Mary Katharine Ham on woke scolds and public pushback: 

Here’s how the removal of the [painting, Hylas and the Nymphs] went down — in the most eye-rollingly woke, modern-art-professor way possible. A professor and five members of a “drag collective” walk into an art gallery to talk about viewing art in a non-binary way. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

Amy Wax on sinking standards and The New Unsayable: 

An open letter published in the Daily Pennsylvanian and signed by 33 of my colleagues… condemned and categorically rejected all of my views [on the importance of bourgeois values]. It then invited students, in effect, to monitor me and to report any “stereotyping and bias” they might experience or perceive. This letter contained no argument, no substance, no reasoning, no explanation whatsoever as to how our op-ed was in error… To students and citizens alike I say: Don’t follow their lead by condemning people for their views without providing a reasoned argument. Reject their example. Not only are they failing to teach you the practice of civil discourse —the sine qua non of liberal education and democracy— they are sending the message that civil discourse is unnecessary. 

This, remember, is the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For background, see the first items here and here. 

And Andy Ngo on the “social justice” Sturmabteilung: 

In The Baffler, Jessa Crispin writes: 

His desire for stockings and earrings and a flattering skirt did not change his critical stance against capitalism, but it did complicate his view of what socialism or communism could be. “Will there be lipstick under communism?” Yes, [sociology lecturer, Colin] Cremin writes in a new book, Man-Made Woman — but only if men are wearing it, too… A truly progressive man, then, would be one who rejects the social and economic advantages that come from hegemonic masculinity and patriarchal conformity. A “feminine flourish,” as Cremin puts it, of perfume or lipstick or a silk blouse, would undercut a man’s power immediately in both the workplace and on the sexual market. 

Via Ben Sixsmith, in a thread where it’s noted that when many men favoured stockings and beauty spots, this didn’t immediately result in communism or a toppling of “hegemonic masculinity.”

Dr Cremin, of course, has been noted here before. 

Attention, all white women. You and your “whiteness” are “causing real harm and violence.” You are, to put it bluntly, “a perpetrator of harm.”

And so, obviously, what you need is a workshop, where you can “confront your participation in the oppression of others,” which is to say, “confront white womanhood,” and thereby be in “true solidarity” with beings of colour, who are flawless, downtrodden and inherently more noble. Given your own vile and corrupting nature, interaction with beings of colour must only be attempted after following the guidance of suitably enlightened instructors. Instructors who will bestow intersectional epiphanies by steering you to the works of these lofty, selfless warriors, and also to articles published in that high-minded journal for troubled women, Everyday Feminism. 

For a mere $20, you could be stewing in the wisdom of, among others, “artist and activist” Heather Marie Scholl, who was famously interviewed by Gavin McInnes, and whose creative efforts “examine white women’s roles in the establishment and maintenance of white supremacy through… embroidery techniques.” When not toppling the patriarchy with unattractive needlework, or “approaching social justice issues with a productive emotionality,” Ms Scholl boasts of her “BA from The Evergreen State College in Race, Gender and Sexuality.”

So, ladies. Sunday March 4 is the date for your diary. Book early. 

Speaking, as we were, of people for whom anger is a credential, a kind of emotional jewellery, this seems apposite:

My fury has been bottomless. I drink my morning coffee from a cup that says, “I hate to wake up when Donald Trump is President.” The constancy of my outrage has been exhausting, yet I have not yet found a way to quell it — nearly each day has brought a new reason to stoke the fire. But a day with my daughter, communing with the angry and the aggrieved, seemed a good way to try.

Ruth Mayer, a woman seemingly oblivious to the implication of her own words, recounts her pilgrimage to the ‘Women’s March’ in Washington DC. It’s a tale of cultivated umbrage, car trouble, and a moment of reflection, narrowly missed.

Via Darleen.

“We want to destroy the Conservative government. We want to bring down the Patriarchy.”

And if this doesn’t do it, I don’t know what will: 

In the UK, women and femme-identifying people have come under sustained attack by the Conservative government… But Phoebe Patey-Ferguson and Anna Smith didn’t want to give in to hopelessness. Instead, they decided to wrestle each other in their shared art studio in east London.

Chunky tattooed ladies channelling their inner umbrage. Part fetish, part psychodrama, part delusional politics – feminist fight club is apparently a thing now:

“Most of the spaces we perform in are queer spaces so often people haven’t been able to really allow themselves to feel the anger and rage that they do feel,” [says Patey-Ferguson]. “So often they are thankful to us for the space that we can feel that together… You don’t feel like you are locked in your room staring at the internet alone. There is a kind of empowerment in that, because if we express that together, there is a possibility of change.”

For these terribly radical ladies and “femme-identified” beings, fighting each other ineptly and accidentally cracking each other’s ribs – while screaming “Fuck you, Theresa May!” – is “a mode of resistance.”

And yes, there is video.