Ok be warned: this is shocking and horrible.
The Independent reports on a young woman whose employer poured boiling water on her. I can hardly stand to read any more than that.
Originally a comment on Missing parts
There’s a pattern, here–and forgive me if I’m restating what others might find obvious–but the general inappropriateness of citing Mill to justify misogynistic harassment–it fits again so well, I guess I felt noting this again is almost a forced move.
Mill’s essay is largely about the relationship between the state and dissenters, but not quite so exclusively–as it’s also more generally about relationships between majorities and minorities. [Read more…]
Dear oh dear – if you’re going to disagree, disagree with the actual claim, not a different one. That applies to sub-claims as well as the chief claim.
Someone called Rand Paul Fanbase (not a promising start, I know) on Twitter:
Cool headline in the Telegraph –
Well of course they do. Jobs for the boys, eh?
Then there’s the subhead –
Oh it’s our fault? I beg to differ. [Read more…]
The new Free Inquiry is out, and my column in it is online.
The takeaway:
The more we buy into the meme that abortion is always a tragic lesser-of-two-evils situation, the more we lose sight of the reality, which is that for a woman or girl who does not want to be pregnant, abortion is a glorious human invention, a life-salvaging bit of technology.
Jafafa Hots said:
(keep searching and searching for justifications for continuing to do what you were always doing for totally unrelated reasons once people start demanding you justify your actions… lemme see. Leaving genitals intact destroys the sanctity of traditionally-altered genitals? Have we tried that one yet?)
So good I just wanted to repeat it.
glosswitch on Snow White vs The Evil Queen: Some thoughts on feminism’s “generation gap”. It starts with a movie, Snow White and the Huntsman.
It’s everything that’s terrible about how mainstream feminism is marketed and it’s a bloody fairy tale. Just what is wrong with the world?
Charleze Theron’s Ravenna, the villain of the piece, is a cross between Tampax Pearl’s Mother Nature and Valerie Solanas. She is pitched against Kristen Stewart’s Snow White, who is young, beautiful and feisty, all set to overthrow a patriarchal regime that demands all women be young, beautiful but not particularly feisty. Snow White rebels by remaining young and beautiful while also having agency™ and being empowered™ – go her! Meanwhile Ravenna, the Evil Queen, can only maintain her youth and beauty by being evil. Deep down she’s an ageing minger and therefore not worthy of exerting any power or influence. So Snow White kills her. Yay feminism! Kill that stupid, youth-addicted, power-hungry, post-menopausal waste of space!
It’s interesting how familiar that sounds.
It’s obvious that Ravenna ought to just get old and lump it rather than try to beat the system. The camera lingers over ancient (late thirties) Theron’s face, comparing it unfavourably with Stewart’s pure, unlined visage. It’s not clear whether “the system” here is fairyland or Hollywood – perhaps there’s no real difference. Anyhow, the message is this: if you’re going to be a rebellious woman, be a very young, pretty one who only rebels against other women, preferably the older, less pretty ones. That way you can put on a sexy show of beating the system while the system remains firmly intact.
I can’t help thinking this is the perfect metaphor for the so-called generational model of feminism, one that sees women proceeding in successive waves, each one trashing the one that came before it plus the one that follows. Ravenna is to Snow White what second wavers are to younger feminists today, and what first wavers were to second wavers. She’s demonic, extreme, deluded. She doesn’t “get it” in the way Snow White does. She’s a misogynist caricature whereas Snow White, once you strip away the agency bullshit, is a patriarchal fantasy woman, a cool girl feminist par excellence. And that’s the story of feminism. Either you’re an evil witch – a racist-transphobe-frigid harpy who doesn’t know her time is up – or you’re an ineffectual sexy faux-rebel, storming the castle and swishing your hair with no clue that actually, you’ll get old too. One day you’ll be the past-it minger to whom no one wants to listen. Queer gender all you like but one day you’ll be placed on the same old scrapheap of womanhood as the rest of us.
An excellent piece by Massimo Pigliucci saying why Neil deGrasse Tyson is wrong to say philosophy is timewasting bullshit that gets you hit by cars because you’re too busy asking yourself whether cars are real or not.
Neil made his latest disparaging remarks about philosophy as a guest on the Nerdist podcast [4], following a statement by one of the hosts, who said that he majored in philosophy. Neil’s comeback was: “That can really mess you up.” The host then added: “I always felt like maybe there was a little too much question asking in philosophy [of science]?” And here is the rest of the pertinent dialogue:
dGT: I agree.
interviewer: At a certain point it’s just futile.
dGT: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. My concern here is that the philosophers believe they are actually asking deep questions about nature. And to the scientist it’s, what are you doing? Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?
(another) interviewer: I think a healthy balance of both is good.
dGT: Well, I’m still worried even about a healthy balance. Yeah, if you are distracted by your questions so that you can’t move forward, you are not being a productive contributor to our understanding of the natural world. And so the scientist knows when the question “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” is a pointless delay in our progress.
[insert predictable joke by one interviewer, imitating the clapping of one hand]
dGT: How do you define clapping? All of a sudden it devolves into a discussion of the definition of words. And I’d rather keep the conversation about ideas. And when you do that don’t derail yourself on questions that you think are important because philosophy class tells you this.
The philosopher Becca Reilly-Cooper on Twitter (@ boodleoops – yes it’s true, not all philosophers take themselves terribly seriously:
I’m pretty sure my grandfather *didn’t* fight for your right to threaten women with rape, torture and mutilation actually, free speech bros.
And I’ve read On Liberty several times, but I missed the part where Mill defends harassment, or threats to invade and cut women’s genitals.
Same here!
