Pia Glenn of xoJane again attempts to Explain feminism- Julie Pascal

429 thoughts on “Pia Glenn of xoJane again attempts to Explain feminism- Julie Pascal”

1. Same old agenda. “Heads I win, tails you lose.”

   1. If we were playing cards you’d be the one to deal
      You’d play with loaded dice and fix the roulette wheel
      You pick ’em at the races like I’ve never seen
      And then you make me pay off like a slot machine

2. The problem with feminism is the same problem as with the “civil rights activist”: a refusal to admit that the war is over, and they won. We appreciate the equal opportunities and the right to vote, gals, but that doesn’t mean that we need to be at your side in your ever more absurd quests to protect women from the horrors of single-sex restrooms.

   1. Yep – the war is over, and we won, and I am too busy enjoying the fruits of that victory to join the sessions of vicious male-bashing, alternating with contemplating our oh-so-superior female selves.

      1. This. So very much this.

      2. There are those who have built their noble self-image on their allegiance to the cause. They assumed that once the goals of the cause were won their problems would solved and their lives would become satisfying and fulfilling. This has not happened. They are unhappy and frustrated. Instead of considering whether the reason for their dissatisfaction lies within they continues to lash out, blaming men and society.

         1. I think that for some people they need badly to have a Cause for their lives to be satisfying and fulfilling. Often enough it takes the place of religion, from what I’ve observed, because all the worst ways that religions can go wrong seem to be seen as virtues. Finding sin… holier than thou… seeking converts… punishing apostasy… shunning as a tactic… denouncing unbelievers, etc.,

            1. THIS!

            2. Well, people in general need a purpose. People have found their purpose in family, faith, business, art, and other things.

               That so many of these activists are childless agnostics/atheists without artist expression or business ability shouldn’t be a surprise.

               1. Some purposes are better than others.

                  Yes, that statement appears to be judgmental, but isn’t calling out someone for being judgmental rather judgmental? I call it rational discernment. What is wrong with that?

            3. Also, of course, feeling virtuous for bullying people is more fun than more quotidian goodness.

               1. The desperate need of outside affirmation and validation can be a bitch … and it often produces bitches.

      3. You mean you don’t want to sit around gazing below your navel going umm what the hell am I doing stuck in this stupid meeting?

   2. Well, the thing is, the war ISN’T over. Either of ’em. There ARE systemic injustices rampant in the world, and still extant in the U.S. The problem is that neither the “civil rights activists” nor the “feminists” are actually interested in fighting the remains of either war.

      Doing so might put them at actual risk. It would also involve hard work and probably be messy. Much better they stay at home, dirt- and sweat-free, and give themselves medals for phantom victories.

      Feminism is grievance-porn for bored, mostly white, middle-to-upper-middle-class women who lack the drive and talent to actually do something worthwhile. It lets them get their jollies without actually being at risk. It also, arguably, degrades the objects of its interest. And unlike sexual porn, they are not volunteers.

      1. This.

         And they’ve declared the worst offenders off-limits, both here and abroad, because racist.

         Except the Christians and Yazidis whose wives and sisters and daughters are being raped and sold into sexual slavery are pretty much the same genetic population, and not a peep on their behalf.

         Probably because the people doing it also have a reputation for beheading people who criticize them.

         1. I think it’s actually worse. They don’t really believe that if they went to the middle east they would get raped and murdered. That happens to Other People. But they are dimly aware that they would get sweaty, dirty, and miss their exercise classes and their interpretive poetry class.

      2. I believe they have endorsed “staying at home with your kids” provided your husband pays you fair market wages for baby-sitting, cleaning, cooking, personal assistant, valet and related services.

         With overtime if your work week exceeds 40 hours.

         And six weeks paid vacay.

         Because otherwise you are competing with union workers who need those jobs.

         1. At that point I’m sure said wife will be fine if I outsource bedroom work to a talented and enthusiastic (at least better faked enthusiasm than most feminists) contractor.

            Oh, and said wife needs to be paying rent, utilities, etc.

         2. You forgot to add paid union dues to the nearest SEIU local…….

         3. Just wait until they start counting that as “imputed income” for tax purposes.

            Don’t laugh; if you own your house, they want to say you have imputed income equal to what it could rent for in your area…/../

   3. Their definition of “equity” is “getting even for our imagined wrongs suffered at hands of someone other than you, but close enough we can lump you all together.”

      1. “Getting even with someone that died ten generations ago’ is more like it.

   4. Were they to acknowledge the war is won they’d have to give up their lucrative profiteering sidelines.

      1. And that what they were fighting wasn’t what made them unhappy.

         Facing the prospect you’re just a miserable person is hard.

      2. “The trouble with basing your identity on fighting discrimination is that if you run out of discrimination, you don’t know who you are.”

         – Fred Reed

   5. They need to protect their phoney-baloney jobs!

      (It was funnier in Blazing Saddles and less so in real life, alas.)

3. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
   If there is still ‘confusion’ about what feminism is, then feminism has failed. And frankly, it has failed. Feminism is about using non-gendered insults and only ‘humorous’ misandry is considered proper? What I perceive as ‘feminism’ is a mantra of hatred both of men and of women who refuse to blame others for their own failings. Feminism, the first victim class in America.

   1. There s, actually, damned little confusion about what “feminism” is, and most core feminists dearly wish that there was more.

      1. I agree, but it must be confusing or Pia Glenn wouldn’t feel obligated to ‘explain’ it again.

         1. No ‘splaining like femsplaining.

         2. They keep hoping that somebody, anybody, will buy their drivel.

            Sadly, some do. But some people believe that the Federal Government, an entity as full of leaks as a colander, has had a functional flying saucer hidden away since the 1950’s.

            *spit*

            1. There’s actually a much better and more prosaic explanation for Area 51: The Air Force is hiding their HAZMAT from the EPA there.

               1. well, we know they test flew the F-117, A-11 and later U2s from there…

               2. Hell, how about there being no better cover for a bunch of weird experimental planes than “they’re testing their UFO”?

               3. Given the Air Force got sued over toxic waste exposure at Area 51 that’s more real than was healthy for some employees.

                  1. I’m not joking, at all. That’s a major reason Area 51 is kept “Top Secret”, and that lawsuit is one clue I’m right.

4. c4c

   1. 4c4

5. This Pia just doubles down on everything. What a jerk.

   1. This seems to be a trend.

      1. Yep.

         There was a conversation elsewhere in which the Liberal was annoyed at “childish insults” but only talked about insults directed at Liberals.

         The Liberal apparently didn’t know of any “childish insults” directed at Conservative/Republicans.

         Not sure what would be worse, the Liberal was a liar or the Liberal was too stupid to “hear” the insults from the Liberal side or the Liberal didn’t see them as “insults” because the Liberal believed the insults. 😦

         1. I get *tons* of that last from my assorted liberal friends-n-acquaintances. “Oh, they’re all so dumb/evil/evilly dumb!!” “a-hem!” “Well, I didn’t mean YOU!”

            1. “You’re so smart. I can’t believe you’re conservative.”

               1. “You’re so talented I can’t believe you’re a conservative/gun owner/ etc”

               2. “You’re smart, intelligent, and rational. I just don’t understand why you’re religious and superstitious.”

                  1. In fairness, that was a good friend of mine, and when I mentioned it to him years later, he was deeply horrified that he’d said that and apologized. We’re still friends.

                     But I have heard that from other people, along with the ‘religious people are stupid because they oppose homosexuality, and therefore they should not be allowed to have rights.’

                     1. I’ve had a few pub discussions with Englishmen at construction camps in moslem countries. They’re convinced that Islam will fade away like Christianity. They weren’t bothered by the devout Christians back in England. Those are the ones who can’t face reality and need to be led. Just a bunch of arrogant atheists.

                        They also think America’s infatuation with individual liberty is psycho. Our hostess is correct in my experience. European right winger would be slightly left of center here.

                        1. Individual liberty, or individual rights?

                           It seems to me they’re right on board with all sorts of “liberty”– it’s the individual right, to say yes or no and deal with the inherent results, that gives them issues.

                        2. The resident atheist at my house is rather shocked and angry at the meddling of other atheists in the lives of others. He has a big ‘leave them alone if they’re not hurting anyone’ mindset. His rather angry and disbelief-filled exclamation: “They’ve made atheism into a religion!”

                           1. Ain’t that the truth!

                           2. Stephan Moleneux recently put out a youtube video where he basically came out and said “yes, I’m a long-time athiest, but if I had to choose between Christianity and the state, I think I’ll take religion. At least they see some inherent limits on what governments can do to people…”

                           3. I’ll have to have a watch, thanks!

                           4. Oh yes. I have met a few of those, both in real life and online, and those atheists are so damn similar to the other religious bigots, eager to save you from yourself, except the atheists in general seem to be even more willing to insult you while doing it.

                              Everything can be turned ugly.

                           5. Thoughtful atheists understand freedom of religion to be their friend.

                              Kneejerk atheists are all in favor of “freedom for me but not for thee,” and don’t understand that it will come back to bite them in the butt.

                           6. One atheist on the Bar calls those types “anti-theists” and IMO he has a point.

                           7. That’s why I sometimes wonder how much they would enjoy it if Islam did take over the world – and given how pansy they are when it comes to dealing with the howling barbarian hordes of any stripe, well… I don’t think they’ll come out better in that bargain.

                           8. “They’ve made atheism into a religion!”

                              Oh good, I’m not the only one to notice.

                           9. He wasn’t very happy when I pointed it out to him long ago. Now he’s confronted with that rather ugly reality that his atheism is not much like the atheism that the rest of us is exposed to.

                           10. There are probably at least four general types of atheist.

                               1. The Don’t Cares.
                               2. The ones that care because they retain some religious beliefs, and want to shut up the religious because they think that will silence the inside of their heads. When you hear Christians talking about atheists wanting to turn their backs on God, this type best fits that description.
                               3. Socialists. Socialism is an heresy of Christianity. Marx was a Luther or a Mohammad. One of his reforms was pretending his sect a) wasn’t a religion b) was science c) was an advancement in economics.
                               4. People who want to do map-is-the-territory magic with words. Like treating lactose intolerance by ceasing use of words like dairy and cheese. Some people are fixated with the word religion. Them trying to drag the public into their rituals arguably makes those practices religious.

                           11. The resident atheist is the ‘Don’t Care’ type. From what I gather, most of the other atheists he knew are of the same stripe. Then he encountered the other types, and was rather enraged.

                               I found myself in the rather odd position of having to try explain the other types of atheist when I’m the resident religious person.

                           12. The technically agnostic, too; these tend to be pretty rare. at least as I define it. Basically an honest scientist.

                               It’s the folks who have a rational standard of level of evidence that they’ll accept for evidence of a specific deity, which recognizes the characteristics generally ascribed to that specific deity.

                               Basically, they approach He-Who-Is the same way I approach Mayan gods.

                               The level of honest curiosity that requires is….well, this group would probably be the most likely place to find a lot of it, and that’s before you have to deal with a lot of hurting people and how that messes folks up.

                           13. If possible, may I ask for a more extensive description/explanation? Time allowing, of course. This sounds interesting.

                           14. Just not taking “there are no gods” as a given assumption, and having levels of evidence that aren’t “well, if God exists, He will (respond to my actions, show up and slap me, etc)”.

                               That’s an unreasonable level of evidence for another person, much less someone with God’s characteristics.

                  2. “That is because you are being too irrational to try to understand what I am saying, rather than what you believe I should be saying.”

                     1. #StuffIReallyNeedToPullAChurchillOn

                     2. My reply was actually a lot nicer, heh. I said something along the lines of ‘If you consider human experience to be one of the valid indicators of reason, and the basis of rational thought (Yes) and if repeated experiences mean that it is in fact part of that person’s reality, then it is true (yes) it is irrational for me to continue to disbelieve, based on the sheer number of scientifically unexplainable supernatural experiences I have encountered. Religion and some superstitious traditions have helped explain and deal with these experiences, thus it is even more irrational of me to not accept that there is a basis of validity for those beliefs.”

                        Well, that’s the rather short, unsatisfying summary of what I remember being a very long and pleasant discussion.

                        I think the discussion ended largely because he had to go to class but he went away with the idea that not everyone who is religious is crazy or deluded, but may have a base reason due to experience. He doesn’t remember thanking me for it, but he did, because it helped him somehow.

                        The ones I had later on similar veins with other people weren’t anywhere near as pleasant, because while my friend was willing to understand once I explained things in a way he understood, the others got angry that their reality and beliefs were challenged or potentially had cracks that it wasn’t as cut and dried as they thought it was.

                        1. Most of the folks I’ve run into responded like… well, they had something that if my view was right, it would really, really hurt them.

                           So it couldn’t be true, or they’d be wounded horribly.

                           I don’t know how to fix that.

                           The only one that wasn’t like that?

                           Was a very honest antaga-nostic. Now Catholic…. and not because I nagged him. Just kept being as honest as I could.

                           1. The worst thing is, I’ll be like “I don’t think you really want to continue this conversation,” and the atheist will go ‘yes I do,’ and it simply does not end well for the atheist, to the point that they’re either screaming at my face looking like a mad crazy thing or trying to get my husband to say I’m wrong (except, that does not work, because Rhys came to his own conclusions before I met him and feels religion has it’s positive benefits, not just the negatives, so…)

                              They’re the type basically, to reject everything good because of a few bad things, but embrace Islam because ‘not Christian or Western’ therefore maligned and lied about.

                        2. I have a line of argument that, in my experience, causes militant atheists to go white and silent;

                           In a single century, atheistic governments murdered one hundred million of their own citizens, a total that would cause Torquemada to blink. Protestant Christianity, while it has its faults, has never come anywhere near that level of ostentatious slaughter. It has, however, produced multiple societies that have banned slavery, enshrined the equal protection of minorities, the poor, and women in their legal systems, and done their level best to spread education. Until Atheism has produced a society that does not engage in mass slaughter, economic idiocy, and the use of famine as a tool of statecraft, Protestantism is obviously referable on simple, practical grounds, and never mind whether as a belief system it makes any goddamned sense.

                           1. Heh you’ve been better at that. Whenever I point that out, I get told ‘that’s not REAL atheism.’

            2. “Not all ___!”

               Don’t you know this just means that you’re evil because you objected to their generalization?

               Pointing out their falsehoods are false is mean.

               1. I’m on a site with factions where people will quite legitimately and sincerely caution against tarring a given rival group with the actions of a few jerks, and then somebody will make a “#notall{group}” joke…. given I’m pretty sure both the desire to be fair to other players and the scorn for “not all men” because “it’s systemic” are sincere coming from these people, I’m not entirely sure whether cognitive dissonance is starting to penetrate or not….

         2. The Liberal apparently didn’t know of any “childish insults” directed at Conservative/Republicans.

            Doesn’t it have many names? New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, etc. ?

         3. Ugh. Had that one last week. A friend was contemplating a sff story that was not pc. Warned that it could affect his salability in other aspects. Another person says that it is right to be intolerant of right wing ideas because you can discriminate against ideas, but not people. Got tired and pissed after half hour of reducio ad absurdum

            1. Did they unironically say they were “intolerant towards intolerance” or similar?

               1. 1. Hm. Somewhat like that except not as funny. 🙂

   2. She must have read VD’s SJWs Always Lie as an instruction manual.

      1. I think they get it in the womb at this point.

      2. Kinda like how Damien Walters seems to mistake that 1984 and Animal Farm as an instruction manual, not as cautionary tales.

         I was a child when I first saw Animal Farm, and read it later; I understood it was an allegory for the evils of Marxism.

         1. Was it that animated one in the fairly realistic style?

            We watched that a lot as kids– mostly because it was there– and while I didn’t know what it was directly responding to until I was a drinking age adult, I did recognize a lot of the tactics.

            1. Yeah, that’s the one. I think I ended up writing a little responsive essay that my parents were particularly proud of – enough, I think, that my father typed it up and kept it. I have memories of my father encouraging us to write with a typewriter. My main memories involve my stick-thin fingers often getting caught between the keys, and pride when I finally was able to type with a rhythm and speed that resembled my dad’s.

         2. Yet, some kook thought Animal Farm (which the kook knew was about Stalin’s Russia) was an anti-Fascist book. 😦

            1. What.

               *head hurts* o_o

               1. My guess is that the only definition for “Fascist” the kook knew was “Fascist = Bad Person” and the kook knew that Stalin was a “Bad Person”, therefore “Stalin was a Fascist”. 😦

                  1. *sighs* *offers mug of tea for comfort*

                  2. Well, there really was not much difference between Stalin and Mussolini, except that Stalin was both a little more intelligent and luckier than IL Duce. Both were socialist totalitarians who tolerated no opposition.

                     1. Yeah, well, there’s also that whole gulag thing, too…

                        Mussolini was a piker, compared to any of the other left-wing mass murderers–A fact I ascribe to him having to work with Italians, who are about as easily led as a herd of cats. You don’t get Italians to do squat, unless you somehow manage to convince all of them that it’s a good idea, and only for so long as you are successful. He might have been able to set up death camps, but run them? Not. Going. To. Happen.

                        1. Well, when the champion is Pol Pot it is hard to compete.

                           Yes, I know Stalin and Mao have Pot beat by an order of magnitude in body count but look at the base populations they started with and the amount of time they had. Had Pot had Mao’s time he would have made China less populated than the US without any silly one child rule.

            2. First, a disclaimer: I would have to point out that I haven’t yet read Animal Farm. I only know various plot points from second- and third-hand sources.

               Now, having said that, I would have to point out that while Animal Farm was anti-Communist, there isn’t anything wrong with seeing it as anti-Fascist as well. Both philosophies are founded on the idea that the Individual must bend to the will of the Collective. Thus, from a distance, it can be difficult to tell the difference from a Communist and a Fascist.

               (A few years ago, I realized that there are really only two political philosophies in existence: Individualism and Collectivism, that is, those that respect individuals and their rights, and those who respect only the rights of the community to force individuals to do their will…)

               1. Animal Farm was definitely about Stalin’s Russia.

                  While I see the similarities between Communism and Fascism, most people believe that they are two different systems.

               2. Animal Farm uses equality as a weapon, so it’s more anti-communist.

               3. From Animal Farm: ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’

                  In Fascism, there is no nonsense about pretending to be equal. Inequality is not only taken for granted, but sought after and worshipped.

                  1. Animal Farm‘s depiction of the purge of Trotsky Snowball clearly references the USSR.

                     1. Indeed, Victor Gollancz, Orwell’s usual publisher, rejected Animal Farm out of hand because he would not publish anything critical of Stalin. It was no secret at all just what the book was really about.

               4. Orwell told his publisher he wanted to alter a scene because he realized it impugned Stalin’s courage, which was silly.

6. I honestly can’t tell the difference between certain types of feminist and most misogynists at this point. Both of them don’t seem to have faith in the average woman to decide what’s best for her without some authority figure guiding her each step of the way with rules that cover every little aspect of life so as not to put her feeble mind through undue strain.

   1. Exactly: I’m one of those women who has consciously chosen to work at an under-paying job because it lets me work from home with my kid. I get so angry when people flaunt fake statistics about women making 70% of what men make, because it takes away my agency and says nope, this isn’t a valid choice I’ve rationally made, this is me being oppressed by the system.

      1. Indeed, or like me. I’m working with a smaller company that doesn’t pay as well, but they understand ‘working mother’ and in an industry that bounces like a yo-yo, they don’t lay off in the lean times if they can at all avoid it (which lower sallaries, boosted by bonuses in good times lets them do.)

         They also ignore the actual break down of the stats. The SEG ran an article on pay in the industry and the ‘pay gap’ broke down to two things: 1) uneven distribution of time in industry. That is in the 3 very distinct ‘time in industry’ groupings (30+, which is very large. 10+, which is very small, and college to 10 which is very large) the 30+ group has very few women the 10+ has almost no women (not none, but close to it, that was an unstable time in the industry), and the college to 10 years has about a 50/50 split. So if you do a straight average it looks like women are making less men, simply because the women are newer to the industry. 2) Women tend to take jobs more commonly at small companies like mine over the big ones. Probably for similar reasons to mine.

         You point this out and you automatically don’t know what you’re talking about or are irrelevant to the ‘real’ problems out there and have been ‘lucky’ or ‘sheltered’.

         1. Part of the problem with the wage gap is the odd tendency women have to stop working for extended periods of time or take lower paying jobs and work fewer hours when they should be at the most productive stage of their life. It’s almost as though they have other concerns, but feminists have yet to figure out the what these concerns might be. The blame is typically ascribed to teh patriarchy since that’s the cause of all feminist issues and it seems a safe bet.

            The notion that some women want to have children and are willing to make financial sacrifices to take raise them right seems utterly beyond the modern feminist and a good number of liberals. Their heads would explode if they encountered my family, where my dad took a lower paying job with fewer hours while my mom worked at the beauty parlor that she soon ended up owning so that I’d always have one of them around the house when I was little.

            1. The notion that some women want to have children and are willing to make financial sacrifices to take raise them right seems utterly beyond the modern feminist and a good number of liberals.

               Raise your hand if you remember a certain female political figure who snarked during an interview in the 90s, “what, you think I should have stayed home and baked cookies?”

            2. Feminists tend to feel that women should be equal in pay regardless of hours, experience or the fact that the company will need to transfer the load

               1. This, this so hard it hurts. Where the heck did that like button go?

      2. Same here, really.
         Now the kids are out, let’s make this less under-paying 😉

         1. Write more books so I can throw more money at you, please

            1. Shouldn’t we be paying her for the books she would have written if not for the Patriarchy’s oppression?

               Oh, wait a minnit — she’s not a real female, she doesn’t let the Feminists do her thinking for her, she won’t follow their orders nor march to their cadence.

               1. That’s right! She’s a White Mormon Male who puts on feminine airs (including having children), drinks, swears, and speaks in a fake accent carefully cultivated by being born in Portugal to multi-generational Portuguese parents to disguise the fact that she’s a part of the Patriarchy Oppression.

                  Indeed, the fact that she’s not a billionaire from her writing at this point is all part of her disguise, in her efforts to force Patriarchy on all of us!

                  Those dastardly White Mormon Males. You can’t trust them at all, can you?

                  1. Don’t forget running a men’s rights organization called Sad Puppies 4.

                     I really wish I could make these people’s stupid hurt as much as it deserves.

         2. That reminds me I need to get the next couple Darkship and other such books onto my Kindle for this underway.

      3. The only reason you get mad over this is that you suffer from false consciousness and don’t realize that you are better off working the same hours and 100% of the pay rate of a man even if you have to shell out 110% of your earnings for indifferent day care, higher costs of purchasing and maintaining clothing and shoes, as well as extra transportation time and expense.

         Because this way you also pay higher taxes and are more dependent on government “Free Lunch” programs that allow them to force schools to dance to the Federal tune.

         They can also be more confident you aren’t filling your kids’ heads with bad think, such as stories should entertain rather than lecture and many an expert is utterly clueless about how the world really operates.

         1. Back when we only had the Princess (none of the other Royalty of Elfland), the Elf looked into daycare.

            He figured out that I’d have to make significantly more than he did, working a full time job and a part-time job, to cover all the additional costs.

            That’s assuming that we didn’t change ANYTHING, and using pre-cash for clunkers prices on cars.

   2. I’m a misogynist because I oppose feminism. I oppose feminism because I found it insufficiently radically opposed to rape.

      1. They’ve learned well from Robespierre. If you’re to the right of them, you are obviously a reactionary and should be killed. If you’re to the left of them, then you are deliberately taking an extremist position to discredit them, thus you are really a reactionary, and should be killed.

         1. Sexual license has never been a priority for me. That left me free to invest fully in opposing rape, opposing murder/rape, and opposing murder for sexual jollies.

         2. not sure there *is* a ‘left of them’ in many cases.

   3. A common saying in my circles is, “There is no sadist quite like a masochist.”

      I would also say there is no misogynst quite like a feminist.

      1. Some time ago, I ran into an article which viciously derided that lesbians who chose to become mothers were traitors to the cause and should no longer be allowed to be called lesbian or feminist or something like that. Now, I’m totally okay if someone decides for themselves their genes shouldn’t be passed on, (And I know people who have done so, because of inherited genetic conditions) but the pure hypocrisy involved with lesbian feminism screaming at lesbians who make the choice for motherhood makes me torn between laughing myself silly, or wanting to beat in heads with a clue by four.

         https://shadow.affsdiary.com/2015/01/05/sometimes-you-have-to-call-it-what-it-is/

         That’s why I have no problem calling these people ‘cunts.’ I mean, that’s their major ID ‘thing’. “I have a vagina, therefore I must be treated special” attitude. They’re the people who wear vagina costumes, and then they have the temerity to be offended if I call them what they are screaming at the top of their lungs? Bitching that their form of bigotry is okay but the other form isn’t is why we’re where we’re at.

         Spade = shovel = grave digging tool = garden tool for digging.

         1. They’re the people who wear vagina costumes

            And the sad thing is that this is literally true, and they expect to be respected for this. Would you respect some guy who tried to make a political statement by wearing a giant penis costume?

            1. Respect? Not really, it just signals LOUD AND CLEAR that this guy is a misogynist dick. Similarly, the vagina costume wearing women signal loud and clear that they’re psychopathic cunts – STEER CLEAR!
               *grin* That’s why I’m totally fine with their doing so.

               1. Actually I would think a guy in a penis costume most likely was using the sense of humor of a 13 year old more than he was a misogynist if all I knew about was the costume.

                  Or that he was rushing a frat (but that might just be the same thing).

                  1. College. Halloween. Guy dressed as a condom. Yeah.

                  2. This is true. A real man has the ability to laugh at himself and take a joke, and knows when taking offense is warranted.

                     A feminist has none of those capabilities.

                     1. How many feminsits does it take to change a lightbulb?

                        That’s not funny.

         2. They were getting maternal privileges at the expense of the writer, so of course they were traitors.

            If it’s the same one I’m thinking of, she also said that most lesbians’ daughters would choose heterosexuality because “privilege” and therefore there was no point — apparently her argument was they would recruit other women’s children.

            1. This is the link from my blogpost: https://bevjoradicallesbian.wordpress.com/2014/09/10/chapter-seven-motherhood-the-ultimate-feminine-role/

7. “Ultra-conservatives like to paint ugly pictures of so-called feminazis sneaking into the bedrooms of pregnant women at night and forcing abortions upon them. We know this is bullshit,…”

   Really? I am woefully ignorant and uninformed for I have never heard that before. Oh my how terrible. Such intrusions must be put to an immediate stop. …

   I don’t think civil society is helped one iota by tolerating stupid lies. The lunatic fringe of one side tends to create the justification for the lunatic fringe of another. This example comes from the ones who want to shut down open discussion because it just might cause people to hate.

   I suspect that here, as in many cases, the real reason scare tactics are being employed and arguments are being made to shut the discussion down is that they know they would not be able to support their position. Anyway, they assert that there is no open market, the deck is stacked…so why try?

   This becomes the equivalent to arguing with a puddle of mercury. The mercury keeps moving and to engage with it without the proper tools and protections can result in lasting nerve damage.

   1. It’s always easier to make the argument from absurdity. And then come the complaints that because they explain away every “outlier” from statistically unlikely events with no true Scotsman defenses such as for homosexual scoutmasters or teachers and bathroom self identification. I remember absurdity about how doctors and paramedics could refuse rx for gays if religious freedom laws passed (Emergency care was explicitly referenced as not being affected by law)

      Life ain’t black and white but easy to argue that way

8. Maisie Williams seems to be an intelligent and sensible young woman, two characteristics that don’t always go together. I hope she can maintain her independence of thought, even when surrounded by show business foolishness. Shining the light of reason and common sense on dogmatic feminists might just reveal some cracks in the dogma.

9. She reminds me of the stories an author told about going Victorian (in dress) in Seattle. She decided that she liked wearing Edwardian and Victorian clothes, including a corset, and does so whenever possible. And she gets harassed by “feminists” for “supporting the patriarchy” and for wearing a tool of oppression and so on. Exactly the opposite of the “my body my choice, wear what you want be what you want” purported ideals of “feminism.” I suspect a tight-lacing fetishist or openly gay man in a corset or other waist training device would not be attacked like she is.

   1. One of my co-workers got the same spiel any time she wore a skirt (her preference because, comfortable!) She was shocked when she moved out here to the midwest and no one bats an eye at it, nor at the women in pants. She’s at the ‘I like it but it’s so wrong…’ stage of assimilation.

      1. Women’s skirts have fewer fitting issues than pants. Many of the females in my family don’t chose pants for business and dress wear because they would have to either have them made or make them themselves to have them fit properly.

      2. * ponders a kilt *

         1. *ponders wearing the Edwardian walking suit, with high-collared Gibson Girl blouse, enormous hat, and high-buttoned shoes, with appropriate corset underneath just because I can*

            1. Not that is something worth pondering 🙂

            2. The Oyster Wife and I dropped rather more money than we’d planned on clothes at Wild Wild West Con, but it’s been worth it. BTW, Raven of Ravenworks clothing is amazing; kenashimame will back me up on that, I’m sure. I’ve not worn the frock coat out on the town yet, other than to work the day we got back, but the waistcoat and ascots have gotten occasional use, the fantastic Western-styled top hat* has gotten quite a lot of use, and the wolf-headed cane I picked up before we left is practically a staple of my wardrobe now. I love being free to dress as I please.

               * There’s probably a proper name for the style, but I don’t know it. Slightly flared, flat crown, brim curled on the sides, wide-ish band. Mine is polished black leather. If anyone has the knowledge to identify it, I can send a picture.

               1. Send me a photo, Oyster. I’ll take a shot at it.

                  1. (scratches head) What would be the point of shooting a picture of the Oyster’s hat?

                     1. *appreciative cackle* Bad man.

                  2. I know leather hats can be uncomfortably hot in the summer, but ventilating it with a gun is not optimal……

                     1. Of course not, the 155mm shell would over-ventilate it. Use a pistol or a rifle instead. (If you can pick it up, it is not a gun.)

                        1. I qualified Expert on the M-60 machine gun, and could easily pick it up and carry it around. Wouldn’t have been much point to the exercise if I couldn’t have. If that’s good enough for my Uncle Sam, that’s good enough for me.

               2. There’s probably a proper name for the style, but I don’t know it. Slightly flared, flat crown, brim curled on the sides, wide-ish band. Mine is polished black leather. If anyone has the knowledge to identify it, I can send a picture.

                  Sounds like a Topper. Apparently there were different varieties, like the Crown or the James. If it looks like a gambler would wear it on a steam boat, it’s probably a Topper.

                  1. Sigh.

                     http://articlesofstyle.com/60664/a-guide-to-mens-hat-styles/
                     There are resources available online for such questions.

                     1. Not such clear pictures, but more extensive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hat_styles

                        1. Or just put “” into your search engine for thousands of depictions of this sort:

                           

                           1. Oops! Put “Images for men’s hats styles illustrations” inside those quote marks.

                              

                        2. The problem is there’s variations. A local favorite for a dress hat looked like a mixture of Fedora, Trilby, and Homburg. Most men pushed the front brim down like a Fedora, but it could also be worn with the brim up like a Homburg.

                           I for one am in need of reasonable hats. Need two straw hats for summer (and this brings up the farmer’s hat, an extremely wide brim straw hat reincarnated as beach wear), and a replacement for my Sports Afield label Fedora/Cowboy style hat that’s almost as old as my marriage. The latter tends to be pricey, and though I’m tempted to go Fedora, it looks too much like an Indiana Jones style wear. Options include a Boss of the Plains, for the wide brim, though the Planter’s Hat has some connotations that might have marvelous effects on SJWs – if they recognize it.

                           The goal here is a wide brim and keeping the sun and rain off my head, hence straw hats in hot weather. But the beach hats are so open at the crown that I often tie by bandanna over my head before donning the hat. Looks odd, but works.

            3. I’m trying to decide on Victorian for LibertyCon or German, or one of each. Just because. (Space limitations may preclude bringing the appropriate hat[s]).

               1. I’d considered Victorian, but since a book event for me usually involves schlepping a couple tubs of books into the venue … the hoopskirt or bustle and all would be just … unworkable.
                  There is a pic at this link – http://www.celiahayes.com/archives/2682
                  of the Butterick Pattern that I used for the Edwardian suit – sigh. Alas, I am about eighty pounds heavier and forty years older than the model. But ’twill serve, ’twill serve. (But not twill – polyester suiting, bought at an extremely favorable marked-down price.)

                  1. The secret is using the Victorian to convince a couple of gentlemen you are a lady and shouldn’t have to schlep her own tubs of books. Worked like a charm for a lot of ladies in my SCA days…hell, that was part of the appeal for me, as a man, of the SCA and that 20 years less of feminist “womenandmenarethesame” yelling ago.

                     1. I know, HerbN – but I have my pride … and the sturdy and chivalrous often aren’t THERE at the precise moment when I require their services.

                        I know — it’s tragic. Now I will retire to my fainting couch, with a perfume-drenched handkerchief on my forehead, and attempt to get over it. (Note to self – include a perfume-drenched handkerchief – Chanel #5 {yes I know ahistorical but shut up!} in the period-appearing handbag.)

                        1. Sadly I agree and it is a chicken and egg issue…too many such men have been places hoping to find ladies only to find…well, no ladies.

                           Thus have we retired to the den for cigars and brandy.

                           1. Port, you philistines, PORT.

                           2. Humph!

                              Pipe and good Beer! 😉

                           3. Port, you philistines, PORT.

                              Especially if it’s raining… any port in a storm, etc.

                           4. It isn’t called a port snifter so, no, it’s brandy.

                           5. “Port, you philistines, PORT.”

                              My Lord, our hostess has turned into a lefty, at least if she was facing forward when she typed that.

                           6. Sigh. Port WINE.

                           7. But what’s wrong with a Good Beer with my Pipe?????

                           8. I see. Well, ladies and gentlemen, not one of OURS. (Runs very fast before Drak catches her.)

                           9. See? If she was a Lefty there’d be an additional h in that phrase….

                     2. Oh yes, that definitely is one of the charms of SCA, m’lord (since I don’t know your proper title).

                  2. The obvious solution is to get your footmen to carry the tubs.

                     Or failing that hire a couple of layabouts off the street. ^_^

                  3. Sounds like what you need is Artistic Dress. Also known as Aesthetic Dress.

         2. Don’t ponder, act! More Men In Kilts! I am being oppressed by the lack of kilted scenery!

            (I really need to get the Kilts Unlimited charity up and running. “For only pennies a day…this handsome fellow can be equipped with a kilt. Won’t you help?”)

            1. Won’t speak for the Ox (he might gore me if I tried) but I’ve seen one picture of me in short pants and thought “OMG”.

               Don’t want to imagine what I’d look like in a kilt. 😈

               1. You never know…both the wife and gf are jealous of my legs to hear them talk.

            2. Oh. My. I would.

               1. You need to meet some of my friends including the team lead who years them every summer and the gentleman who wore one to a birthday dinner (not his) Saturday.

               2. There is a Samoan gentleman of my acquaintance who regularly wears a lavalava to church.

            3. In the days when I first became in the world of anime conventions we had a whole group of gentlemen who wore kilts. A group of them had black kilts … sometimes jokingly referred to as clan Ninja.

            4. I have seen enough male knees to last a lifetime and cannot endorse this movement.

               That direction lies fascism.

               1. Of navy vice and navy rears I’ve seen more than I can recall????

               2. *snort* Suddenly reminded of an anecdote — I can’t even remember the attribution — of a woman asked whether it was ever proper for women to expose their knees. “Thighs, yes. Knees — never!”

                  1. But… how… wait. You can’t expose the thighs without exposing the knees…

                     1. The heck you can’t.

                        
                        Notice she has a cute puss cat.

                        1. I can’t imagine it, I’m afraid.

                           1. Perhaps this helps:

                              

                           2. Ooooh. I love that outfit.

                           3. The there’s the straight cheesecake:

                              

                           4. OT: Why ‘cheesecake’? I know it’s slang but I never understood the why.

                           5. The usage of “cheesecake” for such photos was allegedly coined by James Kane of the New York Journal, who declared that such a photo he had accidentally taken was “better than cheesecake.” However, it has been pointed out that the term was used for female pulchritude as far back as the 1660’s, so possibly Kane was being ingenuous in his explanation.

                           6. I thought it over and figured that the reason why cheesecake is, well, I guess the lady’s charming parts – the breasts, the thighs and hip/ass region, would be as pale as cheesecake, not being often exposed… and well, wanting to nibble on said parts.

                              Before this though, I always found it a rather odd expression of admiration of… female beauty, given the name given to the effects of a certain venereal disease…

                        2. Oh. I kind of dismissed tights and stockings because they still, for me, show the outline of the knee (thus didn’t count?)

                           *grin* I once wore a black plaid and pleated miniskirt – think, mini enough that people were staring in the hope to see pantylines, the length that Hatsune Miku wears. I wore knee high lace up boots and thigh highs to achieve Grade S Zettai Ryouiki, and went to the mall with Rhys and the kiddlywinks, Rhys having just come out of boot camp and thus was muscular. My mother trailed along behind us, entertained by the various men getting pinched or outright punched by their significant others for looking at me, and at the women who were visibly chewing on their metaphorical livers looking with open lust at Rhys and then shooting murderous dagger glares at me. The friends we were going out to meet that day were similarly entertained.

                           When I lived in Sydney for a little while I wore the same outfit and walked with Vincent in a baby stroller and Rhys with me; we were enjoying the day. We watched a man stop every few steps to stare at us, and almost walk into a light pole when he tried to stare at us, looking over his shoulder, as he walked.

                        3. I want those socks…

               3. “The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?'”

                  Whatever else can be said about Wodehouse, he had the absurdity of Fascism down cold.

            5. Have you priced kilts? Ouch! And then there’s the completing the outfit/look.

               1. For a super-traditional kilt, you just need a really big piece of material and the ability to roll and tuck fabric. Utilikilts aren’t that expensive, either.

                  I agree that buying a sgian dhu and sporran and such does not come cheap!

                  1. Enough fabric and even somewhat rounded male figures can look pretty good in that type of folded kilt, and you could use it so it covers the knees if you’d prefer not to parade them. Bit of a risk of unfolding in public though if the belt isn’t quite up to it (I have worn the occasionally seen female ankle length version once when it was cold and I didn’t have suitable cape or other finished garb, but did have fabric bought for making capes, lots of it. Very comfy until I tried to tighten the belt a bit and lost grip. Required complete redressing. And putting that on seems to be easiest to do if you lay the whole thing on the floor, lay on top yourself and sort of roll into it and it on you… I think the shorter guy version is easier. Still like the idea though, and it was comfy once on, but perhaps one should just wear a rather longer type of shirt under it. Just in case).

               2. Learning to sew is your friend.

                  1. 
                     There is more to dressing properly than the kilt alone.

                     1. So lots of sewing is your friend.

                        I didn’t say it would be easy.

                     2. Those are dance ghillies! So cool. I really need to find people in my area who want to learn Scottish Country Dance. It’s been far too many years. Well technically there were the two ladies I danced with impromptu at WWWC, but three do not a proper set make. And I was trying to do it in boots, for goodness sake. Yes, the video is somewhere out on the intertubes; no I’m not looking for it.

                        1. How is that different from ECD?

                  2. That means either hoof-sewn or dealing with the one machine I have never had any luck or rapport with. Almost(?) anything else, and I have a chance. Sewing machine? Make me appreciate the kind, gentle, loving nature of spiders.

         3. Not as airy as a loin cloth. Don’t ask.

      3. About only time clothing should be an issue is if it affects work environment or is obviously abnormal. But the people that want control just want control

      4. *minor envy* I’m comfortable with myself, but dang I wish I could look good in a skirt.
         (Think Velma with really ugly knees; one of these days I’ll find both a pleated skirt I like, and a pair of leggings that matches a turtleneck, and I’ll be set… but today is not that day.)

         1. Velma Was The Smartest One Of The Gang!

            That takes care of minor flaws! 😀

         2. I saw somebody costumed as Velma this year at a con.

         3. That’s why I only wear tea-length, mid-shin, or longer. My legs work fine, they just don’t need to be inflicted on the rest of the world without an opaque covering of some kind.

         4. I don’t know why, but for some reason when I have imagined you cos-playing I don’t see Velma, I see Hina from Love Hina. I know it is close, but not they are not the same. Hina is better looking, nearly as smart, and can knock a man flying with a single punch. 😉

            1. I could rock the grandma look….
               (from context I think you meant to type about Naru Narusegawa, the girl in the skirt with leggings and long hair)

               1. I think the Huns and Hoyden need to group cosplay the whole Jane Austen Gun Club bit that got posted in the Dinner the other day.

                  I love English Country Dance as it is (and am trying to get a group outing to Contradancing which isn’t the same thing but for me scratches the same itch).

                  1. I believe the Democrat Party is on record as opposing any sort of dancing with Contras. They much prefer the Sandinista Slide.

                     1. They have have my improper dance lines when they can give enough weight on a turn to pry me out.

               2. Oh dear, my bad, I had meant Naru … not Keitaro’s grandmother. My only excuse is that it has been years since I watched the series and a great deal of life has occurred in the meantime.

                  1. ‘S OK, I thought that was the name and then went “…wait, that’s the obvious love interest gal, why would they have it as the title in a Harem Anime?!”

                  2. Elf points out that the character I WANT to play– and that I’d fit pretty well for– is Yomiko Readman.

                     Read Or Die. 😀

                     1. I like this idea. +1!!!

                     2. I have reason to believe that The Daughter is Miss Readman.

                        She wears glasses and has very long straight black hair – such that from the back she was mistaken for Japanese when in Tokyo.

                        She was an ‘automatic’ reader.

                        Her relationship to paper is magic. In spite of issues with disgraphia, she took to origami instantly, mastering advanced skills in no time.

                        We would bring along empty suitcase with us to anime cons in order to bring her book purchases back with us. (OK, there would be a few of my own to be tucked in…)

                        I observed her being greeted by the Japanese booksellers in the dealer’s room. Yes, really, they came out and greeted her at the entrance to their display when they saw her coming. When she finished shopping they would see her off.

                     3. Heh. In college, my friends pretty much considered me a genderswapped Yomiko, sans paper powers, of course.

         5. Think Velma

            Hmm….

            

            1. I like your way of thinking…

            2. https://tse2.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M99670cfc0696c85ea80af84d3334f8f0H0&w=108&h=196&pid=1.1

            3. 
               (without the pretty legs)

         6. I have a great love for maxi-skirts and almost have enough. Just need a couple more. Well, and there’s some cute ones coming out soon and…

            Yeah, I might have a problem.

            1. “How many petticoats do you need?” said by someone looking at the pile on my bed after laundry-starch-iron day.

               “One more. That’s all.”

               1. It’s always one more

                  1. Exactly. Because you never know. 😀

                     1. Ah, the n+1, where n is the current count.

            2. You don’t need that much sewing skills to make them either. 🙂

               1. Nope, just the right kind of fabric and a mostly straight stitch.

                  1. Heh. I can’t sew necklines or anything that is not completely straight all that well with a machine, but I can hand stitch well, so I usually sew the long straight lines with a machine and hand stitch everything else. Takes a bit more time than sewing just with the machine (if you know how to do it, and I suppose I should try to learn) but I’m rarely in that much of a hurry, and I like hand stitching as long as it’s not something that seems endless, like doing a long skirt or dress only by hand can feel like.

                     1. I may or may not have bought a serger just so I didn’t have to take forever fighting with knit skirts. My time was totally worth buying a second…..okay, third sewing machine.

                  2. BTW, we should be moving close-ish in about two weeks… I’m thinking depending on Portugal trip, starting writers’ group meetings in… late July?

                     1. That sounds lovely 🙂 keep in touch about days/dates because I just picked up a second job.

                        1. yeah, coordinating will be difficult…

                           1. But completely worth it and I just need to know when to request off

         7. There used to be books explaining how to choose skirt styles and lengths that looked good on individual female shapes. There really is a skirt to fit every female body. Unfortunately, it is usually a skirt that is not in style at the moment!

            1. Yes. Mid-calf is really my length, or just a touch shorter. I’ve been told that long full skirts make short women look shorter, but I don’t really worry about that any more. There’s a great little history book called _The Lost Art of Dress_ about the women of the federal home advice department in the 1930s-50s and their clothing ideas.

            2. Not just skirts but dresses…there are lots of infographics on the topics.

               What amazed me was there were enough triangular women to actually include in the info graphics, not that I’m complaining.

         8. Ankle length? I have pretty bad scarring on one leg and it can swell alarmingly (looks as if I had elephantiasis) but since I like wearing skirts I now only wear ones which cover everything. Takes a bit of learning to handle them, you have to remember to use a hand to lift them on stairs and so on, but it doesn’t take that many stumbles before that becomes pretty automatic.

            1. The problem is I’m built like a hobbit. *wry*

               One of these days I’ll have money and time to get fashionable.

               1. I’m short and obese. There are ways to wear long skirts or dresses so that they don’t emphasize that. Simply aiming for long up and down lines helps. Won’t make me look slim, but at least I don’t look any worse than I do in trousers and tunics which is the more common everyday style for me during most of the year (ankle length skirts aren’t so good when there is snow or slush on the ground, wet hems are quite unpleasant to deal with and doing the ooh damn ice! dance successfully, without falling down, is harder than in trousers so skirts are primarily summer wear for me).

                  1. The straighter Edwardian skirts with a longer jacket, vertical stripes. I don’t do that look because my arms are too large for the straight sleeves, but going by the photos (current and 1910s), it really works. Plus you can go with a boot-length skirt, meaning about an inch or to above the ankle and no one notices.

               2. The Oyster Wife and one of our sisters-by-choice are in the process of getting into business with a clothing line line that seems to do a very good job of accommodating a wide variety of body types and not being overly expensive (IIRC the most expensive dresses are $65). My lady wife is somewhat unconventionally proportioned herself, though not in height, and she’s been thrilled with it. We have a family friend who’s five foot nothing and stoutly built; I’d be happy to see if she’ll try on some of the stuff as a proxy for you. I’ve avoided plugging it because it seemed gauche, but if it might help you out, how can I ignore it? 🙂

                  1. I’d love to see them, too. Please post a link if / when available.

                     1. Their inventory won’t arrive until some time next week, but I found a few pictures from other people. The brand is called LuLaRoe.
                        instagram dot com/p/BB5yTCDmQeE/
                        instagram dot com/p/BDobEABGQVD/
                        instagram dot com/p/BF0DDF1BtKn/
                        They have other products and a ton of patterns, but that’s what I could find quickly. I’ll throw up the link to the FB group they set up for selling through when I get home from work tonight.

                        1. You have my advance permission to post link in Sarah’s Diner on FB

                  2. If it works, do plug it. I would need help, too.

                  3. Pray for this dream job my husband is going for….

                     1. Will do, my friend.

                        1. Thank you.

               3. Have you tried a midi circle skirt? Think poodle skirt but a little shorter.

                  1. Poodle just covers the knees, right?

                     Anything less than that, I can’t do– unless I’ve got leggings.

                     Guess I’ll put it on the list…..

                     1. Should come down to about mid calf, actually.

   2. Most Liberals and all feminists strongly support your fundamental right to do what they tell you to do. And if you point this out to them, they hiss like vampires exposed to a cross.

      1. Embrace the power of “No, I won’t.”

         1. I’m way beyond the “No, I won’t” level. For the last several decades I have embraced “What part of ‘Fuck Off’ were you having trouble grasping?”

            1. This. So much this.

               I’ve had entertaining stories of what happens when it’s a man telling the feminist to fuck off. Alas, I’m not allowed to disclose the juicier details, but the resulting stalker mentality on the part of the feminist and the entitlement behind it with the willingness to attempt to bring in the ‘law’ (as the feminist imagined it should work) / social condemnation is rather terrifying.

   3. F=IW

      1. http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php

   4. If she walked around in tight leather they would have nary a comment for her. But her Edwardian Victorian Garb is horrifying isn’t it. 😉

      1. Of course, often that leather, at least a corset, would be cut to the same pattern.

         1. More amusingly you aren’t wearing your clothes over the corset with the leather outfit. ::sigh::

            It is very silly isn’t it. If you just wear a tight leather corset all is fine with the world, put a corset on under a set of fine Edwardian Victorian Clothes and suddenly it is monstrous.

            1. They can call it monsterous. I will call it classy and fetching.

10. I would point out such drivel to my aunt, but she’s too busy getting the house ready and running to get parts for the equipment so her husband and sons can get the fields planted after their day jobs. Most of the self proclaimed feminists I’ve seen aren’t at all interested in equality but setting up sexism that favors women. And if a woman makes a choice that they disagree with then the feminists excoriate the woman for making the wrong choice, simply because they disagree with it.

    1. They can’t even do that right – they destroyed the sexism that favors women.

       More civilized ages called it “Chivalry”. Marginally less civilized ages called it “Basic courtesy”.

11. Feminism is not determined by your career.

    I honest to dawg have never heard a single person claim it was.

    Sure you have– kind of.

    Surely you’ve seen what happens when a woman chooses to be a stay at home instead of going for a “fulfilling career”?
    😉

    1. If it’s not determined by career why are they trying to make women move away from traditionally female dominated professions to then force them into traditionally male dominated professions.

       1. Yep.

          So “it’s not determined by career when it helps me inflate the numbers of ‘feminists’ I can claim.”

       2. Not move away from. More like take over men’s high paying jobs too

          1. Which they then don’t do, after having sucked the oxygen out of the room by filling the training pipeline with people who have no commitment at all to the trade or career…

             Mentioned this yesterday: Female doctors do not do the same level of work that male ones do; the hours worked, the patients seen are apparently a fraction of those seen by men, when compared across the breadth of their careers. And, sadly, the implications of this are not being dealt with, at all honestly. What they should be doing is plussing up the number of female doctors in the training pipeline, and what they’re doing is simply substituting female for male, as if they were at all the same in terms of longitudinal patient service performed.

             Similar effects are seen in any profession or trade where women have taken over traditionally male occupations, and very few of them ever discuss the issue.

             The whole question very badly needs some honest and non-partisan analysis and action. The AMA, for example, has controlled the number of doctors produced here in the US for years; yet, it has made no compensatory adjustments to account for the fact that a lot of the women they’ve been training as doctors are not going to ever see or treat as many patients as their male counterparts will, simply because of the choices those female doctors are naturally going to take. This is a fundamentally insane path, and will play a huge role in the coming shortage of trained US-sourced doctors we’re going to be facing as all the old-timers retire.

             1. But saying that means there are differences between men and women. That can’t be allowed

                1. Aaaand… That’s what is going to make the whole counter-reaction so nasty. What can’t be discussed, won’t be, and the attitudes formed from that…? Yeah.

                   Just like with any of these things, the silencing of debate is merely storing up a vast amount of negative energy, which will come out in the end, and in some very unexpected ways.

                   I can honestly see the potential end for women’s right to vote, and participate in society outside the home happening, with some of this stuff. It gets pressed down on hard enough, the reaction that comes from it ain’t going to be pretty. If you wanted to set the conditions for a widespread conversion to the misogyny of Islam, you couldn’t do a better job than these idiots are–And, the harder they go for this sort of thing, the more likely it is that they will make it happen.

                   Sheer stupidity, too. Reasonable accommodation could be made, for all of this, but the arseholes behind it all refuse to admit that the accommodations need to be made. The system will crash, and the one that comes out of it will likely look much different from what the idealists and idealogues of today imagine.

             2. They can’t materially increase the number of MDs bing taught, since there hasn’t been a new school of medicine accrdited in over a third of a century. And THAT log jam sn’t going o be broken so long as the AMA determines the accreditation process. The AMA loves a doctor shortage; it makes them look important.

                1. My understanding is that the shortage of teaching hospitals for the internships is an even worse bottleneck that the med schools themselves, plus even with the fees they pay med students are heavily subsidised and there is no more money.

                   1. Yes, it is a worse bottle neck.

             3. Note the AMA control of the number of doctors graduated, can you say limited entry guild monopolies are good for competition with a straight face?

                1. It got cut in half under Clinton. And Obama requires something like 70% women in every entering class. (The presidents have something to say on this, although I’m not sure what the mechanism is.)

                   1. Probably federal funds and threats of grant cuts. Kinda like the DoE and their “Dear Colleague” letters.

    2. Famous Case in Point: Ann “Never worked a day in her life” Romney.

    3. You’re right, Foxfier. In general terms a lot of “staying home with your kids is an acceptable choice” noises are made, but there is always the assumption and focus on a career. What was sort of funny was the thing at the end where she claims that the “ultra-conservative” women who promote staying at home and viewing their husbands as the head of the home don’t value the home-making, child-rearing role. It made her mad, darnit! Don’t they realize how important taking care of children is? It’s the most important thing ever! And these “stay-at-home” support her husband types don’t value their own roles!

       Derp.

       It’s one of those “that planet you live on, it isn’t Earth, is it” moments.

       1. I agree, but with a caveat. *Everyone*, male or female, should know how to do something that earns money. Even women who plan on staying home and being a mother. Because bad stuff happens, and sometimes bad *people* happen. I lived for a while in a fairly poor area in Maine, and there were far too many cases of young women getting married right out of high school with no marketable skills, immediately getting pregnant, and then the husband getting injured (lots of hard physical labor type jobs there, and lobster-pot winches eat fingers) or, sadly, sometimes the young man couldn’t handle the responsibility and just up and abandoned them. Then she’s stuck with kids and no income. Some really stepped up and worked hard, but they were pretty much trying to drain the sea with a teaspoon.

          It isn’t “denial of choice” to point out the hard, cruel truth of economics, and how $Deity laughs at plans. Having a career does not necessarily mean sacrificing everything for it. (Me, I have a *job* that does not define my identity, and a lucrative hobby that may turn into a job later. Never have understood the need to climb a status ladder…)

          1. *nods* Exactly – have some kind of training, experience or qualification which will afford you a living wage, just in case. Things happen in life, and a woman should absolutely not be reduced to penury or welfare, though accident or divorce, or whatever.

             As it is – honestly, unless you are having a lot of children, sequentially, you will only spend about a quarter to a fifth of your entire life being a hands-on mother anyway. Best to have a profession, or at the very least, an engaging hobby to fall back on, once the nest is empty.

             1. For both kids, I told them to have a “real career training” and “your heart’s longing training.” They’re probably the same for them in both cases, but this is why I learned languages while hoping to make it as a writer.
                Yeah, I know, all that and $5.

                1. One of my nieces did that: got an undergraduate degree focused on music and a graduate degree focused on business. Smart woman. I’m proud.

                2. My millionaire cousin – major in business, minor in fine arts (music). Took a semester studying with a guru flautist in Belgium. Also conversant in French from school and Czech from being around Grandma a lot in her dotage. Upon graduation, took a position with Microsoft in their European sales department; not much for salary but stock options being distributed like candy. Hubby got her pregnant, she decided to retire at 35 to look after offspring. Doesn’t say how much she made when she cashed in, but does say she paid over FRN 2 million that year.

                   Just lucky, I guess . . .

                3. Oh, that was me. My high school teachers scared my old man by telling him how well I could write. I wrote three dumb but full-sized SF novels in high school. That scared him even more.

                   “Writers starve,” he said. “Learn engineering and you can write in your spare time and not starve.”

                   Ok. I let him have it both ways. I wrote about engineering and I didn’t starve. Alas, he died long before I could show him the house that technical writing bought me. If God is good, I will someday buy him a heavenly beer and razz him about it. We’ll both laugh ourselves silly.

                   1. Your dad CAN’T be my mom. But only because my mom was sure ladies shouldn’t be engineers. Which is fine. It was her conviction I was also a lady that pushed me into the humanities. (It wasn’t till many years after I realized she was afraid of my being the only girl in a class of men and ending up pregnant as a Freshman. Which just means she didn’t GET engineers at a very fundamental level, despite being married to one and having given birth to another.)

    4. Fulfilling? You mean, having to deal with the office politics, the backbiting, the insecure bitches who are upset that you speak English better than they do / are more competent / intelligent than they are, and are ragingly upset that the Australian man the company employed to help train new employees decided that the one woman who wasn’t trying to seduce him into bed because he was married and devoted to his wife and son was the safe one to be around and then added bonus, likes books and movies that he did as well, thus had lots of stuff to talk about therefore was the one asked ‘hey, where are all the interesting places to shop? Can you show me and the others please?’

       That kind of ‘fulfilling’?

       1. My horror story:
          I was one of… I think four… women in my Navy AT class; one of the other gals was two or three years older, Asian, had a previous career.

          She spent literally months manipulating me to get me to ask out a guy, who she knew was engaged, but I didn’t, out. Because….

          Um…..

          Heaven knows why?

          Makes my head hurt.

          It was embarrassing, yeah, but I am and was a hell of a lot happier at my lowest than she seemed at her best.

          1. I … don’t get that. I really don’t. Unless that woman was angling for Elf.

             I still get the impression, sincerely, that most of these wo/men never left high school behind and continue to carry it with them FOREVER while the rest of us grow the hell up.

             1. I hadn’t even met Elf yet– I was a dumb barely out of high school kid who happened to be in the same class.

                I can’t seee ANYTHING that both of us wanted… other than to be female in the class?

                1. Either she didn’t like the person he was engaged to and wanted to break them up (low probability), or she wanted to enjoy watching you get interested in the guy and then get rejected (high probability). She may have been hoping you’d tank the class, too.

                   1. Hmm. Maybe she found out he was engaged by being rejected! So she wanted to lessen her own “humiliation” by making sure you shared it!

                      Man, I’m turning as suspicious as Miss Marple.

                      1. Observing people will do that to you.

                      2. Well, she was usually correct….

                      3. As Miss Marple herself said, “I always think the worst of people. The sad thing is, the worst is so very often true.”

                      4. Turning into Miss Marple is fine.

                         Just don’t turn into Gladys Kravets.

12. Maisie is right. You are either a normal person or a sexist. The self-proclaimed feminists aren’t normal people; they are therefore sexist. The “only men can be sexist” argument is homologous to the “only whites can be racist” argument. They are both completely false. Feminists of the Pia ilk are about the most sexist people on the planet.

    1. The “Only men can be sexist” argument is absolutely necessary to feminism, as it is the only thing that could keep the majority of thinking people from concluding that so-called feminists are misandryst twunts.

    2. And this has become a “Truth” that is not and can not be questioned. Some academic made an interesting argument about “systems” which, just like “privilege” might be a useful concept to use when talking about ideas and then feminists and racialists grabbed onto it and ran with it all the way to policy and social demands as if their interpretation and prescription were the only possible ones out there.

13. Pia explains, “My feminism is such that I want gender equality and specifically to support women, but I’ll tell another woman she done fucked up if that’s what went down, and I expect the same.”

    “I reserve the right to be an utter bitch while complaining if you so much as disagree with me.”

14. cspschofield made the most important point: the war isn’t over. It never will be. In P. J. O’Rourke’s phrase, “ignorance is a renewable resource”. There’s a new crop every year. Teach when you can; set an example the rest of the time, because the wars are not over. ( A certain blogging SF writer, I think, has said that human history isn’t marked with a one-way arrow)

15. Similarly to the BLM movement, the feminists are apparently determined as hell to justify every single stereotype they imagine was cast against women as being hysterical scolds who cannot be trusted to serve sanely in normal social discourse. Likewise, the BLM crew is apparently determined to justify every stereotype ever held against blacks as being essentially child-like and unable to obey the basic laws of normal society. This ain’t gonna end well, for either group, because once they’ve pushed far enough over the line, the recoil is going to come, and they’re going to find that the equal and opposite reaction effect is not only a physical truth, but a metaphorical one.

    I can’t say for sure there will come a day when the reaction forces women in general back into the imagined mold they rail against, but they’re creating a self-fulfilling prophecy with their current path. And, as usual, the sane people sitting in the middle are going to be the victims of this BS, just like with the BLM idiots. I hope the whole thing damps out, but I fear that it won’t, and I’ll see things in my lifetime that I’d really rather not. Unfortunately, these collective idiots are bringing this down on themselves with this stupidity, much the way the inherent stupidity of this whole “bathroom war” is discrediting the transgendered minority. The activists are pushing for things that aren’t going to last, and the reaction to them doing so is going to be ugly.

    I honestly suspect that the whole “feminist complex” is going to come crashing down about the time we also find out that women really aren’t equal to men on the battlefield, and we lose a major battle or entire conflict because of this stupidity of trying to make women combat infantrymen, a role which probably 99% of the gender is completely unsuited for at the present time. Things may change when we have everyone suited up in powered armor, but for the moment? Yeah… We’re programming for failure, and when it comes? The reaction ain’t going to be pretty. All these young ladies having been told that they “can do it all”, and then having the standards dumbed down and gender-normed so that they can present the appearance of success? When that little experiment encounters reality, a whole lot of things are going to disintegrate and discredit all the rest of the “feminist agenda”. When that crap unravels, there’s no telling what else is going to go with it.

    And, the whole thing is so damn unnecessary, not to mention just plain wrong.

    1. Sadly, yes. It isn’t hard to imagine the future feminist calling for Burkas and the need for all females to be escorted by male relatives.
       Likewise, BLM is thissss close to calling for “Separate But Equal” facilities and special racially reserved seating in the back of public buses.

       1. Well, at least buses will be simple enough.

          I remember when the ADA-compliant buses showed up, with preferential parking for our wheelchair overlords at the front. We didn’t even make it two decades before we had to sit in the back of the bus again…

          1. because them people in wheelchairs should just stay home.

       2. Yep. They’ve been describing circles.

16. Dear Pia,

    If you wanna do femdom, just go do femdom. Everyone will be happier.

    1. Uh, no, we wont’. Yet another 20 something bitch doing the ice queen act is the last thing the community needs although if she’s cute (didn’t bother to check) she could make $250/hr for a couple of years sadly.

       But we don’t need them and I won’t be happy to see more of them.

       1. I believe the problem with most new Doms is that they actually think it’s about them. The long term successful ones learn to cater to the odd submissive fantasies of the Bottom. You’re not hired to be a b1tch but a precisely accurate fantasy b1tch.

          1. Oh, it gets complex more complex than that (I’m talking about relationship types, not pros so much). A big part of the issue is the poor quality of F/m porn as well as the ability of pros to make nice coin catering to a niche market. Since a lot of non-standard sexual exploration begins with porn and porn is how we start learning in those realms a lack of diversity and quality in porn is an issue.

             1. So…
                A quality porn shortage. Who knew?

                1. You would be amazed…I guess the correct term is “erotica” but just because it’s words instead of pictures and appeals to women as much as men doesn’t stop it from being what it is.

                   1. Literotica and ASSTR always have everything but what you want.

                      1. Oh, trust me, I have a lot flagged there but either my search is bad or they are light on what I’m looking for. I’m also a big fan of EMCSA but that’s another kettle of fish.

                         Thank heavens for abbreviations too.

       2. You know, Disney had great success with Elsa the Ice Queen.

          1. I gather idiots feminists are demanding Elsa have a same-sex relationship in any sequel.

             Of course, there are also a coterie of complaints about Captain America and Bucky not expressing their manly love one for the other. (See: Vanity Fairy.)

             Because there is nothing we can have that they won’t ruin.

             1. I think those feminists just need to “Let it go.”

                As for Captain America and Bucky, this is just more evidence that leftists either can’t comprehend friendship or philos – or think it must only be a deceitful cover for something else.

                1. It always bugged me how the fans of the movies didn’t get that Captain and Bucky are friends. A lot of them read too deeply into things and don’t seem to get that a relationship doesn’t need to be sexual to be meaningful.

                2. I am convinced it is just proof of how little compassion and empathy they have. They cannot think of others between power and gentiles and can’t conceive of people who can.

                   1. “beyond power and genitals”

                   2. They can only imagine physical pleasures as a reason to be attached to somebody, not mental. To them if there is no physical aspect it’s not really real.

                      1. It has long been noted that Leftists tend to be materialists, thinking all human needs can be satisfied by material goods. They also define “good character” primarily in terms of being a good Party member.

                3. I blame fanfiction.net for turning every single fricking relationship in fiction into a romantic/sexual one. Steve and Bucky loving each other as friends? Anna and Elsa loving each other as sisters? Clearly impossible! These are obviously sexual relationships that merely do not want to speak their names and that only the fanfic writers really understand and are brave enough to write about!

                   1. I’d go with the old Fan Fiction Mailing List myself, but, yes, fanfiction in general has a horrible habit of turning any relationship into a sexual one, and usually at a rather immature level at that.

                      1. Any theories as to why fanfic does that? From what I’ve seen I agree but why does it attract bad porn (and shipping) so disproportionately?

                         1. As a fanfic writer I can answer that to the best of my ability. Of course I only work with canon pairings and when I write porn no one recognizes it as such, so much of the strange shipping is only speculation on my part.

                            There’s a vanishingly small minority who do it because they see themselves as being able to relate with one of the characters and find the other character to be attractive so they’re more or less turning one character into a proxy and the other into wish fulfillment. Otherwise it seems that a lot of them are stuck at the level of high school girls (even the ones who are grown men) and write their characters as such, that’s why everything’s about relationships and petty, snippy little interactions. They’re simply taking characters that writing what they know with them. That’s why it’s so common to see characters behaving in ways that contradict how they act in the source material/are twisted so far from true that only the names line up.

                            Also, don’t blame any one site. It’s everywhere you find fanfiction.

                         2. I wrote non-canon pairing, but did it in such a way that was plausible to the characters’ personalities. My foray into fanfiction was limited to a single series and a toe-dip into the pool of a game series, but that’s pretty much it. I consider it cutting baby teeth on writing fiction for me.

                   2. Ehh, slash fiction predates fanfiction.net.

             2. Heaven forbid an 18 year old not have a boyfriend.

                Because NOBODY worth anything every did that, right?

                *glares*

                1. But a husband or wife, now that’s just going too far! */snark*

                   1. Mom got married at 17 😉

                      1. Mine was 18 — I understand that someone once asked her didn’t she think I was awfully young for it at 22….

                         1. My mom thought I was awfully young for it at 22 😛

                            1. I assume it feels different when it’s your kid than you. Heh. I think mine cheerfully told the person I was older than she’d been and had finished a degree already so she didn’t think she had room to tell me any such thing….

17. What do you expect from a website where it was recently argued that while expecting women out of combat arms was sexists subjecting them to the draft if they were in combat arms was also sexist because, wait for it, no man in history ever died in childbirth.

    1. Plenty have, via abortion.

       Oh, they mean giving birth.

       So they’re okay with drafting women to have babies?

18. If you’re pro-abortion you feel that women are not able, or at least ought not to be expected to make their reproductive choices until they darned well get around to it because it’s just not that important as the fetus is just cells.

    And if you fight for our child support laws as is you:

    1. Deny that men have a choice or figure they should know they are making it before the sex act.

    2. You’re demanding 13 year “men” show more foresight about sex and reproduction that 40+ year old “women” based on your statements and, in a handful of situations, in the same instance.

    I always figured the position on child support, especially in cases of statuory rape where the minor is the father of the child, show that feminist really do believe men are more competent than women.

    1. “I always figured the position on child support, especially in cases of statuory rape where the minor is the father of the child, show that feminist really do believe men are more competent than women.”

       In this, as in so much else, they betray their fundamental immaturity and biased agenda. And, rest assured, it will catch up with them, and likely be one of the things going into the entire “shut this crap down” reactive movement that’s going to be coming down the pike, likely with an Islamic flavor to it.

       I’ve tried to look forward to how this is all going to play out, over the next few generations, and I don’t see any of the so-called Christian sects really effectively countering the secularists bullshit. They’re all rolling over and playing dead, and basically abandoning the “white male” demographic. This isn’t going to play out very well, and one of the side-effects I see coming is the huge attraction that canny Islamists are going to be able to offer to disenfranchised young men, as well as dissatisfied young women who feel that their needs aren’t being answered, either.

       When we look back at this period in a few more generations, we may well be doing so from a place where women have exactly none of the rights and freedoms they’ve been granted by our current social arrangement, and the only people who are going to really be responsible for that fact are the current lot of feminist extremists.

       The pendulum swings one way, and then the other; push it too far off center, and the resultant swing is going to be that much more extreme when it comes back the other way. I don’t see any way that the current trends in society can keep going the way they are, without causing a huge mass of problems that are going to result in some very undesirable changes. It’s going to be similar to the Victorian era, whose excesses were almost a direct consequence of the libertine Georgian era before it. If the only thing that comes out of what is likely ahead of is is some decent music like Amazing Grace, well… I’ll be surprised. I think it’s going to be really bad for a bunch of people, not the least of which are our more, ah… Shall we say, “unfettered” types?

       1. Next year is Frolicon X and everyone is excited.

          I think about what I saw at Frolicon IX and wonder if when XX would roll around will a significant number of us be dead at the hands of mobs often lead by the supposed champions of the freaks pushnig the boundaries today.

          I hear so much liberal bs about arrow of history and how we’re free now and the government will protect us at events like that. I hear very few people who realize the government who can force lip service to acceptance (not tolerance, none of it is about tolerance anymore if it ever was) of us and force those who don’t like us into the closest can do the exact opposite when the winds change.

          Stonewall was needed (if you know anything about NYC in the late 60s you understand why) but after that everything else was priming the backlash.

          1. Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d advise that the path of caution is not to have too high a profile with these things, because the folks that do are going to be the most easily identifiable marks for the pogroms to come. If they come, which I think is a reasonable projection.

             I hope they don’t, but… I don’t see this whole thing ending well. They’re storing up an awful lot of energy in the mechanism, and when the reaction comes, I see a whole lot of bad things happening. A lot of this crap is going to come out of pissed-off victims of family courts, and the inequities of the system they’ve created. Couple of acquaintances of mine are guys who’ve been so badly screwed by the current system that I could easily see them saying “Fuck it–If I’m going to be hung for a sexist/racist/whatever, might as well start living the life…”.

             And, when those are guys whose lives have been devoted to working the dirtier end of the security stick for our society? Yeah. Not a smart ‘effing move, geniuses. You’re pissing off some of the most dangerous people possible, men who are really only a couple of decisions away from being outright outlaws. The line between “good guy with a badge/in a uniform” and “outlaw/bandit” is a pretty fine one; give enough of these men an understanding that they have no place in society as it is currently constituted, and you’re going to see the constitution of that society change drastically. The side-effects of that change aren’t going to be pretty, nor will the collateral damage be something to be proud of. All the “fellow-travelers” of the SJW realm are going to take it in the back of the head, right along with them.

             Can’t say for sure that it’s inevitable, but I have a feeling that a part of the reaction to everything like this current bathroom brouhouha is going to be a very ugly puritan-style movement, one that is going to make Nehemiah Scudder look like a pleasant daydream. With the way a lot of the mainstream Christian churches have discredited themselves, it may well have an Islamic flavor to it, as well.

       2. I’ve tried to look forward to how this is all going to play out, over the next few generations, and I don’t see any of the so-called Christian sects really effectively countering the secularists bullshit. They’re all rolling over and playing dead, and basically abandoning the “white male” demographic. This isn’t going to play out very well, and one of the side-effects I see coming is the huge attraction that canny Islamists are going to be able to offer to disenfranchised young men, as well as dissatisfied young women who feel that their needs aren’t being answered, either.

          What do you think a denomination would need to be doing to a) counter said bullshit b) not write off white men c) compete with the Islamists?

          1. My husband’s Knights of Columbus group does very nicely.

             They also have to go begging for anybody to show up. Elf is the youngest regular by 20 years, although he’s trying to drag a few of the other guys from his confirmation class in. And this is at a parish rigorous enough for me, and very man-friendly.

             1. We go to a parish that does have a pretty significant number of young Knights. It’s also a parish that has retained all-male altar servers, lectors, and ushers. Seems to help the boys and men to own it more instead of leaving it to the gals. The parish has easily 5-10 times as many servers as similar sized parishes in the area. It doesn’t hurt that there are also a ton of home-schoolers.

                1. Girls naturally LIKE the altar-server thing, relative to boys, but boys can just bloom in it so much…..

                2. As a general rule, it is better to count the Home Schooled by the head rather than net weight. If necessary, count the feet and divide by two.

                   1. For heaven’s sake don’t use the Washington method.

                      Our district had a dozen different mothers flipping out because the school reported they had fewer home-schooled students than the ladies had CHILDREN, and they knew at least a dozen other families each.

                      None of my kids are recorded, yet, but not looking forward to that.

                      1. RES – groan!
                         Foxfier – re: we’re in the NW, too, but Oregon, not Washington. Have not had that particular problem, though we’ve had some other doozies. Praying that your husband got / gets the dream job!

          2. Clearly, not what most of them are doing. There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of young men going to church, these days, and it isn’t just because of the growing rate of secularization in society.

             I think what’s lacking is a fundamental respect offered these young men, along with any sort of validation for who they are, what they are, and their role in society.

             And, granted, this is a problem across most of society, not just the Christian churches, but the problem is that the resultant anomie and detachment is leaving a broad swath of this demographic disconnected and ripe for recruitment by movements like Islam, which offer them a clear place and role.

             I think more needs to be done, but I’ll be damned if I know what.

          3. In regards to a. at least, I don’t think that denominations need to actively counter said bullshit so much as simply provide an alternative to it. Look at Judaism. Orthodox Judaism is still going strong while Classical Reform is pretty much dead. It turns out that if you make your religion’s raison d’etre ethical humanism, it doesn’t take long for your congregants to realize that their isn’t an point to the “religion” aspect of that religion and they might as well just get involved with the ethical humanist movement directly. I suspect the same thing will happen to those sects that have jumped on the Social Justice bandwagon. When you make your organization’s driving purpose something that is only tangential to its essence, members tend not to stick around.

          4. Be Eastern or Oriental Orthodox who have, depending on location, somehow managed to survive under Islam for 600-1000 years.

             Russian Orthodox survived Communism, just barely, which was the worst sustained attack on the Church in history IMHO. Imagine ISIS, slightly less violent, but sustained for 60+ years.

          5. Rediscover the Militant part of Church Militant. There’s a reason transgender rules aren’t being applied to madrassas.

    2. Gah. Child support laws and abortion laws are inherently unfair, because the biology behind them is unfair. That said, underage boy / overage woman is an easy call: the kid goes to the boy’s parents / extended family if they want the kid, with the mother owing support, or up for adoption if the underage father’s family doesn’t want the kid. Neither the underage boy nor the child rapist woman gets a say, except to the extent he can persuade his family.

       I am not actually advocating today’s child support laws, just noting that there is no child support law which will be fair to everyone; we merely have a choice of evils.

       1. Today’s law is the rapist retains custody and either the victim’s parents get a child support bill or the victim upon reaching 18 gets a bill including however many years arears (with penalties).

          And yes, there are no set of abortion and child support laws that will be fair to everyone but the current absolutism of abortion on demand until the entire child clears the birth canal and child support regardless including paternity fraud (up to and including women who leave their husbands for the lover who impregnated them creating a biologically intact family getting child support from the “father” and statutory and violent rape victims paying child support to the rapists) is unsustainable in the long term.

       2. The problem is that the “choice of evils” is nearly always against the male in these matters.

          Friend of mine had a one-night stand with a woman he met at an after-jump party skydiving. Never saw her again, never heard from her, until twelve years later when he’s hit with a paternity suit for the resulting kid. Who he had no idea existed. She’d had his contact information, and never returned any of his calls (he wanted more than a one-nighter, you see, being smitten). She apparently saw the blurb in the local paper about his promotion to Sergeant Major, and decided there might be some money to be had, so she took him to court.

          Cost him nearly $45,000.00 dollars in legal fees and lawyers bills before they decided he didn’t owe back child support to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars, and nearly wrecked his marriage with his wife, who he’d met several years after the one-nighter.

          He still hasn’t got a role in the kid’s life, but he damn sure has the bills. Last I heard, they wanted him to pay for the young man’s college tuition…

          I’m not sure what the right answer would have been in this case, but when you look at it from his perspective, I don’t see a lot of justice. The woman in this case flatly admitted to the court that she’d been seeking a “sperm donor”, and had had no interest in having a relationship with him–She just wanted a kid. And, when it became apparent to her that he’d been successful in his military career, she decided to cash in on it.

          Things like that are what’s going to lead to the total destruction of the current system, and the likely balance going the other way. Personally, I think he should have had a case for “theft by deception”, because she very clearly told him that she was using birth control at the time of their encounter–Another fact she freely admitted to, in her deposition to the court. He still wound up “on the hook” for the kid, despite the whole thing happening without either his consent or knowledge.

          Women demand to be treated as though they were irresponsible, feckless children without agency or responsibility, in all too many of these cases. What’s going to happen is that they’re going to eventually be taken at their word, and returned to the status they had before our more “enlightened” times.

          1. I’m not sure what justice would have been, but my primitive side strongly feels that it should include jamming something barbed up the bitch’s twat and having her womb jerked out by mules.

             1. Gaaaah… [not so delicate shudder of sheer horror]

                Remind me not to ever, ever piss you off. I’m a fairly brutal sort, myself, and that just seems… A bit over the top?

                Then, I’m a guy with all the knight-errant issues that implies.

                1. No, not to this woman’s mind, it’s not over the top. Sewing the bitch’s cunt closed and exposing her as the worst sort of scum everywhere is probably the only thing I’d add.

                   I’m the sort who thinks false accusations of rape should be penalized by the same punishment as rape (since both crimes aren’t really about sex, but power) and a woman who rapes a man through deception – yes, I consider what she did rape, because she got consent through lies – should be similarly culpable and be unable to sue for paternal support of the man after the fact – especially if it’s been years after the fact.

                   Incandescent rage doesn’t even begin to cover what I’m feeling right now.

                   1. Unable to sue or at least automatically loses custody. Being guilty of rape proves a person shouldn’t have the keeping of children.

                      1. Yeah. But goddamnit they leave the kids in the hands of those lifethieves anyway.

             2. I like your line of thinking. Also, having the child find out that his mother is a gold-digging home wrecking cunt, and that the bitch basically be trailed and shunned for what she did.

             3. I like the idea that if she is married the kid is his to support and rear, if she is single, it is hers. Anything beyond that they can work out themselves. And forget “best intrest of the child” that is just an excuse for courts do do whatever they want while steamrolling the rights of the parents.

          2. That’s the kind of thing that makes me want to wear “traitor to her sex” as a badge of honor, if that is how people define “female.”

       3. When you start arguing the “fairness” of human biology, your concept of “fairness” is about as rational as Don Quixote, and will give similarly ludicrous effects when applied to the real world.

          1. I’m not so much interested in fairness as in reasonableness. As in the right to abort without consulting the father means the father has the right to deny child support, that child support be contingent on involving the father in the child’s life in all but extreme (read violent abuser or pedophile) cases, that failure to inform constitutes waiver of child support, or that choosing to have sex means risking parenthood for both participants.

             1. A concept of “women’s rights” that omits any consideration of men or children is fundamentally anti-social. I’ve seen feminists argue (apparently quite seriously) for a mode of human reproduction that resembles that of ichneumenoid wasps with the male of the species as prey..

                1. :Shudders:

                   1. Oh yes. They were quite convinced that a couple of isolated cases of extra-uterine pregnancies proved that male pregnancy was medically feasible. When I sputtered about the ethics of deliberate induction of pathological abnormalities, they claimed that I was using inflammatory and prejudiced language, Since a couple of them seemed to have serious trouble with the biological distinction between offspring and parasites anyway, I decided that further attempts at rational discussion of this particular insanity were futile.

                      1. Considering that the same people who advocate that men should carry children to term are the same people who tend to argue that abortions are fine because ‘cluster of cells, not human being’ I’d reckon their grasp of biology, never mind biochemistry, is very good to begin with.

                         1. Oh yes. They could argue that the differences between male and female plumbing were irrelevant (when childbearing was the topic under discussion), and then turn around and claim that I had no business expressing an opinion on abortion because I didn’t have a uterus.

                            1. That’s bullshit. Just hit them with the ‘then I am not obligated to pay child support if the decision whether the child lives or dies has nothing to do with me.’

                         2. The entire setup is based on the stated logic that pregnancy is so horrible that the secondary effect of killing an innocent child is regrettable but justifiable. (Every so often there are attempts by pro-life groups to talk women who are getting very late term abortions into having an early induction instead; almost invariably they turn it down. The baby must be erased, not just gone, so even they don’t believe it…but that’s the logic.)

                            Once the pregnancy is over, the parental involvement is in supporting the kid– its not a matter of the parents having rights, the child they created has the right to their support, financial at bare bones.

                            Now, the logical way to avoid the support of the kid being gamed would be for both parents of an illegitimate child (standard short-term romance type), if they can’t make an agreement for the kid’s care on their own, to lose parental rights (forever) and for the kid to be adopted out. I’d put preference for relatives, BUT neither parent has any rights over the kid; they already wronged him once by robbing the kid of being born into a family that loves him rather than to a couple of self-focused twerps that couldn’t even make it right when they screwed up.

                            How long they’d have to be contributing to the support of the kid depends on if the idea is to actually defray the costs– because they WILL NOT manage to actually support the child’s costs, no way– or as a sort of punishment that doesn’t also destroy their lives.

                            1. That would require that there be a body of enforcement behind that, or an agency, and child services has already fucked up too much, leaving children in the hands of pedophiles and drug addicts, while taking away the children of loving families. I just keep remembering the success of baby drop boxes in high abortion countries like South Korea. But on the other hand, I know that in the US there’s places of … I forget the term, but ‘safe abandonment’?… but it seems like that despite that availability people are choosing to leave their children in dumpsters and kill them in utero, because… well, not logic being used.

                               The other big elephant in the room, of course, are the women and men damaged by abortion – the men who would have happily taken on the ‘burden’ of fatherhood, the women who regret killing their children, the living children who are hurt by the discovery, etc.

                               And then of course, the damned bitches who complain that there are no more ‘good men’ for them to marry because they’ve ruined those good men by murdering the children and pretty much showing that in a relationship, those men would have everything to lose if things go sour…

                            2. But on the other hand, I know that in the US there’s places of … I forget the term, but ‘safe abandonment’?…

                               Depends on the state; I think Washington calls the “safe places.”

                               Still, the whole setup needs to be shifted– away from “that woman is a bitch” or “that man is an abusive cad” and on to “that KID has a right to their support.”

                               Same way I break out in spikes when folks start talking about forcibly sterilizing kids because their parents go on any kind of welfare– F you very much, to be short.
                               Kid’s already abused, so it’s cool to abuse them more?
                               Ditto various “well child support is about giving money to the WOMAN, so….” logics. A lot of women STEAL it, but it’s given to the kid.

                            3. Agree, but that would require giving the children, yet unborn, the importance ceded to women as ‘right’ – which is not fashionable, indeed, screeched at as being anti-woman.

                               The screeching scolds don’t care about the men. And really, they don’t care about the children either.

                            4. Part of why I metaphorically chase them around in circles with basic biology as their logic.

                               This is why I am “hateful” and “anti-science.” :wry:

                               Pretty sure you are, too.

                            5. Yeah. It always boggles me that these idiots screech that they don’t need men, men should stay the fuck away, they’re all rapists rawr—
                               followed by
                               –hey, why doesn’t that guy I fancy and want to steal sperm from want to fuck me even though I have my legs and labia spread wide open for him to do???! I’ve picked HIM to be my baby daddy and meal ticket, not that size zero hottie or that woman with the more pleasant but ‘degradingly submissive’ personality! That patriarchal shitlord is discriminating against me!! There ought to be a law where I can force a man who doesn’t want me to be married to me and bend me to my every whim and then I can discard and take all his money from! Especially if they are handsome rich men, and if they refuse I should be able to accuse them of rape and take them for their wealth without proof!

                               rrrrrrrggggh

                            6. Mine are usually much more low key.

                               “I wish I knew how to find a guy!”
                               “Stop sleeping with random people because you’re lonely, work on a social life besides sex, avoid that friend, that friend, and the third friend, and find a shirt that doesn’t show your navel.” (that’s male and female)
                               “You’re meaaaaaaan……”

                               (No, it’s no 100%. But the methods they’re using right now are 100% failure, sometimes catastrophic.)

                            7. My response to one such person was to tell her to stop going for the bad boy musicians and then complain none of them were mature enough to grow up.

                            8. *sudden wish to sic said gal on some musician friends*

                            9. Nah, last I heard, she was with a somewhat more decent fellow now, and they’ve got a kid together. You know about this friend; I’ve talked about her before. (I’d chat with you via IM, but…)

                            10. Me, hold still long enough to chat on IM?

                                Gads.

                            11. *laughing* I know.

                            12. “[T]hen of course, the damned bitches who complain that there are no more ‘good men’ for them to marry because they’ve ruined those good men by murdering the children and pretty much showing that in a relationship, those men would have everything to lose if things go sour…”

                                I recall fuming back in the Eighties when the MSM cri de coeur for American women of a certain age went up that “all the Good Guys were taken” and their biological clocks were ticking ever more loudly. As if a) they were such prizes and b) they were entitled to a good guy.

                                Good guys don’t just naturally occur, they are the product of the femmes in their lives and abusive, exploitative processing results in damaged goods. A good relationship, like a good garden, requires constant cultivation, removal of weeds before their roots get too deep and generous application of fertilizer. Many of the same gals complaining about the quality of men available to them as they reached thirty were in deep denial over their role in producing (Victim Blaming!) that shortage.

                            13. A few years back some woman was giving a lecture on “Men not wanting to Commit”.

                                Her basic point was “Why should they want to commit” when the women in their lives were using under-handed (my term) means to make them change as the women saw fit.

                                Part of the problem she said that the women wanted the men to change but wouldn’t admit to the men about it and used “you don’t love me because you are accusing me of such things” tactics against the men when the men called them on their actions.

                                Basically the men were seeing the women as deceitful so why would they want to commit to deceitful women.

                                Note, I don’t remember the speaker saying the following but I thought of a double-standard here.

                                Men were to accept women “as they were without expecting the women to change” but women were expecting the men to change. 😦

    3. But feminism fights for meeenn. And saying that there are other priorities for men that are not cared for is misogynist

    4. I always figured the position on child support, especially in cases of statuory rape where the minor is the father of the child, show that feminist really do believe men are more competent than women.

       I figure it’s just an example of a reasonable loophole they don’t care about (for cases of statutory rape where charges aren’t pressed because it was one of those exceptional cases rather than predation– you know, the ones that always get brought up as “statutory rape laws are evil” examples, while they’re ignoring the cases that clearly show statutory rape is evil) combined with people being idiots. (Sometimes the idiot is the police involved–see cases where the rapist gets out of jail and tries to claim parental rights.) Or maybe selfish.

       What kind of selfish monster leaves their baby with a rapist, even if they are genetically related to the monster?

       Challenge to get the rapist’s parental rights removed, and if you can’t stand to have the poor kid around, adopt them to someone who desperately wishes for a child.

    5. *wicked grin* now there’s an argument to throw into the teeths of feminists.

19. Do I get to “choose” to be submissive?

    No, women may choose whatever they want as long as they want what feminists want.

    However, feminists don’t allow men to choose to be submissive either. Reading what they say about submissive men makes how they treat submissive women look like a tea party.

    1. They may write platitudes but they tend to simply walk over them and have no respect for partner or their power.

20. Someone posted a rewrite of “Tommy” on this topic recently. Excerpt:

    They taught me I was sexist, that women had it tough
    However much I bowed and scraped would never be enough
    And all the teachers in the school were women, and they taught
    That men would soon be obsolete – us boys would come to naught

    I tried to go to college, to get a science degree
    They gave a girl a special grant, but hadn’t none for me
    And when I asked if it was fair – was this equality?
    They called me a misogynist, and threw the book at me,

    So I started as a policeman; in raids, I went in fast
    Worked with a woman half my weight, who always went in last
    I was in line for sergeant, they said “you dinosaur,
    We’ve got a quota system now, we don’t need men no more”

21. I was raised on the “Free To Be You And Me” sections in the back of Ms. Magazine. Sadly for the modern feminists I learned the lesson that they claimed to be teaching–that all people should be judged on their achievements without reference to gender and race.

22. Haven’t read the comments above yet. But my take is that the terms feminist, feminism et aliae have been destroyed by man hating bigots and have no readily discernible standard definition anymore.

23. Yep. Striking how pertinent that is. A pile of male bodies means nothing if there is diversity

24. BTW, Sarah, I saw something interesting on Amazon last night. A new book in some kind of series about badly-lit boats…? “D

    1. Chuckle Chuckle

       Sarah knows about it.

       She “screamed” about it on her FB page (not the Sarah’s Diner FB page). 😉

       1. This seems to be the week for “Oops, early notice” from the ‘Zon.

          1. Can’t “blame” it on Amazon.

             It was originally scheduled to come out in paper & ebook on May 3rd.

             Thanks to an “interesting situation”, it wasn’t “quite” ready on the 3rd and Toni rescheduled the paper for August but Toni also decided to have it come out in e-format in May.

             People who purchased the May ebook bundle, got an eARC for it in the bundle and Toni was promising the completed ebook “soon”.

             Well Toni was able to release the completed ebook around the 16th both in the Kindle store and the Baen ebook store.

             Sarah just didn’t get (or understand) the message.

             She apparently assumed that the ebook was “available for pre-order”.

             Of course, as busy as Sarah is, I’m not surprised by her misunderstanding. 😀

             1. I didn’t get any message from Baen. I got pings from fans, but yeah, not processing those.

                1. I “got that” but I don’t want to “blame” the Great & Glorious Heir Of The God Emperor! 😉

                   1. Sorry that should be “Great & Glorious Heir Of The Great Editor”. :embarrassed:

                      1. Um, the mental image of the Heir of the God Emperor might not be what Toni wants Baen readers to imagine. (And there’s a reason I quite after slogging through _God Emperor of Dune_.)

                         1. Don’t blame you.

                            I didn’t even think of That Book when I said “God Emperor”. 😦

                            1. Be fair, that’s what he was called.

                         2. Odd tangent time: one of the most interesting RPG campaign ideas I ever read was built on the idea of taking Return of the Jedi and beating it about the head and shoulders with Heretics of Dune…basically Luke joins Vader and Solo and Leia flee and now the rebellion is returning to over the Skywalker dynasty.

                            I figured you could rub some serious Oresteia influences all over it and get something very interesting. Skywalker clans using “Immortals” regiments of natural born fighters so good they become new seed cells for clone troopers, the followers of Leia as a Bene Gessert like cult, and so on.

                            1. Run a bunch of Force Sensitives through the Sardaukar training regimen and then let the galaxy tremble!

                   2. I’m 99% sure it was someone in the office pulling trigger too soon by accident and probably no one but a few fans noticed. I think it was supposed to go for pre-order. It’s STARTLINGLY easy to foul that up on Amazon dashboard. Both Peter Grant and I have done it in the past, while trying to preview.
                      So, no, I don’t think it was her fault.

    2. Through Fire, yes.

25. “I’m sure certain people involved in a SFWA brouhaha a couple of years ago will soon be issuing apologies.”

    John Scalzi, madam, is no lady.

    1. How . . . very true. 😉

    2. Oh, I don’t know. He wears a demure enough dress.

       1. But has no idea of how to wear it or how to get ready…didn’t even pretend to take care of body hair or shave. Nor, if he didn’t want to pass and just be a genderf**k, did he bother to do really good mixed indicators.

          Some people can’t ever seem to be bothered to put in the work.

26. Feminism may be “DEEP” but Pia Glenn (and xoJane, which “published” this nonsense) is very very very shallow.

    The only thing “DEEP” about this harangue is how thickly the manure was spread.

    1. Feminism may be “DEEP”

       Deep or derp?

       1. Yes, DEEP just like the hole under the outhouse and full of the same.

27. “Feminism is not going anywhere.”

    True — it is a dead end, a cul de sac, a blind alley, an impasse with Reality, it has painted itself into a corner with no way out, it is waiting for Godot.

    Feminists such as Pia Glenn have bent over backwards in defense of such illogic so far that they’ve parked their heads in their own vajayjays and can now find no way out.

28. And as our esteemed hostess has previously pointed out, this thing called feminism seems to be more about removing ‘femininity’, and turning women masculine.

29. Femsplaining.

30. An infuriating example of the problems of our MSM?Proglodyte imposed cone of silence:

    Most Heartbreaking Post of the Day, Transgender Edition
    By David French — May 23, 2016

    In the battle over bathrooms, nondiscrimination ordinances, and the rule of law, we should never overlook the enormous suffering wrought by the sexual radicals. Thanks to Rod Dreher, I ran across this heartbreaking interview of a University of Michigan-Flint social work professor whose 19 year-old daughter is “transitioning.” She’s autistic, and she’s been influenced by everything from pop culture to support group meetings to believe that she’s really a man. The story is tragic:

    She started attending a local PFLAG meeting, where she met many trans people, including a number of FtoM trans teenagers who were raving about a certain “gender therapist.” Although the APA recommends a minimum of one year of “gender counseling” before surgery, this gender therapist (whom I consented to, before really understanding what I was doing) gave my daughter the go-ahead to have a bilateral mastectomy after only two sessions. This gender specialist never reviewed any of the Special Ed records or spoke to my daughter’s previous therapist, who had known her for a decade. And, crucially, she never asked my daughter, “Might you be a lesbian?”

    It gets worse. As you might expect, her daughter wasn’t mentally equipped to understand the true consequences of her decision:

    To give you some sense of my daughter’s level of understanding of what it means to transition, she told me recently that she believes that the testosterone “will grow her a penis.” I had to break the news to her that, although this is the mythology in the PFLAG meetings (where a number of the other young trans people are also autistic), this is not the case.

    She has been taken advantage of. Healthy organs were amputated. This is insurance fraud, poor clinical practice, a violation of APA standards, unethical and unjust. It is a crime not just against women, but particularly against disabled women. So many of these young women who are “transitioning” are also autistic.

    Despite stories like this, many states and professional associations are doing their dead-level best to render it not just unethical but also illegal to counsel teens away from such life-altering mutilations. And if you think that such thinking is the product of a carefully-considered scientific and psychological process, well think again. Read what happens if a researcher raises the possibility of a link between the desire to transition and symptoms of autism:

    Anyone asking for critical thinking about these issues with autistics is accused of ableism and transphobia. This is often an effective silencing tactic. I have found no allies in the autism community. Instead, there is a vilification of anyone daring to ask questions about these issues, including the evidence of MtoF physical, sexual and psychological violence against women. Women who publicly question receive death threats, threats to rape us and our children, burn us to death with gasoline, decapitate us, and so on. This all coming from people who claim they are our “sisters.”

    The ferocity of the opposition to even the most modest questions speaks to the underlying mental instability of a troubled population. This is not how reasonable people behave.

    It is incumbent upon all of us to separate out the infuriating politics of the issue from the heartbreaking tragedy of the human victims of sexual radicalism. Many of the angriest of the activists are people in deep despair, who’ve destroyed their own bodies and can never recover their physical selves. I’ll oppose their ideology to my last breath, but they deserve our prayers, our compassion, and our aid. They have been deceived.

    1. Let’s emphasize this: [T]here is a vilification of anyone daring to ask questions about these issues, including the evidence of MtoF physical, sexual and psychological violence against women. Women who publicly question receive death threats, threats to rape us and our children, burn us to death with gasoline, decapitate us, and so on. This all coming from people who claim they are our “sisters.”

       1. Well, this transgender thing does tend to target those who are mentally vulnerable so it comes as no surprise that those who support it don’t want questions to be asked. I mean if transitioning was really just about changing genders they’d quietly live as the gender they identify as after surgery/hormone treatment. Instead they tend to flaunt what they’re doing/have done and demand that we except them for what they are, constantly seeking validation.

          Then again I’m biased, because looking at the modern transgender phenomenon I realize that it’s something that could have happened to me. I dodged the bullet because it wasn’t a thing when I was a kid, but the thought that if I were born today I’d probably be encouraged to chemically and surgically butcher myself terrifies me.

          Which I guess makes me transphobic or self-hating or something.

          1. I mean if transitioning was really just about changing genders they’d quietly live as the gender they identify as after surgery/hormone treatment.

             Actually, you are supposed to have to do so for at least a year first for surgery. Hormones are another story and a lot of them are self-medicating using internet phramacies (or just going to Mexico on trips in the old days).

             What is rarely discussed is the health effects from overriding your entire endocrine system. One thing people early in hormone transition will tell you though is the idea that gender has no biological component is bunk due to changes in thoughts and emotions.

             Instead they tend to flaunt what they’re doing/have done and demand that we except them for what they are, constantly seeking validation.

             I think they are more like drag queens, who generally aren’t confused about their gender, in their behavior.

             Then again I’m biased, because looking at the modern transgender phenomenon I realize that it’s something that could have happened to me. I dodged the bullet because it wasn’t a thing when I was a kid, but the thought that if I were born today I’d probably be encouraged to chemically and surgically butcher myself terrifies me.

             There is a very different me out there somewhere in the multiverse whoh encountered the very different, underground world of this circa 1985. I hope she is half as happy on that path as I imagine her. I think the differences in it and different choices (such as just living as a woman without the surgery or much chemical self-abuse) might have given her a path.

             However, I have a similar fear. The last decade has seen a huge change in transitions that worry me. MtF tended to be distributed with a median age about ten years later than FtM which was considered to be a patriarchy thing (and there is probably a point to this…masculine women have social advantages in certain areas while feminine men tend to only have disadvantages…transition of lived gender roles probably amped that). Even then it was generally after 20 with most experimenting with gender presentation and roles starting at college age . HS was the outliers.

             Now we have huge numbers of MtF before 20 and even before HS. While some are probably parental driven and a handful are it being more socially acceptable and thus the most urgently felt cases coming earlier I think there is a third cause.

             How we treat boys and girls in school and popular culture is creating, a believe, a man version of the old stories of blacks bleaching their skin to be white. Girl are so much better because as we know from all out propaganda that boys are just malformed girls. I think some boys are internalizing that and wanting to be girls.

             This will not end well for anyone. It is sad that Oman culture handles this better than ours (as do a lot of more repressive cultures, oddly enough…I still haven’t figured that one out).

             1. One thing i get a kick out of is the FtMs who have been told there’s no biological difference their whole lives, after they start taking testosterone…

                1. Yeah…that point when you hear something along the lines of “is this what it feels like to be a 13 year old boy”. I often find a polite variation of “now imagine having to endure it with only 13 instead of 20+ or 30+ years of life experience”.

                   That said, I suspect very few people going to the length of hormones (with or without eventual SRS) think there is no biological difference. Their own actions contradict that statement.

                   Then again, we are trying to use name for three different things one of which is completely tied to biology (physical sex), one that is heavily tied to biology but not completely (gender expression which ranges from secondary sexual characteristis which HRT and SRS among other things address to things like clothing), and one that is mostly social but not completely (gender roles do have input from biology most importantly the exclusivity of pregnancy to women but the technologically advanced the less biology matters in role).

                   Yes, I know the three blend at the edges and that’s my own framework to understand the whole mess not some academics (yes, I have given this more than a bit of thought).

                   It seems to me that 80% of the issues people genuinely have are in the gender roles and gender expression area and could be solved by a society that had paths for people more comfortable in roles and social aspects of expression that matched the set of fiddly bits they don’t have. However, that kind of tolerance, although probably actually an easier sell (and one that has occurred organicly to a degree and more formally elsewhere), would be anathema to the activists working hard to make life hell for everyone.

          2. Instead they tend to flaunt what they’re doing/have done and demand that we except them for what they are, constantly seeking validation.

             Over the decades I have met a number of transgendered. Most of those I have met neither flaunt it or place demands on those around them. Because they do not draw this attention to themselves they tend not to be noticed. My impression has been that these individuals prefer it that way.

             I will no more judge all transgendered by the red hot messes than I will judge all Christians by the actions of certain members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

             1. Over the decades I have met a number of transgendered. Most of those I have met neither flaunt it or place demands on those around them. Because they do not draw this attention to themselves they tend not to be noticed.

                The very essence of passing is just that, passing. If you are noticed you will probably be made (and even after SRS there are tells that some people can find). As our hostess said about the bathroom bit, those who are truly interested in having gender expression X will enter that bathroom without anyone noticing.

                If you are consciously trying to be a genderf**k I don’t think you should count yourself trans. If you are still learning to pass, well, that’s part of the price of changing your gender expression and the only way out is through (or to quit).

                I will no more judge all transgendered by the red hot messes than I will judge all Christians by the actions of certain members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

                You may not but when the average person’s experience is only through the kind of activist who will take shots at you regardless you quickly learn to shoot first and sort it out later. That’s the backlash I fear and I suspect what Kirk is saying as well.

             2. I guess my problem stems from the messes making me forget the perfectly normal people living as the opposite sex to what they were born as. I have the hardest time reconciling them with those perfectly normal people. When I hear ‘transgendered’ I don’t think of them, to me they’re just ordinary men and women, I think of the screaming messes.

          3. Yeah, I’m finding myself forced to suspect that a lot of this transgender stuff is an artifact of institutionalized abuse. Forced, because I’m not yet certain enough to articulate things, and because I fear I may make myself unwelcome in doing so. Unwelcome here.

             Suppose ‘social checksum’ is a useful model. Lots of things can cause someone’s checksum to fail and throw an error. Some of these are important, dangerous enough that others need to minimize risks. Not everyone can understand mental abnormalities well enough that they can substitute that for their gut instinct for checksum. Autism, a bunch of little issues too insignificant for diagnosis, some serious derangements, and maybe LGBT cause checksum issues.

             There are some communities which diagnose all checksum issues with LGBT issues and prescribe the following course of treatment: 1. Investing in LGBT identity. 2. Forcing the rest of the world to accept LGBT checksum issues as normal.

             If someone’s issue is that their social deficits keep them from doing normal body language, there is no way to force people to change how they instinctively interpret body language. The described course of ‘treatment’ won’t do anything for them. It may in fact cause them a considerable amount of harm.

             Which makes trying to put everything under the LGBTWTFBBQ umbrella at least potentially abusive, even before the toddler transition stuff.

             1. Where does it end?

                https://safr.kingfeatures.com/idn/cnfeed/zone/js/content.php?file=aHR0cDovL3NhZnIua2luZ2ZlYXR1cmVzLmNvbS9NYWxsYXJkRmlsbG1vcmUvMjAxNi8wNS9NYWxsYXJkX0ZpbGxtb3JlLjIwMTYwNTI0XzkwMC5naWY=
                As i think on it, I identify as twelve and insist movie theatres grant me the child’s rate admission.

                I also claim the right of every minor to repudiate contracts.

                Annnnnd I want the age-appropriate rate for my health insurance.

                Haters will try to deny me, but we akready know Justice Kennedy’s stance:

                “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”

                Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

                1. Trial before a court for mass murder, with a defense on the grounds of being a Skynet-Pinochet otherkin. One’s co-conspirators were only trying to create a safe and accepting environment.

                2. That’s actually my current plan to prevent both a Trump or a Clinton presidency. Crash the swearing in ceremony and tell the Chief Justice that I self identify as POTUS so he has to swear me in. It would almost be worth the beat down by the Secret Service and life imprisonment that would inevitably follow…

                   1. BRILLIANT.

31. A man cried to the universe “I exist.”
    The universe replied, “that fact does not create in me a sense of obligation.”

    A woman cried to the universe “I exist.”
    The universe replied, “that fact does not create in me a sense of obligation.”
    The woman complained that the universe was discriminating against her by not being more accommodating to the needs of women.

    If you think the universe needs to change feel free to attempt to change it, but don’t cry discrimination when the universe treats you the same as it treats everyone else, and if you somehow do manage to change the universe to treat your group better then for Pete’s sake realize that you are the one responsible for creating discrimination.

32. Heh, yeah – St. Simplicissima threw an ewwPod at a glass house.
    A: Haha, look! I am walking on two legs!
    B: I thought it’s notmal for humans to walk on two legs.
    C: Innocent whistling intensifies.
    A: No!!1 [drivel skipped]
    C: Innocent whistling intensifies.

33. Guys, guys!

    You can get Embers on your Kindle, now!

    http://archiveofourown.org/works/3591783/chapters/7921653

    *glee*

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