Hello everyone, welcome to this week in Stupid for the 21st of December 2014.
Last week, feminism kept its head down and let other stupid things take precedent over it.
But this week it's back with a vengeance and more petty than ever before.
First up, end the gender apartheid.
He, she or it.
A growing number of parents, teachers and experts say that we should be raising children the gender neutral way.
Unsurprisingly, they're fucking Swedish.
And I hate this term, a growing number.
Listen, right?
If there is one person saying it, and now two people say it, a growing number of people are now saying it.
So this article begins with whining about quote-unquote gender segregation, which is apparently a recent phenomenon.
And when I was a child in the 1980s, everyone wore Oshkosh dungarees and built with blocks.
Listen, you moron, I was a kid in the 1980s too, and there were still gender-specific toys.
But apparently the categories of boy and girl seem to have become as rigid as those of horse and cow.
Yes, that's a wonderful analogy.
But who's making them rigid?
Who's going on about the categories of boy and girl?
Who is obsessing over these categories?
It's not normal people, is it?
It is perplexing though.
Many neurologists and psychologists argue that girls and boys are far more alike than they are different.
Which is a statement that is just magnificent in its ability to miss the point.
My goodness, but both boys and girls have brains and neurons and motor control and they can both learn to read and write and they eat food and they sleep in beds.
If you look at all the characteristics that boys and girls have, they share a surprising number of them.
Yes, but girls seem to be naturally inclined to do X and boys seem to be naturally inclined to do Y.
And the psychologists are like, yes, I know we find it so baffling.
You fucking idiots, honestly.
But studies show that from the moment they are born, they are treated differently.
That's because they're not the fucking same.
They are not going to grow up into the same roles in life, whether you like those roles or fucking not.
And this is the level of academic study that goes into this.
I love this.
The psychologist Dr. Christia Spears Brown, professor of developmental psychology at the University of Kentucky, so you know, someone who should be able to tell you something concrete about this subject, tells me that male and female babies are equally lively, but boys become far more active as they grow older, because she says, parents encourage their sons to be sporty, while girls are encouraged to be patient and quiet.
These are generalizations so ridiculously sweeping, you really don't need to look very far to find examples that show that they're bollocks.
Others suggest that dressing girls in pretty shoes and dresses and complimenting them on their looks teaches them to place excessive value on their appearance.
Okay, well, who are these others?
Are they other well-educated university professors who are clearly looking for anything other than an evolutionary factor to blame this on?
I mean, this really doesn't take a genius to work it out.
Men are visual creatures.
That's why men like looking at porn.
Men like looking at women.
Therefore, is it any wonder that women spend a lot of time worrying about how they fucking look?
The stereotypes we see in toy marketing connect with the inequalities we see in adult life.
Says Jess Day, a mother of two and a member of Let Toys Be Toys, a group that campaigns against toys being labelled for girls or boys.
Now I mean that is broadly true, but it's about the definition of the word inequality that I'm concerned about.
Because she's talking about the inequality of outcome, not the inequality of opportunity that they had.
If women are more predisposed to take the path of least resistance, and men don't even have that option, of course men are going to end up earning more, so no wonder the feminists are like, well, this has got to stop because this is ruining our numbers.
A growing number of parents, educators, and governments, again, more weasel words, want to redress this by making the world gender neutral.
The idea is to make all things available to all children.
Yes, like I've said before, if you go into Toys R Us and you say, I would like to buy this doll for my son, they will say, no, I'm calling the gender police.
There is a special layer of hell reserved for people like you who buy heteronormative toys for their children, you fucking monster.
From nurseries in Sweden to America's most prestigious universities, don't worry, they're not going to be prestigious for very long.
The very labels of boy and girl and pronouns like he and she are threatened with banishment.
Basically, places most infested with feminism.
It all sounds rather self-conscious and awkward, because it is.
Perhaps most derided is the Swedish unisex personal pronoun hen, used to replace han and hon. Ah, the han-hon oppression.
Classic patriarchy there.
I'm so glad hen came along to save us.
And all this wildly speculative academic bullshit comes to a halt as soon as you speak to an actual parent.
Most ordinary mums will say, yeah, but boys and girls are different, says Sioben Frigaard, a mother of three and the founder of NetMums, one of Britain's largest parenting websites.
Parents don't really get what the point of campaigns like Pink Stinks is, which fights gender stereotypes.
Oh yeah, that is exactly as stupid as I'd think.
There's more than one way to be a girl.
Oh my goodness, the oppression.
So brave of them to speak out despite reprisals from the patriarchy.
Angela Spencer, who has owned and operated nurseries for the past 21 years, agrees.
Boys and girls develop differently, socially and emotionally.
The anatomy of boys and girls is different, and their subsequent developmental needs are different.
In this gender-neutral trend, we are running the risk of losing gender identity completely.
I'll stop you there, Angela.
It's not that we're running a risk, it's that that is their aim.
They think that that is a good idea, in spite of any damage that it causes.
Sweden has gone to extraordinary lengths to impose gender neutrality in classrooms, regularly filming teachers' interactions with children and analysing them for gender bias.
In one nursery, teachers here meet weekly for self-criticism sessions in which their colleagues share observations of sexist behaviour and other mistakes.
They sound positively Maoist.
None dare call it Marxism.
We look with gender glasses at every toy, every lesson we lead, to ask whether they will give children equal opportunities, explains Annie Bergerstrom, the warm and impossibly serene curriculum director at the nursery.
She's part of a cult, and she gets to brainwash your children.
Thankfully though, there are feminists in the Anglosphere that are too busy being pathetic and stupid to fuck around with anyone's kids.
They actually have multiple campaigns for this concept of man-spreading, which is pretty fucking pathetic if you ask me.
So let's look at something that's more stupid than pathetic.
Equal pay.
Seven male Tory MPs vote against bill to make big companies reveal gender pay gap.
I'm sure that this is going to totally end the pay gap and not make women look like they're lazy and have taken the path of least resistance.
Seven kitten drowning, puppy-kicking, orphan-starving Tory MPs voted against a bill that would make big companies reveal their gender pay gap.
The labour-backed bill called for employers with more than 250 staff to be made to publish information showing the difference between male and female pay.
After obviously naming and shaming these, the article goes on to state that Labour's analysis of the Office of National Statistics for Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings shows that over a career from the age of 22 to 64, a woman earned an average of £200,009 less than men.
My goodness.
There is no way that this can be due to maternity leave, overtime hours, and the choice to work part-time, as well as choice of career.
Don't know about anyone else, but in the next elections, I'll be voting Labour Comrade, a party of the people and not clearly infested with fucking morons.
What I love about this is that they keep digging deeper and flinging accusations.
All the while, they secretly know that what the problem is, is women's choices in life.
I mean, I personally wouldn't consider it a problem, but obviously they do.
The bill would bring into effect measures from the 2010 Equality Act, which were not implemented by the coalition government.
As part of it, companies would be asked to publish the difference between male and female pay, which is going to be wonderful, because they're going to say, oh, what would you like us to do?
What, per annum?
They'll be like, yes, per annum.
And they'll publish it and it'll be broadly the same.
And then they'll be like, how is it that women are earning less overall?
And they'll be like, well, more women are staying at home to be stay-at-home parents.
Or more women just work in part-time jobs than not.
And you'll get people like Miss Chapman who say the government has failed to address the issue and stress that the measure was not about naming and shaming companies.
The Backbencher insisted that publishing information would place a responsibility on employers to obey the law on equal pay and take steps to reduce the gender pay gap.
Champion, you're fucking idiots.
They're doing everything they can.
They are without a doubt paying people what they're fucking worth in their jobs, regardless of gender, because they're not bigots, you dipshit.
They're just regular people running companies in a regular way.
She said, pay transparency will push companies to focus on reasons why the pay gap still exists.
And she repeats, this isn't about naming and shaming, about telling companies what to do or micromanaging them.
It's simply about changing the emphasis of course.
None of this is total bullshit.
Pay transparency places the responsibility on the employers to be actively conscious of the law on equal pay and have policies to address the gap.
They absolutely will.
And you'll find that, broadly speaking, everyone is being paid exactly what they should be being paid under the law.
And you'll be like, well, I just can't explain.
There must be institutionalized sexism here somewhere.
It's never going to be that women just aren't doing what we want them to do.
Except in the third world where they're doing exactly what we want them to do and for 62p an hour.
But fuck it.
This is what a feminist conspiracy of silence looks like.
The feminist organization behind controversial t-shirts made by women paid just 62p an hour is refusing to answer questions about its investigation into the workers' conditions.
Probably because there isn't one going on and they don't give a fuck.
The factory wear the shirts bearing the slogan, this is what a feminist looks like, made by women who do not consider themselves to be feminists because in their minds feminists are the sort of women who enslave other women in the third world to make cheap shitty knockoffs so they can go badger men in the first world for more money, otherwise known as the Fawcett Society, was first exposed by the mail on Sunday last month.
But six weeks after the sweatshop conditions were revealed, little progress appears to have been made in an investigation into our reports.
I'm not surprised.
They're investigating themselves and they're finding that actually it's really profitable to get brown women in the third world to do this for us.
So white women in the first world can look like pompous assholes.
The Mail on Sunday faced a wall of silence last week from the left-wing Fawcett Society and its partners.
Their £45 t-shirts were proudly worn by Labour deputy leader and all-around soulless Harridan Harriet Harmon in the Commons and also by Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg because they're sackless morons.
When the Mail on Sunday revealed last month the workers in the Mauritius textile factory were paid just 62p an hour, that's a hell of a profit margin, isn't it, Harriet?
And we're sleeping 16 to a room in dormitories.
But you know, I think it's really important that you get companies in the UK to post their pay information.
So, you know, just in case there are women in the UK who are being paid slightly less than men.
Honestly, first world feminists, this really does seem like a way that you can be selfish and hypocritical and fuck poor brown women in the third world.
So not only were there no outward signs of any reports and our numerous phone calls and emails to the Fawcett Society, Whistles and L produced no response, when called at home, Miss Phipps said, there's nothing to add, you should speak to our press spokesperson.
The stonewalling came as two of our journalists involved in the expose were banned from freely travelling to Mauritius, the Indian Ocean island.
Holy shit, feminists!
They actually received letters from the Mauritius government imposing restrictions on their right to travel in the country because they made the feminists look like manipulative, exploitative sociopaths who only care about themselves and really do not care about other women in any way.
And we know this because they were told on no uncertain terms, it is because of the article.
If you fly here without asking for permission first, you will be sent back.
The government of Mauritius is actually complicit in this exploitation of women in the third world for first world feminists.
Unbelievable, right?
It is, I think, but it's really not as petty as it could be.
How about how do sexist ad campaigns still make it from the boardroom to the billboard?
I can tell you in one love, because they fucking work.
And I rather think you're conflating the term sexist with sexy.
Unless, of course, being sexy is sexist.
So the author says, when I saw Coca-Cola's ad campaign for Fairlife, the new low-sugar lactose-free luxury milk that launched in the US last month and it's been marketed with images of nude pin-up girls wearing dresses made from huge squirts of milk, there are a lot of things I wanted to shout.
What is it about the brainwashing I've endured that makes me want to care about this?
What she actually says, which is, stop trying to make sexy calcium happen.
Just because milk is white, it doesn't mean the models have to be.
How bad would a dress made of milk smell?
Yes, they are very, very, very pressing concerns.
Instead, she just asks herself, how did this advert campaign happen?
Which is what we're all thinking, really.
I mean, this is such a terrible injustice to Western feminists.
Nay, Western women as a whole.
How did this come to be?
How did the idea even get beyond the initial brainstorm?
Let alone all the way to our magazine and screens.
How many people signed it off?
How many pairs of eyes did it pass in front of without anybody piping up and saying, hang on, guys, maybe this is, you know, a bit sexist and awful?
I know, and that is a very valid question.
But I think more feminists were asking themselves, why are my feminist friends still taking their husbands' surnames?
Because after all, the bride wears white, is handed from man to man, and then loses a major part of her identity.
Why do Australian women put up with these patriarchal customs?
And how come I feel too embarrassed to ask them?
Well, I'm going to guess it's not due to the fact that this is monumentally pathetic and you fucking know it.
I mean, a survey found that 82% of married Australian women still assume their husband's surname, where around 90% of the children are registered in their father's names.
It's the fucking patriarchy again, isn't it?
Taken alongside other stock wedding practices, from white frocks to paternal giveaways, these figures reflect the resilience of patriarchal customs in marriage between Australian men and women.
A consent to inequality, which is baffling.
Which I actually think that's probably true.
I think that she finds it incredibly baffling.
Just like the other femists concerned with the incredibly important topic of that baffling advertising campaign.
It's depressing not to recognise half your Facebook friends list because their names have changed overnight.
They've been cast off to the happy tags of Mrs. X as if to proclaim, forget who I was before.
I am now loved, wanted and owned by a man.
Oh, princess, is someone late to the ball?
Is someone there going, well, where's my ring?
This ownership by men is just awful.
Just awful.
Just ask the women who live in Iraq under ISIS's abhorrence guide on how to treat female slaves.
I mean, come on, Western feminists, you know that they're just going to give you a knowing glance and go, patriarchy.
Am I right?
Although this could not be independently verified, the list is believed to have been printed on the 3rd of December by ISIS's in-house publishers on behalf of the Research and Fatwa Department.
I find this absolutely hilarious.
This is what Muslim bureaucracy looks like.
And the University of Bristol's Gender and Violence Research Centre said last month that ISIS kidnapped more than 2,500 women and at least 4,600 are reported missing.
And the centre told CNN that women are, quote, being treated like cattle.
Presumably giving Australian feminists a knowing wink and a nod, as if to say, yeah, we all know what it's like to be owned by a man, don't we, ladies?
I mean, the ISIS handbook does say that it's permissible to rape a female slave immediately after taking possession of her, and that it's permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who hasn't yet reached puberty if she's fit for intercourse, whatever that means, but it sounds fucking horrible.
You know, just like all the trials that Australian feminists are suffering right now, as I say these words, I am sure.
I mean, just look at some of these questions from the handbook.
What is Al-Sabi?
Al-Sabi is a woman from among the Al-Ahab, the people of war, who have been captured by the Muslims.
Right.
What makes Al-Sabi permissible?
What makes Al-Sabi permissible is their unbelief.
Unbelieving women who are captured and brought into the abode of Islam are permissible to us after the Imam distributes them amongst us.
That's just exactly what the feminists in Australia are having done to them.
It's terrible.
Is it permissible to have intercourse with female captive?
It is permissible.
Of course it is.
Is it permissible to take her as a slave and then rape her?
Of course.
Is it permissible to sell her as a slave?
Of course.
If a female captive is impregnated by her owner, can he sell her?
No, because then she's the mother of his child and he has responsibilities to that child.
Well, thank God there's a minimum standard of decency.
God forbid they look like fucking savages.
Is it permissible to have intercourse with a female slave who has not yet reached puberty?
It is.
Is it permissible to beat a female slave?
It is.
What is the earthly punishment of a female slave who runs away from her master?
She has no punishment according to the Sharia of Allah.
However, she is to be reprimanded in such a way that deters others like her from escaping.
Wow, that doesn't sound ominous as all shit, does it, Australian feminists?
What's the punishment mandated by the Australian patriarchy if a female slave there runs away from her husband?
I imagine it's far worse, isn't it?
But in spite of all this, Western women managed to somehow soldier on to the point where The Guardian says that 2014 is the year that women won.
Should we take a look at this video?
I really think we should.
I'm sure this is going to be such a brave and empowering thing for us to watch.
2014, the year women won.
Women, hang up your pantsuits.
In 2014, we won!
Yeah, that's enough of that bollocks.
Because ISIS executes scores of women for refusing to marry militants.
Iraq ministry claims.
Talk about winning.
First world feminists have just got their finger on the pulse of women's issues around the globe.
UK broadcaster ITV2 axed Dapper Laugh's second season on the pool thanks to a petition of more than 60,000 people.
Don't give a damn that at least 150 females, including pregnant women, were executed in Fallujah.
Oh no, I've got it.
No, no, I understand.
Dapper laughs making jokes on TV is way, way worse.
What was I thinking?
You know, I'm not being fair.
It's not just feminism, it's all of social justice.
Take, for example, George P. Simmons here, writing for the Huffington Post, an academic journalist, telling people exactly how not to approach gay advocacy.
Well, I tell you what, if I'm going to take advice from anyone, it's certainly going to be a philosophy student who looks like he's about 17.
So he's complaining about some musician and how other people have said, I'm not gay, but I love this song, only for gay advocates to turn up and make things worse.
Basically, he's talking about a bitch fight in the comments that deeply affected him personally for some reason.
I mean, he is deeply tempted to tell these people to go fuck themselves, but that's neither constructive nor responsible, so I'll confine their chastisement to publishing their usernames.
Yes, George P. Simmons, too, can play at that game.
We all have that friend who, no matter how we look at things, is simply a bad person.
George, I think you are that friend.
Maybe they're hopelessly spoilt, arrantly self-involved, or noxiously narcissistic.
Or maybe they're just voting conservative next year.
Fucking bigot.
You have no idea how all of this applies to you, do you, George?
But apparently, bitching in the comments is not how we should approach gay advocacy.
Gay people aren't criminals asking to be loved in spite of their crimes.
They're not addicts wanting to be understood beyond their addiction.
And they're certainly not sinners wishing to be spared of evil.
Gay rights are better here than anywhere else and better now than ever before.
But what we're fighting for is freedom to improve our lives.
And there are some among our supporters who do well to remember that.
Which sounds like they're going to wake up with a fucking gay horse's head in their bed.
But the thing is, he's right.
I mean, gay people, they're just so damn oppressed in the West.
They just can't catch a fucking break.
Frankly, I'm surprised they don't move over to Iraq, where the gays there have just got such a better time of it than the gays in the West, just like the women.
I mean, it's not like ISIS militants pushed a man from a three-story building just for being gay.
Wait, no, I'm actually being told that they did do exactly that after trumping up charges that he practiced sodomy, as if that's a good reason to murder someone anyway, and was probably stoned to death if the fool didn't kill him.
But sorry there, George, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Do tell me more about how exactly gay advocacy needs to be improved in the West.
I didn't want to talk about this, but everyone's talking about it, so now I have to.
Sony scraps the interview.
After cyber terrorists allegedly made threats to Sony Pictures if the interview was released next week, Sony released a statement saying in the light of the decision by the majority of our exhibitors not to show the film the interview, we have decided not to move forward with the planned December 25th theatrical release.
We respect and understand our partner's decision and of course completely share their paramount interest in the safety of employees and theatre goers.
Well holy shit, that must have been a hell of a threat.
We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places the interview will be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to.
Kind of sounds like the feminists.
Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made.
Okay, it's kind of weird that they'd use the full name of the company, but um the world will be full of fear.
Remember the 11th of September 2001.
We recommend you keep yourselves distant from these places at that time.
If your house is nearby, you'd better leave.
These terrorists seem remarkably concerned with my well-being.
Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
All the world will denounce the Sony.
Yeah, why do you keep saying Sony Pictures Entertainment like that?
It just kind of sounds like you're advertising them.
But I mean, who stands to benefit from this?
I mean, who would have really gained the most from doing this?
So who is the most likely culprit for these terrorist threats?
Well, allegedly, North Korea.
But the thing is, North Korea have said, we didn't do this.
In fact, we're happy to help you to investigate this.
Of course, nobody believes North Korea.
But it did force President Obama to step in because it's causing an international incident.
And said that he thinks Sony have made a mistake by pulling the film.
And that he wished that they'd spoken to him first, so he could tell them not to set a bad precedent by caving to hackers' threats.
Now, as far as I'm aware, we don't actually know where they came from, and I have seen articles that said it may have come from somewhere within China.
But I do know that I had never heard of this film.
In fact, very few people had heard of this film until these mysterious threats were sent.
And all of a sudden, holy shit, we're all talking about this stupid fucking film.
I'm not saying this is a marketing stunt gone wrong, because I don't have any proof of it.
But let's ask ourselves here, who benefits from the Streisand effect that's going on here?
Is it North Korea?
And on the subject of who benefits, it turns out that screaming Gas the Kikes Race War Now entitles you to a free dinner and cultural activities.
A Sydney teenager arrested for a quote-unquote attack on Jewish schoolchildren has been instructed to attend a Shabbat dinner and visit a Jewish museum.
I would love a free dinner and a trip to a museum, thank you.
The boy shouted, kill the Jews and Heil Hitler, as well as making throat-slitting threats.
I think you mean gestures, you dumbasses.
And as part of his punishment, the boy will participate in a harmony program run by the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, where he has been sentenced to a free dinner and a visit to the Sydney Jewish Museum.
And finally, an article from Jezebel.com.
Someone wrote erotica about a video game designer getting gang raped.
A self-published erotica author who goes by the name of Valeria O has written a thinly veiled work of fiction about Gamergate, in which a video game designer gets gang raped by a group of men offended by her latest game.
Holy shit, Valeria.
Holy shit.
The 11-page novella titled Roughed Up by Gamergate has already been pulled from Amazon.
The description of it was, Zarda Quinby, is a controversial video game designer who may have stepped the line.
Okay, yep, poor writing from the start.
When her latest game offends the nation, five upset players decide to teach her a lesson.
This gang of gamers decides to give Zada a peace of their mind, and much more.
Things are about to get incredibly rough when these five men unleash their pent-up anger on poor Zada.
It's an experience she'll never forget.
Valeria's inspiration obviously was the rape and death threats that have been lobbed at video game designer Zoe Quinn, allegedly.
And the really interesting thing about this is that Zoe Quinn herself found this book on Amazon and she tweeted out, so um, someone's selling rape fanfic of me on Amazon.
Oh yes, Chelsea, yes, someone is doing it.
You just happen to be the subject and you just happen to be the person who discovers it.
And you just happen to be the beneficiary of all that sympathy.
And you just happen to be a self-obsessed narcissist.
The coincidences just keep piling up here, don't they?
And she tweets, is that okay with Amazon's terms of service?
Or is that just a thing people can do to me now?
Yes, people.
And here I thought seeing a ton of people try and get me into hatred so they could murder me would be this week's low.
A statement that is also bullshit because no such thing has happened.
The company making hatred have categorically denied that anyone has requested to them to put Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn, or Anit Sarkeesian into their game.
It's almost like these people are pathological liars.
But Quinn is doubling down on this.
Having your trauma be fetishized and sold to people who wish they could re-victimize you is not an occupational hazard I signed up for.
Well Pumpkin, if you'd stopped doing it to yourself, maybe it wouldn't be happening.
She then tweeted, I feel sick, presumably because all of this got Alex Lifshitz a little bit excited.
But Quinn is doubling down on this.
Having your trauma be fetishized and sold to people who wish they could re-victimize you is not an occupational hazard I signed up for.
Well Pumpkin, if you'd stop doing it to yourself, maybe it wouldn't be happening.
She then tweeted, I feel sick, presumably because all of this got Alex Lifshitz a little bit excited.
This isn't the first novel that Valeria O has published.
The author did another one called Lust, which is written with depression quest levels of expertise.
I mean, it's not like Zoe Quinn changes her name when she wants to, or writes crappy fiction because she's crap at everything, or has a habit of drawing attention to herself because she's a professional victim.
I mean, this was definitely someone from Gamergate.
Definitely.
There can be no doubt.
Unless you speak to Jezebel commentators who say things like, sadly, having spent way too many years in slash fandom, I've seen rape used in a that'll teach that bitch sort of way by female authors way too often.
Usually to punish whatever female character was canonically paired up with one of the male characters that they wanted to have sex with with another male character.
Hell, I remember one charming woman in Supernatural who went on a posting spree across a bunch of live journal communities trying to locate or convince authors to write stories in which the main character's mother, who dies in the first five minutes of the series pilot, was gang raped to teach her a lesson.
Not sure what the lesson would be other than how dare you have a vagina and exist in supernatural universe even if you are fridged immediately, but there you have it.
Slash fandom is little different than society at large of course because it's a large community of primarily straight women, way too many of whom violently hate and are violently threatened by the existence of other women and base a great deal of their personal identity on that hatred and fear.
But they are definitely women.
Zoe, there is a preponderance of evidence to suggest you wrote that fucking novella.
It sounds like you're writing.
You are the one who discovered it.
We know you lied about trying to get you put into hatred.
We know you were in fact a pathological liar.
Just so you know, nobody believes anything you say anymore.