July 4, 2022

"Women, of course, have been accommodating. They’ve welcomed transgender women into their organizations."

"They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own. But, but, but. Can you blame the sisterhood for feeling a little nervous?... For essentially ceding to another backlash?... Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts, was an important part of the struggle for sexual equality. But here we go again, parsing women into organs.... Those women who do publicly express mixed emotions... are maligned as somehow transphobic or labeled TERFs.... When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes.... Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the 'Don’t mind mes.'... Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are 'masculine' and others 'feminine.' Didn’t we ditch those straitened categories in the ’70s?"

65 comments:

MikeR said...

True, except for the far right. The article adds an obligatory short paragraph about Roe v Wade at the top.

David Begley said...

“ Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools….”

Exactly what America needs!

Women are morally superior to men; accommodating and all.

My con law professor at Creighton always use to say, “Women are smarter than men.” Senior year I found out he conducted an affair with one of my classmates. She transferred after the first year. I’m sure nothing like that happened at Wisconsin.

Jersey Fled said...

Sheesh

gilbar said...

Could someone please explain how it is that the "far right"" do not count women?

RideSpaceMountain said...

All of those bras burnt for nothing!

Blair said...

Oh that's just too cute by half. You don't want to define women by their biology, so therefore you want to define a woman by what she is NOT?! That's just ridiculous question-begging. We are, at the end of the day, bodies. It's not patriarchal to point out reality.

rhhardin said...

There must be a historical anniversary of when women first started complaining as an art form instead of a normal spur of the moment thing.

That started men telling jokes, I'd bet.

Owen said...

This whining reminds me somehow of the suffragettes who found themselves outflanked by the abolitionists. Blacks got the vote* but women did not**.

* but suffered terribly under KKK and Jim Crow
** until 1920

Point being, the women seem unable to devise and implement a coherent and effective strategy to protect and further their interests. IMHO.

cassandra lite said...

Only woke women have welcomed transgender women into their organizations. Once you're in a movement, anything else deemed to be part of the movement must be welcomed.

Analogous to left-wing LGBTQs in Queers for Palestine. Doesn't matter that every queer in "Palestine" is trying to sneak into Israel, where they'll be safe. "Palestine" is part of the cause. Ergo, must show acceptance.

Temujin said...

When you have a philosophical base that is founded on nothing but what is the latest greatest trending thing, it's hard to not one day find yourself so twisted up into a pretzel that your pointed fingers are pointing back at yourself. Or wondering if maybe you're insecurities are not nearly insecure enough.

The strong, independent women that I have in my life today are just fine. Not suffering any fools nor any delusions about who they are or what they stand for.

So sorry for those who are lost in the muck of the Left.

Ampersand said...

To what extent is it morally correct to place loyalty to one's biological gender above loyalty to parents, offspring, siblings, other family members, co-religionists, fellow citizens, a deity, business partners, employees, co-workers, neighbors, or to the nation state?

Among men, who are of course constructed of rats and snails and puppy dog tails, gender loyalty is generally not a high priority, especially when it interferes with status or pleasure, or comes into conflict with moral duties.

Feminist writing has convinced me that, among women, composed as they are of sugar and spice and everything nice, there is a large cohort that regards female gender loyalty as the summum bonum, subordinate to all other commitments.

Some degree of gender loyalty is almost inevitable. And women will have more gender loyalty than men because of the shared risks of male predation. We are social creatures, and common experiences create a basis for empathy and mutually held goals and interests. But to elevate gender loyalty above so many other moral obligations is empty, foolish and subversive of the social order. I'm guessing that Pamela Paul is an intelligent, charming person. But she's living the false religion of feminism as a true believer, and for that reason is not worthy of my trust.

JAORE said...

Confusing it is.

I do know if I'm ever going to prison (although I have somehow avoided a felony conviction for seven decades) I will loudly proclaim myself a woman.

And thank you, "no" on the surgery of hormone treatments.

SDaly said...

rhhardin -

It is an exquisite art form, though. There was a "problem" yesterday that made them feel bad and demand change. Today, they feel bad about the current negative consequences of the "solution" to a "problem" that made them feel bad and complain yesterday. However, the new complaint cannot, in any way, imply any responsibility whatsover for the new problem, because that would also make them feel bad.

RideSpaceMountain said...

@rhhardin

"There must be a historical anniversary of when women first started complaining as an art form instead of a normal spur of the moment thing.

That started men telling jokes, I'd bet."

There is! 9000bc - harvest time October 23rd - at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey. Contrary to popular archeological opinion, the pits and pillars (supposedly phalluses) at the site weren't a religious complex but are, in fact, humanity's first comedy club! They were confused by the phallic imagery leading to a misconception that it was a religious site, when in fact that was how they kept the women away (basically a gobeklian 'no girls allowed sign').

We're not sure what kind of or what impact the comedy had on our early ancestors, but I'll bet the jokes were divine.

Michael said...

The Left always eats its own, eventually. You can never be Progressive - enough.

Jeff Weimer said...

Without fail, when the left behaves badly the whatabout bothsideism is employed almost reflexively. Just to make sure everyone knows who the *real* bad guys are - this is just a temporary disagreement amongst a couple of the left's client constituencies.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Today I learned the Supreme Court is far right.

n.n said...

Women by Nature. Men who identify as women. Men with a trans/sexual orientation. Men with simulated gender attributes. Keep women affordable, available, taxable, and on bended knee. Women and girls don't matter. Neither do men by Nature, or boys by Nature, for that matter. The performance of human rites and social progress reduces human life to negotiable commodities of an ambiguous nature.

codeweasel said...

"But in a world of chosen gender identities, women as a biological category don’t exist."

According to Justice Jackson only a biologist can classify a woman. Pick a lane, people.

Lurker21 said...

When you want to make an unproven assertion, just toss "of course" into the sentence. It's easier than doing any research.

And "welcoming" is also complicated. In polite society, people are polite. The Ladies Club doesn't tell Richard/Rachel and Harry/Harriet that they aren't welcome, but they do look at them a little funny and talk about them behind their back. Liberal women may not gossip, but they aren't always comfortable with trans women crashing their party.

With today's students, though, gender fluidity looks like the rule, rather than the exception. But I do wonder: young women struggling with the constraints of their gender may not necessarily want men struggling with the constraints of theirs to shift the focus and complicate things.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

"They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological men in situations where the presence of females can be distracting or problematicmilitary organizations, educational settings, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary."

Just had to get that off my (very hairy) chest.

Josephbleau said...

Transgenderism at the limit, is the dissolution of gender. If gender is mutable at whim then there is nothing that divides men from women. I think this is not what feminists want. I think they are promoting superiority for women.

To be generous, I might say that promoting superiority could be a tactic to accelerate equality, however women in professional fields do have higher starting salaries now than men, perhaps not in medicine.

Gahrie said...

Feminism was a lost cause as soon as it started attacking the one true thing that women are superior to men at, the ability to bring new life into the world.

Gahrie said...

t is an exquisite art form, though. There was a "problem" yesterday that made them feel bad and demand change. Today, they feel bad about the current negative consequences of the "solution" to a "problem" that made them feel bad and complain yesterday. However, the new complaint cannot, in any way, imply any responsibility whatsover for the new problem, because that would also make them feel bad.

No woman must be made to feel bad about, or responsible for, anything, ever.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Another title making outrageous claims to smear the right. Just stand up for your side bud, cuz where I’m from women are highly valued, even cherished. Lefty projection is so weird.

Kevin said...

Feminism is the radical notion that women are people who can be counted on to do whatever the Democratic Party tells them.

Wa St Blogger said...

Another case of the NYT writing about things about which they know nothing.

Unknown said...

No, it's "women can't count." Historically terrible at math.

Mark said...

After being treated to your vagina having a monologue, and telling us "my body, myself," and treating so many public protests as occasions to take your clothes off, and being utterly obsessed with genitals, please don't now complain that people are pointing out that there is a necessary connection between body and sex, that, yes, women ARE defined by their bodies, just as men are.

Meanwhile, thanks for the obligatory slam at those who recognize the wisdom of the ages. But you know that we are not your enemy. Your comrades and fellow travelers on the left are the real enemy, the real misogynists who really hate and seek to degrade women - and they always have been.

Ambrose said...

Pro-life advocates oppose abortion of male and female fetuses. That's counting women.

Skeptical Voter said...

In these LGBTQQ days you just can't tell the players without a scorecard. I saw the word TERF and had to Google for its meaning. It stands for "trans-exclusionary radical feminist".

I'm not so sure I'm down with the program of "radical feminism", but hey each to their own and God love you all. But it's unfortunate that a radical feminist can be dinged by other radical feminists for being "trans-exclusionary". The Left just keeps making up new ways to insult each other.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes.... Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the 'Don’t mind mes.'... Gender identity workbooks created by transgender advocacy groups for use in schools offer children helpful diagrams suggesting that certain styles or behaviors are 'masculine' and others 'feminine.' Didn’t we ditch those straitened categories in the ’70s?"

From "The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count" by Pamela Paul (NYT).


Now, this would be an example of "bothsidesism".

All the evidence is about the far left being anti-women, yet supposedly the "far right", which is fighting this bigoted attack on women, is just as "anti-women"

Because to be a leftist, you have to be a liar

JaimeRoberto said...

There's a sisterhood?

hombre said...

"When not defining women by body parts, misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes.... Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the 'Don’t mind mes.'..."

Crikey!! Is anyone at the NYT in touch with reality? Has this journalist never seen the women carrying signs at lefty demonstrations? Does she think her targets and her readers haven't?

Some "rigid gender stereotypes" of women are evolving and are not confined to extremists and misogynists. Women are people who kill their babies, who tolerate trans dominating their sports, and who elected Joe Biden. Their icons are Nancy Pelosi, AOC and her mob, Elizabeth Warren, Michelle O., et al.

JAORE said...

"Women don't count."

Sure.

Math is hard.

Joe Smith said...

Drivel.

This 'woman' needs to put down her pen and make me a got-damn sandwich.

Chop chop.

hombre said...

Owen: "Point being, the women seem unable to devise and implement a coherent and effective strategy to protect and further their interests. IMHO."

That's partly because many women don't know what their interests are. Their voting patterns leave little doubt of that. Obviously, secure borders, sound economic policy, integrity in government, education and science and safe streets do not compute.

But abortion. Oh my. LGBT "rights." Oh my.

bobby said...

" Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the 'Don’t mind mes.'... "

Oh, what drivel. Go to the next set of riots in Minneapolis. See what the Mean Girls can do.

Michael K said...

I like Kevin's definition of feminism. Feminism made this bed. Now they must lay in it. Married women are mostly conservative. All polls show that. Feminists are the unhappy segment of women. I remember when it all started.

Lilly, a dog said...

As Jeopardy proved, the best women have dicks. It's science.

effinayright said...

Ampersand said...

Among men, who are of course constructed of rats and snails and puppy dog tails, gender loyalty is generally not a high priority, especially when it interferes with status or pleasure, or comes into conflict with moral duties.
********

Correct---especially a man's traditional moral duty to protect women and children.

Readering said...

Unusually large number of comments seem to be to a different article.

Jupiter said...

Progressive women have allowed psychotic males pretending to be women to abuse them in multiple ways. Those few who have resisted have been showered with threats and scorn by leftist thugs and scum, as well as the afore-mentioned psychos. The NYT finds that this reflects poorly on the "Far Right".

chickelit said...

TERF wars vex the sisterhood

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How can I defend women, while condemning God for choosing women over men as his creation vessel?

Link to a protester making her argument

(You are welcome to censor it if you feel the pic is in bad taste)

If I get a woman pregnant and she carries it to term and goes after me for child support in the courts; I'm not allowed to say, my money, my choice. "The woman is allowed to kill it, but I'm not allowed to abandon it." - Dave Chappelle.

Bottom line: Men and Women are not created equal.

PM said...

Here's a helpful 'diagram' for schoolkids: Ken is wearing Barbie's clothes. About as deep as it needs to get.

LilyBart said...

Bottom line: Men and Women are not created equal.

Also, the baby has no choice. So in a situation involving 3 people, only the woman gets the choice. The other two are forced to 'live' with her decision no matter how devastating to them.

Sebastian said...

"The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count"

I call BS. Women don't count for the prog vanguard. TERFing is a lefty thing. Only progs like KBJ claim not to know what a "woman" is.

Kevin said...

Who on the right thinks that women don't count?

No one. Completely made up nonsense

Achilles said...

From "The Far Right and Far Left Agree on One Thing: Women Don’t Count" by Pamela Paul (NYT).

The New York Times just reminding us they are a bad faith organization and that it caters to a shitty bunch of elitist customers who want to be lied to and are driven by hatred.

MadTownGuy said...

From the quote:

"When not defining women by body parts,
Straw man argument. Reproductive organs are not the only basis for differentiation. It's in the DNA.

...misogynists on both ideological poles seem determined to reduce women to rigid gender stereotypes.... Women are maternal and domestic — the feelers and the givers and the 'Don’t mind mes.'..."

In other words, it's all about the feels. Sounds to me like biology denial.

Marc in Eugene said...

Every single time, I have to look up TERF. Earlier, I had to look up a new acronym, AGP, 'autogynephile, a man who becomes sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a woman, or more specifically, an objectified stereotype of a woman'. O brave new world, that has such people in it!

ccscientist said...

Conservatives oppose abortion because they consider it murder. This does not devalue women. Idiots and liars.

Bender said...

only the woman gets the choice

In many cases, the woman does NOT get a choice. Not really.

The boyfriend or parents demanding that she abort get the choice. The employer or school that won't provide a pregnant/post-partum woman accommodations to keep her job/schooling and the baby, they get the choice. The woman who changes her mind in the abortion room only to be told that she needs to take a sedative before she can talk to the "doctor" does get that choice, the abortion staff that go ahead anyway get the choice. The ignorant woman who is told that her baby is just a blob of tissue doesn't get a choice, the abortion staff taking her money get the choice.

n.n said...

To quote the socially progressive production (PP): Earth girls are so easy.

n.n said...

Trans/bi or homo orientation without the visual disarray. Trans/pseudo-female sex. Trans/neo-feminine gender, at best. The transgender spectrum is narrow but colorful and exclusive. Trans/social by affectations.

effinayright said...

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2022/07/women-of-course-have-been-accommodating.html
**************

I'm wondering if the trans-women they "accommodated" are equally "accommodating".

They're all women....right? RIIIGGGHHHTTT????

Bruce Hayden said...

“They’ve learned that to propose any space just for biological women in situations where the presence of males can be threatening or unfair — rape crisis centers, domestic abuse shelters, competitive sports — is currently viewed by some as exclusionary. If there are other marginalized people to fight for, it’s assumed women will be the ones to serve other people’s agendas rather than promote their own. But, but, but. Can you blame the sisterhood for feeling a little nervous?... For essentially ceding to another backlash?”

So, women give up their safe spaces, safe from male aggression, in sympathy or whatever, for males pretending to be women. Those untransitioned women with penises are just as capable of rape as normal straight guys are. Yet, somehow solidity with other supposedly oppressed groups is supposed to justify women giving up this safety. It’s idiotic. Everyone here knows that it is idiotic. But feminism still demands giving up long fought for rights in the name of supporting fake women.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Trans ideology is misogynist. Transwomen don't accept boundaries set by women. Women can't say "no" to them. It's about forced access to women through the fiction that trans women are women. Why the weird insistence on access to bathrooms and locker rooms and so on? Why are women who object attacked with ten times the ferocity as men?

Surely someone else has noticed this?

Rollo said...

If we junk the "rigid gender stereotypes" then what is the basis for men claiming to be women and women claiming to be men?

Polemical writing divides the world into us and them and ignores the currents runing through both sides.

Gender stereotypes are back, and this Pamela Person is a prisoner of them as much as anybody else is.

Free Manure While You Wait! said...

"Seeing women as their own complete entities, not just a collection of derivative parts"

Parts is parts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTzLVIc-O5E&t=30s

takirks said...

Self-inflicted wounds, all of it. Women "wanted it all", and sold what they already had for a mess of pottage.

Chesterton's Fence raises its ugly head, yet again... Nobody ever paused to wonder why traditional society organized things the way it did, or to consider what changing those thins might mean, carried out to the inevitable logical conclusions implied by those changes. Which is how we got to where we are, and the inevitable crack-up when it all collapses under the weight of the massive internal contradictions is going to be epic.

There are reasons why those bigoted old-timers organized things the way they did. It was because it worked. What we've changed isn't working out so very well, now is it?

Daniel12 said...

This article is not what it says it's about. I get that usually opinion writers don't write the headlines -- although in this case, the writer was the editor for a long time, and the opening paragraph basically reinforces the headline.

All this really is is yet another statement of the most widely discussed issue in the known media universe -- the particular language choices in subsets of the left. If the writer actually gave a shit about the pressures from the right, she wouldn't dismiss them as "better known" or limit her attention to "Those on the right who are threatened by women’s equality have always fought fiercely to put women back in their place." Not right now, during the culmination of one of the right's core attacks on women's right.

And by the way, the right's solution to this EMERGENCY LANGUAGE CATASTROPHE is to speak about pregnant women (nearly always excluding girls, who don't fit neatly into the personal responsibility narrative), AND to categorize trans men as women and therefore include them in discussions about abortion, rights, menstruation, etc.

It all looks a whole lot like a giant load of manufactured bullshit and/or gaslighting.

Stephen St. Onge said...

        Pardon me, folks, but I think you’re misunderstanding this column.  IMAO, this is huge.

        Apparently, none of you spend time on the world’s most delightful hellsite, Twitter.  But I do, and I follow the ‘TERF wars’ closely.  This column is a major development.

        Sure, the author devotes about 10% of it to criticizing the “far Right.”  But she works for the NYT, for pity’s sake.  If she criticized the “far Left” only, she’d be out on her ear.  She’s got to ‘balance’ her column.

        But the important stuff is the 90% of the column that criticizes the Left.  Remember, the most important function of the NYT is to tell Dems/Libs/Lefties what subjects they are allowed to pay attention to, and what viewpoints they are allowed to hold.  Up to now, the Times has seldom mentioned this conflict; when it did, it told the readers that they were required to support the Trans Activists 100%.  What this column shows is that the Dems realize they are stuck with a losing position that will kill them at the polls.  So they let their readership know that they don’t have to pretend women are men, and men are women.

        This has HUGE political implications.  And it’s a strong sign that the Trans movement is going to lose the contested positions.

Marc in Eugene said...

This has HUGE political implications. And it’s a strong sign that the Trans movement is going to lose the contested positions.

I hope you're right; maybe I'll re-read the article. While I used to read the tea leaves at the NYT (like one scanned the pages of Pravda back in the day for photographs that might unintentionally reveal the fortunes of the various Kremlin players) to discern this or that about what 'the Left' was up to or about what nonsense they were planning next, these days they are so open about their advocacy of Left nonsense that I pay only occasional attention.