HereAndGone
14d ago
If the throne had been passed to Prince Harry ten years ago, you could have had the entire monarchy being led around by the nose to please a Californian socialite with a grudge.
I think much more likely would be a second Edward VIII situation. Maybe marrying a divorcée is not such a big scandal today, but Meghan would be totally unacceptable as queen consort. If, in this scenario, William is the younger brother and married to Kate, he would be seen as more suitable and pressure would be put on Harry to either give up Meghan or abdicate.
HereAndGone
15d ago
Unless being gay is considered shameful, there's no reason to differentiate between "fucking girls and young women" and "fucking boys still young enough to not have adult male characteristics". If they're pretty enough and in an inferior enough position (younger, lower social class, slave, foreigner) then so long as it's you sticking your dick into an orifice, you're still fully masculine and male by the standards of your society, not a repulsive cinaedus/pathicus.
HereAndGone
15d ago
True, but I remember the giggling self-congratulatory commentary by the Savage followers, and the way they thought they were so clever and so witty. Yes, it really makes me sympathetic to your cause when you brag about the sexual activity you insist is the defining characteristic of your entire identity being something that produces foul emissions and disease.
HereAndGone
15d ago
Yeah, but once again, what's fair rules? Unwind all anti-discrimination law? Okay, now can Helen be fired for getting pregnant? And everyone is tut-tutting at me for asking "how many women is too many?" but unless we set some sort of baseline, all too soon it becomes "any women is too many" in a particular profession or field.
I don't think a woman should be hired just because she's a woman, anymore than someone who's a minority or BIPOC or other DEI. But Helen wants meritocracy, and we got here because meritocracy didn't work - the old school tie was stronger than that. "Susan is better qualified than Jim, but Jim went to my university".
Helen wants "not so many women, but I don't get touched, because I am the Magical Woman who is male-brained and won't disrupt the masculine office culture nor soften society with my emotional, feelings-based, style of running things".
Why should I, or any male hiring manager, take it on trust that Helen is that Magical Woman? On the contrary, I get her CV in with the job application, see her name is "Helen Andrews", and toss it aside because "it's legal to have a masculine office culture again, and so I only hire men".
HereAndGone
15d ago
True, all too true!
HereAndGone
15d ago
Do you think a guy who takes his shirt off in bars is going to have very granular standards about what tattoo he gets when drunk with his pals in a foreign city? They're young, they're stupid, they're in the military - "yeah that one looks badass, gimme!"
HereAndGone
16d ago
Damn it, don't make me laugh as I'm mourning the end of common decency!
HereAndGone
16d ago
Oh, yeah. Dan Savage made sure of that. And now we're surprised this kind of material is common? (I'm disappointed more than anything, but 'hey isn't it funny to call our opponents literal shit?' did start with the Liberal Compassionate All-Accepting side of the fence).
HereAndGone
16d ago
It's just disappointing to see the last vestiges of even a pretence at civil behaviour being abandoned. Teenage boys behaving like this? Sure, you expect that until they grow up and get at least a little bit civilised. I know this wasn't Trump himself creating this, but whatever 20-something did, they need to stand in the corner until they apologise nicely.
But I suppose that's just my feminine delicacy and lack of understanding of masculine qualities showing!
HereAndGone
16d ago
Not so simple; again, see Catullus 56 where bisexuality, at the least, is not something shameful so long as you are the older, dominant, male:
O, Cato, what an absurdly funny thing,
worthy for you to hear and laugh at!
Laugh, as much as you love Catullus, Cato.
The thing is too absurd and funny.
I just found a young boy having sex with a girl:
May it please Diona, I attacked him
with my rigid thing, using it as a spear.
HereAndGone
16d ago
HereAndGone
16d ago
HereAndGone
16d ago
The eternal question: Are Traps Gay?
I don't know, but Brigitte Lin was amazing in Swordsman II and The East is Red (which I have only seen in terribly subtitled and even more terribly edited versions ages ago). She's playing a man who was turned into a woman via magical martial arts techniques, so she's attracting both male and female lovers.
HereAndGone
16d ago
There are values in norms, but when one side gets to display a (mock) severed head to great applause, and responds to objections with "What? it's just a joke! why are you lot so sensitive, why are you always over-reacting?" then I think the erosion of norms set in.
Yes, Griffin got consequences for that, but there were defenders for it (and she seemed to learn nothing from "I torpedoed my career with a dumb stunt" by repeating it). I think the problem is that politics is pig-wrestling, and the mud is just getting deeper.
HereAndGone
16d ago
Newsom, for one, seems to have adopted the Trumpian social media posting style, and I see that being praised. So there is precedent for the Democrats to copy what are deemed successful ploys of his, even if formerly they would have held their nose about it. I do dread to think what they might copy from the shit-dumping. Nobody needs this kind of vulgarity.
HereAndGone
16d ago
Yeah, I was hoping that the material being dumped was mud or clay or something, but it looks too much like faeces to be anything else. A shame, this level of crudity is self-defeating (Trump wearing a crown and being a fighter jet pilot was funny enough on its own, doing a Red Arrows style show over the protestors would have been better).
HereAndGone
16d ago
If I truly were arguing for female superiority/supremacy, Nybbler, you would be in no doubt.
HereAndGone
16d ago
It's not that "she should be a secretary if she's not going to advocate for women", it's that this is where her argument breaks down (hopefully, she expands on it elsewhere in a more detailed and considered way). If we want to go back to the days of the masculine office, we go back to the days of "women are secretaries and men are bosses". She's sawing off the branch she is sitting on, without seeming to realise it.
As I have been trying to point out, if her argument is that "society is too feminised, the professions are too feminised", then the natural outcome of that is that, as a woman in the professions, she is part of the problem. Just by being a female presence in a male space, she contributes as part of the mass of women taking over. So she must, by the logic of her own argument, step back and step down if she is serious about solving the problem. Otherwise, it's as pointless as land acknowledgements: "yeah we took your stuff, no we're not giving it back". Yeah, women took over the male domains, no we're not leaving.
HereAndGone
18d ago
You are staking a position of female superiority
Given that I got banned for emoji usage, I'm probably tempting the wrath of the mod gods here, but fuck no.
I don't believe in female superiority any more than I believe in male superiority. I do believe the problem, if it exists, is not "too many women in that job". Men can be bitchy, backstabbing, boot-licking, and players of political games in work every bit as much as women. Every guy who put on a suit and tie for a middle manager job is a bold, truth-seeking, risk-taking innovator? Really, Helen?
How many women is too many women, Nybbler? How many men is too few men? Or too many?
Honestly, Andrews' article reminds me, from the other side, of Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree Jr. where I didn't agree with the position there (women indeed superior) back when I read it as a teen. And I don't agree with the opposite position (men indeed superior).
We have different abilities and different gifts, and we need a mix of both to survive and indeed thrive as a society. No boots on necks, no matter who is wearing the boot; side-by-side into the future!
"Tipping the scales" requires that we know what the endpoint should be. "We'll know it when we see it" is a recipe for disaster, because no matter how you change the ratios, there's always the argument that "no, go lower and then it'll all be great!" So 60% female profession becomes 50/50? Still not good enough, society too female? Go down to 40% female? 30%? 0%?
Because some on this very thread have argued for 0%, that smart women should be having unstressed babies instead of going to work like a man in a man's job. I don't think Andrews would accept that, but she's set up that argument.
Yeah, I'm Catholic and broadly complementarian, but we're equal opportunity for female religious leaders (not priests and deacons, I'm heading that one off before it begins) and saints. One of the big sticking points for the entire Reformation was the veneration of Mary and how her worship was seen to be displacing that of Christ, after all!
EDIT: As I said, I'm an older generation than Andrews. I do think she's unaware of the fruits of the fights won before her which fruits she enjoys; she grew up with "of course I can apply to study this; of course I can enter that career; of course I can go forward for that job" where this is 'fish swimming in the water' for her, but for my generation and the one before, it very much was not "of course you can do that". For example, I bet she has no idea about the marriage ban and that if you told her "Okay, now you're married, time to quit your job!" she'd laugh at you, and coming back with "Nope, sorry Helen, it's law. Now trot off home and look after your husband like a good little woman" would not fit her mental model of "society too female, let's fix that by meritocratic competition".
HereAndGone
18d ago
This entire argument was stated back in 1964 by an eminent professor:
HIGGINS
What in all of heaven could've prompted her to go,
After such a triumph as the ball?
What could've depressed her;
What could've possessed her?
I cannot understand the wretch at all.
Women are irrational, that's all there is to that!
There heads are full of cotton, hay, and rags!
They're nothing but exasperating, irritating,
vacillating, calculating, agitating,
Maddening and infuriating hags!
[To Pickering]
Pickering, why can't a woman be more like a man?
PICKERING
Hmm?
HIGGINS
Yes...
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historic'ly fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Well, why can't a woman be like that?
Why does ev'ryone do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do ev'rything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up- well, like their father instead?
Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please;
Whenever you are with them, you're always at ease.
Would you be slighted if I didn't speak for hours?
PICKERING
Of course not!
HIGGINS
Would you be livid if I had a drink or two?
PICKERING
Nonsense.
HIGGINS
Would you be wounded if I never sent you flowers?
PICKERING
Never.
HIGGINS
Well, why can't a woman be like you?
One man in a million may shout a bit.
Now and then there's one with slight defects;
One, perhaps, whose truthfulness you doubt a bit.
But by and large we are a marvelous sex!
Why can't a woman take after like a man?
Cause men are so friendly, good natured and kind.
A better companion you never will find.
If I were hours late for dinner, would you bellow?
PICKERING
Of course not!
HIGGINS
If I forgot your silly birthday, would you fuss?
PICKERING
Nonsense.
HIGGINS
Would you complain if I took out another fellow?
PICKERING
Never.
HIGGINS
Well, why can't a woman be like us?
[To Mrs. Pearce]
Mrs. Pearce, you're a woman...
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so decent, such regular chaps.
Ready to help you through any mishaps.
Ready to buck you up whenever you are glum.
Why can't a woman be a chum?
Why is thinking something women never do?
Why is logic never even tried?
Straight'ning up their hair is all they ever do.
Why don't they straighten up the mess that's inside?
Why can't a woman behave like a man?
If I was a woman who'd been to a ball,
Been hailed as a princess by one and by all;
Would I start weeping like a bathtub overflowing?
And carry on as if my home were in a tree?
Would I run off and never tell me where I'm going?
Why can't a woman be like me?
HereAndGone
18d ago
I don't think anyone is going to mind if the majority of nurses or elementary school teachers turn out to be female.
Sure, that's one of the possibilities. But it also means "nurses = women, doctors = men". And, as I suggested rather tongue-in-cheek (sorry, naraburns, that's too emoji-adjacent isn't it?), that she should step back from leadership roles like being the editor and instead take up the traditional support role of secretary.
Didn't she rather write along the lines of "too many of the wrong kinds of girls"?
Did she? Because I didn't get that fine distinction; women en masse have the feminine qualities of x, y and z; a majority female workplace and majority female society will be disadvantaged because of the lack of masculine qualities a, b and c; the solution is more men and more male-values and male-oriented workplaces.
Nothing about "but the right kind of women are this kind". It was "too many women" simpliciter was the problem. I think this must be the part of her piece you have in mind:
As a woman myself, I am grateful for the opportunities I have had to pursue a career in writing and editing. Thankfully, I don’t think solving the feminization problem requires us to shut any doors in women’s faces. We simply have to restore fair rules. Right now we have a nominally meritocratic system in which it is illegal for women to lose. Let’s make hiring meritocratic in substance and not just name, and we will see how it shakes out. Make it legal to have a masculine office culture again. Remove the HR lady’s veto power. I think people will be surprised to discover how much of our current feminization is attributable to institutional changes like the advent of HR, which were brought about by legal changes and which legal changes can reverse.
So her idea there is that by applying "fair rules", the trend will naturally reverse to having more men than women. She doesn't develop the argument about "what sort of women?", presumably she means "judging on male metrics rather than female ones, the best candidates regardless of sex will come to the top".
That does presuppose that some of those best candidates will be women, and that those women will fit in to a "masculine office culture" (so, no more getting offended by "grab 'em by the pussy", then?)
But even the "One of the Guys" gals are at risk, see comments higher up about intelligent women are being wasted by going into the workplace instead of having babies which they breastfeed at home and do the whole skin-to-skin contact thing (very much less frequent in reality than presumed by such comments) because stressed moms are bad for the babies. Take even Helen Andrews out of the workforce so she can prop up the cratering TFR and have smart kids with her (presumably) smart husband, which she raises herself in the perfect domestic environment!
I don't think Andrews wants that, despite her comments about being the mother of sons, but that's where the logic leads if we extend it out: not just too many women in the workplace, there should be no women at all! For the sake of TFR and raising non-neurodivergent kids!
HereAndGone
18d ago
The entire move towards the "feminised workplace" (which is one with a better work-life balance and accommodation for working parents) is because many women are both housewives and working outside the home.
Hillary III (or IV, depending if we count the 2012 second term of Obama as being what stymied her trying again then) - this time for sure! 🤣 In 2028 she would be a sprightly eighty years old, mature enough for the job!
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