Feminism

Seems sensible enough to be honest about it:

World Athletics has made the landmark decision to ban transgender women from competing in female international events.

The move was hailed by Sharron Davies, the Olympic medallist and BBC presenter, who has campaigned for five years on the issue and says she has been subjected to horrific online abuse.

The World Athletics Council has voted to follow swimming and rugby rather than cycling and rowing in ruling that there can be no fair inclusion criteria for transgender athletes in elite women’s sport.

The entire idea of wimmins’ sport is to protect the wimmins from competition with the male physique. Where this doesn’t matter – say equestrianism – then the distinction isn’t made. Shrug.

In Minoan Crete, for example, women had similar rights and freedoms to men, taking equal part in hunting, competitions, and celebrations.

But that era ushered in one of the most patriarchal societies the planet has ever known – classical Greece, where women had no political rights and were considered “minors”.

So, did the Minoan birds take part in political decision making? Or are we carefully not comparing like with like?

Or take hunter-gatherer societies, the source of endless cod-evolutionary theories about female inferiority. The discovery of female skeletons with hunting paraphernalia has disproved the idea that men only hunted and women only gathered

Only? Who in buggery is trying to insist only? Largely, more likely, on average across genders etc, yes. But only? Walk through Newcastle at night and you’ll see women who would terrify a fully grown elk into submission with a look. Of course a subsistence society would use such food gaining talents. Walk through Twerton and it’s the rare sabre toothed elk that would give in.

No one, at all, is trying to claim absolutes here, it’s preponderance.

This general bias has had two unfortunate consequences. One is to impress upon us the idea that inequality is “natural”.

Difference, not inequality. We’ve noted the Tab and Slot difference between male and female – no matter how much today’s idiots try to claim that’s not the point – but no one does say that’s an inequality, that’s a difference.

Sheesh. It all started going to pot when women were allowed to write for the newspapers……

Genetically, that is. But there’s still something wrong here:

Boys are being taught to strip away the “burdensome armour” of masculinity as schools address misogyny.

Equality advisers say that boys’ emotional growth has been stunted by Covid lockdowns and the rise of toxic influencers such as Andrew Tate. Groups being invited to schools include one that has argued that gender was “not tied to sex organs”.

Consultants said female teachers were reporting sexual or misogynistic comments, such as boys demanding that they go back to the kitchen.

Go back to the kitchen sort of remark is indeed a teaching moment.

But why strip masculinity away? Why do we have this modern idea that femininity should be the norm for men?

Yes, yes, I know, Adrew Tate and all that. But stop with the rhetoric for a moment and think it through.

We do indeed have two sexes – we’re a mammalian species. We do indeed have different strategies about life. We’ve got things that work as such differences after a few hundred thousand years of the species. They must work, we’re the globally dominant species which is success.

There really is a reason why the high school quarterback is the one getting all the blowjobs from the pretty girls, why the fat birds are more likely to have anal herpes. Social status among men, among women, really, really, matters. Note that it’s among, not between. The evaluators of that social status differs across the sexes. That’s just fact.

Why is the modern default that everything male must be made female? Masculine must become feminine?

Why are women so marginalised by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
Courtney Love
Barely 8% of its inductees are female. The canon-making doesn’t just reek of sexist gatekeeping, but also purposeful ignorance and hostility

Not that many women are that fame thing in rock and roll maybe?

Things are different with pop music – which is not the same as rock and roll – and with country, Motown, dance music and so on. But to a large extent a useful definition of rock and roll is the distillation and encapsulation of testosterone laden sweat.

Some women do indeed achieve this and very fine it is to have that done. But it is – just given that definition being used there – going to be a rarer feat among women than men.

As to Courtney Love:

Hole was one of the most commercially successful female-fronted alternative rock bands in history, selling over 3 million records in the United States between 1991 and 2010.

There are one hit wonders who sell more of the one single than that. Macarena (4.3 million in the US), The Ballad of the Green Berets (5), Whoomp, There It Is etc, etc.

However, Gemma Brennan, who says her 13-year-old daughter had to be taken to hospital after a male classmate “donkey-kicked” the door – leaving her with a large cut on her forehead – claims the unisex lavatories are an ongoing issue at the school.

“There are unisex toilets and the boys go in and take photos of the girls, kick the doors down and there are no locks on the doors so they are going over to the cubicles to take photos and videos which is a massive concern,” she said.

Boys will be boys etc. Unfortunately, the people who are surprised are those very people who are supposed to know better – the teachers. Innit glorious when faerie stories of how lovely children are overcome actual lived reality?

Trans surgery ban for children is ‘close to sinful’, says Joe Biden
US president hits out at Ron DeSantis’s plans for Florida as he calls for federal laws to protect transgender rights

He was broader, “all that stuff goin’ on” sorta comment is “close to sinful”.

But it’ll get quoted as being about surgery.

Of course, as we all know, chopping the gonads off children is the sin, that millstone awaits. Adults? Your life. Kiddies…..

Yes, we do know – and understand – that you fathered children before transition:

which has defended state-sanctioned sterilization of trans people in Europe

You do understand what chopping yer knackers off means, yes?

Kelly Beaver MBE, the chief executive of Ipsos, UK and Ireland, said: “Our ongoing research into gender equality shows

Tee hee

Men who loudly discuss their sexual conquests in public could face up to seven years in jail under plans to criminalise misogyny in Scotland.

A consultation, published by the SNP Government, proposes creating five new laws designed to outlaw “abusive and humiliating” male behaviour which is claimed stops women “fully participating in society”.

Under a new offence of “misogynistic behaviour”, it would not be necessary for an offender to directly address a woman to be found guilty, under the plans.

Instead, they could watch pornography where others could see it or have “loud, graphic sexual conversations about women in a public place where they can be heard by others”.

Meanwhile, under a new offence of “misogynistic harassment”, an offence would be committed if a man shouts sexually abusive remarks at a woman in the street or uses abusive language “to a girl who does not want to be ‘chatted up’”.

Other examples would include “deliberately rubbing up against a woman in a crowded place” or showing porn to a female.

In addition, a new offence of “stirring up” hatred against women and girls could be deployed against “incel” male supremacist bloggers or Andrew Tate-style online personalities who make inflammatory remarks about the opposite sex.

And what of women who indulge in any of these behaviours?

Two-thirds of women with childcare responsibilities believe they have missed out on career progression as a direct result, business leaders have warned, amid growing pressure on the government to boost support for parents.

Gosh, that is a surprise. If you have this thing here then that thing over there is not available, or is more difficult. Choices matter? Opportunity costs, and there are always opportunity costs?

How dreadful the universe is, eh?

Last week at the US Republican CPAC conference, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said that “for the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” to loud applause. He now claims that he didn’t mean that trans people should be eradicated; just “transgenderism”.

Let’s try that with some other isms, shall we? How about, “for the good of society… Judaism must be eradicated from public life entirely”? No? “Islamism must be eradicated from public life entirely?” No? “Catholicism must be eradicated from public life entirely?”

Why not? No one – if we’re to take this rhetorical flourish as being straight (ahem) – is suggesting that Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, be eradicated from private life.

But we have, all of us, ended up agreeing over the past couple of centuries that two of the three are eradicated from public life. It was illegal for the Catholics to build a church in England up until 1837. We decided that that was too much public against Catholic to stand. Catholicism is now a part of private life for anyone who wishes and is not of public life. The Pope can say whatever he likes about abortion and whoever may agree or not as they wish. But public life does not change abortion law according to Il Papa. Only to how many of the English agree with Il Papa and vote according to those structures – not many and not that much.

Starmer might become the first PM married to a Jew (umm, I think?). Boris was the first Catholic PM (OK, more in breach etc but still). Other than a mild flutter in certain hearts neither issue is of any great importance and most certainly neither had anything at all to do with whether they’re allowed to take their public positions. The religion is a private, not public, matter.

There is an entirely respectable (whether that’s the one Knowles was making is another matter) argument for trannies to be exactly so treated. Oh, so you’re in a frock? Had the chop? How interesting, now, how about them Dodgers?

Trans or con substantiation is no longer even relevant to public position or public politics, the public sphere or the public realm. The eradication of trasgenderism from public life is merely applying exactly the same concept to trans and cis gender.

Huhn, amazing what logic can do, eh?

When discussing UK gender inequality we get estimates of it’ll take 20 years, or 50 years, at this rate.

Global progress on women’s rights is “vanishing before our eyes”, the secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, has warned, saying the increasingly distant goal of gender equality will take another three centuries to achieve.

“Gender equality is growing more distant. On the current track, UN Women puts it 300 years away,” Guterres said in a general assembly speech ahead of International Women’s Day on 8 March, as he launched two weeks of discussions led by the Commission on the Status of Women.

If globally it’s to take 300 years then we’re doing really well, right? It’s the other buggers fucking up the global average then.

As a result of more women dropping out of the workforce, PwC found the gender pay gap in the UK grew by 2.4 percentage points to 14.4pc.

Women not in the labour force don’t contribute to the gender pay gap because we don’t count people not working in the gender pay gap. That’s why Italy, where married women with children are unlikely to work (unless they’re in professional jobs) has a low gender pay gap.

You know, the gap measures pay, not non-pay?

The problem here is not understanding how the media works:

“We’re finding ourselves funding a forever intensifying, never-ending campaign of hate against the trans community. The World Association of News Publishers assessed that over 50% of news publisher revenue comes from advertising. The ‘gender critical’ journalists are pumping out execution after execution of this hate campaign and are paid generously from our hands. This campaign is setting the news agenda and leading our whole media and politics to become infected by its poison.

It’s important for us also to consider the role of our social platforms and broadcasters in this ecosystem. They also have questions to answer. TV and Radio broadcasters are platforming ‘gender critical’ voices unchallenged – framing anti-trans narrative as ‘legitimate concerns’. Sensationalist stories act like kindling for conversation across social platforms, allowing hateful views to burn like wildfire and become reinforced in algorithmic bubbles. Hate speech is commonplace and sanctions from platforms on users are slow if forthcoming at all. This commentary then provides content to be platformed and amplified by the media vying for attention to then sell on to us advertisers.”

Journalism is filling in the white bits between the adverts. That means writing what gains the eyeballs to sell to advertisers.

The eyeballs are attracted by pieces that are – shall we say – less than obeisant to certain of the trans claims.

Shrug. That’s what the population wants and we are indeed a democracy, right?

A Canadian teacher has reportedly been placed on leave after months of criticism from parents about her size-Z prosthetic breasts.

Kayla Lemieux, an industrial arts teacher at Oakville Trafalgar High School in Ontario, Canada, was reportedly photographed by a newspaper outside school, dressed as a man and without the prosthetics.

The teacher has maintained that it was not her in the photograph, and that the breasts are real.

Ms Lemieux has said she suffers from a rare condition called gigantomastia and that she was born “intersex,” rather than being transgender.

Now, me, I think this is an extensive piece of performance art. A satire, a spoof, pointing up the ludicrosity.

The Halton District School Board had previously backed the teacher.

In a statement in September, it said. “Gender identity and gender expression are protected grounds under the Ontario Human Rights Code.”

Quite.

I don’t know this, obviously. And Ms. Lemieux can’t actually tell us so because that destroys the performance. Further, the more the furious denials the better the performance and the deeper the satire.

Bit of a bind really, isn’t it?

The confusion folk are getting themselves into over language and definitions

Actress called transphobic for condemning ‘abhorrent’ drag queen cabaret for parents and their babies
Amanda Abbington hit out at events which feature a man dancing in knee-high boots and a bondage harness and another performing in a thong

So, we’ve the old meaning of trannie – transvestite. The prop forward puts on a dress and lipstick and belts out Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Nowt wrong with that. Maybe not to everyone’s taste but nowt wrong with it – other people’s lives to do as they wish.

We’ve the new meaning of trannie. Prop forward puts on a dress and lipstick and is now actually a woman.

The declaration and all that – other people’s lives to do as they wish. The only question is whether this self-declaration works for absolutely everything or whether it’s a polite fiction that most of us will put up with for most of the time? So, cervix or prostate checks, sorry, reality intervenes there, can’t be done. You’d like a half M’am, not a pint? Sure, why not?

The interesting question becomes how far does that tolerant acceptance of the claim go? Not, in fact, a woman but one that will be treated for many to most purposes as one. But where’s that dividing line of not being so treated? Given the prostate/cervix thing there are obviously some, but how many? Which prison estate? Changing rooms? Does tackle or not tackle change these and so on and on.

OK, so we all know all of that.

And now here comes that linguistic problem. The drag queen stuff, that is prop forwards with lipstick not even claiming to be women. They’re playing dress up. That’s actually what the difference between a transvestite and transsexual is. But being anti transvestite is now being said to be transphobia. So, the claim is being made that transvestites and transsexuals are in fact the same thing. We’re not making that claim – because we don’t believe that to be true, not for a moment. But the woke and progressive here are making that claim. Being against the falsetto Judy Garland crew who all themselves claim to be male in dress up is the same as being against the tackleless who regard themselves as women.

See the corner they’ve backed themselves into here?

Unless we do make the distinction between transvestite and transsexual then we’re righteous enough in regarding all as trannies (old sense) right? Except, obviously, we’re not right in doing so, which is why the claims of transphobia about Judy Garlands is wrong.

Well, if we’re to use logic is this field that is.

Humza Yousaf says trans rapist Isla Bryson should have right to self-identify as female

Isla can self-identify as anything he wishes. A woman, a dragon, a brick wall or a bag of chips. That’s not even the correct question of course – what do the rest of us have to define him as? Which isn’t self-identification, is it?

Women and ethnic minorities are now overrepresented in the UK advertising industry following a decades-long push to improve diversity, according to a new survey.

A 2022 census found that an estimated 55pc of employees in the sector were women, compared to 45pc who were men.

That was after the number of women increased from an estimated 11,600 to 14,400, an increase of 24pc, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) said.

So, who gets fired? Or doesn’t it work that way because reasons?

It is possible to point out that women are, in fact, the decision makers on 70% of household expenditures therefore there is still under-representation but that then runs into the problem of what damn patriarchy getting all the wages then?

They say a mortgage is your biggest financial commitment. But for Lauren Hansell and thousands of other parents, housing costs are dwarfed by the monumental cost of childcare.

The 34-year-old and her husband pay £69 per day in nursery fees for their 16-month-old daughter, totalling more than £800 a month for three days a week. But care costs are rising across Britain as nurseries struggle to absorb inflated energy and food prices.

Last week Ms Hansell received an email informing her of an inflation-busting 12pc price rise at her daughter’s nursery from April, which will increase the daily cost to £77.

She said: “Our monthly childcare costs will then be almost £1,000 a month. We already spend more on nursery fees than we do our mortgage, by about a fifth.

“My salary goes entirely on housing and childcare costs, there is no way we could afford it without a double income.”

Perhaps you just can’t afford servants then?

Em Strang: ‘Right now we’re living through a time of incredible misogyny’

Compared to 1920s England? Or 1820s?