I suspect […] one of the main reasons rock stars, who really can have the super hot model, always end up cheating on her — because it’s not really her. In their minds, they became rock stars specifically to get that kind of girl … but that’s the thing: That kind of girl doesn’t exist. She’s a 2D image, heavily photoshopped. Oh, I’m sure Supermodel X really IS hot in real life, but she’s also just a person, which means she farts and snores and wakes up with bed head and all that. Plus, rock stars really do live with the equivalent of their own personal Photoshop, in the form of a small army of flunkies who make all of life’s routine frustrations go away. So it must be even more maddening to find out that the Cover Girl really does have myriad small blemishes, because, you know, she’s a real person, and not the fantasy you signed up for when you signed that big record deal.
Severian, “Junkies”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2021-01-18.
May 11, 2021
QotD: The (disappointing) sex lives of the rich and famous
April 12, 2021
The Constitution of the Spartans
Historia Civilis
Published 11 Sep 2017Patreon | http://historiacivilis.com/patreon
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Website | http://historiacivilis.comSources:
The Constitution of the Spartans, by Xenophon: http://amzn.to/2j7JXTB
The Moralia, by Plutarch: http://amzn.to/2gNMYHU
Parallel Lives: The Life of Lycurgus, by Plutarch: http://amzn.to/2xS29nI
Politics, by Aristotle: http://amzn.to/2wMq5ss
Rhetoric, by Aristotle: http://amzn.to/2xS3niO
Laws, by Plato: http://amzn.to/2wLpsiN
On the Republic, by Cicero: http://amzn.to/2j7Flgg
The Histories, by Herodotus: http://amzn.to/2xdH4a7
The Spartan Regime, by Paul A. Rahe: http://amzn.to/2vPmRqS
Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta, by Stephen Hodkinson: http://amzn.to/2xdV7MS
The Rise of Athens, by Anthony Everitt: http://amzn.to/2j69uMS
Persian Fire, by Tom Holland: http://amzn.to/2vPyCxEWe are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
Music:
“Air Hockey Saloon,” by Chris Zabriskie
“Candlepower,” by Chris Zabriskie
“CGI Snake,” by Chris Zabriskie
“Heliograph,” by Chris Zabriskie
“Hallon,” by Christian Bjoerklund
From the comments:
Temporary Fakename
3 years ago
You know, i thought the Roman political system was pretty odd and arcane. But the Spartans have a dual monarchy that has absolute power, except when it doesn’t, an elected Senate that is chosen partially randomly that can pass whatever the hell they want with a public assembly and punish kings, except when an all-male aristocracy decided no, a female aristocracy that is overwhelmingly rich but can’t vote, and a population so terrified of its own slaves that it ritually committed atrocities against them. Compared to that Roman politics look simple and elegant.
I found the presentation quite interesting and informative, but I felt that some discussion of the differences between the terrible plight of the Helots and the not-quite-free status of the Perioikoi was merited. I also felt that the final segment on the eventual decline of Sparta missed a major factor — Spartan military defeats in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC and the Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC — but reading down in the comments, I saw someone else had already brought this up:
xelena
2 years ago (edited)
This is a good video, but is missing a super important point at the end: The cause for the decline of Spartan power was its defeat by Epaminondas of Thebes and his freeing of Messenia (the land of the Helots). He also founded Messene in Messenia and Megalopolis in Arcadia for the Helots, which became a powerful check to Sparta. Spartan power never recovered from this death blow to its slave economy and continued to wither away into the nothingness you describe.Epaminondas is mostly forgotten today, but he was one of the greatest men of antiquity. It was him and Pelopidas who put to bed the myth of Spartan invincibility and freed an entire people who had been enslaved for centuries. So in a way, the crippling blow did come from other Greeks, and the Helots did participate in it.
April 2, 2021
QotD: Sex and the grad student lifestyle
- Show up; and
- Bring beer.
For 75-90% of women under 40, step 2 is optional. It would’ve been for Chloe. Especially in a bar full of grad students, who despite their extensive academic training on “the rhetorics of hegemony” and whatnot, still aren’t quite sure how the naughty bits fit together. She might’ve had to draw the guy a map, but surely that’s no problem for someone so assertively in control of her own sexuality as was Chloe …
And that’s just normal people, who know what pronouns to use and never hesitate when choosing a public restroom. The real freakazoids actually have it much easier, since loudly proclaiming a deviant sexuality is a status symbol in the ivory tower. Perhaps your deepest, most secret fetish involves cocktail onions and a Shop-Vac … and let me stop you right there, I do NOT wanna know, I’m only bringing this up to say that hey, I sympathize, love is real and you’re having a hard time finding yours.
You should consider academia, my friend, where not only are such things not shameful, but they’re positively celebrated. If you’ve actually got video of yourself doing the nasty under those conditions, they’ll pretty much hand you a PhD in Performance Art on the spot …… and yet, nobody does.
I’m not saying people don’t have sex in grad school. If I myself wasn’t getting my ashes hauled every day in the ivory tower, I assure you it wasn’t for lack of trying. What I am saying is that academia is the only place on earth where not only is your fetish — whatever it is — not shameful, but easily satisfied. Those of us who actually enjoy the missionary position with committed partners of the opposite-sex used to joke that ours was the only sexual deviancy so perverse, you’d be shunned by all your colleagues if you admitted to it. These people, on the other hand, talk like their gonads rule their lives, but they never actually do anything about it.
I have no idea why, but finding out would tell us a lot about the psychology of the average Leftist.
Severian, “Gettin’ Busy in College Town”, Rotten Chestnuts, 2020-12-04.
March 29, 2021
Requiring only men to register for the draft isn’t the real problem — the problem is the draft itself
Kerry McDonald fears that the current challenges to the gender inequality of the US draft may end up making the underlying problem worse:
US Selective Service draft notice for J.D. Schmidt, dated 24 September, 1970.
Wikimedia Commons.
Currently, all American men are required to register for the draft through the Selective Service System when they turn 18, and could be forced into military service if the draft was activated. As a mom with young sons, I shudder at this prospect.
Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to rule the current military draft registration unconstitutional because it requires only men to register, not women. As a mom with young daughters, I shudder at this prospect.
While draft registration does involve unequal treatment of men and women, and women have been ably serving in the military for years, including in full combat, the larger issue is Selective Service registration itself. Current draft registration may be unconstitutional, but it shouldn’t exist at all.
Forcing citizens into any kind of non-voluntary work or action is antithetical to the principles of a free society.
Some contend that conscription is necessary to defend those principles if there were not enough volunteers to serve in a wartime effort, but is slavery ever justifiable? Who decides? If there are not enough soldiers to willingly fight a war, should the war be fought?
Nobel-Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman was one of the key figures who succeeded in persuading the US to move to an all-volunteer army in 1973, arguing against military conscription. Friedman wrote that “any system involving compulsion is basically inconsistent with a free society.” He went on to argue: “The continued use of compulsion is undesirable and unnecessary. We can and should man our armed forces with volunteers.”
In place of conscription, Friedman advocated for a voluntary military guided by free-market ideas. “The appropriate free market arrangement is volunteer military forces; which is to say, hiring men to serve,” Friedman wrote in his book, Capitalism and Freedom. “There is no justification for not paying whatever price is necessary to attract the required number of men. Present arrangements are inequitable and arbitrary, seriously interfere with the freedom of young men to shape their lives, and probably are even more costly than the market alternative.”
Friedman’s advocacy against conscription came to a climax in testimony with Army Chief of Staff, General William Westmoreland. The general disagreed with Friedman by claiming that the economist’s free-market approach would be akin to leading an army of mercenaries. Friedman replied: “General, would you rather command an army of slaves?”
March 27, 2021
QotD: The best bar in the world
Steve Stewart-Williams, “Keeping It Casual”, Quillette, 2018-10-14.
March 11, 2021
Women’s Vote Leads to Bolshevism and Welfare | B2W: ZEITGEIST! I E.13 – Harvest 1921
TimeGhost History
Published 10 Mar 2021This season not only marks the birth of the American welfare state, but it will also see women make great strides towards universal suffrage. But as you can imagine, none of these things come without significant opposition.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Michał Zbojna
Sound design: Marek KamińskiColorizations:
Daniel Weiss – https://www.facebook.com/TheYankeeCol…
Mikołaj Uchman
KlimbimSources:
Some images from the Library of CongressIcons from The Noun Project:
Birth by Adrien Coquet
dead by AomAm
mother by Fahmihorizon
United States Capitol by József Balázs-Hegedüs
noun_House of Representatives
House of Representatives Full by Sarah LawrenceSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
“Epic Adventure Theme 3” – Håkan Eriksson
“You’re Trouble” – Rich in Rags
“I’d Rather Be Alone” – Franz Gordon
“Redefine” – Megan Wofford
“Age Of Men” – Jo WandriniArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
TimeGhost History
2 days ago
America has so far been a pretty big topic in this season, and it again takes center stage in this episode. Considering its monumental role in twentieth-century history, this is only natural. Still, we like to give an international history as possible, so it’s exciting to also introduce Sweden here. It is a small country but historically significant for a number of reasons. It is a pioneer in social democracy, a country that has consistently stayed neutral in world affairs since 1814, and last but not least, the home of Indy Neidell.
March 3, 2021
Geishas: World War Two Prostitutes or Entertainers? – WW2 – On the Homefront 007
World War Two
Published 2 Mar 2021The geisha class has long been a feature of Japanese society. In the 1920s, they were caught between the struggle for women’s liberation and the rising sexual demand of powerful men. This crossfire only becomes more intense as war sweeps the Pacific.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesHosted by: Anna Deinhard
Written by: Spartacus Olsson and Fiona Rachel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Fiona Rachel
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek KamińskiPortrait Colorizations by:
Mikołaj UchmannSources:
– Metropolitan Museum of Art
– Rijksmuseum
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– Library of Congress
– National Archives NARA
– Nationaal Archief
– The Burns Archive
– Woman and Child in Kimono courtesy of Vintage Japan-esque from Flickr
– Five musicians courtesy of Adolfo FarsariSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “Paths of a Samurai” – Mandala Dreams
– “Across the Sea of Japan” – Mandala Dreams
– “Secrets Of A Geisha” – Mandala Dreams
– “Watchman” – Yi Nantiro
– “The Unexplored” – Philip Ayers
– “Heavenly Feathers” – Deskant
– “Ode To The Moon” – Joseph Beg
– “Moving to Disturbia” – ExperiaArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
17 hours ago (edited)
With this rather dramatic topic, we are happy to revive the On the Homefront series! Considering the popular opinion on geisha in America after the Second World War, it is not surprising at all, that the first association with the word is sex. But when we looked a little further into the topic, it got clearer and clearer that originally the job of a geisha meant no such thing. Still, with the social and political tension of the early 20th century, the job of the geisha evolved further and further to prostitution. This shows once again how the war influenced many different aspects of life and how important it is to shed light on these side stages of the war in order to understand its full impact. What would interest you to know about the different Homefronts of World War II?Cheers, Fiona
March 2, 2021
QotD: “The List”
In short, men might have a plan for making a rocket-propelled street luge, but they have none at all when it comes to human activities that stretch across decades — unless it involves such trifles as national defense or energy policy. Men seem to see items like this as actually important, but women know that what is really important is the command and control of male behavior. Hence, “Your Permanent Conduct Record” aka “The List.”
Women reading this essay are, of course, not the type to ever keep an indelible list of male transgressions, large and teeny-tiny. But trust me, there are many that do. Why? Because it works.
“The List” is a means of male-control through negative feedback. Positive male actions towards a woman are expected, perhaps noted at the time, perhaps not — but always in pencil. A brief pat and nod of encouragement and then the woman goes back into the default mode of “what have you done for me lately?” “Lately” is, as all men know, but a small subset of a single day.
Failings of the male — such as lapses in mental telepathy — are kept on “The List” in indelible ink, preferably blood-red. “The List” also includes transgressions, large and small, against the woman from previous relationships with previous males. The ownership of all these transgressions is automatically transferred to the male of the current relationship at the moment of inception or conception, whichever comes first. This is the reason men sometimes feel they are expected to pay an overdue bill for a meal they did not eat in a restaurant that no longer exists. Plus a 20% tip.
Gerard Vanderleun, “The List”, American Digest, 2018-10-21.
February 17, 2021
Communist Amazons – Women of the Red Army – WW2 Special
World War Two
Published 16 Feb 2021Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Women were deployed in the Red Army and Red Navy during World War Two. They served in a multitude of functions, from traditional roles like nurses to roles previously associated with men. They were pilots, snipers, tank-crews, and fought on the very front of the lines.
Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tvFollow WW2 day by day on Instagram @ww2_day_by_day – https://www.instagram.com/ww2_day_by_day
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sourcesHosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Karolina Dołęga
Sound design: Marek KamińskiColorizations by:
– Klimbim
– Daniel WeissSources:
– National Archives NARA
– Woman and Man in 1930s Soviet Propaganda Poster courtesy of Adam Jones from Flickr
– Yad Vashem: 953
– Library of Congress
– RIA Novosti archive
– BundesarchivSoundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
– “The Inspector 4” – Johannes Bornlöf
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Dark Beginning” – Johan Hynynen
– “Other Sides of Glory” – Fabien Tell
– “Break Free” – Fabien Tell
– “Deviation In Time” – Johannes Bornlof
– “Ominous” – Philip Ayers
– “Moving to Disturbia” – ExperiaArchive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
From the comments:
World War Two
5 hours ago (edited)
Because of the pandemic, we have not been able to publish episodes of On the Homefront for a while. But don’t worry, we’re working on a new episode, which should arrive in your subscription box this spring. Now, we have made an On the Homefront episode which offers some great context to this episode on Women in the Soviet Armies. It is about (the myth of) Soviet Gender Equality, and you can watch it right here: https://youtu.be/zLcHbUrnl6Q
February 14, 2021
QotD: Pauline Réage’s Story of O
I am reading Story of O, a novel written in 1954 that recounts the titular character’s journey into sexual bondage, violent penetrations, beatings, whippings, burnings, chains, gags, and dungeons. Readers only familiar with the pedestrian 1975 adaption are advised not to be put off — director Just Jaeckin’s film benefits from the lovely Corinne Cléry’s beguiling performance in the title role, but his soft-focus softcore aesthetic (gauzy white linen dresses and a smooth classical guitar soundtrack) miss the tenderness, the elegance, and the literary grace of the source. Graham Greene described Story of O as a “rare thing, a pornographic book well written and without a trace of obscenity”; Brian Aldiss remarked that O makes “pornography (if that is what it is) an art”; even JK Rowling has offered praise for the book, observing that, “If you’ve read Story of O you’ve kind of read the ultimate.” But it is JG Ballard’s description of the novel as “a deeply moral homily … touched by the magic of love” that resonates most powerfully with me. O is a radical instruction in morals (the book has a clear sense of feminine virtue, for one thing), and yet this sexual morality is unlike any I can find in our contemporary expression of sexual ethics, where self-expression is valued more than self-giving.
O is the story of a woman objectified and humiliated, of a woman who submits to being violated by the countless tongues and phalluses and fingers which enter her. The novel is more sensual than suspenseful — although there is a clear narrative, it is not a story driven by plot, but rather by a series of erotic episodes (Geraldine Bedell writing for the Observer described them as written with “a hallucinatory, erotic intensity”). It is a psychologically as well as sexually penetrative story of surrender, of being mastered and of becoming enslaved, especially its first chapter which describes the elegant sexual tortures of the Chateau at Roissy, a kind of playboy mansion with fewer grottos and more dungeons.
It is here that, at the request of her lover René, O acquiesces in her complete submission. The cast of characters is sparse: O and René; Jacqueline, a young model whom O seduces, and Jacqueline’s 16-year-old sister, Natalie, a virgin eager to be initiated into the sexual rites of Roissy; Anne-Marie, an older and more ruthless mistress than are the many men at the Chateau; sundry blondes, brunettes, and redheads arranged alluringly throughout the text; and finally O’s ultimate lover, the sophisticated Sir Stephen, a kind of father-figure to René who ends up laying claim to O, flogging her, shackling her labia with an iron ring, and branding her with his initials as his slave, “a condition,” the narrator tells us, “of which O herself was proud.” As I read of the many exquisite ways O gives herself for men’s uses, I begin to wonder if the book was presenting me not with a picture of masculine sexual fantasies, but with a vision of my own.
The novel was written by the mysterious Pauline Réage, a pseudonym. In what is arguably one of the most successful literary secrets, Réage’s identity was kept hidden for decades. It wasn’t until 40 years after the novel’s publication that the then 86-year-old Dominique Aury, a respected editor and French intellectual, revealed that she was the author. It seems fitting that in a novel of sexual submission, Aury — Dominique, dominance, dominatrix — maintained such strict control over her own identity. Even Dominique Aury was not her “real” name: she was born Anne Desclos, but legally changed it in 1940. Aury’s nested names and identities are like a meta-fictitious exercise in un-making and making the self, for questions of self-identity and self-integrity lie at the heart of her novel.
Marilyn Simon, “My Own Private Chateau — Pauline Réage’s Story of O Revisited”, Quillete, 2020-10-18.
February 7, 2021
Former Liberal MP dishes on Justin Trudeau in her new book
When I moved out of Whitby, the local Member of Parliament was Liberal Celina Caesar-Chavannes. She was, we thought, a high-profile person who’d probably be quickly moved into a junior cabinet position, as Justin Trudeau sets a very high value on being seen to be supportive of women and minorities. As she quickly discovered, however, with Trudeau it’s very much the “being seen” part that matters to him and almost nothing in the way of actually being supportive:
[After a kerfuffle with opposition MP Maxime Bernier] she said she didn’t hear from most of her Liberal colleagues or the prime minister until a #hereforCelina hashtag campaign started weeks later, in response to a column that accused her of “seeing racism everywhere.” When she later confronted Trudeau about the lack of support, she said he told her, “As a strong Black woman, I didn’t think you needed help.” She said Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner was more supportive to her during that period than Trudeau.
The incident is one of many allegations of racism, tokenizing, and microaggressions Caesar-Chavannes wrote about in her new memoir Can You Hear Me Now?, which came out February 2.
[…]
Caesar-Chavannes told VICE World News her experiences of being tokenized, excluded, and undervalued led her to resign from the Liberal caucus and not run again in the 2019 election. Her decision culminated in an explosive conversation with Trudeau in February 2019, during which she alleges he complained to her about being confronted about his privilege. She said he was angry that she wanted to resign on the same day then Minister of Veterans Affairs Jody Wilson-Raybould quit her cabinet role, in the midst of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the biggest crisis the governing Liberals had faced since Trudeau’s election in 2015.
“I was met with an earful that I needed to appreciate him, that everybody talked to him about his privilege, that he’s so tired of everybody talking to him about this stuff, and that I cannot make this announcement right now,” she said. She alleges he told her “he couldn’t have two powerful women of colour leave at the same time.”
After listening to his “rant” for a while, Caesar-Chavannes said she cussed out the prime minister.
“I had to ask him, ‘Motherfucker, who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?'” she said. “I was so angry.”
She said she didn’t make out what Trudeau said after that, but it “sounded like he was crying.” She ended up delaying her resignation announcement until March 2019.
Caesar-Chavannes said the Liberal party’s treatment of Wilson-Raybould — an Indigenous woman and whistleblower — made her feel like many of her colleagues were “fake as fuck” and cemented her desire to sit as an independent.
January 15, 2021
The Lady Juliana | The 18th-Century All-Women Prison Ship
Weird History
Published 13 Nov 2019A tale as wild as the Seven Seas, the story of the Lady Juliana, a special convict ship full of prisoners sent to Australia, is one of the strangest in the continent’s history. The Lady Juliana had a specific mission: carrying a cargo of female prisoners the British government hoped would help reform the struggling convict colony in New South Wales. This motley crew of British women ultimately had a lasting impact on the history of Australia.
#prisonship #australia #weirdhistory
January 10, 2021
QotD: Sexual equality and the risk of demographic collapse
Eric S. Raymond, “Fearing what might be true”, Armed and Dangerous, 2009-10-23.
December 23, 2020
Our “systemically racist and patriarchal society” which oppresses “people of color, women, and LGBT”
To hear some people (especially on social media in these locked-down pandemic days), there has never been a human society that more greatly benefits white heterosexual men and oppresses everyone else like the modern west. Here are some stats from Rav Arora to challenge that claim:
We are frequently told by commentators and theorists on the progressive and liberal Left that we live in a systemically racist and patriarchal society. The belief that Western societies privilege white men and oppress people of color, women, and LGBT citizens is especially popular within academic institutions, legacy media, the entertainment industry, and even sports. However, newly released statistics from the US Department of Labor for the third quarter of 2020 undermine this narrative. Asian women have now surpassed white men in weekly earnings. That trend has been consistent throughout this past year — an unprecedented outcome. Full-time working Asian women earned $1,224 in median weekly earnings in the third quarter of this year compared to $1,122 earned by their white male counterparts. Furthermore, the income gap between both black and Latino men and Asian women is wider than it has ever been. The income gap between white and black women, meanwhile, is much narrower than the gap between their male counterparts.
These outcomes cannot exist in a society suffused with misogyny and racism. As confounding to conventional progressive wisdom as these new figures appear to be, copious research finds that ethnic minorities and women frequently eclipse their white and male counterparts, even when these identities intersect. Several ethnic minority groups consistently out-perform whites in a variety of categories — higher test scores, lower incarceration rates, and longer life expectancies. According to the latest data from the US Census Bureau, over the 12 months covered by the survey, the median household incomes of Syrian Americans ($74,047), Korean Americans ($76,674), Indonesian Americans ($93,501), Taiwanese Americans ($102,405), and Filipino Americans ($100,273) are all significantly higher than that of whites ($69,823). The report also finds substantial economic gains among minority groups. Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute reports that from 2018 to 2019, Asian and black households had the highest rate of median income growth (10.6 percent and 8.5 percent, respectively) of all main racial groups (although she cautions that overall disparities remain “largely unchanged”). On a longitudinal scale, Hispanics, not whites, had the highest income growth in 2019 relative to the start of the Great Recession in 2007 (although many of these gains have been reversed by the pandemic).
Rapidly rising female economic success is partly a product of higher academic representation. 2019 was the 11th consecutive year in which women earned the majority of doctoral degrees. Women accounted for 57 percent of all students across American colleges in 2018 according to the latest US Department of Education figures and earned the majority of associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees. According to University of Michigan economist Mark J. Perry, “By overall enrollment in higher education men have been an under-represented minority for the last 40 years.” Sex differences in cognition can help to explain differential performance along gender lines — although men typically perform better on quantitative and visuospatial tasks, several studies have found that on average women perform better in verbal and memory tasks and on reading and writing tests.
December 15, 2020
QotD: TedX
sanctimoniousubiquitous Ted Talks programme, is more inclusive than official Ted because they have added a random letter ‘X’ into the word. On an unrelated note, TedX London have decided to start using the totally real and not at all just made-up word “Womxn” when they talk about members of the female persuasion, chapettes, fillies, gels, y’know, charming, delightful, non-men – them. They told anormal personbigot on Twitter who asked why they were using the word “womxn”: “No, that’s not a typo: ‘womxn’ is a spelling of ‘women’ that’s more inclusive and progressive. The term sheds light on the prejudice, discrimination, and institutional barriers womxn have faced, and explicitly includes non-cisgender women.” But are TedX really the inclusive group they claim to be? Trans Media Watch, a pro-trans lobby group told the BBC it would never use the word Womxn: “because we feel it’s important for people to recognise that trans women are women. Trans women aren’t a special, separate category.” So it turns out “women” is the most inclusive term after all. If TedX London hasn’t been cancelled by the end of the week then Twitter’s not what it was.David Scullion, “UN-Believable”, The Critic, 2020-09-09.
