Why was Cecile Richards brought before congress to answer questions if she wasn’t going to be allowed to speak?
No, stop, don’t answer the question, I have to interrupt you right now.
It’s because Republicans are assholes.
I’m kind of amazed at Richards’ equanimity, though.
Oy, there he goes again. Matt Damon thinks gay actors should be in the closet.
He thinks attitudes are changing, and welcomes the introduction of same-sex marriage in California in 2008. “I think it must be really hard for actors to be out publicly,” he continues. “But in terms of actors, I think you’re a better actor the less people know about you period. And sexuality is a huge part of that. Whether you’re straight or gay, people shouldn’t know anything about your sexuality because that’s one of the mysteries that you should be able to play.”
This is in the same interview that contains this:
…Damon insists he’s entirely normal. He has a wife, Luciana, whom he met while filming in Miami in 2003 when she was working behind a bar, and the couple have four daughters ranging in age from four to 16 – Alexia, from Luciana’s previous relationship, Isabella, Gia and Stella. Damon is a self-confessed family man. He has a rule that they will never be apart for more than two weeks while he’s filming. His daily life is so average even the paparazzi have decamped from outside his home in Los Angeles because he never does anything that merits a photograph.
“You know, a guy who’s married happily with four kids is not quite a story,” Damon says with a sorry-but-what-can-you-do smile. “And so they’ll come back and they’ll take an occasional picture… but it’s kind of just updating the file.”
Ah, he’s married to a woman — perfectly normal. Normal, normal, normal. Let’s make that an open part of the interview, proudly mentioned.
But if you’re gay…nothing about that can be normal. Keep it quiet. It’ll make you a better actor if no one knows about your sex and family life.
I guess that public normality makes Damon a lesser actor.
Have you ever found yourself needing to refute a claim that someone is sexist? Here’s a useful compilation of familiar excuses.
He wrote it, but he didn’t mean it. (Poor dear.)
He wrote it, but he’s just repeating what he’s heard elsewhere. (Just give him time!)
He wrote it, but now this is just a reverse-sexist lynch mob. (So I’m on his side now.)
He wrote it, but he was a product of his time. (Everyone was like this back then. There was no feminism.)
He wrote it, but it’s not like he has any influence. (Just ignore him, he’ll go away.)
He wrote it, but he didn’t realise it was offensive. (So why are you taking offence?)
He wrote it, but he’s an anomaly. (#notallmen)
The older I get, the more I detest the “product of his time” excuse. Human beings are capable of learning over the course of their entire life, you know, and age is not a reason to be refractory to change. It’s you young whippersnappers who generally have enough slack in your physiology that you can do whatever you want, while we oldsters are constantly trying to adapt to expanding limitations.
The dismissal for lack of influence is also annoying. The great galumphing herd of ignorant racists might not be individually powerful, but when they find a leader with no shame, like Donald Trump, they can trample a lot of people.
The story of Shadi Petosky makes no sense to me. She’s a transgender woman — a perfectly normal thing to be — who was trying to take a flight — another perfectly normal thing to do. TSA freaked out at an “anomaly”, the fact that someone presenting as a woman happened to have a penis. Apparently, like shoes, there’s a fear that one of those might be loaded with high explosives, although no one has ever stopped me from boarding an airplane because of my dangerous genitals.
She was screened and searched and probed multiple times, and taken aside to one of those featureless little rooms where they stash the suspicious people. She missed her flight, and they seemed downright truculent about helping her get another one. And then there’s the business of telling her to “get back in the machine as a man or it was going to be a problem”, whatever the hell that means.
TSA agent Bramlet told me to get back in the machine as a man or it was going to be a problem.
— Shadi Petosky (@shadipetosky) September 21, 2015
It all seems to have escalated absurdly. They needed two police officers, four TSA agents, and an explosives expert to wrestle with their own ignorance about what genitals are supposed to look like.
There are now 2 police officers, 1 explosives specialist and four TSA agents. They're taking my phone for screening
— Shadi Petosky (@shadipetosky) September 21, 2015
You can follow Shadi Petosky on Twitter if you want to see how it all turns out (it looks like she’s not home yet).
I guess TSA needs to learn that trans bodies are not anomalies.
Milo’s up to the same old sexist nonsense again — what a hack. His latest is a bit of contrived outrage about sexbots. He’s for ’em. He somehow thinks liberal SJW’s are going to suppress the technology, as if we care. I think he was so upset that he drank until he couldn’t see straight and then started typing.
Who, or what, men have sex with is the basis of our civilisation. It is the driving force behind our greatest accomplishments. Men don’t compete for abstract pleasure: they compete to bag the best mate. The internet, the pyramids and the moon landings would not exist were it not for man’s desire to have sex with woman.
Keep in mind that this was written by an openly gay man. He does not really believe that aspiring to sex with a woman is the basis of our civilisation
or the driving force behind our greatest accomplishments
(oh, and by the way — I read the hyperbole and the padded prose of first year students, and they aren’t this bad). He’s just pandering to his audience of juvenile MRAs and angry people who are pissed off that there are women in video games.
I just saw this video put out by A Voice For Men: it’s a bunch of drunk guys insulting Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valenti while doubling over in laughter at their own “jokes”. I am dumbfounded that they thought this was worth recording, and then at the amazing cluelessness that led them to think it would be a good idea to put it on youtube for all to see.
Hint: Obey the sign.
It was posted by Paul Elam, with this comment:
Look, it is just some men having non PC fun. If you find it offensive or a “bad thing” for the men’s movement, you can blow it out your ass.
He’s collecting comments on youtube.
SJWs Please keep those comments coming. I am doing a follow up on this based on your comments. Great lesson in PC and in your own hypocrisy. There is already enough here to work with, but if you want to add gravy…… all the better.
Yes. Because shouting “your pussy stinks” at women is “non PC” bravery. Read Marcotte’s post — she’s got these yahoos pegged, and no amount of bluster is going to get them out of the hole they have willingly dug for themselves.
So Scalzi has been ranting on Twitter about this proposal for a new F&SF award — it’s more fallout from the Hugo mess, and this person proposes more gatekeeping, requiring membership in a “web of trust” in order to vote for a new award. I’m not impressed with the idea — it seems to imply more a web of distrust, where someone in charge gets to decide who is the True Fan. But Scalzi is all over that part.
I don't need a fucking "Web of Trust" to be a science fiction and fantasy fan. I don't need a fucking gatekeeper. I'm a fan because I am.
— John Scalzi (@scalzi) September 12, 2015
Reading the thread in question, though, I came across a comment that surprised me.
A NY Times opinion piece asks the question, Does Down Syndrome Justify Abortion? The answer is easy: yes. Yes it does. But then, so does having 46 chromosomes.
The only questions you should ask are whether the mother wants the child, and is well-informed about the risks. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t have to “justify” getting the abortion.
There’s a reason I’ve lost all respect for Hemant Mehta: wearing smug sanctimony while pandering to MRAs, slymepitters, and notorious harassers is not a good look. He’s now insisting that Phil Plait, Rebecca Watson, and I owe Tim Hunt an apology, on the basis of a poorly written bit of hackery, inspired by that blinkered obsessive, Louise Mensch, in a far right wing rag. It’s the latest bit of revisionist history, and it’s published in Commentary magazine, alongside articles whining about Obamacare, the Iran deal, and students opposing campus rape culture, overseen by editor John Podhoretz. I suppose it’s possible that he didn’t notice the stench of the company it’s keeping, but he might at least have thrown a red flag at the title: The Timothy Hunt Witch Hunt.
