Feminism
February 18, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination has barely commenced, but already Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post’s media columnist, is whining about “sexist” coverage of female candidates. As evidence she mentions the “mocking” of Kirsten Gillibrand’s uncertainty about how to eat fried chicken. However, candidates of both genders are routinely mocked when they eat “down home” food in an uptown manner. It happened to Donald Trump and John Kasich in
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January 14, 2019 — John Hinderaker
“Get woke, go broke” is a popular saying, but it isn’t necessarily true. Some companies have seemingly prospered by adopting a Social Justice Warrior pose. Nike comes to mind. Still, it is hard to understand what Gillette was thinking when it launched its foray into left-wing politics: “The Best Men Can Be,” a new web site that features this video. Gillette wants us to know that it is anti-sexual harassment.
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January 4, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
Expect to see plenty more whiny articles like this one in today’s Washington Post called “Women still bear special demands for ‘likability.'” Annie Linskey and Dave Weigel note that “just hours after Elizabeth Warren announced her plan to run for president, a question began surfacing about a possible weakness. . .Is she likable enough to be president?” They go on to assert that comparable demands to be likable are not
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December 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
In response to the #MeToo movement, California has enacted several laws regarding sexual harassment claims. You can read about them in this report by the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP. Some provisions make sense, others not so much. What really caught my eye, though, was a new law not about sexual harassment, but about female representation on boards of directors. The bill is SB 826. Here is how Mayer
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November 28, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Bernardo Bertolucci, the renowned Italian film director, died in Rome earlier this week. By the time he was 30 years old, Bertolucci had directed at least two minor masterpieces: “Before the Revolution” (1964) and, especially, “The Conformist” (1970). In 1972, Bertolucci hit it big with “Last Tango in Paris,” an X-rated psycho-drama starring Marlon Brando and 19 year-old Maria Schneider in a breakout performance. Pauline Kael, the leading film critic
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September 23, 2018 — John Hinderaker
Christine Ford’s allegation against Brett Kavanaugh has put high school sex into the public conversation. That’s what the New York Times thinks, anyway: “Men, Tell Us About Your High School Experience.” This is actually an online form that you can fill out. The first question is, “Did you ever, as a teenager or younger man, behave toward women in ways you may now regret? If so, how? And how has
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July 10, 2018 — Steven Hayward
This item sounds like it’s from The Onion, but in fact it is from the very earnest lefties at Think Progress. And it really doesn’t need any commentary or explanation: Lesbian group’s anti-trans protest at London Pride backfires This weekend, the London Pride Parade was rocked by a protest from a group of anti-trans lesbians who call themselves “Get the L Out.” After trying to block the front of the
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June 19, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Rahm Emanuel famously said “you never let a serious crisis go to waste.” It’s clear to me that left-wing feminists are not about to let the #MeToo crisis (if that’s what it is) go to waste. Here’s an example. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Sen. Kamala Harris worried (or purported to) that judges will be reluctant to hire female law clerks for fear of being hit with
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May 10, 2018 — Steven Hayward
As in NeW—which is short for Network of Enlightened Women. Check them out. But more to the point, if you have a daughter in college or just starting out in the world after graduation, NeW has a terrific summer “Young Women’s Leadership Retreat” being held this year from July 26 – 29 in Philadelphia. Although there are a lot of good summer programs for students that we often note here,
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May 7, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The Chronicle of Higher Education (yes I know, “higher education” is in danger of becoming an oxymoron these days—especially with stories like this one) has a story out today about a joke gone awry. I imagine you can guess already how this went down: a professor of women’s and gender studies took offense to something a man said: The fuss started when Richard Ned Lebow, a professor of political theory
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May 3, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Andreas Papandreou became Greece’s first Socialist prime minister in 1981, running against “the privileged.” It was a political master stroke because, as one Greek historian put it, no self-respecting Greek considers himself privileged. Unlike Papandreou, when the modern American left rails against privilege, it leaves no ambiguity about who it thinks are its recipients. The left is talking explicitly about whites — as in “white privilege.” Thus, it is attacking
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April 15, 2018 — John Hinderaker
I wrote recently that you can measure any two things, and in all likelihood they will be different. If you have an agenda, you can call this difference a “gap” or a “disparity” and demand remedial actions by government. Whether differences between demographic groups are deemed significant depends on politics, not logic. Thus, to take one of countless examples, no one protests the fact that Asian-Americans earn, on average, significantly
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January 31, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The British politician Denis Healey is credited with the First Law of Holes, which holds: “If you’re in one, stop digging.” Hillary Clinton apparently never heard of the First Law of Holes, because she’s shoveling away over the story that ten years ago she declined to fire a campaign staffer for sexual harassment. Now Hillary wants us to know that she’s oh so sorry, writing a long apologia on Facebook.
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January 29, 2018 — Steven Hayward
The Doctrine of Unintended Consequences and Perverse Results strikes again. Who could have seen this coming: A lobbyist flies solo from Texas to Washington to press his case on the Hill, leaving behind the female associate who did much of the work on the issue. He recognizes that his decision to fly alone is a lost opportunity for his talented young co-worker, but right now, with everything that’s going on,
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January 29, 2018 — Steven Hayward
National Review‘s Jim Geraghty offered an interesting observation the other day about the actual motivations behind the push for “diversity: in the media: Back in my journalism pollywog days, I recall going to some gathering at the National Press Club where the Washington offices of most of the big news organizations were represented. They went around the room and introduced all of the bigwigs, and I noticed a clear pattern. The
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January 28, 2018 — Steven Hayward
As noted here previously, a noisy, nosy cohort of the millennial generation can’t stomach the old sitcom Friends, but now they’re going after . . . James Bond! Because 007 was a rapist don’t you know. Michael Walsh is manning (may I still use that verb?) the picket line against this creeping PC censorship, but it also gives us an excuse to screen the evidence that will be used against
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January 7, 2018 — Steven Hayward
It’s Hollywood awards show season, and apparently the first of them—the Golden Globes—will be on this evening. It has come to this: Hollywood is counting on ratings going up as people tune in to see how they’ll handle the Harvey Weinstein train wreck. Apparently Hollywood is having second thoughts about the whole matter because they didn’t have the foresight to see how many “good people” it would take down, like
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