On the Betrayal of Women

At Common Sense, Zoe Strimpel has written an article titled "How Feminism Got Hijacked. The movement that once declared “I am woman, hear me roar” can no longer define what a woman is. What happened?"

In this article, Strimpel refers to this March 31 2022 Headline in The Washington Post:

What follows is an excerpt from Strimpel's excellent article:

Post-Feminist Feminism has morphed into a dark, strange Anti-Feminism. Anti-Feminism borrows from the language of liberation, but it’s not about liberating women. It’s about pushing women out of college sports. It’s about telling girls they aren’t lesbians or tomboys, but in fact men struggling to find themselves.

It is the madness that led a storied American newspaper to run an anti-woman (or de-woman-ed) headline—garnering roughly 1,400 comments (almost all negative) before shutting down the comments section. It is the trap that ensnared a Supreme Court nominee, who had acquitted herself with great aplomb and suddenly found herself at the end of an ideological cul de sac. To attempt an answer, any answer, to the question—Can you provide a definition for the word ‘woman’?—would be to re-center women, biological sex, the concrete, mundane experience of ordinary, boring, bourgeois and working-class and very poor women the world over. It would be to attempt to undo the hijacking of the feminist cause and to return it to the people for whom that cause was created so many decades ago.

Returning the cause to the people for whom it was created is the only way to save it, and to stop the many discriminations that girls and women still face: domestic violence; the economic and psychological penalty of having babies; the manifold hurts and crimes visited upon countless women in non-Western countries simply for being women. For now, doing anything about all of that is a fantasy. First, we have to honor the actual meaning of words, like woman. We have to insist that those meanings are important. We have to go back, again, to first principles. That is the only way forward.

I will never stop using the word "woman" to refer to the women in my life, whether they be my mom, my daughters, my sisters and my friends.  I do so proudly and publicly.  I will speak out strongly against those people who use the word "women" only in private (especially liberals who agree with me but who are too cowardly to speak out). In the meantime, we see headlines like this: "Two inmates at all-women's New Jersey jail are PREGNANT after both had sex with transgender prisoners: ACLU won battle to house 27 trans inmates there."

Continue ReadingOn the Betrayal of Women

American Teenagers in Crisis

First the shocking data:

The above is from Derek Thompson's article in The Atlantic: "Why American Teens Are So Sad: Four forces are propelling the rising rates of depression among young people."

The four forces are:

1. Social-media use

Social media isn’t like rat poison, which is toxic to almost everyone. It’s more like alcohol: a mildly addictive substance that can enhance social situations but can also lead to dependency and depression among a minority of users.

2. Sociality is down.

More social media means less unstructured face-to-face time with others.

3. The world is stressful—and there is more news about the world’s stressors

"Fears about finances, climate change, and viral pandemics are smashing into local concerns about social approval and setting oneself up for success."

4. Modern parenting strategies

Today's helicopter parents are depriving their teenagers of opportunities for learning how to tolerate discomfort and developing a sense of personal competence. Further, Thompson notes "a broad increase in an “accommodative” parenting style."

In conclusion, here is an excerpt from Thompson's article:

The world is overwhelming, and an inescapably negative news cycle creates an atmosphere of existential gloom, not just for teens but also for their moms and dads. The more overwhelming the world feels to parents, the more they may try to bubble-wrap their kids with accommodations. Over time, this protective parenting style deprives children of the emotional resilience they need to handle the world’s stresses. Childhood becomes more insular: Time spent with friends, driving, dating, and working summer jobs all decline. College pressures skyrocket. Outwardly, teens are growing up slower; but online, they’re growing up faster. The Internet exposes teenagers not only to supportive friendships but also to bullying, threats, despairing conversations about mental health, and a slurry of unsolvable global problems—a carnival of negativity. Social media places in every teen’s pocket a quantified battle royal for scarce popularity that can displace hours of sleep and makes many teens, especially girls, feel worse about their body and life. Amplify these existing trends with a global pandemic and an unprecedented period of social isolation, and suddenly, the remarkable rise of teenage sadness doesn’t feel all that mysterious, does it?

Continue ReadingAmerican Teenagers in Crisis

Colin Wright’s Experience with University DEI Departments

Colin Wright is a biologist who wanted to teach at a university.  He explains his interview process in this video. The universities only cared about two types of diversity:  1. Physical appearance and 2. Sex and gender identity.  They did not care about viewpoint diversity.  They did not care about equality, but only about equity (guarantying equal outcomes).  Wright believes in hiring the best person for the job, not what they looked like. He believes that it is dehumanizing to deal with others based on their physical appearance or their sexual or gender ideology because this insists that we should reduce human complexity to a single trait. The DEI statements he encountered required him to give assent to segregation based on physical traits.

Wright gave up on his dream of teaching at a university. He hears from many teachers who are self-censoring or lying in order to keep their jobs.  His conclusion: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion orthodoxy prevents diversity of thought.

Eric Weinstein's reaction to Wright's video:

Continue ReadingColin Wright’s Experience with University DEI Departments

Aaron Mate: The United States Abandoned the Ukrainian Peace Project in 2019

Aaron Mate offers some historical context:

On a warm October day in 2019, the eminent Russia studies professor Stephen F. Cohen and I sat down in Manhattan for what would be our last in-person interview (Cohen passed away in September 2020 at the age of 81)...

At that point, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky was just months into an upstart presidency that he had won on a pledge to end the Donbas conflict. Instead of supporting the Ukrainian leader's peace mandate, Democrats in Congress were impeaching Trump for briefly impeding the flow of weapons that fueled the fight. As his Democratic allies now like to forget, President Obama refused to send these same weapons out of fear of prolonging the war and arming Nazis). By abandoning Obama’s policy, the Democrats, Cohen warned, threaten to sabotage peace and strengthen Ukraine's far-right.

Continue ReadingAaron Mate: The United States Abandoned the Ukrainian Peace Project in 2019

Bill Maher: “Colleges: Where Comedy Goes to Die.”

Bill Maher explaining Jokes to idiots: Oscar Edition. This is not just about Will Smith. This is about elite intolerance of comedians. Elite colleges are where students go "to lose their sense of humor."

Maher's ending line:

For all those who are constantly demanding an apology for jokes maybe it's you who should apologize to us for all the great jokes that we never got to hear, the brilliant thoughts that were never uttered those are the invisible scars of cancel culture. let's have a moment of silence for that . . .

Continue ReadingBill Maher: “Colleges: Where Comedy Goes to Die.”