I guess Hollywood is no longer going to be seen as a moral beacon. What a shock. Now Dustin Hoffman, George Takei, Gary Goddard, and Richard Dreyfuss have been accused and the list keeps growing. I wonder if all the films made by these men will now have to be deleted from the theaters.
I hope not. I would much rather see debauched sociopaths carrying on (from a safe distance) than preachy Pollyannas.
Happy New Year 2016!
In spite of the PC madness on college campuses, the growing and very real threat of ISIS and assorted Islamic terror, the relatively sluggish economy and the comical chaos of a presidential race that may come down to Trump vs. Clinton (OH NO) — the American people are resilient, ornery and innovative. In other words, the whole nation isn’t going to hell quite yet. Continue reading
Apparently, the “Vagina Monologues” have been canceled and for this reason at Mount Holyoke College:
“Since the 1990s, students from Mount Holyoke College, an all-women’s school in Massachusetts, have staged an annual production of The Vagina Monologues. Not this year. The college is retiring the ritual over concerns that the play—penned by Eve Ensler in 1996 as a way to “celebrate the vagina” and women’s sexuality—is not inclusive enough.
In a school-wide email from Mount Holyoke’s student-theater board, relayed by Campus Reform, student Erin Murphy explained that “at its core, the show offers an extremely narrow perspective on what it means to be a woman … Gender is a wide and varied experience, one that cannot simply be reduced to biological or anatomical distinctions, and many of us who have participated in the show have grown increasingly uncomfortable presenting material that is inherently reductionist and exclusive.” ”
Ah, OK. Apparently because some trans people have not yet had, or do not wish to have SRS (sex reassignment surgery) for whatever reason, medical or personal or financial, and this makes them different from non-trans people… so this play must be canceled.
Look I am not particularly a fan of “The Vagina Monologues” — I have never seen it and don’t possess a burning desire to do so, though I might see it if the opportunity presented itself. If it was within walking distance of my house…
Apparently, the opportunity won’t be there for anyone attending Mount Holyoke who wants to see it there. And, worse, it is for stupid reasons. Here the well-reason article in “Reason” that I learned this from:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/15/womens-college-cancels-vagina-monologues
This is so egregiously stupid that I am nearly speechless. “Inclusiveness” and even “diversity” are overrated. Not every play or performance is pertinent to every person, that’s life. Also, the vast majority of people with vaginas are born female women with female congruent gender identities. This is a fact of life, and I actually see no problem with it at all. Most likely some bullies on campus, waving the flag of PC “non-binary” gender got a hold of the board and rammed this through. That said, hey — it’s their school, whatever! I am against this on principle however. And, would certainly like to make it known that not all trans men agree with this. Also, I do live my life, day to day, identifying largely with MEN who were not born with vaginas, meaning non-trans men. In other words, someone does not have to be exactly like me to be someone I identify with. Which is good, otherwise, since I am a mixed race, man of transsexual history, who is mixed race in such a way that I have met very few people exactly like me, except for siblings, I honestly don’t think I would ever have anything at all in this world to identify with. A long time ago, I decided to be my own person, and I don’t solely depend on my race, class, ethnicity, sex or gender to define who I am. Those things are not even always the important things… I know we live in a strange world now, which increasingly says otherwise, and I am against that line of thinking, which is narrow and which puts people into boxes that are constricting — all often in the name of “inclusivity”. Of course, it is also good that more art is coming out made by so-called trans people, but that doesn’t mean that art made by people who are not “trans” has no bearing on our lives. This is insane.
I”m watching a livestream of arrests being made of Occupy San Francisco protesters who occupied a building on Turk Street in San Francisco last night. The camera man observing, who is an Occupy SF person, states as he observes a protestor being led away by police from the building to the police van, “Another protestor, a woman, being led out of the building… I say “woman”, ah – just to make a judgment but ah, I’m not too much into the binary gender thing…”
I think it was a dude (as in a man) talking but don’t quote me on that.
Funny now how people feel they have to apologize for calling someone, who looks female, a woman. Which may mean they recognize that people are men or women, a no no.
Guess the far left, at least in San Francisco, has absorbed the anti-binary sentiments of various political gender benders. Please, do LEAVE ME OUT OF IT!! I hope to never be blamed for this silliness. I do believe in the binary. A loose and slightly bendy binary, but — a binary.
All those reading who have no idea what I am talking about, you are not missing out on much. Believe me on this one!
Finally, a break from my hiatus in blogging and back to the blog! First, a bit more about me, Liberty Wolf, your wandering apostate…
Here, a snapshot of where I come from:
I give these queer activists enormous kudos for laughing at themselves! They got the speech cadence down perfectly, notice how their very speech has become “postmodern” resisting closure. Even statements end up sounding like questions. Sometimes I miss the Bay Area, and sometimes – I do not!
And, nearly everyone sounds nasal when they talk! How is this possible? But, they do! Heh – (good job queer anti-racist radicals – if you can laugh at yourselves, there is hope for the world, after all…) I mean, really – right?
So, are we moving into a world where women dominate family life AND the workplace? Where women make more money than men, are better educated and skip out on marriage because no man is good enough? Well, apparently, we may almost be there, or that is where the trends are pointing. Girl children are now increasingly preferred to boy children, in the United States but even in some Asian countries, and — boys and men are floundering. Young women are in universities, and young men — are boys not men, too distracted by some erratic impulse of life to sit still long enough to graduate or even begin to study. Apparently, some universities and colleges are even beginning to create affirmative action for boys just to get more of them enrolled! And, women CEOs, while still relatively rare, make more money than male CEOs because they are rare and are prized. There are even more women committing violent crimes and — I’ve noticed, sex crimes — as more and more grown women end up in the news for predation on 14 year old boys!
While I doubt that women will ever equal the violent crime rate or sexual offender rate of men, they are entering a new era.
In the world of alternative sexualities… Someday soon , will lesbians make more money than gay men? That would be interesting as lesbians have historically been in mini-ghettoes of relative poverty on places like Valencia Street (in the 90’s) that were then fairly poor — before recent gentrification set in, while gay men were in the shiny Castro area — with more disposable income. Possibly, that will change as well in time. Maybe, it is already beginning to although this article confines itself to the larger mainstream world of heterosexuals, which hardly sounds mainstream any more. Not the world of my parents, and apparently – increasingly not even the world of my own youth. Although my generation battled to begin a quest for women’s equality, I never thought I would see the possibility of women’s domination beginning to crystalize in my own lifetime. Still, only a possibility but not actually a remote one.
Even in politics, conservative right-wing women are certainly ascendent — which is interesting given that the liberation of women has always appeared to be anything other than a conservative project.
I missed this article when it came out, but it is not that old, only from last year. It’s fascinating and goes into detail about these trends, many of which I was vaguely aware of, and some – that I had no idea were occurring. This is well worth a read as it is well-written, comprehensive, and eye opening. From The Atlantic by Hanna Rosin:
Not sure what this will do for or to – the victim politics aspect of feminism, but I guess, we may just find out!
Liberty Wolf 