages and $22 million in punitive damages, the maximum state law allows (twice the original damage award). I have to wonder, though, if the appeals court can impose additional penalties. It should.
From the Spiked piece:
A candidate for sudden, preferably televised unemployment, one might think. And yet Oberlin is still defending this woman as innocent of any wrongdoing and utterly professional.
difference between “gaming” and “playing games”
In the context of the article…
“Gaming” means playing (usually) video games somewhat more often and seriously than the average casual player. EG gaming culture, gaming community, gaming press all refer to the sub-cultural of people who just really like video games.
“Playing Games” means what it’s always meant. EG, “Anita Sarkeesian played (video) games just long enough to realize the medium was ripe for a shakedown from the anti-male bigot feminist brigade.”
A candidate for sudden, preferably televised unemployment, one might think.
I’d watch.
“and officials provided pizza and beverages for them”
I wonder if the pizza was from a local shop? With all that shoplifting by their bored students, sounds to me like Oberlin is wide-open for somebody to organise a local merchants’ boycott. “You’re from Oberlin? – then GET OUT!”
“Whine, snivel, rayciss misogyniss hater cisheteropatriarchal drumpf-lover, boo hoo hoo… Nobody on this street let us in no more, where we gonna’ shopliff?”
I’d watch.
I tend to think that the pathologies of woke posturing will only stop, or at least diminish, when participants find that it costs them personally, and dearly. (Expectations of shame or common decency seem somewhat misplaced.) And yet, despite the ubiquity of such people among students and staff, and despite endless examples of recreational vindictiveness, impropriety and outright thuggery, expulsions and sackings seem vanishingly rare.
Instead, we get things like this.
Does anyone know the difference between “gaming” and “playing games”?
Generally speaking, gaming refers to longer campaigns, and is much more involved than just playing a game.
If you sit down on Sunday night with your 8 year old children spend an hour or two with a Monopoly board, that’s playing a game.
If you meet every Thursday night with a group of friends to play Dungeons and Dragons, you’ve been doing it for three years, and you’re still playing the same character, in the same campaign, you’re gaming.
Long time reader, first time commenting. Reading the Legal Insurrection write up was like savoring a top-notch espresso. David, the world needs more of what you do here.
Long time reader, first time commenting.
I do like it when lurkers de-lurk. Help yourself to bar snacks.
Reading the Legal Insurrection write up was like savoring a top-notch espresso.
It is quite revealing of the kinds of people employed by Oberlin, and taught there, and doubtless at other woke institutions.
David, the world needs more of what you do here.
A statue would be nice. Preferably on the Moon and visible from Earth.
“sustained and brave student activism”
Like keying the cars of people who worked at the bakery and slashing their tyres.
And barging into the bakery to abuse and bully random customers. Because, hey, they could.
“Social justice.” Catnip for budding sociopaths.
Self-satisfied and ever-so-smug rich youngsters like to steal from everyone, and not just the poor. But they revel in the casual, ‘see-it-grab-it’ approach. The little baker’s shop with its humble business is fair game to people who have lots of money and unearned prestige.
This reads like I am socialist: I am very definitely not. But I detest the way money encourages supposedly socialist values and a dishonest approach to life. Ordinary people haven’t got time for that rubbish as they are too busy earning a living, but the wealthy can afford to play at it.
A statue would be nice…
We love David for his modesty and general good-eggishness.
Speaking of which, don’t eat the pickled “eggs.” A couple of poor souls tried and were never seen again. If you need more hump fat, see a henchlesbian.
Having encouraged students to cultivate woke psychodramas at every turn, the ensuing hostility had to be pointed somewhere.
That.
Thanks to everyone who explained the difference between “playing games” and (fanfare) “gaming.” I remember Gamergate occurring though I paid little attention.
Another question: we see the occasional egregious case such as the bakery (and good on ‘em for fighting back). In your opinion, are SJWs a serious threat overall or do they mainly present a problem in college towns?
In your opinion, are SJWs a serious threat overall or do they mainly present a problem in college towns?
I live far away from where SJWs inhabit, but my thoughts are that SJWs are mainly a threat, long-term, to the colleges themselves. Especially the Liberal Arts ones.
Increasingly people are beginning to wonder what the point of college is. For STEM, Law, architecture etc there’s important skills and information, and those subjects will carry on. But what is the point of a Humanities degree? It won’t really get you any better job, because they’re too common to help you distinguish yourself from others.
My daughters are going Statistics and Economics, and doing it well, so I’m happy that they go to University. But I would not pay a cent for them to go to do a Humanities or Arts degree. If that sort of thinking takes hold, the colleges are in big trouble.
10 years lurking – posted just once.
are SJWs a serious threat overall
It does depend mightily on context.
Antifa are dangerous because they are demonstrably willing to use violence to achieve their ends, and law enforcement adamantly refuses to enforce the law against them. Ditto Black Lives Matter and similar “direct action” groups.
Academic and Twitter SJWs are completely harmless because nothing that happens on social media actually matters in the real world. Companies that just do the sensible thing and tell these idiots to go pound sand generally don’t suffer much as a result.
(Does anyone know the difference between “gaming” and “playing games”?)
I hope that’s not a trick question…
There was a time in the ’90s where the Las Vegas and A/C casino world tried to change the terminology to “gaming” from “gambling” to make the resort hotels hosting the casinos more family friendly. Renaming Sodom & Gomorrah didn’t work, so they went back to debauchery with, “What goes on in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
Antifa are dangerous because they are demonstrably willing to use violence to achieve their ends, and law enforcement adamantly refuses to enforce the law against them.
Except they are routinely routed even when they have the numbers, and they only get up to their antics in places where they know they can get away with it. Ditto BLM and all the similar types.
10 years lurking – posted just once.
There’s no need to hide in the bushes. The heathen rabble is friendly, and well-bathed, for the most part.
Except they are routinely routed even when they have the numbers, and they only get up to their antics in places where they know they can get away with it.
That makes them less dangerous how, exactly?
Inevitably, Oberlin’s student newspaper lays blame elsewhere,
Your speech is violence but their violence is speech.
Reading the Legal Insurrection write up was like savoring a top-notch espresso.
And it does convey a sense of the jury repeatedly being amazed and dismayed by the behaviour of Oberlin staff, the supposed grown-ups, intellectuals, who behave like moody teenagers.
Your speech is violence but their violence is speech.
Again, the student editorial is an exercise in woke doublethink, such that the arrested students’ admission of guilt is carefully ignored, along with their admission that their being apprehended had nothing to do with racism. Instead, the editorial implies that guilt is not a “salient question.”
That $56,000 a year is obviously money well-spent.
And doing your damnedest to destroy the livelihoods of people who dare to disagree with you, or doing it simply for fun because you like the rush of mob power, and saying that facts should not impede the urge to punish people for things they haven’t actually done… that sounds pretty “authoritarian” to me. And that’s before we get to the actual bullying, the physical harassment of staff and customers, the threats against onlookers, and the slashing of tyres and the keying of cars.
Again, lefties project. It’s as though they can’t help it.
That makes them less dangerous how, exactly?
I suppose if you are a street litter can or store front window it doesn’t, but a mob that can’t effectively fight against a few who can fight is dangerous to the same extent as a bunch of kittens attacking a vacuum cleaner with much the same high comedy as when you turn the vacuum on.
Peter Wood, here.
“It wasn’t expensive, and I felt like it… I just preferred not paying for it, but I could have.” Stealing from local businesses is, in the eyes of many Oberlin students, a quasi-right or privilege. They don’t feel guilty about it. They feel cool, or to put in today’s language, entitled.
11th grade, late 1970’s our English teacher, in the process presenting the concept of existentialism, used as an example that the existentialist doesn’t stop at a stop sign because the law says so, they only stop because they feel like it. They don’t steal because stealing is wrong, the existentialist refrains from stealing because they just don’t want to do so. This attitude has been around for quite some time. It is a value system that has been taught to impressionable youth via the seemingly rudderless school system for 40 or 50 years now. Of course back in the 1970’s pointing out the flaws of perpetuating such ideas for society on the whole over the long run would have been wrong, wrong, wrong and garnered one not only scorn from the teacher but rolling eyes and exasperation from one’s classmates. Don’t ask me how I know.
“It wasn’t expensive, and I felt like it… I just preferred not paying for it, but I could have.”
Raising a toddler has provided surprising insights. The little crumb-crunchers are pushing you from birth – physically and mentally – searching for the boundaries. It’s not out of malice, but rather the natural way for humans to learn their world, like a blind man constantly batting around a cane to “see” the surrounding room.
The quote above is the end result of children who’ve pushed the boundary and were told “there are no boundaries, only your feelings.” Then those children grew and had children of their own, who went on to become college administrators and professors. Now they’ve created an entire subculture of people who never learned that if you push something it tends to push back. $33 million will not be enough, unfortunately, to teach them.
$33 million will not be enough, unfortunately, to teach them.
It would, I think, be foolish to assume that feelings of shame or remorse might eventually kick in among the Mao-lings and their enablers, at Oberlin and elsewhere. Narcissism won’t permit it. For any kind of course correction, a significant penalty is required. Expulsions, high-profile firings and a dramatic loss of revenue might do it, but probably nothing less.
In something of an irony, Raimondo’s brother is a labor issues lawyer who in the recent past was involved in the defense of a small family business against charges of racism in their hiring and firing practices. I know this due to his postings on a car forum, of all things. Seems to be a fairly stand-up fellow.
Sadly, I don’t think he’s aware of, or may be in denial regarding his sister’s transparent perfidy. He seems to believe she did not make the bed in which she now lies.
This, from the Oberlin editorial:
Shouldn’t that be “… people of Black.”?
Expulsions, high-profile firings and a dramatic loss of revenue might do it, but probably nothing less.
Not even. If these people are clinical narcissists – and they are – nothing will shake their belief that they are in the right and have been unfairly martyred. There will be no Come to Jesus moment for them, ever. The best we can do is identify them and remove them from any position of influence.
Fortunately, the Oberlin degree does serve as a handy marker for such.
I suppose if you are a street litter can or store front window it doesn’t, but a mob that can’t effectively fight against a few who can fight is dangerous to the same extent as a bunch of kittens attacking a vacuum cleaner with much the same high comedy as when you turn the vacuum on.
Now is the time on David Thompson’s blog when we juxtapose.
And that’s before we get to the actual bullying, the physical harassment of staff and customers, the threats against onlookers, and the slashing of tyres and the keying of cars.
nothing will shake their belief that they are in the right and have been unfairly martyred.
To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that the course correction would be an internal or moral one among the Mao-lings themselves. I was thinking more in terms of the Gibson’s verdict emboldening others to push back against Mao-ling hijinks and restoring some semblance of normal consequences.
Though now that I’ve said it out loud, I’m not exactly convinced.
“And that’s before we get to the actual bullying, the physical harassment of staff and customers, the threats against onlookers, and the slashing of tyres and the keying of cars.”
Not to mention getting employees disciplined or even fired for having the “wrong” opinions.
Now is the time on David Thompson’s blog when we juxtapose.
Now is the time on David Thompson’s blog we we restate the obvious, they only do it when there is no opposition and know they can get away with it, so if you are trying to make the case that they are dangerous to those (people and officials) who roll over and show their bellies, you could conceivably have a point, normal people, not so much*. You can feel free to be as afraid of these idiots as you want, but ask yourself why these clowns are always popping off in Berkeley and not Oakland.
*(One of your countrymen take on a horde and doesn’t even lose his cigarette.)
“Stop the violence! Our guy’s losing!”
😄
and doesn’t even lose his cigarette.
That’s class, that is.
From a comment on the previous thread on how SJWs don’t understand Karl Popper and here we have the ostensible “politics free” fiber community of Knitty supporting Ravelry cuz we all know that Trump and 63 million voters are Nazis.
here we have the ostensible “politics free” fiber community of Knitty supporting Ravelry cuz we all know that Trump and 63 million voters are Nazis.
And so, any affirmation of the current President or any of his policies now constitutes “hate” and “intolerant speech,” and indeed “white supremacy,” seemingly regardless of the particulars.
And so it will not be tolerated. In the name of inclusion. By uptight knitting enthusiasts.
And so it will not be tolerated. In the name of inclusion. By uptight knitting enthusiasts.
And hereby we see the final fruit of 20th century programmatic leftism. Universal brainwashing, training the population at large toward the incurious, presenting political correctness as merely “niceness”, and creating an artificial public consensus leads to a plurality of Pauline Kaels who believe that literally every person around them believes the things that they do.
Why? Because they’re nice. They’re not ogres, just normal people. Why, that nice Mr. Foster couldn’t possibly be one of those rogue Trumpites, because everyone who’s nice is exactly like me.The sollipsism engendered by the control of “acceptable thought” as a strategy is nearly universal.
…which is why the system proved a fragile one in the event of all those “nice people” who resisted learning foolishness with their peers all rising up and voting for real change.And yet, the left cannot learn, because “nice people” reformists do not exist. Single Trumpists outing themselves in one’s social circle can be shunned and ostracized, merely an anomaly.
Those 63 million have to be in the main out in the jungle with gorillas and tigers somewhere, they simply have to be. They can’t possibly be friends and family, employees, customers, acquaintances. All those people are too nice. And, as ones hobbies are practiced only by nice people, no quibble about ejecting any solitary stray mad person who wandered in by accident, right? Right.
presenting political correctness as merely “niceness”, and creating an artificial public consensus
Quite. I can certainly understand why someone might want to make their site politics-free; but to invoke an air of neutrality and ‘let’s-all-just-rub-along’ while specifying for exclusion only one side of the aisle is… telling.
What a dance they do.
Right, I’m off to re-watch some season three Bosch. Play nicely. Use coasters.
Well, there’s eliminating politics, which would indeed be quite strict of them, and then there’s banning untrammeled raw Nazism, which despite certain wild barbarian folk in surprising numbers engaging in of late, is simply beyond the pale.
No need to have such a thing in here with all these nice folk.
Sarcasm aside, they *know* that there is another side to politics out there, but they’re incapable of *believing* it, as they are quite a lot more mad than they’re aware.
normal people, not so much
I suspect there’s rather a lot of normal people here on this blog that are more like Charles Murray or Andy Ngo or Jenn Smith than Chuck Norris and who would like to go peacefully about their business without being attacked, injured and sent to hospital.
The Internet Tough Guy routine isn’t convincing anybody. Real life isn’t a video game, and a violent street confrontation isn’t going to turn into SmashTV! just because you beat your chest and swagger. If two US Marines can get curb-stomped by Antifa, I’m going to go with “normal people should consider antifa dangerous”.
By uptight knitting enthusiasts.
Knitting enthusiasts have been uptight since before Dickens. So much so, that it’s a cliche.
It’s amazing how much we discount the past. Every form of human evil/oddity we see today has already been captured by the likes of Dickens and before him Shakespeare and before him the Greeks. Yet we’re all so suprised when an example resurfaces and our hubris makes us believe it’s all happening for the first time.
From a comment on the previous thread on how SJWs don’t understand Karl Popper and here we have the ostensible “politics free” fiber community of Knitty supporting Ravelry cuz we all know that Trump and 63 million voters are Nazis.
It’s interesting that there’s no cartoon graphic showing what happens when one group conrols an ever changing “orthodoxy of truth.” Authoritarianism is authoritarianism whether it comes from the right or the left. Fascism and Socialism/Communism are two sides of the same coin.
…I’m going to go with “normal people should consider antifa dangerous”.
You can cede them all the power you want, but meanwhile, in your neck of the continent, what happens when one of their brave dangerous lot forgets their prime directive about numbers. It is also interesting what happens to these bold fighters when even your police decide not to put up with their crap.
Well, this discussion is getting a bit circular. Maybe we should all just agree to abide by the (Taira) Shigetsuke principle: avoid crowds and disturbances. It was good advice 400 years ago & it’s good advice today.
Farnsworth, I made your Spam recipe again the other day. Yum.
One-word oxymoron: polyfidelitous. Yep, it’s another self-justifying polyamorite. Someone hit that big red Tim Newman alarm button.
Very important advice for you, gentlemen. Take notes:
https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/feeling-like-a-man-during-your-period/
Someone hit that big red Tim Newman alarm button.
I though it was like a bat-signal.
Maybe we should all just agree to abide by the (Taira) Shigetsuke principle: avoid crowds and disturbances.
That’s excellent advice. I hate crowds at the best of times, even when they’re peaceful. I’ve learned to avoid them, especially in Paris when the gilets jaunes were kicking off. And having seen an African mob form, they are *very* frightening. So yes, avoid crowds at all times.
Someone hit that big red Tim Newman alarm button.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/7234e4d3-53dc-4f7c-b057-67e7b12d56d0
Fascism and Socialism/Communism are two sides of the same coin.
More like one side. While Fascism might’ve been to the right of Stalin, that hardly makes it “right wing” in any realistic sense. The only functional difference of which I’m aware is that Fascism used Nationalism as its rallying cry, rather than Class. Otherwise the two ideologies are pretty much indistinguishable.
More like one side.
Agreed. The chief differences are (1) Communism calls for state ownership of all economic activity while fascism allows private ownership but with pervasive and stringent state control. (2) Communism rallies “the people” around the idea of “class” while fascism uses race, ethnicity, and more recently sex and gender and everything else that can be made use of. (And both tend toward viciously violent treatment of enemy classes or races or whatever.)
Fascism is national in scope. Communism international. When the former expands, it does so for the purpose of conquest via eradication, the latter for conquest via submission.
Fascism is national in scope. Communism international. When the former expands, it does so for the purpose of conquest via eradication, the latter for conquest via submission.
Pretty much a difference without distinction. Much like “owns vs. controls”. Ownership *means* control. If you can’t control something, you don’t really own it.
As for the international vs. national natures of the two philosophies, again, de facto no difference. The Soviets wanted to conquer the world for the dictatorship of the proletariat while the Fascists wanted to conquer the world for national aggrandizement and lebensraum. Conquest is pretty much baked in to both. Tyrannies don’t like having competition.
Ownership *means* control. If you can’t control something, you don’t really own it.
Agree, hence my differences with libertarians (so-called) on eminent domain or real estate law.
Pretty much a difference without distinction.
In practice, yes. Philosophically, no. Communism is a smiley face put on what always turns out to be fascism in the end. Communism has an evangelical aspect to it, yet every communist society ends up spreading its own culture, language, etc. regardless of the diversity it pretends to celebrate or at the very least tolerate. So in actual practice it is almost the same as fascism. Yet this is communism’s most fundamental weakness and why communist societies fail time and time again. Fascist (state-focused/nationalistic socialism) does manage to stumble along so long as it stays within its own borders and doesn’t pick fights with societies it cannot decisively conquer. Fascism requires a significant amount of similar outlook and behavior of its people, yet being a more homogeneous society, this is somewhat workable. Fascism is fundamentally the same tribalism social animals, primarily man, have practiced since the dawn of mammals, just on a broader geographic footprint.
Bah…rereading the above, that should be:
FascismSocialism requires a significant amount of similar outlook and behavior of its people,yetwith fascism being implemented in a more homogeneous society, this is somewhat workable.…or something like that….
Well we may end up paying the tuition of these students. That makes me feel…things.
“Communism is a smiley face put on what always turns out to be fascism in the end.”
At one time Communists were called Red Fascists. Maybe we should revive that terminology.
that’s before you even get to the inflammatory question of who would be eligible for such a mission under the definition of “woman”.
Ruh-roh, writer Stephanie Merritt should hope she and her scare quotes don’t come to the attention of Vivian Kane.
@LoLKitten
Very important advice for you, gentlemen. Take notes:
“>https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/05/feeling-like-a-man-during-your-period/
Obviously mad, as it’s EF, but the thing I was confused about was this- the author writes in such a female voice I was genuinely confused as to the point of the article until she wrote ‘as a trans man’. Unusually, this took a while to happen, so I was really quite discombobulated, especially because- as an actual man- I would have had none of the reactions that the author had to any of the circumstances.
I’ve never agonised over whether to take pain relief, never felt the need to pretend I’ve been wounded to somehow macho-up a malady (how that fits with the screed about toxic masculinity a bit further down the page, I have no idea), and never once tried to rationalise bleeding from a part of my body that shouldn’t be there (In other words, I’ve never provoked a dissociative mental illness in myself to make me look more interesting).
I almost want to write to the author and tell them that- despite the therapy and hormones and all that stuff- they’ve completely missed the essence of masculinity, which is to just keep buggerring on, quietly doing what you do, and not make a giant fuss by screaming like a schoolgirl about inconsequential shit whilst playing dress-up.
Oh, and what lunacy is this (again from EF, and concerning Man-struation)?
Viable ovaries do not a woman make.
Ask any infertile woman, menopausal woman, female survivor of ovarian cancer, or woman who has undergone a hysterectomy.
And if viable ovaries don’t make a woman a woman, then viable ovaries don’t make a man a woman.
There’s something in that last sentence that sprains my mind.
It’s like a syllogism from someone with a brain injury.
If bananas don’t make banana palms a banana palm, then bananas don’t make a pineapple a banana palm?