Anti-abortion politicians in Louisiana filed a federal lawsuit seeking to impose a nationwide restriction on mail and pharmacy access to mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used in nearly two-thirds of U.S. abortions as well as for early miscarriage care. On May 1st, a federal appeals court granted Louisiana’s request, throwing abortion access across the country into turmoil. On May 4th, the Supreme Court put that ruling on hold for one week, until May 11th, while it considers whether to block it for a longer period of time, restoring patients’ ability to get mifepristone through telemedicine for now.

The post-Dobbs landscape is getting increasingly ugly.

Should religion be able to answer the problem at the heart of the second wave?

What feminists have to ask is, are we responding to this threat in the direction of greater meaning and deeper human flourishing for everyone? Or are we shutting down the articulation of meaning out of fear that we might be excluded from it? The right way to respond to this situation is to rediscover our ability to advocate positively for our own complex human nature, our own search for meaning, our own need for purpose in life.

via: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/linkpost-for-may-3ac

When Amia Srinivasan published The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century in 2021, it sparked widespread debate about the politics of desire, consent, and sexual justice.

In this episode of The Exchange, the Oxford academic joins Tanjil Rashid to discuss how philosophy can illuminate some of the most contentious questions in contemporary culture: from incels and pornography to whether our desires are shaped by society.

Solmaz Sharif reads “Social Skills Training” at Split This Rock Poetry Festival 2018: Poems of Provocation & Witness, April 20, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Ah. This makes much more sense now.

see: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/1580548/social-skills-training

by Solmaz Sharif

Studies suggest How may I help you officer? is the single most disarming thing to say and not What’s the problem? Studies suggest it’s best the help reply My pleasure and not No problem. Studies suggest it’s best not to mention problem in front of power even to say there is none. Gloria Steinem says women lose power as they age and yet the loudest voice in my head is my mother.

In this chapter, we review an impressive body of research conducted during the past 20 years on sexual objectification, self-objectification, and their attendant consequences. We start with a description of how sexual objectification comes to be internalized as self-objectification in many girls and women. We then highlight exemplary research on the facets of sexual objectification and the deficits incurred by self-objectification. We review theories to explain the functions of sexual and self-objectification as a psychic defense against mortality concerns, as a bolster for justification of the patriarchal system, and as a vehicle for oppression by the powerful. Finally, we spotlight exciting directions in which the study of sexual objectification and self-objectification is forging ahead.

see: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tomi-Ann-Roberts/publication/365409232_Objectification_Theory_Continuing_Contributions_to_Feminist_Psychology/

The Everyday Sexism project aims to take a step towards gender equality, by proving wrong those who tell women that they can’t complain because we are equal. It is a place to record stories of sexism faced on a daily basis, by ordinary women, in ordinary places.

Academic and writer Amia Srinivasan’s revolutionary debut text, The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, questions the ways in which we discuss or avoid the problems and politics of sex. Examining the complexities and interconnections between sex, consent, gender, class, race and power, the stunning narrative unravels the nuances of discrimination and preference, pornography and freedom, rape and racial injustice, to name a few. In conversation with Bee Rowlatt, Srinivasan discusses these urgent political debates and what it means to be free.

This woman is cracked.

Paper abortion, also known as a financial abortion, male abortion or a statutory abortion,[1] is the proposed ability of the biological father, before the birth of the child, to opt out of any rights, privileges, and responsibilities toward the child, including financial support. By this means, before a child is born, a man would be able to absolve himself of both the privileges and demands of fatherhood.

Interesting.

Why does this have to exist…

Fascinating chain in which to apply the article I just read. Perfect example is all of that Knights of Gunivere nonsense that happened a while back. Is being a YIP the same as being chronically online and left-leaning?

see: https://www.persuasion.community/p/illiberal-liberalism see: https://www.thegamer.com/knights-of-guinevere-frankie-trans-queer-dana-terrace/

What cancel culture reveals and conceals about redemption

Man, the Internet social justice movement really fucked up my life and many others. And for what? Sigh…

via: https://lydialaurenson.substack.com/p/social-contracts-moral-order-weaving

A friend who works on transformative justice once remarked to me that the purpose of the practice is not so much to fix the problems, as to “let the story in.” Sometimes one of the most profound things you can do for a badly hurt person is listen, even when it hurts you to listen, as it generally will if they have been deeply hurt and haven’t been able to process it. I fail at this all the time. But when I succeed, I see the transformation. / If there’s no capacity for listening, then sometimes showing up for a person who needs it can just mean being there logistically, showing care even if one can’t bring oneself to hear the full story or can’t agree on their interpretation. These things may seem tiny, but I’ve come to believe that these small attempts at relating are one of the surest personal crucibles we have.

Entire post is mad facts. Definitely adopting SL-Op as a framework.

via: https://thingofthings.substack.com/p/linkpost-for-march-ac9

I used to be a sex writer. I wrote about feminism and gender, too, but really what I found most interesting was sexuality, and sexual identity. I wrote under the name Clarisse Thorn. I had a blog. The blog got semi-famous. I traveled and gave talks. I published some books. Sometimes people still read and buy the books.

via: https://lydialaurenson.substack.com/p/social-contracts-moral-order-weaving

As [per] usual with gender issues, this can be best explained through a story from ancient Chinese military history.

What I propose is not for feminism to stop advocating against sexism towards women. I propose for feminists to look for ways to do so that don’t needlessly cause lasting sexual repression or guilt in a subset of men most sympathetic to feminist concerns. However, this would require considering men’s interests, perspectives, and experiences, not just women’s.

see: https://web.archive.org/web/20200217134031/http://home.earthlink.net/~ahunter/Same_Closet_Diff_Door/hpsissy.html

via: https://nottoby.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-training-boys-and/comment/149005099

Something fundamentally needs to change WRT how we talk about gender in this country. Damn, man…

This is of course the thing everyone swears they don’t mean when they use the word privilege, which is of course how the motte-and-bailey fallacy works. But as soon as they are not being explicitly challenged about the definition, this is the way they revert back to using the word.

see: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2091#comment-326664

via: https://nottoby.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-training-boys-and/comment/149005099

Seems like one of the smartest computer scientists on the planet and I have a lot in common.

My recurring fantasy, through this period, was to have been born a woman, or a gay man, or best of all, (completely asexual, so that I could simply devote my life to math, like my hero Paul Erdös did).

At one point, I actually begged a psychiatrist to prescribe drugs that would chemically castrate me (I had researched which ones), because a life of mathematical asceticism was the only future that I could imagine for myself.

see: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=2119

via: https://nottoby.substack.com/p/the-internet-is-training-boys-and/comment/149005099

For a resolution to one skirmish between the sexes, argues the writer who goes by the name Cartoons Hate Her, we should consider reaching back to the 1990s.

via: https://www.cartoonshateher.com/p/men-dont-like-bitches-but-they-do