Science has been kinda dodgy lately. Foundational psychological studies are defying replication. Sexed brains don’t exist, then they do, then they don’t.

But today, science really came through for me.

If you’ve been fighting in the TERF wars for a few years, you’ll remember the infamous cuttlefish comparison. I came in on the end of it, but the basic idea was that sex is a spectrum because some animals can switch their sex in certain conditions.

The very idea of switching sex seems to imply that it’s not a spectrum, but let’s move on.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea what separatism was.

Doing some long-overdue digging, I learned it’s at the root of the weed that’s choking modern politics.

Research Is Safe And Fun!

I quickly found myself lost in a dense, dry old bramble. Kathy Rudy’s tale of joining a ‘radical feminist’ group is littered with breadcrumbs along the trail into the political wilderness.

She describes the lesbian community she joined in North Carolina in 1980. They put separatism first, theorizing among themselves about an ‘essential female nature’ that inevitably reflected their own experience.

“All this time, we have been quietly permitting society to convince us that, in discarding the torturously repressive corset, we have definitively thwarted the patriarchal hold over female liberty Once And For All…

“While in actuality, our material freedom has been gradually snatched from right under our noses in the form of expensive jeans with fake pockets requiring additionally expensive handbags!

“Do with that information what you will.”

It sounds too simple, but the erosion of women’s pockets through the 19th and 20th centuries follows our struggle for liberation. The more autonomy women have, the fewer and smaller the pockets.

The other day, I was reading that same discussion again.

“I can’t wait till the tide finally turns and all these loudmouths on the Trans Train will get their just desserts!”

“Yeah, I think about that, too. But I’m afraid the world will just pretend it never happened.”

This goes against the gut feeling of Justice, but the pessimists have a point. How many times have we had something completely off-the-charts insane splashed across our screens, only to have the News Cycle churn onward and nothing really happen?

Ever wonder why so many of the people arguing with you seem brainwashed? Wonder no more!

Gabriel Rockhill lays it all out, but his article isn’t getting the attention it deserves. That’s probably because it’s a slog to read, but it’s as important as it is wordy.

He tells us about a declassified CIA report that describes exactly how the Agency helped to mastermind the current mess:

“In recognizing it was unlikely that it could abolish [the left] entirely, the world's most powerful spy organization has sought to move leftist culture away from resolute anti-capitalist and transformative politics toward center-left reformist positions that are less overtly critical of US foreign and domestic policies.”

Sitting with mixed feelings tonight, after learning how a feminist icon threw out the baby with the bathwater.

Ruth Bader-Ginsburg was a hard-hitting civil rights lawyer in the 1970s. Her mission was to take on sexual discrimination, one example at a time.

She argued before the Supreme Court for the American Civil Liberties Union. She won Social Security survivor benefits, she won women a place on juries. Appearing in six cases, she won five.

One day, her secretary remarked, “I’m typing these briefs for you, and there’s the word sex, sex, sex on every page! Don’t you know those nine men to whom you’re arguing, when they hear that word, their first association is not what you want them to be thinking about!“

It’s been a very long year so far. Between disease, financial crunch and political upheaval, it seems like the world is just plain confusing, if not actively out to get us.

In times like these, it’s important to occasionally take time out for something majorly positive.

Today’s installment of Something Positive features climate change. I know that sounds weird, but bear with me.

Women in underdeveloped countries often suffer the most from the personal and economic effects of climate change. So it was with no small relish that I learned how successful (and cheap!) the Great Green Wall of Africa has been so far.

Just popping in to bring attention to something I noticed in the news this morning.

This weekend was Father's Day in the United States. Usually, this holiday passes with little more fanfare than some cards at the drugstore and persistent Home Depot commercials.

This year, as we will all have noticed by now, is unique. This year, Father's Day was marked by random outbursts of violence across the country.

I'm not even talking about the protests. Or the riots. Or the looting. Or the brutal acts of political pageantry.

Chicago had it worst, with 60 people shot across the city. Nine of them have died, in unrelated situations where someone decided to start pulling a trigger. New York City has seen 18 shootings this weekend.

Hey, all! Your faithful Brazen here, still around but busy with so many things. Lots in the works in this weirdest of years.

But yesterday, a morsel slipped across my plate too juicy not to bite.

The Black Lives Matter protests have given me a strange glimmer of hope. On the front lines of Feminism, JK Rowling published an eloquent essay last week quintupling down on her flagrant support of women’s rights. These two events have dragged me back to some familiar spaces, fresh air in my lungs and a bitchy twinkle in my eye.

Making a special effort to check in with the opposition, I stumbled upon a reference to a “trans” person from history, in the form of a portrait in the National Gallery in London.

Ah, Female Dating Strategy! This section of Reddit is always good for a laugh and some insight into what makes a good partner. A fair amount of male-bashing does go on there, but nothing I would be surprised to hear when mature women gather.

Perhaps the most famous gathering of mature women in popular culture is the foursome from ‘Sex and the City.’ This show was once so ubiquitous, I had absorbed more of it than I realized.

Why do I suddenly care? Funny you should ask.

Woman as Cultural Icon

I was 15 in 1998. Women in my age group are known to say things like, “It changed my life!” I did not want my life changed by a grown woman in a tutu, so I stayed as far away as I could.

Political lesbianism has always been controversial.

First coined in the 1960s, women are encouraged to “get men out of their heads and out of their beds.”

Which may very well be good advice. But the group promoting this plan, the Revolutionary Feminists, were very much literal and total in their meaning.

Choose to Be A Lesbian?

Their most famous outing was a booklet published in 1981. It established, among other things, that lesbianism is a choice any woman can make.

Wait a minute. Sexual orientation is a choice? That’s exactly the opposite of the foundation of the Gay Rights Movement. Gay people can’t just choose to be straight. And vice-versa.

More specifically, a hedonist. And a total maniac. It’s spit-take-worthy irony that she would pray for the abortion of “satanic pregnancies.”

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Even the most casual of Christians will be familiar with Jesus’ messages of charity and peace. Heal the sick, the meek shall inherit the earth, all that. These things are central to the popular idea of his character.

It’s not one of my favorite stories, but I can see how some people find good things in it.

Then, there’s Prosperity Doctrine.

In my recent adventure with the Trans Rights Brigade, I ran into some serious misunderstanding about what Radical Feminism is.

Coincidentally, this week I also found a very good, concise statement of the Radical Feminist platform over at Women’s Liberation Radio News.

“Third Wave” Isn’t Feminism

Before we dive in, I want to spotlight the fact that “Third Wave” Feminism is actually backlash against the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s.

The 1970s saw significant legal progress for women. We acquired the privilege of applying for credit, terminating unwanted pregnancies, and legal protection against housing discrimination. The UN declared 1975 International Women’s Year. Women’s Studies became a feature on campuses everywhere.

The film begins with a man in a kitchen. It’s the scene of a revolution, he says, where men and women are renegotiating the human power balance.

When you don’t get much time to sit and read, a good documentary can be the greatest thing.

I found one that really pulls it all together. And it’s over 25 years old!

Dr. Gwynne Dyer is another new name to me. He’s getting up there these days but still maintains an active publishing and speaking career. He even has a Twitter.

He’s a journalist and historian who’s taken his education and experience and synthesized a unique perspective. He uses it to spell out the origins of Patriarchy.

The time has come once again to name names. Donald Trump is draped in red flags.

I usually save my political rants for more general social themes but, once in a while, I feel compelled to get specific. If you like my Trump posts you are in for a treat. If you don’t…. who am I kidding? No way Trumpers read my blog!

Several years ago I worked as a Certified Nurse Aide. Seldom have I felt as entitled to the space I take up as when I was changing dementia patients’ diapers. (Not sure what that says about me, but I digress.)

Tonight I attended the monthly meeting of my local Democrat Executive Committee. I represent my ward with my male counterpart Dave.

We didn’t do very well in this recent election. There was disappointment but still a light mood in the room. Until 2016, the Democrats had no organization in East Tennessee at all.

Two of the women there had worked the polls. “Up came this lady, had to be 80, with a walker!”

“‘What brings you out today?’ And she said, ‘The President called me personally.'”

There were a couple groans.

As I was writing my post inspired by Dr. Martha Stout’s fantastic book The Sociopath Next Door, Trevor Noah was in front of cameras explaining why it’s more relevant than ever.

In one of The Daily Show’s Between the Scenes segments, Trevor says he thinks President Trump’s “most powerful tool is that he knows how to wield victimhood.

“He knows how to offer victimhood to people who have the least claim to it. Which is a really, really powerful tool because …. he’s saying the real victims of the #MeToo movement are men.

"We have a mass shooter in the U.S. every few weeks. And every time it happens, we talk about guns. We talk about mental health. But we don't talk about how all of these mass shooters are male."

I know what you’re thinking – Isn’t all of History basically a study in masculinity? But this is an interesting little tidbit I stumbled across the other day. Stony Brook University professor Michael Kimmel is taking a long, hard look at masculinity. A reassessment is overdue and men could do with some introspection.

Kimmel’s work is a response to the discipline of Women’s Studies which has existed on college campuses since the 1970s. You might expect a man who has written several books on machismo to be motivated by some kind of grudge, but he was inspired by how women have taken control of our narrative.

Jumping right in, today we’re starting with Sigmund Freud. German and born in 1856, he gave us what these days we refer to as therapy, a structured and codified method for understanding the mentally ill instead of locking them up. In doing so, he laid the foundations of the field of Psychology.

A good place to begin is his Psychosexual Stages theory, first published in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality in 1905. Also known as the Family Drama, this is his model for how personalities form. This theory gave us a lot of familiar words – Ego, Libido, Penis Envy. Some of the meanings have slipped over time, Libido is the survival impulse which supports the instinct for procreation. Not just your level of sexual desire as we use it these days, but still pretty raunchy. Penis Envy was the reason women were incompetent.