And in radical menstruation news:

I suspect sharp-eyed readers can guess where this is going.

Readers may wish to ponder whether listing special sex-based requirements – taking time off work, every month, for days, and still expecting to be paid, for instance – is the ideal basis for asserting the obviousness of workplace gender equality.

I’m also unclear on how gender equality, a term used many times, is bolstered by the belief that menstruating women may in fact be men – and the implication that men can also become women and can therefore barge into previously female-only spaces.

The crucial signal, I’d suggest, is that the author, Meaghan Furlano, is willing to pretend that menstruating women are somehow not women and are in fact men. One might call that lying. And referring to women as “menstruators,” as if this were a breakthrough and a basis for applause, does not immediately evoke equality or respect.

A shocking twist. How very daring.

Who are all women. Hence the menstruation.

What those “hetero-sexist beliefs” might be remains, rather oddly, a thing of mystery. Few details are forthcoming. They are, however, “deeply concerning.” And I’m inclined to wonder whose responsibility it should be, if not the adult woman concerned, to manage menstruation.

Ms Furlano, a PhD Sociology student at Western University, and “a scholar of feminist media,” goes on to list the special things that must be done by all employers in order to accommodate “menstruating workers.” These menstruating workers who aren’t necessarily women, remember, and while stressing the importance of gender equality, including the equality of made-up genders, and while expressing dissatisfaction with efforts to comply:

I don’t know about taboo. Indeed, menstruation seems a loudly aired fixation of, for instance, scholars of feminist media. It’s practically a credential, a merit badge, all but obligatory. As for shameful and secretive, I can only suggest that most of us probably don’t care to know in any great detail about how you’re bleeding from your genitals.

All well and good, I suppose. But none of this seems obviously supportive of some unassailable claim of gender equality. It’s a list of costs and possible inconveniences.

No laughing at the back. The P-word was inevitable. Also, menstruators.

Ah, educational correction. Another cost.

And it seems to me a little odd to bemoan the idea that menstruation may, for some, have medical connotations while simultaneously expecting days off work, every month, due to being disabled by the very same phenomenon. Those “painful menstrual cycle-related symptoms or illnesses,” to which Ms Furlano refers. If periods leave a woman agonised and unable to work, for days, every month, this may signal some underlying issue – say, endometriosis or some auto-immune disorder. And a visit to the doctor may be in order.

Again, and let me stress this, most of us don’t want to know about the stains in your underwear. It’s not the kind of information that many of us crave. And at risk of being damned for my “hetero-sexist beliefs,” I suspect that many women are quite happy not to draw attention to their menstrual status. Also known as the expulsion of waste product. It being, for the most part, no other bugger’s business.

I can’t recall ever being offended by the visibility of a box of tampons, and these repeated claims of some egregious, crushing stigma seem to be teetering on a pinhead. The customary expectation of some minimal discretion – analogous to not announcing every bowel movement – does not strike me as a Big Ask, or a basis for victimhood.

Or for “a powerful feminist intervention,” “a radical transformation and physical restructuring of workplaces,” with continual monitoring and “interrogation,” as Ms Furlano demands.

Via Jonathan Kay.

Lifted from the comments, an excerpt from the Joe Rogan Experience, a discussion with investor and tech developer Marc Andreessen:

Forward this video to friends & family to understand just how evil the government has been
pic.twitter.com/XgRnikMK6J

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 29, 2024

The complete three-hour discussion, which I recommend making time for, can be found here. Topics touched on include progressive status bubbles, biased AI, debanking and other deep-state shenanigans, and a march towards dystopia only recently interrupted.

Update, via the comments:

As Dicentra says in reply,

It’s quite a revealing discussion, on many fronts, and worth finding three hours to hear the whole thing.

Much of it is dystopian in its implications, and there’s a recurring sense of getting a chance to avoid a path to nowhere good. The idea of a branch in the timeline, mentioned jokingly early on, did not strike me as inapt. And the description of living in a self-flattering progressive bubble, with continual anxieties about status and expressing The Correct Politics, may be familiar to regulars here.

I was in the car, listening distractedly and pretty much by accident, but soon found myself paying attention. The mechanics of unaccountable state power are not uninteresting, if somewhat disturbing; the sheer foolishness and perversity of Our Betters is a never-ending source of black comedy – say, with the US military using Chinese drones; and the insider description of elite liberals and their world – its vanities and its mismatch with reality – had a certain resonance.

As you might imagine.

Mr Rogan is known, and parodied, for his whoas and wows and what the fucks, but it’s an episode in which what the fuck is not an unreasonable response. And if you’ve wondered how an elite liberal, a Silicon Valley billionaire, starts to, as it were, leave the faith, it’s quite interesting. The process of registering the vanities and incongruities, the social dynamics, the outright lies about topics in which you have some expertise, and so forth.

Now please insert your political views into the scanner.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Regarding the recent Māori theatrics in the New Zealand parliament:

Interesting. Are we indigenous Danes also more spiritually and culturally connected to our land than the recent immigrants? https://t.co/4WzK6HOr2g

— Jonatan Pallesen (@jonatanpallesen) November 16, 2024

Oddly, no reply was forthcoming.

Update, via the comments:

On those connections to the land: 

Today’s word, since you ask, is juxtaposition.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Lifted from the comments, here’s an interview with Professor Amy Wax. Topics touched on include academia’s practised unrealism, declining competence, and the seeming irrelevance of whether a thing is true:

The discussion, at 24:45, of who gets to define extremism – and, very much related, The Party Of Shoplifting – is, I think, entertaining and rather on-the-money.

Update, via the comments:

The complaints against Professor Wax were compiled, with some enthusiasm, by the law school’s Dean, Theodore Ruger, who claims to have experienced “lasting trauma” after hearing Wax speak. This, remember, is a supposedly grown man. An intellectual.

Ruger’s improbable assertion echoed those of several students who would have us believe that Wax’s mere presence on campus is “physically and emotionally harming all of us.” And whose list of grievances included one student who resented the expectation that in order to win a debate, she “had to prove herself” – i.e., make a compelling argument – and another who was crushed by the suggestion that affirmative action policies can leave their supposed beneficiaries academically unprepared.

At which point, the word irony springs to mind.

This, then, is the standard at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school. Where tuition is a mere $76,000 a year.

So far as I can see, Professor Wax’s heretical comments – whether on the statistical benefits of bourgeois values, or on cultures of dysfunction, or on “equity” versus competence, or on her own students’ performance disparities and drop-out rates – have yet to be refuted by those trembling with indignation. They have, however, been denounced as “hate speech,” “racist,” “segregationist,” “white supremacy,” etc.

Apparently, among our betters, it is now scandalous to suggest that a way to minimise the risk of poverty and imprisonment is to be diligent and hardworking, charitable and civic minded, and to “eschew substance abuse and crime.”

Again, $76,000 a year.

At which point, it’s perhaps worth repeating this, from an earlier post on those supposedly traumatised by Professor Wax and the fact that she exists:

Hence the bizarrely narrow range of permissible opinions, the unmentionable statistics, and the zeal with which transgressions are punished.

Update 2:

In the comments, ccscientist adds,

And the result is very often disaffection and resentment, which is eagerly redirected, not least by many of Wax’s critics, towards “whiteness,” or “white supremacy,” or “structural racism,” or some other self-flattering conspiracy theory. The resentment may be misdirected, or entirely unearned, but it is exploitable.

It’s also worth remembering that Wax’s comments about performance disparities and drop-out rates among her own students were prompted by Glenn Loury, who had noted, correctly, that such disparities must necessarily result from racial favouritism and wildly varying standards in admissions. A point he explains more fully in the short, and very much recommended, video embedded here.

Wax was essentially confirming Loury’s own reasoning, and stating clearly what Loury had cautiously tip-toed towards. And yet she, unlike he, is demonised and punished for articulating a statistical necessity, an observable fact. As Wax puts it, common knowledge, albeit of a kind studiously ignored by those doing the punishing and puffing out their chests.

As Wax says in the video linked above,

And noticing the knot, the mental contortion, is very much forbidden.

And in woke dining news:

Setting aside the small matter of, er, assault and strangulation, readers may wish to ponder the notion, advanced by Mr Rivera and his numerous supporters, that white people, especially white people with blonde hair, shouldn’t be allowed to serve Japanese food.

At which point, I suppose I should mention this:

A shocking twist, I know. I do hope you were sitting down.

When not harassing people for having the wrong colour skin, and when not strangling women, Mr Rivera spends quite a lot of time blocking those who dare to quote his own social media statements.

And he will “take note” of who does not obey:

I expect Liberal MPs to march in the pride parade in Ottawa, even if they do it without party approval. I will take note of who does not. https://t.co/IPxXmgGH9b

— Jake Landau (He/Him) 🇵🇸🇺🇦 (@JakeLandauTO) August 19, 2024

Mr Landau, since you ask, is a “left wing, progressive Liberal organiser” – pronouns “he/him” – who spends a lot of his time being “exhausted and sad.” Oh, and he doesn’t like people who “suppress… dissenting voices.”

Mr Landau has not yet specified what he will do to those reluctant to march on demand. Something progressive, no doubt. Sadly, Mr Landau, our champion of radical dissent, is not permitting questions or replies from those insufficiently like-minded.

Via Mia Hughes.

Update, via the comments:

Rafi adds,

Ah, but, you see, they’re “dissenting,” albeit in a very conformist way. And any failure to “dissent” – on demand, as instructed – will be punished. Compliance under duress being the way of the dissenter.

The rhetorical inversions may, I grant you, take some getting used to. But you will start celebrating now, comrade, spontaneously, and with great joy.

Lest your hesitation be noted.

Update 2:

Oh, and speaking of affirmation being demanded:

BREAKING: DNC Protesters BLOCK CARS demanding they say “Free Palestine”, angry driver drives through, gets out of the car to CONFRONT protesters when his window was dented pic.twitter.com/HuSWTyJ43Q

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) August 23, 2024

Behold our betters and their recreational malice.

I paraphrase, but not by much:

It started, since you ask, with chappie being annoyed by the existence of a cruise ship. Says he,

Readers will note that the word wasted is doing some heavy lifting there. That the building of said cruise ship paid the wages of thousands of people, in several cities, for years, and that the crewing and maintenance of said ship pays the wages of thousands more, and that the thousands of passengers aboard it at any given time will be spending large sums of money in any number of tourist destinations, making lives better across the globe, seems to have escaped our indignant chappie’s attention.

But still, he has “he/they” pronouns in his bio. So some markers of status are totally okay, apparently. Chappie tells us that he’s a “Black communicator,” whose podcast “paints a multi-faceted picture of the Black, brown, and Native American experience through story-telling.”

Relevant footnote.

Relevant meme.

Lifted from the comments, which you’re reading, of course.

Update:

In the comments, EmC quotes this,

And adds,

Or an owner of slaves, perhaps. Some arrangement in which he, Our Obvious Better, doesn’t have to do things that others find of value. Something non-reciprocal.

From the thread above:

It’s certainly a mindset that’s quite telling. For instance, this came to mind:

So, for some, the very idea that a grown-up person should pay their debts – or keep their word, or honour their promises – is something to be “defeated.”

Or, adulthood is such a drag.

Update 2:

It’s curious how often such complaints boil down to, “Other people, less fabulous people, should labour for free, for my benefit, until I say otherwise.” Which, it has to be said, is an odd construal of righteousness.

We’ve been here before, of course. As when an unhappy young madam realised, belatedly and with some annoyance, that bills have to be paid, and livings have to be earned. A seemingly overlooked detail that prompted much umbrage and baffled indignation, on grounds that cars and food and houses are things “which we should just be able to have.”

As I said in reply,

Answers on a postcard, please.

Further to The Blurting, a footnote of sorts:

“My Fox News dad makes everything political” https://t.co/JxaZvPwrSg

— wanye (@wanyeburkett) August 15, 2024

Please update your files and lifestyles accordingly.

Update, via the comments:

The above, it seems to me, is not so much a declaration of values as a psychological profile.

As Rafi says in reply,

Not having to deal with such people does have a cash value. If in order to use a communal laser cutter, you first have to “strive to uphold” the notion that sex differences are unrelated to biology, that “meritocracy is a joke,” and that, despite all available evidence, “nonbinary people” somehow aren’t aggravating poseurs… Then, well, buying your own laser cutter seems a much better option.

After all, this life is finite and best not wasted on proximity to wankers.

Oh, and some of that super important intersectionality.

Lifted from the comments, and relevant to the ongoing liveliness, Peter Whittle ponders a recent, very rapid transformation:

An animated chart of some relevance.

Update, via the comments:

Regarding the video above, this came to mind. Tim Newman on knowing your neighbours:

Having re-read it, it’s not entirely inapt.

Very much related to the above, and because an example is always handy, the rumblings of progressive educator Dr Adam Kotsko:

The phenomena that Dr Kotsko is unlikely to experience personally, but which he is keen to see inflicted on others, are helpfully illustrated.

See also Douglas Murray on the Simon Schama tendency:

Needless to say, Mr Schama’s own neighbourhood is suitably… insulated.

Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.

Not entirely unrelated to ongoing events:

Mr Politano, by the way, is a “He/him. Bi/pan.” Just in case it wasn’t clear that he’s better than you.

The subject of social trust – specifically, its erosion – has, of course, been mentioned here before.

Update, via the comments:

From the subsequent rumblings:

It does rather call to mind numerous polyamory ‘cope’ videos, in which clearly neurotic and unhappy people try to convince themselves that they’re totally cool with their chosen lifestyle miseries. Often while on the verge on tears.

Pretending not to see the obvious implications of, say, this phenomenon here, and variations thereof, or this lively, uplifting scene, is, I suppose, a skill of sorts. But I wouldn’t say that such pretensions are a basis for applause.

Update 2:

And speaking of practised unrealism:

As Steve E adds, drily,

The idea that there may be very real physical constraints on some favoured policy – that reality may not comply with half-baked theory – seems entirely alien to Mr Snow. An attitude not uncommon among his progressive peers, and which may help explain the lively events currently underway in several British cities.

Mr Snow, since you ask, is married to the philanthropist Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor, daughter of the sixth Duke of Westminster, one of the country’s richest landowners, with an estimated fortune north of £7 billion. Needless to say, Mr Snow does not live in, or anywhere near, the kinds of “diverse” neighbourhoods now being trashed and terrorised by competing tribes.

Tribes that apparently shouldn’t exist.

Also open thread. Share ye links and bicker.