They say there's a black hole out in space, but what about the black hole of your mind?

1) If this is the worst problem brilliant young women face, hallelujah
2) Several people have pointed out the comment comes from a woman. Yet here's this tweet a day last, unchanged https://t.co/GQlC0W1NBN

— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) April 12, 2019

UPDATE: Naomi Wolf has now deleted the tweet that used to display along with Young's ridicule of it. Wolf had shown the picture of the young woman whose work led to what is presented as a picture of a black hole along with comments that included "That's so cool" and something like "She's so cute." Wolf asserted that the "That's so cool" comments were from women and show how women react and "She's so cute" came from a man and that's a problem. It turns out the "She's so cute" commenter, with the first name Shaun, actually was a woman, the Wolf premise of Wolf's expansive generalization was embarrassingly wrong. Wolf subsequently put this up, so you can see she doesn't accept the push-back about the generalization:

I think the answer is evolution.

I wonder the same thing every time a tweet like this crosses my feed
⬇️ https://t.co/80S9mcpopm

— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) September 18, 2018

The women Roberts posits did not survive to reproduce. And assuredly, much of the reproduction that did take place began with rape and many of the babies who survived to go on to reproduce had mothers who had the psychological wherewithal to go on despite rape. Women are not hotheads, freaking out about rape, attempted rape, and the burdens of avoiding rape. That's why it's taken so long to reach #TimesUp. But time is up, and it should be.

IN THE COMMENTS: Meade wrote:

I don't think David Roberts was being sarcastic with his tweet but Cathy Young was with hers.

I said:

I sure thought he was, but I see he's at Vox, so.... do I need to break out my rarely used "I was wrong" tag???

Meade said:

Young was snarking on his tweet signaling how woke he is.

Why is this just a question for men? I answered this poll before noticing I was excluded.

Question for men.
Jordan Peterson said, in his interview w/Camille Paglia, that in any intellectual confrontation between men there's always an implicit option of settling things with fists; since it's not an option when arguing with a woman, men are at a disadvantage. Thoughts?

— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) February 1, 2018

Take the poll before being influenced by my answer, revealed after the jump.

Here's the Jordan Peterson interview with Camille Paglia, in case you want to hear him explain his point before jumping to say it's "Totally nuts."

"A sad day indeed! This whole sexual harassment thing is devolving into McCarthyism I fear."

"Does sexual harassment exist? Of course it does - we've seen a number of perpetrators fall. In my 84 year old opinion I don't think Senator Franken is guilty of harassment, and I suspect the female senators who have asked for his resignation are guilty of grandstanding for political reasons. Sad day!"

That's (the first part of) the top-rated comment — with 1963 votes — on the NYT article "Al Franken Announces He Will Resign from Senate Amid Harassment Allegations." (The second part is a demand that the Senate go after Donald Trump.)

The comment jumped out at me because I'd just read a column by Ana Marie Cox at The Washington Post, "Al Franken isn’t being denied due process. None of these famous men are," which had a high-rated comment that sensed the arrival of McCarthyism:

What a sorry column. Yes, Franken is being denied an ethics probe and impeachment [sic] and conviction in the Senate. To tap dance around the established procedures to placate a Twitter Mob and a devious, grandstanding Senator whose doing a hell of a Joe McCarthy impression in a dress. And the spineless Senators that lined up behind her are a disgrace to the rules and procedures of the U.S. Senate.

I don't really think Franken can complain about due process: He's expelling himself. He just experienced political pressure to quit and he yielded. And I laughed when Franken said:

I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office, and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his party.

He's leaving because he's deciding to leave. They're staying because they're deciding to stay. Same treatment. No irony. (And why is he "of all people" aware of irony? Because he's been a comedy writer?)

But I am interested in seeing how people in general may be shifting from enthusiasm about believing women and taking women seriously to feeling something is going wrong when the accused goes down so fast. Maybe Franken's case is where the public sentiment turns. Franken wouldn't admit to his misdeeds (so he couldn't apologize), and he described his predicament:

I was shocked. I was upset. But in responding to their claims, I also wanted to be respectful of that broader conversation because all women deserve to be heard and their experiences taken seriously. I think that was the right thing to do. I also think it gave some people the false impression that I was admitting to doing things that, in fact, I haven’t done. Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others, I remember very differently.

He was afraid that to defend himself, he'd only make his troubles worse. He'd be questioning the credibility of his accusers. But maybe he should have defended himself. Because at some point people are going to flip into have-you-no-decency mode. And poor Franken may regret that he went with what seemed to be the trend at the time and gave up without a fight. Fighting may catch on.

Now, I'm searching the news reports for other invocations of McCarthy, and here's Cathy Young in The Daily News yesterday: "Al Franken, the latest casualty of the 'Weinstein' effect, now a victim of sexual McCarthyism." By contrast, here's lawprof Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg, 3 days ago:

Are we facing a new McCarthy era?

No. Perhaps there is occasionally too great a rush to judgment, but that’s a familiar problem in human history. McCarthyism involved a huge effort to punish people for their opinions, not their actions. That’s despicable at any time.... Disciplining an employee because he expresses views that some hate is McCarthyist; disciplining him for harassment or assault isn’t.

It would be McCarthyist for an employer to fire an employee for insisting on more due process for those who are named, or for coming to the defense of one who has been accused. But taking strong action when there is credible evidence that an individual has been abusive toward women is simply the turning of the wheel of justice.

That's one man's opinion, but it might be the view from 3 days ago, and the culture has shifted since then.

"Should Bill Clinton’s sexual misdeeds be an issue for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy?"

The NYT does one of its forums on this question, asked of 4 women and one man.

1. Katha Pollitt says there's "no evidence that Hillary actually did 'enable' Bill’s philandering" or that she "slut-shamed Paula Jones or any of the other women who accused Bill of sexually aggressive behavior." She muses "What is enabling, anyway?" Is it really so different from "love, loyalty, credulousness, naivete, practicality, forgiveness, saving the marriage, protecting the children, just getting on with life"?

2. Kristin Collins Jackson (a poet and writer) mildly concedes that Hillary's "victim-shaming" "deserves attention"  for its inconsistency with her "platform that prioritizes women's issues and combating sexual assault on campus."

3. Joshua Coleman, a psychologist, says Hillary's "alleged attempts to discredit the women with whom her husband cheated may not be considered a good form of sisterhood, it certainly could be considered a reasonable act of motherhood." He says we've overinflated the idea of "romantic love" and offers respect to Hillary for staying with her husband instead of reacting in the "more destructive" way he's seen in some of his patients.

4. Cathy Young observes "the ambiguity of [Hillary's] status as a hybrid of modern female politician and traditional political wife" and "the greater paradox... that she is being hurt by the same feminist revival from which her campaign has sought to draw strength." Young puts some blame on "modern feminism" for going "to unhealthy extremes on fetishizing victimhood and conferring absolute credibility on self-proclaimed survivors" and likes the idea that Hillary's current trouble may move some feminists to back off from these extremes.

5. Nona Willis Aronowitz, a Fusion editor, says: "Even I, a progressive feminist, tend to think of Bill Clinton as a sleazy ex-boyfriend I can’t stop drunk-texting but not, you know, a rapist. He’s one of us, after all. One of our dudes." But she's looking critically at that tendency: "Those of us not married to Bill Clinton should ask ourselves why it’s so hard for us to accept that he might be brilliant, likable and a misogynist all at the same time?"

When is it appropriate to appropriate?

"It's time for cultural appropriators to proudly reclaim 'culturally appropriative' as a positive, empowering term. When asked 'Isn't that cultural appropriation?' you should enthusiastically answer: 'Yes! I freely adopt any cultures I choose, and I wouldn't have it any other way!'"

Writes John, bouncing off this WaPo piece by Cathy Young piece, "To the new culture cops, everything is appropriation/Their protests ignore history, chill artistic expression and hurt diversity." Excerpt from Young:

Most critics of appropriation... say they don’t oppose engagement with other cultures if it’s done in a “culturally affirming” way. A Daily Dot article admonishes that “an authentic cultural exchange should feel free and affirming, rather than plagiarizing or thieving.” A recent post on the Tumblr “This Is Not China” declares that “cultural appropriation is not merely the act of wearing or partaking in cultural symbols & practices that do not belong to you, it’s a system of exploitation & capitalisation on cultural symbols & practices that do not a) originate from b) benefit c) circle back to the culture in question.”

It makes sense to permit behaviors that encourage empathy and genuine interest while discouraging those that caricature or mock a sampled-from culture. But such litmus tests leave ample room for hair-splitting and arbitrary judgments. One blogger’s partial defense of “Kimono Wednesdays” suggests that while it was fine to let visitors [at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston] try on the kimonos, allowing them to be photographed while wearing them was a step too far. This fine parsing of what crosses the line from appreciation into appropriation suggests a religion with elaborate purity tests.

I actually think it's fine and good to contemplate these fine distinctions, especially as you develop your own ethics and taste. I'd say that criticizing others for drawing the fine lines in different places is also a matter of ethics and taste. Young asks:

What will be declared “problematic” next? Picasso’s and Matisse’s works inspired by African art? Puccini’s “Orientalist” operas, “Madama Butterfly” and “Turandot”? Should we rid our homes of Japanese prints? Should I take offense at other people’s Russian nesting dolls?

But I think all these things deserve attention, and I think they've all been subject to critique for a long, long time. It's hardly a "what's next?" matter to bring up Picasso's use of African art. The subject of cultural appropriation is not to be brushed aside. It deserves study, reflection, analysis, and interesting, wide-ranging debate and discussion. It's one of the great topics of conversation! Don't, in the interest of freedom, censor it. Some people take it too far and become offensive in their taking of offense, but most good subjects for study and conversation touch off some intemperate speakers who love to attack others. Like, I bet what I just said — which is setting up a good topic — has touched off some of my readers to go after me in an intemperate manner.

ADDED: For reference, here's how The New York Times talked about "those ubiquitous gold-dust twins of high-priced modern art, Picasso and Matisse" and their use of African art back in 1927. Click images to enlarge:

"The quest for perfect consent is profoundly utopian. Like all such quests that ignore human realities, it points the way to dystopian nightmare."

Writes Cathy Young in a WaPo essay titled "Feminists want us to define these ugly sexual encounters as rape. Don’t let them./We need to stop prosecuting bad behavior as rape."

"Jackie lied, Erdely lied, Rolling Stone lied, Teresa Sullivan — at best — went along with a lie. All should face more consequences than they have so far experienced."

Writes Instapundit in what might be the longest ever Instapundit post — with excerpts from Ashe Schow ("Why the Rolling Stone gang-rape story will never be labeled a hoax") and Cathy Young ("The UVA Case and Rape-Hoax Denial").

My question is: Why "more consequences" and not the usual and classic free-speech-loving remedy more speech? It seems as though more speech is working out well enough, or is the complaint that anti-rape activists are still going to use Rolling Stone story to maintain the feeling that something terrible is happening out there? That complaint is a concession of the weakness of your side of the debate. Improve your debate. Your more speech needs to be better. The grim call for consequences is chilling.

ALSO: This post was down for a short time, not because I intentionally took it down, but because I mishandled an open window.

AND: Instapundit responded to this, saying:

Yes, “more speech” is a remedy for opinions one doesn’t like. When speech falls into the category of actions — which false accusations certainly do — it calls for more than simple talk as a response. (But note that Jackie was smart enough not to file a police report, though that should have been a tip-off). And I should note that the fraternity in question was the victim of violent mob action that was ginned up in part by the University of Virginia itself. Is the only remedy for officially-inspired thuggery “more speech?” No. That’s one remedy, but it’s not the only remedy, nor should it be.

I strongly disagree with the proposition that if free-speech law permits negative consequences to be imposed that we ought to want these consequences. I am promoting the more speech approach where the First Amendment would permit negative consequences.

Instapundit quotes a commenter of mine who says "The proper remedy for slander is not 'more speech.' The proper remedy... are [sic]  'consequences.'"

Proper remedy? I'm not purporting to be the arbiter of propriety here. I'm saying what I think is the better policy and the better approach to this political discourse. I called for more and better speech and rejected the "grim call for consequences" as "chilling."

"Will 2015 see a pushback against the anti-’rape culture’ movement on campus?"

Pushback the Night?

The question in the post title is from Cathy Young (quoted by Instapundit).

The question that begins this post is my suggestion for the name of the movement — a suggestion intended only as dark humor (I hasten to add for the that's-not-funny crowd). It's a variation on Take Back the Night.

Reactions have consequences.

A correction is needed, but that doesn't mean you should advocate for something you'd like to call "pushback against the anti-’rape culture’ movement."  Think about what is wrong with that phrase.

1. It's hard to understand with that "against the anti-" double negative. There are better ways to be positive.

2. No one wants to be "against... anti-rape"! You're relying on people to bunch "anti-rape" with "culture" — nudging with quotation marks — and to know that you can be both anti-rape and anti-"rape culture." That's a distinction that can be discussed calmly to good effect, so how can we get into a workable relationship where we can have a calm discussion?

3. No pushing! Eschew violent imagery. We don't need a "pushback" against a "movement." We need people to calm down and recognize that we want harmony and a good experience for everyone on campus. We don't want rape and we don't want kangaroo-court justice.

4. And we should want much more than that. We want ample and fair protection for anyone accused of misconduct, and we want young adults to develop rewarding relationships and good moral character. The present-day stress on 1. not raping anybody and 2. not utterly railroading the accused is shockingly debased. Where is the love? We need much higher aspirations.

Who wins in an argument over the meaning of a word?

The word is "feminism."

ADDED: The problem on display is:

1. There are widely shared equality goals but these have been met, leaving nothing more to do under the banner "feminism."

2. Some people want other things, and the term is useful to them, so they use it actively, demanding things that are off-putting to a lot of people.

3. Those who were fine with the widely shared goals become conflicted about the term, but not enough to successfully take the definition back.

4. A small group of those who are put off want to make a thing out of disowning the term.

5. Most people don't bother one way or another. They move on, following their individual lives, which is good feminism. Or that's what I'd say if I had to have an argument about it, but I don't.

"Female journalists... can get away with explicitly sexist attacks on their male colleagues."

"Last August, after getting into an on-air spat about U.S.–Russian relations with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, New Republic senior editor Julia Ioffe penned an article titled 'Dear Lawrence O’Donnell, Don’t Mansplain to Me About Russia.' In January, Marjorie Ingalls, a columnist for the online Jewish magazine Tablet, derided male reviewers who were insufficiently impressed by Disney’s latest animated feature 'Frozen' as 'boys' who miss the film’s girl-power message because they are 'writing with their penises.'"

So writes Cathy Young... with her... computer...  in Reason, in a piece called "Is There a Cyber War on Women?" 

Wouldn't it be fun to use such casually absurd and unfair literary fillips when writing about women? But you'd get in trouble. The feminists would be on your case. I'd say about that: 1. Mockery of the group that's been, traditionally, subordinated feels different and is going to be disapproved of long after many or most people are ready to say we've reached the condition of equality, 2. Mockery of the traditionally up group — males, white people, etc. — acknowledges their power and doesn't feel subordinating, so it actually does seem like fun, 3. Men (and white people) can put their efforts into claiming victimhood and insisting that we respect their dignity by refraining from sexist tropes like "writing with their penises," but 4. When all the writers submit to the calls for civility and treating everyone — including the powerful — with respect and gender-and-color neutrality, we will all be less free and more bored.

There's a lot more at Cathy Young's article, including this paragraph that mentions me:

While the political blogosphere, like punditry in more traditional media venues, skews male for many complicated reasons, the female presence in the new media is strong and thriving. Currently, the top-rated blog according to Technorati is the female-headed Huffington Post and the most popular independent, one-person blog belongs to University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse. Althouse’s take on the issue of woman abuse online can be summed up as “report serious threats to the cops; otherwise, grow a tough skin.”

"Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of this story is the virtually unanimous support for the 'survivor' from anti-rape activists and their supporters."

"Letters published in The Post, from women and men alike, deplored the 'disheartening' skepticism about the 'poor woman's' claims and decried the pernicious sway of 'the rape culture.'" 

[A] class of 2013 alumnus... chided "misguided skeptics" for failing to realize that "it takes incredible courage for a woman to come forward and report a rape," since she subjects herself to "massive public scrutiny."...

On the occasion of the Wal-Mart sex-discrimination case, looking back 30 years to the Sears case.

Cathy Young brings the historical perspective:

[In the Sears case,] a feminist historian, Rosalind Rosenberg of Barnard College, testified as an expert witness for Sears. Men and women, Rosenberg argued, generally have different expectations and preferences regarding work -- and, however, desirable more equality in the workplace may be, it is "naïve" to see the [statistical] disparities as proof of discrimination. (She was, of course, branded a traitor to the sisterhood.) Sears won the case in 1986....

Women's traditional preferences don't negate the existence of sexist barriers or subtle biases....

Yet legal action is far too blunt and heavy an instrument to deal with these issues. Sometimes, as with the ban on racial segregation or on overt sex discrimination in the workplace, law can change culture in the right direction. But for the law to intrude into a complex web of human relationships and attitudes is an overreach likely to cause more harm than good. For one, we live in a time when state intrusion into private actions is viewed with suspicion. To say that women's advancement requires the government and the courts to micromanage business decisions -- to the point of telling a corporation that it cannot let local managers control promotions and pay -- is to invite a backlash.

Sarah Palin is great for feminism.

Cathy Young has a nice op-ed in the WSJ, "Why feminists hate Sarah Palin." Excerpt:

Left-wing feminists have a hard time dealing with strong, successful conservative women in politics such as Margaret Thatcher. Sarah Palin seems to have truly unhinged more than a few, eliciting a stream of vicious, often misogynist invective....

I disagree with Sarah Palin on a number of issues, including abortion rights. But when the feminist establishment treats not only pro-life feminism but small-government, individualist feminism as heresy, it writes off multitudes of women.

I wouldn't have titled this piece "Why feminists hate Sarah Palin." Young never concedes that the feminism that liberals say is the only feminism is, in fact, the only feminism. Nor would I.

There was a time -- I was there -- back in the 80s and early 90s, when feminists would speak of "feminisms" and were always promoting some new version of feminism that, we'd argue, was better than the last. We were way out in front of the liberal feminists. So it seemed, and we duly disparaged them -- from the left.

Those were heady times. But in recent years, feminism has been dominated by Democratic Party devotees who act like they own feminism, as if theirs was the only feminism -- as if they could dictate that all women should vote Democratic.

Perversely, this conventional Democratic Party feminism took over after Bill Clinton made it rather obvious that within the Democratic Party, the party's interests would necessarily supervene women's interests. The feminism of the last dozen years has been a dull, uninspired argument for keeping Democratic politicians in power.

But feminism is something that transcends party politics. Women have interests that the parties should have to compete for. I want a vivid debate about what is good for women. Sarah Palin represents one argument, and her feminism will require Democrats to improve their argument and not take women for granted. Sarah Palin brings feminism to a lot of people who've been scorning feminism -- because feminism has seemed like a strand of Democratic party politics.

This is great for feminism.

Did European witch-hunting kill 9 million?

I've been under the impression that was the real number, ever since I read Gyn/Ecology about 15 years ago. But I see here, that number is entirely wrong:

"For witchcraft and sorcery between 1400 and 1800, all in all, we estimate something like 50,000 legal death penalties," writes Wolfgang Behringer in "Witches and Witch-Hunts" (Polity, 2004). He estimates that perhaps twice as many received other penalties, "like banishment, fines or church penance."

Other recent estimates range from 40,000 to 100,000 executions over those early modern centuries. These remain appalling numbers, even when put in the context of the far greater numbers killed in religious wars and the fact that resort to capital punishment was at one of its high points in European history.

No one should underestimate the cruelty these numbers represent. "Witchfinders," Malcolm Gaskill's full-blooded account, just published by Harvard University Press, of the most notorious witch hunt in English history, makes that clear in engrossing detail.

But contemporary historians bridle at the huge numbers that have become part of the witch hunt mythology-and the implicit or explicit comparisons to the Nazi campaign of genocide. Professor Behringer traced the estimate of nine million victims back to wild projections made by an 18th-century anticlerical from 20 files of witch trials. The figure worked its way into 19th-century texts, was taken up by Protestant polemicists during the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf in Germany, then adopted by the early 20th-century German neopagan movement and, eventually, by anti-Christian Nazi propagandists.

In the United States, the nine million figure appeared in the 1978 book "Gyn/Ecology" by the influential feminist theoretician Mary Daly, who picked it up from a 19th-century American feminist, Matilda Gage.

Do such unfounded myths do anyone any good? Certainly many feminists, including some identifying themselves as neopagans, agree with contemporary historians about the answer: No.

Have any of you folks read "Gyn/Ecology"? Oh, that is a rousing book!

UPDATE: Cathy Young (who also participates in the comments) expresses shock at my "rousing book" compliment to "Gyn/Ecology." (She and I also had some debate about the writings of Andrea Dworkin.) I wrote this in the comments:

I just said it was rousing, not that it was good or right. I went through a period when I read a lot of Dworkin and Daly's books. They were very stimulating, but also ultimately stimulated me into wanting to distance myself from them. There are plenty of things in the treatment of women to be outraged about, but polemical works that demand that you reach and maintain a permanent state of anger just seem sad after a while (or dangerous, if they are actually effective).