The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Why Do Feminists Hate Beauty?

Posted on | April 28, 2015 | 125 Comments

“The digital armpit that is Tumblr.com seems to be the preferred medium of young feminists who, although they have accomplished nothing and have no credentials, find that they can become Internet Superstars by disparaging men. It seems that the most formulaic, banal and stereotypical derision of males is enormously popular with a certain type of young woman.”
— Robert Stacy McCain, March 12

Exactly why a particularly stupid and rancid type of feminism flourishes on Tumblr is a topic that would require more time than I can afford to put into it today. My wife and I are celebrating our 26th anniversary, and so I’ll spare you my theories about Tumblr feminism. What I want to do instead is to link this Ace of Spades item about a feminist hate-storm against a company’s “Beach Body” ad:

This upset the Social Justice Tumblrinas, who began arguing that Everyone already has a “beach body,” because everyone — well, every woman — already has the perfect body with no need of improvement. (Note that feminists are usually critical of men who could stand to do some pushups.) . . .
Oh, and Protein World called the feminists — many of whom are vandalizing their advertisements, or even threatening to destroy their offices — “terrorists.”

What is it about the celebration of female beauty that angers feminists so much? Gosh, I just can’t imagine what it could be.





 

Category: Sex Trouble

Anarchy in Baltimore

Posted on | April 28, 2015 | 128 Comments

What happened Monday night in Baltimore, the Economist reported, “is perhaps best described not as a riot but as anarchy”:

Though there are police lines, there are few protesters or people fighting the police or hurling stones. Indeed, where the police are lined up, the people standing around are mostly taking photos on their phones. Drive a few blocks in any direction, though, and suddenly it feels lawless. Groups of young men, boys really, wearing bandanas and hoodies, stand on street corners next to derelict buildings, staring at anyone passing, and occasionally throwing projectiles at cars. Young women hurry home carrying bags of stolen loot: food, clothes, and bottles of beer and liquor. On the occasional street here and there cars burn freely. Shops, of which there are not many in this abandoned corner of the inner city, are ravaged, their windows smashed, their shelves picked over. Cars hurtle through red lights at high speed, music blaring, boys leaning out of the windows. And everywhere the intense smell of smoke and the buzz of helicopters overhead.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

As night fell, looters took to Mondawmin Mall and a Save-A-Lot and Rite Aid in Bolton Hill, loading up cars with stolen goods. About 10 fire crews battled a three-alarm fire at a large senior center under construction at Chester and Gay streets, as police officers stood guard with long guns. . . .
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake declared a curfew across the city starting Tuesday and for the next week, from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for adults and 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. for children aged 14 and younger. She drew a distinction between peaceful protesters and “thugs” she said engaged in rioting Monday intend on “destroying our city.”
“It’s idiotic to think that by destroying your city, you’re going to make life better for anybody,” Rawlings-Blake said.

(“Idiotic”? Ma’am, these are Democrat voters you’re talking about.)

At Rawlings-Blake’s request, Gov. Larry Hogan signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency and activating the Maryland National Guard. . . .
The governor is sending 500 state troopers to Baltimore and requesting as many as 5,000 officers from neighboring states, he said in a press conference.
“I have not made this decision lightly,” Hogan said. “The National Guard represents a last resort.”

Of course, if the National Guard can’t restore order, President Obama could deploy the 82nd Airborne Division, or maybe order some Predator drone strikes against the rioters, but we probably don’t want think about that “last resort.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates offers intellectual excuses for the rioters:

Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore—an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain. Gray did not die mysteriously in some back alley but in the custody of the city’s publicly appointed guardians of order. And yet the mayor of that city and the commissioner of that city’s police still have no idea what happened. . . .
The citizens who live in West Baltimore, where the rioting began, intuitively understand this. I grew up across the street from Mondawmin Mall, where today’s riots began. My mother was raised in the same housing project, Gilmor Homes, where Freddie Gray was killed. Everyone I knew who lived in that world regarded the police not with admiration and respect but with fear and caution. People write these feelings off as wholly irrational at their own peril, or their own leisure. The case against the Baltimore police, and the society that superintends them, is easily made . . .

Right. Liberals must blame “society,” despite the fact that the “publicly appointed guardians of order” answer to a “society” (i.e., the citizens of Baltimore) who in 2012 gave 87% of their votes to Barack Obama. Yet it is predictable that, to people whose politics is a simple devotion to (a) electing Democrats and (b) supporting liberal policies, the evidence of failure leaves them angry, confused and hunting for scapegoats. Democrats cannot be blamed, nor can the party’s most loyal constituents be held responsible, and the possibility that liberalism is itself the problem — well, no, thoughts like that never cross the mind of someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates. His worldview is completely fact-proof and immune to the influence of logical deduction.

This is the political gospel of modern liberalism: People who vote 87% Democrat are never to be blamed for anything they do wrong. And really, the liberal asks, isn’t “wrong” kind of a judgmental word when applied to the peace-loving citizens of Baltimore?





 

Category: Crime, Liberals, Maryland, Racism

LIVE AT FIVE: 04.28.15

Posted on | April 28, 2015 | 5 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
BALTIMORE BURNING – RIOTING ERUPTS AFTER FREDDIE GRAY FUNERAL

“Demonstrators” throw rocks at police

Slain suspect’s sister disapproves of rioting
Fifteen officers injured, six hospitalized as questions over police reaction begin
Baltimore mayor finally calls for National Guard, imposes curfew


Nepalis Dig Through Quake Rubble For Survivors
PM says death toll could reach 10,000

Bali Nine Executions: Corruption Investigations Into Judges Completed
Commission hasn’t released report, however, as executions loom



POLITICS
GOP Budget Negotiations Hit snag Over Paying For Defense Increases

Sen. Bob Corker puts brakes on budget deal

Objections to deep cuts in non-defense spending

Obama Rips House GOP Budget Spending Limits

NY Housing Authority Reduces Spaces For Homeless Under DiBlasio

Supremes Tell Another Lower Court To Reconsider Obamacare Mandate For Religious Groups

Loretta Lynch Sworn In As New Attorney General

Obama-Backed Green Energy Failures Leave Taxpayers Stuck With $2.2 Billion Tab



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Falls As US Stockpile Expected To Peak: WTI $56.14, Brent $64.00
Advocacy Groups Press SEC To Review Shell’s Arctic Filings
Cheap Oil Not The Only Factor In Southwest Airlines Success
Sales Up, But Profits Drop 1% In Philips Q1
BP Profit Beats Estimates As Refining Offsets Crude Plunge
ContainerStore Results Miss The Mark
Facebook Messenger Now Has Video Calling
China iPhone Sales Boost Apple
ESPN Sues Verizon Over Move To Slimmer Cable Packages
OneTouch Idol 3 Review: How Good Can A $250 Smartphone Be?
Konami Cancels “Silent Hills”



SPORTS
Caps, Wizards Advance Together For First Time

John Wall (2) and Paul Pierce celebrate after winning Game 4 and achieving the first playoff sweep in club history

Wizards finish off Raptors 125-94, cheer Capitals on to victory against Islanders


Astros Whip It Out Late, Top Padres 9-4

Lightning Electric Against Red Wings, Force Game 7


O’s, Pale Hose Postponed (Rioting)

Bucks Dodge Bullet Again, Beat Bulls 94-88

BoSox Rally Late, Edge Blue Jays 6-5

Nyets Send Hawks Home Winless

Nats Lose To Braves 8-4, Fall To NL East Cellar



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Actress Jayne Meadows Dies, 95

Jayne with husband/co-star Steve Allen (at the piano) and Louis Nye

Died of natural causes at her Encino home

Lifetime Making Unauthorized “Full House” Tell-all Pic

Ian Somerhalder, Nikki Reed Married

High School Claims Justin Bieber Bullied His Way Into Prom

Amy Adams Plans Secret LA Wedding

The New Queen Of Diss Rap – Mariah Carey?

VIPs Brunch At Politico Founder’s Digs After #Nerdprom

TMNT2 Casts Brian Tee As Shredder

“Real Housewives” Might Not Be Helping Kim Richards’ Sobriety

Jake Gyllenhall: Currently Single, But He’d Let Mom Set Him Up

Rihanna Flaunts Her Beach Body In Hawaii

First Look At The New Nightcrawler

“The Osbournes” Reboot Dead At VH1



FOREIGNERS
Iran Aims To Use NPT Conference To Step Up Pressure On Israel
ROK Court Gives Captain Of Sewol Ferry Life Imprisonment For Murder
Coalition Vows Two-Pronged Yemen Strategy
Japan, US Set New Rules For Military Cooperation
Ahead Of Election, PM Cameron Says Only Tories Can Save UK
UN SecGen: Palestinians Put UN Schools At Risk During Gaza War
Car Bombs Kill 19 In Baghdad
Greek PM Leaves Referendum Option Open, Rules Out Elections
Sudanese President Bashir Reelected With 94% Of Vote
157 Arrested During Burundi Protests



BLOGS & STUFF
EBL: Is Hillary’s Campaign Collapsing?
Louder With Crowder: An Open Letter To Baltimore Rioters
Doug Powers: Hillary – Killing Babies Will Never Be Copacetic Until You Clingers Let Go Of Your Religious Hangups
Twitchy: To Riot Or Not To Riot In Baltimore? Vox Helps You Decide!
Shark Tank: DWS Says Jews In-Line With Dems, Not GOP (Forgets Old Testament Teachings)
Bill Whittle: The Class Of 2015 – Book Burners Afraid Of Matches (Thanks to loyal reader Brian E.)
American Power: Homosexual Businessman Who Hosted Ted Cruz Event Forced To Grovel Before Gay Fascist Overlords
American Thinker: The Clintons’ Little Tin Box
Conservatives4Palin: Thomas Sowell – The New Inquisition
Don Surber: Next American President Must Prosecute
Jammie Wearing Fools: Pathetic deBlasio Whines About How He’s Treated At Baseball Games
Joe For America: Who’s More Out Of Control – Baltimore Rioters Or The Mayor?
JustOneMinute: Reminder – Obama Aided And Abetted Hilary
Pamela Geller: UK Labour Leader Says His Party Will Criminalize “Islamophobia”
Protein Wisdom: “We gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
Shot In The Dark: Cue Captain Reynaud
STUMP: Obamacare Watch – The Disaster Of Covered California
The Gateway Pundit: Obama Sent Three WH Officials To freddie Gray’s Funeral – None To Chris Kyle’s
The Jawa Report: Good News – ISIS Supporters Snapping Pics In Rome
The Lonely Conservative: GoFundMe Shuts Down Fundraiser For Christian-owned Bakery
This Ain’t Hell: VA Secretary Says Aging Veterans “Created Stress”
Weasel Zippers: Baltimore Riots Tweet Of The Night
Megan McArdle: Accused Gets His Say In Columbia Rape Case
Mark Steyn: Uranium One, America Zip


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Category: Live at Five

Mayor In Dire Straits? Media Pool Accused Of Twisting Her Words?

Posted on | April 28, 2015 | 40 Comments

by Smitty

That almost recalls a song:

Here’s what Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake actually said:

The poor mayor. She misquoted herself. She meant to say: “We gave them space. . .the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship ProtesterBussyPrize. . .its five year mission. . .to seek out planets populated by patriarchal-normative cis-hetero Euro-centric lumber-sexual micro-agressors. . .to destroy their businesses. . .to boldly go where Progress has not gone before. . .because #SocialJustice.”

The Codpiece Media seems to be forgetting that Democrats get to airbrush whatever is necessary for the cause. Only Republicans are to be quoted accurately, especially when gaffing.

Fortunately, Her Majesty is coming; Her Majesty’s pimp hand is strong.

Category: Democrats, Maryland

If You’re Rich, Bisexual and Mentally Ill, Columbia University Wants You!

Posted on | April 27, 2015 | 57 Comments

Trust me, when an Ivy League university freshman says she’s “upper middle class,” she’s what most of us would call “rich”:

I am undeniably absolutely white and mostly WASP
my family is upper middle class and supports me financially . . .
my gender is basically “everybody told me I was a girl and I believed them because I didn’t have any better ideas”. I’m not really a girl but my gender identity isn’t really something that I feel strongly about so I go by she/her/hers pronouns and present femininely. I’m not really cis but I benefit from cis privilege in a ton of ways and I don’t feel comfortable calling myself trans
I’m bi as hell
I’m coming to realize that my gender and sexuality are often very tied up in my mental illness/neuroatypicality and so sometimes they change and that’s ok
I’m mentally ill (diagnosed with depression and BPD [borderline personality disorder], probably got some other shit going on too) and autistic

She’s a bisexual Columbia University freshman, and is a supporter of “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz. You will recall that the fellow student Sulkowicz falsely accused of rape, Paul Nungesser, filed a federal lawsuit against Columbia last week.

The bisexual mentally ill freshman is not happy about this:

i’m reading the complaint by paul nungesser against columbia for “allowing him to be harassed” and i’m just getting mad about a lot of things and this is such misogynistic bullshit

Also, this:

i’ve read through paul nungesser’s entire complaint and I will debunk it point by point if I have to because people on tumblr are starting to turn against emma sulkowicz

So, if you’re an “upper middle class” family with a mentally ill bisexual daughter, send her to Columbia University, where she can prepare for her future career in the challenging field of Ranting on the Internet.

Some of us manage to rant on the Internet without an Ivy League degree, but that’s just because of our “cis privilege,” I guess.

 

Category: Education, Sex Trouble

Introduction To Feminist Theory

Posted on | April 27, 2015 | 39 Comments

Until I started studying radical feminism, I never thought of “normal” as an achievement. “If you want to understand feminism, begin by studying abnormal psychology,” as I explain on page 18 of Sex Trouble: Essays on Radical Feminism and the War Against Human Nature. Perhaps no entirely sane person would ever sign up for a university Women’s Studies class, but if she did, it might permanently warp her mind.

Consider, for example, “Introduction to Feminist Theory” (GGS 228), a sophomore-level course in the Global Gender Studies program at the University of Buffalo. This is one of the “Core Curriculum” classes required of every student who wishes to major or minor in this subject, and here is the official course catalog description of what the 19-year-old sophomore will be taught in GGS 228:

Introduction To Feminist Theory
Introduces to the complexity of feminist thought and theorizing through a discussion of many of the major schools of feminist thought and past and present debates within feminist theorizing as it has developed both within the United States, and abroad. A solid grasp of the core theories, their fundamental approaches, their insights into social phenomenon and the key criticisms of each, will allow the student to enter into and participate in the ongoing conversations that characterizes feminist thought. Feminist theory has always developed in tandem with feminist movements and activism. Thus, throughout the course, students will not only learn about feminist theories, but also apply the tenets of different theories to current issues and modern problems. Theories are not meant to be passive ideas unrelated to our everyday reality, but are meant to be used as tools to analyze the world around us. As a critical theory, feminist theory aims not only to produce knowledge, but also to provide a base for action. Feminist theories ask us to rethink what we mean by sex and gender, how we understand our sexuality, the roles, status, and ideals assigned to men and women in our societies and how we reward and punish individuals that question, challenge or deviate from these roles. Feminist theory engages with issues of social inequality, oppression, and sexism, and invites us to imagine strategies for creating a world where there is more equality and liberation.

You see that feminist theory is not “passive ideas unrelated to our everyday reality,” and therefore what students learn in GGS 288 cannot be separated from “feminist movements and activism,” so that students are expected to “apply the tenets of different theories to current issues and modern problems.” Notice also that students are required “to rethink what we mean by sex and gender.” The professors in charge of these feminist indoctrination programs are invariably of a type Eric Hoffer called The True Believer, because only a devoted ideologue would get a Ph.D. in this stuff. So, which lunatic is in charge of this particular asylum? During the Spring 2015 semester at the University of Buffalo, GGS 288 was taught by Assistant Professor Christine Varnado:

Dr. Varnado teaches courses in sexuality and gender theory, literature and the humanities, and qualitative methodologies. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia’s department of English and Comparative Literature, combining a specialization in the drama and prose of the English Renaissance with focuses on queer theory and the histories of sexuality and gender. She is at work on a book project, The Shapes of Fancy: Queer Circulations of Desire in Early Modern Literature, which expands the category of what can be called queer desire beyond historical evidence of same-sex sexual practices, to modes of feeling and desiring (such as longing for impossible transformation, or being used) that have often been overlooked in the period, thereby exploring the queer potential of readerly identification and recognition for studying desire in other historical moments. An essay on what offstage and un-staged sex looks like, “Invisible Sex!” will appear in the upcoming collection Sex Before Sex: Figuring the Act in Early Modern Literature. She has been active in the Shakespeare Association of America, the Modern Languages Association, and the American Comparative Literature Association. Varnado’s other teaching and research interests include witchcraft and witch persecutions, performance theory, bodily sex and reproduction, ethnography and ritual in the trans-Atlantic sphere, death and memorialization, literary theory, and cultural studies.

To summarize, then, Professor Varnado is interested in queer theory, queer desire, queer potential and also witchcraft.

Pat Robertson could not be reached for comment.

You know that Women’s Studies courses are taught to more than 90,000 students annually in programs at some 700 U.S. colleges and universities. You know this because those numbers are cited on page 29 of Sex Trouble, and you have read my book, haven’t you?

Knowing how many Women’s Studies programs exist, therefore, the reader may ask, “Stacy, what drew your attention to this particular course, taught by this particular professor, at this particular university?” Behold, the GGS228 Tumblr.com account:

we are members of an “intro to feminist theory” course
in buffalo, ny looking to prove theory and tumblr
can exist together in harmony.

The reader who clicks that link (and keeps scrolling) will discover that there are very good reasons why the proceedings in Women’s Studies courses are generally not discussed outside the classroom. There is a vast gulf between the esoteric doctrine and the exoteric discourse of feminism. What the True Believer must believe — e.g., the social construction of the gender binary within the heterosexual matrix — is not subject to debate within academia. Yet these ideas are so seldom discussed outside academia that whenever I attempt to explain feminist gender theory to people, the reaction is invariably the same: “They don’t really believe that stuff, do they?”

Oh, believe it they most certainly do! And if anyone at the University of Buffalo (or any other institution of higher education in America) does not believe feminist gender theory, they’re being awfully damned quiet about their dissent. Why? Because disagreeing with feminism makes you a sexist; any expression of dissent from feminist ideology could be used as “evidence” of discrimination under Title IX; therefore, no university administration can tolerate opposition to feminism on campus without risking a federal civil rights lawsuit.

By defining disagreement as hate, you see, feminists have effectively prohibited criticism within academia and banished opponents from campus. This is why students go berserk when someone like Christina Hoff Sommers appears at Oberlin College. Because criticizing feminism is quite nearly illegal in 21st-century academia, students have never encountered an articulate exposition of opposing viewpoints. Indoctrinated to consider feminist ideology as synonymous with Truth, Enlightenment and Virtue, students believe that only ignorant bigots can possibly disagree with them. Feminist consciousness makes them intellectually superior to others, as Professor Sandra Lee Bartky explained: “Feminist consciousness is consciousness of victimization . . . to come to see oneself as a victim.” Disagreeing with a feminist means you are supporting oppression by denying her victimhood.

Crazy? Sure, it’s crazy, but if every college-educated person is required to believe it, “insanity” becomes a synonym for “education.”

Please, go to the GGS 228 Tumblr.com account and keep scrolling. See what these students have to say about “patriarchy” and “heterosexuality” which, as readers of Sex Trouble know, are two ways to say the same thing: Women are oppressed because they are heterosexual (pp. 12-13), and women are heterosexual because they oppressed (p. 105). In feminist theory, males are only ever discussed as oppressors and rapists. No man is deserving of respect or admiration, nor can any man be trusted. What you find these University of Buffalo students saying on their Tumblr.com blog is exactly what feminists say in the quotes found on pp. 48-53 of Sex Trouble: Heterosexuality is imposed on women through “institutionalized force” (Kate Millett, 1970), “programming” (Andrea Dworkin, 1974), a “patriarchal system” of “sexual repression” (Ann Jones, 1990) and “male power” (Dianne Richardson, 2000). There is no reason, according to feminist theory, that any woman should ever find a man attractive or desirable as a romantic partner.

As she obtains feminist consciousness of her victimization, the student understands that, as Professor Joyce Trebilcot explained, patriarchy “depends on the ability of men to control women through heterosexuality” (quoted on p. 100 of Sex Trouble) and, oh, look, what is this? “Smash the Patriarchy,” says the GGS 228 Tumblr.

There is an old saying that if someone says “it’s not about the money,” you know it is about the money. Feminist theory’s substitution of the word “gender” for “sex,” by the same token, tells us: “It’s about the sex.” And what do you think students in GGS 288 learn about that?

The other day in class, discussing heterosexuality as dependent on romantic love ideals and how it fails to address many of the evils behind it (i.e. rape, domestic violence, possession, etc.), made me wonder about all the hopeless romantic movies I have fallen in love with over the course of my 19 years and really reevaluate why I actually liked this certain genre. I do believe that it is because at a very young age, we are socially conditioned to admire those types of movies, and the reoccuring idea of heterosexual love, that of a strong aggressive man sweeping the damsel in distress off her feet in order to save her from whatever she is “distressed” about, without a second thought about any other types of love, such as lesbian , gay, bi, etc.
I can’t help but wonder that if at, lets say the age of 4, instead of Pocahontas falling in love with John Smith, she finds herself deeply in love with her best friend Nakoma, or a spin off The Lion King revolving around Timon and Pumbaa’s love affair, we would certainly think nothing of it, similar to the way we view heterosexuality and all the movies that portray it. If we had in fact, grew up with this type of cinema as the norm, then I do believe many of us would reevaluate why we are heterosexual, or why we think we are.

Thus said a University of Buffalo sophomore in September 2014,, and another student in the same class was even more explicit:

Walking out of Feminist Theory on Wednesday I heard someone whisper to a classmate something along the lines, “… every time I walk out of this class I just become more sexually confused!” Evidently, what she said was meant to be humorous, but I couldn’t agree more with what she was really trying to say.
By taking Gender Studies classes, we are all very fortunate to see the world from a different, gendered lens. Sure, learning about different types of feminism and how gender effects our daily lives are incredibly important and relevant subjects, but the more I seem to learn, the more I question how the person I am today seems to be merely product of socialization.
Although I don’t agree entirely with radical feminist thought, it undoubtedly transmits revolutionary ideas that lead us to engage in introspection. This week I have definitely been looking back on instances or practices that could have possibly socialized me to be who I am today – which has proven to be very unsuccessful.
I am, and will always be, a feminist… but how are we supposed to get anywhere successfully if we can’t even agree [or in my case even understand] the roots of the problem(s) we face?

Both of these students were quoted verbatim, typos and all, with the emphases in the original. Students complain they “become more sexually confused,” as they are taught that their sexual identity and orientation are “socially conditioned” by “romantic love ideals.” Remember that, as the course description for GGS 228 explains, “feminist theory aims not only to produce knowledge, but also to provide a base for action.”

What kind of “base for action” is provided when teenagers are taught that heterosexuality is synonymous with “rape, domestic violence, possession, etc.”? What feminist action might be inspired by teaching college sophomores an ideology that never speaks of males except as dangerous, untrustworthy, violent oppressors? Gosh, I just don’t know.

Within academia, no one can criticize these radical ideas because campus feminists use terroristic tactics to silence dissent. If you dare contradict their totalitarian anti-male hate propaganda, they will accuse you by name of “perpetuating rape culture.”





 

Category: Sex Trouble

Late Night Reprise With Rule 5

Posted on | April 26, 2015 | 14 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

No appetizer this week; the hour is late and I need to get this done so I can rise early in the morning and continue working on the Great Move West. As usual, many of the following links contain links to pics of scantily clad women which may or may not be safe for work; avoid ostracism and/or the pollution of your precious bodily fluids by exercising discretion in your clicking.

Leading off this week is Average Bubba with Rule 5 Friday, starring Blake Lively, followed by Goodstuff with Demi Moore and Ronda Rousey, Ninety Miles from Tyranny with Hot Pick of the Late Night, Morning Mistress, and Girls with Guns; Animal Magnetism has Rule 5 Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon, and First Street Journal takes a look at our female Marines.

EBL’s herd of heifers this week includes Coachella 2015,  Bob Menendez Babes, Michelle Leonhart, RINO Love, Fatal Attraction, and Alicia Vikander from Ex Machina.

Wine, Women and Politics returns with a Gallery of Blonde Deliciousness, Those Are Nice, Babe of the Day, TGIF Baby Doll, and Thursday Hot Totties.

A View from the Beach brings us Erin Heatherton, Wombat’s Friday Fodder, Floron du Jour, Wombat’s Thursday Tidbits, April Showers, It’s Wombat Wednesday, “Ode to Joy”, Coming to a Beach Near You?, “Sweet Child o Mine”, Save Twice as Much and Shower with a Friend, and Research Shows Men Prefer to Give Money to Pretty Women.

At Soylent Siberia, it’s Coffee Creamer Brunch, Monday Motivationer Cheetah-Cheetah, Happy Hour Hawtness, Tuesday Titillation Fenestration, Leonard’s Late Night Lesbian Limo, Humpday Hawtness El Fuego, Have A Soylent Earth Day, Fursday Furlette Filet, Happy Hour Hawtness Prime Cut, Corset Cornucopia with Lesbian Leather, TGIF Friday Roadside Service, Weekender “So That’s What Baby Powder Is”, and Bath Night Snake Charmer.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Gidget Migliaccio, his Vintage Babe is Corinne Calvet, and Sex in Advertising this week is covered by Nikon. At Dustbury, it’s Kriti Kharbanda and Reese Witherspoon, and Loose Endz contributes Humpday Horror Film Hotties.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next week’s Rule 5 roundup is midnight on Saturday, May 2.


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Category: Rule 5

Intolerant Diversity, ‘Rape Culture,’ and the Feminist-Industrial Complex

Posted on | April 26, 2015 | 75 Comments

Perhaps yesterday’s discussion of academic feminism — “The Feminist-Industrial Complex: Academia and the Means of Production” — was one of those “TL:DR” experiences for you. Certainly, when I stretch it out to 3,600 words, with lengthy quotations from Queer Theory scholars, I understand that many readers will skip out after a few paragraphs.

The reader’s irritated impatience (“What’s the point here?”) got an unexpectedly quick answer from the latest headlines:

A students’ union has been accused of racism and sexism after banning white people and men from an event to promote equality.
Those studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, were invited to the students’ union meeting to discuss ‘diversifying the curriculum’.
But they were shocked when an organiser told white people and men ‘not to come’ as it was only open to BME [black and minority ethnic] women.
The union eventually backed down after a backlash from students, one of whom described the exclusive policy as ‘patronising beyond belief’.
The event, held on Wednesday, was organised by welfare and diversity officer Bahar Mustafa, who said she hoped to persuade academics to broaden courses to include more material relating to minority groups.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.) You see that his happened at the University of London’s Goldsmiths College, where Professor Sara Ahmed is director of the Centre for Feminist Research:

The Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) provides a coordinating hub for feminist work at Goldsmiths. In addition to organising seminars and conferences, the CFR offers a symbolic and intellectual home for the MA in Gender, Media and Culture, co-convened by the Departments of Media & Communications and Sociology. . . .
By ‘feminist research’ we include any work that is informed by an active engagement with feminist intellectual debates, and any research that investigates questions of power, inequality and difference including race, class, disability as well as gender and sexuality. . . .

Gosh, who would have thought this was so timely and relevant?

Ideas Have Consequences, as Richard Weaver warned, and Cultural Marxism is an idea whose influence pervades academia. When the primary object of intellectual endeavor is “research that investigates questions of power, inequality and difference,” you can be sure that no one will be permitted to express skepticism and dissent about this unmistakably political agenda. Once doubt and opposition have been excluded, so that only True Believers are permitted to participate in the discussion, the university is no longer engaged in education, but rather indoctrination. The employment of intellectual totalitarians like Sara Ahmed in positions of authority is a signifier — a sort of dye marker — advertising the University of London’s hostility to freedom of thought.

Is anyone therefore surprised to discover that “diversity officer” Bahar Mustafa is a crypto-fascist thug?

ZERO TOLERANCE on homophobia, queer-phobia,
trans*phobia, racism, Islamaphobia, misogyny,
ableism, cis-sexism, and classist behaviour.

Translation: “Disagreement is hate!”

The Feminist-Industrial Complex is based in academia where it is protected by “anti-discrimination” policies that have the effect of prohibiting dissent from feminist ideology. Inside the campus cocoon, particularly within Women’s Studies programs, students and faculty alike never have to encounter articulate disagreement with the fanatical certainty of their belief system:

Whether they are speaking of “male supremacy” or “sexism,” whether the immediate object of their indignation is “rape culture,” “harassment” or the “objectification” of women in media, always the fundamental premise of the feminist argument is this systemic, historical and universal oppression of women. What we might call the Patriarchal Thesis is really an extraordinary assertion, requiring us to believe that there are no natural differences between men and women. Rather, everything we consider to be “natural” in terms of human traits and behavior — the masculinity of males and the femininity of females — is socially constructed by the gender binary of the heterosexual matrix.

This is why, for example, “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” are necessary when Christina Hoff Sommers sets foot on campus:

From her podium in Dye Lecture Hall, Christina Hoff Sommers, an author, former philosophy professor and self-proclaimed “freedom feminist,” attempted, amid protesters and dissenting audience members, to persuade Oberlin students that feminism has become too radicalized. She was invited to campus on Monday night by the Oberlin College Republicans and Libertarians . . .
Before Sommers arrived at Dye Lecture Hall, protesters covered the venue with signs criticizing her beliefs and the event. One sign read “Support Survivors,” referring to survivors of sexualized violence. Another sign read “Rape Culture Hall of Fame” with the names of past and present members of OCRL listed below. . . .
Protesters and other students who opposed the event could not be reached for comment, but they described their opposition in a letter published in the Review last week.
“By bringing her to a college campus laden with trauma and sexualized violence and full of victims/survivors, OCRL is choosing to reinforce this climate of denial/ blame/shame that ultimately has real life consequences on the wellbeing of people who have experienced sexualized violence,” they wrote. “We could spend all of our time and energy explaining all of the ways she’s harmful. But why should we?”

What madness takes hold in the minds of overprivileged young people who expect to convince us that Oberlin College (annual tuition $48,682) is a “campus laden with trauma and sexualized violence”? Do they actually believe this or, as we might instead suspect, has the Feminist-Industrial Complex fostered a climate in which it is forbidden to contradict these deliberate lies? Banishing opposition allows feminism’s anti-male/anti-heterosexual paranoia (“Fear and Loathing of the Penis”) to rage unchecked like a viral pandemic. Nick Mascari at Third Base Politics reported Sommers’ April 20 Oberlin lecture:

At the end, Sommers took questions. All but one were obviously hostile to her presence, and she took questions from an equal number of male and female attendees. A female student behind me exclaimed “Oh look! She called on a boy!” every single time she took a question from a male student, even though every one of the male questions she received was equally as hostile to her as the female questions.
After taking questions from three women in a row, she took the final question from a man. The student behind me again remarked “Oh look another question from a boy!”.
I politely asked her, “But weren’t the last three girls?”
She glared at me and said, “This is an event about FEMINISM!”
After her discussion with the male student was finished, the same student said to me, “It’s offensive that you said to me ‘Should she only call on pretty girls?’”
“That’s not what I said. I asked weren’t the last three questions from girls? You misunderstood, miss.”
She continued to accuse me. I didn’t bother to inform her that I was recording the speech and had our words on tape. It wouldn’t have mattered.

In 2015, “feminism” is a subject about which only women are allowed to speak. Feminism can never permit women to speak favorably of males, and the only thing males can contribute to feminism is silence.

“SHUT UP, BECAUSE RAPE!”

Such is the totalitarian message of feminism, as it has been for more than four decades. “Women’s way of knowing” is rooted in what the 1969 Redstockings Manifesto called women’s “personal experience, and our feelings about that experience,” which feminists insist is the only possible basis for analysis. There are no objective facts beyond women’s subjective feelings about their experiences, and therefore no feminist should listen to anything any man has to say about anything.

Universities now teach feminism as Science with a capital “S” and Truth with a capital “T.” No one can be allowed to deny Scientific Truth, which is whatever women say it is. Women have a monopoly on intelligence, knowledge and virtue because, feminists believe, everything men do is wrong and everything men say is false. (See “‘There Is No Spoon’: Radical Feminism and the Paranoid Matrix of Patriarchy.”)

These are the totalitarian conclusions to which feminism’s hateful logic leads, and nowhere is this more evident than at elite university campuses. Emma Sulkowicz became the most feminist at Columbia University (annual tuition $51,008) by accusing her former friend Paul Nungesser of rape. Once the facts were made public in Nungesser’s federal lawsuit against Columbia, however, it seemed otherwise: Sulkowicz is simply a spiteful liar motivated by a selfish desire for revenge. Nungesser didn’t want to date Sulkowicz, so she evidently plotted to get him expelled from Columbia. When that failed — every investigation cleared Nungesser of wrongdoing — Sulkowicz decided to make herself famous by ruining his reputation.

Sulkowicz spoke at an April 16 “Sexual Assault Awareness Month” event at Brown University, and quotes from her speech reveal her to be a young woman with some very strange ideas about truth:

“There does not exist a scientific way to prove non-consent. . . . When it comes to sexual violence, scientific proof is impossible. . . . If we use proof in rape cases, we fall into the patterns of rape deniers. . . . When a person claims that their theory is a science, they disqualify other types of knowledge. . . . Let’s change the question from ‘Did she consent that night?’ to ‘Did she have the power to consent that night?’ . . . This is not about physical strength. . . . This is about historical power. . . . Seeing is the origin of interpretation. Interpretation is the origin of knowing. . . . If truth is scientific, then art cannot access truth. But perhaps there is something beyond the truth. . . . When people assume I’m bringing the truth to light, they project their own idea of truth onto me. . . . When people engage in believing in me, they objectify me.”

There is no truth, there is only power — this is what feminism teaches. This is how feminism empowers liars. Unless we recover our concern for truth, unless we reject the hateful totalitarian ideology that can justify any lie if the lie serves the cause of “progress,” our society is utterly and irretrievably doomed. Deprived of our freedom to speak truth, we shall be enslaved by liars whose unscrupulous appetite for power is exceeded only by their cruelty and dishonesty.

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1786

Be afraid, America. Be very afraid.





 

Category: Education, Sex Trouble
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