recalculatingthegenderwar

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Feminist professor who wrote “Why can’t we hate men?” Washington Post editorial doubles down on her anti-male bigotry in Chronicle of Higher Education interview

I previously wrote about the Northeastern University feminist professor who wrote a Washington Post editorial entitled, "Why can’t we hate men?" In her editorial, sociology professor Suzanna Danuta Walters, claimed that hatred of men was not only justified, but a moral imperative for feminists. She even appeared to advocate for violence against men.

The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed Walters about her editorial. The interview was originally locked behind a pay wall. However, it looks like the Campus Reform convinced the Chronicle to release the whole interview for free.

Walters' interview is one of the most revealing things I have ever read about the bigoted state of modern feminism. Walters turns a non-apology into a misandry-filled pseudo-academic rant mixed with unnecessary left-wing politics, Trump-bashing and even anti-white racism. She essentially admits she is more concerned with the advancement of feminist political power than the advancement or representation of women.

Professor Walters cannot be dismissed as a radical or fringe feminist. She claims to have been teaching for "30-plus years". She is the director of her university's Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program as well as editor-in-chief of an established feminist academic journal that has been in print since 1975. She has great authority to represent mainstream feminist ideology as well as serve as a demonstration of feminism's detrimental effect on the human psyche. That is why the interview is so disturbing and so important.

Below is the interview with my commentary added. The interviewer's words are printed in bold:

"Aside from the web reaction, you’ve had death threats and rape threats. How are you holding up? This kind of vitriol, really ugly misogyny and homophobia, has been so legitimized during these Trump times. For better or worse, I think we’re all becoming a little inured. And it’s very familiar to women writers who are in the public sphere."

I figured we were at the part of the story where the feminist who publicly promoted bigotry gets mysterious and vaguely defined "threats" and then uses these supposed threats to deflect criticism. Opening with this makes me think the interviewer may not be unbiased. I don't mean to sound callous, but people often brush this stuff off when it happens to other public figures. Why should it be any different with public feminist figures? Furthermore, many feminists have come forward with questionable, inflated or even invented threats against them (especially rape threats) to deflect criticism and garner support.

In fairness, Walters doesn't milk these supposed threats very much. However, the interviewer bringing it up (especially as the very first question) makes me think he isn't unbiased. I don't need him to yell at her, but why is he starting the interview by trying to humanize a suspected bigot?

Trump is brought up unnecessarily several times during the interview (even by the interviewer), which supports my theory this is all about getting people to vote against Republicans in the midterm elections.

"To ask the obvious question that you’ve probably heard a thousand times this week, I’m a man — do you hate me? No, my dear. I certainly do not hate you. But it’s so funny that that’s the question. Do I hate men? Of course I don’t hate men in some generic way. My point here was to say it makes obvious sense for women to have rage, legitimate rage, against a group of people that has systematically abused them. In the same way as if someone wrote a piece that said, Why can’t we hate white people? I would say right on. You’re absolutely right. #BecauseSlavery, #BecauseInstitutionalRacism, and the same thing here — the hashtag, as I said, #BecausePatriarchy."

It isn't "funny" to ask if Walters hates men. It’s completely understandable since she wrote an op-ed claiming the hatred of all men is not only justified, but a moral imperative for feminists.

Notice she doesn't say, "I don't hate men." She says, "I don't hate men in some generic way". Now you might be able to interpret this as her saying she doesn't hate men in general, if she didn't immediately talk about how the existence of slavery and institutional racism justifies the hatred of all white people.

She doesn't hate men as a group in a "generic way", she hates men as a group in a specific way, because they perpetuate the demonic patriarchy of feminist lore. I don't think the existence of slavery or institutional racism justify the hatred of all white people. However, at least slavery and institutional racism existed and even still exists in some places. The Jim Crow laws actually happened in the U.S. The "patriarchy" is just an amorphous feminist bogeyman.

I don't think anyone has Walters on a leash. If there was some sort of public relations guidance, she probably wouldn't be adding more groups to her public hate list. It is worth noting that Walters appears to be "white". This doesn't make her statement less bigoted. It just makes it more confusing.

"Do you hate your male colleagues and your male students? No I do not. If they are sexist schmucks, I do not like them. If they are supportive feminist folks who lean out a little bit, as I argue they should do, and have knowledge of and take responsibility for their male privilege, that’s what I’m talking about. To men who are not just taking responsibility but actively working to undermine and challenge toxic masculinity, go for it. I love ya. To men who are part and parcel of the problem, I am not your fan. Yet you have tweeted #YesAllMen. That was in context of the whole #NotAllMen movement.” “Right, but that’s what I’m asking you. Are there exceptions? And you’re saying to me, Yes, there are. Of course there are exceptions, but again, it’s interesting to me, even with you, Alex, that that’s where we’re going here. If there were so many exceptions, wouldn’t the world look different? If the majority of men were exceptions to this rule, wouldn’t we have gender equality?” “Would my daughter — I don’t know if you have a daughter — I do. — would we fear for their vulnerability all the time? If the majority of men were exceptions to this rule, would we have live-streaming of sexual assaults? Would we have men in fraternities getting women drunk so that they could rape inanimate women as objects? Of course there are exceptions, but it is interesting to me that we’re clinging to that, "Oh, there have got to be good men out there." So, I’m going to flip that question on you. Why aren’t more men stepping in and stepping up and stepping away from power and beginning to actually address this? Why do we have this "Oh no. Men? We’re not all bad." That’s not the point."

It gets increasingly difficult to follow Walters train of thought. I imagine because she is trying to keep it from derailing. Exception to what? We can only assume “men who are part and parcel of the problem”. Walters is establishing a with-us-or-against-us world view. On one side we have men who are "supportive feminist folks who lean out a little bit", "take responsibility for their male privilege" and "actively working to undermine and challenge masculinity" and on the other side we have every other man. Notice that Walters didn't really say she doesn't hate her male colleagues and students. She just doesn't hate the ones that embody these feminist values. Basically, you are either a feminist man or you are part of the problem.

Walters' "point" seems to be if one bad man does one bad thing to one woman, men everywhere as a group are responsible unless they are an active feminists. Feminism is the only escape from collective male sin. It is only through feminism that you are saved...from her hatred.

How often do these incidents that Walters uses to condemn the entire male gender even occur? Walters didn't offer any evidence of anyone live-streaming sexual assaults or statistics on rape perpetration among fraternities in her op-ed. I can only find a handful of incidents of someone live-streaming a sexual assault. Despite what feminists want you to believe, American universities actually have very low rape rates. These are the incidents that justify the hatred of half of the human race?

Walters brings up fearing for the "vulnerability" of daughters as if it is some kind of evidence. Most parents fear for their children's safety. However, fear of victimization doesn't necessarily mean greater or even significant risk of victimization. This is especially true when feminists have promoted inflated and erroneous data on female victimization for decades.

It is unclear what Walters means by "gender equality". Women generally already have equality under the law and equality of opportunity in most developed nations. In many nations women have greater legal rights than men (freedom from conscription, protection against forced genital mutilation, etc). Does she mean equality under the law, equality of opportunity or equality of outcome. The later generally requires unfairness, if not outright tyranny to pursue.

Walters also reaches for extra misandry points by unnecessarily saying "schmuck" - an obscene Yiddish pejorative word meaning penis. It basically the same as calling a woman a "cunt", although most Americans consider it less offensive (which is a whole other conversation about gender double-standards). This is just childish behavior for a supposedly accomplished academic.

"The Chronicle covers hate speech on a weekly if not a daily basis, and your op-ed’s main argument is, Hey, we have a right to hate you. You’ve just explained the context, but might someone still argue that your op-ed is itself, by definition, hate speech? I’m making an argument with material and data. It is not hate speech. I am not calling, obviously, for people to be hurt, to be demeaned, to be killed. Women, in general, do not do that. As you know, almost all acts of gun violence against children in our schools are done by young white men. That, to me, is weaponized hate speech. So to talk about a feminist author who writes an op-ed with data that is indisputable and says, We have a right to anger — to say that that is hate speech is absolutely ludicrous. Why can’t we allow those who have been historically and continuously victimized and marginalized and abused to actually name that and own their righteous and legitimate anger? Without saying, "Oh, poor me, it’s so divisive and mean." What’s divisive and mean, actually, is men with guns shooting up kids, rape camps, INCELs, wage inequality, women’s underrepresentation in government. Me writing this is not divisive and mean. Let’s have some perspective here. So to talk about a feminist author who writes an op-ed with data that is indisputable and says, We have a right to anger — to say that that is hate speech is absolutely ludicrous."

In my previous post, I went through the "material and data" in Walters' op-ed. It was a joke. Most of it wasn't from scholarly sources. Many were just isolated news articles. Some claims were just made without any evidence at all. Walters barely bothered to put up a facade of scholarship.

Also, it isn't obvious Walters isn't calling for people to me hurt. In her previous op-ed she wrote, "maybe it’s time for" women "to go all Thelma and Louise and Foxy Brown" on men. Both movies are infamous for the female protagonists committing violence against male villains. This certainly could be interpreted as a call to violence. How else should we interpret this statement?

Walters tries to deflect the possible accusation of inciting violence by claiming that women in general are not violent. This has little bearing on whether or not Walters called for violence. More importantly, Walters has spent the interview rejecting similar defenses when applied to men. Walters believes that all men bare collective responsibility for the bad actions of a minority of men because all men (unless they are feminists) some how create the stew of patriarchy that creates these bad actions. If a man wrote a similar op-ed, Walters wouldn't just condemn him, but would condemn all men for creating the patriarchal system that supposedly caused the man to write the article in the first place.

Walters might realize this hypocrisy if she wasn't so busy trying to cram in election issues like gun control and add a touch of anti-white racism for good measure. It might be surprising that most mass shooters are mostly male (although "mass shooting" is an nebulous term so I have mixed feelings about the data), but it is not surprising that most are white in a majority white country. Although, it's not like Walters cites any data for this.

Hearing Walters complain about "perspective" is particularly sickening. She is the one trying to justify hatred against the entire male gender because of a minority of men do bad things. Things that the majority of men would strongly disagree with. The wage gap has been debunked time and time again. Women's underrepresentation in government may have nothing to do with men.

It's like Walters has no concept over the intense scope of bigotry she is trying to justify. Hatred of over 3.5 billion people from varied backgrounds, races and nations that just happen to share a biological similarity they have no control over. That Chinese male researcher just invented a medicine that will save hundreds of women's lives, but he isn't a feminist and incels exist, so fuck that guy. He is just a schmuck.

"You edit Signs, which calls itself "the leading international journal in women’s studies … since 1975 … at the forefront of new directions in feminist scholarship." Does your op-ed represent the forefront of feminist scholarship? My op-ed represents solely me. It doesn’t represent Signs. I don’t speak for Signs. I don’t speak for Northeastern." Do I think that these kinds of arguments about feminist anger, about men really recognizing male prerogative, and leaning out, are important parts of feminist scholarship? I absolutely do. It is increasingly important in a world in which so much of the rise of the global right wing has been about male power. It’s anti-abortion, it’s anti-woman, and we’ve seen it in this administration. We have a groper in chief as a president. In this world, it is ever more important for feminists, and for all people of progressive good will, to not mince words. To be able to express deep critiques of structures and parameters of domination. And that’s precisely what I was trying to do here. Of course it’s provocative, but I’m not trying to be a provocateur. I’m trying to, what we used to call, speak truth to power."

Distancing her opinions from Signs and Northeastern is one of the few smart things that Walters says during the entire interview. I’m inclined to believe she wrote the op-ed on her own. However, I don't believe for a second her views aren't shared by others in her department or academic feminism. You expect me to believe she was the one bigot that just happened to rise to the top of feminist academia?

Walters then drags us back into the left-wing political weeds by claiming that the "global right wing" is anti-abortion and anti-woman. That "all people of progressive good will" need to stand up! First, I'm not sure the "global right wing" is universally anti-abortion. My thinking is the "global right wing" isn't really anti-woman, but anti-feminism. Feminism, even beyond it's universal support for abortion, has gone out of its way to align itself with the political left. In the U.S.A., we see feminist organizations taking unnecessary political stands on minimum wage, gun control and immigration that have little to do with women.

"I’m guessing that you disliked Trump’s generalization about Mexico sending "their rapists." Yet aren’t you generalizing about all men? Is it wrong to criticize Mexican men but OK to criticize all men? I have to say, I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. In fact, Trump was completely wrong — I mean, just empirically inaccurate. That’s not who’s coming over the border. There’s no overrepresentation among Mexican-Americans in rape statistics. What I am saying about male violence and male prerogative is empirically accurate. When you’re generalizing with accuracy, that’s what we call sociology. So I have to say that is a completely false comparison."

Now the interviewer is participating in the unnecessary Trump bashing. I’m not necessarily trying to spare Trump criticism, but this is unrelated to main topic of if and why Walters hates men. At least it presents Walters with some what of a hardball question. If Walters wrote the op-ed about black men, Hispanic men or Asian men, she would have been condemned as a bigot. Why should she be excused because she wrote an op-ed calling for the hatred of all three?

There are multiple ways to interpret Trump's statement in-question. Walters unsurprisingly chooses to take it as confirmation Trump is a racist. I think that Trump is merely pointing out that many of the people seeking illegal entry to the USA through Mexico are violent criminals.

More importantly, I would like see to this data on Mexican-American rape perpetration that Walters doesn't cite. Mostly because it probably doesn't exist. I have never seen any data set show rape perpetration for just Mexican-Americans. I suppose you could have a study that records rape convictions of immigrants by country of origin. I have never heard of such a study.

You can find statistics on Hispanic rape perpetration in the U.S. I'm not sure how reliable these are since it seems like you could easily mistake someone's race. Furthermore, not all Hispanics are from Mexico. I'm not even sure if all Mexicans are Hispanic. Not all people seeking illegal entry to the U.S.A. through Mexico are actually Mexicans and not all Mexican-Americans are necessarily Mexican immigrants. People born in the U.S.A. will sometimes refer to themselves as Mexican-Americans. "Mexican-American" doesn't mean illegal immigrant into the U.S.A. by way of Mexico.

I dwell on this because it further shows Walters plays fast and loose with evidence and data. How you could accurately empirically measure "male prerogative"? I'm willingly to admit there may be empirical truth to men be overrepresented in rape perpetration. However, that may be because studies specifically define rape to exclude female-on-male rape perpetration. Indeed, sexual harassment and intimate partner violence studies often do the same thing. It's easy to portray men as the only demons when you won't let people see women as anything but angels.

"Do you believe it’s possible to be sexist against men? No, I really don’t. Sexism is about the institutionalized and interpersonal treatment of women and people perceived to be women. Again, look at the world. Where is discrimination? Where are men being excluded? Where are men being abused? Oh, come on."

No, sexism is discrimination based on sex. Feminists just want to redefine it so their own anti-male bigotry can't be thrown in their faces.

Also, there is actual discrimination against men! Many countries have male-only military conscription. Almost no countries have laws protecting men from involuntary neonatal genital mutilation. There is evidence of bias against men throughout the legal system, especially in areas of domestic violence, sexual violence and family law. What about the numerous the women’s only quotas, grants, scholarships? You might think a gender studies professor might know that several universities have and are still are being investigated for excluding men from scholarships and academic programs.

"Do you think some men who are near the center of the political spectrum might see op-eds like yours and move further to the right as a result? It does seem like, in your ideal world, the left might not be a place for men. Whether that’s an understanding or a misunderstanding, do you worry at all about that reaction? It’s an interesting question. If that happens, I wonder what kind of leftists they are. If you’re a progressive man and you can’t take some hard truths about the history and persistence of male dominance and violence, if you can’t hear that, then you’ve got some learning to do. If you are a progressive white person and you can’t take on some hard truths about the persistent history of white supremacy, you’ve got some work to do. People often look for the easy way out: "Oh, this hurts my feelings," or "Ooh, she hates men so I’m going to pack up my toys and go home." If you’re packing up your toys and going home because of a sharp op-ed written by one middle-aged lesbian, I’m not sure how strong your toys are — you know what I’m saying? It’s kind of sad."

Why does Walters unnecessarily bring up her sexuality? She could have said she is just one “woman” or just one “person”. Did she just want to tell us she was part of a protected "marginalized" group? I wonder if Walters lesbianism is the result of her natural sexuality or feminist political lesbianism, which sees lesbianism as a necessary choice women must make to undermine the patriarchy. Notice she actually uses her lesbianism to dis-empower herself. How do you think she would respond if a man dismissed her opinion because she was just one "lesbian"?

It's telling they talk about men turning away from the political left and not men turning away from feminism. This comes up a couple of times during the interview. I think this might be what the interview is really about – midterm election damage control for the political left.

However, Walters response doesn't seem very conciliatory toward left-leaning men. It basically boils down her saying if you leave the left because of her editorial, you are childish, pathetic weakling.

Walters (perhaps intentionally) misunderstands why her op-ed could cause someone to move away from the left. Walters isn't just any "middle-aged lesbian". She is an influential feminist academic who runs feminist institutions. People recognize that Walters opinions reflect larger opinions within feminism, which have become a major force in the American political left. She is a warning of the hatred of men that has embedded itself in the political left. She is a symptom of a disease.

"Is gender, to your mind, a completely social construct? In a word, yes. Look, I wouldn’t be worth my salt as a gender-studies professor if I didn’t say that, and I believe it. It’s actually interesting that you ask that, because some of that nasty stuff I’ve been getting has been biologically determinist things: You stupid bitch, don’t you know that men and women are just different? If we rape you, we just can’t help ourselves, because we’re just hard-wired that way. I am a social constructionist through and through, I believe gender is a social construction, but it is a social construction in which one group is benefiting and another group, not so much. I think the world would be a better place for men and for women if we did away with gender altogether — gender norms, gender binaries, and so on. And God knows men would be happier and better people if we did away with that. But they clearly also benefit from it. If you get more money in the world simply by virtue of having a penis rather than a vagina, you’re benefiting."

"If we rape you, we just can't help ourselves, because we're just hard-wired that way"? I'm sure that is exactly what her male critics all tell her. Don't hate men because men are inherently violent rapists - sound argument. Certainly not something you would get from random Internet trolls or just make up as a straw man.

I've heard similar lines of thinking from feminists trying to claim they don't hate men. They claim that don't believe men are inherently evil, but they have merely been socialized to be evil by the sinister patriarchy. They may even claim that feminists are actually the saviors of men. The kind feminists will teach you not be a monster...because you clearly are a monster. This is not only insulting and ludicrous, but also a facade because feminists often either willfully ignore male suffering or directly cause it themselves.

It’s also strange that mainstream feminism pushes to destroy the gender binary. How do you have feminism if there are no women or men?

"Do you think it’s a good idea to vote on the basis of gender? That’s a great question. I think it’s a good idea to vote on the basis of feminism. Which is why I say very clearly, vote for feminist women. Look, we don’t need any more Maggie Thatchers or, you know, Trumpettes. I do believe we need more women in government — that just seems a no-brainer to me, just like we need more people of color in government. We need more people who have been excluded to be included. But we need to fight for Team Feminism. I’m a feminist through and through, and I believe a feminist perspective and a feminist critique is precisely what can heal this world. I think an intersectional, anti-racist, and feminist analysis is exactly what is needed. It is telling to me that the most massive resistance to Trumpism has come from this multicultural coalition of women who ran the women’s march. To me, that speaks volumes."

Could it be any clearer that feminism not about the advancement of women in society, but the advancement of feminism. Walters believes that we need more women in government...as long as they are feminist. "We need more people who have been excluded to be included"...as long as they are feminist.

Perhaps the destruction of gender identity wouldn't be so detrimental to feminists. Feminists don’t have to pretend to have any obligation to women who don’t subscribe to their left-wing politics if “women” don’t exist.

"What about progressive feminist men? Bernie Sanders would be an obvious example. You probably support a lot of things he supports, but he is a man. So what do you do? Do you try to find and fund a woman who thinks the same way? I think it would be better if we could. I believe in 90 percent of what Bernie says. But do I think we need another old white man in office? I do not. I think we need more women, more people of color, and, speaking as a middle-aged woman, we need some younger people. If Bernie runs against Kamala Harris, she’s what we need. It is not about animus toward him. It is just about, step back. When we talk about creating a different world, power is not just something that you grab for, it’s also something that you step away from."

Walters isn’t a bigot. She just wouldn't vote for Bernie chiefly because of his age, gender and race. It’s not like she hates him. She just doesn’t think he should have a job based solely on physical characteristics he has no control over. How could you possible consider that bigotry???

I wonder if Walters realizes she has the opportunity to create "different world" right now. She could “step away” to make room for a more racially diverse lesbian to fill her position at Northeastern University.

"If we divide everyone by gender, class, religion, race, sexuality, etc., when do we stop? After all, isn’t the individual the ultimate minority? It’s not me doing the dividing. Look, as a feminist activist and scholar, to the extent that we can break apart these binary oppositions — of gender, of race — obviously it’s all to the good. We need more fluidity. But as long as that is operative, you can’t pretend it doesn’t have effects. Right? You obviously can have a vision of a world in which gender is not even a meaningful category. Listen, I would love to live in that world. I spend 90 percent of my time as a feminist professor trying to imagine that world. But at the same time that you imagine that, you also have to live with the reality of how gender demeans, constructs, produces power, constrains. You can’t pretend it doesn’t."

Is there such a thing as a feminist scholar who isn’t a feminist activist? I want to stress how disturbing it is there is an entire branch of publicly funded academia that is dedicated to ideological recruitment and activism rather than objective study.

I’m also a little disappointed Walters didn’t elaborate on what a world without gender would look it.

"Rush Limbaugh is among rightists who find your column laughable and proof of the insanity of academe, and that’s pretty predictable. But in The Atlantic, too, Conor Friedersdorf called you a "wrongheaded eccentric." The economist Mark J. Perry at AEI nominated your column as "the most hateful, venomous, vitriolic, and reprehensible op-ed in history of WaPo. " Do you worry that Americans on the center or the right take hatred of an entire gender as typical of an academic argument and vote for populist candidates and against higher-ed funding as a result? Might they say, Hey, I don’t want my tax dollars going to a lady who hates all men. Well, Alex, if they do, I repeat what I said before, it really shows that they’re not progressives to begin with. I’m sorry. The piece in The Atlantic is such a perfect example. Some guy at The Atlantic is going to mansplain me the principles of feminism? A feminist professor of 30-plus years, who has written four books? I mean, seriously? It’s the ultimate in hubris. I read that and I cracked up. It is Exhibit A of mansplaining drivel. If men take this as an opportunity to legitimate their dismissal of feminism, they’re looking for those opportunities. They are not allies. They are not people who can be trusted and counted on. So I think we have to be honest about that. If there’s an op-ed that they might have some disagreements with, that they can’t really look at carefully and read carefully and see the data in it, if that sends them over the edge, then they are vacuous snowflakes that are no friends to progressive social movements."

Feminists seem to think its insufferably clever to accuse a man of ”mansplaing”, when all it does is highlight their own misandry. However, I actually somewhat agree with Walters here. Conor Friedersdorf’s review is worth it’s own post. However, it basically boils down to Friedersdoft claiming that Walters original op-ed is a "perversion" of true feminism. He doesn’t do this because he is a man. He likely does this because he is feminist who is trying to run damage control.

It still amounts to a random Atlantic journalist telling a "feminist professor of 30-plus years, who has written four books", runs a feminist department at a major university and edits a feminist academic journal that she doesn’t know what feminism is really about.

Notice Walters is suddenly not an insignificant "middle-aged lesbian" but a powerhouse "feminist professor of 30-plus years”. She is a both a nobody and a somebody when it suites her argument.

Aside from putting Friedersdorft in his place, Walters continues to excuse herself for any damage she may have done to the American left-wing progressive movement and feminism. I wonder if Walters' academic peers think it's not hating men, but driving people away from the political left that is her true sin?

While the interviewer seems to want Walters to keep people from walking away from the left, Walters seem more interested in trying to justify any political damage by claiming those potential supporters don’t matter. It is was actual good they left.

"You suggest that if men "lean out," cede positions of power to women, all will be well — or if not well, at least better. Yet there are cases of women in academe and corporate power harassing workplace subordinates. The recently ousted female CEO of Theranos, a biotech entrepreneur, is accused of committing fraud. And the female leader of Myanmar seems to turn a blind eye toward ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. What persuades you that women have a tendency toward, if not a monopoly on, good behavior? I do not believe that women have a monopoly on good behavior by any stretch of the imagination. I do believe, though, that the point of saying lean out is to reckon with your power. It’s not just sharing it, it’s stepping back. Are there examples all over of terrible, anti-feminist women in office, in business, or in academia? Of course there are. Believe me, I know a lot of them. But God knows that when we look at cases of sexual harassment, for example, the vast majority are men doing that to women. Samantha Bee had a great riff. She said, women really do generally know that when we come to the office we shouldn’t show our coworkers our genitals. I gotta tell you, I don’t know a single woman who would think that’s OK. There are always exceptions. It’s not about women being inherently good. I don’t believe anyone is inherently anything. I’m a social constructionist. It is to say that if you want to talk about really changing power, men have to think about their own investment in maintaining the structures as they are."

Walters can't be bothered to mention any actual research in the interview, but she cites a Samantha Bee comedy sketch!? The Chronicle even provided a link to it.

Walters is feminist clergy.

There were many hard questions that didn't get asked in this interview. For example, how can Walters be trusted to have a leadership position at the university when she wants to remove men from positions of power? Any application or hiring process she touches is now a possible gender discrimination lawsuit.

Regardless, Walters confirms almost all my common assertions about modern feminism. She tries to conceal her obvious bigotry toward men behind verbose language and jargon. She believes men are made a demonic force in society by a mysterious, ill-defined "patriarchy". She blames men as group for the actions of an evil minority of men, even though most men would find those actions abhorrent. She makes reckless claims using uncited data that may not even exist. She cares more about the societal dominance of feminism than the actual representation or advancement of women. She unnecessarily binds feminism to support of left-wing politics.

Walters so perfectly validates so many criticisms of modern feminism that defenders of feminism like Friedersdoft cannot accept she isn't some of straw man invented to discredit it. However, Walters impressive feminist credentials are impossible to deny. She cannot be brushed off as "radical" or "fringe". She is only a “radical” feminist in the same way a bishop is a “radical” Christian. She teaches the faith, she guides its adherents, she writes the scripture, she controls the direction of the ideology.

Walters' misandry is the natural response to fully accepting feminist ideology and embracing the patriarchal dominance theory that is at its core. She isn't a fluke. She is feminism's successful end product and she, like so many others, is being paid to make more just like her.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Feminist academic reminds us mainstream feminism really does just hate men

The Washington Post recently published an editorial entitled “Why can’t we hate men?” It is a short and illuminating look at the psyche of a modern feminist academic. In her editorial, Northeastern University professor Suzanna Danita Walters “names the problem”, a term feminists use when they get tired of dancing around how evil all men are and just decide to come out and say it. In these moments, the pseudo-academic smokescreens of “patriarchy” start to fall away and feminists reveal themselves as naked bigots.

Anti-male bigotry is mainstream feminism.

Although the article’s quality tempts you to think otherwise, Walters isn’t some random blogger:

“Suzanna Danuta Walters, a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University, is the editor of the gender studies journal Signs.” [link to her bio added]

I’m surprising no one by pointing out that while women’s studies or gender studies could be a legitimate academic discipline, it is really only feminist indoctrination in practice. The Northern University Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program website states:

“We advance knowledge through interdisciplinary research, innovative pedagogies, and collaboration with other institutions, inspiring new generations of gender and sexuality scholars and feminist leaders committed to social justice. We strive to be a globally recognized model of excellence in gender, sexuality, and feminist scholarship.” [emphasis added]

Walters is neither a nobody nor a fringe radical. She is a feminist professor teaching feminism at a prestigious university, running a feminist academic center and a feminist academic journal. She stands at the zenith of mainstream feminism.

This also makes it laughable when Walters claims “[t]he world has little place for feminist anger.” I won’t rehash the mind-bogglingly examples of feminist power and influence I’ve written about. I’ll just point out that Walters is one of many for whom “feminist anger” is a viable career. This is like Bill Gates telling us, “People really never much had of a place for that whole computer thing.”

The problem with naming the problem

In my past articles, I explained how Patriarchy theory is the core narrative of feminism. Patriarchy theory claims that women (and sometimes to a lesser extent men) are being oppressed by men as a class. Since men are considered to have absolute power over the world, even problems seemingly unrelated to gender (war, economic issues, environmental issues, etc) are the fault of men as a class. Individual male misdeeds are attributed to the entire male class even if most men would find those misdeeds repugnant. Positive male contributions are forgotten. Indeed, Walters blames men for a “milienia of woe”. Because God knows humanity was so much better off a millenia ago. Things have really gone to shit since a man invented Penicillin.

Meanwhile female misdeeds are seen as rarities, ignored or blamed on male influence. Under feminism, women must be angels and men must be devils.

Men as a class are referred to as the Patriarchy. This obfuscates and dehumanizes feminist bigotry toward men. Feminists portray themselves as fighting a system rather than people. This is useful for public relations and seducing new recruits. It is unclear whether feminists are just lying to the public or also to themselves. I honestly think it’s a bit of both.

As feminists become more indoctrinated, they get tired of dancing around the problem. They feel like they are doctors who aren’t allowed to properly diagnose a disease that is ravaging the world. Sit in the feminist pot long enough and you will eventually boil over. That is what we are seeing with Walters:

“Seen in this indisputably true context, it seems logical to hate men. I can’t lie, I’ve always had a soft spot for the radical feminist smackdown, for naming the problem in no uncertain terms. I’ve rankled at the “but we don’t hate men” protestations of generations of would-be feminists and found the “men are not the problem, this system is” obfuscation too precious by half”

Notice Walters is not only framing men (not “Patriarchy”, but men) as the “the problem”, but challenging the feminist credentials of all “would-be feminists” who don’t openly hate men. Walters believes hating men is essential to being a feminist.

Walters justification for hating half of humanity

So what is the “indisputably true context” in which “it seems logical” to hate half of the entire human species based on a biological trait they have no control over? What is Walkers indisputably justification for hating over 3.5 billion people across the world with diverse backgrounds, identities and beliefs simply because they were born a certain way? You would think an academic would have a rock solid argument to advocate such widespread hate. You would be wrong:

“It’s not that Eric Schneiderman (the now-former New York attorney general accused of abuse by multiple women) pushed me over the edge. My edge has been crossed for a long time, before President Trump, before Harvey Weinstein, before “mansplaining” and “incels.” Before live-streaming sexual assaults and red pill men’s groups and rape camps as a tool of war and the deadening banality of male prerogative.” [included original links from article]

These aren’t arguments. They aren’t even coherent sound bites. Walters is just ranting. We don’t even know if Schneiderman is actually guilty of anything yet. Yeah, Weinstein is a jerk. He doesn’t represent all men.

Yeah, 2 incels went on a killing spree (killing both women and men) in the last 5 years. However, incels aren’t inherently violent. They aren’t always saints, but they aren’t a terrorist movement. There appears to be no evidence that either killer colluded with the wider incel community. Frankly, a lot of the reporting on the supposedly “dangerous” incel movement seems like fear-mongering/feminist propaganda. More importantly, incels are a fringe movement that most men want nothing to do with. Most men don’t even know what an "incel" is.

The only items with even a little meat are claims of live-streaming sexual assault and rape camps. How common are these things? Who are the victims? The perpetrators? Walker doesn’t tell us. We get no information about live-streaming sexual assaults. Her link on rape camps takes you to a 18 year old article about the trial of Serbian soldiers who sexually enslaved Muslim women during the Kosovo conflict. This is tragic, but is it grounds to hate all men? Again, the article is about their criminal trial in the Hague. Strange how the rape of women is globally condemned in our universal patriarchal rape culture.

“Pretty much everywhere in the world, this is true: Women experience sexual violence, and the threat of that violence permeates our choices big and small. In addition, male violence is not restricted to intimate-partner attacks or sexual assault but plagues us in the form of terrorism and mass gun violence.”

Walters provides no links or no citations here. Statements like this are largely meaningless without some effort to establish scope. “Pretty much everywhere in the world women experience” synethesia and gout. Female violence “is not restricted to intimate-partner attacks or sexual assault.“ These are also both equally true statements.

Similarly, Walters gives us no actual data about men’s role in terrorism or mass gun violence. I’m still willing to consider men might be overrepresented in terrorism and mass gun violence. However, does this mean I should hate women because women commit the majority of infanticide? What? I can’t because only a minority of women commit infanticide and most women find infanticide abhorrent? Feminists say I should be sensitive about possible psychological or social issues that motivate female child-killers? Really?

What about women being the majority of human traffickers? Should I hate all women now?

Surprise! It's the wage gap.

Walters eventually gets something that sort of resembles an actual argument:

“Women are underrepresented in higher-wage jobs, local and federal government, business, educational leadership, etc.; wage inequality continues to permeate every economy and almost every industry; women continue to provide far higher rates of unpaid labor in the home (e.g., child care, elder care, care for disabled individuals, housework and food provision); women have less access to education, particularly at the higher levels; women have lower rates of property ownership.“ [original links included]

Basically you should hate men because…wage gap - the dead horse feminists keep thinking will win the Kentucky Derby. The wage gap is generally found to be the result of women’s choices in the labor market, not sex discrimination. The same goes for unpaid labor. Walters’ own source explains that women often do more unpaid labor because their husbands often do more paid labor.

Walters claim about education holds a bit more water. Her linked source is a recently published academic report on girl’s worldwide school enrollment. I haven’t had a chance to read through it detail, but it seems to take a much more nuanced view of than Walters would have you believe. First, there are only significantly unequal primary and secondary school enrollment rates in very poor countries and/or war torn countries. The report doesn’t seem to blame girls lack of education enrollment simply on patriarchal oppression, but mentions issues such as the greater costs on families and greater concern for girls’ safety.

It is unclear what Walters means by “higher levels” of education. The report says very little about post-secondary education. It doesn’t seem to have any statistics on global post-secondary enrollment. One of the few things it does point out is that U.S. colleges have a higher female enrollment than male enrollment (page 18).

Walters never offers hard evidence all of these supposed inequalities she lists are due largely to widespread to sex discrimination against women by men. In fact, she doesn’t even directly make this claim. She only strongly infers it.

Walters Advocates Violence?

“So, in this moment, here in the land of legislatively legitimated toxic masculinity, is it really so illogical to hate men? For all the power of #MeToo and #TimesUp and the women’s marches, only a relatively few men have been called to task, and I’ve yet to see a mass wave of prosecutions or even serious recognition of wrongdoing. On the contrary, cries of “witch hunt” and the plotted resurrection of celebrity offenders came quick on the heels of the outcry over endemic sexual harassment and violence. But we’re not supposed to hate them because . . . #NotAllMen. I love Michelle Obama as much as the next woman, but when they have gone low for all of human history, maybe it’s time for us to go all Thelma and Louise and Foxy Brown on their collective butts.” [originally links included; emphasis added]

Now we are getting into SCUM manifesto territory. The pivotal plot point in Thelma and Louise is one of the protagonists shoots a man to death. I’m less familiar with Foxy Brown, but it sounds like the female protagonist also commits violence against men. It’s hard to not to see this as a thinly veiled call to violence.

This fits with the general cowardice of Walters’ editorial. While it’s clear she hates men and it’s clear she wants us to hate them too, notice she never explicitly writes, “I hate man and you should hate men too”. She is simply stating “”it seems logical to hate men” and that women have every “right to hate” men. She isn’t literally telling anyone to actually hate men.

I’m not sure what legal, professional or ethical bullet she thinks is dodging by so thinly obscuring her obvious intentions.

Feminist Julie Bindel is a monster, but at least she had the decency to just come out and say she wants to put men in concentration camps.

Why was this written?

It isn’t well written. It isn’t thoughtful. It likely won’t improve the public opinion of feminism. Why would Walters write this? Why would the Washington Post print it? What purpose does it serve?

Firstly, Walters wrote it because she is a bigot who wants to spread her bigotry.

Secondly, the Washington Post produces feminist propaganda. I don’t know exactly why, but they do. They concocted a new bogus 1-in-5 college rape statistic after the CSA study finally fell from grace. They further scrambled to save the feminist college rape panic in the face of government data showing incredibly low rape rates on campuses. They tried to whip up #MeToo frenzy by creating a bogus work place harassment study that completely ignored male victims.

Finally, I hypothesis the main goal is to bring Democratic voters to the polls for the midterm election. Look how Walters ends her editorial:

“So men, if you really are #WithUs and would like us to not hate you for all the millennia of woe you have produced and benefited from, start with this: Lean out so we can actually just stand up without being beaten down. Pledge to vote for feminist women only. Don’t run for office. Don’t be in charge of anything. Step away from the power. We got this. And please know that your crocodile tears won’t be wiped away by us anymore. We have every right to hate you. You have done us wrong. #BecausePatriarchy. It is long past time to play hard for Team Feminism. And win.“

Since Trump took office in the United States, SJW groups and left-leaning media outlets have formed an indistinguishable mass of outrage to keep the anti-Trump fires burning for the midterm elections. This is why the National Organization for Women is making tweets about immigration and the 2nd amendment. This is why the Women’s March really wasn’t about women, but about left-wing talking points and hating Trump.

Take a look at this sentence again:

“Pledge to vote for feminist women only.” [emphasis added]

Remember feminism isn’t for women. Feminism is for feminism.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Time's Up Part 2: The "Facts" of Time's Up aren't focused on sexual assault victims and completely ignore male victims

Last time, I wrote about Time's Up, a celebrity backed multi-million dollar organization that is riding off the public outrage of #MeToo. It is trying create the impression that it is an extension #MeToo, but actually be appears to be diverting public attention away from Hollywood sexual abuse toward other generic feminist/American left-wing causes, such as the representation of women and even other supposedly "marginalized" groups in professional leadership.

This is reflected in the statistics in "facts" section of the Time's Up website. Which unsurprisingly largely ignores male victimization and claws for any perceived feminist grievance it can get its hands on. Let's take a quick look at the statistics listed:

"Nearly 50% of men think women are well-represented in leadership in companies where only one in ten senior leaders is a woman. Source: https://womenintheworkplace.com"

"Approximately one third of women think women are well-represented when they see one-in-ten in leadership positions. Source: https://womenintheworkplace.com"

"1 in 5 C-Suite leaders is a woman. Fewer than 1 in 30 is a woman of color. Source: LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, “Women in the Workplace,” 2017"

"From 2007 to 2016, 4% of top-grossing directors were female. Just 7 were women of color. 1 in 1,114 directors across 1,000 movies was Latina. Source: LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company, “Women in the Workplace,” 2017"

I'm not going to do a deep dive into many of these statistics, because they frankly don't deserve it. Do we really have to do this song and dance again? I'm not going to bother with the race stuff. Fewer women in higher level positions likely represents different life choices women and men tend to make (education, career, taking time off to birth children, staying home to raise children, etc) not institutional sexism. Even Time's Up seem to know that women don't enter the labor force in the same numbers as men:

Only about half of the world’s working-age women participate in the labor force, compared to around three-quarters of their male counterparts. Closing that gap could add an estimated $12 trillion in global GDP by 2025. (Sources: http://www.ilo.org/gender/Informationresources/Publications/WCMS_457317/lang--en/index.htm; https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-growth/how-advancing-womens-equality-can-add-12-trillion-to-global-growth )

Some of these "facts" get ridiculous:

"More than one-third of the world’s countries do not have any laws prohibiting sexual harassment at work—leaving nearly 235 million working women vulnerable in the workplace." https://www.worldpolicycenter.org/sites/default/files/WORLD%20Discrimination%20at%20Work%20Report.pdf"

Time's Up is active in the U.S.A. Does the U.S.A. have laws against sexual harassment in the workplace? I has since the 1960s! Then why does this matter to Time's Up!? This is just wild regurgitation of feminist grievance for the sake of showing women are oppressed. I'm surprised Time's Up isn't talking about FGM and guardianship laws in Saudi Arabia.

Also notice male victims are ignored even though they would also be affected by a lack of sexual assault laws. Of course, Time's Up can't help throwing out the wage gap with a confusing dash of racism:

"White non-Hispanic women are paid 81 cents on the dollar compared to white non-Hispanic men. Asian women are only paid 88 cents on the dollar. Black and Hispanic women are only paid 65 cents and 59 cents on the white male dollar, respectively. Source: Economic Policy Institute, 2017"

It's unclear how Time's Up even got this number. The Economic Policy Institute published a lot of things in 2017. Where exactly does this data come from? I've only been able to find bits of this informations scattered around. More importantly, while the EPI does like to promote the idea of a gender wage gap, the idea that sexism causes the supposed gender wage gap has been debunked to death by other researchers. Again: job choices, life choices, experience, work hours, specializations, etc. Some new study will claim it accounted for these things and still found a significant gap, then you'll find it actually didn't and the cycle continues.

Let's get more into the stats on sexual harassment:

"Sexual harassment is pervasive across industries, but especially in low-wage service jobs. For example, more than 25% of sexual harassment charges filed with the EEOC in the last decade came from industries with service-sector workers. Source: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/news/2017/11/20/443139/not-just-rich-famous/"

This is another stat where I scratch my head and wonder, "What were you trying to say here?" First, having 25% doesn't say how pervasive something is. What if it was 25% of only 4 sexual harassment charges? Furthermore, is this actually unusual or unexpected? How many "service sector workers" are there compared to other workers? It's worth nothing this is the only Time's Up statistic that (although not explicitly) includes male victimization. Although I doubt most readers will realize it. I doubt Time's Up even realizes it.

The source is an American Progress article that includes numerous sources. It looks at EEOC sexual harassment charges filed from 2005 - 2015. The article does claim that, "More than one-quarter of sexual harassment charges were filed in industries with large numbers of service-sector workers". However, it doesn't explicitly back up this claim with hard data. The article does provide an interesting break down of sexual harassment claims filed by industry, but it isn't explicitly stated which (if any) of these industries are part of the previous statistic. Also, while the article claims of the 85,000 EEOC charges filed from 2005-2015, only 48.3% of these actually designated the industry in which the incident occurred! In other words, this data is too incomplete to make any conclusions.

"1 in 3 women ages 18 to 34 have been sexually harassed at work. 71% of those women said they did not report it. Source: Cosmopolitan survey of 2,235 full and part-time female employees, 2015"

All I could find is an infograph summary. The full Cosmopolitan is behind a pay wall and I imagine it doesn't include the methodology. I can't imagine that a feminist leaning women's magazine like Cosmopolitan used objective methods. The infograph gives plenty of warning signs. For example, 81% of women supposedly experienced "harassment in a verbal form", but only 44% "encountered unwanted touching and sexual advances." I would guess the survey has a very low bar for sexual harassment. On an interesting note, Cosmo found that 10% of sexual harassment came from female co-workers.

"Nearly half of working women in the U.S. say they have experienced harassment in the workplace. Source: NBC News (2017). “NBC/WSJ Poll: Nearly Half of Working Women Say They’ve Experienced Harassment.""

I already wrote an entire post about the NBC/WSJ Poll, which not only seemed designed to inflate female victimization, but intentionally excluded male-victims.

"Research has shown that women in male-dominated occupations, especially those in male-dominated work contexts, are sexually harassed more than women in balanced or in female-dominated ones. Source: Berdahl, JL. (2007). The Sexual Harassment of Uppity Women (p. 427)."

The source (which Time's Up didn't bother to link to) is actually somewhat interesting. However, the study has several problems. Berdahl used the 14 sexual harassment survey questions from a 2006 study (see page, questions marked with "[TSX]"). Most of the questions are too broad and subjective. Furthermore, the sample size of the study was 3 "male-dominated manufacturing plants owned by the same parent company" and 2 "female-dominated community service centers over-seen by the city government". This is a laughably myopic view of professional workplaces. We don't even know if these workplaces were in the U.S.A.! Furthermore, Berdahl only got a total of 288 responses. Bredalh's study is an academic curiosity at best. It shouldn't be used to claim anything. However, is interesting to note that Bredalh's study also found that men were also sexually harassed more in male-dominated workplaces.

Time's Up doesn't care about facts

It seems like they threw up any feminist grievance statistic that struck their fancy. Notice that only 5 out of the 11 statistics listed deal with sexual harassment and none explictly deal with sexual assault. This is very odd for a movement clearly assocating itself with #MeToo, which is about sexual assault victimization. Again, I think Time's Up is actually about diverting public outrage away from Hollywood and toward furthering largely unrelated feminist/left-wing goals.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Time's Up: #MeToo turns into the multi-million dollar feminist power-play we probably all saw coming

#MeToo is the latest feminist fueled moral panic that sweeping the U.S.A. I have pointed out major mainstream American news outlets seem to be intentionally fanning the flames of #MeToo outrage by commissioning biased studies on sexual harassment rigged to inflate numbers. I also pointed out these studies exclude male victims and female perpetrators likely to further the feminist narrative of the supposed patriarchal oppression of women.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you probably also realized this was going to inevitably lead to some sort of feminist power play. Well, wait no longer. Enter Time's Up, a Hollywood backed feminist organization with a $16 million legal war chest.

There had been rumblings about Time's Up for a awhile now, but it seemed to make its grand debut at the recent Golden Globes Awards. Oprah Winfrey promoted the organization in a ridiculouslydramatic award acceptance speech that not only completely ignored male victims, but brazenly compared the situation of modern American women to that of a black women who was kidnapped and raped by white men (Oprah is very clear to point out their race) in 1944 Jim-Crow era Alabama:

"She lived, as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long women have not been heard or believed is they dared speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. The time is up! The time is up." (6:30)

In an illuminating NBC Today Show interview Time's Up founder America Ferrera states:

"Time's up on the behavior and the culture which makes women less safe in the workplace. And not just women, but people of color, LGBTQ community, disabled people, and anyone else who is marginalized. Time's Up on the abuse and the exploitation on the abuse and exploitation that too many people face in the world. And not just in our industry, as you said, across all of our industries." (00:35)

Notice that Time's Up is actually taking the pressure off Hollywood by spreading it across all industries. Indeed, its website makes it sound like Time's Up will actually focus on helping people in "low-wage industries".

Spreading the blame out into the wider society also puts things more in line with feminist theory. It's not a problem with just Hollywood. It's not a problem with just a few perpetrators. It's a problem of global patriarchal oppression of women.

Also notice Time's Up unnecessarily casts its net over the entire range of "marginalized" people. In fact, Time's Up seems to be casting its net over almost everything:

"It's not just about sex. This is about something larger. This is about power dynamics. It's about an imbalance of power that makes people unsafe and we need to start to addressing it much wider than one perpetrator or one predator. It's pay equity, its about being safe in our jobs, its about being able to access opportunities to rise up the ranks that we are represented in leadership." (3:08)

In its modern form, #MeToo seemingly started as a way to expose sexual misconduct in Hollywood. However, Time's Up appears to encompass any grievance the political left might have with any aspect of professional life. While Time's Up doesn't yet bill itself as an official feminist organization in the same way as N.O.W. or the Feminist Majority Foundation, the more I read about it, the more it seems like Time's Up will be campaigning for general feminist ideals.

They seem particularly interested in increasing female representation in professional leadership positions. Much more so than stopping sexual harassment. One of its partners is 50/50 by 2020, which appears to be suspiciously small organization obsessed with complete racial and gender inequality in all aspects of Hollywood. It also claims (without any evidence) that doing this will reduce harassment and abuse. There is very little information about the organization on its website. My guess is that 50/50 by 2020 and Time's Up might be run by many of the same people.

Ignoring male victims

I've noticed that male victimization is often glossed over in media coverage of #MeToo. Individual stories of male victimization are covered, but when discussing the movement in general terms it's talked about as if it contains exclusively women. It seems like there are more editorials demanding all men (not just the small minority of male sexual predators) must change for better than actual coverage of male victimization.

Time's Up is even worse. Although it claims it wants to help "women and men across the country seek justice", male victims barely seem to be in their minds. Time's Up can't even be bothered to keep "victims" gender-neutral. It is constantly speaking directly to or about women. The Time's Up "facts" section is exclusively about women. It also desperately drags race into everything and talks more about workplace representation than sexual harassment.

The feminist tithe

Unfortunately, Time's Up has already been established as the tithe box for Hollywood celebrities caught in feminist controversies. Mark Walhberg was the first in line after he had to the audacity to get paid significantly more than a female co-star for some re-shoots of a film. None of this appears to be his fault and it isn't uncommon for people in Hollywood to be paid wildly different salaries. However, allegations of a Hollywood gender pay gap were getting thrown around. Rather than face growing public outrage for something he wasn't even responsible for, Walhberg donated the entire $1.5 million fee to Time's Up. Surprisingly, even female actors are the paying up. Rebecca Hall donated her wages from a Woody Allen movie.

For now, I think this is more of a matter of Time's Up filing a market niche for celebrities looking to sidestep public (read mostly feminist) outrage rather than active extortion. However, I could easy see Time's Up taking an more active role in demanding feminist indulgences, especially after it has seen how profitable it can be.

Smoke and mirrors

Now to get a little conspiratorial. As I have explained, Time's Up doesn't appear to actually be focused about confronting sexual abuse in Hollywood. If anything, it seems to be deflecting attention away from Hollywood. Do you really think America Ferrera and Oprah Winfrey want to be dig deep into sexual misconduct in Hollywood? My guess is they might use Time's Up to collect a few scalps to further the influence of "women" and "marginalized people" in Hollywood (in a way that has little to nothing to do with actually preventing sexual abuse). But do you really think they are willing to risk burning everything down? This is their industry. These are their friends.

Every step into investigating sexual abuse in Hollywood only risks exposing their paper-thin self-proclaimed moral authority to further scrutiny. Although I don't think he realizes the witch hunt #MeToo has become, Seal pointed out Oprah Winfrey's hypocrisy beautifully on Instagram:

Could these female crusaders also have some skeletons of questionable sexual conduct in their closets or at least instances of them brazenly looking the other way? For instance, association with Woody Allen has been declared toxic, but what about the celebrity support for Roman Polanski. Unlike Allen, Polanski was actually convicted of a sexual offense against a minor. Merly Streep, one of the celebrity figureheads of #MeToo, gave Polanski a standing ovation at the 2003 Oscars for an award Roman couldn't receive in person because he was living abroad to avoid extradition for sexual assault charges.

The same applies to the mainstream news media, which is mostly joined at the financial hip to the rest of the entertainment industry. Do you really trust them to dig deep into the #MeToo allegations? Do you really think they are willing to go beyond the feminist-approved narrative of men abusing women? Barber Walters accused Feldman of "damaging an entire industry" when he claimed that child sex abuse was rampant in Hollywood.

Possible media bias is especially disturbing when it looks like their may also be law enforcement collusion in controlling the narrative. Cory Feldman has since been accused of "sexual battery", which is being touted as sexual assault in the headlines. Feldman is actually only being accused of touching a women's butt, a charge he denies. Days after his criticism of Oprah, a vague allegation of sexual assault against Seal also surfaced. I'm wondering if someone is reminding male celebrities to sit down and shut up because the #MeToo beast can be turned on them.

Time's Up isn't about solving any sexual abuse problem in Hollywood, it's about celebrities controlling the public outrage to funnel it toward feminist political causes while advancing the careers of a group of actresses.

More Stuff

It you haven't read it already, read my examination of the Time's Up website's "Facts" sections.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

More mainstream media organizations intentionally exclude male victims from their sexual harassment research

Last time, I wrote about how ABC and the Washington Post conducted a survey on sexual harassment that (aside from being deeply flawed) blatantly excluded male victims and female perpetrators. It was obvious that ABC and the Post weren't interested in seriously researching sexual harassment, but just wanted to recklessly feed the #MeToo narrative of female oppression at the hands of the sinister male gender. Unfortunately, they weren't the only major media organization to do this. NBC and the Wall Street Journal also produced a similar survey on sexual harassment that basically did the same thing.

Like the ABC-Post survey, NBC and the Wall Street Journal shared a single survey commissioned from Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies. The survey in question was conducted from October 23rd - 26th, but appears to be part of an on-going series of surveys on a variety topics. Questions 21, 22a, 22b, 22c, and 22d on pages 13-15 are related to sexual harassment and sex discrimination in the workplace. The survey interviewed 900 adults. However, the questions about sexual harassment in the workplace were only asked to the 265 working women and 286 employed men who took the survey according to the Wall Street Journal. That isn't a very impressive sample size.

First notice the survey didn't exactly hit the oppression gold-mine. Most women claim they haven't been subjected to unwelcome sexual advances, they haven't been paid less than a man and their views haven't been ignored because of their gender.

I still wouldn't necessarily call those numbers insignificant if this was a more serious survey. But it's mostly a joke. Victimization questions are too sloppy to take the data seriously. The question about supposed sexual victimization is too vaguely defined or rather not defined at all. An "unwelcome sexual advance" could just be being politely asked out once by a co-worker. Inappropriate? Maybe. But I don't think we need to start rioting in the streets about it. Also an "unwelcome sexual advance" could even be something more vague, subjective or unintentional. Is your co-worker actually hitting on you or just platonically offering you ride home?

The question about being paid less than a man isn't necessarily even about sex discrimination. Notice the survey taker is being asked if "a woman" is being paid less than "a man". This could be interpreted as being paid less than men in general or being paid less than a specific man, in which case this might be simple favoritism and not sex discrimination. It's also possible the survey taker is ignoring a host of other considerations, such as experience on the job, quality of work, etc. In addition, employees don't often share their salary information with their co-workers so the survey taker may be making assumptions of a co-worker's salary.

Thinking your viewpoint wasn't considered because of your gender seems like a very subjective event to me. Was you gender really the reason? Was your viewpoint really not considered?

At least the NBC/WSJ made some effort to establish a timeline for "unwelcome sexual advances". Unfortunately, the timeline is largely useless because it uses large and inconsistent time brackets so we can't tell if "unwelcome sexual advances" are going up or down. Survey takers are asked if the unwelcome sexual advance occurred within about 1 year, 2-5 years, 6-10 years, 10-20 years or more than 20 years ago. It's also unclear how the survey would deal with someone reporting multiple sexual advances over different time brackets.

The rest of the questions are merely opinion questions about sexual harassment (still undefined) in the workplace. As I've explained before, I'm not very interested in opinion questions, since they often don't reflect actual victimization but rather the fear created from a decades long sexual assault moral panic.

It is interesting to note that women and men have similar responses to the opinion questions. However, it's more important to note that male victims are largely excluded from the opinion questions and completely excluded from all victimization questions. The only survey question that even hints as possibly allowing male victims is when it asks survey takers if they agree with the following statement:

"These stories get a lot of attention, but sexual harassment and discrimination are rare in the workplace."

It's possible that respondents could also be considering sexual harassment and discrimination against men when responding. However, keep in the mind the "stories" the survey is referring to are described as "issues related to how women are treated in society, including sexual harassment and other unfair treatment in the workplace." Also, the survey should really have written "gender discrimination" to eliminate responses related to other forms of discrimination (racial, sexual orientation, religious, etc).

Unlike the ABC/Post survey, the NBC/WSJ at least allows the possibility of female perpetrators against women by not explicitly gendering the perpetrator in its victimization questions. Unfortunately, there was no effort identify the gender of alleged perpetrators. I'm guessing the unspoken assumption is these un-gendered perpetrators are male by default. NBC and Wall Street Journal certainly made no effort to explain otherwise. In its article explaining the survey, NBC News lead with discussion of #Metoo and the Weinstein accusations. It wrote, "[m]any women speaking out — and many men looking inward", implying that men were doing soul searching about the crimes of their gender. Again, for all we know all of these vague advances of a "sexual nature" may have been committed by pushy lesbians.

Like the ABC/Post survey, the NBC/WSJ survey is not a serious attempt to research sexual harassment in the U.S.A. There is no excuse for ignoring the possibility of male victims, especially when you are already interviewing men anyway. The survey creators actually produced more work for themselves (creating two sets of questions) just so they could specifically ignore male victims. This wasn't about the truth, but about feeding the popular #MeToo narrative of professional men victimizing women who dare step foot into the professional world.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

ABC News and Washington Post intentionally excluded male victims from their already flawed sexual harassment survey

You may have recently heard that half of U.S. women have experienced sexual harassment. Riding on the coattails of #MeToo, both ABC News and The Washingston Post conducted a survey on sexual harassment. However, even though this survey included male participants, the surveys only asked female participants if they had actually experienced sexual harassment. Men were only asked whether they felt sexual harassment was a problem for women.

ABC and the Washington Post shared a single survey which they commissioned from Langer Research. Langer did a random telephone survey. I'm a little unclear on the sample size since the methodology report claims they called 1000 households, but the survey reported a total of 1010 adults (the study cites 1260, but only 1010 answered the questions), even though they were only supposed to survey one adult per household. Anyway, it looks like they surveyed a total 740 women, which I assume also means 270 men. So that is an obvious sex sampling imbalance from the start.

Survey respondents were asked 6 questions, but only two of the questions were asked to both women and men:

"Do you think sexual harassment of women in the workplace is a problem in this country or not?" [emphasis added] "Generally speaking, do you think that a man who sexually harasses a woman in the workplace usually (is punished for it), or usually (gets away with it)?"

The other four questions about victimization were asked only to women. Women were first asked a gateway question to determine if they have been victimized:

"Have you ever received unwanted sexual advances from a man" that: "a. that you felt were inappropriate, or not? This can be in any circumstance, whether or not work" "b. who worked for the same company as you, or not"? "c. who had influence over your work situation, or not related"? (3)

Notice "unwanted sexual advances" is not defined by the survey. If the woman doesn't answer "yes" to this question, she isn't asked the remaining victimization questions.

Notice the ABC-Post survey also doesn't only exclude male victims of sexual harassment but also female victims of sexual harassment by another female. A female employee whose female boss demanded she perform cunnilingus on her daily or lose her job would not be considered a victim of an "unwanted sexual advance" by this survey. Hell, the female boss could be violently raping the female employee everyday and the employee still wouldn't be marked as a victim simply simply because the boss is a woman. The same problem applies to the question about whether or not only men get away from sexual harassment.

It appears a woman is only asked the remaining victimization questions if she answers "yes" to "b" or "c". The next question asks if she considered any of the incidents "sexual harassment", "sexual abuse", (both also not defined by the survey) both, neither or just "no opinion" (4). Then she is asked whether or not they reported the "unwanted sexual advances". Then she is asked if any of the following words describe her "feelings about these unwanted sexual advances": "[h]umilitaed", "[i]ntimiated", "[a]ngry", "[a]shamed" (4).

I'm not going to deep dive into numbers here. The failure to strictly define "unwanted sexual advance", "sexual harassment" and "sexual assault" is reason enough to dismiss the survey. These terms are imprecise and do not have agreed upon shared definitions. For example, does "sexual harassment" only include harassment of a sexual nature or does it also include harassment based on a person's sex? Is calling someone a "cunt" or a "dick" sexual harassment? Is sex discrimination also sexual harassment? Many people would consider one-time offenses "sexual harassment" even though "harassment" by definition must be a sustained and repeated behavior. Does "sexual abuse" necessarily involve physical contact? Notice while 79% of women who reported "sexual advances" considered one or more of the experiences to be "sexual harassment" only 33% considered one or more of their experiences to be "sexual abuse". So most didn't considered their experience of "sexual harassment" as abusive?

My point is that people have differing opinions about what these terms mean. We really don't know what actually happened to these women. That is why its so important that surveys' define these terms explicitly.

Another reason to dismiss the survey is that it makes no effort to establish any sort of time frame that could uncover an estimated victimization rate. How many "unwanted sexual advances" occurred this year? Are "unwanted sexual advances" going up or down? This survey can't tell us. All of these instances of "unwanted sexual advances" might have occurred years ago. We might actually be in the middle of record low for sexual harassment. By simply asking women if they have experience unwanted sexual advances over their entire lifetime the survey is guaranteeing itself the largest, most sensation (but also entirely useless) number.

All this makes me think ABC News and the Washington Post weren't trying to uncover the truth about sexual harassment. Rather they were just trying to concoct a sensational statistic showing women's oppression at the hands of men. Why else would they intentionally exclude men (half the U.S. population) from its victimization questions, even though they were already talking to them on the telephone anyway!

Notice ABC is pushes the most sensational "unwanted sexual advances" number to the front of its article, even though only 79% considered those advances "sexual harassment" and only 33% considered them "sexual abuse".

The Washington Post is even worse, leading with the data about how many respondents "think sexual harassment of women" is a problem.

Fear or concern of victimization is often much higher than actual victimization (especially when there has been a decades long sex offense panic in the U.S.). I'm always suspicious surveys add this type of question in case their reported victimization numbers aren't sensational enough.

Also notice the only reference the Washington Post makes to a previous 2011 ABC-Post survey is to point out that the percentage of respondents concerned about sexual harassment has gone up. I had to track down the 2011 survey because the Washington Post strangely didn't include a link to it. Once I did it was clear why.

The 2011 survey has many of the same problems as the 2017 survey: no set time frame, no set definitions, men were strangely excluded from some victimization questions and women excluded from questions on false accusations. However, the 2011 survey didn't ask about "unwanted sexual advances", but asked both men and women if they had "ever been sexually harassed at work or not?"(2). This makes the 2017 survey's exclusion of male victims even more suspicious. The 2011 survey report reads:

"One in four women has experienced workplace sexual harassment, this ABC News/Washington Post poll finds. One in 10 men say they’ve experienced it as well and a quarter of men say they worry about being falsely accused of sexual harassment." "Experience of harassment also is down from its peak, from 32 percent of women in surveys in late 1992 and mid-1994 to 24 percent now" (1)

Attempting to square these previous findings with the 2017 survey's 51% "unwanted sexual advances" statistic might cause readers to view this data more critically. I don't think that is what the Washington Post wants. I think they want to give readers the biggest number possible and for readers to swallow it without question. This is probably why ABC omitted any mention of the previous 2011 survey from its article. ABC and the Washington Post wanted to present the most sensational view of their 2017 data.

Consider I could just as easily summarize the 2017 surrey as:

Although a slim majority of U.S. women (51%) reported having received one or more vagued defined "unwanted sexual advances from a man" during their entire lifetimes, not all considered these advances sexual harassment and only a minority of these women actually considered their experiences sexual abuse. Furthermore, the vast majority (68%) of these "unwanted sexual advances" did not come from men working within or with their companies and a even larger majority (75%) claimed these advances they did not come from a man with influence over their work situation.

That's a very different way of explaining the exact same data.

I can't say I'm surprised by the Washington Post's involvement in something like this. I still remember their strained attempt to concoct a new bogus 1-in-5 college women are raped stat. This flawed survey tells us nothing useful about sexual harassment in the U.S. It seems ABC and the Post didn't care about seriously researching sexual harassment, but just wanted to feed the narrative that women are constantly sexually harassed by men. Is this intentional feminist propaganda or just two media giants recklessly feeding the moral panic of the day for more clicks? Maybe a bit of both?

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Debunking Campus Rape Epidemic - Collected Posts

Despite what feminists, news media and politicians would tell you, there is no rape epidemic on American university campuses. Rape is generally lower on-campus than off-campus. Flawed and biased research has been used to drastically inflate rape statistics, but official government rape report figures show vast majority of university campuses have 0 reported rapes in a given year.

Below are links to all my current posts regarding the supposed rape epidemic on American college campuses. I understand people have short attention spans so I've ranked them from "Must Read" to "Recommended" based on how important they are to understanding the current rape panic on American campuses:

Must Read:

Infamous“1 in 5″ Campus Sexual Assault Study influences policy and activism for years despite a mountain of glaring flaws.

The "1-in-5" statistic from the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault influenced policy on campus sexual assault for years despite numerous glaring flaws, such as only having surveyed 2 anonymous universities campuses and most of its reported rape victims maintaining they had not actually been raped.

Zero reported rapes at hundreds of U.S. colleges is…bad? - Washington Post scrambles to save campus rape epidemic myth it helped create

The Washington Post (co-creators of the WaPo-Kaiser sexual assault survey) scrambles to stoke fires of hysteria even though official reporting numbers show ridiculously low rape rates on universities campuses.

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shreds “Dear Colleague” letter, but male university students’ fight for due process is far from over.

The 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter is rescinded. The letter pushed U.S. universities to established secondary kangaroo courts for sexual assault that often trampled on the civil rights of university men. However, rescinding the letter doesn't actually force universities to abolish these practices.

Highly Recommended:

Introduction

In my very first post on this blog, I discuss Mary Koss' 1987 "Ms Report". While the 2007 Campus Rape Survey fueled much of modern rape hysteria, Koss' Ms. Report got the ball rolling in the late 1980s by claiming that 1 in 4 American university undergraduates are victims of rape. However, 73% of her reported "rape victims" maintained they actually had not been raped. Despite this, Koss' methods were embraced by many rape researchers, who continued to use faulty survey questions and record respondents as victims even when they maintained they were not.

Influential rape researcher Mary Koss claims male victims of female rapists aren’t real rape victims in radio interview

More on Mary Koss and her 1987 Miss Report.

Flawed Washington Post survey wants to be the new “1-in-5” sexual assault statistic

The 2014 WaPo-Kaiser survey emerged to try to replace 2007 Campus Sexual Assault survey, which finally lost almost all public credibly in late 2013. WaPo-Kaiser survey unsurprising also had many grievous flaws, such as making absolutely no distinction between an unwanted touch on the shoulder and a violent rape. The survey questions were also deceptive and even the survey authors tripped over their incredibly broad definitions of sexual assault. For example, "non-physical coercion" was still considered a form of "sexual contact".

Washington Post College Sexual Assault Survey Part 2: Majority of students don’t believe inflated sexual assault statistics and think “No Means No” is better than “Yes Means Yes”

I explore the opinion section of the WaPo-Kaiser study, which interestingly finds most students don't believe the 1-in-5 college students are victims of sexual assault and the overwhelming majority of college women aren't worried about being sexually assaulted.

Recommended:

It’s not just the UN: Mainstream feminist organizations write letter asking U.S. government for Internet censorship

The most powerful American feminist organizations sign a massive petition demanding the Department of Education force universities to monitor and censor all Internet communications on campus (even when those communications aren't being made on networks or services owned or controlled by universities) under the guise of protecting female students from threats and harassment. Includes some examples of how the feminists and the media spin student antics and disagreement into terrifying rape threat narratives.

Creator of The Hunting Ground documentary throws around bad statistics on sexual assault

The creator of The Hunting Ground, a very influential documentary about the supposed campus rape epidemic, throws around some very questionable stats on rape. I examine and debunk them.

U.S. Feminist-in-Chief President Barrack Obama tells us feminism is simply about equality by simply ignoring feminist bigotry

Obama promotes campus anti-sexual assault organization ItsOnUs. ItsOnUs not only repeats the name debunked "1-in-5" statistic, but its actually a front for Generation Progress, a left-wing progressive organization designed to recruit American youth.

Biden’s promotion of ItsOnUs during the Oscars is really about politics, not sexual assault

Vice-president Biden promotes ItsOnUs at the Oscars.

US Congressional Rep. Jared Polis bashes due process, then quotes flawed statistics on sexual assault

A U.S. congressional representative repeats the flawed "1-in-5" statistics as justification to deny university student accused of sexual assault due process rights.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos shreds "Dear Colleague" letter, but male university students’ fight for due process is far from over.

Anyone not blinded by the feminist college rape panic noticed immediate red flags in the letter. For example, it quoted the "1-in-5" rape statistic from the incredibly flawed 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Survey, which (among its many problems) only sampled 2 anonymous U.S. universities and most of its recorded "rape" victims maintained that were not actually victims of rape.

Second, the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter's drastic reinterpretation of the Title IX was basically akin to making a new law, something that the Department of Education doesn't have authority to do. The Department Education largely brushed off claims that it actually didn't have legal authority to enforce any of the guidelines issued in the letter.

No American university was willing to call the DOE's bluff as they scrambled to shore up their sexual assault policies and make pseudo-courts to investigate and prosecute students accused of sexual assault. It goes without saying that universities lack the training, resources and authority to investigate actual serious crime.

The "Dear Colleague" letter created an incredible bias against the accused. Regardless of the lack of evidence against the accused or even evidence exonerating the accused, if a university found an accused student "not responsible" (universities can't find students "not guilty" because they aren't actually courts of law) it would likely face a Title XI compliant from the accuser and feminist protests. This problem was made worse by the frightening feminist bias of both faculty and students on many American university campuses. Feminists practically deify alledged female rape victims and considers blind belief in their accusations a feminist sacrament.

With every incentive to hand out only "responsible" (i.e guilty) verdicts, university sexual assault investigations become a mockery of justice. The accused was often denied the right to legal representation, the right to cross-examine the accuser or even the right to know the actual accusation. This predictably lead to numerous male students being trapped in Kafkaesque nightmares. One of the more heinous examples was a male student at Amherst college who was accused of sexual assault 2 years after the alleged assault and expelled, even though there was proof he not only hadn't raped his female accuser, but proof she had actually raped him (for which she received no punishment).

So what has changed? What will change?

I've noticed a lot of howling about how the rescinding (it can't be "repealed" because it was never an actual law) of the "Dear Colleague" letter will open the door for rape on universities campus. However, the only thing that has really changed is that university students can supposedly no longer file Title XI complaints against their university for not adequately investigating claims of sexual assault (although I wouldn't be surprised if they still let a female student do it if she raised enough of a stink). We don't need a "Dear Colleague" letter for sexual assault for the same reason we don't need a one for murder - because these are crimes that should only be investigated by the police. Getting rid of the "Dear Colleague" letter doesn't even demand universities dismantle their kangaroo courts. It just means they have no risk of losing federal funding if they don't have them.

Unfortunately, given the feminist politics of most universities, I imagine little will change in the short term. For many feminist college administrators, I imagine the "Dear Colleague" Letter didn't twist their arms so much as issue them a blank check. Some universities are already starting to double-down and I'm even hearing talk about California legislation to that would basically re-establish "Dear Colleague" as state law. Also, while DeVos has earned a lot of respect from me, I'm not entirely confident some new equally bad guidelines won't be issued after feminists spread a little "1-in-5" rape panic around.

Don't get me wrong! Rescinding the 2011 "Dear Colleague" letter was a necessary step to restoring some symbliance of civil rights and sanity to American universities. However, the war isn't even close to over. Ultimately, it may take a new federal law to protect the due process rights of college men. The most practical fix would be to bar universities that receive federal funding from independently investigating and adjudicating any suspected crime. Universities aren't sovereign states!

"Dear Colleague" letter was never really about helping victims

The "Dear Colleague" letter was never actually about helping rape victims, but about feminists further weaponizing rape as a political grievance. Real victims of sexual assault are not helped by fake college tribunals, but by the actual American judicial system.

Consider that while it is devastating for an innocent student to be falsely branded as a rapist and expelled from campus, it is a slap-on-the-wrist for an actual violent rapist, who is free to continue raping and may even rape the same victim again the moment he/she steps off campus.

However, the university kangaroo courts the "Dear Colleague" letter helped create make an ideal platform for false accusers. Knowingly making false accusations to law enforcement could land you in jail, especially if you commit perjury. While false accusations to your university could, at worst, maybe get you expelled, but no university is going to have the stones to risk being accused of expelling sexual assault victims for coming forward. In addition, under the "Dear Colleague" letter an accusing student could have also threatened the university with a Title IX complaint.

I don't know if the "Dear Colleague" letter was intentionally designed to empower false accusers, but it certainly seemed designed to force universities to establish a proxy judicial system. "Force" may be the wrong word, as it seemed many universities will all too happy to produce these abominations of judicial process. Many anti-feminists have hypothesized feminist dominated American universities are basically running test cases for reforms that feminists would like to push into the actual American legal system. After all, feminists constantly bemoan the supposedly low conviction rate for rape, because they believe that false rape accusations are negligible to non-existent, so any failure to convict someone accused of rape is a failure of the judicial system.

Indeed, if you ask why these campus kangaroo courts are even necessary when sexual assault is already handled by the police, proponents will often claim that victims often can't get "justice" by going to the police or don't feel comfortable going to the police. However, establishing a secondary avenue for "justice" like this is really just thinly veiled vigilantism.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep feminists out of influencing rape law, because feminist beliefs (and political/finical interests) prevent them from rationally and fairly addressing the crime. Remember, the feminist American Association for University Women stubbornly believes that 91% of American universities having 0 reported rapes doesn't suggest that rape is actually very low on American campuses, but instead shows that legions of unknown raped co-eds are too scared to come forward because of an supposedly unsympathetic justice system.

Links:

Asche Snow's wrote an excellent article on rescinding the "Dear Colleague" letter.

Sargon of Akhad recently did a excellent summary video of debacle caused by Emma Sulkowicz (aka Mattress Girl), one of the more infamous and colorful false accusers in recent years.

Campus Rape Frenzy by KC Johnson provides a good summary of campus rape hysteria's detrimental effect on the civil rights of young men.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

UN introduces a "Feminist Accountability Framework" for its global development goals; specifically demands more feminists in high level UN positions

The United Nations just finished its 2017 HLPF (High Level Political Forum - UN loves acronyms) to discuss progress toward 2030 SDGs (Social Development Goals), a set of (somewhat vague) goals that will guide it's policies until 2030. I've written extensively on the UN's disturbing feminist ideology, how the UN is primarily a feminist missionary organization and how this has disastrous effects on foreign aid. It shouldn't be a surprise that SDG #5 ("Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls") seems to have gotten a great deal of attention. It also shouldn't be surprising that the UN's feminist ideology would be reflected in the HLPF. However, I was a little surprised one conference was blatantly entitled: A Feminist Accountability Framework: What the World Needs to Achieve Gender Equality and All the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, the centerpiece of the conference appears to be a report that calls specifically for more feminist women to be put in senior UN positions as well as consideration of the "feminist credentials" of all future UN placements.

Same shit, clearer bottle

The UN has a strange relationship with the word "feminism". The UN makes references to feminist dogma such as patriarchy theory, rape culture and toxic masculinity in its papers. HeforShe is basically a feminist proselytizing campaign. On the other hand, I think the UN is still at least somewhat aware of the (deservedly) bad reputation of feminism. The UN often publicly talks about "women's equality" instead of "feminism". I don't think UN leadership would deny the UN is a feminist organization, but it isn't exactly plastered over every part of the UN website. So calling for a "feminist accountability framework" and not a "gender equity" or "gender equality" framework is strangely brazen and uncharacteristically honest.

Unfortunately, video of the conference isn't available. I doubt it will be made available since it appears to have been a side conference. However, the Twitter feeds from UN Women and other attendees gave a general impression that it was largely about solidifying UN gender mainstreaming as a part of the 2030 SDGs.

As I have previously discussed, gender mainstreaming is a UN mandate that declares all UN programs and actions must account for gender equality as decided by the very feminist UN Women. Basically this means that UN Women has been incredible power over the UN system and is using it to push its feminist agenda into every UN program, no matter how unnecessary, obtuse or damaging.

I want to stress that the UN's feminist bias is causing real damage. Sure, its kind of funny when the UN claims that climate change is some how a women's issue, but less so when they explicitly deny food aid to men following a major earthquake because of their feminist ideology or advocate for massive government Internet censorship to protect feminists from criticism.

The conference

I couldn't find an official UN description of the event. However, two affiliated websites (here and here) and a picture of a conference handout (see below) all have the same description, which makes me think it probably came from a UN press release:

"As the central platform for follow-up and review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) is a prime occasion to assess the progress of Goal 5, as well as the inclusion of gender across all Goals. While the SDGs present an opportunity to mainstream gender in all global sustainable development efforts, accountability mechanisms for monitoring their implementation are weak, with Goal 5 being the only SDG that has no timeframe set for its achievement. To expel the risk of watering down or losing progress on this important Goal, the United Nations must ensure an accountability framework that will allow civil society, UN Women and other agencies, and governments alike to advance gender equality through meaningful reforms, supported by the critical collection of gender data and adequate financing for the achievement of gender equality. To discuss these and other ideas, join the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), the Governments of Costa Rica and Zambia, UN Women, Equal Measures 2030, Global Citizen, Save the Children, Women’s Environment & Development Organization (WEDO) and the Women’s Major Group at this event held on behalf of the Feminist UN Campaign – which brings together leading, feminist thinkers in civil society, philanthropy, academia and former UN staff around a shared agenda for feminist, transformative leadership for women’s rights and gender equality at the United Nations. This event calls for active participation from all stakeholders to discuss the importance of a feminist accountability framework in relation to the key theme, “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world,” as gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls are integral to global poverty reduction and inclusive, sustainable development."

It would take too long to do a deep dive into each of these organizations, but it's interesting how incestuous they are. For example, WEDO appears to be funded by and very close to the UN. In turn, WEDO is one of the 8 "Organizing Partners" of the Women's Major Group. The Women's Major Group has partners all over the place.

Let's look at the speakers at the conference:

Eleanor Blomstrom: Co Director & Head of Office, WEDO. Women's Major Chair

Ambassador Rolando Castro: Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of Costa Rica

Lakshmi Puri: Deputy Executive Director, UN Women

Wallace Nguluwe: Gender Specialist, Ministry of Gender, Zambia

Charotte Bunch: Founding Director & Senior Scholar, Center of Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers University

Allison Holder: Director, Equal Measures 2030

Grace Choi: Associate Director for Global Gender Policy and Advocacy, Save the Children

Jenny Ottenhaff: Policy Director for Global Health, Education and Gender, ONE Campaign

Sai Jyothirmal Racherla: Program Director, ARROW

This list isn't earth-shaking, but I'm tempted to rant about the feminist corruption of seemingly apolitical NGOs (of which the UN is perhaps the ultimate example) and how they excel at siphoning your charity donations and tax money. I'll restrain myself, but point out that the Center of Women's Global Leadership (a self-described "cutting-edge feminist human rights center") is one of many feminist advocacy organizations that not only receives public money, but is affiliated with (if not created by) a public university. Also, why are the ONE Campaign and Save the Children advocating for a "feminist framework"? They don't appear to be feminist or even women's organizations. Why does Save the Children even have a "Global Gender Policy and Advocacy" department?

The most damning information about the conference I've found is this picture of a conference handout tweeted out by the Feminist Alliance for Rights:

As you can see, the handout is made up of excerpts from a report by the International Center for Research on Women. The ICRW's full report is entitled "Toward A More Feminist United Nations". It is a safe assumption that this report was the central pillar or at least chief inspiration for the conference. The conference certainly seems to be promoting the report. So what's in it?

ICRW specifically demands more feminists in UN

While the ICRW doesn't appear to be a UN organization, they are certainly a feminist activist organization (check out their web page on toxic masculinity). The report also doesn't just represent ICRW's opinions. Several individuals have "agreed to be recognized for their contributions" are listed. These includes the Advocacy and Communications Director of the aforementioned WEDO and the Faculty Director for the aforementioned Center for Global Leadership. Several former UN members are also listed, included a former "Gender Advisor" director for UNFPA and former Deputy Executive Director of UNIFEM.

Interestingly, the report is somewhat critical of the UN It not only mentions allegations of sexual assault by UN peace keepers, but also points out the UN has fallen far short of gender quotas (ICRW doesn't mention this hasn't stopped the UN from continuing to push quotas on everyone else). There is also a call for more openness and transparency (which I'm all for since it will likely expose more of the UN's feminist agenda).

The report was published last September, before the latest UN secretary was chosen. So it talks about the "unprecedented public demand for not only a female, but for a female, feminist leader" (2) [emphasis added]. The UN surprisingly elected a male secretary in October. The UN hilariously tried to mollify feminists by making Wonder Woman an official UN mascot, until the UN received a massive feminist petition to remove her claiming she was sexist (feminists remembered she was a feminist icon several months later so they could illegally ban men from public theaters).

However, the most shocking part of the report is its blatant demand for more feminists in the UN:

"Ensure that senior appointments are not only gender equal, but also feminist by documenting the “feminist credentials” in the Executive Office of the [Secretary-General] (in particular the Deputy Secretary-General, the Chief of Staff, the Spokesperson, the chief Speechwriter, the Political Advisor and the members of the Senior Appointments Unit)." (6) [emphasis added]

There also is mention of needed "feminist HR and staffing reforms" (6) as well as an unnecessary reminder that sexual harassment and supposedly unfair hiring practices are really about reinforcing "patriarchal and colonialist norms" (even though women also commit sexual harassment and engage in unfair hiring practices) and not just some people being jerks (6).

Feminists gender quotas are really about political power and not gender representation. However, it's rare for feminists to publicly express this so blatantly.

Feminists want your money

The issue of funding also appears in the report:

"Increasing funding for UN Women to US$ 1 billion, both by encouraging member state contributions and by pulling from the core general fund, to ensure that it is able to fulfill its mandate." (7) [emphasis added]

The ICRW's claims that UN women actually asked for this much, even though the ICRW's own cited source shows UN women only asked for $880,000,000. $120,000,000 is one hell of a rounding error for a self-proclaimed "research center".

It looks like UN Women only got a measly $750,061,400 for 2016-2017 (5). Perhaps an accountant realized UN Women probably didn't need so much if they were wasting money on useless PR campaigns like HeForShe or telling us Google search algorithms supposedly proves everyone is sexist.

However, this pales in comparison to the ICRW report's other demand:

"Ensure that at least 30 percent of current spending is dedicated to a women's rights programming and gender mainstreaming throughout the system." (7)

That is 30% of the entire UN budget. For some context, the 2016-2017 UN budget appears to be roughly $5,400,000,000. Since UN Women controls the "women's rights programming and gender mainstreaming", this is basically a demand to give them get control over 30% of the UN budget. So setting a 30% mandate would effectively more than double UN Women's money.

However, the really sinister part of this is that "women's rights programming" would have to proportionally increase along with the UN budget, even if there was no need! It would give finical teeth to feminist control over the UN. Need extra money in the budget for some clean water programs? Well, you're going to have raise UN Women's budget. Can't do that? Don't worry, I'm sure UN Women can find someway to gender mainstream your water program.

Tweets seem to suggest that the ICRW's finical suggestions were largely accepted/supported by the speakers and attendees:

Here is Megan O'Donnell, Policy Manager for Gender Issues for the One Campaign, quoting Wallace Nguluwe:

UN Women interestingly deleted their tweet mentioning the $1,000,000,000 price tag. Perhaps, they realized that isn't something they should publicly advertise.

More data won't produce good data

In addition to teaching starving boys about their male privilege and toxic masculinity, the UN will use this money to gather more "gender data":

Data2x is a name that came up a couple of times during the HLPF. They are a UN "collaborative technical and advocacy platform dedicated to improving the quality, availability, and use of gender data in order to make a practical difference in the lives of women and girls worldwide". They are the "gender data lead" for SDG data. They claim to want "unbiased gender data collection", but they seem solely focused on collected data about women. Data2x was obviously created to produced cooked stats to bolster UN Women's feminist agenda.

This may seem harsh, but you need to remember the UN has an horrible record of bad and deceptive gender-related research. The papers produced by the UN not only have an intense feminist bias, but are often very poor quality with citation errors that would be unacceptable on a high school book report. The UN gathering more "gender data" won't fix the UN's inability to accurately and responsibly deal with data. It will likely just make it worse and cost member nations more money.

Feminist social media

The UN loves ridiculous social media and ad campaigns, so keep an eye out. Sometimes you spot something interesting. Sometimes you find something hilarious, such as the HLPF feminist dress code:

I suggest you follow @UN_Women, the official UN Women account. Some related hash tags include: #Planet5050, #HeforShe, #FeministUN, #HLPF2017, #HLPF, WHRDs, WHRDsResist, #feministvision. Keep a stiff drink handy.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

New CDC data again finds as many (if not more) male victims of female rapists than female victims of male rapists. CDC continues to ignore its own shocking findings

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) recently released new findings from its NISVS (The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey). The NISVS is one of the most prestigious and widely quoted surveys on sexual violence in the U.S. It is a common source of the infamous "1 in 5 women are raped" statistic. It has also been rightfully criticized for using faulty survey methods to inflate its victimization numbers and intentionally downplaying its own findings on the prevalence of male victims.

So far the NISVS has collected data for 2010, 2011 and 2012. NISVS found that between 2010-2012 an average of 1.2% (est. 1,473,000) American women per year experienced one or more attempted/completed rapes (NISVS 2010-2012 State Report, 18). However, the NISVS also found that between 2010-2012 an average of 1.5% (est. 1,715,000) American men reported being victims of one or more attempted/completed "made to penetrate" victimizations (25).

The difference stands out more when you look at data for each year. Victimization rates between female rape victims and male "made-to-penetrate" victims were relatively comparable in 2010 and 2011 (a shocking finding by itself), but in 2012 the number female rape victims fell drastically while the number of male victims of "made to penetrate" went up. The NISVS shows an estimated 740,000 more male victims of "made to penetrate" than female victims of rape in 2012 (217, 222).

"Made to penetrate" is defined as being forced to "sexually penetrate someone without the victim’s consent because the victim was physically forced (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threatened with physical harm, or when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent" (17) [emphasis added]. Even though the NISVS refuses to define "made to penetrate" as "rape" (and thus excludes it from all its statistics on "rape"), it fits reasonable (and many modern legal) definitions of rape.

CDC NISVS Yearly Rape and Made-To-Penetrate Victimization Rape Made-To-Penetrate Year Women Men Women Men 2010 1.1% (est 1,270,000) * * 1.1% (est 1,267,000) 2011 1.6% (est 1,929,000) * * 1.7% (est 1,921,000) 2012 1.0% (est 1,217,000) * * 1.7% (est 1,957,000)

*Zero or statistically insignificant amount according to NISVS

Indeed, even NISVS' own definition of "rape" is extremely similar:

"...completed or attempted unwanted vaginal (for women), oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force (such as being pinned or held down, or by the use of violence) or threats to physically harm and includes times when the victim was drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent" (17) [emphasis added].

On some level, I think that even the CDC knows that "made to penetrate" is basically a form of rape as it is often mentions male "made to penetrate" statistics in the same breath as its female "rape" statistics: "An estimated 41.3% of female victims of completed rape and 24.3% of male victims of being made to penetrate first experienced these forms of violence before turning 18" (198).

The CDC even outright admits that its decision to not classify "made to penetrate" as rape is on shaky ground:

"5.9% or an estimated 6.8 million men have been made to sexually penetrate someone else at some point in their life, a form of sexual violence that many in the practice field consider analogous to rape." (198) [emphasis added]

So why not just define "made to penetrate" as a sub-category of "rape"? What is currently defined as "rape" by the NISVS could be re-defined as "forced penetration" and also be a sub-category of rape. I think it is still informative to track "made to penetrate" and forced penetration as separate categories, but it doesn't make any sense to consider one rape and not the other when they are so similar.

While female victims of "rape" overwhelming report male perpetrators (97.3% male only + 0.7% male & female - only lifetime figures provided by NISVS, pg. 25), men victims of "made to penetrate" overwhelming report female perpetrators (78.5% female only + 3.5% male & female - only lifetime figures provided by NISVS, pg. 32). Women on the other hand reported no statistically significant "made to penetrate" victimization from 2010-2012, while men report no statistically significant "rape" victimization. It seems like the CDC is trying to exclude the most common form of male rape victimization and female rape perpetration from its actual "rape" statistics.

Sadly, this is nothing new for the NISVS. I've written extensively on its problems and anti-male bias:

CDC NISVS:‭ ‬CDC survey claims to find‭ ‬1,000,000‭ ‬more female rape victims per year than the Bureau of Justice

CDC NISVS Part 2: CDC finds over 1,000,000 male victims of female rapists per year, but doesn’t seem to want you to know

CDC wants your thoughts on sexual assault: Tell them to stop ignoring their own findings on female rapists!

Influential rape researcher Mary Koss claims male victims of female rapists aren’t real rape victims in radio interview

You should really read those links in full, but here are some key points:

The NISVS found victimization numbers suspiciously much, much, MUCH higher than comparable government surveys on sexual assault.

The NISVS survey methods seem questionable if not out-right flawed. Deceptive and unclear questions could have easily have caused non-victims to be classified as victims.

NISVS publications focus on useless, inflammatory lifetime statistics instead of more useful and accurate yearly statistics. I suspect its because the lifetime data tends to show greater female victimization, while the yearly data tends to show more even victimization rates between the sexes. The NISVS makes no real effort to establish, control or chart the timeframe on its lifetime data. This makes it useless for charting trends in victimization or predicting future victimization. Furthermore, asking people about victimizations further back in the past makes it more likely they will mis-remember events (especially when faced with leading and deceptive survey questions).

The NISVS continues to exclude victims of "made to penetrate" from its definition of "rape", even though it fits the reasonable definition of rape (being physically forced to have penetrative sex against your will). The CDC has been heavily criticized by men's rights activists for this move. The CDC's response to exactly why they have excluded "made to penetrate" from rape has been lackluster and evasive.

Although the overwhelming number of male victims report female perpetrators of "made to penetrate", by excluding "made to penetrate" from its definition of "rape" the CDC can claim male victims of "rape" mostly report male perpetrators. Thus rape can continue to be portrayed as a crime with only male perpetrators.

Despite being widely quoted by both politicians and media, both the CDC and mainstream media have largely ignored the NISVS' shocking and noteworthy findings on male rape victims to such an extent it seems like the CDC is trying to intentionally play them down or actively cover them up.

Feminist research Mary Koss has publicly stated that she believes male victims of female rapists should be excluded from the definition of rape. She offers no solid justification for this. I strongly suspect it is because it harms the political utility of the word for the feminist movement. Koss has worked for the CDC in the past and there is suspicion that the NISVS' inexplicable reluctance to fully acknowledge male victims of female rapists may be caused by the researchers desire to protect the feminist narrative that rape is a tool of Patrichial oppression.

CDC NISVS publications continue to be misleading and awful

If you want to analyze the new NISVS data, you should be reading the 2010-2012 NISVS State Report, Prevalence and Characteristics of Sexual Violence, Stalking, and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization — National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, United States, 2011 and the 2010 Full Report with a critical eye. However, these are long reads and most people will likely choose to instead read the shorter NISVS summaries and infographs.

These often don't define important terms (such as "made to penetrate" or "sexual coercion") and rely heavily on the unreliable lifetime statistics. However, they are informative because they show you how the CDC wants you to interpret the NISVS findings and what talking points it wants the media to regurgitate. Case in point, look at these few paragraphs from the 2-page Findings from the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey 2010-2012 State Report summary:

"In the U.S., about 1 in 3 women and nearly 1 in 6 men experienced some form of contact sexual violence during their lifetime. Nearly 23 million women and 1.7 million men have been the victims of completed or attempted rape at some point in their life. An estimated 6.8 million men were made to penetrate another person in their lifetime." (1)

Surprise, surprise. All lifetime statistics. Also none of the terms are defined in the document. What is "made to penetrate"? What is "contact sexual violence"? You wouldn't know if this was the only thing you read. If you read the full 2010-2012 State Report, you'll learn that "contact sexual violence" includes: "rape, being made to penetrate someone else, sexual coercion, and/or unwanted sexual contact" (18). However, "sexual coercion" contains behaviors that aren't actually violent. Most aren't illegal and some aren't even necessarily immoral. The NISVS defines "sexual coercion" as:

"unwanted vaginal, oral, or anal sex after being pressured in ways that included being worn down by someone who repeatedly asked for sex or showed they were unhappy, feeling pressured by being lied to, being told promises that were untrue, having someone threaten to end a relationship or spread rumors; and sexual pressure due to someone using their influence or authority." (17)

Have you ever (subjectively) asked for sex one too many times? Have you ever acted (subjectively) "unhappy" when you didn't have sex!? Well you committed an act of "contact sexual violence"! Don't frown too much or the CDC will label you a violent rapist.

Cooking up questionable victimization categories like "sexual coercion" and mixing them together with different victimizations to create a larger (and mostly useless) uber statistic are common tactics for bad/biased researchers looking to inflate their victimization numbers.

It would be much more honest to combine "rape" and "made to penetrate" into one figure. If only there was an all-encompassing, commonly used word to describe being physically forced to have sex against your will. Maybe something short...only four letters...

It might also help to actually explain what "made to penetrate" is in the 2-page summary. It would be even more honest to point out that in 2012 men and women reported the exact same percentage of "contact sexual violence" (3.8% - NISVS 2010-2012 State Report pg. 217, 222).

It's hard to not to get conspiratorial about the CDC's portrayal of the NISVS when they have been sitting on a bombshell about male sexual victimization for years, yet seem to make every effort to downplay it and always make women seem like the chief victims of sexual assault.

Case in point, the CDC made the very odd decision of portraying all the data in the latest 2010-2012 NISVS State Report averages the 2010-2012 data rather then just showing all three years of data side by side. I found this infuriating. I don't care about averages when looking at victimization data. I care about trends. I want to know the differences between 2010, 2011, and 2012. I want to know if rates are going up or down. I can't do that if they have been mixed together into one useless number.

You have to go to the very back of the 200+ page report to actually get the newest 2012 data. It's almost as if they were crammed in the back appendix as an afterthought or reluctant obligation.

My suspicion is that the researchers saw the 2012 "made to penetrate" victimization rate far surpass the female rape rate and panicked. The CDC has rightfully already faced severe criticism about how it has dealt with its male victimization data. My guess is the researchers wanted a way to downplay male victimization numbers without it looking too obvious.

NISVS recommendations show its thinly veiled feminist agenda

This suspicion is increased by the "Implications for Prevention" section of the 2010-2012 Report which clearly has a thinly veiled feminist bias. There is a whole subsection entitled "Providing Opportunities to Empower and Girls and Women", but no direct mention of specifically supporting (much less empowering) men. Furthermore, the subsection quickly jumps the shark by recommending a slew of economic entitlement programs for women to correct the supposed "power imbalance" between women and men:

"States may consider approaches that focus on strengthening economic supports for women and families by addressing poverty, economic insecurity, and power imbalance between women and men, or strengthening leadership and opportunities for adolescent girls through building confidence, knowledge, and leadership skills in young women to help secure better education or employment opportunities later in life. For example, Microfinance programs provide loans and savings opportunities to low-income households to improve the financial and social status of women and families." (206) [emphasis added]

I understand that socio-economic status can play a part in violence, but this seems like a non-sequitur on the part of the researchers. Either way, that doesn't explain why men are completely left out of these suggested economic "supports". Apparently there are no men/boys in "women and families". Also, the assumption of an inherent power imbalance favoring men over women is textbook feminist Patrichary theory.

While men are passed over as deserving candidates for "empowerment", men are unsurprisingly the focus of the subsection entitled "Promoting Social Norms that Protect against Violence":

"Another approach to impact social norms is one that mobilizes men and boys as allies in prevention efforts. The intent is to make the prevention of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence everyone’s concern rather than solely a women’s issue. Such approaches work by promoting healthy, positive norms about masculinity, gender, and violence among individuals who can then spread these social norms through their social networks." (205) [emphasis added]

In case you are holding out vague hope that CDC is talking about programs designed to teach men and boys about the dangers of being victimized, the CDC gives an example of the kind of program it is talking about:

"For example, Coaching Boys into Men is an intervention that trains athletic coaches to model and encourage respectful, non-violent, healthy relationships with their male athletes. Coaching Boys into Men has been shown to decrease negative bystander behavior (e.g., laughing at sexist jokes) and decrease dating violence perpetration of male high school athletes (Miller et al., 2012)." (204) [emphasis added]

This whole thing reeks of the feminist belief in "toxic masculinity" and the idea that men must be drastically re-socialized ("reprogrammed" might actually be a better word) in order to not be sub-human monsters (in other words, become feminist drones).

Furthermore, the subsection contains absolutely no direct mention of any programs, methods or even a need to address possible social norms that may contribute to violence against men by women, even though the NISVS found direct evidence of this violence. It doesn't matter what the researchers' own data says! First rule of feminism - women have problems, men are problems.

Just scratching the surface

I haven't even finished my read of the 2010-2012 NISVS yet (its over 200 pages) so there may be more to talk about. In the meantime, it remains very concerning that premiere the health organization in the U.S. doesn't think being physically forced to have sex against your will is rape. This is like saying it's not "murder" if you use a hatchet instead of a shotgun. Can you imagine the howling if the majority of the NISVS' female rape victims were not defined as being victims of "rape", but of "unwanted penetrative sex" and excluded from CDC rape statistics? What's even more concerning is the CDC is likely doing this to support a feminist agenda, even if that means throwing male victims of rape under the bus.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Wonder Woman feminist shitstorm beings Part 2.5: Two wrongs still don't make a right

I've been writing about the Alamo Drafthouse's decision to bar men from select screenings of the Wonder Woman movie and the following predictably awful feminist response. I was about to move on to a different topic, but then noticed that people on Twitter pointing out Nu Metro, a South African movie chain, has done two men-only screenings of movies as if this was some kind of refutation of the claim that Alamo Drafthouse's women-only screenings of Wonder Woman are blatant sex discrimination against men. This assertion is asinine for several reasons (the least of which being Nu Metro has run women-only movie nights for at least over 4 years).

First, the argument just isn't logically sound. It's like saying two wrongs make a right. Incidents of sex discrimination against women don't some how invalidate sex discrimination against men. That's really all I need to say. Fallacy revealed, argument destroyed. However, there are some additional points I want to make.

It seems to be a leap to compare two theaters, not just in different countries, but on different continents. Not only may the gender politics of the two countries be very different, but it also makes a comparative legal analysis of the two theaters' actions useless, since the U.S. and South Africa have different laws. Seriously, why not just look for examples in Saudi Arabia while you are at it?

More interesting, the people who are bringing this up neglect to mention that while Nu Metro appears to have only had two Guy's Nights (the first every being a February 2017 showing of Logan and the second a May 2017 showing of Alien: Convent), it has had women-only Girl's Nights since at least 2012. I don't know how many Girl's Nights there have been. I can find references to at least five (La La Land, Beauty and the Beast, Fifty Shades Darker, Step Up Revolution and Divergent) Girls' Night screenings, but I assume there have been more if it has been running since at least 2012. I'm seeing some indication that it may be/have been a monthly event.

Also, the men-only rule during Guy's Nights seems to still be somewhat malleable. As one movie-goer writes during the second Guy's Night event:

"As the name suggests, ‘Guys’ Night’ is Nu Metro’s new guys only event, not too different from their current Girls’ Night Out concept that has been running for the last few years. However, due to some confusion (despite the ‘No Girls Allowed’ signs plastered across the hallways), and after a permission request by the events MC, there were a few ladies in the crowd too. Like good gentlemen, the guys were, of course, highly accommodating and the event continued in the same spirit and atmosphere, with plenty of laughs and fun."[emphasis added]

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Woman Women feminist shitstorm begins Part 2: Feminists can't help but endorse blatant sex discrimination against men

Recently, I wrote about the Alamo Drafthouse holding women's only screenings of the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. I wasn't surprised, since Wonder Wonder has always been a lightning rod for gender politics. While the movie itself looks like it might good, I fully expected its release to foster some kind of deluge of feminist craziness.

Unfortunately, the Alamo Drafthouse doubled-down in the face of legitimate criticism by setting up screenings at their Brookyln location too. They have even decided to donate all the proceeds to Planned Parenthood, an extremely controversial organization that many women don't even support. The Drafthouse could have picked hundreds of other more inoffensive, apolitical women's health organizations. They could have even donated the proceeds to some sort of men's charity as an apology (Sorry guys, we already sold the tickets so we have to do this, but all money is going toward this men's health charity). It seems less and less like Alamo Drafthouse accidentally stepped on a gender politics land mine and more like they are planting explosives themselves.

Many mainstream media outlets covering this have been relatively neutral. However, women's sections are filled with less objective reporting and more snark. The New York Time's Women in the World writes:

"Although it’s important to point out that the screening is set for June 6, four days after the film officially hits theaters nationwide, that did not stop the tide of frustrated comments from men who realized that the theater would not change their plans and that by virtue of their Y-chromosomes, they would be unable to attend the showing."

The WITW staff finishes the article with what they seem to believe destroys the entire controversy.

"Insisting that the criticism is unfounded and that the “women-only” screening is a celebration of the character as a feminist icon rather than a conscious attempt to exclude male fans, the theater chain has held firm and added a second “women-only” screening at its New York Location. Sometimes the lasso of truth hurts, gentlemen."

Sassy. I'm hearing this argument about the supposed "veterans events" at the Drafthouse come up a lot. However, the WITW staff provide no evidence the Drafthouse has ever excluded non-veterans from public screenings. All I can find is that the Drafthouse once gave veterans free tickets. This is very different from barring non-veterans from public screenings. Also, even if the Drafthouse did bar non-veterans from public screenings, that wouldn't some how make baring men from public screenings okay. Ignoring the important differences between veterans and men, when did two wrongs make a right?

I won't even get into what the WITW is inadvertently saying about feminism by claiming that women-only events are needed to celebrate feminist icons.

Feminist outlets are much worse

A lot of coverage from smaller media outlets is even more dismissive and patronizing, but it doesn't hold a candle to coverage from feminist media outlets:

On Feminist cesspit Jezbel, Lauren Evans wrote "Men Lose Their Shit Over Alamo Drafthouse's Women-Only Wonder Woman Screening, Theater Responds By Adding More". Evans writes, "It sold out immediately, and with good reason—what better way to spend an evening than with Gal Gadot, a vat of rosé and a blissfully dick-free environment?"

Like a lot of feminist commentary on the Drafthouse screenings, Jezbel doesn't explain how a "dick-free environment" enhances the experience. The writer then goes into a predictable list of women's grievances:

"Men make 20 percent more money than women; they perform fewer child care duties and household chores (even when their wives are the family breadwinners). They pay less for pants and haircuts, and they are responsible for dictating our abortion laws. But GOD DAMN IT if they’re going to let a few dozen women celebrate the rare arrival of female superhero protagonist!"

I could spend a whole post just on this paragraph, but I'll resist. The wage gap has been debunked to the point of cliche and I've written about the alleged differences in prices for men's and women's consumer goods.

I also don't have to address any of this right now, because it's a basic logical fallacy to suggest that supposed injustices toward women invalidate injustices toward men. This is a common feminist tactic. It also makes about as much sense as me saying you don't have a papercut BECAUSE I broke my leg.

The most interesting article I've seen so far is from i09, Jezbel's nerdy sibling. Beth Elerkin's sensitively titled "A Women-Only Wonder Woman Screening Is Predictably Upsetting Dumb-Ass Sexists" actually gives a (very bad) reason for why a women's only screening is needed. Although it provides no evidence to back up the claim that the people condemning the unnecessary sex discrimination against men are some how the real "sexists" here. The article starts off about as diplomatic as you would expect:

"Within a matter of hours, a movie theater in Austin, Texas sold out its first women-only screening of DC’s Wonder Woman, and they’re already planning at least one more showing. Unfortunately, the laws of the internet dictate that anytime women get something cool, some men have to bitch about it"

And only gets better from there:

"Some men have promised to boycott the Drafthouse in retaliation, and the movie theater company’s Facebook page and Twitter account are full of cries of “reverse sexism,” “misandry,” and whatever other nonsense these jackasses use to try and explain something that doesn’t apply here at all. "Let me be frank: A women-only screening of Wonder Woman is an excellent idea, and any man who thinks it discriminates against them needs to spend the rest of the day staring in the mirror while a single tear flows down their collective cheeks."

Elerkin goes on to argue that barring men from a screening of Wonder Woman is some how justified since the majority of major superhero movies have male leads. An argument that simply doesn't make any sense.

"We’ve had trilogies for Blade, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man, among countless others. The Hulk has had least three different films so far, each with different actors, and Spider-Man is on his third franchise in a decade, with at least one sequel already guaranteed. Do you know how many of those 130 films had female leads? Eight"

Okay...but how does this justify, or even relate to, barring men from a public event?

"So, to all the men complaining that a couple screenings of Wonder Woman exclude them, I say this: just shut up. Women have had to deal with the bullshit of non-representation for generations, and we will probably keep having to deal with it for generations to come. Wonder Woman is the first blockbuster comic book film starring a woman in American history, and it happens to star comics’ biggest female icon. At the very least, women deserve to have a space—even if it’s just a single screening of a movie that’s going to open in literally thousands of theaters across America—where they can celebrate that together. Any man who doesn’t respect that doesn’t understand what Wonder Woman’s been fighting for all these years."

Wonder Woman is definitely not the first blockbuster comic book film starring a women in all of American history. What happened to those eight movies with female leads she mentioned earlier? What definitions of "starring" and "blockbuster" is she using? The recent American Ghost in the Shell movie stars a female lead and it was based off an incredibly popular Japanese comic book (which spawned several movies, video games and a TV series).

Also I don't think Elerkin understands "what Wonder Woman's been fighting for all these years". As I mentioned in my last post, Wonder Woman has often gone against the rule that no men are allowed on her home island.

However, Elerkin does finally give us some kind of argument as to why a women's-only showing is necessary. Women apparently require a women's only space to soak in this incredible moment. A space that would be ruined by their male friends, but not by female strangers. Oh...and revenge. That also seems to play a major role.

The dumbest thing feminists could do.

Feminists have a pathological urge to squash any suggestion of the mere possibility men could face sex discrimination. It protects feminism's monopoly on gender politics. However, commenting on this was a very poor decision for feminists. While the Drafthouse's Planned Parenthood donation certainly narrows down their likely political views, it is unclear if the management are actually feminists. Feminism had plausible deniability for an instance of objective sex discrimination against men that has little real political value to the feminist movement. It's not like this will affect abortion legislation.

But many feminists couldn't help themselves. They are putting their seal of approval on the Drafthouse's actions. Now we don't just have an instance of blatant gender discrimination against men, but an instance of a feminist supported (if not outright celebrated) instance of gender discrimination against men. Again, our self-proclaimed champions of gender equality can't resist showing they actually fight against gender equality.

Notice none of the feminist responses convincingly argue that the Drafthouse's action aren't sex discrimination. At most they just say this sex discrimination doesn't matter, but they don't adequately explain why. While many people have dismissed the Drafthouse's women-only screenings as simply not being a big deal, feminists doesn't have this luxury. Feminism has spent decades shrieking at supposed sexism hidden in every shadow: in climate change, in air conditioning, in the way men (supposedly) sit down, etc. Feminists have set their bar so low for sexism, they can't help but trip over it when it comes to discrimination against men. I could only imagine the feminist response to a male-only showing of a movie about a male superhero from an all-male island who comes to our world to hack up hordes of evil women with a sword.

The hypocrisy only gets worse when you remember feminists constantly try to sell feminism to men under the guise that it will allow them to honestly express feelings of weakness that the big, bad patriarchy makes them keep inside. A patriarchy that supposedly demands men are always stoic and emotionless. A patriarchy that uses shame to keep them in line. However, feminism has again shown the moment men express any sort of emotion that feminists don't like, its accusations of whining and #masculinitysofragile. It doesn't take much for feminism to show that it's actually the devil it claims to fight.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Woman Women feminist shitstorm begins: theater bars men from screening of Wonder Woman movie because "girl power"

The upcoming Wonder Woman movie premieres June 2. The movie actually looks like it may be okay. The problem is that Wonder Woman, as perhaps the most widely known superheroine (especially by people who don't read comics), has always been a lightning rod for gender politics. Case in point, Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas has decided to host a "women's only" screening of the film because "girl power":

"Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying “No Guys Allowed” for one special night at the Alamo Ritz. And when we say “People Who Identify As Women Only,” we mean it. Everyone working at this screening -- venue staff, projectionist, and culinary team -- will be female."

I'm still trying to figure out if this is illegal. I would be one thing if this was a private event for a organization that just happened to be all women. However, its quite another thing to have a public event that specifically bars a specific people group. I see little difference between having a "women's only" showing and a "whites' only" showing.

Not only is the theater discriminating against customers based on gender, but possibly also employees. If they told any male employees they couldn't work during the screening, those employees would have legal grounds for a employment discrimination complaint under Texas labor laws.

I also want to say its a stupid business decision to bar half your potential customers for no reason, but the tickets seemed to have sold out! There is even talk of setting up more women's only screenings. Plus they are getting a load of free publicity.

Drafthouse's Response

Alamo Drafthouse has responded to very credible allegations of sexism with mostly with either dismissive or outright snarky social media comments.

This isn't a matter of opinion. This is subjective gender discrimination. The only possible argument you can make is this is some how okay gender discrimination.

I don't want the Drafthouse to burn in hellfire (unintentional Marvel comic reference there). In current American society, sadly few people recognize that sexism against men is even possible. I could imagine the Alamo Drafthouse unwittingly walked into this. However, they lose my sympathy when they double-down when they should be apologizing.

I also simply don't understand what the draw is for women here. I don't necessarily agree with women's only gyms or "ladies night" discounts, but at least there is some sort of argument there. What's the attraction here? See a movie without having to suffer the presence of men? Is the spectre of "ra-ra" sisterhood so intoxicating, no matter how ridiculous and unnecessary its form?

I think what really frustrates me about the whole thing is that is just seems to be sexism for sexism's sake and women are paying a premium for it!

Women's Women is a lightning rod for gender politics and SJW crap

Wonder Woman frustrates me because she is a mainstay of the DC Comics universe, but I think she has always been held back by both gender politics and bad writing. I think the writing has actually been getting a little better for her. While DC fans generally hated the New 52 reboot, it played up some complexities in Wonder Woman that made her more own character and less Superman with tits. Brian Azzarello's New 52 Wonder Woman run, while not perfect, was probably the most interesting take on the character I've seen for awhile. It also occasionally poked fun at the gender politics of the series and a few times out-right slapped them across the face.

However, you also have Grant Marrison's ridiculous Wonder Woman: Earth One, which includes unnecessary references to both body shaming and racism (along with some of the weird BDSM stuff found in very early versions of Wonder Woman). We have an issue of Sensation Comics, where Wonder Woman explains even her magical Lasso of Truth "can't stop mansplaining".

Wonder Woman has become a feminist icon simply because she is the most recognizable female superhero. Gloria Steinmen famously complained about a story arc where Wonder Woman lost her powers. But how much Wonder Woman do you think Steinmen actually read? Do you think she knew any other female superheroes? As the recent SJW incursion into comics has made it clear, SJWs care more about the political statements they can make with comics, rather than the medium itself. I have a feeling that feminists would rather Wonder Woman be a good feminist billboard, then a good (much less financially viable) character.

Wonder Woman is actually a confusing choice for a feminist heroine if you bother to dip below the surface of the character. For one thing, Wonder Woman was created by a man. A man who appears to have wanted to use her to promote BDSM.

Sure, feminists will likely drool at a super-powered warrior princess from an all-female island paradise battling evil (which they may easily reinterpret as "patriarchy"). However, I doubt that many consider that the "Paradise Island" (aka Themyscira) Wonder Woman hails from is a highly militaristic, isolationist, xenophobic, theocratic, misandric, dictatorship (technically a monarchy, but the queen is immortal). It might even be outright authoritarian. Women aren't generally allowed to leave the island. Men are generally forbidden from setting foot on the island (sometimes on penalty of death).

Furthermore, while feminist dogma sometimes gets pasted on to Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman is very often the force pushing for greater understanding and contact with "man's world", occasionally even bringing male heroes (often in violation of the island's laws) to Paradise Island. Wonder Woman is the bridge between our "man's world" (which actually isn't just man's world) and her island, which is why Alamo Drafthouse barring men is particularly ironic. It's probably the most un-Wonder Woman thing you could do.

Frankly, feminist don't even know what to think about Wonder Woman. The U.N. adopted Wonder Woman as a mascot late last October. When Wonder Woman became a U.N. mascot last year (I suspect as a face-saving measure when they failed to elect a female U.N. Sectary General), many feminists were outraged. A petition with 44,983 signatures was submitted to remove Wonder Woman. One of their complaints was that a real women should have been used, but I think they were mostly upset that Wonder Woman was "an overtly sexualized image" at time of supposed rampant "objectification of women and girls".

"Although the original creators may have intended Wonder Woman to represent a strong and independent “warrior” woman with a feminist message, the reality is that the character’s current iteration is that of a large breasted, white woman of impossible proportions, scantily clad in a shimmery, thigh-baring body suit with an American flag motif and knee high boots –the epitome of a “pin-up” girl."

Ultimately, the U.N. dropped Wonder Woman after just 2 months.

This hasn't stopped Gal Got from telling us that Wonder Woman is totally a feminist movie, mostly because Gal Got has no idea what feminism actually is.

"GLAMOUR: [..] Does portraying one of the most iconic feminist figures change your own personal feelings on feminism? GG: There are such misconceptions as to what a feminist is. Feminism is about equality. I want all people to have the same opportunities and to get the same salaries for the same jobs. I realize I'm doing what I want to do because of the women before me who laid the groundwork. Without them I wouldn't be an educated working mother who is following her dreams; I wouldn't be here."

It's Got who is has misconceptions about feminism, which is definitely not about gender equality, but actively promotes inequality.

Get ready for a feminist deluge

I'm holding out hope the Wonder Woman movie will actually be mostly good (probably not great, but good). Although the WWI setting makes me think we'll probably get a reference to the Suffragettes, which would be strange since women can't vote on Paradise Island either. I doubt the movie will comment on the Suffragette's largely forgotten racism or acts of domestic terrorism (or note how many men couldn't vote at the time either). I would love to see someone try to explain the White Feather Campaign to WWI era Wonder Woman.

However, we are definitely going to get a deluge of feminist commentary on the movie. Three months from the movie's release Wonder Woman's arm pit hair was already a point of controversy! Hundreds of feminist blogs will use the movie as a springboard to talk about feminism. Feminists act like the fictional movie some how proves feminist doctrine. Feminists will complain about other feminists commentary because Wonder Woman is white, able-bodied, and attractive. Feminists will analyze the ticket sales. Feminists will make seeing the movie a political act and not seeing an act of misogyny.

On the other hand, if Wonder Woman was even mildly anti-feminist, it could be one of the greatest anti-feminist trolls of all time.

More Stuff

MundaneMatt: Male fans upset at (possibly illegal) female-only WONDER WOMAN screening

Diversity in Comics: WONDER WOMAN will play in gender-segregated theaters

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Feminists use Manchester bombing to push their ideology before bodies even cold

On May 22, 2017 at approximately 22:30 local time a suicide bomber set off an explosive at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England after an Ariana Grande concert had finished. Current count has 23 killed and at least 120 injured.

More information is still coming out as the investigation continues. However, this didn't stop writers from Slate and Salon, no more than 24-hours after the attack, from using the bombing as a springboard to claim that not only were women and girls specifically target, but they are victims of massive societal oppression.

The Bombing at a Manchester Ariana Grande Show Was an Attack on Girls and Women" by Slate's Christina Cauterucci was (assuming U.S. Eastern Standard Time on the byline) published less than 6 hours after the bombing. Even now the true motives of the bomber are still being investigated, but 6 hours after the fact Cauterucci seemed perfectly comfortable suggesting the attack was in retaliation for pop-singer supposedly challenging the big, bad Patrichary.

"Like her pop-superstar predecessor Britney Spears, Grande has advanced a renegade, self-reflexive sexuality that’s threatening to the established heteropatriarchal order. If the Manchester bombing was an act of terrorism, its venue indicates that the attack was designed to terrorize young girls who idolize Grande’s image." [emphasis added]

Cauterucci even tries to subtlety weave in undertones of rape and slut-shaming:

Grande has long been the target of sexist rhetoric that has deemed her culpable for any sexual objectification or animosity that’s come her way. Her songs and wardrobe are sexy, yet she’s maintained a coy, youthful persona; the combination has led some haters to argue that she’s made her fortune by making people want to have sex with her, so whatever related harm befalls her is entirely her fault. [emphasis added]

It's confusing what Cauterucci is even suggesting here. Is she suggesting the bomber was some kind of misogynist Grande-hater? It doesn't help Cauterucci's point that attackers didn't appear to make any concentrated effort to harm Grande. The bomb went off after the concert ended, which makes sense if your goal is take out as many people as possible (people crowd together up as they rush for exists), but not if you are trying to assassinate Grande. Cauterucci even acknowledges that the attack didn't explicitly target women and girls, just a venue where there were likely to be a many women and girls:

"The victims of Monday’s bombing will almost certainly be mostly girls and women. The Grande fan demographic also includes a number of older millennial women, gay men, and general lovers of pop music, of course, but her live concerts are largely populated by tween and teenage girls and their moms."

Of course, Cauterucci doesn't have a break down of the gender ratio of the victims, because it hadn't (and still hasn't) been released. At the time Cauterucci published her article, the causality toll hadn't even been settled (Cauterucci's article still lists the death toll at 19 and the injury count at 50). Cauterucci doesn't even try to give us hard data about the gender/age makeup of the concert or Grande's fan base in general.

Salon article is worse

A Salon article entitled "Manchester was an attack on girls" by Mary Elizabeth Williams, is basically the same as the Slate article, but dialed up a few notches. It's more emotional, more bombastic and says even less. This is impressive, since (unlike Slate) Salon waited a full 19 and a half hours after the attack to publish this gem. Almost a full day!

Williams unconvincingly tries to show that young girls are constantly crushed by societal oppression and find brief precious moments of freedom in Ariana Grande's music.

"If you just happen to not be a girl or don’t live with girls, I want to tell you how truly spectacular they are and what they’re up against every goddamn day. I want to remind you what a refuge pop music is — music that speaks to you, without judgment. That makes you feel safe and joyful in a culture that seems to purposefully and ceaselessly try to tear you down. One that seeks to punish you for how you dress, that trivializes your interests and your icons, that obsesses over guarding your purity."

Williams mentions how some people wrote some not nice things on social media (with little evidence to back it up). Perhaps a high crime in the feminist world, but less concerning to most of us, especially when the subject is a deadly bombing. Williams article mostly boils down to 8-paragraphs of emotional venting about how wonderful and oppressed girls are:

"They are so, so strong, these girls — yes, these girls with their goofy Snapchat streaks and their mermaid hair and their willingness to love things unironically. Their courage and their grace would knock you out. And if you want to know what ferocious resilience looks like, take a look sometime at a young girl and her bestie, sharing a set of earbuds and dancing, in spite of it all."

Remember all of those terrorists attacks that targeted men

In all fairness, the attacker may have targeted the concert because it seemed like they would be many women and girls there (or maybe just because it was an event with lots of people). Unlike Slate and Salon, I'm waiting for the police investigation to be complete. I don't know the attacker's motivation. My point is that neither do Cauterucci and Williams, but that didn't stop them from writing their articles less than 24 hours after the bombing.

If the bomber was trying to kill a high number of women and girls, I imagine it was increase the perceived tragedy of the attack (because under "patriarchy" the deaths of women are seen as uniquely tragic for some reason).

Of course, Cauterucci and Williams really start going off rails by trying to spin the bombing into evidence of widespread oppression of women and/or girls. Here is a riddle for you. If bombing a concert where the fan base is likely mostly female is sexist, what is a shooting at club primarily catering to gay men? You would think Cauterucci and Williams might have asked themselves this question, since they both brought up the 2016 Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting in their articles as an example of terrorist/societal oppression.

Was that attack not specifically targeting men? 45 out of 49 of those killed were men (I can't find stats on the other 53 wounded). Now you might argue, that was because they were gay, not because they were men. I guess there just weren't any good lesbian clubs to shoot up. Maybe the bomber didn't mind women, just those pop-music fan women. But rather then splitting hairs over idiotic identity politics, let's have another example. How about the Charlie Hebo Massacre where attackers deliberately and systematically targeted men:

"After culling the women from the men, the victims were mercilessly shot at point-blank range, said Gerald Kierzek, a doctor who spoke to CNN after treating the stunned survivors."

""Sigolene Vinson, a freelance journalist attending the paper’s weekly editorial meeting, hit the floor and hid behind a partition but was grabbed by a gunman who pointed his AK-47 at her head. "You, we will not kill, because we don’t kill women. But read the Quran,” the gunman warned her, before repeatedly shouting “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great.”"

The Mirror seems to provide a slightly different quote from the attacker:

"She said the man told her: “I’m not killing you because you are a woman and we don’t kill women but you have to convert to Islam, read the Qu'ran and wear a veil.” She added that as the man left, he shouted “Allahu akbar, allahu akbar.""

Another Mirror article adds even more detail:

"She said Saïd Kouachi [one of the gunmen] turned towards the editorial room where his brother Chérif had shot Elsa Cayat[a woman], another Charlie writer, and shouted: “We don’t kill women,” three times. The men then left.""

Out of the 12 fatalities, Cayat was the only women. Furthermore, it seems one of the gunmen chewed the other out for killing her. It is unknown why she was the only female victim. There is suspicion that it may be because she was Jewish.

Feminists may counter these attacks don't count because they were committed by men. It doesn't matter. This is the problem with engaging feminist gender warriors. They treat the sexes like two sides in a war and one side (always the male side) has to be fault. You can't just blame ideologies or (God forbid) individuals. The point I'm making is that these terrorists attacks that largely targeted men were not considered sexist (and sexism was definitely not considered the main motivating factor), so there is no grounds to call the Manchester bombing sexist (especially when you don't know the motivation of the attacker).

The smart money is the attacker's motivate was Islamic terrorism. If so, then trying to cram the attack into a simplistic feminist gender war paradigm hinders seriously needed discussion about Islamic radicalization in the U.K.

More To Say

There is a lot more I could write about this because it touches so many nerves: how men are considered the socially acceptable recipients of violence, how tragedy is portrayed as uniquely tragic when it befalls a women("Earth destroyed - women most affected"), how men are genderless "victims" in a tragedy unless they are the villains, how feminists falls over themselves to defend an Islam that would destroy most of the basic freedoms Western women enjoy. Don't even get me started about the state of gender politics in the U.K. It's a country where vaguely defined "misogyny" has been made punishable by law and the courts punish men for rape after they have been found innocent.

There are also reports of a possible female accomplice in the bombings. What could this do the feminist narrative if it pans out?

However, I'll just stop here after pointing out that after the explosion, a nearby homeless man decided to take a break from enjoying his male privilege to help the wounded. But, you know, fuck patriarchy.

More Links

Sargon of Akhad: Never Waste A Tragedy

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Don't trust the "red pilling" of lying feminist Laci Green

Recently, Feminists Youtuber Laci Green recently expressed interest in hosting debates between feminists and anti-feminists. She even offered very mild acknowledgement that some anti-SJWs may not be monsters and may even have valid points (GASP!).

Reactions have been mixed among anti-feminists. Regardless of Green's intentions, most seem to believe that healthy debate is always a good thing. On the other hand, feminists have immediately taken to tearing her apart for entertaining that anti-feminists are anything other than misogynist monsters. I think this has lead some anti-feminists, happy to show one more example of feminists eating their own, to embrace her more eagerly.

I haven't paid much attention to Green. I'm more concerned with bigger fish that can really do societal damage, such as the U.N. However, in the rare moments I have paid attention to Green, she has not only been annoying as hell, but also blatantly dishonest. I caught her quoting non-existent FBI rape statistics to fit her narrative. Yeah, "science is my rubric" Laci Green just made up data.

Laci Green also has a history of hypocrisy and abusing Youtube systems to silence criticism against her. She generally doesn't seem like a very nice or level-headed person, but hides it behind a cute perkiness (which I find incredibly irritating).

So while Laci Green's recent video makes some good basic points about freedom of speech, she is extremely untrustworthy.

It's a cash grab

My guess is a lot of the newer professional feminists who haven't some how figured out how to steal your tax money are realizing rehashing old feminist dogma in the free market doesn't pay the bills. At the same time, they see their critics rise in popularity. The solution? Straddle both worlds and get money and publicity for both sides.

It appears to be working. I certainly didn't expect to write about her again. This has all been an excellent ploy to give her Youtube channel a shot in the arm after a long run of barely posting anything. Look at the statistics before and after she published her video on May 11th:

Imagine what will happen if Green can bring in big name anti-feminists to debate on her channel.

As with many career feminists, its often hard to tell exactly where the careerism ends and the genuine ideology begins. Although, practically speaking, it really doesn't matter because the societal damage they cause is the same either way. Green states in the video that she is still very much a feminist, even a "intersectional" feminist. She hasn't become some of sort relatively inoffensive "equity feminist" like Christine Hoff Sommers. She hasn't admitted that the "patrichary theory" at the center of feminism is inherently bigoted. At most Green has just has (supposedly) a minor disagreement with how some feminists treat (some?) of its critics. Green is still very much a social justice warrior gender feminist. Indeed, one of Green's chief complaints about feminist censorship is that is hinders the spread social justice. She doesn't acknowledge that feminism and other social justice ideologies are a toxic recipe for bigoted authoritarianism.

We don't need to "build bridges" with feminism

I'm very suspicious that Green just wants to host feminists and anti-feminists to have them find common ground. She likely doesn't want to (or even know how to) host an honest intellectual debate. Can you really see her not unnecessarily injecting herself into the debate? I'm suspicious she wants to play the holier-than-thou daytime talk-show host that watches like a saint as she gets feminists and anti-feminists to hug. I also imagine she (like many feminists) underestimates how strong the argument against modern feminism actually is.

When you have two different viewpoints, outsiders (especially those trying to moderate) often don't choose one viewpoint as correct, but encourage people to accept a middle ground between both viewpoints. I've heard this referred to as the fallacy of the reasonable middle. Consider, should we accept a middle-ground between pro-slavery and anti-slavery proponents? Would that be superior to just abolishing slavery?

This is the problem with "building bridges". It's not about the truth. It's not about what is right. It's about compromise.

I see little reason to compromise with feminism, especially when history has taught that often the moment you let your guard down is when feminism sneaks in and takes over. Feminism is rotten at its core. It's core ideology (patriarchy theory) is irredeemably bigoted. You don't try to reform cancer. You try to save people from it.

That is the real reason you should debate feminists. These debates should be public, because you likely aren't going to convince the feminists, but you may convince the audience. The anti-feminists in these debates should also come armed with a strong knowledge of the historical actions of feminism. Feminists excel at defending feminism when it's kept in the vague realm of feelings and ideals, but flounder when they have to answer for the actual real world actions of feminism, such as the most powerful U.S. feminist organization's decades long crusade against equal shared parenting, the long history of feminists campaigning for the "battered wife defense", which essentially amounts to a right to murder their spouses, denying food aid to male victims of major earthquake because of feminist dogma, promoting a now widespread theory of domestic violence theory that makes it literally impossible to recognize male victimization, the actions of Femen, and I could keep going for awhile. The "well, that's not my feminism" defense only can carry them so far when "feminism" with actual political power is inflicting horrors on the world and their "feminism" isn't challenging them.

More Links

OP;ED - The Supposed Red Pilling of Laci Green

I Don't Trust Laci Green

Laci Green: Genuine Debate or Ploy for Ad Revenue?

I Don't Trust You, Laci Green. Here's Why...

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Feminists and other SJWs are taking YOUR money whether you like it or not

Recently, University of Arizona's Social Justice Resource Center got negative press for posting a job for "Social Justice Advocates". The University quickly took the post down, but Campus Reform reports a key responsibility of the position was to:

""report any bias incidents or claims to appropriate Residence Life staff” in addition to hosting bi-semesterly “Real Talks” with dorm residents.""

University of Arizona appears to be trying to create a social justice gestapo and they are both student tuition and (as a public university) American tax dollars to do it.

This isn't an isolated incident. Sargon of Akkad did a great video demonstrating the shear number of "social justice" departments and courses in universities. He started a petition to have social justice banned in university.

SJWs are taking your money whether you like it or not.

I've become increasingly aware that it isn't enough to expose feminists and other SJWs as bigots and liars, but we need to cut off the flow of money they are stealthily taking from everyday people, most of whom likely strongly oppose social justice ideologies and programs, especially if they were fully explained to them. You may think that many domestic violence and rape prevention programs inappropriately spread feminist dogma, but you're still paying for them through taxes. You may think that the U.N.'s feminism is bigoted and cripples humanitarian aid, but you are still paying for it through taxes. You may think your universities social justice and feminist programs are bigoted, but are you still paying for them through tuition (and taxes).

It also creates a power imbalance in the culture war. Feminists support feminists proponents, but anti-feminists are forced to support both anti-feminist and feminist proponents. You may donate to/read that anti-feminist blogger, but your tuition/tax dollars also pay for that feminist activist to lecture school children about the evils of toxic masculinity.

It's well and good to disagree with feminists and other SJWs. It's important to debunk and call attention to the misinformation, bigotry and outright lies they spread. However, disagreeing with the bigoted ideology of the ticks latched onto your skin, doesn't make stop them from draining you and injected you with disease to strengthen themselves. Debunking the fraudulent statistics of mosquitoes won't stop them from stealthily drinking your blood to reproduce.

Like all good parasites, the most dangerous SJWs do this without people noticing. Often they are hidden in plain sight. Everyday people don't check what sort of nonsense is happening on university campuses and U.N. council chambers. Most people can't maintain a deep connection to current political events and only get second-hand sound bites filtered through a largely SJW-friendly news media. Everyday people are too busy trying to get by. However, SJWs aren't, because they take money from everyday people (whether they like it or not) to create organizations and political positions that allow people to do SJW activism professionally.

We need to think of ways to cut of the flow of public money to these people. At universities, an easy step would be to stop all alumni donations. If your college can afford to have a gender studies department, they don't need your money. Furthermore, alumni need to publicly explain why they are refusing to donate, so universities can't plead poverty to the government and get more of your tax dollars.

[recalculatingthegenderwar]

Feminist resistance to Le Pen shows (yet again) feminism is not “just about equality”

Whenever feminists want to disavow feminist misdeeds or bigoted feminist dogma, they often claim that feminism is “just about gender equality”. I have been adamant that feminism is not “just about equality”, but is a real world political ideology with a variety of (often very bigoted) beliefs and assertions.

We see this in the current French Prime presidential election. Marine Le Pen is the only female candidate and would be the first president in French history if elected. If feminists are “just about gender equality” it’s hard to see how Le Pen’s candidacy could be viewed as a bad thing. But it is.

At least by Femen, a large French based feminist organization. A Femen protester rushed the stage while Le Pen was giving a speech. Her security promptly tackled the protester. Definitely the right course of action considering it just as easily could have been an assassination attempt. This isn’t the first time Femen have disrupted Le Pen’s rallies.

In case you are unfamiliar, Femen is a “radical” feminist organization that seems both endlessly desperate for attention and a hair’s breath from becoming a terror group. Unfortunately, their more sinister misdeeds (several instances of physical assault, faking kidnappings, desecrating national landmarks, threatening to mutilate men, etc) are ignored by most news media, who are too busy gawking at their signature topless protest stunts.

Femen is also not exactly raging against the machine in France. I don't know a lot about France, but seems to be a very pro-feminist country. Not only is abortion legal, but it is state-funded. In fact, the French government may actually be criminalizing pro-life websites. There are laws requiring 50% of parliament members be women and similar quotas for private French companies. France has even outlawed private paternity testing, so father's cannot legally find out if they are actually raising their own biological offspring. Supposedly to protect women from being honest and accountable with their husbands families. Seriously, a French man will be arrested if he tries to find out if he is actually raising his own biological children.

Femen’s leader Inna Shevchenko (although its a matter of debate who is really pulling Femen’s strings) wrote an op-ed condemning Le Pen about a month ago:

“Even though the list of female political leaders is still short, they have made a huge contribution to feminism. Angela Merkel, Dalia Grybauskaite, Nicola Sturgeon, Hillary Clinton are among them.”

Notice that female Prime Minister Theresa May from the U.K.’s Conservative Party isn’t mentioned. Shevchenko doesn’t care about female leaders or female representation in politics. She only cares about pushing feminist ideology. It’s not about what feminism can do for women, its about what women can do for feminism:

“But a win by certain female presidential candidate would be a disastrous loss for feminism and women's rights.”

Shevchenko goes on to make a paper-thin case against Le Pen that basically amounts to claiming that she is anti-Islam (even though Femen is too) and will be anti-abortion (even though it doesn’t sound like Le Pen will be). The only real feminist argument against Le Pen is that she may support outlawing certain forms of Muslim dress, which would affect women. I'm personally against such a ban, but its over simplistic to say such a ban is inherently anti-women. You could make the argument that if these forms of Muslim dress aren't outlawed in France, then women (and men) will be forced to wear them by the local Muslim community. Ironically, such a ban may promote freedom of dress more than restrict it.

Le Pen’s political positions aren’t the point here. Step back and appreciate the madness of this. A major feminist organization is viciously campaigning AGAINST the election of potentially France’s first female president.

Feminism is a creature of left wing politics

I’m not familiar enough with the feminist landscape in France to know whether or not Femen’s opinion is shared by other French feminist organizations. I certainly haven’t been able to find any feminists who are really excited about the possibility of Le Pen as a France’s first female president. You would think that Le Pen might have established a reputation as feminist heroine when she (very politely) declined a meeting with a prominent Muslim leader when told she could only meet with him if she wore a veil.

In comparison, feminists were foaming at the mouth to elect Hillary Clinton, despite compelling evidence her husband is a serial sexual abuser of women and Hillary herself may have helped cover it up. U.N. feminist cover-girl Emma Watson (a U.K. citizen) gave Hilary Clinton a U.N. endorsement during the 2016 American presidential race simply because Clinton was a women.

"But I don't know if I would have believed if you had told me 2 years ago, before I made my HeForShe speech, that we might have the first female president of the United States. Please don't let me down America!"

Le Pen would be the first female president of France, but I doubt that Emma Watson will be giving Le Pen any U.N. endorsement. Note that while Watson did give a little lip service to conservative prime minister Theresa May during her speech this was already after May had been elected. I can't find any evidence that Watson has given any significant political support to Theresa May.

If you want a more extreme example, take former U.S. Secretary of State and feminist icon Madeleine Albright. While campaigning for Hillary Clinton, Albright warned "There's a special place in hell for women who don't help each other!" The not so subtle implication was that American women owed Clinton their vote simply because Clinton is a women.

I don't imagine French feminists are threatening women with eternal damnation if they don't vote for Le Pen. Feminism is a creature of the political left. Its seem like feminism is eager promote (and possibly co-opt) the left-wing position on political positions that have only a tenuous connection to women's rights (immigration, minimum wage, climate change, etc). Some may counter that feminists can have various political opinions outside of simple gender equality. This is true, but you can no longer say these political positions aren’t a part of feminism when feminist organizations hold them and support them as a part of feminism. This is especially true when no feminist organizations hold the counter political position. Can you name that influential pro-life feminist organization? I can't either. It's especially damning that feminism's support for women ends the moment they flirt with anything remotely right-wing or even just not left-wing.