Camille Paglia, Free Women, Free Men

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Camille Paglia, Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism.

Candice Jackson Appointed to Lead the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights

In terms of power, controlling the executive branch bureaucracy's up there with holding the majority on the Supreme Court.

It's going to take a while to clean out Obama's treasonous deep state, but the extremely politicized "Office for Civil Rights" at the Department of Education (in charge of Title IX regulations) is an excellent place to start.

At Instapundit, "SOUNDS LIKE A GOOD APPOINTMENT TO ME":

Report: New Head of Federal Anti-Rape Agency Is a ‘Libertarian Feminist’ and Clinton Critic; Candice Jackson will allegedly become deputy secretary at the Office for Civil Rights. “A conservative legal activist known for defending the women who accused President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment has been tapped to head the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on a temporary basis. OCR is the agency that regulates Title IX compliance, and is responsible for the recent effort to compel schools to police sexual assault internally.”

The Dark Side of Gender Segregation in the Military

This is pretty interesting.

I've done pretty much zero reading and study in this area, so just read it all at the link without comment from me.

From Molly Kovite, at War on the Rocks:

What you need to know about gender segregation in the US military https://t.co/c1CqgPJblp

— War On The Rocks (@WarOnTheRocks) March 25, 2017

Rebecca Traister: The Women's March Was an 'Earth Shaking Triumph'

Leftists seem to have abandoned any talk about moderating their message, about reaching out to working class white voters, especially blue-collar men.

Rebecca Traister's freakin' hardcore, man. I read her piece on abortion rights a couple of weeks ago and it as like manifesto for infant genocide.

In any case, here's her latest, "The Future of the Left Is Female: Women’s rights are human rights, and women leaders are progressive leaders:

@PatriarchTree It's Rebecca Traister, again: The Future of the Left Is Female https://t.co/OTnSmBsT3t #WomensMarch

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 24, 2017

A lot of people predicted that women were going to change America’s political history in January of 2017. But pretty much no one anticipated that they’d be doing it as leaders of the resistance. On Saturday, millions of women and men — organized largely by young women of color — staged the largest one-day demonstration in political history, a show of international solidarity that let the world know that women will be heading up the opposition to Donald Trump and the white patriarchal order he represents. Women — and again, especially women of color, always progressivism’s most reliable and least recognized warriors, the women who did the most to stop the rise of Trump — were the ones taking progressive politics into the future.

The Women’s March, dreamed up by a couple of women with no organizing experience in the feverish, grief-addled hours after Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, and then organized by an expanded team in the span of about ten weeks, was an earth-shaking triumph.

According to early reports, it drew somewhere north of 680,000 to Washington, D.C., 750,000 to Los Angeles, 400,000 to New York City, 250,000 to Chicago, 100,000 each to Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, the Twin Cities, and Portland Oregon; and crowds of thousands to smaller cities, including 11,000 to Ann Arbor, 5,000 to Lexington, Kentucky, 8,000 to Honolulu, and 20,000 to Houston. There were 2,000 protesters in Anchorage, Alaska, and 1,000 in Jackson, Mississippi. Demonstrations took place on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

This mass turnout in support of liberty, sorority, and equality was conceived by women, led by women, and staged in the name of women. It also drew millions of men. It was a forceful pushback to the notion that because a woman just lost the American presidency, women should not be leading the politics of the left. Women, everyone saw on Saturday, are already leading the left, reframing what has historically been understood as the women’s movement as the face and body and energy of what is now the Resistance.

Plenty of factors made this effort so successful, but perhaps the biggest was the shock and horror that jolted portions of a long-complacent population awake after the election of Donald Trump. As it turns out, sometimes, It Takes a Villain. We’ve got one now; he lives in the White House, has the nuclear codes, and spent Saturday defending the size of his, er, inauguration crowds. In his first weeks in office, he might very well nominate an anti-choice Supreme Court nominee, begin deportations, repeal health-care reform, start the process of withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, and defund Planned Parenthood. He has already reinstated the Global Gag Rule.

Yes, Trump exposed himself as a villain long before the election, and for many on the day of the march, the question was: Where was this energy before November 8? Clearly, the vast majority of Saturday’s crowd had been Hillary Clinton supporters, at the very least in the general election if not in the primary. But it is also true that some of the apathy, some of the complacency, that many critics took as a reflection of Clinton’s “flawed” candidacy stemmed instead from the sense that Americans didn’t really need to panic or take to the streets on her behalf because she was going to win. She was going to win, the assumption went, because of course we are evolved enough that this guy could never get elected president and thus we were free to focus on the imperfections of the woman who was going to be the president.

Through this lens, those who had been out there before the election, wearing T-shirts, holding signs, and talking passionately about the sexism Clinton was facing or racist backlash toward Obama or the high stakes of this election for women and people of color were silly bed-wetters, Hill-bots, embarrassing in their fixations on “identity politics.” Those yelling about sexism were playing some dated “woman card”; those trying to explain how gender and race and class intersect were jargon-happy hysterics. There was a confidence that the country’s problems with women had been largely redressed, or at least were no longer so entrenched that we would have to put in extra work on behalf of the first one to be running for the White House. But that confidence was baseless, ahistorical. The country has a yuge problem with women, and Donald Trump is the cartoonish embodiment of that problem.

If a time traveler had been able to jump just 24 hours backward, from the night of November 8 to the night of November 7, to warn us what was about to happen, Election Day turnout would have looked a lot more like the march turnout, not just in numbers but in energy and purpose and passion. But since reverse time travel remains largely a right-wing goal, we got Donald Trump. Of course, we also got 4 million or more people to the streets on Saturday and a sense of the potential for the women’s movement to be both much larger and much broader than it’s ever been before...

Wonder Woman's Visceral Impact (VIDEO)

The U.N. has named Wonder Woman the Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls.

This fills Lynda Carter with pride. And she makes a point that she first did this role 40 years ago. She looks great --- she looks like she could still do the role, va va voom!

At CBS This Morning:

'Men Going Their Own Way'

Heh.

Check out this very interesting post at the Other McCain, "Attention @MGTOW: Survey Question." And be sure to read the comments. I think R.S. McCain missed his calling as a psychologist:

Scapegoating the opposite sex for our romantic disappointments is a problem for both men and women. Learning to accept responsibility for your own problems means learning how to adjust your expectations to the reality of your situation, rather than blaming other people because your dreams haven't come true.

More.

BONUS: Helen Smith, Men on Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - and Why It Matters.

U.S. Men's Gymnasts Want Olympics Competition to Be Topless

News articles are saying "shirtless" competition, but that's a gendered description.

It'd be non-sexist to say 'topless' competition, since obviously if men are "objectified" the objectifiers are going be women (primarily, since I'm sure a lot of homosexual men wouldn't mind male topless competition).

If you're seeing all these hot social media and TV celebrities taking off their shirts (tops) on Instagram and Twitter, no one's calling them "shirtless" selfies. Nope. "Topless" hotties are going to generate way better search results for the leftist hacks at Google, lol.

In any case, some Rule 5 for the ladies.

At WSJ, "U.S. Male Gymnasts Want to Be Objectified":

Training in the training hall complete! Team looking good #TEAMUSA pic.twitter.com/kXGTAEOFy8

— Jake Dalton (@jake_dalton) August 1, 2016

When the United States men’s gymnastics team came to the site of the Olympics earlier this year for a reconnaissance training camp, the American athletes did what anyone in Brazil with a carefully sculpted body would do. They went to the beach, stripped to their Speedos and whipped out a selfie stick. The soaring peaks of Sugarloaf Mountain in the background have never looked so meek.

What happened next was exactly the reaction the U.S. team imagined. The Internet went gaga for the ensuing Instagrams.

That wasn’t an accident. It’s one of the ways they think they can get attention in a country that showers glory upon gold-medal-winning women gymnasts while ignoring America’s less-successful men’s team.

So the men’s team has been brainstorming ways to market their sport better. They would like to be objectified.

“Maybe compete with our shirts off,” said U.S. star Sam Mikulak, the four-time, reigning all-around national champion. “People make fun of us for wearing tights. But if they saw how yoked we are maybe that would make a difference.”

The Rio Games’ women’s team final Tuesday is the marquee Olympic gymnastics event for American audiences—yet again. It’s a near-lock that Team USA will win the gold medal, the women will be immortalized with a catchy superlative like the “Fierce Five” and Simone Biles will be anointed Olympic royalty, to be remembered forever.

But first comes the men’s team final Monday. Don’t laugh. America’s men’s team actually did far better than expected during Saturday’s qualifying round, finishing second behind China.

After months of experts predicting that the men’s team final would come down to a race between China and Japan, the U.S. actually enters Monday’s competition as a frontrunner. The last medal for America’s men’s team was a bronze that came in Beijing in 2008.

But there’s a feeling on the men’s team that even if they won gold, they wouldn’t enjoy the stardom that America confers upon its top female gymnasts...

See? It's sexism all around!

Boy, there's no escaping those media double standards.

If leftists didn't have double standards they'd have no standards at all!

Still more.

Lila Kagedan, the First Orthodox Jewish Woman to Take the Title of Rabbi (VIDEO)

Via CNN:

Donald Trump Didn't Start the Wife-Baiting Political Attacks

Following-up, "Donald Trump Twitter War with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)."

Here's some background, at the S.D. Union-Tribune, "Trump threatens Cruz over naked Melania photo."

And see this great piece, from Milo Yiannopoulos, at Breitbart, "In Defense of Donald Trump’s Heidi Cruz Tweet":

The first point to be made is that Trump didn’t start the wife-baiting. Make America Awesome, a Trump-opposing PAC founded by the mannish Liz Mair, started circulating a particularly raunchy image of Melania Trump, urging GOP primary voters to back Cruz. While Cruz didn’t authorise the ad himself, it was retweeted by many of his supporters. As always, the super PACs acted like a ninja assassins for its candidate. “It wasn’t me, your honour – it was those dastardly, nefarious PACs!”

*****

Trump’s crass tweets and objectionable comments may not be comfortable reading for old-fashioned conservatives who appreciate decency and good manners, but they are helping to break the language codes that were primarily set up by the left, for the left. Trump is destroying old notions of what’s acceptable and unacceptable to say, and the primary losers of his new paradigm will be left-wingers and establishment types.

If Republicans learn anything from the unbelievable failure of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, it should be that “presidential” and “nice” don’t go together.  Isn’t it strange that elections follow the same rules as dating? Nice guys finish last.

Republicans typically reject the “everybody gets a trophy” mentality that has invaded our culture, but if you insist, we can add up to the attractiveness quotient of Cruz’s wife and all of his alleged mistresses and compare the total with Melania. That ought to at least earn him a participation trophy.

To beat Hillary, Republicans must focus on getting more people under the tent, which means snagging Democrats. Would Trump gain the support blue collar working Democrats by tearfully apologizing to Cruz after the senator’s minions attacked his wife? He could actually alienate them with that behaviour. Outside of the D.C beltway, respect is gained by standing up for yourself, and punching back twice as hard.

You also need balls to tame the beast of political progressivism. Trump is facing attackers from all sides. GOP establishment members planning convention shenanigans to steal the nomination, RINOs like Rick Wilson promising to vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump, and Soros-funded goons from Black Lives Matter and MoveOn planning attacks on the democratic process.  The Donald knows that the best defense is a good offense, and that’s exactly the style we need to win the election.

Trump isn’t just changing politics, he’s changing culture. The grievance wars have created a daily reality of fear for people who fall foul of the hyper-offended, even when the offense is unintentional. When actor Drake Bell cracked a joke about calling Caitlyn Jenner “Bruce,” he faced an internet lynch-mob of people who were offended on Jenner’s behalf and was forced to apologise.

Taking offense is a sort of one-upmanship. If you’re offended, especially on behalf of an allegedly “marginalized” group, it signals you’re a part of the educated, progressive elite. This, from people who’ve never read a book outside 2 years of a Gender Studies degree.

This is the consensus that’s prevailed in politics and culture for more than a generation. There are only two significant forces that are putting up a fight against it: the anonymous pranksters of the internet, who reside on websites like 4chan and 8chan and delight in deliberately offending people, and Donald Trump...

Still more.

Donald Trump Twitter War with Ted Cruz (VIDEO)

This is the weirdest presidential primary I can remember, and it's not pretty.

At CBS Evening News:

Anne-Marie Slaughter 'Devastated' After Hillary Clinton Slammed Atlantic Monthly Cover Story About Women 'Having It All...'

This a juicy little piece, at Politico, "Anne-Marie Slaughter 'devastated' by Clinton's take on her 'have it all' article."

What's particularly interesting is that Slaughter, who was Director of Policy Planning at the State Department from January 2009 until February 2011, was jonesing for direct access to Clinton, and was brutally denied. I guess her emails protesting were "forwarded" to Secretary Clinton, heh.

Here's the Atlantic piece, which I vaguely remember reading at the time, "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All."

What the 'Hunger Games' Movies Say About Feminism — and War

At the Los Angeles Times, "The Katniss Factor":

Throughout the new "Hunger Games" movie, the fourth and final in the dystopian series, heroine Katniss Everdeen's name is intoned with grave sincerity. The manipulative President Snow whispers it, as one does of a worthy rival; her battle partner and occasional romantic interest Gale Hawthorne utters it to suggest a noble comrade.

But the most telling invocation comes early in the film. "It's Katniss," belts out Peeta Mellark, her other battle partner and romantic interest, compromised and angry as he lies in a hospital bed. "It's [all] because of Katniss."

Much has indeed happened thanks to Katniss, a name you couldn't dream up if you tried and now can't imagine not existing. The character has become a kind of cultural shorthand — an archetype, someone who has deepened our understanding of armed conflicts and paved the way for a political movement. And that's just off the screen.

As the Lionsgate franchise winds down with this week's release of "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2," the film and its lead character reside in a far different world than the one in which they began. And many of those differences came because of "The Hunger Games" films.

There is, of course, the money. The franchise that started with novelist Suzanne Collins and was largely directed by Francis Lawrence has taken in $2.3 billion globally, with more on the way. Every year since 2012, at least 35 million tickets have been bought in the United States to a new "Hunger Games" movie. More Americans on average have come out to see Katniss in a given film than they have Harry Potter.

But the effects go beyond sheer popularity. As played by Jennifer Lawrence, Katniss, with her bow and arrow, has inspired a generation to lift up their weapons, both literally (the surge in archery lessons) and otherwise. She is often unsmiling, efficient and "male-like," by the chestnutty Hollywood definition, in which female characters are rarely foremost and even less frequently autonomous.

Before "Hunger Games," Hollywood somehow couldn't conceive of a fully formed, villain-thwacking heroine in a top-tier franchise. Sure, some swings had been taken. But they were exceptions — pre-made stars in one-offs (Angelina Jolie in "Salt" or "Wanted") or one-dimensional types in B-movie serials (Milla Jovovich's "Resident Evil" or Kate Beckinsale's "Underworld").

Katniss, on the other hand, was, almost from the start, confident but complicated, bold but human. "She's just so relatable and she's not a superhero — she feels real, she feels lost, she feels reluctant," said director Francis Lawrence. "She doesn't want to be a leader, she doesn't want to be part of a rebellion."

If the character was sometimes caught in a love triangle, a Bridget Jones touch that doesn't exactly scream postfeminist consciousness, she spent much of the rest of the time knocking away at glass ceilings, the Hollywood lady hero whose power comes from thoughts and actions more than sexuality...

Still more.

The Overwhelmingly Female Press Corps Covering Hillary Clinton's Campaign

That's so sexist, heh.

At Politico, "The women in the van."

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds, "ANNALS OF MEDIA SEXISM: Hillary Clinton attracts a rarity on the campaign trail — an overwhelmingly female press corps."

Equal Pay in Hollywood's Movie Industry (VIDEO)

At LAT, "With new equal-pay act, will Jennifer Lawrence get paid like Bradley Cooper?":

Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence was paid 7% of the profit on the 2013 ensemble film "American Hustle," a big payday for the A-list actress. But Bradley Cooper and two other male co-stars each earned 9%.

That's the kind of inequity potentially targeted by California's Fair Pay Act, which is aimed at leveling the compensation field between men and women. The bill, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown this week, applies to businesses statewide but has particular resonance in Hollywood, where women have become increasingly vocal critics of the pay gap.

Indeed, the entertainment industry played a key role in pushing the bill forward. Patricia Arquette raised the issue of pay inequality while accepting the best supporting actress Oscar during this year's Academy Awards — a moment that the Fair Pay Act's author, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara), said gave the measure momentum.

Arquette said in an interview with The Times on Wednesday that the lower profit participation paid to Lawrence, which was disclosed in the leak of stolen emails from Sony Pictures Entertainment last year, exposed how women are routinely paid less than men in Hollywood...

Plus, watch at CBS News This Morning, "Oprah: Hollywood gender pay gap conversation has hit critical moment."

Jessica Mendoza Attacked After Debut in Nationally Televised Postseason Broadcast

I just don't see what's the big deal. If she knows her stuff, let her get out there and announce some games.

At the New York Times, "Criticized for Being a ‘Woman Announcer,’ Jessica Mendoza Shines Anyway."

And flashback to August, "Jessica Mendoza Debuts on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball."

Marine Corps Pushes Back Against Decision to Ignore Study About Women in Combat

From Fuzzy Slippers, at Legal Insurrection.

Also at the San Diego Union-Tribune, "Why Marines have a problem with women in combat."

And see the editorial at the Washington Post, "Women in combat."

BONUS: From Julie Pulley, at WSJ, "Women in the Infantry? No Thanks."

Marine Corps' Women-in-Combat Experiment Yields Breakdown of Unit Cohesion

Hmm... Not the kinda meme we usually hear about. Unexpectedly!

At WaPo, "Both the men and women in the nine-month exercise reported a breakdown in unit cohesion":

Over the past nine months, the Marine Corps tested a gender-integrated task force in both Twentynine Palms, Calif. and Camp Lejeune, N.C. in an attempt to gauge what the Marine Corps might look like with women in combat roles.

According to a recent report in the Marine Corps Times, only a small number of women were left by the experiment’s conclusion — two of the roughly two dozen that started — mostly in part because of the physical and mental stress that comes with combat roles. Both the men and women in the task force also reported a breakdown in unit cohesion with some voicing  a perceived unequal treatment from their peers.

The experiment comes as all branches of the military face a Jan. 1, 2016 deadline to open all combat positions to women — from basic infantry battalions to elite special operations units such as U.S. Navy SEALs. While branches like the Air Force and Navy have relatively small communities where women are currently barred from serving — namely special operations detachments — the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have a host of units and jobs closed to woman. These jobs, known as combat arms, include infantry, artillery and armored divisions.

The gender-integrated Ground Combat Element Task Force served as a snapshot of sorts of what the Marine Corps might look like if women were a staple in combat positions. Each closed position was represented: infantry, artillery and mechanized units, such as tank platoons and light armored reconnaissance detachments, all operated in tandem with one another. The women were spread among them in ratios that would be expected in an integrated Marine Corps, with roughly 90 percent of the branch  made up of men.

The nine-month exercise was broken down into two parts. Initially there was a four-month training period, or “work-up,” at Camp Lejeune, followed by a five month “deployment” to the Mojave Desert in Twentynine Palms. Certain elements of the task force also participated in training at Camp Pendleton, and mountain warfare in Bridgeport, Calif.  This two semester cycle was common over the past 15 years. During the height of the Iraq War, it was common that Marine units would train for six to eight months and then deploy for a similar amount of time.

During both phases of the training, the Marines were hooked up to heart monitors and equipment that monitored their shooting abilities. According to the report, the data will be sent to Marine Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford in order to better tailor his approach to integrating women into Marine combat positions and help establish a baseline for gender-neutral standards that the Marines can possibly apply in the future.

Yet for all the monitoring technology in the field, most of the feedback, both negative and positive, has thus far been anecdotal.

“[The Marine Corps] hope[s] to provide transparency to our research and findings soonest,” Marine spokesman Maj. Christian Devine wrote in an email.

The Marine Corps Times report cites a number of instances where women had a difficult time completing physical tasks, like moving 200 pound dummies off the battlefield or from the turret of a “damaged” vehicle. Peer assessments were also mixed.

Lance Cpl. Chris Augello, a reservist who prior to the experiment was pro-integration, submitted a 13-page essay—which he shared with the Marine Corps Times—on why he had changed his mind.  “The female variable in this social experiment has wrought a fundamental change in the way male [non-commissioned officers] think, act and lead,” he wrote, referring to the female presence and its effect on how Marine Corps small-unit leaders do their job.

Augello, according to the report, also noted that relationships between the female and male Marines in his platoon sometimes turned romantic and in turn became a distraction. Integration, Augello wrote, is “a change that is sadly for the worse, not the better.”

Still more.

Hopefully few lives will be lost from the real-world combat results of gender integration.

Everything's all about equality nowadays, so what can you do?

Jessica Mendoza Debuts on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball

Hey, this is great, "Jessica Mendoza draws rave reviews in historic Sunday Night Baseball debut."

But should Ms. Mendoza replace Curt Schilling permanently, after the former Red Sox pitcher tweeted some politically incorrect comments? See the Boston Globe, "ESPN removes Curt Schilling from ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ broadcast."

Plus, at USA Today, "ESPN's John Kruk speaks out on Curt Schilling during broadcast," and Awful Announcing, "SHOULD ESPN PERMANENTLY REPLACE CURT SCHILLING WITH JESSICA MENDOZA ON SUNDAY NIGHT BASEBALL?"

Target Stores to Move Away from Gender-Based Signs

So far, they're removing gender-based signs for the toy section and bedding. No word on the kids' clothing section, but it won't be long before kids' clothing is totally homogenized, heh.

At CNN, "Target to move away from gender-based signs."

Also at Twitchy, "‘Progressive BS’: Target’s plan to ‘phase out gender-based signs’ in stores earns eyerolls."

Hillary Clinton is All Style, No Substance

With just a smidgen of corruption.

At the Hill:

Hillary is all style and no substance, Fiorina tells Iowa crowd: http://t.co/pAxmeqm9xz pic.twitter.com/utwhapUrUE

— The Hill (@thehill) April 26, 2015

Also at WSJ, "Carly Fiorina to Launch Presidential Campaign on May 4."