The new Daily Show is pretty bad.

Jon Stewart recently rejoined the conversation on his own non-network show, a little grayer but with his signature energy intact. He’s back to his consciousness-raising schtick, covering topics like gun violence and economic inequality with the deft balance we came to expect during his 16-year tenure in the Daily Show anchor chair.

Your Replacement Is Here

Trevor Noah has always seemed more scripted to me. His tone changes pretty drastically when he’s off-script, his natural rhythm peeking out to reveal a softer, even pensive style. Ironically, these are the moments he looks most natural as Stewart’s successor – Trevor is also kind, but firm. Jovial, but principled.

“Of course people are gonna challenge these ideas. There’s nothing really holding these ideas together, is there?”

King Critical argues in a recent video that straying from Liberal orthodoxy does not a Conservative make. He describes the arbitrary groupings with panache, walking us through how going to the source material first started him asking bigger questions.

“So, I looked into Islam and I came to an uncomfortable conclusion – I literally could not believe Islam is true. Because if I did, I would have to believe lots of horrible, horrible, evil things.” 

There are, of course, those who do not want us to speak. Why? Because, while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. 

My DVD copy of V For Vendetta froze about halfway through, not so much as a smudge on it. Not currently available on any streaming service, the eloquence of the fictional freedom fighter was out of my reach.

Strangely fitting for this Guy Fawkes Day, when even words have fallen under suspicion. Transwomen are women, and women are birthing people. 

Words offer the means to meaning and, for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there?

“We define our sexual orientation as one thing and you’re changing it to another, and that’s the issue.” Self-described “old-school lesbian YouTuber” Arielle Scarcella sits stubbornly at the center of our cultural confusion.

“Now we have people telling us things like we have ‘complicated relationships’ with genitals? I don’t think me being a lesbian is a complicated issue. I think it’s just me being attracted to females,

“…Or female-presenting people.”

Posted back in December of 2019, Arielle becomes unusually quiet here. She hangs her head and mutters, “There’s nothing complicated about the fact that I like – that, that I’m attracted to boobs and vaginas. I mean, it’s that fuckin simple sometimes.”

This week, Senator Joe Manchin insisted any extension of the Child Tax Credit payments should include a work requirement.

"Before you start saying, ‘is it going to be permanent?’,  let's see how we're doing this. Let's make sure that we're getting it to the right people.“

And who would that be, Joe?

"There's no work requirements whatsoever. There's no education requirements whatsoever for better skill sets – Don't you think if we want to help the children, the people should make some effort?" 

Strong words from a fellow whose entire industry takes August off work like classical Versailles. But I guess budgeting has never been politicians’ strong suit.

The moment I opened my mouth to talk about what’s happening in Afghanistan, someone was kind enough to remind me that, “It’s happening to most women in the world, as a majority of the population is in such countries.”

Giving others the benefit of the doubt saves a lot of time, but even assuming this PSA is earnest still feels less than helpful. More and more of us are speaking up, and this is a good thing. 

Speaking for myself, I usually focus on things at home because that’s my area of expertise. I don’t presume to speak for women in faraway countries.

The outside world will save us. I know it exists, because I lean on it all the time.

We all do – Medicine relies on it to make diagnoses and treatments. We’re using it right now because, of course, technology counts on particles, materials, software, and even human intuition to function in expected ways.

But we don’t really like applying this predictability to ourselves. Each of us is a brave pioneer in her own universe! We’re all soaking in Choice Philosophy, the spread of Gender Religion just the latest wave of neoliberal nonsense to wash over us.  

Radical feminism has many detractors. Finding Meghan Murphy among them lately has been a surprise.

As her follow-up to defending Benjamin Boyce’s right to talk about ‘whores,’ Meghan has stepped up to tell us How To Feminist. And it’s not a great look.

Even worse, I understand and agree with a lot of what she said! But she paints with a broad brush without so much as a personal anecdote to anchor the conversation. Her bitterness is palpable and she comes across as pretty condescending,

Her title –Radical Feminism Has A Humanity Problem – sets an adversarial tone from the beginning.

“If you are concerned with other people’s genitals, that is a *you* problem.”

So concludes a response to women’s discomfort with men in our spaces. This was the first justification I saw trotted out in the aftermath of the Wi Spa viral video. Since then, the narrative has hopped from victim-blaming to saying the incident was staged, and finally to insisting OP made the whole thing up!

The latest coverage in the Los Angeles Blade wants to be conclusive: “Anonymous sources within the LAPD tell the Blade they have been unable to find any corroborating evidence that there was a transgender person present on that day.”

As much as I hate to admit it, I grew up in Ohio.

For a long time people called it America’s Weathervane. A hub of midwestern culture, Ohio picked the President every election from 1960 until this last one.

Despite my six years in Tennessee, I watched with great interest as  State Representative Jena Powell spoke before the Ohio Legislature in defense of women’s rights. She’s a Republican, of course. Representative Powell may not be the best feminist spokesperson, but the aggressive, frightening reaction she triggered made my blood run cold.

There’s been a lot of discussion in Radfem spaces about whether cooperating with conservatives is a good idea.

Plenty of writers and activists have stepped up to remind us why conservatives don’t make good allies. Just because Sky Daddy agrees the sky is blue and talks real sweet, doesn’t mean we need to go back to him. He’ll only hit us again sooner or later.

But with such a complete media blackout, with social platforms banning us for nonsense like ‘misgendering,’ it’s not hard to understand why some feminists choose to take advantage of the few opportunities on offer to get the word out.

If Marion Millar’s case were getting any real press coverage, feminists of every shade would be spazzing out over it.

One young Englishwoman stumbled upon it, and her conscience demanded she say something… Even if her understanding of politics obscured exactly what.

The Authentic Observer is my new favorite YouTube channel. YouTube has pretty much become my TV, I’ve somehow even managed to recreate my middle school viewing habits of bouncing between The History Channel, VH1 and A&E.

The Authentic Observer focuses on literature and culture. Galatea – TAO‘s young writer, director, editor, costume designer and star – gave herself burnout at the end of last year birthing a Halloween video that is truly a work of art. Her posts have been pared down and less frequent since then.

Something wicked is brewing in conservative America.

The same culture wars that birthed incels have impacted the girls who won’t date them just as much.

Our refusal to draw mothering into the fold leaves a lot of girls feeling conflicted. Feminism fails them as long as it ignores the more nuanced questions of many women’s lives. 

Jen at Fundie Fridays knows a lot about it, “The misogyny on Caitlin’s channel is rampant and direct. She often uses the same talking points as incels when expressing her worldview.”

The current model of Choice Feminism is riddled with problems.

In radfem and GC spaces, we take them as a gimme. We understand that many of the alternatives we throw around are older than any of us, that radical feminism is not a reaction to Choice Feminism.

In our sheltered enclave, it’s easy to forget how confusing it is out there.

French YouTuber Alice Cappelle takes on some meaty subjects with a laywoman’s perspective. She lays out details and liberally quotes others, while admitting she doesn’t always know where she stands on things.

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.

Bill Maher makes a great Boomer spokesman.

Sitting halfway between Bill and the Young People I think he’s yelling at this week, I remember his firebrand image from 25 years ago.

He’s always spoken for that segment of liberals who fancy themselves independent thinkers. They made a big splash as the new kids in town, when I was a kid. But the turmoil of the past quarter-century hasn’t triggered any growth as they became the dominant force in American liberal politics.

Think of them as liberal Libertarians – People who are Democrats because they want to avoid the Right’s racism and sexism, even if they’re not really interested in social programs. Identity politics is the perfect strawman they can slay over and over to avoid doing any collectivism. And it has many forms besides Wokism.

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?

Tribalism has really gotten out of hand, hasn’t it? Everything must be on one side or the other in the Culture War, no front line is too remote.

But tossing everything in two huge piles throws together things that have no business anywhere near each other.

The simple dichotomy of Conservative = Republican / Progressive = Democrat has shown itself inadequate for a while now. For one thing, a ‘conservative’ is someone who wants to conserve things as they are. But this makes the Biden administration’s Back-To-Normal schtick a little weird, doesn’t it?

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.”

Hey guyns, get this – Abortion is trending again! Zipidee-do-dah!

Ovarit’s comments on my post this week took a discouraging turn. Alongside a lively discussion of Mitt Romney’s Child Allowance Plan, an unexpected consensus emerged that abortion protections at the Federal level are basically gone.

The Sad State of Women’s Rights, US Edition

“It’s just a matter of time. It’ll be off the table soon, and it makes moderate Republicans a lot more appealing to me.“

This sounds reasonable until you remember that all Romney needs to look like a hero is a little integrity. 

This world just keeps on getting weirder! Today, I found myself sobbing with relief over a bill introduced by the man I voted against in 2012.

Saagar Enjeti over at The Hill explains how Mitt Romney’s Child Allowance Plan “Would almost single-handedly cut child poverty to the lowest level in decades.” 

He also reminds us that the United States is facing a real fertility crisis  – My generation is not having enough kids to replace ourselves. It seems many Americans don’t understand why this is important.

“When I praised this publicly, I was hit with unsurprisingly skeptical takes around, ‘Why do we even need more kids…? Doesn’t this discriminate against people who don’t have kids?”

“America’s sense of what it is to be intellectual, moral, or artistic; what it is to educate a child; what it is to foster justice; what it is to express oneself properly; what it is to be a nation – all is being refounded upon a religion.“

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? But Professor John McWhorter was writing this week about race theory in America, not gender.

He is talking about the same thing we are, without knowing it.

Last week, I pointed out that Kyle Kulinski over at Secular Talk had stumbled upon the same issue we in the feminist community have been wrestling with for years – That lots of so-called Liberals really aren’t very. 

The story of the Reddit attack on Wall Street is being twisted in some strangely familiar ways.

Today on Secular Talk, host Kyle Kulinski shows us how tech companies and publications are working together to paint the Redditors as right-wing extremists.

He pulls headlines from Business Insider describing Discord banning r/Wallstreetbets for “hate speech”, and Newsweek claiming it’s all a cover for recruitment.

Kyle points out Discord’s convenient timing, “It’s not a coincidence that the day they took them down is the day that they were bankrupting hedge funds and taking down wealthy and powerful people.”

Democrats in the House of Representatives are going stir-crazy, held captive by Republicans who plainly state they have no intention of working with them on anything, ever. 

Apparently, their self-awarded consolation prize for failing to do much for the American people all through one of the worst years on record, was to make their paperwork More Inclusive.

The changes themselves aren’t all that crazy actually, quite a few ‘men’ are being removed – ‘Chairman’ becomes ‘Chair,’ ‘Seamen’ becomes ‘Seafarers.’ ‘Submit his or her resignation’ becomes ‘resign.’ Pretty straightforward stuff, it seems.