Excellent read! I often think the far right Evangelical GOPers are similar to the Taliban. Both are terrified of losing their masculinity (sexual privileges). Using religion as a cover, they hope to fool women into submission.
Thanks! That's true to a point...the Taliban came to power because the previous regime was even WORSE for women, and they vowed to protect them from being raped. Hard to imagine the Taliban this way, but I read about this in an academic book on Afghanistan. Nothing the GOP is doing is about protecting women.
“Roe, roe, roe your vote.” A clever slogan I hope works. The problem, of course, is testosterone poisoning as researchers in Sweden concluded—a malady afflicting nearly 50% of the population. I wonder what society would be like if our laws were all designed to do what is best for women and their children. Humanity would not even exist today if that had not been the main principle of social order for many thousands of years before the invention of male gods and patriarchy. Females were rare and hard to keep alive in all societies up to the present (and now some want to start killing then off again), but so valuable to society and survival that all the earliest deities were female. Great column today. Thanks
Excellent point. I started reading a book last night that re-examines pre-history, what we know about it, etc, and how a lot of the prevailing conceptions have no basis in reality.
Oh, I bet that is The Dawn of Everything. With all my heart, I hope the authors are right. Once, not all that long ago, there were societies that cared for their own, which often had women leaders, and whose members did not tolerate anyone impinging on their freedom. I loved the examples of indigenous people who had more together than we might suspect. They just didn't put up with supremacy. It isn't a value that keeps community together.
David Gaeber observes that every economics textbook begins by describing barter as the start of markets, but not a single researcher has ever found a society that practiced barter. (“Debt:The First Five Thousand Years”) So barter as an economic principle is also a myth. In addition to Graeber’s “The Dawn of Everything,” I recommend “Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years” by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. Fascinating look by an anthropologist at the development of weaving. It’s the book that first got me thinking about the so important role of women in human society. For a mind-blowing image of the divine, look at the Artemis of Ephesus and try to understand what you are seeing. (It’s open to interpretation)
Thanks for the recommendation, John. I was gob-struck by their observations of burials. The remains were of human anomalies such as dwarves or skeletal deformities, suggesting that those people deserved special attention or perhaps their oddities needed protective interventions. Almost without exception the burials are assumed to be kings and leaders, however.
Always love your history as context for your argument. Gutturally, I can't deny that Dobbs is an attack on me and my gender. Yes, more broadly it's an attack on democracy, but I'm not altruistic enough to place democracy first and I won't apologize either. Thankfully, the Kansas results affirm your contention that more men than R's give us credit for get the democracy argument. We can't give up 'cause we'll win if we perservere.
Sometimes it’s comforting to go back to basics, when the world is burning and women, sexuality spectrum folks and poc are being shafted left, right and center. Greg knows I hero worship him.
Thanks for coming to me defense, Hedy, but Joan is right, I think...when you look at which word to use, I was taught, you get rid of some of the sentence. It sounds ok to say "Watch LB & I" but it's clearly wrong to say "Watch I." Which is why it should be "me."
It's funny that here we are, talking about pronouns!
Excellent! And thank you for citing "The Alphabet and vs. The Goddess". I have been trying to remember that title for the 10 years since I returned it. Yes, I did write it down first and have been looking for that scrap of paper for 9 years.
For all we know, Trump had already agreed to look the other way on Taiwan in exchange for some concession from Xi. Trump Tower Shanghai? Pelosi is legit.
It seems to me that the good men who love and support women are the REAL men. They are a multitude and have nothing to fear by equality. I agree there is a rampant toxicity which calls itself manliness and which seems to prevail right now. I hope those men (and a few dastardly women) "get it" before we self-destruct our species. When I think of Xi, Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, et al, who seem so smug and ruthless, I see them as weak, actually. I mean, look at Putin dancing with nuclear disaster, Xi having a tantrum because of one elderly woman's visit to Taiwan. The trouble with these guys is that they represent madness, not men.
I absolutely concur on the madness, both representing it as a certain state of power and being mad. I agree with your opening sentences as well. Mature people are responsible and supporting.
"...the similarities between MAGA men and ISIS men..."
I've come to always assume these types are angry because they're filled with small dick energy. Incels are overflowing with it. It's funny because it's true. As Bill Maher, who I don't watch anymore since he became a toxic asshole, says, "I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true."
Great column, as always, Greg. Have a great weekend!
Steve, I think we're "tv watching" twins! Bill Maher got me through the orange one's "presidency" and I agreed with most of what he was saying during that time. I tried watching him last night for the first time in a long time, and he was so rude to Lis Smith. He was really passive-aggressive with her and then when she brought up the Dobbs decision he went into a diatribe about how he doesn't want anyone telling him whether he should wear a mask or stay home (poor thing), as if that is equivalent to a woman being forced to carry a pregnancy she does not want. I turned it off when he started talking about that - so done.
My "so done" was in the first episode of this season when he called people still wearing masks, "virtue signalers." But what you're describing sounds about right. I'm all in on "political incorrectness," but don't be an asshole! I watched him for years, and he turned me off so quickly with that virtue signaling crap, I was done with him and his schtick. Now I carry HBO for basically, John Oliver, and the occasional good series.
During the orange years he would have right wingers on and cleverly expose how backwards their thinking was. I loved that! But after the pandemic, he totally changed. The last straw (before this one) was when he had Megan Kelly (Fox News) on. She was so smug and arrogant and talking about how her sons' didn't have to wear masks because they went to a very exclusive, private school in Manhattan...blah, blah, blah. And he was pandering to her - sickening! I started watching an interesting series on HBO called "The Anarchists". A group of "anarchists" have moved to Acapulco and it documents their annual conferences. They are into cryptocurrency because they don't trust government or central banks. Well, guess what happened to cryptocurrency? So now they are all imploding (takes place 2019 & prior) and have no one to turn to since they turned their backs on society. It's a very interesting examination of "freedom".
Sounds good! Anarchy isn't all it's made out to be, for sure. I may look into it -- HBO is NOT sucking me into the Game of Thrones prequel, I know that. Fool me once...
With BM, it was always very obvious which of his female guests he had a thing for. Reminded me of the week I spent as a waiter in training in high school, where the manager guy was overtly hitting on one of the women in training. Gross.
As to the anarchists...you lie with dogs, you get fleas.
When I was a child learning about male identity, I had my parents, my classmates, and my teachers for role models. I also read everything I could put my hands on.
In Concord, California, in grade school, I remember being out in the recess area, the park behind the classrooms. I had an interaction with Eddie Merchant. I don’t remember the conversation, or even what he looked like, but I remember he was a macho white guy, arrogant and self-important. Like my dad. I knew I would never be that.
My youth sucked. I was on my own, trying to establish an identity. I was looking for a role model that I couldn’t find, although in Germany (grades 6-12) I did have a magnificent French teacher from Reims, Mr. Toussaint, and an artist neighbor named Herr Geitzhaus. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with them, even though I wanted to, but they were my heroes: intelligent, thoughtful, mature, loving and kind. They were what I wanted to be, what I saw myself as. Monsieur Toussaint and I continued our conversations long after class was over, he speaking in French because his English wasn’t up to the level of our conversation, me speaking in English because my French wasn’t up to that level.
Sometimes I think that having the value of equality of genders is inborn. Maybe not, but I wonder. So many men out there just accept male superiority as given. The stupid ones. The ignorant ones.
The belief in superiority is the problem. My wife and I were having yet another conversation on this topic, and again, I heard myself saying (and she agreeing) that it is insecurity and low self-esteem which causes people (especially men) to latch onto racism and sexism and genderism. Case in point: Hawley is an insecure wimp. If he had real spine, he would see women as equals and he would see men as adequate and strong. But he hasn’t done the work.
Thank you so much, Greg, for another stellar study.
In the 1960s and 70s, I was definitely an anomaly. I had an inherent, innate belief that women and men had and deserved equal status. My parents’ marriage provided a stark contrast for this closely-held value. My aunt and uncle, who lived nearby until I was 11 when we moved to Germany, provided an equally stark contrast.
I remember Jane Fonda and other role models of women with autonomy being lauded as revolutionary and thinking, “There’s nothing here. They’re playing normal roles as women.”
Now of course, I see the history that Greg has laid out.
One of the difficulties of being me in this world has been trying to accept the extremely low level of development of society. How often have I felt like I am a stranger in a strange land, as the Robert Heinlein novel informs us. The infatuation with Star Trek also makes tremendous sense to me, because you have to think of yourself as an alien from another world to even begin to make sense of the Stone Age traditions and values of this world: treating women like animals and subhumans, in Middle Eastern society, in Asian society, in the USA, everywhere. Our world is severely barbaric. World society is a hideous, appalling, ghastly and disgusting spectacle, from Confederate American and British slavery to treatment of women to treatment of the poor. I think of scenes in the movie Gandhi. I think of so-called “honor killings,” when a man murders his own children because he is such an insecure dirtbag loser that he can’t handle that they have a little bit of autonomy and independence.
Human society, the part of it that we read about and hear about in the sewage tank called “the media,“ is horrible beyond belief.
And most of that horror is dealt out to women, just because most men are such insecure scum.
With memories of 1980's Palm Beach and Atlantic City, this fell out after the "grab 'em by the pussy" comment...
Amending HIStory
Let's be frank.
To this day, and right before our very eyes, an eon's old fellowship of filthy rich sex slayers harries, ambiguously, everywhere. And given that said patriarchy also scribed our HIStory, we are only fooling ourselves to believe otherwise.
Hence, in locker rooms and golf clubs, in conference rooms and yacht clubs, even Congress and the Senate, these elitist marauders speak an elusive code while their attractive, well-paid servitude blends dutifully into the elaborate wallpaper.
Note. The best of bartenders never miss a trick.
Wherein, as race and gender nonspecific randy oozes from every crack in every walk of life and easy prey is easily played into the money man’s dirty deeds, a refined, evil master ejects his morality and nobility and celebrity into every culture, every vocation and in every religion. Every day.
Heretofore, scores of submissive and complicit folk are essential knights on the upper crust chess/sex board and countless more innocent pawns are, in one way or another, harassed.
Meanwhile, with cocktail in self-righteous hand, perhaps sober, “in recovery”, millions more slobbering voyeurs, everywhere, wallow only in lonely delight of the very masculine, very primitive "thrill of the chase" mentality as it resonates time and time, and TV time, again.
Caveman, anyone?
Truth is that sexual deviance is one more stratum of the complex social ill we call addiction. It's not “fake news” that we Americans have become so numbed to such vulture-like formulaic performance that it does not mentally register as abuse, exploitation or control. Co-dependent? You bet.
Groomed by three generations of shallow, misogynist TV programming and subliminal, sex-driven marketing propaganda to the point where millions of innocent, uneducated, craftily entertained folks accepted and defended, as our president, a decade's long wife beater, child molester and sex trafficker – strategically maneuvered financially by foreigners who hold smut over his head – is just wrong.
Bar none... This. Is. America's HIStory. And it's time to stop dancin' 'round that almighty dick!
First of all, Wow! Lots to unpack here. Two thoughts came to me as I was reading and re-reading this. The first is that I believe gender and sexuality are on a continuum. I think that freaks a lot of people out - especially men who are raised to think of specific traits that a man is "supposed" to have. The second is your experience of the non-binary student. I have recently experienced this with one of my daughter's friends. This person also chooses to go by "they/them" and when we would be talking about this friend, it was very hard for me to stick to "they/them". I understand and agree logically but it's not how my brain was hardwired thereby resulting in me feeling really "old" - you know like a dinosaur.
"They/them" is difficult for me because those words are plural, grammatically. "They" as singular is foreign to my ear. But, at the end of the day, grammatical rules were made to be broken.
Yesterday (Saturday) I listened to your podcast with Nina Burleigh; then, watched your Five/8 with LB and Shireen Mitchell. Both were awesome!
As to Orban, I looked up Hungary's gun policy to see if it aligned with our 2nd Amendment rights. From what I found, it doesn't look like all of Orban's right-wing fans from America would do well living in Hungary. "In Hungary, civilians are not allowed to possess automatic firearms, firearms disguised as other objects, and armour-piercing, incendiary and expanding ammunition." The link below has a lot more to say about the people's right to bear arms - not!
Excellent read! I often think the far right Evangelical GOPers are similar to the Taliban. Both are terrified of losing their masculinity (sexual privileges). Using religion as a cover, they hope to fool women into submission.
Thanks! That's true to a point...the Taliban came to power because the previous regime was even WORSE for women, and they vowed to protect them from being raped. Hard to imagine the Taliban this way, but I read about this in an academic book on Afghanistan. Nothing the GOP is doing is about protecting women.
NOTHING.
So good...sending to my daughter. Thank you!
Thanks!
Just sent to my daughter, too!
“Roe, roe, roe your vote.” A clever slogan I hope works. The problem, of course, is testosterone poisoning as researchers in Sweden concluded—a malady afflicting nearly 50% of the population. I wonder what society would be like if our laws were all designed to do what is best for women and their children. Humanity would not even exist today if that had not been the main principle of social order for many thousands of years before the invention of male gods and patriarchy. Females were rare and hard to keep alive in all societies up to the present (and now some want to start killing then off again), but so valuable to society and survival that all the earliest deities were female. Great column today. Thanks
Excellent point. I started reading a book last night that re-examines pre-history, what we know about it, etc, and how a lot of the prevailing conceptions have no basis in reality.
Looking forward to your column on that book/concept!
Oh, I bet that is The Dawn of Everything. With all my heart, I hope the authors are right. Once, not all that long ago, there were societies that cared for their own, which often had women leaders, and whose members did not tolerate anyone impinging on their freedom. I loved the examples of indigenous people who had more together than we might suspect. They just didn't put up with supremacy. It isn't a value that keeps community together.
Yes, that's the one! I'm only through the first chapter, and it's great so far.
David Gaeber observes that every economics textbook begins by describing barter as the start of markets, but not a single researcher has ever found a society that practiced barter. (“Debt:The First Five Thousand Years”) So barter as an economic principle is also a myth. In addition to Graeber’s “The Dawn of Everything,” I recommend “Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years” by Elizabeth Wayland Barber. Fascinating look by an anthropologist at the development of weaving. It’s the book that first got me thinking about the so important role of women in human society. For a mind-blowing image of the divine, look at the Artemis of Ephesus and try to understand what you are seeing. (It’s open to interpretation)
Thanks for the recommendation, John. I was gob-struck by their observations of burials. The remains were of human anomalies such as dwarves or skeletal deformities, suggesting that those people deserved special attention or perhaps their oddities needed protective interventions. Almost without exception the burials are assumed to be kings and leaders, however.
"The Dawn of Everything" is the one I started reading. Thanks for this rec!
Always love your history as context for your argument. Gutturally, I can't deny that Dobbs is an attack on me and my gender. Yes, more broadly it's an attack on democracy, but I'm not altruistic enough to place democracy first and I won't apologize either. Thankfully, the Kansas results affirm your contention that more men than R's give us credit for get the democracy argument. We can't give up 'cause we'll win if we perservere.
Oh, it's absolutely an attack on you and your gender. But it doesn't end there. We have the numbers and we will beat them.
“LB and me.” (Not “LB and I.”)
Only when they are subjects, pal.
"I and me"
Wow really important news????WT
But a really
Great column
Thanks Greg
Sometimes it’s comforting to go back to basics, when the world is burning and women, sexuality spectrum folks and poc are being shafted left, right and center. Greg knows I hero worship him.
Pronouns!
Thanks for coming to me defense, Hedy, but Joan is right, I think...when you look at which word to use, I was taught, you get rid of some of the sentence. It sounds ok to say "Watch LB & I" but it's clearly wrong to say "Watch I." Which is why it should be "me."
It's funny that here we are, talking about pronouns!
That's what I get for dashing that sentence off so quickly. Thank you.
Never thought I would ever have occasion to correct the great GO. 😃
Excellent! And thank you for citing "The Alphabet and vs. The Goddess". I have been trying to remember that title for the 10 years since I returned it. Yes, I did write it down first and have been looking for that scrap of paper for 9 years.
Such a mind-blowing book, right? I really loved that one.
Yes!! And The Amazon (vs. The Goddess?) promises to deliver a fresh copy tomorrow!
Another superlative study.
The entire news industry, as usual, is missing the boat. There is a distinct smell of incompetence on occasions like this.
The likely true reason the Chinese Communist Party has a problem with Nancy Pelosi:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11076495/Nancy-Pelosi-hints-GENDER-Chinas-rage-Taiwan-trip.html
For all we know, Trump had already agreed to look the other way on Taiwan in exchange for some concession from Xi. Trump Tower Shanghai? Pelosi is legit.
It seems to me that the good men who love and support women are the REAL men. They are a multitude and have nothing to fear by equality. I agree there is a rampant toxicity which calls itself manliness and which seems to prevail right now. I hope those men (and a few dastardly women) "get it" before we self-destruct our species. When I think of Xi, Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, et al, who seem so smug and ruthless, I see them as weak, actually. I mean, look at Putin dancing with nuclear disaster, Xi having a tantrum because of one elderly woman's visit to Taiwan. The trouble with these guys is that they represent madness, not men.
I absolutely concur on the madness, both representing it as a certain state of power and being mad. I agree with your opening sentences as well. Mature people are responsible and supporting.
Madness not men. Very well put!
"...the similarities between MAGA men and ISIS men..."
I've come to always assume these types are angry because they're filled with small dick energy. Incels are overflowing with it. It's funny because it's true. As Bill Maher, who I don't watch anymore since he became a toxic asshole, says, "I don't know it for a fact, I just know it's true."
Great column, as always, Greg. Have a great weekend!
Steve, I think we're "tv watching" twins! Bill Maher got me through the orange one's "presidency" and I agreed with most of what he was saying during that time. I tried watching him last night for the first time in a long time, and he was so rude to Lis Smith. He was really passive-aggressive with her and then when she brought up the Dobbs decision he went into a diatribe about how he doesn't want anyone telling him whether he should wear a mask or stay home (poor thing), as if that is equivalent to a woman being forced to carry a pregnancy she does not want. I turned it off when he started talking about that - so done.
My "so done" was in the first episode of this season when he called people still wearing masks, "virtue signalers." But what you're describing sounds about right. I'm all in on "political incorrectness," but don't be an asshole! I watched him for years, and he turned me off so quickly with that virtue signaling crap, I was done with him and his schtick. Now I carry HBO for basically, John Oliver, and the occasional good series.
During the orange years he would have right wingers on and cleverly expose how backwards their thinking was. I loved that! But after the pandemic, he totally changed. The last straw (before this one) was when he had Megan Kelly (Fox News) on. She was so smug and arrogant and talking about how her sons' didn't have to wear masks because they went to a very exclusive, private school in Manhattan...blah, blah, blah. And he was pandering to her - sickening! I started watching an interesting series on HBO called "The Anarchists". A group of "anarchists" have moved to Acapulco and it documents their annual conferences. They are into cryptocurrency because they don't trust government or central banks. Well, guess what happened to cryptocurrency? So now they are all imploding (takes place 2019 & prior) and have no one to turn to since they turned their backs on society. It's a very interesting examination of "freedom".
Sounds good! Anarchy isn't all it's made out to be, for sure. I may look into it -- HBO is NOT sucking me into the Game of Thrones prequel, I know that. Fool me once...
With BM, it was always very obvious which of his female guests he had a thing for. Reminded me of the week I spent as a waiter in training in high school, where the manager guy was overtly hitting on one of the women in training. Gross.
As to the anarchists...you lie with dogs, you get fleas.
He can be funny, but he talks over his guests, ESPECIALLY the women, and he's platformed some really horrible people.
It's always some or other grievance with these guys. Always.
Thanks, Steve!
I failed dumbell Engish
Aphrodite the Voluptuous. Childbearing idol!
When I was a child learning about male identity, I had my parents, my classmates, and my teachers for role models. I also read everything I could put my hands on.
In Concord, California, in grade school, I remember being out in the recess area, the park behind the classrooms. I had an interaction with Eddie Merchant. I don’t remember the conversation, or even what he looked like, but I remember he was a macho white guy, arrogant and self-important. Like my dad. I knew I would never be that.
My youth sucked. I was on my own, trying to establish an identity. I was looking for a role model that I couldn’t find, although in Germany (grades 6-12) I did have a magnificent French teacher from Reims, Mr. Toussaint, and an artist neighbor named Herr Geitzhaus. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with them, even though I wanted to, but they were my heroes: intelligent, thoughtful, mature, loving and kind. They were what I wanted to be, what I saw myself as. Monsieur Toussaint and I continued our conversations long after class was over, he speaking in French because his English wasn’t up to the level of our conversation, me speaking in English because my French wasn’t up to that level.
Sometimes I think that having the value of equality of genders is inborn. Maybe not, but I wonder. So many men out there just accept male superiority as given. The stupid ones. The ignorant ones.
The belief in superiority is the problem. My wife and I were having yet another conversation on this topic, and again, I heard myself saying (and she agreeing) that it is insecurity and low self-esteem which causes people (especially men) to latch onto racism and sexism and genderism. Case in point: Hawley is an insecure wimp. If he had real spine, he would see women as equals and he would see men as adequate and strong. But he hasn’t done the work.
Thanks for sharing this, Roland. I agree...it stems from insecurity, and from there, grievance.
These are the types who can't make an argument that John was the best Beatle without slagging Paul.
Thank you so much, Greg, for another stellar study.
In the 1960s and 70s, I was definitely an anomaly. I had an inherent, innate belief that women and men had and deserved equal status. My parents’ marriage provided a stark contrast for this closely-held value. My aunt and uncle, who lived nearby until I was 11 when we moved to Germany, provided an equally stark contrast.
I remember Jane Fonda and other role models of women with autonomy being lauded as revolutionary and thinking, “There’s nothing here. They’re playing normal roles as women.”
Now of course, I see the history that Greg has laid out.
One of the difficulties of being me in this world has been trying to accept the extremely low level of development of society. How often have I felt like I am a stranger in a strange land, as the Robert Heinlein novel informs us. The infatuation with Star Trek also makes tremendous sense to me, because you have to think of yourself as an alien from another world to even begin to make sense of the Stone Age traditions and values of this world: treating women like animals and subhumans, in Middle Eastern society, in Asian society, in the USA, everywhere. Our world is severely barbaric. World society is a hideous, appalling, ghastly and disgusting spectacle, from Confederate American and British slavery to treatment of women to treatment of the poor. I think of scenes in the movie Gandhi. I think of so-called “honor killings,” when a man murders his own children because he is such an insecure dirtbag loser that he can’t handle that they have a little bit of autonomy and independence.
Human society, the part of it that we read about and hear about in the sewage tank called “the media,“ is horrible beyond belief.
And most of that horror is dealt out to women, just because most men are such insecure scum.
Well put!
With memories of 1980's Palm Beach and Atlantic City, this fell out after the "grab 'em by the pussy" comment...
Amending HIStory
Let's be frank.
To this day, and right before our very eyes, an eon's old fellowship of filthy rich sex slayers harries, ambiguously, everywhere. And given that said patriarchy also scribed our HIStory, we are only fooling ourselves to believe otherwise.
Hence, in locker rooms and golf clubs, in conference rooms and yacht clubs, even Congress and the Senate, these elitist marauders speak an elusive code while their attractive, well-paid servitude blends dutifully into the elaborate wallpaper.
Note. The best of bartenders never miss a trick.
Wherein, as race and gender nonspecific randy oozes from every crack in every walk of life and easy prey is easily played into the money man’s dirty deeds, a refined, evil master ejects his morality and nobility and celebrity into every culture, every vocation and in every religion. Every day.
Heretofore, scores of submissive and complicit folk are essential knights on the upper crust chess/sex board and countless more innocent pawns are, in one way or another, harassed.
Or haunted.
Big Tits + Tight Hips = Big Tips + Tight Lips
–/--
Big Tits + Loose Hips = Bigger Tips + Tighter Lips
Meanwhile, with cocktail in self-righteous hand, perhaps sober, “in recovery”, millions more slobbering voyeurs, everywhere, wallow only in lonely delight of the very masculine, very primitive "thrill of the chase" mentality as it resonates time and time, and TV time, again.
Caveman, anyone?
Truth is that sexual deviance is one more stratum of the complex social ill we call addiction. It's not “fake news” that we Americans have become so numbed to such vulture-like formulaic performance that it does not mentally register as abuse, exploitation or control. Co-dependent? You bet.
Groomed by three generations of shallow, misogynist TV programming and subliminal, sex-driven marketing propaganda to the point where millions of innocent, uneducated, craftily entertained folks accepted and defended, as our president, a decade's long wife beater, child molester and sex trafficker – strategically maneuvered financially by foreigners who hold smut over his head – is just wrong.
Bar none... This. Is. America's HIStory. And it's time to stop dancin' 'round that almighty dick!
Pasteurize the Patriarchy!
Beautifully expressed, Gywn! Don't forget pop music, which is generally about as misogynistic as it gets.
Thanx! Yes, pop made me a blues fan and more curious about the history which is repeated today in the American Idol tactics.
First of all, Wow! Lots to unpack here. Two thoughts came to me as I was reading and re-reading this. The first is that I believe gender and sexuality are on a continuum. I think that freaks a lot of people out - especially men who are raised to think of specific traits that a man is "supposed" to have. The second is your experience of the non-binary student. I have recently experienced this with one of my daughter's friends. This person also chooses to go by "they/them" and when we would be talking about this friend, it was very hard for me to stick to "they/them". I understand and agree logically but it's not how my brain was hardwired thereby resulting in me feeling really "old" - you know like a dinosaur.
"They/them" is difficult for me because those words are plural, grammatically. "They" as singular is foreign to my ear. But, at the end of the day, grammatical rules were made to be broken.
Grammar was too securely hammered into me by Sister Humiliana in 6th grade. How about it we all go by "it."
I'm a day late and a dollar short; so I'll just say thank you, Greg, and readers!
Thanks!
Yesterday (Saturday) I listened to your podcast with Nina Burleigh; then, watched your Five/8 with LB and Shireen Mitchell. Both were awesome!
As to Orban, I looked up Hungary's gun policy to see if it aligned with our 2nd Amendment rights. From what I found, it doesn't look like all of Orban's right-wing fans from America would do well living in Hungary. "In Hungary, civilians are not allowed to possess automatic firearms, firearms disguised as other objects, and armour-piercing, incendiary and expanding ammunition." The link below has a lot more to say about the people's right to bear arms - not!
https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/hungary