The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Could It Be Any More Obvious?’

“I don’t know why people are so reluctant to say they’re feminists. Maybe some women just don’t care. But how could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when feminism is a bad word? . . . Feminism always gets associated with being a radical movement — good. It […]

Essential Feminist Quotes: ‘Lesbianism and Feminism Have Been Coterminous’

Left to right: Judith Butler, Bonnie Zimmerman, Diane Richardson “Is there some commonality among ‘women’ that preexists their oppression, or do ‘women’ have a bond by virtue of their oppression alone? Is there a specificity to women’s cultures that is independent of their subordination by hegemonic, masculinist cultures? . . . “Is the construction of […]

‘My Hypothetical Daughter’

Emily Heist Moss (@EmilyHeistMoss) is the type of young feminist who inspires readers to ask, “Stacy, how do you find these idiots?” The short answer is that feminists are herd animals, who aggregate around certain online watering holes, so that wherever you find one zany Gender Studies type, there are sure to be many more. […]

On ‘Feminist Men’ and Unicorns

Chelsea Bock (@ChelseaCristene) is a young feminist writer and community college English instructor who came to my attention because of a blog post she wrote about E.J. Levy, but that’s another story for another day, or maybe later today. Anyway, curiosity led me to check Bock’s Twitter feed, where she was RT’ing stuff from the […]

Historian Erupts: ‘I Will Not Be Lectured to by a Public School Girl Like You!’

Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) was the subject of an item here yesterday because of her quarrel with lesbian feminist Cathy Brennan, an argument that highlights the profound schism between radicals like Brennan (who are and always have been the core of the feminist movement) and trendy opportunists like Ms. Penny. The American reader may ask, “Who […]

The Incoherence of Liberal Feminism

Laurie Penny (@PennyRed) is a trendy young female British writer who, like trendy young women everywhere, calls herself a “feminist,” a habit that annoys the hell out of actual feminists: From: “Catherine Brennan” <bugbrennan@icloud.com> Date: October 20, 2013 7:05:21 PM To: Jason Cowley, laurie.penny@googlemail.com Subject: Fwd: Internet bullying Mr. Cowley – I am writing because […]

‘My Sister Is Pregnant and We Don’t Know Which of My Brothers is the Father’

The quoted sentence was spoken by a child on a school playground. Overheard by a teacher, this triggered an investigation that exposed a multigenerational horror story in rural Australia: Police raided the Colt family home in rural south-western New South Wales in July 2012 after a teacher alerted authorities to a conversation overheard in the […]

Essential Feminist Quotes: ‘Rapists Serve All Men by Enforcing Male Supremacy’

Left to right: Kate Millett, Ann Jones, Jenny Kitzinger “Patriarchy’s chief institution is the family. . . . [T]he family effects control and conformity where political and other authorities are insufficient. As the fundamental instrument and the foundation unit of patriarchal society the family and its roles are prototypical. . . . “The concept of […]

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