Category Archive 'Feminist Issues'
19 Jul 2017

USA Today: Not Enough Women & Minorities in “Dunkirk”

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Free Beacon was amused.

The USA Today review of Christopher Nolan’s newest film Dunkirk notes that there are not enough women and people of color in the World War II epic.

Film critic Brian Truitt gave the film a glowing review.

“The movie captures the real-life heroism of the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940, when nearly 400,000 Allied soldiers were pulled out after the Germans trapped them on a beach in Nazi-occupied France,” he wrote. “Nolan’s ambitious story revolves around three tales unfolding at different times over land, sea, and air, only coming together at the end.”

But somewhat apologetically, Truitt also bemoaned the film’s lack of diversity.

“The trio of timelines can be jarring as you figure out how they all fit, and the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way,” Truitt wrote.

The film revolves around the exploits of the British Expeditionary Force, which was drafted from the British Isles. Accordingly, there were no known women on the beaches of Dunkirk and or many people of color.

04 Apr 2017

“Doe v. Yale”

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A new lawsuit involving sexual assault witch-hunting combined with free speech issues is targeting Yale, the University where Free Speech is supposedly safely and permanently protected by promises made in the mid-1970s Woodward Report, the Wall Street Journal told us yesterday.

Doe alleges Yale violated his 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection of the law.

This case also involves free expression because it began, Doe alleges, with Yale’s draconian regulation of his speech. According to his lawsuit, in late 2013 a female philosophy teaching assistant filed a complaint with the university’s Title IX office about a short paper Doe had written. In the context of Socrates ’ account in Plato’s “Republic” of the tripartite soul, the paper argued that rape was an irrational act in which the soul’s appetitive and spirited parts overwhelm reason, which by right rules.

According to the lawsuit, Pamela Schirmeister, Title IX coordinator and an associate dean in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, summoned Doe to her office and told him his rape example was “unnecessarily provocative.” She ordered him to have no contact with the teaching assistant and directed him to attend sensitivity training at the university’s mental-health center. She also informed him that he had become a “person of interest” to Yale, which meant that the university had to intervene to ensure he “was not a perpetrator himself,” in the lawsuit’s words. A few months later, the same Title IX office initiated the sexual-assault investigation against him.

Through a spokeswoman, Yale described the lawsuit as “legally baseless and factually inaccurate” but declined on confidentiality grounds to address any specific factual allegations.

If the lawsuit’s account is accurate, Yale has reached a new low in the annals of campus policing of speech.

Full story.

Hat tip to classmate Seattle Sam.

31 Mar 2017

No More Freshmen at Yale

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Camille Lizarríbar, Yale’s Dean of Student Affairs

OCD:

As the University considers replacing the term “freshman” with the gender-neutral term “first-year,” several administrators have begun using the language in their official correspondence with students in advance of any formal change.

According to Assistant Dean of Student Affairs Hannah Peck, freshman counselors will now be recognized officially as “first-year counselors.” In an email to the News on Wednesday, Yale College Dean Jonathan Holloway said there were no new developments in a strategic plan for the change or a formal timeline for its implementation.

Still, in an acceptance email Peck sent to next year’s class of FroCos, she referred to the position using the new name and did not give an explanation for the change. And in an email to Timothy Dwight students about housing arrangements, TD Dean Sarah Mahurin used both “first year students” and “freshmen.”

Dean of Student Affairs Camille Lizarríbar, who is leading the name-change efforts, previously told the News that administrators were committed to replacing the term “freshman” and that the change would likely become official before next academic year starts.

Why would anybody attend a school run by these kinds of douchebags?

23 Jan 2017

The Women’s March

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Bulldog, from Maggie’s Farm, responds to the great national Women’s March.

I had another person say to me, “Your privilege is showing.” Privilege is a word which drives me insane. We all have crosses to bear, burdens in life which must be dealt with, and biases to fight. I’ve seen, and supported the cases of plaintiffs suing for, sexual discrimination. I’ve also experienced age discrimination. I’m aware of the discrimination which used to take place against my Irish ancestors. Suggesting I have privilege implies I am enjoying the benefits of something I didn’t earn. I earn it every day I go to work and deal with the nonsensical idiocy of liberal Progressives who have lost their bearings over this election. Remaining quiet during their diatribes is difficult, but could cost me my job. There’s no privilege in political discrimination, and that takes place every day. Still, I’m not marching for laws, or attention, or anything else to protect myself or my rights to believe what I want. My ‘privilege’ regarding gender ends the minute women start having their conversations which exclude men (see the paragraph above).

All I plan on doing is being the best person I can be. I did that for the last 8 years and it worked out pretty well. The resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. doesn’t impact my life as much as I tend to believe. The president is mainly an annoyance. Obama has had the biggest impact of any previous president, thanks to the aggregation of power which has taken place over the years. His mere existence has forced many to find new ways to share thoughts with people. After all, I can’t oppose him without being labeled a racist. But more importantly, his impact has shrunk my take home pay as various taxes (not necessarily Federal) have government taking a bigger and bigger chunk of my money for things I don’t support. I was told, 8 years ago, “Don’t worry, Obama won’t be as bad as you think, you’ll see how good he is” by every Obama sycophant out there. Yesterday, those sycophants marched because so many of them suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. I never suffered from Obama Derangement Syndrome, and not because I didn’t dislike the guy. As I said, I’m not a marcher or a joiner. I let things play out, and the man pretty much lived down to my expectations.

I don’t believe Trump is an improvement, but much like Obama, I’ll let things play out. So when the TDS people ask me (as one did) “Give me one good reason to not fear everything this idiot is going to do” I replied “How about taking your advice to me 8 years ago and let’s just see what happens?” That should suffice.

Political identity is the least interesting part of anyone’s personality. But lately it’s become the most important part for many people. I have many liberal Progressive friends, and I feel bad they allow themselves to suffer. But they didn’t care when others suffered 8 years ago, so I have a very hard time explaining to them they created the bed upon which they lay. I haven’t ended a single friendship over this election, mainly because I don’t care if my friends disagree with me. A few have stopped speaking to me, because i “don’t care enough.” Really? I volunteer my time, I give to charity, I do what I can where I can and when I can. I do these things because I care. I don’t want my government to force me to do those things because MY FRIENDS CARE, I want to because I CARE. That is where the major difference between our views. They want to force me to agree with them. I prefer to agree with what I want to agree with, not what they want me to. The Progressive agenda is, if nothing else, a thought and mind control agenda.

Read the whole thing.

26 Oct 2016

Star Chambers and Free Speech Hypocrisy at Yale

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shriekingstudent
Former Silliman College Master Nicholas Christakis told by Shrieking Student to resign. He promptly went on sabbatical and then did resign.

Richard Epstein contemplates the shame of Yale’s sexual misconduct star chamber tribunals along with the hypocrisy of President Peter Salovey’s claim that Free Speech flourishes at Yale.

Salovey takes great pride in noting “the Yale administration did not criticize, discipline, or dismiss a single member of its faculty, staff, or student body for expressing an opinion.” That sentence may be technically true, but it does not explain why Salovey did not mention the unfortunate fate of Nicholas and Erika Christakis, both of whom resigned from Yale under massive pressure after student protestors demanded that Nicholas be removed from his position as master of Silliman College. Why? Because Erika had written an email that took issue with a letter from Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Committee that warned students against various insensitive forms of behaviors, like wearing offensive Halloween costumes. The letter noted, like Salovey’s op-ed, that Yale values “free expression as well as inclusivity.” But the massive level of abuse directed at Nicholas and Erika Christakis reveals how strongly Yale weighs one imperative over the other.

Read the whole thing.

Yale surrendered to the Obama Justice Department’s Russlyn Ali, immediately upon receipt of her infamous “Dear Colleague letter,” which threatened withholding of federal funds to universities which failed to establish
Sexual Harassment Inquisitorial procedures forthwith.

President Salovey announced last Fall that he was firmly behind the Christakises, when outraged student demonstrations erupted after Mrs. Christakis wrote an email questioning the appropriateness of an Intercultural Student Affairs edict warning against students wearing Halloween costumes which could be interpreted as belittling or culturally appropriative: no sombreros, no blackface, no turbans. Both Christakises, nonetheless, were out of the Master’s House in Silliman in short order and out of New Haven. A decent interval, up until the next Mid-Summer, was allowed to go by to save Yale’s face, before Nicholas Christakis’s permanent resignation was announced. Way to go, Free Speech at Yale!

09 Sep 2016

You Mean They Weren’t There Already?

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tampon-dispenser

Brown University to place tampons and other feminine hygiene products in men’s bathrooms. The Mary Sue.

Hat tip to James Harberson.

02 Aug 2016

First Female Nominee

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Hillary2016

HillaryFB

04 Mar 2016

Yale: Bad News and Good News

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YaleinSnow-375

In response to a little arm-twisting by Barack Obama’s radical-packed DOJ, Yale has adopted preposterously-expansive definitions of sexual misconduct stretching well beyond what the DOJ crazies demanded, created its own Inquisitorial system for sniffing out offenders, and has a bureaucracy publishing annual reports detailing the minutiae of the Sexual Reign of Terror at Yale.

I feel bound to remark: the atmosphere between girls and boys was a lot pleasanter and less stressful back in my day.

Minding the Campus: Yale’s Imaginary Crime Wave

Hat tip to Bird Dog.

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Warmism in Decline at Yale: Yale Closing Down “Climate & Energy Institute”

Thomas Lifson gloats:

Peak warmism has already hit and the global warming movement is now on its long glide path through loss of government funding, budget and hiring cuts, less media attention, on the way to unfashionability, embarrassment, and eventually obscurity, a historical footnote like phrenology.

10 Feb 2016

Why Republicans Were Suggesting Women Should Register For the Draft

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HandtoHandCombat

Casey Klahn, at American Digest, explains to all the confused out there why female Selective Service Registration is being talked about in Congress.

The idea of selective service registration for women… is simply to score a big political expose, or gotchya, against the Obamatics, who have declared that every combat job in the military is now open to women. Including shitting on your shovel, hand to hand combat (called “hand to gland combat” in the infantry), and pissing while walking.

Many – I want to say most – men cannot handle the rigors of combat arms jobs, and it is reflected in the wash out rates just in the infantry. The two things the flurry of studies before this stroke-of-a-pen change have proven about women in combat arms are: if the president says women shall graduate Ranger school, then farking wimmin shall farking graduate farking Ranger school, and the standards shall be de facto lowered.

Perhaps they’ll make the combat a bit more feminine to make up for the shortfall.

Meanwhile, at the same time, the military will now account for global warming in all activities. I’m serious about that: they must write it into every op order at every level of command. See? Just when you thought Obama was through fukking with the army, he has more up his sleeve. I cannot wait to see what’s next.

08 Feb 2016

Things Are Different Today

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YaleDailyNews

I logged into the Oldest College Daily web-site the other day, in the course of looking for blog fodder editorials or news items. I didn’t find anything of interest in either category, but I could not avoid noticing how different today’s Yale Daily News is from the paper in my day. Obviously, there’s been a lot of technological change. I can remember night-editing and pasting up the entire paper piece by piece out of bits of paper to be printed before dawn on an enormous press down in the News building’s basement. I expect that it’s a bit easier to do all that on a PC today.

The paper’s online edition has one of those floating advertising blocks, sitting just below the paper’s logo. The advertising changes with every new mouse click or page selection. But I happened to hit the ambulance-chasing legal advertisement you see above.

Now that’s change for you! In my day, we would have had an ad for the now-extinct Quality Wine or for J. Press. Today, the politics of resentment have created such a witch-hunting atmosphere at places like Yale that enterprising law firms recognize the existence of large potential client base in the male undergraduate community.

If Peter Salovey had any common sense, when he looked at the Yalie Daily and saw that ad, he would say to himself: “By heaven, when they are running ads like this, things have obviously gone outrageously too far, and something has to be done! Tomorrow morning I’m closing down the Womens’ (Cultural Identity) Center permanently, and I’m going to assemble a blue-ribbon committee of responsible faculty, students, and alumni to write another Woodward Report, this time affirming Yale student and faculty due process rights and rejecting federal interference and identifying inflammatory paranoia-inducing leftist agitation and propagandizing as dangerous to the comity of the university and the rights of the members of its community.

“Hereafter, we are going to start treating Yale students as individuals and adults, not as members of groups of victims entitled to special privileges and compensations and not as members of a historically-oppressive majority burdened with special intrinsic demerits and inherited guilt. If someone believes she has been a victim of sexual assault, if she is right, a crime has been committed and it is a matter for the police. The university administration has no business attempting to set up extra-judicial procedures to dispense justice. That is what the police and court system is for.”

03 Nov 2015

Jacobean Revenge Tragedy at St. Paul’s

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OwenLabrie

St. Paul graduate Owen Labrie had his admission and full scholarship to Harvard cancelled and went to trial and was convicted of a felony for arranging a liaison with a three-years-younger schoolmate via computer. Labrie will now be a felon and a registered sex offender for life. He was also sentenced to a year of imprisonment, as the result of declining to plead guilty and accept a lesser penalty.

I think it is pretty easy to form the right opinion of the justice of all of this, just by reading the New York Times‘ account of the victim’s perspective.

Appearing on a video screen, the victim of a sexual assault by an older student at one of the nation’s most exclusive boarding schools asked a judge here on Thursday to make sure her assailant was held accountable for a crime that, she said, had left her numb.

“What he did to me made me feel like I didn’t belong on this planet and that I would be better off dead,” the girl said.

She added: “Without just and right punishment, I really don’t know how I’ll put one foot in front of the other. I don’t want to feel imprisoned for the rest of my life. I want to be safe again. And I want justice.”

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Caitlin Flanagan, in the New York Daily News, explains that the real reason Labrie’s life is being ruined is sociological.

Young men get away with treating girls badly all the time, but when it’s the poor boy on scholarship who has offended two daughters of a rich and important family and those scorned daughters are determined to get revenge, well, we are getting into the territory of the plot line of a play by Webster.

Labrie was… a star athlete — captain of the varsity soccer team — at one of the best prep schools in the country, and he was every other good thing you could be there: a prefect, an excellent student, the recipient of one of the school’s top awards and of an admission letter to Harvard. As such, in the narrative that gathered quickly around him, he was a monster, the one-man embodiment of white male privilege.

But there was one fact about him that couldn’t be reconciled with the others: He was also a poor kid on full scholarship, the only child of a single mother who says she went years without child support.

He had changed the trajectory of his life and hers when he got into St. Paul’s, but he forgot the first rule of being a scholarship boy at a prep school, which is that you don’t cause any trouble to the rich kids. When he singled out the younger sister of a girl with whom he’d already had a sexual relationship — when he created a situation that would either drive a wedge between the two girls or unite them in fury against him — he took his life in his hands.

“What a golden change of heart,” he texted the girl when she agreed, at last, to meet up with him. “You took my sister’s virginity,” screamed the older girl the next day, giving him a shiner he wore to graduation. It would have been an excellent time to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help himself and he bragged about “slaying” the younger one. …

The jury didn’t like Labrie. They could not convict him of assault — not with the accuser saying that during the encounter she had “tried to seem cool,” had tried “not to offend him” — but the relentless scrolling of his plans and plots, typed out in Facebook messages and texts, did him in.

He’d been a cad, another old-fashioned word, but he hadn’t recognized that he wasn’t like the other boys, didn’t have a rich father who could fly out and stop him from talking for hours to the cops without counsel.

In the time-honored manner of the only sons of single mothers, he had been trying to protect her as much as — maybe even more than — himself.

He’d seen men be callous toward women all his life — saw his father’s child support go in arrears, watched as senior boys tricked younger girls for sex. It is, indeed, a custom there, the “senior salute.”

At the end of the day, all Labrie was left with were the remnants of those traditions: the herringbone jacket, the tortoise shell glasses — and a prison term. …

[H]e was out of his league, toying with the affections of rich girls, leaving a record of his cruelty a mile long. He got caught doing something women have always feared and loathed: tricking them, flattering them, taking sex from them and making a joke of them. And now he’s been crushed for it.

Hat tip to Frank Dobbs.

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The judge should have allowed Labrie the option of enlisting in the US military and avoiding trial.

29 Sep 2015

People: The Two Women Graduated Ranger School (With Plenty of Help)

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FemaleRangers
1st Lts. Shaye Haver and Kristen Griest

People Magazine (not exactly a rabid conservative source) reports that the two female candidates successfully passing US Army Ranger School for the first time last April had more than a little special help.

[T]he women got special treatment and played by different rules,” sources say.

Ranger School consists of three phases: Benning, which lasts 21 days and includes water survival, land navigation, a 12-mile march, patrols, and an obstacle course; Mountain Phase, which lasts 20 days, and includes assaults, ambushes, mountaineering and patrols; and Swamp Phase, which lasts 17 days and covers waterborne operations.

But whereas men consistently were held to the strict standards outlined in the Ranger School’s Standing Operating Procedures handbook sources say, the women were allowed lighter duties and exceptions to policy.

Multiple sources told PEOPLE:

• Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.

• Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.

• While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.

• Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.

• A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.

The end result? Two women – First Lts. Kristen Griest and Shaye Haver – graduated August 21 (along with 381 men) and are wearing the prestigious Ranger Tab. Griest was surprised they made it.

“I thought we were going to be dropped after we failed Darby [part of Benning] the second time,” Griest said at a press conference before graduation. “We were offered a Day One Recycle.”

At their graduation, Maj Gen. Scott Miller, who oversees Ranger School, denied the Army eased its standards or was pressured to ensure at least one woman graduated.

“Standards remain the same,” Miller said, according to The Army Times. “The five-mile run is still five miles. The 12-mile march is still 12 miles.

“There was no pressure from anyone above me to change standards,” said Miller, who declined to speak to PEOPLE.

Instructors say otherwise.

“We were under huge pressure to comply,” one Ranger instructor says. “It was very much politicized.”

The women didn’t want or ask for special treatment, says one who attempted the program.

“All of us wanted the same standards for males and females,” Billi Blaschke, who badly injured her ankle only six days into a required pre-assessment program, tells PEOPLE. “We wanted to do it on our own.”

On September 2, the Army announced that Ranger School is now open both to men and women.

Read the whole thing.

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