Men, listen up… Join me, with due diligence and civic duty, and publicly claim: I am sexist!

In the pages of the New York Times, a philosophy professor named George Yancy is gushing his little heart out:

It is hard to admit we are sexist. I, for instance, would like to think that I possess genuine feminist bona fides, but who am I kidding? I am a failed and broken feminist. 

Upon which revelation, I suppose we could all just stop and go home. But no, let’s press on.

More pointedly, I am sexist. There are times when I fear for the loss of my own entitlement as a male. Toxic masculinity takes many forms. All forms continue to hurt and to violate women.

The word toxic, by the way, is deployed no fewer than nine times, excluding various synonyms, as if it were an incantation. Now brace yourselves for some full-on testosterone-jacked beastliness.

For example, before I got married, I insisted that my wife take my last name… While this was not sexual assault, my insistence was a violation of her independence.

To reiterate. Asking a fiancée if she’ll change her surname upon marriage, as is still the custom, perhaps to avoid confusing people as to whether you’re actually married or not, and possibly to avoid imposing on any children lengthy hyphenated surnames… this is not sexual assault. I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.

However,

I had inherited a subtle, yet still violent, form of toxic masculinity… These are deep and troubling expectations that are shaped by male privilege, male power and toxic masculinity.

What, then, are these dark and monstrous expectations, the ones that are “subtle, yet still violent”? Apparently, our professional thinker is troubled by the fact that he appreciates thanks after cleaning the house or cooking a meal. Yes, it’s deep and troubling.

Oh, we’re not done yet.

If you are a woman reading this, I have failed you. Through my silence and an uninterrogated collective misogyny, I have failed you. I have helped and continue to help perpetuate sexism. I know about how we hold onto forms of power that dehumanize you only to elevate our sense of masculinity. I recognize my silence as an act of violence. For this, I sincerely apologise.

And yet, frankly, I’m not sensing an excess of masculinity. If you spend hours preparing a meal, or cleaning the house, and then appreciate some acknowledgement, however small or routine, this doesn’t strike me as “toxic,” or “troubling,” or “dehumanizing,” or a “violation” of womanhood. Framing an appreciation of gratitude as “uninterrogated collective misogyny” sounds just a tad preposterous. And when my own Other Half takes charge of some particularly tricky meal preparation, some feat I daren’t attempt, I keep bunting and T-shirt cannons on hot stand-by.

Professor Yancy goes on to denounce, on behalf of all men, “our sexually objectifying gazes… our pornographic imaginations.” Our “dominant phallic economy.” Indeed, he continues, “we are collectively complicit with a sexist mind-set and a poisonous masculinity.” You see, being aroused by women, while not quite rape in itself, is nonetheless, as it were, rape-adjacent, and constitutes “a violent, pathetic and problematic masculinity.”

One wonders how a species of suitably corrected human beings, purged of such heterosexual inclinations, might propagate and flourish. Such that we can indulge the theatrical sorrows of lecturers in “critical whiteness studies.”

Or, as our educator puts it, tearfully, his face reddened with shame,

When I was about 15 years old, I said to a friend of mine, “Why must you always look at a girl’s butt?” He promptly responded: “Are you gay or something? What else should I look at, a guy’s butt?” He was already wearing the mask. He had already learned the lessons of patriarchal masculinity.

Yes, adolescent butt-watching. Oh calamitous woe. And which, apparently, girls never indulge in. Presumably, we should only be sexually attracted to personalities, and never the fleshy packaging.

There was no wiggle room for me to be both antisexist and antimisogynistic and yet a heterosexual young boy. You see, other males had rewarded his gaze by joining in the objectifying practice: “Look at that butt!” It was a collective act of devaluation.

Or possibly the reverse.

The acts of soul murder had already begun.

I’ll just leave that one there, I think.

Janice Fiamengo on inclusive, decolonised, anti-rational academia:  

This is probably now the top hot-button issue at Canadian universities – the move to replace ‘European-based knowledge’ as exclusionary, inadequate and subjective, and to replace it in some cases with “indigenous knowledge,” and even something called “indigenous science”… what some might say is superstition or magical beliefs… The idea that “indigenous knowledge” is not to be questioned, that it has value equal to supposedly ‘European’ science… is an incredibly worrisome and strange idea.

Do watch in full for the anecdotes about the realities of so-called “affirmative action,” and the faculty lounge response to hearing of the 9/11 atrocities. If you’re new here and unfamiliar with Professor Fiamengo’s observations on campus culture, I recommend watching this. 

Somewhat related, scenes from Cape Town’s decolonised academia, where “science people” are scolded for “disrespecting progressive space” – specifically, for doubting the claim that Africans can throw lightning at their enemies.

Lia Eustachewich on Harvard’s woke racism: 

A Harvard University dean testified that the school has different SAT score standards for prospective students based on factors such as race and sex — but insisted that the practice isn’t discriminatory… [Dean of admissions, William Fitzsimmons] said Harvard sends recruitment letters to African-American, Native American and Hispanic high schoolers with mid-range SAT scores, around 1100 on math and verbal combined out of a possible 1600… Asian-Americans only receive a recruitment letter if they score at least 250 points higher — 1350 for women, and 1380 for men.

The words that come to mind are systemic and institutional. See also this and this. 

Lifted from the comments, an unhappy Twitter exchange. As it’s couched in the contortions of “social justice,” and therefore not entirely honest, or indeed remotely honest, I’ll attempt to paraphrase:

Pretentious Woke-ling: 

“I’m a student of critical race theory and I’ve decided to get preposterously upset because you favourably quoted one of my super-woke boilerplate tweets. You should now pay me for my insufferable narcissism, on account of my Designated Victim Group status.”

Everyday Mentalism:  

“We’re sorry for quoting one of your tweets, which was obviously a traumatic violation of your Designated Victim Group status. However, the employee who quoted you is black, queer and non-binary, and therefore also a Designated Victim. So, although we’ll pretend to be sorry – because we all have to pretend, otherwise the whole racket will collapse – you really shouldn’t be applying our insane standards to us.”

Much theatrical fretting ensues. You see, quoting someone’s tweet, favourably, is, it says here, “causing harm.”

Today’s word is rethink. || Always respect the media. || Piano improvisation made simple. || Build your own mobile phone. || “No bathroom inside, but many nearby.” || She does this better than you do. || Self-lubricating condoms. || For me, yes, but not thee. || One whole minute of performance art. || Don’t all rush at once. || Chart of note. (h/t, Damian) || How Jack Became Black. || Ladies, in states of undress, with skeletons. || On watching Alien for the first time. || Ladder-climbing snake robot. || Drone versus aircraft wing. (h/t, Tony) || Today’s other word is character. || Naked man fights cop car. || Rat infestation. || Achievement redefined. || Analogy of note. || It’s hard to know where to start.

“I’ve lost every set of keys I’ve ever owned,” she admits.

Before you say it, yes, I know. I’m veering towards the catty. But the fact that it even exists possibly tells us something: 

Laurie—who’s currently in a good place with her mental health and says she’s lucky to have found treatments that work long term—isn’t claiming that everything will be great if you could only just rearrange your house in a particular way. But she knows from experience there are alternative therapies and ideas that can help, in addition to traditional treatments. Including, but definitely not limited to, arranging your house in a certain way.

Specifically,

Laurie has heard that raw wooden surfaces and the presence of wood in the home can lift one’s mood, so she’s made sure to include wooden decor elements, from furniture to twigs, branches, and a dead tree she found on the side of the road she thought looked nice.

Perhaps she’s smashing bourgeois values via the medium of celebrity lifestyle features.