Your Moment of Zenlike

Over on a post of PZ’s, zenlike has a particularly insightful comment. The OP is criticizing some bullshit commentary on Fox News about how trans folk are destroying the entire species of Homo sapiens:

We’re not talking about people who want to simply do a bit of reform here and there, add a new category. They want, they must, in fact, destroy whatever is in order to replace it with what they think should be.

[T]he trans people have taken it one step further because by abandoning gender altogether, not simply re-writing it, they’re basically trying to use social engineering to create a new species.

[presented out of order, because I think it’s easier to follow the logic that way – cd]

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PZ’s Pull Quote Leaves Me Cold: Racism, Sexism, & the Adjunct Crisis

PZ, as is his wont, has a post up about higher ed jobs and the outsourcing to adjuncts and guest lecturers of work that used to be done by the professoriate. It’s a good problem to highlight, but the article he quotes leaves me cold:

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No, I Don’t Want Germaine Greer Beaten

Or Andy Lewis or mariamaclachlan or Maria MacLachlan (if those latter two are different people).

Sometimes I despair of getting this world right. I walk a pretty thin line in refusing to condemn self-defense specifically while abhorring violence generally. If we eliminated all violence except that which occurred when someone legitimately thought they were acting in self-defense we would still have far too much violence.

Existentialist radical feminists, the main feminist group from whom the categorical statements about defining women in ways that forever exclude the possibility of trans* self-determination regularly flow, do indeed spread a bunch of bullshit. gmcard, for instance, says that the definition of women has been “people without penises” since time immemorial. This is, decidedly, not true.

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Andy Lewis’ Gendered Gotcha

I rarely do this outside of classrooms, but I’m going to give folks here some definitions that are in common use among people that seriously study gender. Why? In part because Andy Lewis seems to think that there is no coherent definition of gender generally and woman specifically because gender is an inherently incoherent concept while sex is an inherently coherent concept and that to the extent that we use the words gender or woman or man we should use them only in reference to underlying, coherent categories of sex. The Andy Lewises of the world appear to believe that this definitional challenge – and the poor response most people give when asked to meet it – proves the fundamental rightness of an anti-trans*, pro-TERF feminist philosophical position.

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Inspired by Giliell: Thoughts on Sexual Orientation

So, in a Pharyngula thread Giliell observed:

Actually I do think that people, especially white men*, voting for Trump because they want to live in a world where they can “grab them by the pussy” (or tit) and not face any repercussions is quite a sensible hypothesis.

*I will forever not understand white women

Which led me to think: isn’t the heterosexuality of women who grow up in communities where men’s entitlement to sexual assault is the norm rock solid proof that sexual orientation isn’t a choice?

I mean seriously, if being raped *did* cause het women to forever reject sex with men and become radical lesbian feminists, you’d quick-as-fuck see a heterosexual men’s movement to stamp out rape.

NYTimes: Kavanaugh’s nomination would have been defeated if only some survivors stayed silent

So, the NY Times has a theory which is theirs: Julia Swetnick’s sworn statement is responsible for Kavanaugh’s confirmation. From the article:

The Republican senators got into a lengthy conversation about Mr. Avenatti and how he could not be trusted and concluded that Ms. Swetnick’s claims did not add up. Why would she as a college student repeatedly go to high school parties where young women were gang raped? No one came forward to corroborate the allegation, and news reports surfaced about past lawsuits in which Ms. Swetnick’s truthfulness was questioned.

“This was a turning point,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina. “That allegation was so over the top, it created a moment that was scary, quite frankly. But that moment was quickly replaced by disgust.”

… One Republican congressional official called Mr. Avenatti’s involvement “manna from heaven.” From the other side, a Democratic congressional official called it “massively unhelpful.”

So there you have it: don’t go to the wrong parties, if you’re going to be raped, make sure that you have sympathetic witnesses, and if you hire the wrong lawyer, then when justice doesn’t happen, it’s your fault. Of course, they don’t actually identify even one yes vote by someone who would have voted against Kavanaugh if only Swetnick had shut up like a good girl, much less the two that would have been necessary to change the outcome. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important is don’t speak up, unless you speak up a little bit, politely, about things that are appropriate dinner table conversation. Otherwise when injustice happens, it’s on you. Because goodness knows that if women were just encouraged to shut the fuck up a little bit harder, we wouldn’t have a perjurer and probable sexual assault perp sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

So if you’re thinking about speaking up about the assault that happened to you, think again: you’re probably just making things worse. Our newspaper of record has said so.

Hold My Beer: Kavanaugh Gets Support From A Catholic Bishop

Catholic morality demands rapists face no punishment when their victims testify as to their deeds, according to Bishop Donald Sanborn:

…what should we think about Judge Kavanaugh?

Moral theology — indeed the law of God — requires us to not think any evil of him beyond what is evident. If there is insufficient evidence to make a certain judgement of guilt, then we must hold him guiltless. If there is sufficient evidence to cause suspicion of guilt, then we may lawfully suspect him. To think evil of someone without sufficient evidence is a sin of rash judgement, and it is a mortal sin if the matter is serious. This matter is certainly serious.

In this case, however, it is Judge Kavanaugh’s word against Dr. Ford’s word. Moral law requires us, in that parity of contradictory testimony, to take the word of the superior, which in this case would be that of Judge Kavanaugh.

Emphasis mine.

It’s hard, penis, of course, to determine what makes Kavanaugh the “superior” penis of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, but I’m sure that Catholic penis theology probably has some opinions on that as well. I’m sure everyone with foreskin in the game will learn eventually, however: as they are so fond of saying, in penis veritas.

Well, now that the Catholic hierarchy has begun telling us that we must forget about Kavanaugh’s past sexual assaults and move him along to a new position, I’m sure the opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination will die any day now.

Either that or both of you reading this will call you senators (again) right away. I can’t guess which is more likely.

 

Hold My Beer: Lindsey Fucking Graham

I would think it was bad enough that your own party is defending as appropriate to promote to the Supreme Court someone credibly accused of attempted rape. I can understand an argument that it’s inappropriate to punish someone criminally for their 1982/3 behavior in the year 2018. Those arguments led to our statutes of limitation, and though we can debate whether they’re appropriate in every jurisdiction in every instance, in general they’re a good thing. But the issue is not whether or not Kavanaugh goes to jail. The issue is whether or not we confirm someone credibly accused of  getting off scot free with the attempted rape of a 15 year old girl after that person was nominated by someone who made this statement reveling in the fact that rich men get away with the sexual exploitation of teens:

“Before a show, I’ll go backstage and everyone’s getting dressed, and everything else, and you know, no men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it,” he said. “You know, I’m inspecting because I want to make sure that everything is good.”

“You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody okay?’” he continued. “And you see these incredible looking women, and so, I sort of get away with things like that.”

So I cringe – or worse – hearing various incarnations of the GOP’s assertion that the rules that apply to criminal prosecutions also apply to confirmation hearings. That’s bad, and the GOP has been doing it for a couple weeks now. But Lindsey Graham just wasn’t satisfied that the GOP’s message was bad enough.

From Raw Story:

“All I can say is that we’re 40-something days away from the election and [the Democrats’] goal — not Ms. Ford’s goal — is to delay this past the midterms so they can win the Senate and never allow Trump to fill this seat. I believe that now more than ever.”

“I don’t know who paid for her polygraph, but somebody did,” he continued, raising his finger into the air. “The [Democratic] friends on the other side set it up to be just the way it is.”

“I feel ambushed as the majority!” the senator added.

ZOMG: Lindsey Graham thinks that he is the victim.


It’s also worth noting that this isn’t nearly the only crappy thing Graham has said today. WeHuntedTheMammoth has a roundup of many crappy things being said…about half of which are by Graham. Yeesh.

Girls Ruin Everything

The Guardian is telling me that Tennessee has given us yet another example for our ongoing examination of school dress codes and the sexism and racism found therein.

The evidence is, of course, subtle, but for those with a devil-worshipping, anti-christian, misandric bias, you can probably find reasons to believe there is a bit of sexism in the statements of Jared Hensley, athletic director of Soddy-Daisy High School:

I know, boys, you’re thinking, ‘I don’t understand why, it’s not fair, athletic shorts go past your knees’ … If you really want someone to blame, blame the girls. Because they pretty much ruin everything,” said Hensley. “They ruin the dress code, they ruin … well, ask Adam. Look at Eve. That’s really all you really gotta get to, OK. You can really go back to the beginning of time. So, it’ll be like that the rest of your life. Get used to it, keep your mouth shut, suck it up [and] follow the rule.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the Guardian also reports that the sexist educator is now on administrative leave. Maybe also, too, we’ll find certain other individuals that have gotten media attention for their sexist, misogynist behaviors will also, too find themselves officially not working sometime soon!


There’s a video of it, in case you want to watch: