I noticed this film mentioned in two comments to JL’s A Week In The War On Women. I can see all the links but I think I have been avoiding it because it gives me the heebie-jeebies!! But…ok...let’s do this!
The story concerns Joanna Eberhart (played by Nicole Kidman), a talented photographer, wife and young mother who suspects that something in Stepford's environment is changing the wives from free-thinking, intelligent women into compliant wives dedicated solely to homemaking. As her friends slowly transform Joanna realises the horrific truth.
When faced with what is clearly a men’s rights movement that wants to erase women in language and erase their rights, the parallels are obvious. What was originally a feminist film about men wanting to control women has found a new and much more sinister meaning.
Terf Wars at the Guardian
Well, well, well…read on…
This is the third piece I have done this week from The Evening Standard!! Has something happened there!!??
Robert Dex in The Evening Standard ( New trans rights row at the Guardian after audio from staff meeting recorded 12 September) reports:
A fresh row has broken out at The Guardian about its coverage of trans rights after a US website published a recording of a staff meeting.
Journalists, including The Observer’s chief leader writer Sonia Sodha, were heard on the audio.
It was recorded at an “untangling sex and gender” meeting and leaked to the Semafor site.
She told colleagues: “I’ve had attempts to try and get me kicked off charitable boards. I’ve been doxxed [having personal information published] online by people who disagree with me on this issue. I’ve had my home address published online. It’s just an example of how toxic and polarised this debate is.”
Another speaker complained of efforts to “stop meetings taking place” to discuss the issue.
The Guardian’s attempts to balance the views of its staff between pro-trans supporters and those who feel trans rights impinge on women’s rights has seen prominent journalists including Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman leave the organisation.
Moore left after around 338 members of staff signed a letter complaining about transphobia at work which she believed was aimed at her.
Writing in The Evening Standard, Moore said she left after she “suffered the consequences of expressing a view contrary to the liberal orthodoxy”.
There was further controversy last week when a Guardian reviewer gave Roisin Murphy’s new album five stars but said the singer’s misgivings on the use of puberty blocking drugs would mean it was “compromised for many fans”, prompting some readers to say that they would cancel their subscriptions.
The Guardian declined to comment.
Can Sonia Sodha actually turn this once great newspaper around? I am afraid I am not holding my breath! But very interesting to see the battle that is going on.
The Stain
Regarding what is mentioned above about Róisín Murphy’s new album, the phrase the Guardian reviewer, Laura Snapes used was actually that there was a ‘stain’ on the album!
A marvellous piece by Kathryn Jones about the Guardian’s evidence about this ‘stain’ has been posted on the Glinner update:
The Guardian’s review of Roisin Murphy’s Hit Parade wasn’t just an ugly stain on the craft of music journalism. There was something even worse than the grudging praise that failed to hide a calculated attempt at character assassination. It was in its false reporting of a study on mental health outcomes for children and young adults treated with puberty-blocking drugs and opposite-sex hormones that the stain seeped through the Arts pages and infected the title’s Science and Health sections too.
The paper helpfully provided the link to the source of the extraordinary claim that “young trans people who can access puberty blockers experience a decrease in depression and a 73% reduction in the risk of suicide,” enabling readers more attentive than the paper’s editor to spot that the study did not in fact discuss suicide, but instead measured suicidal ideation, which in most cases do not lead to suicide. Every suicide is a tragedy, but when you consider that 4 out of 15,000 patients who were receiving treatment or on the waiting list of GIDS were known or suspected to have died by suicide between 2010 and 2020, the most up-to-date research seems to suggest that gender-related distress has a suicide rate of 0.03% which is in keeping with any group of young people with mental health challenges.
The Guardian has since updated the article, but how many people will have already read the original and walked away with a wholly misguided impression of suicide risk among children and young adults who identify as transgender or non-binary? How many children and young adults might believe themselves to be at greater risk of suicide? That the Guardian allowed such a wildly inaccurate statement about suicide to be published suggests that the title has abandoned all commitment to journalistic integrity.
Kathryn goes on to do a complete demolition job on the ‘research’ that the Guardian were relying on. I shall leave you to read this, dear readers:
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/the-stain
Detransition
Very much linked to this issue of unreliable evidence, poor research and unsupported conclusions, thanks to a wonderful reader for referring me to a piece by The Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine about a new paper by J Cohn, The Rate of Detransition is Unknown, which reviews common limitations of ‘regret’ studies and demonstrates that hormone discontinuation, detransition, and regret rates are largely unknown. It is important that clinicians, law makers, and those contemplating medical interventions understand that frequently cited low rates of regret are based on flawed evidence.
Maiden Mother Matriarch
On her podcast, Louise Perry has a very interesting discussion with Holly Lawford-Smith, professor of philosophy at the University of Melbourne and author of two recent books, Gender Critical Feminism and Sex Matters. They discuss: the use of the term ‘Terf’; the left and the right; hate crime; the meaning of ‘gender critical’; gender surgery for adults; and the differences between men and women.
I would make 3 points arising from the discussion:
They refer to the woke left being in control in universities, but surely the woke left are pouring out of universities into Diversity Equity and Inclusion departments in government and large organisations where they are wielding a disproportionate influence?
They are very positive about developments on Terf Island ( perhaps a bit too positive I feel) but refer to a downside in what has happened to Róisín Murphy. Róisín is, of course, based in the Republic of Ireland where things are much, much worse, unfortunately, than on Terf Island. However her new album is selling like hot cakes so that has rather backfired on the anti-women activists 😎
They debate the pros and cons of hate crime legislation. Hate crime is just used ( or rather misused) as a cynical weapon by the anti-women activists ( see 73 year old lesbian interviewed by the police for a photograph of a women's rights’ sticker - not even for actually doing the stickering!) so, as readers know, I think we should get rid of hate crime altogether.
In case you missed it, EDI Jester reported on the woman who photographed the sticker here:
I would also like to emphasise, following on from my recent cultural revolution comparison, the case of the BBC Fact Checker who admits she lied to get the job. You couldn’t make it up! Barry has great fun with this!
Love Barry’s new studio!! 😎
And finally…
OK, listen, I had better go and wash the dishes…
Thanks Dusty.
You’re right, the left are pouring out of universities and are infecting every institution with the woke mind virus. Do you remember the Peter Hitchins article I sent you once? He was saying that everyone thinks of Tony Blair as a kind of moderate leftie, on the right, but that this couldn’t be further from the truth. By encouraging more people to go to university, he has had his own cultural revolution and that his plan all along was to instil left wing ideology in all our institutions. What a legacy he’s got. Makes the Stepford Wives look tame 👀.