A professor at the University of Southern California has come under fire after sending a reply-all email last week to the student body stating “accusers sometimes lie.” “If the day comes you are accused of some crime or tort of which you are not guilty, and you find your peers automatically believing your accuser, I expect you find yourself a stronger proponent of due process than you are now,” Professor James Moore wrote in the email. “Accusers sometimes lie.” Nearly 100 students reportedly attended a rally called “Times Up for James Moore” on Monday in protest of Moore — who is tenured — demanding that he be fired. — Students Call For USC Professor To Be Fired For Saying ‘Accusers Sometimes Lie’ | Daily Wire Nearly 100 students! Not mentioned: USC has 44,000 students. A more accurate way to frame this would be “Out of 44,000 USC students, 43,900 understand… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Women
To Make the Accusation is to Prove It. To Hear the Allegation is to Believe It.
Simply to make the accusation is to prove it. To hear the allegation is to believe it. No motive for the perpetrator is necessary, no logic or rationale is required. Only a label is required. The label is the motive. The label is the evidence. The label is the logic. Why did Coleman Silk do this? Because he is an x, because he is a y, because he is both. First a racist and now a misogynist. It is too late in the century to call him a Communist, though that is the way it used to be done. . . . That explains everything. — Philip Roth, The Human Stain Read more →
They Submitted Fake Papers to Peer-Reviewed Journals — Here’s What Happened Next
Three writers produced 20 intentionally outlandish academic papers and submitted them to the best peer-reviewed journals associated with fields of scholarship loosely known as “cultural studies” or “identity studies” (for example, gender studies) or “critical theory.” Seven of the papers were accepted for publication and seven more were still under review when the authors elected to end the experiment. Their point would seem to be that scholarship in these fields is based less upon finding truth and more upon attending to social grievances. Just about anything can be published, so long as it falls within the moral orthodoxy and demonstrates an understanding of the existing literature. The authors summarize their methodology as follows. (I’ve inserted the material in brackets from elsewhere in the article, which you should look at in its entirety because there’s too much good stuff to summarize.) What if we write a paper saying we should train… Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: An Inconvenient Woman by Dominick Dunne
It’s a good murder mystery, but about two-thirds of the way through, I felt like I couldn’t indulge the author’s sexual obsessions any further and just flipped ahead to see whodunit. Every man has either “a dick like a mule” or “a dick like a Tampax.” No one has ” a dick of average proportions.” Sexual relationships are either non-existent (with one’s wife) or preposterously frequent and varied (with one’s mistress(es)). One unlikely plot device is premised on a particular woman’s “most intimate scent.” I’d suggest that the author have his head examined but he’s been dead for nearly 10 years . . . Read more →
See You in Hell: Sarah Jeong Edition
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! Someone named Sarah Jeong was hired by a newspaper to work on their editorial board. It turns out Sarah has some pretty woke tweets. Here’s a sample: Dumbass fucking white people marking up the internet with their opinions like dogs pissing on fire hydrants. Ha ha, that’s pretty good. Who hired her to write editorials? The Sweet Briar College student paper? No, it’s the New York Times! Earlier this year, the Times hired someone named Quinn Norton, then fired her on the same day because of what it called racial and anti-gay slurs. I don’t know exactly what Quinn Norton said but I’ll bet it wasn’t as provocative as dumbass fucking white people pissing on the internet like dogs! Look, I hate white men and white people in general as much as… Read more →
See You in Hell: Morgan Freeman Edition
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Greetings from the underworld! I was looking forward to reading the “shocking” allegations against Morgan Freeman . . . it turns out he likes to look at women’s breasts! WHAAAAT?! Men like to look at breasts, women like to look at breasts . . . and he also says things like “I’d like to spend an hour with her.” Every person on earth older than 12 has said the same thing. If looking at breasts and naming a person you’d like to fuck gets you condemned to Hell, I’m not going to have enough room to put all these people. Heaven will be empty! Public life in America is now dominated by whatever actresses are currently complaining about. See you in Hell! Read more →
Fact Checking the Fact Checkers
PolitiFact has a article headlined “Donald Trump’s NRA speech, fact-checked”. Here’s a sample: “African-American unemployment has reached another all-time, in history, record low … And the same thing with Hispanic American unemployment, which is also at the lowest level in history — unemployment, lowest level in history. And women’s unemployment — women, many women — is at the lowest level in almost 20 years. Think of that.” The “fact check” starts out like this: As far as the numbers go, Trump is correct. It then goes on for another five paragraphs to say that Barack Obama deserves “at least as much” credit as Trump for low unemployment. That’s a fact check?! Trump didn’t even say anything about who deserves the credit, although the listener is invited to make a favorable inference. Had he added “. . . and I deserve all the credit,” it would be fair in that case… Read more →
Diversity in Tech Efforts Self-Defeating?
Panelists at the Inclusion in Tech summit lamented that we can’t tell if tech is doing better on diversity because the data stinks. My advice would be don’t worry about it. A lot of the noise around diversity in technology is self-defeating. If you’re a member of an underrepresented group, all you hear is that technology fields are hostile and awful and unwelcoming, you won’t be treated fairly, etc. And you wonder why certain groups are underrepresented? You’ve answered your own question. Why would anyone who wants to have a happy life pursue a career beset by unfairness and hardship? Why not instead be a meeting planner or a flight attendant? Asians are overrepresented in technology jobs but that’s a relatively recent development in the history of these fields. I don’t remember, when this transition from underrepresented to overrepresented was happening, hearing a lot about how technology fields were hostile… Read more →
Women in STEM: It’s Ambiguous but You’re Still Wrong
The Dartmouth student newspaper reports on a study finding that gender affects an individual’s perception of women’s anxiety in STEM disciplines. Men are more likely than women to attribute this anxiety and self-doubt to internal factors, while women usually attribute such emotions to external factors. Participants in the study read one story, among a selection, about an undergraduate woman taking a STEM class. In the stories, based on the experiences of actual undergraduate women in STEM, the female main character expressed having anxiety or self-doubt. It was ambiguous whether the instructor in the stories harbored any biases against women. According to research team leader Mary Flanagan, “Women identify the problem as something that is familiar and men identify the problem as something that is a particular student’s problem. Men are not seeing the systemic biases as much as the women are. That is something that we need to address in deeper… Read more →
Stop the Presses!
It’s official: older men like older women (as well as younger ones) — The Times Lazy River project still incomplete one year later — Laredo Morning Times Read more →
More Words and Phrases I’m Sick Unto Death Of: Manterrupting
I’ve only heard it once and I’m already sick of it. According to the person who said it, it means a man interrupting a woman. Is there a word for a woman allowing herself to be interrupted? I mean, men interrupt other men too, we just decide whether or not we’re going to allow it . . . Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Modern-Day Sexism
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth– PE] I heard a gal talking about being snubbed in a social setting where she was the only woman. She says it was “modern-day sexism.” I guess “old-fashioned sexism” was you can’t vote. Modern-day sexism is “unconscious bias,” which means I ain’t gonna ask you why you did that, because you don’t even know why you did it, but I know why you did it, and that is because you are sexist. These gals are all a bunch of voodoo mind readers. They got one explanation for everything that happens in the world. If I had me a dollar for every time someone just knowed why I did something without asking me and they was dead wrong, I could quit blogging and retire. And that’s the Truth! Read more →
EppsNet Book Reviews: Middlemarch by George Eliot
George Eliot is a transgender author whose work was previously unfamiliar to this reviewer. Ha, kidding! It’s hard to think of new things to say about old books, but if you appreciate the novel as an art form, or you think you might appreciate the novel as an art form if you gave it a chance, you should read Middlemarch. What it is about? At 800+ pages, it’s about a lot of things: life in rural England in the 1830s, the status of women, the bonds of matrimony, idealism, self-interest, religion, hypocrisy and politics. It’s about the heroism of ordinary lives. It’s about, in the character of Dorothea Brooke, “the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.” Here’s the conclusion of the novel,… Read more →
Camille Paglia on #MeToo and Damsels in Distress
The big question is whether the present wave of revelations, often consisting of unsubstantiated allegations from decades ago, will aid women’s ambitions in the long run or whether it is already creating further problems by reviving ancient stereotypes of women as hysterical, volatile and vindictive. My philosophy of equity feminism demands removal of all barriers to women’s advancement in the political and professional realms. However, I oppose special protections for women in the workplace. Treating women as more vulnerable, virtuous or credible than men is reactionary, regressive and ultimately counterproductive. Complaints to the Human Resources department after the fact are no substitute for women themselves drawing the line against offensive behavior — on the spot and in the moment. Working-class women are often so dependent on their jobs that they cannot fight back, but there is no excuse for well-educated, middle-class women to elevate career advantage or fear of social… Read more →
Some Links on Effective Communication
Busting myths on gender differences in the brain (Article) Nora Caplan-Bricker, “The Idea of a ‘Male Brain’ and a ‘Female Brain’ Is Likely a Myth,” Slate, November 2, 2015. Challenges and strategies for creating safe communication spaces at work (Article) James R. Detert and Ethan R. Burris, “Can Your Employees Really Speak Freely?,” Harvard Business Review, vol. 94, no. 1 (January/February 2016): p. 80-87. Communication comes in all shapes and sizes (Video) Nancy Lublin, “Texting That Saves Lives,” TEDvideo, 5:24, February 2012. Do men and women communicate differently? (Article) Deborah Cameron, “What Language Barrier?,” The Guardian, October 1, 2007. Find out the meaning behind emojis (Website) “Emojipedia.” Game-changing communication developments (Article) Amber Leigh Turner, “5 Trends Disrupting Communication,” TNW News. How the medium of communications can change what we say (Article) “Tweets From Mobile Devices Are More Likely to Be Egocentric,” International Communications Association press release, October 1, 2015. Leaders can change their power… Read more →
And That’s the Truth: Me Too
[And That’s the Truth is a feature by our guest blogger, Sojourner Truth– PE] If women want any rights more than they’s got, why don’t they just take them, and not be talking about it. I have as much rights as any man, and can do as much work as any man. And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? That little man in… Read more →
See You in Hell
[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE] Pope Francis and Donald Trump were both vexed this past week by natives of shithole countries. The pope showed up in Chile to accuse local sex abuse victims of calumny against the church. “Calumny” means he’s calling them liars. Look it up. Oh that reminds me! Cardinal Law sends his regards. Then he was on to Peru, where he called violence against women a “plague” across the Latin American region. They’re murderers, rapists . . . and some, I assume, are good people. What a character! I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. See you in Hell! Read more →
Two Reasons For the Low Number of Women in Computer Jobs
I saw this chart on LinkedIn with the heading “Chart: Women in tech continue to face uphill battle” and the hashtag #STEMSexism. The first reason for the low number of women in computer jobs is that we rarely hear about women in computing except in the context of pay gaps, harassment, discrimination, “uphill battles” and #STEMSexism. It’s self-perpetuating. “Computing is a terrible profession for women in so many ways.” Followed by “Why aren’t there more women in computing?” You’ve answered your own question. If you think computing is a hostile profession (I do not, btw), why do you want more women to go into it? The second reason for the low number of women in computer jobs — sometimes the simplest explanations are the best — is that women prefer to do other things. Men and women are different and make different choices about their lives, as a result… Read more →
The Country is Turning Into One Big Junior Prom
Former Fox News anchor says Trump once tried to kiss her https://t.co/G3YakLpyaC pic.twitter.com/ZYVm4AqIvQ — Hollywood Reporter (@THR) December 9, 2017 That’s interesting. Have any other men tried to kiss her? Or is that the whole list? Why does anyone need to know about this? I’ve tried to kiss women. I hope Al Franken is saving a place for us in the unemployment line. There seem to be an awful lot of apparently adult women who should not be allowed to leave home without a chaperone . . . Read more →
Al Franken and Ted Kennedy
I’m old enough to remember when a U.S. senator could actually kill a woman and not only NOT resign but be considered a legislative luminary, the lion of the Democratic party. (If you’re not old enough to remember that, google “Ted Kennedy.”) I’m hearing that Sen. Al Franken will be resigning his seat within the next day. The last straw was an allegation from a woman who said that Franken, before he was a senator, appeared to be about to kiss her and she moved away: He was between me and the door and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’ But I knew whatever was happening was not right and I ducked. I was really startled by it and I just sort of booked it towards the… Read more →