THOMPSON, blog.
THOMPSON, blog. - Marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.

Slide THOMPSON, blog Poking the pathology since 2007
  • thompson, blog
  • Reheated
  • X
  • Email
Browsing Category
Pregnancy
Academia Anthropology Feminist Comedy Politics Pregnancy Science

Elsewhere (259)

January 6, 2018 87 Comments

Toni Airaksinen pokes through the scholarly journal Feminist Media Studies: 

“The purpose of including an abortion plotline is to make jokes about abortion, recognising that such satire is valuable for some people as both a means and an end,” [sociology lecturer, Gretchen] Sisson explains. “Comedy has often been used as a subversive way of challenging predominant social structures,” she adds, arguing that because comedy has a history of challenging taboo social issues, abortion “is even intuitive new ground for comedy to address.”

When not devising new realms of feminist comedy, Dr Sisson is an advocate of third-trimester abortion. And hey, destroying nascent human life – whether for health reasons, personal convenience, or as a display of feminist piety - what could be funnier?

David Solway on the comedy-cum-despair of being a college-level teacher: 

Where was one to start trying to educate an adult student who thought the Great Depression began in the 1960s; who was unable to distinguish between the First and Second World Wars; who thought that Moscow was the capital of Missouri… or who averred, in a paper on George Orwell’s Animal Farm, that “George Orwin, arthur of The Animal Firm, was heavily into natur.” You can’t make this stuff up. 

And Toni Airaksinen, again, on another educational breakthrough arrived at via feminism: 

Together, [professors] Laura Parson and Casey Ozaki interviewed eight female students majoring in math or physics to learn more about why women struggle in STEM. From their interviews, the professors learned that many women feel pressure to conform to so-called “masculine” norms. According to the professors, these masculine norms include “asking good questions,” “capacity for abstract thought and rational thought processes,” “motivation,” the expectation that students would be “independent” thinkers, and a relatively low fear of failure. “This requirement that the average student asks questions and speaks in class is based on the typical undergraduate man,” they contend.

Apparently, this “masculine” ideal – of diligence, rationality and a willingness to ask questions – “is very difficult for women students to achieve,” on account of female students not possessing an “unencumbered male body.” Dr Parson has of course entertained us before with her claims that the scientific method and notions of objective reality are “masculine” conceits and therefore oppressive. Instead, says she, we should rely on “feminist critical discourse,” of which her own writing is presumably an example. Again, if you think of modern leftism as a kind of perverse counsel, an attempt to erode realism, stoicism and self-possession, along with academic standards and expectations of competence, and to ruin the lives of the vain and credulous, it can save a lot of time.

As usual, feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Continue reading
Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Academia Anthropology Politics Pregnancy Psychodrama

Screaming Into A Mirror

September 17, 2017 72 Comments

Further to the last item here, and various rumblings in the comments, here’s Nanette Asimov on The Screeching Left versus Ben Shapiro (and anyone who wants to engage him in debating ideas): 

For many protesters, the specifics of what the opposition says is not the point. “It doesn’t matter what the guy’s going to say,” said Michael Heaney, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies the sociology of protest movements. “He could talk about the joys of apple-picking. What matters is that the counter-movement is trying to use the energy of the (event) to grow. This is an opportunity for them — and they are likely to seize upon it.”

And hence the conceit that any disagreement is an act of “violence,” to be repaid in kind, violently. For the hyperventilated protestors, it’s all about them and their psychodrama. Because it always is. And so we see self-styled ‘progressives’, the self-imagined woke, calling a Jewish man “Nazi scum” and a “fascist xenophobe” because he opposes racism and thuggery, and wants to have conversations in which students consider issues of basic humanity.

See also, Charles Murray, Heather Mac Donald, Janice Fiamengo, etc., etc. 

Continue reading
Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Academia Anthropology Politics Pregnancy

Sexy Fun Times

May 3, 2017 46 Comments

Anthony Gockowski reports from Purdue University, where a debate on abortion takes a strange turn: 

“What would you call the public display of a butt naked body of a child?” [pro-abortion speaker, Professor David] Sanders questioned. “I would call it child pornography. Do they have their permission? Do they have the permission of the foetus? Obviously not.”

The permission of the foetus. All things considered, not the happiest turn of phrase.

He went on to question whether or not [anti-abortion group] Created Equal obtains “the permission of the parents to show these images of children,” soliciting a shocked reaction from the audience, with one in attendance pointing out that Sanders had effectively admitted that “it’s a child.”

So, to recap. Showing images of terminated babies-to-have-been during a debate on abortion is apparently pornographic and indecent, a violation of the subject, unlike actually terminating said subject with forceps, suction tubes or abortifacient drugs.

Related: Just Thwarted Sperm. 

Continue reading
Reading time: 1 min
Written by: David
Academia Anthropology Politics Pregnancy

Elsewhere (223)

January 25, 2017 90 Comments

Ben Shapiro on abortion and evasion: 

Today, The Atlantic ran a bizarre piece by Moira Weigel titled, in Orwellian fashion, “How the Ultrasound Pushed the Idea That a Foetus Is a Person.” Which is somewhat like saying, “How the Microscope Pushed the Idea That Cells Exist,” or “How the Hubble Telescope Pushed the Idea That There Are Stars Outside Our Solar System.” […] But Weigel goes even further, assuring readers that ultrasounds were primarily a form of warfare against women rather than a tool allowing doctors to identify problems with foetal development as early as possible.  

“What is a foetal heartbeat?” asks Ms Weigel. “And why does it matter?” As we’ve seen, pregnancy is a subject that leaves some feminists looking not only disingenuous but actually monstrous. 

Roger Kimball on academia’s inauguration meltdown: 

Academia has an infantilising effect. I understand that. Many professors dress and act like adolescents right up to the time they are ready to hand in their tenure and live off their generous pensions. The Peter-Pan aspect of academia is not entirely the professors’ fault. After all, the points at which the real world intrudes upon academia are so few and so tenuous that academics may be forgiven for some of their hyperbole and inadvertently comic displays of self-importance. They exist, like kept women of yore, entirely at the pleasure of an affluent society they despise. So in a way it is not surprising that they endeavour to transform their entire campus into a sort of existential boudoir, which is French for “room for pouting in.”

Peter Wood on attempts to make ‘progressive’ activism mandatory for students:

New Civics has appropriated the name of an older subject, but not the content of that subject or its basic orientation to the world. Instead of trying to prepare students for adult participation in the self-governance of the nation, the New Civics tries to prepare students to become social and political activists who are grounded in broad antagonism towards America’s founding principles and its republican ethos.

And Malhar Mali interviews the people behind the excellent Real Peer Review:  

@RealPeerReview is a Twitter account that has steadily gained popularity and fans by exposing the humorous, nonsensical, and absurd trends in scholarship that are sometimes found in academic research. From Ph.D. theses, M.A. theses, to articles in disciplinary journals, the account highlights laughable “scholarship” such as exploring the black anus, how pumpkins and pumpkin spice lattes are oppressive and symbols of white privilege, a paper on a researcher’s experience of completing jigsaw puzzles, and how a scholar felt while drinking coffee and reading the Guardian.  

Feel free to share your own links and snippets, on any subject, in the comments.

Continue reading
Reading time: 2 min
Written by: David
Anthropology Parenting Politics Pregnancy

An Eighteen-Year Project

December 21, 2016 114 Comments

In the Sydney Morning Herald, proud feminist and former educator Polly Dunning shares her experience of motherhood:

I’ve always been a feminist. I’m lucky. My mother, Jane Caro, is a feminist, as is my grandmother, and both always have been. It’s something I’ve never questioned and always felt confident and strident about. Just ask me about it at a dinner party (if you dare…)

Setting aside the prospect of some horrendous dinner parties, note Ms Dunning’s satisfaction with a set of assumptions that are stridently voiced and “never questioned.”

Motherhood has been quite a confronting experience for my feminism so far, and I'm sure it will continue to be. Ever since discovering I was pregnant it’s been a process of adjusting and reconciling my biology with my ideology, particularly when I discovered that my baby, my most-beloved Alfred, would be a boy.

That little red light is a warning sign.

I had never wanted a son. In fact, I had decidedly not wanted one. I wanted daughters, probably because I am one of two daughters and six granddaughters, no sons or grandsons. This seemed altogether to fit in with my feminism better… There were dark moments in the middle of the night (when all those dark thoughts come), when I felt sick at the thought of something male growing inside me.

Yes, I know. The little red light is flashing now. Best cover it with a towel.

In this patriarchal world, this world where even the best men (and women, for that matter) engage in casual and ingrained sexism, how will I raise a son who respects me the way a daughter would?

Oh sweet naïveté. But thank goodness that Ms Dunning, who “felt sick” at even the thought of “something male” growing inside her, is totally opposed to all that “casual and ingrained sexism.”

Continue reading
Reading time: 3 min
Written by: David
Page 2 of 3«123»

Blog Preservation Fund




Subscribestar Amazon UK
Support this Blog
Donate via QR Code

RECENT POSTS

  • Friday Ephemera (773)
  • Striving For Diversity
  • Reheated (108)
  • Dumb, Yes, But Fashionable
  • Friday Ephemera (772)

Recent Comments

  • Rafi on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 07:08
  • David on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 06:49
  • David on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 06:47
  • Chow Bag on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 06:24
  • JuliaM on Striving For Diversity Jun 27, 06:21
  • David on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 06:14
  • David on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 06:12
  • David on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 06:09
  • John D on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 05:57
  • JuliaM on Friday Ephemera (773) Jun 27, 05:32

SEARCH

Archives

Archive by year

Interesting Sites

Blogroll

Categories

  • Academia
  • Agonies of the Left
  • AI
  • And Then It Caught Fire
  • Anthropology
  • Architecture
  • Armed Forces
  • Arse-Chafing Tedium
  • Art
  • ASMR
  • Auto-Erotic Radicalism
  • Basking
  • Bees
  • Behold My Massive Breasts
  • Behold My Massive Lobes
  • Beware the Brown Rain
  • Big Hooped Earrings
  • Bionic Lingerie
  • Blogs
  • Books
  • Bra Drama
  • Bra Hygiene
  • Cannabis
  • Classic Sentences
  • Collective Toilet Management
  • Comics
  • Culture
  • Current Affairs
  • Dating Decisions
  • Dental Hygiene's Racial Subtext
  • Department of Irony
  • Dickensian Woes
  • Did You Not See My Earrings?
  • Emotional Support Guinea Pigs
  • Emotional Support Water Bottles
  • Engineering
  • Ephemera
  • Erotic Pottery
  • Farmyard Erotica
  • Feats
  • Feminist Comedy
  • Feminist Dating
  • Feminist Fun Times
  • Feminist Poetry Slam
  • Feminist Pornography
  • Feminist Snow Ploughing
  • Feminist Witchcraft
  • Film
  • Food and Drink
  • Free-For-All
  • Games
  • Gardening's Racial Subtext
  • Gentrification
  • Giant Vaginas
  • Great Hustles of Our Time
  • Greatest Hits
  • Hair
  • His Pretty Nails
  • History
  • Housekeeping
  • Hubris Meets Nemesis
  • Ideas
  • If You Build It
  • Imagination Must Be Punished
  • Inadequate Towels
  • Indignant Replies
  • Interviews
  • Intimate Waxing
  • Juxtapositions
  • Media
  • Mischief
  • Modern Savagery
  • Music
  • Niche Pornography
  • Not Often Seen
  • Oppressive Towels
  • Parenting
  • Policing
  • Political Nipples
  • Politics
  • Postmodernism
  • Pregnancy
  • Presidential Genitals
  • Problematic Acceptance
  • Problematic Baby Bouncing
  • Problematic Bookshelves
  • Problematic Bra Marketing
  • Problematic Checkout Assistants
  • Problematic Civility
  • Problematic Cleaning
  • Problematic Competence
  • Problematic Crosswords
  • Problematic Cycling
  • Problematic Drama
  • Problematic Fairness
  • Problematic Fitness
  • Problematic Furniture
  • Problematic Height
  • Problematic Monkeys
  • Problematic Motion
  • Problematic Neighbourliness
  • Problematic Ownership
  • Problematic Parties
  • Problematic Pasta
  • Problematic Plumbers
  • Problematic Punctuality
  • Problematic Questions
  • Problematic Reproduction
  • Problematic Shoes
  • Problematic Taxidermy
  • Problematic Toilets
  • Problematic Walking
  • Problematic Wedding Photos
  • Pronouns Or Else
  • Psychodrama
  • Radical Bowel Movements
  • Radical Bra Abandonment
  • Radical Ceramics
  • Radical Dirt Relocation
  • Reheated
  • Religion
  • Reversed GIFs
  • Science
  • Shakedowns
  • Some Fraction Of A Sausage
  • Sports
  • Stalking Mishaps
  • Student Narcolepsy
  • Suburban Polygamist Ninjas
  • Suburbia
  • Technology
  • Television
  • The Deep Wisdom of Celebrities
  • The Genitals Of Tomorrow
  • The Gods, They Mock Us
  • The Great Outdoors
  • The Politics of Buttocks
  • The Thrill of Décor
  • The Thrill Of Endless Noise
  • The Thrill of Friction
  • The Thrill of Garbage
  • The Thrill Of Glitter
  • The Thrill of Hand Dryers
  • The Thrill of Medicine
  • The Thrill Of Powdered Cheese
  • The Thrill Of Seating
  • The Thrill Of Shopping
  • The Thrill Of Toes
  • The Thrill Of Unemployment
  • The Thrill of Wind
  • The Thrill Of Woke Retailing
  • The Thrill Of Women's Shoes
  • The Thrill of Yarn
  • The Year That Was
  • Those Lying Bastards
  • Those Poor Darling Armed Robbers
  • Those Poor Darling Burglars
  • Those Poor Darling Carjackers
  • Those Poor Darling Fare Dodgers
  • Those Poor Darling Looters
  • Those Poor Darling Muggers
  • Those Poor Darling Paedophiles
  • Those Poor Darling Sex Offenders
  • Those Poor Darling Shoplifters
  • Those Poor Darling Stabby Types
  • Those Poor Darling Thieves
  • Tomorrow’s Products Today
  • Toys
  • Travel
  • Tree Licking
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
  • Unreturnable Crutches
  • Wigs
  • You Can't Afford My Radical Life

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

In which we marvel at the mental contortions of our self-imagined betters.