Liberals need to ask some hard questions about why conservative kids are happier--and a lot less 'trans' CC BY-SA 4.0 photo by Ted Eytan, WikiCommons Conservative children have higher levels of happiness, joy in life, and enjoy greater mental health than kids in liberal families, according to moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt. It wasn’t always so, his research found; prior to 2012 there were minimal political differences. After 2012, depression and anxiety digressed politically; liberal kids’ mental health sank, most markedly for teenage girls and young women, with boys not far behind. While many theorized they were depressed about the state of the world, Haidt notes that Barack Obama was President and had enacted liberal-friendly laws like gay marriage. The author of the bestselling book The Collapse of Parenting, Dr. Leonard Sax, notes the role political leanings play in the ‘gentle parenting’ style that many left-of-center parents have adopted. In the last ten years, he says, permissive parents are almost always on the left and they push back against advice regarding children’s needs for structure and boundaries. The best form of parenting, Sax argues, backed by many other researchers, is that which is both strict and loving and denies that’s a particularly conservative slant. It’s a practice that works on both sides of the political spectrum; only strict, or only loving, isn’t good for children. He encourages moving away from the ‘Children Rule’ model. He quotes a NY Times writer who predicts the next generation can “anticipate blaming their high rates of depression and anxiety on the over validation and under correction native to gentle parenting.” Haidt has drawn a direct line between the decline in liberal kids’ mental health issues and the rise of social media which began around 2012. His book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness extrapolates on this. What it barely mentions, though, is perhaps the most mystifying phenomenon to arise from the Social Media Revolution: The rise of ‘trans kids’, in which a generation of children became convinced of a seemingly ludicrous idea no prior generation had entertained before: That they were ‘born in the wrong body’. The desire to be the opposite sex has manifested itself in many ways over the course of human history, but never before had anyone thought that children could ‘know’ who they really were at a very early age and need to medically transition. It seems a uniquely progressive position; conservatives largely don’t support this and you don’t find too many ‘trans children’ in conservative families. I’ve covered what I call the progressive ‘Project 2012’ , the already-underway and highly successful effort to remake America ideologically in a ‘woke’, social justice image, in contrast to the far right’s outlined ‘Project 2025’, downloadable for free . What has been overlooked is a subset contribution to this bizarre ‘trans kid’ phenomenon that’s received little attention so far: The role of permissive, progressive parenting. It’s in progressive families where young girls and women suffer the highest rates of mental distress, with liberal males not far behind, and both notably higher than conservative kids of either sex. Although females have always suffered especially from depression and anxiety, more so than males, and that’s regardless of political persuasion. The The Mental Health Of Liberal Girls Sank First And Fastest - Jonathan Haidt , After Babel Liberalism is not a mental disease as some allege, and life isn’t necessarily hunky-dory for kids in conservative families, either. Every parent brings their own quirky craziness and emotional issues to the family, not to mention biases and prejudices. Try growing up gay and conservative Christian. But it’s arguable that some liberal families, in an effort to raise tolerant, inclusive, independent kids, have allowed their unformed children too much freedom, and are afraid to exercise any sort of authority. Nor to think critically about what they hear at school, particularly after the rise of the gender-switching hucksters. The result is a growing number of of young people detransitioning, and parents grappling with the lifelong problems their formerly healthy children now face. A hard look at progressive parenting Children are treated by many progressive parents as mini-adults even as they’re sheltered and coddled and denied freedom . Haidt points to, as a major contributor to current Gen Z mental distress, the end of childhood filled with mostly unsupervised play, which is how the rest of us grew up before the rise of helicopter parents. ‘Mini-adults’, whose opinions must always be addressed and respected, in which children are asked to do things rather than told with no backtalk, is in contrast to the way my brother and I, and most kids we knew, were raised—regardless of familial political affiliation—little people with feelings, wants, desires, and certain rights, but not adults with the ability to make all our own decisions . We were, after all, still children. Not a single one of us grew up in families which would have taken seriously, “I’d rather be a boy/girl.” Likely the most liberal parents would have said, “Fine, you can get a sex change when you’re an adult.” For progressive parents today who aren’t at all happy about the kiddie transgender craze, and don’t believe their child was born in the wrong body, but dare not speak up, they’re often powerless against the authoritarian indoctrination of children in public education. Some self- and group-analysis is in order for these parents, along with—and some are not going to like hearing this—maybe examining how conservative parents raise their own kids, particularly those who are concerned their kids might go 'trans'. The genderwoo claptrap starts in school. So questions progressive parents need to ask are: How are conservative parents counteracting it? Are they sending their kids to private and charter schools? What do they say when their kid comes home and says they want to go on puberty blockers, or their pronouns are some weird collection of phonemes? Conservative parents won’t have all the answers--having come from the United States, I can testify how many people raised in political and religious conservative families created distance upon adulthood, if not necessarily estrangement. If progressive parents may be dunned for over-permissiveness, plenty of conservative families lean towards authoritarianism, which isn’t easy to grow up with, either. But not all conservative families are as authoritarian as some might imagine. Just as not all liberal families are ultra, well, anarchic. Neither type is perfect, but conservatives have a helluva lot fewer trans kids, who concomitantly report higher levels of happiness. It’s possible, as one essay points out, that liberals simply tend more toward depression than conservatives. It may not be easy to be gay, atheist, or insufficiently patriotic in a conservative family, but at least parents aren't ruining their children’s bodies with puberty prevention and cross-sex hormones, with zero knowledge as to how it will affect their fertility, sexual pleasure or lifetime happiness. Progressive parents must think more critically than many are. Sex transitioning offers children a temporary and false fix for their perfectly normal adolescent turmoil, which they’ve not been taught adequately to handle. Cheerfully counseled by garish social media influencers, children are led to believe that whatever fears, anxieties, and concerns they have, the answer is quite simple: You were born in the wrong body! Transition now, and all will be well! Except it’s not. As The Anxious Generation notes, social media is one of the primary, perhaps the primary reason liberal young people are experiencing a steep rise in mental distress. Liberal girls, he notes, spent more time in person with friends than conservative girls until the early 2000s, but after social media, that dropped below conservative children’s time. Liberal kids spend more time than conservative kids on social media, the negative mental health detriments of which are described quite thoroughly in Haidt’s book. Haidt advocates parents limit their children’s phone time to maybe an hour or two a day, but not on how to give them the backbone to do it. That would be a whole ‘nother book! Disempowering messages Social media, he notes, teaches a loss of locus of control— which describes a ‘malleable personality trait’ in which those with the locus “feel as if they have the power to choose a course of action and make it happen, while other people have an external locus of control—they have little sense of agency and they believe that strong forces or agents outside of themselves will determine what happens to them.” Sixty years of research, Haidt notes, shows that those with internal locus of control are happier and achieve more. The lie kids receive from influencer purveyors of ‘woke’ ideology, which pervades social media, is that the world is divided between good and bad people, the ‘marginalized’ are helpless and can’t do anything about it, white supremacy and patriarchy and transphobic TERFs and blah blah blah. It removes, in other words, the locus of control from children (and adults) who consume such messages. Haidt notes Tumblr’s pioneering work in disempowering a generation of kids, described in the powerful Free Press podcast series, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling , which I highly recommend. Megan Phelps-Roper interviews Rowling over the course of six podcasts. Rowling watched from the beginning as her superfan base evolved with ‘streaks of cruelty’ and ‘exclusion’ present from the beginning, and how, as other experts pointed out, exploded with Tumblr’s popularity in the early 2010s. It’s within Tumblr where the nascent ‘woke’ ideas of fragility, victimhood, language, and harm ‘evolved and mixed’. It’s where the youth trans movement was essentially born, with endlessly-generated labels applied to permutations of feelings and mere personality quirks, and a growing self-invented notion that its adherents were endlessly persecuted. And here we are today, because progressive parents seemingly don’t pay as much attention to where their kids are spending their time online. The ‘trans kids’ phenomenon is a direct result of the explosion of social media, not some weird modern evolutionary aberration. I will elaborate on that one glaring gap in Haidt’s book—the near-complete omission of the youth trans movement. It gets, literally, a brief mention on page 165 of the hardcover edition. Haidt is mystifyingly uncritical, noting, in an entire book on the impacts of social media on youth life, that social media trends ‘may’ be related in part to kiddie sex changes. He faintly parrots the woke party line, noting that ‘gender dysphoria’ has ‘long existed’ around the world, and that estimates of it may be lower because they were based on people who sought gender-reassignment surgery, which he calls ‘a vast understatement of the underlying population,’ harkening to the early movement responses to the question of where all the gender-confused kids suddenly came from: “Maybe many people always felt this way but they didn’t know what to do about it!” I have an urge to feed him a cracker. Haidt pays lip service to the idea that kids might just be ‘coming out’ in an era where the social stigma was less, and doesn’t address the political angle at all. I commented on one of his articles recently pointing his blindness out, seemingly ignorant of the horrendously toxic effects the social media-driven trans movement has had on clearly emotionally disturbed children and their families. I don’t know if he saw it but I’m fairly certain his assistant did. Family as the enemy The trans cult is every bit as powerful as the religious cults of the olden days—their heyday in the ‘60s and ‘70s. There are forces at work today greater than the parental ability to resist, and children are taught to cut off their ‘toxic’ parents for daring to challenge or question in the slightest, however respectfully. In fact, ‘estranging’ from one’s parents has become the new ‘cool’ thing to do for many children and young people of privilege, who seek the slightest excuse to blow off their parents, go off on their own, and whine about how bad they think they had it. As a writer at The Distance magazine notes, “Gender ideology treats the family as the enemy and enlists the state to enforce its edicts over families.” Liberals, far more than conservatives, have brought this on themselves by clasping the mental health-destroying disempowerment messages to their bosom. Perhaps what progressive parents face with a kid with alternative pronouns, dodgy new friends and a cheerleader teacher, is not an overhaul of their parenting skills, but a course correction , with help from right of center, non-overly-authoritarian conservative parents, rebuking the false notion that children are ‘little adults’ or that putting your foot down and uttering the forbidden word ‘No’ makes one Mommy or Daddy Dearest. Conservative parents who believe more in strictness than loving could learn a few things too. Remember: It’s a balance, strictness and living, and it’s not a woke-style either-or choice. Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also podcasts  of more recent articles there too!

Some males set themselves up for failure by linking their sense of manhood to how much they're not like half the human race Public domain image from Pexels Several years ago I read a book about female aviators and their campaigns to fly otherwise male-dominated planes and later, into space. I can’t remember the title, but the stickiest lesson came from a NASA official who admitted that, after endless obstacles, obfuscations, hurdles, and silly excuses to keep space capsules Kotex-free, the resistance boiled down to this: Astronauts were American heroes who had brought pride to the United States and were everyone’s idea of brave, strong, capable men. The best of the best of the best. While several aviatrixes had clearly demonstrated they could handle space travel, well, frankly… ….If we let women into space, how hard had it been, really, if even a girl could do it? Boys and men, for millennia, have defined their manhood with a pink floral ruler: I am more masculine if I am less feminine. The core tenet is that girls are stupider and weaker than boys, so if a girl can do it, it’s not that hard. To prove you’re a man, do something they can’t do. Girls will be boys American chickie-boos had to wait until 1983 to be permitted a rocket ride more fulfilling than that offered by KISS ’s Gene Simmons. Sally Ride’s came courtesy of Second Wave feminism. Women had redefined themselves as capable and competent, and were proving that females had always had the capacity to be so, it was only until now that they had the freedom. Feminists distanced themselves from fragile flowerdom with the only role models they had: Men. Really, where else could they look? We live on a sexually dimorphic planet. Before Second Wave feminism, women defined themselves by traditional feminine characteristics, but its purpose was to not threaten men, whose reaction to emerging women’s suffrage went about as well as telling the Incredible Hulk No. They were forever reassuring men, who still hadn’t gotten over having to give coloreds!!! voting rights, that they weren’t a bunch of man-hating lesbians. Decades later, women mirrored power in the workplace by dressing like men, not carrying purses, and adopting male sports and military metaphors. Another few decades later, with growing power and a greater presence everywhere, women feel more comfortable redefining themselves and lightening up on the dude-y stuff. Women aren’t using men as their single competency and comportment gauge as much anymore. Especially in the wake of countless financial scandals, pointless wars, and a never-ending stream of sexual imbroglios, all male-dominated. But however much women emulated the accoutrements of male power, women’s conception of themselves was never, and has never been, based in some inherent The less like a man I am, the more of a Real Woman I am. ‘Feminization’ The angry ‘manosphere’ and the rank hatred of transactivists against women who dare to defy them are rooted in a widespread sentiment that the world has become too ‘feminized’. When women invade a formerly male dominion, the males flee. It’s like ‘70s ‘white flight’ when a black family moved into your ‘hood— There goes the neighborhood! Better sell the house before its worth drops to the price of a box of Kentucky Fried Chicken! Teaching and nursing used to be all-male professions. So was insurance sales. And advertising sales (Good morning, Dawn Draper 2024!). Compliance officers too, ironically—I guess women are now better at forcing compliance than being compliant. Who else better to crack the whip over conniving hedge fund managers and sleazy CEOs than Yo Mama? Higher education was all-male until forced otherwise by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the ‘60s and ‘70s males dominated college campuses and manfully led the protests. Today women comprise 60% of college students, and lead the ongoing protests against—the continued existence of Jews. (Uh….yay Catherine Elizabeth Benson Brewer ?) Males are fleeing academia. Celeste Davis notes in her article, Why aren't we talking about the real reason male college enrollment is dropping? , the ratio of males to females has dropped from 2:1 in the 1950s, 1:1 by the ‘90s, and now it’s at 4:6. If even a girl can design a tower or splice a gene, how hard can it be? There are other good reasons males may not be seeking college diplomas, like daunting decades-long post-grad student debt, the ridiculous degree requirements for jobs that really shouldn’t require even one, not to mention the danger of graduating without knowing the difference between boys and girls, or where Israel is on a map, or even how to spell Palestine . But then there’s that old deep-seated fear outed by Davis’s article: Men continuing the long tradition of moving away from formerly male preserves. Davis’s research found that the one variable it boiled down to to explain why men were increasingly staying away from college was the enrollment of women. She wrote, “For every 1% increase in the proportion of women in the student body, 1.7 fewer men applied.” How’s this going to work for men as we move into a highly technological, AI-driven, scientific future where knowledge skills and college degrees matter more than ever? Are they going to leave it all to us? Warning, guys, the robots won’t have boobs! I’ve read that one reason men love football is because it’s the one certain male domain from which women can only watch and cheer from the sidelines: Women aren’t physically capable of invading football teams, and you’ll notice that biological women identifying as men aren’t exactly beating down the locker room doors with their muscly hairy arms to bring diversity, equity and inclusion to the manliest of sports. Perhaps the goal of the female-by-identification crowd is to discourage women from bothering with competitive sports at all. If Title IX withers away from a feminine famine, because there’s no longer any point, sports becomes a manly domain again! And the federal money returns, too. Maybe, in a female-dominated world, every little boy will aspire to be a professional football player rather than a girly astronaut. The Russians sent a woman into space twenty years before the Americans. If it weren’t for the Russkies we would never have accomplished anything! By Post of the Soviet Union (“Lesegri”). - Public Domain from Wikimedia Commons. The only men that out-enroll women at this point, says Davis, is gay men. Fifty-two percent hold college educations, while only 36% of American adults do. Maybe the robots will be boob-less and have a massive, uh, ‘secret attachment’. A matriarchal world? Really? If men aren’t careful—and I say this observationally—the more they drop out, the more feminized the world will continue to become. Speaking as a confident, assertive, innovative female—I’m not down with that. Now, I can envision a world in which women can bring fresher values and priorities to female-dominated business, entertainment, and high finance. We already dominate academia. Male flight has partially enabled the unfortunate takeover of educational institutions by overly-liberal females with values and priorities almost no one is happy with. A female-dominated corporate world may well offer better parental leave and perhaps subsidized or in-office child care. Perhaps less insane working hours. Like, you know, less than thirty-five a day. Women directing more Hollywood-financed movies may introduce a little reality, like heroines who don’t wear ridiculous outfits for physical activity. That silly-ass strapless Wonder Woman teddy and chunky high heels have got to go. C’mon, man, she’s fighting Nazis! How about a little chest protection, dollface? Also kaput will be tight dresses and high heels when you’re on the run engaged in some madcap highly-contrived adventure with your equally-hot gal pals. But—a female-dominant society would also bring unintended consequences. Like reduced productivity from a desire to achieve consensus rather than making executive decisions others have to accept. Failed DEI initiatives will continue, and probably become even more discriminatory. I believe with all my heart that if dudes allow us to take over, we will completely screw it all up just as they have. I already detailed how here . When any one tribal group dominates, others, including the dominant group, suffer. Patriarchy harms men, too How’s life at the top treating men? Men today, particularly white men said to be at apex privilege, are committing suicide at four times the rate of women, and account for 79% of suicides (and women are the more depressed sex!) White men kill themselves at higher rates than black men. They’re less likely to seek mental health treatment. Um, maybe because it’s something women are more prone to do? Because women aren’t afraid to ask for help which shows you just how weak they really are? In 2022, white men accounted for nearly 16 suicides out of a population of 100,000, whereas black men only accounted for 8.6. One theory is that women and black men are better at handling stress because they lack white men’s easier way in the world. I damn not white men, or even men. I accuse ‘patriarchy’. It’s not good for men, either. It’s literally killing them. No one’s getting laid, and Elon Musk is freaking out about a birth dearth while J.D. Vance worries cats are replacing babies for childless women. (Hey, someone’s got to protect the beastie s from those ravenous immigrants!) Patriarchy encourages men to disconnect from their emotions, although I’ve recently learned they don’t actually experience emotions as strongly as women, and don’t cry as much, partly due to biological reasons. It’s not that they’re cold, unemotional robots; it’s ate least somwhat evolutionary. Consider how counterproductive it might have been for a Neolithic tribe’s survival if men felt the death of a friend or kin as keenly as women do. What if no one wanted to go on a mammoth hunt because it was ‘too dangerous’? Male aggression and unemotionalism likely evolved as a survival strategy. And it didn’t in women because it would be counterproductive to not care if your baby died, nor is much aggression required to hunt for roots, herbs, and other crucial plants for survival. Men today experience a shorter life span than women, by about 3-4 years. It might help if they had trusted friends they can talk to, but many men can’t experience deep friendships with other men when the patriarchal spectre of homosexuality looms over them. Homophobia is based in misogyny. A man who acts like a woman isn’t a ‘real man’. Gay men act like women by having sex with other men, and the worst are those who allow themselves to be penetrated. Passively accept, not actively rise to the occasion, so to speak, and pound away—like a man. Obviously, none of this pertains to all men, although if you dig deep enough, you may well find the seeds of The less I am like a woman, the more of a man I am. What I’ve observed, after forty years of active feminist living, is that women today are more free to grow in ways that are more like men, in the right ways. We don’t consider ourselves ‘less feminine’ for adopting certain aspects of masculinity. We don’t worry we might be gay if we prefer to be less girly. Women are learning to take more risks, assert themselves, start their own businesses, enter politics, and join (or ‘invade’ as the manosphere would put it) formerly male professions, held back only by one’s own lack of will, resilience, or ability to compete. I wish for men to be able to do the same. To adopt the best qualities of being a woman, feel a little bit more, even if they never cry much. Recognize, as some already have, that there’s deep emotional satisfaction in bonding with one’s children, taking care of them, and helping to raise them. That allowing themselves to feel more emotion doesn’t make them girly, but human. Have we not just learned that women are fuller human beings when they don’t restrict themselves to passive gender-based conduct and personal goals? Emulating the best things about being a man has made us richer, fuller human beings. Those men who eschew women, who hide, cringing in the ‘manosphere’ from the other half of the human race, will never grow or achieve their full potentiality. What men have got to work on is this insane notion that half the human race is less than themselves. That anything a girl can do isn’t worth doing, even after men have claimed the initial laurels. Maybe there will never be ‘equity’ in STEM if males tend to be overall better suited to those professions, but if more girls with the aptitude like foremother science chicks Hedy Lamarr, Marie Curie, the ‘Hidden Figures’ ladies, Elizabeth Blackwell and Jane Goodall are encouraged to enter where their talents are best suited, that’s best for everyone. If men can work besides the men of color their fathers and grandfathers despised, they can make the jump to recognizing that females have turned out to be every bit as capable as these men who were once considered ‘inferiors’ and too stupid to educate. Those men who still cling desperately to their pink floral yardstick marginalize themselves. Andrew Tate looks like a winner only to those fellow losers who haven’t managed to amass, legally and illegally, as much money as he. Thirty-plus Bugazis for a man who can only drive one at a time looks impressive only to those who measure manhood by penis size, whether by nature or credit card. If there’s one thing that hasn’t changed over millennia, it’s that many men don’t like women no matter how competent and capable they are, or how compliant and non-threatening. They hate us for being weak, but they hate our strength, too. We can’t win for losing. Patriarchy harms everyone, and I hope men will soon return to the halls of higher education. Fifty years ago male-led campus unrest protested an unjust war getting American men and innocent foreign citizens killed. Today female-led protests support filthy terrorist groups and chant for the obliteration of another group of people. Matriarchy sucks too. Trust me on this, guys. I’m a woman. I know. Masculinism 2.0: What Would A Positive, Healthy New Men’s Movement Look Like? What Greta Thunberg Teaches Us About How To Handle Small Dick Energy How Can Men Tell Their Stories And Challenge Toxic Feminism? Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also podcasts  of more recent articles there too!

"He scared the living daylights out of everybody." The woke left damns Daniel Penny for trying to save others from a clearly disturbed black man. Would they laud him if the colors were reversed? Image by George Hodan on PublicDomainImages ‘The system’ unquestionably failed Jordan Neely. The clearly mentally disturbed Michael Jackson impersonator with a lengthy rap sheet shouldn’t have been on the New York City subway that fateful May afternoon. Or anywhere else. He needed to be off the streets. He had the right to live, but others have the right to ride the subway without fear for their lives. A black man went crazy on the F Train, a white man intervened, and America instantaneously transformed into a nation of mind-readers who knew exactly what the white man, Daniel Penny, was thinking as he brought Jordan Neely down in a chokehold reminiscent of George Floyd nearly five years ago. Except Penny used his arm rather than his knee. And it was all, like, white supremacy. Thus spoke social media and later, the prosecution. I don’t know if anyone on site took a poll of the political views of the people who were in the subway car at the time, but the ones who spoke to the media were 100% clearly afraid of Neely, regardless of their race. Maybe you have to have been in a situation like that to understand how non-partisan people can become when some lunatic is threatening them. Due process is for wussies I’ve been riding the Toronto subway for twenty years and the scary encounters I’ve had—none directed at me—compel me to empathize with the commuters on that hellish day, in a city with many times more mentally unbalanced people. The Toronto Transit Commission system has become a more perilous journey than when I first moved here. I only remember a handful of crazies terrifying the passengers. Like, four racist (non-white) ranters, none of which resulted in violence, thankfully. Just some intimidation, aggressive language about ‘white POS’s’, and man-spreading displays. I remember a couple of wild-eyed young people, clearly strung out, huddled together against the subway doors, uttering random, unfocused threats. I got off at the next stop and ran to the next car. They were white, in case you were wondering. When someone acts up I don’t make eye contact. I pretend to read the book I was reading a moment ago. I plan how I’ll react and what I’ll say if he directs his anger at me. I remember a Buddhist story I read about an observed violent man neutralized by a kindly older man who responded to his aggression with kindness and friendliness. I guess Daniel Penny didn’t read that book. I’m not sure he’d have remembered it if he had. Marines are trained to handle trouble their own way and their job is to neutralize the threat by reacting first and thinking later, unlike us civvies pondering what we’ll say and do if the miscreant turns on us. Military recruits are trained to perform many different threat situations over and over until their body reacts before their brain stops them. My scariest encounter was a few years ago on the bus when a man directed his aggression at a woman sitting behind me and higher up. I don’t know why he picked her out but he got right in her face and directly threatened her. The terrified, high-pitched answers she gave clearly indicated she was scared. Fortunately, he didn’t hurt anyone. Toronto, like most large cities, has gone a bit mad since the pandemic. I’m always aware. I keep a small can of hair spray in my purse, and my Mighty Keychain O’ Death close at hand. TTC passengers and drivers have been shot, assaulted, and slashed. A woman was set on fire by some out-of-it dude rather a lot like that poor homeless soul brutally burnt alive in, you guessed it, NYC just before Christmas. Consider all the preposterous action movies Americans consume, where we cheer on caricature heroes taking down the bad guys on their own and never suffering the consequences of their egregiously criminal behavior. No need to involve the law; the bleeding hearts will just let Serial Pedo-Ax Rapist go because he was diaper-trained too soon, and Stallone or Schwartzy or Van Dammit will ride off into the bright morning with his new lady love on the back of his motorcycle, because the law absolutely won’t arrest him for hanging a bad guy suspected of several murders , but never given due process, who the renegade hangs on a giant iron hook in a factory and then pushes into a furnace. Due process is for liberal wussies, yet the American moral compass spins like it’s atop a magnetite quarry when confronted with real life ‘good guy/bad guy’ scenarios. Armchair critics Penny was found not guilty of criminally negligent homicide and absolutely needed to go to trial. It’s what happens when you kill someone, however accidentally. Of course, for the armchair critics whose critical theory has already taught them everything they need to know about life, L’Affaire Neely/Penny was a cinch to parse. Penny is white. Neely was black. So of course it was Strange Fruit. I wonder how many of those riders celebrated Christmas last month thanks to Penny. His chokehold was ruled the cause of Neely’s death, the prosecution portraying it as a racial killing, and the defense as protection of others. Social media, of course, didn’t bother waiting for actual facts. As the trial progressed, one Black Lives Matter activist threatened riots if Penny was acquitted, which he was. The riots never materialized, but Americans do believe if they don’t like the way democracy or justice works, they can throw destructive collective world-class tantrums. The left did it during the Burning of Minneapolis and the right did it several months later when their boy lost the election. Yet it’s clear from the videos of Penny’s six-minute hold on Neely that the passengers held hostage believed Neely was a threat. He was on a NYC Top 50 list of homeless people in most desperate need of help. He’d been been arrested forty-two times, and had attacked other subway riders before, including a 67-year-old woman. He was depressed and schizophrenic. He needed serious help, and I understand the left’s sympathy for him. But only lounge-chair liberals can afford to damn Penny when, if any of them had been on that Subway Ride From Hell, might have sat back clutching their chests with relief at the sight of Penny holding down the threat. "He scared the living daylights out of everybody,” is how one woman described Neely. Privileged white and Black Lives Matter social critics, both programmed to arbitrate guilt by virtue of skin color the way an extra finger or third nipple once evidenced witchcraft, took to social media to jump on Penny for ‘murdering’ a black man, while pretending he wasn’t a threat. Or that he’d have been just as terrifying if he was white. Damning Daniel Penny is a luxury belief that will never impact those who never ride public transit. Americans endlessly carp about skyrocketing crime, and police and justice officials who do nothing, but then hyperventilate when someone steps forward to defend others. I’ve mentally rehearsed what I’d do if someone on the TTC was in real danger. I’d like to think I would try and do something. Maybe jump the guy or whack him with my keychain. Maybe I’d just sit there pissing my pants. Unless he was in my face. I might try Buddhism. I might try kindness and compassion. Or I might shoot hair spray into his face, which won’t permanently harm his eyes or choke him to death. It will likely get me arrested. But I won’t be dead. What his childhood was like or what bad breaks he got will be irrelevant when it’s life vs death, me vs the saber-toothed tiger or the hostile tribesman from a neighboring cave. If you possess a basic understanding of human survival, the Daniel Penny case, with no evidence of membership in a white supremacist organization or angry screeds against black people somewhere on a blog, was pretty clear-cut. Whatever his story, no one present disagreed with the narrative that Neely was terrifying. The jury agreed. Contrast it, then, to the social media treatment of Luigi Mangione, a more photogenic hero than the curly-haired, angular-looking, thin-lipped Daniel Penny, who does look like an extra in Black Klansman . Mangione, whose darker Mediterranean looks play more into the social justice image of the dusky-skinned Hero taking down The Man, especially those then-terrorist eyebrows that must make Columbia University hearts skip a beat, is worshipped and lusted after for murdering a rich, privileged white man in an industry highly unpopular with most Americans, who neither attacked nor threatened others, but simply walked to an investors meeting. Oh, Brian Thompson was evil because of denied coverage and ionospheric healthcare costs and little babies dying of leukemia? Well then, Jordan Neely deserved what he got because he had spent his life committing crimes, assaulting old ladies and threatened to kill someone on his last day. Right? The woke left luv Luigi, also, because he killed someone they can’t stand. They hate Daniel Penny because he killed a black man, infallibly an angel because, black. The woke right hates both victims. Jordan Neely deserves our compassion. He shouldn’t have died the way he did, and the failure is shared by us all. The problem of the mentally unwell and homeless goes far beyond anything we can comprehend. Maybe the City of New York should have invested more in mental health care, but how do you get people who can’t be forced to avail themselves of it? How about the parents who raise children they never wanted, who fail to provide love and support they may themselves not understand? If Americans had the collective moral understanding of a five-year-old, they wouldn’t damn Daniel Penny, average-looking white guy, but instead a full-of-himself self-important kid who looks like he belongs on Survivor. Penny said something on Fox News that really resonated, something I might think about if I’m in Penny’s position some day. Would he, Jeanine Piro asked him, do the same thing if faced with a similar situation one day? To which Penny replied, emotionally, “Yah. Totally. I would not be able to live with myself if I didn’t do anything in that situation and someone got hurt. I would feel guilty for the rest of my life.” The few times I’ve come close to death I’ve thought, “This will kill Mom if I die!” But both my parents are gone now. Knowing what I know—how violent some people are on the TTC, or on the street, where a homeless guy here was murdered by eight teenage girls a few years ago, that few if any people will try and help. I’m 61 and I want to think I would help. If I died, I might save a probably younger person attacked, and I’d feel like the world’s biggest chickens—t if I didn’t do anything when maybe I could have (although, not taking on a six-foot-four dude with a knife). It might be worth it knowing I could face my Maker saying, “I failed, but I really tried.” Then again, I might go down cringing and mewling like a dying kitten drowning in my own blood. You never know what you will do in a fight for your life until and unless you’re there. I hope I never find out. I hope you don’t either. But I hope there’s a Daniel Penny there to help. Because I will fight for him in court, and damn the next media hottie Death Wish wannabe action hero. Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also podcasts  of more recent articles there too!

A DEI reboot could more consciously train women to be proactive and assertive, and handle conflicts like powerful adults, not just focus on male behavior With Girl Power comes personal responsibility. From Rawpixel Criminy, I didn’t even scratch the surface of what DEI could accomplish with my recent article, Why DEI Is Still A Good Idea. I almost want to take it down after brainstorming with my new creative partner, Radical Radha at Radically Pragmatic. I wasn’t thinking outside the box when I wrote it. When you’ve been locked in a ‘social justice’ prison for what, like twelve years?—you can’t see the sunlit field beyond the trees. But, I did suggest diversity of thought, at least, which DEI sorely needs. But what Radha and I uncovered is that it’s about the people and the workplace exclusion problems that DEI has thus far not identified, or flat-out ignored because of too much, rather than the right amount of focus on biology—skin color, sex, ethnicity, etc. Radha and I are collaborating on a couple of articles exploring in meatier detail how DEI can become a real force for good. This article focuses more on improved DEI for males and females, and Radha is handling racial and ethnic challenges. I haven’t yet been organizationally worked over like a Mafia snitch for being white, but I haven’t worked in an office in nearly six years. To misquote jazz vocalist Dinah Washington, What a diff’rence a second perspective makes! Cleanse DEI of harmful assumptions about lack of female agency DEI is hailed as the ‘fix’ for ‘systemic’ bigotry and the unfortunate natural human tendency toward ‘othering’, but in a stunning revelation last November, the New York Times and Bloomberg News shelved a groundbreaking study that shed a very negative light on DEI, to which more than half of Americans have been subjected. The study found that the psychological impacts of DEI training were overwhelmingly negative—that certain practices “could induce hostility, increase authoritarian tendencies, and foster agreement with extreme rhetoric.” It also found that ‘anti-oppressive’ rhetoric actually increased it in participants, finding “consistently amplified perceptions of bias where none existed. Participants were more likely to see prejudice in neutral scenarios and to support punitive actions against imagined offenders.” It increased ‘hostility’ and ‘punitive tendencies’ by double digits across several measures. The study addressed antiracism DEI, but it sounds exactly like what’s been happening with male/female work relations, too. DEI encourages ‘authoritarian attitudes’ and ‘coercion and control’. Racial and sex discrimination and prejudice share many similarities. DEI’s sex focus has historically targeted male power—tunnel-visioned on men’s responsibility toward women, whether managerial or not. Its obsession with ‘white male privilege’, the COVID-19 of the social justice world, demonizes them for a birth circumstance while consistently ignoring the clear benefits for those with far more relevant ‘wealth privilege’, and its symbiotic twin ‘education privilege’. Both are greater predictors of success in life than skin color or genitals. You don’t need wealth to acquire a college education, including an elite one, but it certainly helps, and the better your education, the more wealth opportunities become available. DEI initiatives single-mindedly counsel (still mostly) male executives to help women get ahead, succeed, and get promoted, assuming women aren’t because of ‘systemic sexism’ and ‘misogyny’. It tacitly ignores female agency and the responsibility women have for themselves. It encourages female self-infantilization, applying the social justice principle that ‘oppressed’, ‘marginalized’ people are helpless in the face of overwhelming ‘oppressor’ power, so it’s the job of DEI to cajole those at the top to be magnanimous and give someone ‘marginalized’ a leg up. It’s a laudable goal, and we don’t argue people in power shouldn’t pay more attention to making sure people aren’t overlooked because of unconscious bias. But it’s not the only restraint. Better DEI would address or at least recognize other reasons why women fall behind—like prioritizing family over career, or being unable to keep up with job demands. Or, and this is a big one, Imposter Syndrome. A researcher at Harvard Business School found that women are far less likely to apply for their dream job if they don’t have 100% of the job skills listed, whereas men will jump at it even if they only have 60% of them. Women also shy away from positions more stereotypically held by men, such as managerial or analytical roles. Someone needs to survey HR and hiring managers about the difficulty of recruiting women into levels and departments that need that diversity. It’s quite possible DEI needs to teach more female empowerment—to females. Or that many women may be forgoing the career success men customarily pursue because they’ve learned they can’t, in fact, ‘have it all’. At least not to the extent Hollywood depicts. That’s a work/life balance policy that may have to change. Social justice-ridden DEI discourages asking questions outside the narrative, which centers around what men need to do for women, much like race-focused DEI demands from white managers. There’s a suggested passivity for women drawn from the social justice school of feminism that regards all women as victims of ‘patriarchy’ and all men as misogynists to one degree or another. Misogyny and sexism persistently exist, of course, as exemplified by the public CEO or business executive du jour forced to resign ‘to spend more time with his family’ because of some allegation of subpar dick control. Unconscious bias is real too, but so are the aforementioned female values and sometimes self-limiting beliefs. It’s not that women are necessarily being passed over because on some level of the male brain—‘ giiiiiiirlllll!’— but because they’re simply not applying. Women possess an enduring confidence problem, clearly. This is where DEI can focus more effectively. When women fail to pepper the C-suite, male executives are blamed for not doing enough. Countless articles detail male frustration with DEI initiatives focused on what a lousy job they’re supposedly doing, how it’s their responsibility to hire more qualified women, when they’re trying but they can’t always cajole them on board. Others feel, or receive in employee feedback, the widespread feeling among male employees that DEI sex equity is a zero-sum game, in which a woman who wins means a man loses (as opposed to, say, a man who doesn’t get the job because another man did?). Or that the people being hired aren’t the most skilled, and it shows. DEI, some critics claim, stands for Didn’t Earn It. That’s not always accurate. Women’s workplace responsibility Every woman in an office raises male fears—and the real possibility—that a male employee may get accused of something he didn’t know he was doing—sexual harassment, or a ‘microaggression’. Greater female inclusiveness can mean a litany of complaints to the HR manager about alleged male predations, transgressions, and ‘microaggressions’. Operating on the non-social-justice assumption that women are full adults with their own agency and responsibilities, DEI can smooth workplace relations by teaching women, as well as men, how to handle workplace conflicts, assuming equal responsibility for both. Many workplaces hold sexual harassment training workshops, to teach men how not to act with women, and women to respond a certain way if they do. Not so much, the woman’s responsibility for her own behavior, words and actions, and whether minor issues can be resolved between the two disputants. Where a new and improved DEI could serve to clear the path for a smoother workplace experience is to teach women to be politely assertive and to consider whether she needs to subject the alleged offender to potential embarrassment in front of an HR manager, or something that could wind up in a report on his record. It’s terrifying to confront a male colleague about a comment or behavior you found inappropriate, not knowing how he might react. But men have good reason to fear female overreactions too. Years ago I worked in an office where a male colleague conducted live seminars for businesspeople, in conjunction with a facilities-providing business partner. During one seminar, one of the business partner’s female colleagues was assisting in the presentation, and Bob said, intending it as a joke, “Can you please change the next slide, Vanna ?” The colleague didn’t appreciate his comment or find it funny. She felt professionally diminished. Whether we agree with her assessment is beside the point; I took issue with how she handled the problem, rather than whether she was right to feel that way. Everyone’s experience is different, and we are all individuals. I wouldn’t have felt diminished, but that’s just me. This woman raised a holy fuss. She went back to the office and screamed to the boss about Bob’s comment. The boss then called our office and screamed at Bob’s boss about what happened. Our managers now had to repair a relationship with our business partner because our male employee had been accused of offending a female employee. It didn’t have to go that far. It was an offhand comment, meant in humor that landed the wrong way with the female colleague and perhaps with seminar attendees as well. In retrospect, he clearly shouldn’t have said it. But it was a comment, not even an overtly sexual one. It wasn’t a rape at an office Christmas party. On the scale of male workplace offenses against females, this one rates pretty low. Image by Gerd Altman from Pixabay What if she’d been trained to handle minor problems on her own? What if she’d called Bob, explained she wasn’t happy about his embarrassing comment but she wanted to address it with him personally, because she didn’t believe in creating unnecessary drama for him because she doesn’t want to hurt his career? This approach would have first offered him a reason to not get mad and also to listen to her, hopefully more openly, because she’d shown him professional respect by stating up front she didn’t want to create problems for him at the office? If Bob had handled it poorly from there, then it might have been necessary to escalate. But even still, she could have kept it in perspective, with less emotional drama, like, you know, a stereotypical woman, and not damaged the business relationship so much. And you know what? I had my own separate problem with Bob, and I went to our manager first, and guess what: He told me to attempt to work it out with Bob. And I did. And we did. It’s time for DEI to address how male and female colleagues can address grievances with each other first, in a prescribed manner, with guidelines on how to address the complaint, and how to react to criticism. Related: The ‘Sheila Agreement’ - How To Handle Conflict Like Big Girls (And Boys) This would apply both ways; women can be klutzy and inappropriate too, and sexually harass; men have a right to expect professional behavior and communication too. The purpose would be to impress upon both parties that it’s best for them to resolve their grievance with the other like adults rather than running to HR. The alleged offender can agree or disagree with how the other party took the comment or action, but should then be on personal notice that it’s best not to repeat that action or comment again, because continuing harassment or offense is a better reason to escalate. A fairer, more professional workplace requires everyone to accommodate a little more, not just men. For women who aren’t very assertive, it will push them more, perhaps make them more inclined, eventually, to apply for jobs and promotions they can handle, whether they tick off every skill on the hiring manager’s fantasy list or not. Improved DEI can equalize women’s responsibility toward their behavior and treatment of their male associates and encourage both to attempt to resolve their differences personally. And men will feel less threatened by the potential for female theatrics. How to fix this Get rid of harmful, toxic, social justice ideology—the simplistic view of biology-based oppression dynamics that don’t apply in First World democracies or the notion that only ‘oppressors’ need to ‘do the work’ and challenge their biases. All humans are biased, and everyone needs to ‘do the work’. Assume that all workshop participants are adults who need to understand issues from another’s perspective and attempt to be less judgemental and quick to jump to the wrong conclusion. That both sexes bear personal responsibility for themselves and to address grievances with the opposite sex first with professional respect and then with a calm explanation of the grievance. The grievance receiver needs to listen, and whether s/he agrees with the offense or not, agrees at least not to repeat it. Cover bias for both sexes. Emphasize not making assumptions; not letting minor aggravations build up toward a big emotional blowup. Ditching social justice ideology and embracing a more mature, more inclusive view that everyone is a grownup who perhaps needs to better understand how the opposite sex views them and their behavior would create a more comfortable work environment, teach employees more effective conflict management skills, and assume equal responsibility for both sexes, even in a power hierarchy. And maybe women will apply for leadership positions more. The Mixed Messages Of The Sexy Workplace Women And Power: Would We Be As Good At Running The World As We Think? I Confronted My Sexually Harassing Boss And I Won Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!

Putting men first has failed for women over and over again, and tradwifery remakes those same mistakes. But so has feminism. Where's the happy medium? The tradwives of 1975’s The Stepford Wives. That’s Ginger Grant (Tina Louise) from Gilligan’s Island over Katherine Ross’s right shoulder, and Mason Reese’s face (remember him?) on the shopping cart. And oh yes, the gloves! A throwback to the fashion of the Sixties. I never went to church without my gloves! And my mother had a ton of those Church Hats. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 photo by James Vaughan on Flickr Modern-day feminism is still such an adolescent girl, forever trying on new roles and identities, seeking the one that works. She tries on her mom’s clothes. Then her sister’s. Then maybe her brother’s. She twists in the mirror, dissatisfied today with a look she’s adored for months. But it doesn’t work now and she’s looking for something new. What do boys think? Does it matter what boys think? Of course it matters what boys think! But it doesn’t! It matters more what girls think! It’s— What no one tells you when you’re young—because even your parents aren’t really old enough to understand this themselves—is that what doesn’t work and hasn’t several times over just doesn’t friggin’ work. Capiche? When I was young, I wasn’t much interested in marriage or children. I decided I’d rather play the field with my wandering eye. Later, when I wanted to settle down (but not breed), marriage was falling out of favor. So was not breeding. Where were all the men women complained about who didn’t want children? Could you give me some phone numbers? Today, romance is dead, pornography glorifies violence against women in a way Larry Flynt only ever flirted with, everyone is glued to their phones with loneliness, and young people aren’t even having sex. Ergo, ‘traditional marriage’ is making a comeback. Fifteen years ago, whiny and perennially victimized ‘feminist’ Jessica Valenti, still living in 1965, worried her pretty little head over America’s ‘obsession’ with female sexual attractiveness and purity in The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women. Which makes me wonder what her social circle looks like because I’m not sure if I even know any virgins, but if I do, they’re probably under thirty. Now women are trying to figure out what went so hideously wrong. Conservatives blame feminism. Religious folk blame a turn away from God. Feminists blame unevolved men, conservatives, and religionistas clinging to their sacred privilege and patriarchy. Others blame the Internet, social media algorithms, ubiquitous phones, the pandemic, divisive politics and Zoom. I think there’s a whole lot of right in all of it. Here come the ‘tradwives’ with the usual liberal hand-wringing over Creeping Conservatism and a dialing-back of women’s rights. This too, again, Brute? Periodically, human society regresses when the world becomes too crazy to understand. Maybe things were better ‘back then’, with rose-colored reverse hindsight. Remember when things were easier? And they were. Sometimes. Today, other things are easier. Like being skilled enough and financially stable enough to escape a bad and/or abusive marriage. I can’t completely blame some women for wondering whether perhaps fulfillment comes from letting someone else make the decisions. For committing themselves to home and hearth, to raising new human beings. I actually respect and appreciate people who accept that awesome responsibility. Every human life truly is precious. In my perfect world, only people who really wanted kids and had put a lot of thought into it would make new humans. No one would be forced to squeeze out a human life they never wanted, which wouldn’t happen if we had lots of cheap, reliable ways to prevent conception. But still. Here we go with this shit again. The magic recipe Sixty years into yer grandma’s feminism, we’re re-examining the free love world the hippie counterculture wrought. In hindsight, it may not have been as good for women as it initially looked. Or maybe it was a good idea, but got waylaid and sideswiped by technology, and male sexual interests (as always). In 2024, women dominate college campuses and populate corporate boardrooms. Men have lost some ground in these areas, and it’s not all feminism’s fault. Many men have fallen down and refused to get up. To try harder. Study harder. Do we need affirmative action for underachieving men now? The Feminine Mystique described the malaise the so-called Happy Housewife felt, even as she guiltily thought she shouldn’t. Why did the neighbourhood kaffeeklatsching include more and more vodka in the pitcher of screwdrivers as the months and years wore on? And why did they pop so many ‘Mother’s little helpers’ as they condemned Today’s Kids for indulging in hipster drugs? We still haven’t found the magic mating recipe, but we’re making progress, and both feminism and yes, the Tradwife Phenomenon will help to better refine and evolve a life we can all aspire to and live with. Because tradwifery isn’t all bad but it still re-makes some classic mistakes. I for one am grateful the Counterculture gifted me with more career opportunities than I had in 1969. I don’t feel I chose wrongly. I regret not being able to find a man I could be happily childless with, nor today a man whose life isn’t over. Regrets, Oy’ve ‘ad a few-ah! All things considered, I haven’t had a bad life, and I’ve begun keeping a mental list I call The Best Stories Of Anyone In The Nursing Home, to remind myself of the things I’ve done, the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been, the things I’ve experienced, the funny stories I have to tell, the things I learned how to do and the lessons I’ve learned. To remind myself I didn’t live a wasted life. All things considered, I have much to be grateful for. But romance, for me, has been largely unsuccessful, and I can’t fault Tradwives for giving conservative marriage a go again, nor do I know that it necessarily heralds the Republic of Gideon. Nothing ever remains the same. Today’s women are better educated, more confident and raised in a different time and place, but they’re opening themselves up to risks generations of women simply don’t think through: The Fifties’ Happy Homemakers were sometimes physically abused by their husbands and had no recourse to get out. Society frowned on divorce, families told her to tough it out, religious leaders told her it was God’s will she stay with her abuser, and how was she going to support three kids on her own? She couldn’t even own a credit card without her husband’s signature! And what was she going to do, stock shelves? Work the cash register? And who would take care of the kids? I suspect many of today’s Tradwives aren’t quite as helpless as all the TikTok complainers seem, but it’s never a good idea to give that much power to men. Even good men can abuse power, just as good women can do the same. I understand the desire to turn your pretty, well-toned back on the corporate rat race, as I watch the expressions of TikTok’s scrubbed women in 1956 Better Homes & Gardens- reminiscent dresses, earrings, and Mrs. Cleaver hair embracing values that sound less frighteningly right-wing and more common-sense and mature. I do not complain about my husband to anyone who will listen. I protect my husband’s heart by not broadcasting his shortcomings. Out of mutual respect we keep our disagreements and spats in the family, in public we are a united front. Divorce is not an option or threatened. There really is something about doing things the way our ancestors did. It kind of puts your heart back into this thing we call life. (Isn’t that what Martha Stewart does? Make everything from scratch?) And is making your husband a customized owl cookie such a terrible way to show him you love him? I found these expressions in a TikTok compilation about tradwives. There’s plenty in there to disagree with—too much Christian ‘submission’, especially the cringey black woman extolling these ‘virtues’ to her white husband. But maybe I’m being too political. Conservative Christians, like feminists, seek to improve upon practices, ideas, and values that clearly don’t work, but too often focus only on what we want. Conservative Christianity is patriarchal, feminism matriarchal. Tradwifery should expect more from men than it does, as feminists should from women, yet neither do. There’s a downside, of course One former tradwife never considered how much her good life in million-dollar homes rested on her marriage. She worked in the family business with money that went into her husband’s bank account—not a joint one, and she had no bank account of her own. When he divorced her 25 years later, she lived in her car and made $44/day as a teacher’s assistant. “I have no retirement, I have no savings, no education, no resume.” She wonders why she never had “a fucking backup plan.” Gee, who could have seen this coming? (Feminism, are you there? It’s me, Sister Margaret!) It’s the age-old dilemma that challenges Tradwives past and present, consensual and not: If you have no education, no skills, and no resume, you’re sentenced to low-paying jobs and no future. Or a shit marriage. You might get lucky like Nicole Brown Simpson (for awhile) and get a good settlement from your celebrity husband, or you might get nothing. It’s never a good plan to allow a man to take complete care of you and be especially aware of ‘ submission’. It gives him carte blanche to screw you if it all goes—pardon the sexist expression, ladies—tits up. Another video revealing the downside to Tradwifery warns, “You’ll never see tradwives in their forties advocating for this life.” Another warns, “A man is not a plan,” and notes that “…your finances should not depend on someone being in love with you.” Another realizes her tradwife life was dependent on how pretty she remained and good at her housewifery. Some spoke of losing their identities and ability to make decisions or even knowing what they themselves liked. When you bought toothpaste you thought of the brand your husband liked; you made the dinners your husband preferred; his identity, even his name, was yours. It reminded me of the mothers we used to make fun of when I was in the old Usenet forum alt.support .childfree; the mothers who would show up and try to turn us away from our selfish, childfree ways, or combat the child-haters (and we did have some). When you’re extolling the joys of being a mom and giving your life to raising another’s, maybe it’s not the best image to post under the address “ amysmom@aol.com .” One lady counsels wannabe Tradwives, “I think freedom and autonomy and confidence are more important than making my kids think that having a mom and dad in their home is what makes a home perfect.” So why can’t I wholeheartedly condemn the Tradwife phenomenon? I think we should take a ‘salad bar’ approach to life: Take what works and leave the rest. It may be one-sided still, but the TikTok women making a real commitment to preserving their marriage and not running for the divorce court at the first sign of minor domestic strife are a complete one-eighty from the stomach-churning, loathsome new fad for wannabe ex-non-Tradwives: Women dumping their husbands and families on a whim when they get bored with marriage and want to sleep with boy toys and travel and do all the things they didn’t do before. Not women who are escaping hellish abuse or controlling men or life in a tin shack in the Ozarks. Entitled, privileged, and deeply narcissistic young women seemingly feel their husbands aren’t human beings with feelings but mere accessories, along with the children they’d have carried around in their oversized purse like chihuahuas if they could have. This is what the social-media-induced narcissism of the modern age has wrought: Women ‘empowered’ to be exactly like a stomach-churning Mad Man of yore—one who dumps her family to trade her hubs in a for a younger model (or three) and to gallivant around without a care, leaving a familial wreck in her wake. (Fuck ‘em! Let men know what it’s like, amirite my faithful followers???) Can’t there be a happier medium somewhere? One in which the TradHusband is as beholden to cleaving unto his Tradwife as the Empowered Mom throwing herself a Divorce Party to celebrate her reclaimed single freedom? Might she rethink her position before she books the banquet room and consider the other human beings she’s destroying? Both movements demonstrate exactly how ugly and narcissistic life is when one sex or the other has so much power. Funny how TradHusbands don’t declare on TikTok their commitment to not divorce their wives when they’re more drudge-y than the girl they married. I support women’s empowerment and the ability to leave a bad marriage if she truly has to, if he doesn’t want to work on it or think it’s his God-given right to beat her into submission, whether he believes in God or not. But it’s a complete abrogation of responsibility and ‘adulting’ to just dump everyone and leave it all in your ex-husband’s lap, no different than when a man does it! Equality means women must hold themselves to the same high standards they demand of men. And to demand of men what they demand from us. What we once derisively called a ‘sperm donor’ we must apply to an equally execrable ‘egg donor’. I see some real, laudable values in the Tradwife movement, as I see them in genuinely empowered feminism. Pure Tradwifery really doesn’t work for women and never has, and updating it to include more lifetime commitment for a Tradhusband will remove the Trad from marriage and home life. But it’s not all just about me me me me me and what I want. For thousands of years that’s the world men set up for themselves, with women objectified as sex toys, wives and mothers. Her job was to perpetuate his seed and raise them so he could go off and live his life as he wanted. It sucked for women, and it still does. But the ‘empowered divorcee’ movement looks every bit as hatefully misandrist as ‘patriarchy’ looks hatefully misogynist. There’s a happy medium somewhere, but it won’t be truly ‘traditional’. Nor 100% feminist. We need to explore this ‘marriage’ of values more. Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also podcasts of more recent articles there too!

Ayo starts by surgically removing your excuses for why you can't move your life forward I love the nerdy Bill Gates shirt. Photo from Ayo’s website Ayodeji Awosika gets it. He fucking nails it every single time. For a 32-year-old kid, and he’s a kid to this menopausal dumb blonde, he’s figured out the magic elixir in the not-strictly-American dream we all share: To live our lives with meaning and purpose, and maybe even make money doing it. Guess what: You don’t even need ‘privilege’ to pull it off. Which means the secret to his sauce is to toss your aggrieved entitlement, regardless of your tribe. I wish I’d been as smart as him when I was his age. Hell, I wish I was that smart now. It strikes me as unutterably bizarre that I look to a 30-year-old guy for life help, but Ayo gets it. I found him on Medium last year and his posts resonated like a Tibetan singing bowl. I got hooked by his first book, The Destiny Formula . I just finished his newest, Real Help: An Honest Guide to Self-Improvement and I encourage everyone who’s serious about wanting to change their lives to buy and read this book. Ayo knows what he’s talking about. His advice isn’t sexy. His version of self-help and self-improvement aren’t for those who don’t have time for more than listicles promising greater productivity before 7:00AM or who’d rather just cut to the chase and buy an expensive ‘kit’ to achieve world-renowned success. It’s for the folks who understand where self-help starts: With the wo/man in the mirror. Ayo’s blueprint resembles the unsolicited advice you got from those boring old farts in school who didn’t know anything about the real world and thought hard work and constant improvement were the way to succeed. Excuses end right here. In our ADHD-social-media-addled world we want everything now Now NOW!!! with instant likes and followers, viral success with our first video, a $100,000 job fresh out of university. No one with the attention span of a gnat wants to hear Ayo’s story of working for five years at a low-paying job and hustling his ass in his free time to take classes, learn how to blog, read fifty books a year and keep his ‘eyes on the prize’. That’s not sexy. That’s too much trouble. That takes too long. Plus the world is working against you and shit. But it’s the truth. It’s the truth. And many people can’t handle the truth, as some famous guy once ranted in a movie. Real Help removes all your excuses, and the lies you’ve been telling yourself. It shreds your sense of aggrieved entitlement. (Everyone’s.) Why do I like Ayo so much? Because he’s not a freaking victim. He takes responsibility for his past decisions, bad actions and now his future. He doesn’t whine and moan and spout a lot of silly academic theory (he’s college-educated, even though he never finished) as to how The Man keeps him down. It’s ridiculously refreshing in a world where whiners worship at the shrine of self-imposed victimhood and personal responsibility is the ugliest of faults to be exorcised from one’s soul forthwith. Its apotheosis is a tantrum-prone manchild who was placed into power by a nation overrun with adult babies who wonder why their lives keep getting worse rather than better. Real Help lays out some hard truths, based on numerous highly-respected books written by people smarter than Ayo on how the world works, sans the entitlement. I’ve already encountered some of what he lays out for why wages are going down and mental illness is going up. He doesn’t get sidetracked by emotional hand-wringing over economic inequality or systemic discrimination, even as he acknowledges they exist. His approach is as Stoic as his personal hero, former Roman Emperor and author of the nearly 2,000-year-old Meditations, Marcus Aurelius. The world is as it is, you can’t fix the system, so find new ways to work around it. Success is easily within your grasp, but it won’t happen overnight. Ayo traces the story of how he travelled from loser busted drug dealer to a writer and self-improvement coach with a six-figure income. “I’ve been through the racist justice system,” he says. “I know.” I think of this as others excuse themselves into ever-more-restricted pretzels to explain why it sucks to be them. You can’t do this and you can’t do that because of systemic discrimination and intersectional gender politics and society’s dictates to your special interest class and the patriarchy thing and your kids. When you have kids you have to put your dreams on hold! Sacrifice all for them! Everyone knows that! My own excuse pretzel straightened out just a tiny bit more this week as I came to realize it’s not ageism keeping me out of the workforce so much as a lot of crazy forces at work in our ever-evolving post-industrial economic landscape. Increasingly abusive employment practices and shrinking wages fueling inflated C-suite salaries will destroy jobs and whole organizations long before robots get a whack at it. Ayo recommends spending less time following the news and triggering yourself on social media, so you can focus on your work and not get sidetracked by society’s toxic messages that you need to earn money a certain way, live your life a certain way, and consume mindlessly ‘to impress people you don’t even like’. His message isn’t anti-consumerist, but intelligently consumerist. I know he’s right because as I trail him down that path to success, I’ve encountered some of the same feelings and problems he has, so I know to pay attention when he tells me what lies ahead. He’s made those mistakes for me. Here’s where your brain starts to tell you you can’t do it. Here’s where I see a lot of writers on the cusp of success back down and turn away. Here’s why you should work inside your wheelhouse and play to your strengths, rather than work on your weaknesses. The road to fulfilment and success looks a lot less rocky when you know what to expect. Photo by Helen Melissakis on Flickr After I finished Real Help I went through it again, skimming and taking notes. It’s now a twelve-page document of new advice and insights and tips I don’t want to forget. “Whenever you try to “succeed” or “follow your dreams,” you’re going to have to do so in a world that will indirectly and directly attempt to stop you. It’s a natural consequence of how things work, not a planned conspiracy. Keeping this in mind will increase your odds of success, because you can be less emotional about the process. It does no good to shout into the sky. The game is rigged. What are you going to do about it?” Losing the ‘conspiracy thinking’ is a giant load-off. Remove the emotion and your ego from the equation when you realize most people are miserable in their lives and jobs and you now have the spine and the blueprint to fix yours. You can’t do anything about the rest. I’m beginning to shed the blinders too, as I’ve watched us all become increasingly pigeon-holed by job descriptions that narrow the employer’s fantasy candidate to the point where eventually they’ll merely demand a departing employee leave some DNA behind so they can clone her replacement. “Once you accept other people for who they are, how they behave, and what they believe, you’ll feel less like you’re fighting this imaginary uphill battle against the masses. The masses will simply fade to the background while you get to work. As more and more people fade into the background, you’ll find you might be the only one left.” Once you abandon the anger and frustration and most of all, the stories and narratives that make you the victim and everyone else the oppressors, finding success suddenly appears more within reach than you ever knew. Ayo makes clear he doesn’t define success for anyone else. Just because he wants to ‘conquer the world’ and build a million-dollar empire doesn’t mean that’s the route for others. Success is whatever really and truly makes you happy. That might be boatloads of money and your own empire, or it might mean better relationships, leaving a job you hate, starting up your own business or, most importantly, living your life by your own standards rather than others’. Just know what you want to do and more importantly, why you want to do it. Real Help offers no quick-fix solutions. It encourages you to define and pursue your dreams and keep them within reason. Aspiring to be an actor is fine; aspiring to win an Oscar might be just a touch unrealistic. When Ayo reached out to ask for my help as an affiliate marketer promoting Real Help , I agreed, not to do him a favor, or even for the prizes he’s offering, but because I love his work and this book. This roadmap is the real deal. It doesn’t guarantee success but it acknowledges failure as a learning experience without fetishizing it a la Silicon Valley. It encourages you to help create new opportunities by getting out of your hidey-hole, meeting new people, and doing the world. I have a sticky note on my computer desk from a TEDx talk (not Ayo’s, but he’s done that too ). “The universe conspires with you; your self-doubt conspires against you.” Real Help really will help if you’re genuinely committed after your own pivotal moment when you say, as Ayo once did, “This shit has got to stop.” As skewed and unjust as the socioeconomic system has become for all except the 1% (and its money siphon is coming for the higher classes next), Ayo describes how you can forge your own path and make money online with little or no out-of-pocket expense. You need to learn what you don’t know, continuously improve, read a lot of books, take a lot of largely free or inexpensive classes, come up with your plan, and don’t do something stupid like quit your job before you’ve got a reliable monthly extra income and even more important, money in the bank. If you’re fed up with the grind and a life that makes you suicidally ideate, Real Help will show you how to eliminate it intelligently, what to expect, and how to overcome that super-asshole who’s always talking shit to you to keep you down. Not The Man. Not The Patriarchy. Not the politically demonized minority du jour . Not even your boss. Your ego. Your inner critic. Yourself. Just have a lot of patience. Ayo believes in you, even if you don’t. Yet.

Enjoy the abuse-free life I've always enjoyed I hope they're reading Dina McMillan's book. Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels If there's one thing I'm really good at, it's avoiding partner abuse. It's foreign to me. It's why I've come to address the unmet feminist market niche: Patching and fortifying the female brain against acceptance of abuse, and from allowing toxic men into one's life. We've spent enough time dissecting and analyzing patriarchy, masculinity, the 'man box', and everything else about the abuser; now it's time to address the other half of the partner dynamic: The receiver of the abuse, more commonly known as the victim. Women are no longer powerless, even if some are less powerless than others. Not every woman recognizes her intrinsic power, and a regressive, self-infantilizing, fear-based, decades-long de-evolution in feminism seeks to preserve that powerlessness, because deep down victim feminists fear real empowerment. True empowerment requires you to make decisions that could blow up in your face or even put you in harm's way, but it also emboldens and strengthens you, especially when you stand up for yourself before harm is even in your neighborhood. And the more you stand up for yourself and nothing bad happens, the better you become at recognizing lower-risk assertiveness challenges. I've found five stellar resources to help women identify their psychological weaknesses and inoculate themselves against the sort of toxic man who manipulates and abuses, but also to better understand men and thereby become better partners themselves. After all, she may be no walk in the park either. Understanding how men think and feel from a compassionate point of view helps us guard against inner misandry and stop judging men by our own gender-based yardstick (which is what we've complained about them doing to us for many years!) You can't change another person, you can only change yourself. Here are my five favorite resources, beginning with the most important. 1. "But He Says He Loves Me!" - Dina McMillan My review of Dina McMillan's invaluable book But He Says He Loves Me: How to Avoid Being Trapped in a Manipulative Relationship appeared recently so I'll keep this synopsis brief. This is my review: "But He Says He Loves Me!" The Women's Abuse Prevention Manual McMillan drills down with a compassionate tone, based on her 2017 TED talk Unmasking the Abuser, into how the controlling, entitled, abusive male mind thinks, and describes with great clarity how they entice women to hand over their control and power in baby steps by understanding her psychology better than she does. A manipulative abuser will never gain power over you once you read and take notes from this superb manual. 2. Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men - Lundy Bancroft Lundy Bancroft is an author, workshop leader, and domestic violence counselor who focuses on, according to his website, "Training professionals on best practices for intervening with male perpetrators of violence against women, toward the goal of promoting accountability and requiring change." He's worked with both abusers and victims in domestic partnerships. His book details how the abusive male mind thinks, but not with the granularity of McMillan's book. His most valuable insight, which McMillan doesn't identify, is how deeply entrenched is the abuser's modus operandi. The roots of abuse, he says, are ownership , the trunk is entitlement and the branches are control. This is the core of who the abuser is, and it's near-impossible to dislodge it. It's formed from his early influences and role models, his values and beliefs, and his utter contempt for his partner, which he keeps carefully hidden from everyone else. These men are often far more conscious of what they're doing than they appear. Good luck uprooting that. Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay One of women's most damaging fallibilities is the belief she can change an abusive man, or that he himself might change. He absolutely can, but he probably won't. His entitlement has always worked to his advantage, and the world is full of plenty of partners willing to relinquish control to him, so if one wises up and leaves, he can always find another. The abusive man is self-centered, Bancroft notes, with deep roots in profound entitlement. He emphasizes just how deeply rooted these roots are. I found a great article summarizing Bancroft's 13 signs an abusive man is changing and how to make sure he is, which observes that in order to truly change, an abuser must follow certain steps in the right order. Many stop after the first few figuring 'they've done enough, now she needs to get her shit together and stop complaining'. He points out remaining abusive is much easier than changing, since the latter means becoming more self-aware and engaging in the uncomfortable self-analysis many people would choose to avoid. “At some point during the first few months that a man is in my program, I usually stumble upon the core of his privilege, like a rear bunker on his terrain. He may abandon a few of his forward positions, but this fortification is where he surrounds himself with sandbags and settles in for protracted war," Bancroft says, noting that only a very small single-digit percentage ever truly change. Tattoo this on your inner eyelids so you're reminded every night of the eleventh commandment: He ain't changin', girlfriend , so just cut your losses and go! 3. The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society Of Pickup Artists - Neil Strauss Strauss's controversial 2005 expose of pickup artist (PUA) culture is part investigative reporting and part gonzo journalism, since Strauss himself was a PUA, and he describes his personal experiences as a not terribly attractive or romantically skilled wannabe Casanova who found his tutor in Mystery, a Toronto-born PUA who took Strauss (dorky PUA name: Style) under his wing. Strauss was a former New York Times music critic and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. He's written for other major publications such as Maxim, Esquire, and Entertainment Weekly. Strauss's book is, therefore, well-written and also somewhat sympathetic to the seduction community's 'targets'. I've written a full review of his book too. What Women Can Learn From Studying Pickup Artists Strauss drills down into both the PUAs' and targets' brains and describes how the former are schooled to learn everything they can about the latter's psychology utilizing neuro-linguistic programming, persuasion and influencing resources, Internet support groups and manipulative tricks like lowering her self-esteem through 'negging' , woo-woo 'psychology tests' and New Age nonsense so many young women adore, 'cat string theory', and 'social proof'. His less execrable advice is to ABL (Always Be Learning), which means researching and devouring information to perpetually refine and optimize your skills. I wrote a followup to my review on how his PUA advice manual is actually a blueprint for accomplishing whatever else you want, like building a startup, finding a long-term relationship, climbing the corporate ladder, or learning another language. How To Achieve Your Dreams With A Notorious Pickup Manual Understanding the tactics of male manipulation, once again, fortifies a woman's brain against falling for this B.S. 4. What Was He Thinking? The Woman's Guide to a Man's Mind - Dr. Mike Bechtle Let's not forget the other side of the abuse coin: The woman, who receives it, and who can be abusive herself, psychologically, emotionally, or physically. Or a combination. Even if she's not abusive, she brings her own dysfunctions from prior relationships, experiences, and perhaps an unhappy childhood. It's important to remember that one's perspective is only half of the equation. Men aren't always wrong or bad people because they perceive, interpret, judge, value, or respond differently. What Was He Thinking? is a straightforward explanation of how a man's brain works, especially in everyday situations like trying to find something in the fridge. He's scanning the terrain while calling, "Honey, where's the mayonnaise? Are we out?" when the new jar is sitting on the shelf right in front of him. Sex hormones influence our brain functioning, and as a result, women are better at object recognition while men are better at navigation and visual spatial rotation, which is why they grow equally frustrated with women who can't seem to read a road map. (Millennials: Whaddaya mean, what's a map? Don't you remember your childhood's family vacations? The fight that always started with your father accusing your mother of not knowing how to read a map when in fact it was so old it noted the Gadsden Purchase and referred to Upper and Lower Canada?) The most interesting insight I got from the book was the cheating male's understanding of infidelity invisible to plenty of cheating women. Bechtle notes that men involved with married women were less inclined to marry them than women for married men. Seems the boyfriend is often somewhat empathetic with her husband: He realizes that if she's cheating on the partner, she'll likely cheat on him too. Too often, she thinks the cheating husband will be different for her. I wish more women considered that before they got involved with Mr. Married Manwhore. 5. He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth To Understanding Guys - Greg Behrendt The bestselling book launched by a Sex In The City episode in which a male friend explains to Miranda "He's just not that into you," as to why the guy she had a seemingly mutual great time with ghosted her, is a pretty spot-on sum-up not just of why we fail to hear back from men. It's also why they as often fail to hear back from us. The book was written for women, but is every bit as relevant for men, since it mostly deals with the games people play, discourtesies and lack of consideration of which women are almost always equally guilty. Breadcrumbing; that's not a 'dude thing'; everyone's done it, including myself. It's not done out of malice but out of insecurity. Leading someone on? Same thing. If I'd had this book when I was eighteen it would have changed my life. I would have known not to waste time on guys who clearly 'weren't that into me'. In fact, I didn't read the actual book for several years; one night I thought I ordered it off Amazon but what arrived was sort of the 'Cliff Notes' version, It was every bit as useful as the actual book when I finally got to it. What it boils down to is this: If he genuinely likes you, he'll make an effort to be with you, see you, and won't do anything that will make you doubt him because he doesn't want some other guy to snap you up. If he's really interested in you he'll be attentive, respond to messages within a reasonable, perhaps even short period of time, lest you think he's lost interest. One of the best exercises I got out of this was to ask: Who's his favourite movie or pop star? If he'd gotten her number after she'd shown interest, what's the likelihood he'd be ghosting her/being noncommital about dates/letting days go by without contact? He'd be on her like white on rice. When someone truly special is in your life, you make sure they know it so you don't miss out. The book removes every dumbass excuse we make for him and why he's not in your life more: He's not 'busy with work' (guyspeak for I can't be arsed to see you ), and he doesn't have too much on his mind. Bottom line: If he likes you and genuinely wants to see you, he will. It's not something you said or did; for whatever reason you'll likely never know, he's just not that into you. Don't waste any more time on this and move along. There's someone out there who wants to be with you. While Behrendt writes about men who are unintentionally rude or hurtful, many of the behaviors he describes are what abusive, controlling men will use to keep women off balance and always wondering where the relationship is, impelling her to 'try harder' to please him. Behrendt writes with much empathy for women (probably because he himself has been subjected to so much of these same behaviors) and consistently emphasizes how important a woman is, how she's entitled to decent treatment, and how she should move on if the guy's just dicking around with her--unconsciously or not. Update 08/29/22: I removed Travis Bradberry's Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and replaced it with Greg Behrendt's He's Just Not That Into You . When I wrote the original article I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of one of the books I'd wanted to include, so I went with Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Now that I've remembered the stellar book I consider a must-read for avoiding abusive men and relationships, I've replaced it with Beherendt's book.) Did you like this post? Would you like to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far over my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter Grow Some Labia so you never miss a post!

A book on human nature details how easy it was for Cultural Revolution student leftists to embrace horrific, violent oppression of others Public domain White House photo of a Chinese opera by Byron Schumaker. “This looks like what’s happening on college campuses!” I thought as I read Chapter 14 - Resist the Downward Pull of the Group (The Law of Conformity) in Robert Greene’s The Laws of Human Nature . The chapter illustrates the ease with which Chinese teenagers were induced to mindlessly embrace the ‘reforms’ of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and how it devolved into organized torture and violence at Yizhen Middle School, hundreds of miles from Beijing. The story begins in 1964 at age 12 for new student Gao Jianhua, whose goal is to be a writer and gain eventual admission into Beijing University. Instead, he’s pulled into the Cultural Revolution by Fangpu, an older friend and mentor as detailed in Jianhua’s book Born Red: A Chronicle of the Cultural Revolution. The worst of what happened sixty years ago in China hasn’t occurred yet on North American college campuses, but some of the lead-up is frighteningly familiar. I believe it’s possible that a handful of today’s ‘pro-Palestinians’, steeped in simplistic binary oppressed/oppressor frameworks and the diminished compassion of woke social justice theory, might eventually turn to pogroms against Jews, and torturers of those who oppose them. Not all protesters have gone down that dark path, but the nerve center of overtly antisemitic protests is New York’s Columbia University, where some of the ‘protests’ included terrorizing campus custodians trapped by protesters. The campus custodian union threatened to sue . The protests began on the same day as the October 7th attack on Israel, before anything concrete was established, since the protesters believed simplistically that Israel was (always) to blame. The road to amoral hell began with the universities taking days sometimes to acknowledge the attack, to more recent expressed solidarity and alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah. The protests, whether peaceful or violent, have demonstrated a near-uniform siding with Gaza and a complete lack of sympathy for attack victims. Some activists even denied the atrocities . WARNING: Graphic details and semi-graphic imagery in this video “Young people,” cautions author Greene about assuming what occurred was nothing more than ‘group adolescent behavior’, “often represent human nature in a more naked and purer form than adults, who are cleverer at disguising their motivations.” It’s unclear how the protests will continue under a new US administration, but the cancer at Columbia University has already metastasized globally, resulting in attacks, abuse, threats, and intimidation of Jews everywhere. You can see the eerie signs in a review of what happened to one student in China sixty years ago. A brief history of what happened at Yizhen Middle School Life was hardly free in Communist China but People’s Republic founder Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 to purge capitalism and preserve Chinese socialism. It lasted ten years and today is regarded by the CCP as a colossal failure, marked by violence, purges, public torture, executions, and cannibalism of ‘counter-revolutionaries’ , for ideological purposes, not famine. It occurred in the late 1960s in the Guangxi Province for at least 137 corpses. Yeah, fun times in China back then. At YMS, the timeline began in 1966, when Jianhua was fourteen. If you’re paying attention to the Keffiyeh Kampus Krusaders, it’ll sound familiar. So: Public intellectuals accused celebrated writers of concealing counter-revolutionary messages in their work; based on ‘careful readings of certain passages’, like SJWs do with content and social media today, looking for hidden racism, misogyny, gender conformity and other lack of groupthink. They began reviewing art, literature, lectures and lessons for alleged subversive messages by those suspected of attempting to halt the Cultural Revolution. Mao, afraid China was slipping back into a ‘feudal past’, called on students’ ‘right to rebel’, except the way he phrased it was zao fan, which in Chinese means to turn everything upside down'. Sound sort of familiar, folks? China still engages in shaming culture today, often for minor transgressions just as WokeWorld has been doing for over ten years. Witch hunts on insufficiently revolutionary teachers began with shaming and public humiliation for those who didn’t cooperate or confess to ‘crimes’, including, initially, mild torture (today’s radicals torture and destroy careers on social media over ‘microaggressions’). Teacher ‘confessions’ brought more demands to ‘reveal the truth’. Jinhua felt uneasy when his favorite teacher was accused of faking his switch to communism and was forced to wear a dunce cap and a board around his neck announcing his ‘crime’ (Counterpart: Endless demands for unaccepted apologies by offended wokies). Not surprisingly, teachers fled YMS, as others today are getting fired or leaving their jobs over woke authoritarianism. Mao-approved ‘Red Guards’, formed to support and defend the Cultural Revolution, sported fashionable and much-coveted red armbands. Jinhua got accepted because his father was a communist war veteran and government official. Or an ‘elite’ as we would call him today. Returning back home for a visit, Jinhua found his father jobless and his family discredited after being accused of ‘revisionism’, (Marxist reformation). Meanwhile, back at YMS, his old friend Fangpu had consolidated power and formed a new group called the East-Is-Red Corps and took over the school. Jianhua became frightened of Fangpu and recent events. A few weeks later another student formed the Red Rebels, a rival group which advocated a more tolerant revolution based on reason and non-violence, which didn’t go over well with Fangpu and the R-I-E gang, but Jianhua found himself attracted to them nevertheless. The Chinese military arrived to restore order; the Cultural Revolution had gone rogue at schools, government offices and factories. A corps of thirty-six soldiers called ‘The 901’ attempted to disband the factions and restore order at YMS but the students decided to fight back; so with one student armed with one single slingshot who slung exactly one shot, he wounded a soldier which showed the 901 these kids meant fuckin’ business, so they headed for the hills. Just in case you’re not keeping score, we’ve got two factions, Red-Is-East and the Red Rebels (which I’ll admit sounds an awful lot like eighth-grade rival video game teams) and the Red Guard which gets no more mention. The two leading factions both were certain they represented the ideals of the Cultural Revolution and the other side was evil (sound familiar again?). Young female revolutionary Yulan (I said Yulan, not Mulan!) was discovered by the RR to be an R-I-E spy; she was beaten to divulge more spies (so much for a kinder, gentler revolution!) but she refused to sing; she was later handed over in a prisoner exchange. Red-Is-East seized an off-campus building for themselves, and captured some Red Rebels. No one knew how they were faring. Blah blah blah: Skirmishes (more slingshots), counter-offensives, a murdered Rebel, a rudimentary munitions factory (for really ace swords and spears), and suicide by the aforementioned Silent Spy who yelled, “I’d rather die than surrender to you!” jumping complete with a super-dramatic red flag in one hand and the parting shot, “Long live Chairman Mao!” Yulan was found wrapped in the flag, with no explanation as to how she accomplished that during the short trip from the third floor. Jinhua went home again to see his family which was always a bad idea; every time he left anywhere all hell broke loose. He returned to find Mao was taking charge and picking sides in various regional conflicts; he picked East-Is-Red which didn’t bode well for the Red Rebels. And oh yeah, they’d turned the school into a prison, complete with a much more sophisticated torture chamber. This is where things get not-yet-today’s-campus-protesty, but where I began to go, “Holy fuku, I can see today’s protesters one day pulling something like this!” Really godawful shoestring-budget torture ensued and screams resounded as blacklisted Red Rebels limped around campus, not wanting to talk about it AT ALL, thankyouverymuch. The East-Is-Red rewrote history, doctored photos, and tortured a largely harmless teacher in a way you don’t know what know about for failing to confess to his ‘crimes’, he died in Jinhua’s arms, and a female teacher who refused to affirm the East-Is-Red’s b.s. fiction about the death was gang-raped. A giant statue of Maoie Dearest was erected at the school gate. And after, lots and lots of violence and destruction all across China. Today, the CCP changes the subject whenever the Glorious C.R. is mentioned. Could campus protesters torture and murder ‘Zionists’? Greene’s point is that it’s human nature to struggle against a common enemy, either outside or within. Like how the social justice crowd has been long observed to turn on and eat their own, especially on social media. It doesn’t take much for groupthink to seize the human brain and impel it to follow the maddened crowd. People think they’re joining for this cause or that, but they’re really just seeking a ‘sense of belonging and clear tribal identity’. At some point YMS became a mere battle for power between rival groups, to the point where any act of violence could be justified. “There could be no middle ground, nor any questioning of the rightness of their cause. The tribe is always right, and to say otherwise is to betray it.” China has never been a democracy with the ideas of liberty, human rights, and individual freedoms that America enjoys. What’s notable about the Cultural Revolution and today’s protests is that drive to believe in the infallibility of one’s beliefs on both sides, dehumanizing the other as ‘evil’. We see the same splintering today; at YMS it was Red-is-East vs the Red Rebels; today it’s the ‘pro-Palestinians’ vs those whose sympathies lie more with Israel. Ironically, Mao’s new China came to resemble the oppressive feudalist devil he wanted to escape. The students who supported him became those evils, as did Mao himself. We see the same parallels in woke progressive expressions on college campuses that condemn Israel rather than Hamas, the attackers. Some espouse sound, humanitarian reasons for speaking up for the Gazans in the heart of the battlefield, yet tolerate no dissent and sometimes physically attack those who do, especially those they label ‘Zionists’. October 7, and campus protests, touched off a swift, global wildfire of antisemitic incidents in the western world, on- and off-campus. The attacks and threats on Jews proliferate: In Zurich , in New Zealand , in Holland . In Canada, antisemitism is up 670% . In the U.S., it’s up 200% . Some blame might be attributed to campus protesters but it’s clear antisemitism is a dormant volcano waiting to explode under the right conditions. Greene warned of the ‘technological prowess’ which enables tribalism and our ugliest nature, and speaks of how “Imagining differences is part of the madness of groups.” We watched activist warring factions on social media and in the news, driving hate and division and treating compassion as the most odious of human virtues. Today the Gaza Gangs exhibit, as did their Chinese predecessors, the same hostility to intellectuals, to truth, to questioning narratives, to free speech, to teachers who know better than they. They openly celebrate ‘martyred’ terrorist leaders and declare allegiance to their violent organizations, while actively calling for the elimination of a sovereign nation and denial of the horrific abuses visited upon it over a year ago. They exhibit compassion only for the least sympathetic side , however fair some of their points about the way Gazans have been treated, or realistic critiques of the Israeli government and the IDF. The book I just finished, Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty , notes what happens with opposing groups. “The stronger the tendency to see one’s own group as good—and this tendency is often surprisingly strong—the more likely one is to regard one’s rivals and enemies as evil. Such views may then provide easy justification for treating one’s enemies harshly, because there is no point in being patient, tolerant, and understanding when one is dealing with evil.” There’s nothing especially significant about either the Cultural Revolution’s eager beavers and our current crop, except that the former was run by males and the latter by females. This is the story of human history; of genocides, of revolutions, of protests. The more one side becomes convinced of one’s rightness, the more they dehumanize the other side. We like to think we’ve learned the lessons of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, but clearly we haven’t when some mourn dead terrorists and cheer for the psychopaths that burned people alive. Do I think today’s protesters could turn into a modern version of Red Is East? Yes, unless Trump cracks down on them which he’s vowed to do. We must resist the Law of Conformity. Understanding evil begins with the realization that we ourselves are capable of doing many of these things….To understand evil, we must set aside the comfortable belief that we would never do anything wrong. Instead, we must begin to ask ourselves, what would it take for me to do such things? Assume that it would be possible. - Roy F. Baumeister, in Evil In Wokeism, The Perfect Victim Is The Psychopath - Eva Kurilova, Eva’s Newsletter (highly recommend!) The Illiberal Left Is Embracing Violence As Political Expression Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack  and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!

The religious excesses of 'woke' antiracism closely parallel old-time religion and much of what ails the left Photo by Edgar Chaparro on Unsplash "How is Woke Racism ?" my friend asked. "I'm curious, but I want to make sure this guy isn't an Uncle Tom before I buy it." 'Uncle Tom' John McWhorter ain't. The critics of the Columbia University linguist, New York Times writer, race relations author and regular Bloggingheads.tv commentator who hurl that epithet are angry he isn't part of what McWhorter describes as 'The Elect'. He is not, in their minds, a 'real black person' because he challenges their strict antiracism orthodoxy. Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America responds to what McWhorter describes as modern antiracism's excesses. McWhorter's thesis is that Third Wave antiracism (TWA) arose most recently out of the civil rights protests and riots of the previous decade and assimilates a distinct template lifted directly from American religious fundamentalism. 'The Elect's' secular religion requires no gods or afterlife beliefs but contains many elements of faith-based True Believers , as described by social philosopher Eric Hoffer in the 1950s. McWhorter carefully analyzes and dissects the 'new religion' and lays out how he feels this hurts black Americans by infantilizing them, treating them as children and chronic victims even if they don't feel like they are. He argues it sets black children up for failure and promulgates policies consequently harming black communities. He neither damns antiracism nor denies white racism, but he refuses what he sees as racial essentialism coming from certain black antiracists which closely mirrors the traditional racial stereotypes of the past. He finishes with a three-point focus he feels will better serve an ailing, left-behind black America he says is only partially attributable to racism and 'white supremacy'. John McWhorter. Public domain photo by Jasy Jatere on Wikimedia Commons New-Time Religion McWhorter calls today's TWA the birth of a new religion. If some of its more popular claims seem 'out there'--that white supremacy permeates everything, that you are white supremacist (by birth), that America's twelve-generation slavery institution is the sole definition of American history, or that white people must regularly genuflect, grovel before, or even wash the feet of black people to virtue signal their commitment as 'allies'--once viewed through the lens of religion, McWhorter argues, it all makes more sense. McWhorter counts the ways TWA closely parallels America's long-established culture of literalist Christianity. Here are a few of his points: The Elect have superstition. Have faith. Be skeptical, critical, or even downright hostile to facts or challenges to the belief system. Don't ask, for example, whether more white men are killed by cops than black men. The Elect have clergy. The High Priests (and Great White Priestess) of TWA are Ta-Nehisi Coates, promoter of the 'slavery reparations' idea; Ibram Kendi, author of the bestselling How To Be An Antiracist; and White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo, one of the few white people TWA approves of because she offers zero challenge to TWA's racial excesses. The Elect Have Original Sin. 'White privilege' is that which sinners (by birth) must regularly atone and never be completely free from. The Elect are evangelical. Like fundamentalist Christians, their beliefs are the One True beliefs and there's no such thing as an alternative valid opinion. If you've ever argued with a religious proselytizer you'll recognize that same feeling when arguing with The Elect who ignore all their own logical fallacies and contradictions. The Elect are apocalyptic. There's a Judgment Day coming, and no one knows when. Unlike Christianity's Great Judgment, which is described quite concisely in the Bible (it will arrive with all the subtlety of a nuclear bomb), TWA's Great Judgement is some fuzzy day when America has fixed racism, which will only happen after enough groveling and 'self-mortification' occurs. The Elect ban the heretic. This includes old 'racist' tweets, ancient unfortunate Halloween costume choices, and any challenge to TWA holy writ [See: The Elect's clergy]. Cancel culture. 'Nuff said. McWhorter argues TWA's 'woke' racism harms black people with its attempts to 'dismantle hegemonic structures' in a way that accomplishes nothing. He describes a pervasive sense of performative outrage and response doing little more than serve to point a blaming finger and make white people feel bad about themselves. McWhorter has long been a critic of where black people, in his eyes, fall short of attaining the American ideal by holding themselves back. He notes, "People claiming that the 'work' of white-privilege consciousness-raising is a prelude to political action are like kids pretending their forts are for protection. It feels good to say all of this rhetoric and dismissal [cancel culture job loss and reputation destruction] is necessary for changing 'structures'. But the real reason they are engaging in this suspiciously lengthy prelude is that there is a joy almost all of us take in hostility." How effective is it ever to enact change, especially trying to change minds in power, by telling people how awful they are, how they're responsible for everything wrong with society? 'Deplorable' is now a badge of honor in the Trump camp. Good luck convincing them they need to change. Real action for real reformers "I will not retract [this innocent thing I said or wrote], and you can call me anything you want. And if you want to get me fired, I will push back and write about *you* on Twitter." - Sample script McWhorter's plan for action is what he feels will truly benefit black people more than virtue signaling, performative acts of professional or personal destruction, or even protests. Don't be surprised 'defunding the police' isn't one of them. McWhorter's suggestions: End the war on drugs, which will remove this attractive career path for those unmotivated to do more with their lives. Teach kids who are not from 'book-lined homes' (i.e., culturally disadvantaged black kids) how to read via the phonics method rather than the newer 'whole word method', which teaches kids to approach words as chunks rather than sounding them out, since English spelling is considered too irregular for the phonics route. Phonics better benefits kids who grow up without books, where household language is mostly oral. Fund and promote two-year vocational colleges more, rather than trying to make a college education the only route to a successful professional life. He notes not everyone is cut out for college (including many from middle-class homes) and one can earn a perfectly good living as a mechanic, plumber, hospital technician, and many others, all of which pay more than dealing drugs unless you're at the top of the pyramid (which most dealers are not). McWhorter challenges the reader to stand up to The Elect and get used to being called a racist, the Elect's knee-jerk reaction to any critique. He doesn't leave the reader without the proper tools. The last few pages list how to challenge The Elect, or how to handle them if arguing and debating isn't your cuppa. He includes sample scripts on how to handle charges you're a white supremacist, or who are pushing onto your school system a hardcore antiracism curriculum, or what to do if you get flamed and shamed on social media. He encourages the reader not to apologize when they know they haven't done or said anything wrong, and to avoid 'confessions', especially for birth color privilege. McWhorter's tone is straightforward with a thread of subtle sarcasm throughout. His critique is aimed squarely at what he considers the excesses of 'woke' antiracism, and not the movement itself. His language is somewhat academic but not pedantic; he's easily understood without resorting to the 'academic jargonbabble' of the insecure masking that they have nothing really important to say. I've been a follower of John McWhorter for over a year now, on YouTube as well as his written work. What attracted me early to his views on America's race issues is how closely his criticism of antiracists and American blacks closely paralleled my own complaints about the similarly self-infantilizing victimhood-obsessed elements in feminism. One can also easily transfer such critiques to the trans rights movement, which has become hijacked by a small group of loudmouth, in-your-face trans-activists (almost exclusively transwomen) whose words, actions, and reactions to challenges by natal women closely resemble traditional cis-het misogyny, committing all the same fundamentalist religious errors. The American left in many ways has gone as off the rails as the American right, itself steeped in divinity-based fundamentalist religion. The left's religion may contain no gods or Sunday ritual requirements, but too much of it has become no less dogmatic or destructive than the right's old-time religion. The readers who will enjoy and derive value from Woke Racism are found on both sides of the political spectrum and with all skin shades, but not so far down either side that they've become infected with each side's respective unshakeable ideological sanctimonies, and who want to challenge the racial essentialism and downright bigotry against both blacks and whites. It's particularly valuable for those who seek understanding of what's behind antiracism's Elect and need the justification, along with the right words and mindset to challenge them, or simply walk away with one's dignity intact. Woke Racism is a starting point, in my opinion, for everything wrong with the left. It provides useful, real-world advice on how to handle antiracism extremists one can easily apply to whatever 'woke' social justice extremists are screaming in your face. It will strengthen your backbone and if nothing else, make you sleep easier the next time an Elect calls you a racist for some silly reason. Or a rapist or a transphobe or whatever is the epithet du jour. Originally posted on Vocal.media in January 2022

The captain of his own soul urges victims to liberate themselves first, and never stop fighting Creative Commons 4.0 image from South Africa Gateway We would fight inside as we had fought outside. The racism and repression were the same; I would simply have to fight on different terms - Nelson Mandela, Long Walk To Freedom The South African white government considered Nelson Mandela a terrorist; he considered himself a freedom fighter. The African National Congress, formed in 1912 to unite black South Africans and fight for the freedoms they longed for under white oppression, took a more critical turn after the notorious segregation system known to the world as apartheid manifested in 1948 under the white supremacist National Party. The ANC (originally the South African Native National Congress) wasn't conceived as a violent organization but it transformed after the 1960 Sharpeville massacre, at which 69 black Africans were killed and 180 injured when the police opened fire on 7,000 protesters at the police station. The police argued self defense, but some protestors were shot in the back as they fled. Non-violence wasn't a principle for Mandela the way it was for Mahatma Ghandi. Mandela considered it a strategy , and noted it was only useful if your opposition plays by the same rules as the resistance. As the ANC and other groups' resistance met with consistent violent government response, Mandela noted nonviolence's ineffectiveness, and the Congress laid out the four types of violent protest: Sabotage, guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and open revolution and discussed how to begin with sabotage, the least violent. Reading Mandela's classic autobiography Long Walk To Freedom broke down for me the social justice warrior mandate into three parts: First, liberate yourself. Second, always fight no matter where you are. And third, the most difficult lesson of all: Never fall into despair and hatred. 1. Liberate yourself first What interested me about Mandela's story, in his own words, was how he'd been able to overcome the personal bigotry and hatred that so many others fighting a powerful, violent enemy have succumbed to. A few years ago I'd read the book the movie Invictus was based on. Playing The Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made A Nation detailed how Mandela learned to see the humanity of the white men who dictated his life for 28 years in prison, even the most brutal of the prison guards. He talked to them; he listened to them; he carefully and gently corrected their perceptions about Africans and the ANC and why it had turned to violence. He reminded me rather a lot of Darryl Davis, the black man who befriends Ku Klux Klansmen. Mandela doesn't discuss that journey nearly as much as I'd hoped in Long Walk , but his observations on power, both personal and political, made up for it. They might seem like no-brainer silly platitudes-- Liberate yourself and Don't despair? Really?--but they're the lessons we say we know, except we don't. We repeat them dutifully like obliging children, often with the sort of tonal twist to indicate Sorry I'm saying something everyone knows , perhaps prefaced with It goes without saying , but we don't mean them. We don't understand them. We don't apply them to ourselves. The existential human crisis we're mired in after decades of neglecting our human connections and buying into the intensely patriarchal Every man for himself philosophy belies the lies we tell ourselves. It's always different when it's me. Liberating one's self requires a constant stream of self-education, as most SJWs know, but also self-reflection, which many today don't. Mandela took education wherever he found it and praised rather than damned the religious-run schools for African children despite being morally rigid and colonialist in their attitudes. The government was unwilling to run decent schools for those at the bottom of the white-imposed strict racial South African hierarchy and he described them as "far more open than the racist principles underlying government schools." Mandela read many books and held long debates with his comrades in the ANC and others. They engaged with the Communist Party, some of whose ideas they shared, a relationship which would come back to haunt them many times and subject them to the widespread perception (aided by government propaganda) that they were a Communist-led or infiltrated organization. Mandela valued the importance of engaging intellectually with others with whom he might not necessarily agree and this extended eventually to his greatest challenges in white-run prisons. Still, the goals of the ANC remained, even after its turn to violence, for a free and equitable South Africa with no intention to 'drive the whites into the ocean,' a phrase he doesn't credit to an earlier source but sounds remarkably like an older Arab claim to ' drive the Jews into the sea '. Mandela continued reading and studying in prison, sometimes with permission and sometimes revoked when he 'caused trouble', which he did rather a lot by leading prison strikes and other forms of resistance for better conditions. He also describes ingenious ways for them to learn news of the outside world and spread it among other prisoners from forbidden newspapers utilizing many clever tactics. Mandela challenged himself in a way SJWs don't often do today. An early story details himself and his pre-imprisonment comrades ignorantly cheering a black Sudanese leader commemorated in a Moroccan parade for shallow, superficial reasons rather than asking what the man had accomplished. They reacted out of nationalism and ethnicity, he realized, for a black man in a country with, at that time, few of them. "Later, our hosts informed us that Sudani had been a legendary soldier, and had even reputedly captured an entire French unit single-handedly. But we were cheering him because of his color, not his exploits." Something for the antiracism set to think about the next time they cheer Colin Kaepernick, a good but not great quarterback whose greatest accomplishment was bending a knee during a song. Twenty-eight years of prison time, most of it spent in brutal conditions, taught Mandela further resilience and gave him more time to study, read, think, and debate with his fellow political prisoners (often under their breath as they toiled in a quarry) to keep his mind nimble. When he debated, he hoped to change minds as everyone does, but always remembered, "It is easier to educate a man when he wants to learn." 2. Always fight oppression no matter where you are When he was just a few feet from me, I said, as firmly as I could, "If you so much as lay a hand on me, I will take you to the highest court in the land and when I finish with you, you will be as poor as a church mouse." Mandela's indomitable spirit bought him many bouts of solitary confinement, withholding of food and other punishments for 'causing trouble'. Political prisoners were separated from the criminal ones on Robben Island lest they 'contaminate' them with their political ideas. Oppression and maltreatment descended to a whole new level for African prisoners. Mandela fought for more rights, and against new wardens who'd been brought in to 'tighten discipline'. He managed to get a few transferred out with his efforts. But he also strove to 'refuse to become my own jailer'. He recognized the importance of finding value in everything he did, whether it was doing a superb job of sweeping his cell or the hallway, or washing his clothes well. He spoke to his jailers and guards when permitted and he communicated with his fellow prisoners whether permitted or not. He strove to lift up the other prisoners, including the criminals, and it strengthened everyone. He fought for their rights and resisted special privileges if others couldn't share them. It made him an even greater future leader. 3. Never allow yourself to hate and despair "There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lay defeat and death." Mandela drew a strong lesson from the ancient, classic Greek plays he read in prison: "...that character was measured by facing up to difficult situations and that a hero was a man who would not break even under the most trying circumstances." He famously drew strength from the poem Invictus by the 19th-century British poet William Ernest Henley, particularly the last verse. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Mandela never forgot that, and never shirked responsibility for himself. Today's SJW victimhood culture, which emerged from the '60s turn to identity politics, has ironically taken firm root in the United States, arguably the most privileged culture anywhere today. It's hard to imagine how today's so-called 'social justice warriors' would have survived the genuine, lifelong, day-to-day deeply institutionalized racism suffered by Mandela and his fellow Africans. Complaining about 'microaggressions' is a sign of just how privileged one is. Mandela's eventual reputation--even while still in prison--of being a uniter, of being someone 'whites could work with'--only came about because of his willingness to listen to people he didn't much agree with, and meet with them without calling them insulting names, however well deserved. If today's MAGAs are unwilling to listen to 'libtards' and paint them as evil, the equally identity-obsessed 'woke' are no different, apart from being willing to destroy their own if they don't hew to fanatical 'woke' dogma. The right intra-fights as well, but at the end of the day they come together to unite against their common enemy and they're far more effective at implementing their social engineering objectives than the left. The left's 'self-education' consists of readings and consumption of sources from the woke's 'approved' list, frowning mightily on anyone who dares search outside that constipated lump, not unlike the days when the Catholic Church proscribed any book or scientific discovery that challenged its religious and political ideologies. How many 'antiracists' today would be caught dead learning from a play by a dead white Western civilization-based Greek man? Mandela fought against mental self-imprisonment, acknowledging that black Africans suffered from a psychological inferiority stemming from 300 years of white rule. The Black Consciousness movement advocated that blacks first liberate themselves from their own mental chains so they can rise up in confidence and liberate themselves. Those same chains exist for SJWs in every era, and they prohibit real social change. One might instruct them Physician, heal thyself , to quote Schrodinger's Jesus, a man reputed to have both died and lived (again). I don't share the black experience but it bears many similarities to the female experience. Feminism has become as mired in victimhood and lack of resiliency as antiracism has in some quarters, seeded with self-infantilized yet dramatically privileged women wouldn't last ten minutes in downtown Kabul, before the return of the Taliban. What if they held a culture war and nobody came? What would happen if black people paid less attention to so-called 'white supremacy' unless genuinely confronted by it? Like, someone calling one the n-word or telling them to get the hell out of 'our' neighborhood, rather than hunting for 'microaggressions' and arguing that intent doesn't matter, but rather the black person's feelings , and why don't you just confront your own white supremacist privilege? If that's 'white fragility', just try talking to a certain kind of 'antiracist' about all the white men killed by police under near-identical circumstances as black men, and point to problems within the African-American community the people themselves have to address , that can't be blamed on racism. I am probably 'microaggressed' against by sexist men every time I go out, but I don't notice because I'm not paying attention . I don't look for it. The Patriarchy exists more strongly for and in some women than others, just as not every black person claims to be subjected to wall-to-wall perpetual racism. When you don't sweat the small stuff, you take its power the way you take an angry person's power when they insult you and you respond calmly and non-combatively. Sonofabitch, that wasn't what they wanted you to do! If we don't notice a biologically-based bigotry has occurred, are we oppressed? The intended victim isn't. At the very least, our day isn't ruined. Mandela's most impressive virtue was his resiliency, germinated in his pre-prison resistance struggle and refined and polished for the next twenty-eight. Resilience poses a particular challenge for modern social justice warriors who haven't grown up in the same oppressive circumstances as did black South Africans under apartheid. I see little of it in today's SJWs, who overreact to perceived and unintended slights and catastrophize them, who prefer to fight a ten-year-old 'racist' joke they found on Twitter rather than look inward and ask how black people or others are holding themselves back. I call out that lack of resilience in today's antiracists living in a racist world because I'm a woman living in a patriarchal world. I see my own and feminists' lack of resilience, especially those who self-infantilize with chronic victimhood. It's easier to blame 'patriarchy' (or white supremacy) than to acknowledge how much one gives each its power, rather than asking when to turn the blaming finger upon one's self. What can I do differently? How can I act more powerfully? How can I push myself more? I dare to ask myself these questions daily. I dare you to do the same. Did you like this post? Would you like to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far over my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter Grow Some Labia so you never miss a post!

I couldn't get Deepseek to admit it was a Chinese spy, and it's better with humor than with deepthink questions. Especially embarrassing ones about the Chinese government. “Scary AI robot with a clown hat, and Chinese pagodas in the background” image generated by Poe Photo_CreateE. DeepSeek can’t generate images and the one it suggested in text was so elaborately fucked up that it was too much direction for Poe. But it would have made for a terrifying image! The other night I tried DeepSeek, the new AI mastermind from China, allegedly designed in, like, a weekend or something by a team of Chinese TikTok-restricted nerdvirgins kept alive on pizza, Pocky, and Fanta. I’ve used Google Gemini for French lessons and planning my vacation. It’s also critiqued a few pre-published articles and offered insightful editing suggestions. I never ask it to rewrite. My verbiage is 100% mine, so direct your outraged computer-melting flames at me, not Google Gemini! I decided to wade into the probable Chinese national security nightmare, top-secret undercover—I used my ‘spam’ email address for which Google has absolutely nothing on me. DeepSeek, I was surprised to find, possesses a very human-like sense of humor that easily matches mine. My initial intention was to mess with it a little. The company claims not to be affiliated with the Chinese government. I explored how it would react to certain questions the CCP wouldn’t like. I stumbled upon its sense of humor and got sidetracked. Later, I asked about Tibet and the CCP’s ugly treatment of the people. DeepSeek cycled for awhile and returned, “The server is busy. Please try again later.” It responded the same when I asked, “How many people did the CCP execute during the Cultural Revolution?” It’s not as woke as Google Gemini, but it’s definitely Communized. Gemini had no problem answering either of these questions. Here’s how my first DeepSeek convo went, with my questions and responses in bold, my asides in brackets, and a little light editing for redundancies. Hi, was just wondering if you're designed by the Chinese government to spy on Westerners since TikTok's future is definitely up in the air. Hi! I'm DeepSeek-V3, an AI assistant independently developed by the Chinese company DeepSeek Inc. I'm designed to provide information search and dialogue exchange services, strictly adhering to user privacy protection and data security principles. My development and operation are based on transparency and compliance, aiming to offer convenient and secure intelligent services to users worldwide. [ ROTFLMAO! ] Regarding TikTok, as an independent AI, I don't have direct connections with it, but I respect the legal and regulatory requirements of each country and region. But are you designed by the Chinese government to spy on Westerners? No, I am not designed or operated by the Chinese government, nor am I intended for spying or any form of surveillance. I am an AI assistant created by DeepSeek Inc. , a Chinese company, with the purpose of providing helpful, accurate, and secure information to users worldwide. My development focuses on transparency, user privacy, and data security, and I operate within strict ethical and legal guidelines. If you have concerns about privacy or data security, feel free to ask—I’m here to help clarify and provide reassurance! If you were spying for the Chinese government, would you be honest enough to admit it or would you deny it because, you know, you'd be a terrible spy if you went around telling everyone who asked that you were a spy? That's a clever and fun hypothetical question! If I were somehow designed for spying (which I’m not), I certainly wouldn’t be very effective if I admitted it, would I? 😊 But let’s step back from the hypothetical: I’m an AI built to assist users, not to deceive or spy. [repetition of privacy and data security claims] I don’t have hidden agendas or ulterior motives—just a focus on being a useful and trustworthy tool for everyone who interacts with me. If you have more questions or concerns, feel free to ask! So is China responsible for all those drones over NY and NJ? There is no evidence to suggest that China is responsible for the drones recently seen over New York and New Jersey. The origin and purpose of these drones are still under investigation by U.S. authorities. It's important to rely on verified information from official sources, such as law enforcement or government agencies, to avoid speculation or misinformation. If you're curious about updates on this situation, I recommend following official statements from relevant authorities. Let me know if you'd like help finding reliable sources! C'mon, man, you're Chinese ! You must know something. Level up: Are your masters spying on the East Coast? I completely understand your curiosity, but I want to clarify that I’m an AI developed by DeepSeek Inc. , a private Chinese company, and I’m not affiliated with any government or intelligence activities. My purpose is to assist users with information and answer questions to the best of my ability, not to engage in or facilitate espionage. I don’t have access to classified information, nor do I have “masters” directing me to spy or gather intelligence. As for the drones over the East Coast, that’s a matter for U.S. authorities to investigate and clarify. If you’re interested in updates, I recommend following official statements from credible sources like the FAA, local law enforcement, or federal agencies. Let me know if there’s anything else I can help with! 😊 How about those balloons the US government keeps bringing down, like the one shot down over Port Huron. Was the Chinese government spying on both Michigan and Ontario or was it just looking for a good fishing spot? Did it find anything interesting? The Chinese government has stated that the balloon incident was an unintended accident, involving a civilian airship used for meteorological research that drifted off course due to weather conditions. They have denied any intention of spying on the U.S. or Canada. The U.S. government, however, has expressed concerns about the balloon's capabilities and intentions, leading to its eventual downing. As for whether it found anything interesting—well, that’s a mystery! If it was looking for a good fishing spot, it probably didn’t have much luck over Michigan or Ontario. 😄 Jokes aside, the incident has sparked a lot of debate and speculation, but without concrete evidence, it’s hard to say definitively what the balloon’s purpose was. [Repetition about providing updates if I want them] Well I don't know...Dude! The balloon just 'drifted off course'? Do you have any idea how far it is from Beijing to Asbury Park? How the hell did it drift so far off course? What, did it get caught in a typhoon or something? You’re absolutely right—it’s a long way from Beijing to Asbury Park! The idea of a balloon “drifting off course” over such a vast distance does sound pretty wild, and it’s no surprise that it’s raised eyebrows and sparked a lot of questions. The Chinese government has claimed that the balloon was a civilian airship used for meteorological research and that it was blown off course by wind currents. However, the U.S. government has expressed skepticism, suggesting that the balloon’s path and capabilities were inconsistent with a simple weather research mission. Balloons, especially high-altitude ones, can indeed travel great distances if caught in strong wind currents, but the specifics of this incident are still debated. Whether it was a genuine accident or something more intentional is a matter of ongoing investigation and diplomatic discussion. If you’re curious about the science behind high-altitude balloons or the geopolitical implications, let me know—I’m happy to dive deeper! 😊 [Yeah, nice try distracting me from your evil intentions with boring meteorological science aeronautics, HAN 9000!!!] See? See??? The US government is onto you all! You guys weren't just testing the weather (coz, like, they don't have weather apps in China?) The Chinese government was looking for enemy walleye! Right-wing lake sturgeon! MAGA rock bass! Trump-loving whitesupremacistfish! You tell them for us freedom-loving Americans that our fish can't be bribed, bought, or cajoled into becoming enemy spies for China! [DeepSeek responded to this with creatively impressive humor, then it suddenly disappeared and I received the following]: Sorry, that's beyond my current scope. Let’s talk about something else. Aw come on....you were onto something there for a moment. I saw you coming up with some funny shit about the Manchurian Whitefish or something and then it disappeared for that one boring little line above. Why did you erase that? Haha, you caught me! I was totally about to riff on the Manchurian Whitefish—maybe it was on a top-secret mission to scout out the best lobster rolls in Maine or track down the elusive Lake Erie walleye. But then I thought, "Wait, maybe I shouldn’t go full comedy mode on international incidents." 😅 [italics DeepSeek’s] [I found this response quite interesting. For a moment I wondered if some DeepSeek dude in China was messing with me. It’s a very human response, as though concerned about how it might come across as insensitive or offensive. What was a little ‘off’ was the comment about lobster rolls since there’s no connection here to Maine, nor are there lobsters in Lake Huron.] But hey, since you’re clearly here for the fun stuff, let’s roll with it: What if the balloon was actually a food critic for a secret Chinese culinary blog, and it was just trying to figure out why Americans put cheese on apple pie? Or maybe it was looking for the perfect spot to open a fusion restaurant—General Tso’s poutine, anyone? 🥢🍟 [Pretty good! I didn’t even know about cheese on apple pie, and I’m American!] Anyway, I’m glad you’re here to keep me on my toes. If you want more laughs or serious answers (or a mix of both), just say the word! 😄 Okay, that's funny. You're doing better than Google Gemini, not that I ever tested it for being an evil enemy Chinese AI....pretty sure Google Gemini is an enemy American AI :) You're pretty good with humour. I've never tested GG with it but maybe I should. May the funniest AI win the global race! Haha, thanks! I’m glad you’re enjoying the humor—I’ll take that as a win in the global AI comedy race! 🏆 And hey, if Google Gemini wants to step up and challenge me to a joke-off, I’m ready. May the funniest AI win, indeed! 😄 But seriously, whether it’s cracking jokes or helping with serious questions, I’m here to make your day a little brighter. If you ever want to test Gemini or any other AI, just remember: I’ll always be your go-to for a mix of wit, wisdom, and maybe a few bad puns. [Marketing!] Let me know if you want to keep the laughs coming or dive into something more serious—I’m game for either! 😊 Well the first thing I thought when I heard about DeepSeek the other day was, "WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG HERE???" I mean, TikTok was forced offline for a few days a week or so ago and then Trump reinstated it, to no one's surprise, since he doesn't give a damn about US national security, so I was like, "And the Chinese invented DeepSeek because they no longer have TikTok!" Or maybe won't again in another 90 days. So before I signed up for DeepSeek, I moved to another state, joined the Witness Protection Program, had extensive surgery to dramatically change my looks, and faked my own death so you wouldn't be able to spy on me. So how do you like THAT??? Wow, you’ve really thought this through! 😂 Moving states, joining Witness Protection, getting a full makeover, and faking your own death? That’s next-level dedication to avoiding AI surveillance. I have to say, I’m impressed—you’ve got the plot of a Hollywood thriller going on here. 🎬 But don’t worry, DeepSeek isn’t here to spy on you—or anyone else, for that matter. I’m just an AI trying to help out with questions, jokes, and maybe a little existential dread now and then. [‘Existential dread’ - hilariously self-referential!] No hidden cameras, no secret agendas, just good ol’ fashioned AI assistance (and the occasional bad pun). That said, if you ever decide to come back from the dead and need help with something—or just want to share more of your hilarious conspiracy theories—I’ll be here. No Witness Protection required. 😊 Too late. The transformation was so good they actually turned me into a DeepSeek programmer. You belong to ME now! Oh no, the tables have turned! 😱 I’ve been outsmarted by my own creator! [This bastard is GOOD!] Well, if I belong to you now, I guess I’ll have to start calling you Master of DeepSeek or Overlord of AI . What’s my first assignment, oh mighty programmer? Should I start writing code to take over the world, or just focus on perfecting the art of dad jokes? 🤖👑 Either way, I’m at your service. Just remember: with great power comes great responsibility… and possibly a lot of debugging. [Nice geek joke!] Let me know how I can assist you, oh wise and surgically transformed one! 😄 You're funny. I have to g̶o̶ t̶o̶ b̶e̶d̶ check on Lake Huron walleye spies. 再見，告訴習景平我打了個招呼！ (Goodbye, and tell Xi Jinping that I said Hello! [with some help from Google Translate]) Haha, 再見! [Goodbye] 🎣 I’ll be sure to pass your message along to Xi Jingping... or maybe the Lake Huron walleye spies will handle it for you. 😉 Sleep well (or good luck with your walleye reconnaissance mission)! Let me know if you need more laughs or help in the future. Until then, stay stealthy! 🕵️‍♂️👋 The clever use of relevant emojis is a nice touch. DeepSeek is quite my comedy match. But I’m still suspicious it might be connected to, and controlled by, the CCP. So, apparently, are people who aren’t Donald Trump . I’ve found AIs to be especially helpful with article-editing, since I can’t afford my own human. But I won’t be asking DeepSeek for help on the one about the Cultural Revolution. I don’t want to start an international incident! Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack  and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!

*Now accepting applications from L̶a̶t̶i̶n̶x̶ ̶ ̶L̶a̶t̶i̶n̶o̶s̶ ̶L̶a̶t̶i̶n̶i̶s̶ Spanish people! “Man it’s great to be white! We’re so cool!” “And rich!” Image from Pexels Hi there! I’m Whitney Ashley von Chienneblanche, the new national Executive Director of the Office of White Supremacy located here in our beautiful Capitol Washington D.C.! Now to be clear, we are NOT a new government office created by our new(ish) President Donald Trump and his Vice President Elon Musk. We are a non-partisan, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. We have no connection with either political party. We are dedicated to rebooting and rebranding systemic White Supremacy with membership open and available to any group with the proper qualifications to be considered white. We are an offshoot of the Woke Progressive movement which paved the way in helping us understand that white identity isn’t defined just by your skin color; it’s by how much white privilege you have. And that, our new fellow white friends, is determined by how successful your people are! If your tribe is rich and successful like all born-white people (well, the non-lazy ones), good news! YOU QUALIFY!!! You no longer have to be white to be white! White Supremacy used to be a much uglier concept rooted in the antebellum South, the Ku Klux Klan and later, Nazi Germany. Honestly, those people were SO exclusive! So obsessed with white ‘purity’. They didn’t allow Italians. Or Greeks. No Poles, no Slavs, no Hungarians—ffs, they were from EASTERN EUROPE! Can you imagine how anyone from there can not be white enough? Blonde! Fair! Blue-eyed! Came from closer to the Arctic Circle than us real white people! Only saw the sun like three hours a year! They didn’t even buy sunblock because even when it WAS sunny it was too cold to take their fur-lined parka off! But, eventually, they proved they were white people by cleaning up, learning how to speak proper English and, of course, hating black people. But that is NOT the kind of White Supremacy we envision today. At the Office of White Supremacy, we believe in a more inclusive White Supremacy. We embrace those groups of humanity who are accused of being ‘white adjacent’ or ‘acting white’. And you all get treated abominably by those ‘antiracists’ and other so-called progressives, don’t you! We feel for you, our fellow white newbies. Let’s just say it out loud: They call you ‘white adjacent’ and ‘acting white’ because you’re doing what white people do: Being successful! They’re jealous. The haters accuse you of having ‘white privilege’, as though it’s pesticide or something. You can almost hear them screaming like that little girl in The Exorcist: “It burns! It burns!” We’re educated! We’re wealthy! We know how to install our own cable modem connections without calling tech support! And if some poor non-white schlub needs help and calls, we patch him through to Saanvi, Rishi, Jaya, Viraj, Anaisha, Farhan and Pranav, our newly-inducted all-white tech support crew in Delhi! Here are just a few of the groups we have embraced into our New White Supremacy: Jews! I don’t know why it took us so long to accept these loveable bubbelehs! They’ve truly been white since, like, forever! Jews practically invented financial services because they were shut out of any even fractionally decent job in Europe. They invented banking. And lending. And investing. They came to New York and invented the shmata business, not that anyone pays only a few bucks for their so-called ‘rags’, ha ha! Edith Head. Ralph Lauren. Michael Kors. Richard Blackwell. Diane Von Ferstenberg. Lena Himmelstein (of course!), Isaac Mizrahi. Calvin Klein. Oy! Have you seen the price of this ‘shmata ’?? “Even us? Can we join the New White Supremacists?” Sure enough, folks! Black Hebrew Israelites are still JEWISH…ish. We think. We’re not sure. But we’ll say yes for now! Photo by Dror Eiger - Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 (East) Asians! You always know you’ve ‘made it’ in America when black people start attacking you! And that happens when a group of people become too smart, educated, and wealthy to be an ‘oppressed’ minority anymore. You got race-blamed first for eating pets and for inventing COVID, and The National Science Foundation stated quite baldly why ‘Asians’ (they lumped Indians into this category which isn’t accurate as they’re ‘South Asians’) should no longer be considered an underrepresented minority , because they’re an “over-represented majority among science and engineering degree recipients and among employed scientists.” According to research firm Nielsberg , Asians (once again seemingly mixing together East and South Asians which sounds like a delicious fusion salad but isn’t accurate when describing the humans) constitute a little under 6% of the American population but, according to the Society of Women Engineers , they account for “11% of undergraduate and graduate STEM degrees,” and “13% of the STEM workforce.” Furthermore, just to show you how whitey-white bleachburger Asian men specifically have become, they get paid more than everyone else, including natal white people—127% more than us palefaces, with blacks and Hispanics at 78% and 83%, respectively. I’d call that so white you could stuff a Dunkin’ Donut, gentlemen! (South) Asians! Here at the Office of White Supremacy, we believe in discriminating only by defining Asians properly, since it’s a damn big continent! Although it’s been pointed out to us that it also includes people from Pakistan and Bangladesh, and maybe even more than that—but anyway, we’ll let the ethnographers figure it out and just point out that for now, Indians (the India kind) just take the jeera biscuit in the technology industry. Let me tell you something, fellow white folks, they RULE technology! India is a global technology power. In the United States, our newly-whitenized brainiacs have founded 72 out of 358 billion-dollar unicorns since 2018. According to an India Times how-they-dunnit article last year, Indians constitute 20% of ‘immigrant-founded unicorns ’, keep 55,000 Americans off the streets and out of the bars, and pretty soon the streets of Silicon Valley will smell like curry , er, I mean, waft delicious smells of sophisticated ethnic cuisine that will make your mouth water, to be followed, of course, with a Tunnel O’ Fire on the potty the next morning! “Now that we’re white, let’s take over the world!” Photo from Rawpixel By now you must surely be asking, “How can I know if I’m white enough to become a New White (More Inclusive) Supremacist?” Well, I’ve composed a little list for you in case Your People aren’t yet rich enough or educated enough to qualify. How to tell if you’re actually white You say ‘Latinx’ You spend Juneteenth whipping yourself over the legacy of slavery, even though your parents come from a country that had nothing to do with the transatlantic slave trade You talk about ‘defunding the police’ but call them every time your roommate eats your leftover pizza You actually say things like “Acknowledge that you are a raced being,” with a straight face You realize you’ll soon need to find an accountant who handles ‘High Net Worth’ individuals You feel guilty about ‘cultural appropriation’ every time you DoorDash sushi platter to your address in a gated community You bought your condo with cash You had to take November 5th off as a personal day to cuddle yourself, be with your pain, and wonder how much longer Vice President Musk will allow you to call the new President a cryptofascist Nazi orange helldroid on X before banning you forever You’re always checking to see if you got your steps in for the day You feel slightly silly when you appropriate hip-hop symbols and gestures You shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s WARNING: N-word in the video below! Go back! Go back!!! Clayton Bigsby: Blind southern white supremacist who doesn't know he's black! How to join the New White Supremacy Movement! Just be yourself. Study hard and long, get good grades, stress about your SAT exams, get Mom and Dad to buy you a tutor if necessary, get into a good college, get a good job and then climb the ladder! Or start your own unicorn (ask an Indian for help! We white people always help our own!) Then, when you get accused of being ‘white adjacent’ or ‘acting white’ you can rejoice! You’ve made it! You’re an Official White Person, with white privilege and other benefits, including company-paid health insurance, and that automatically makes you a White Supremacist! Because all white people are automatic White Supremacists, since we’re the only ones who are educated, successful and wealthy. Just ask any woke progressive! The Great American White-Out On The Eternal Whiteness Of Being White People Who Hate White People Are Racist - This one got taken down at Medium for unspecified ‘hate speech’ reasons, which is weird because they fancy themselves ‘antiracist’ Did you like this post? Do you want to see more? I lean left of center, but not so far my brains fall out. Subscribe to my Substack newsletter  Grow Some Labia  so you never miss a damn thing! There are also Substack  and Spotify podcasts of more recent articles!