A fun anthology this week from incoherence (The Nation/Swimming) to elegance (Evolution/Sex-Specific Language).
The question needs to be continually asked: why do we as a society allow female experiences to be defined socially, in sports, in law, and in medicine by a tiny minority of males?
In no other situation than that of women would it be acceptable for non-group members to define a group, particularly in ways which are patently offensive.
Take gay men, who individually and collectively pushed back against “homosexual” and other terms as dehumanizing and offensive as social terminology. While not all gay men use the term, those who didn’t, who were gay, were often luxuriating the jarring, vaguely criminal or pathological rancidness - it certainly was a position enjoyed by Gore Vidal perhaps or Michel Foucault, ever refusing to admit the possibility of respect.
I’m aware that only a small minority of males think of women as cervix carriers, chest-feeders and so on, some troglodytes still go for girls and bimbos too. The vast majority of adult human females by contrast think of themselves as women, and those women who have children think of themselves as mothers.
All legal, sports, medicine, journalistic organizations should refer to adult human female by the terms most frequently approved of by them - woman, mother - and not by ones which are offensive - girl, bimbo, cervix-carrier, chest-feeder… the Dylan’s, Lancets and IOC’s of the world should be shunned until they are… respectful. That’s the word most missed in the whole list today.
Note: Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” has risen to the rank of #1 of “Roling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.
The irony.
The Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth as ever pulls the respected publication into a cesspool of ignorance and shame which probably has no modern parallel for outright ludicrousness, except perhaps for Musk.
A fun anthology this week from incoherence (The Nation/Swimming) to elegance (Evolution/Sex-Specific Language).
The question needs to be continually asked: why do we as a society allow female experiences to be defined socially, in sports, in law, and in medicine by a tiny minority of males?
In no other situation than that of women would it be acceptable for non-group members to define a group, particularly in ways which are patently offensive.
Take gay men, who individually and collectively pushed back against “homosexual” and other terms as dehumanizing and offensive as social terminology. While not all gay men use the term, those who didn’t, who were gay, were often luxuriating the jarring, vaguely criminal or pathological rancidness - it certainly was a position enjoyed by Gore Vidal perhaps or Michel Foucault, ever refusing to admit the possibility of respect.
I’m aware that only a small minority of males think of women as cervix carriers, chest-feeders and so on, some troglodytes still go for girls and bimbos too. The vast majority of adult human females by contrast think of themselves as women, and those women who have children think of themselves as mothers.
All legal, sports, medicine, journalistic organizations should refer to adult human female by the terms most frequently approved of by them - woman, mother - and not by ones which are offensive - girl, bimbo, cervix-carrier, chest-feeder… the Dylan’s, Lancets and IOC’s of the world should be shunned until they are… respectful. That’s the word most missed in the whole list today.
Note: Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” has risen to the rank of #1 of “Roling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.
The irony.
The Scientific American’s Laura Helmuth as ever pulls the respected publication into a cesspool of ignorance and shame which probably has no modern parallel for outright ludicrousness, except perhaps for Musk.
Please STOP my subscription and refund what is due me. Your site is excellent, but I have too much on my plate.
Thank you.
~Linda Peddie~