As a woman... yes, I am starting my sentence this way... I am annoyed by Dylan. I find it infuriating that he is gaining so much attention and money with his stupid act of “girlhood”. I find the political and corporate set ups that allow for him to be successful this way appalling and dangerous for our kids. We need to be outraged where it is important: when kids are hurt and laws are changed for the worst.
This is where my outrage with this gay man ends: Dylan = annoying. He does not impact how I present and he does not speak for me as a woman. At best it is an stupid skid that went way outside the boundaries of SNL and will eventually end. A bubble yo burst when he or others will get bored with it.
Dylan is a symptom not the cause. He is not even the offense, but just a looking glass to where our society is at.
Wow- a looking glass. That is so sad. I'm afraid you are right. What we choose to celebrate says something about who we are. It's quite embarrassing really
Hi Josh. I always enjoy hearing your take on things! I'm a therapist and I think you nail Cluster B and it's takeover of our culture.
I don't really know what to say about Dylan Mulvaney. I find him grotesque and annoying, sort-of an obscene characature of womanhood. Although, there are biological women who chose to present themselves in a similiarly foolish histrionic manner and quite frankly they piss me off too!
“Feminists have long complained about “the patriarchy” “imposing” these sartorial requirements on them. Now they want to claim that’s actually what women’s faces look like?” I’m out of the loop on what feminists are saying,, but interesting point here. I’ve been wondering lately that when our empire collapses, as the Romans did, if the very fake make up, skimpy dresses that barely cover someone’s butt, and high heels will go out of fashion all together.
Recently, my very savvy, smart, 25 yr old , but sadly reality tv, Instagram viewing daughter said to me: who is Dylan Mulvaney.? That made me happy for a moment.
Blackface was demeaning not because it took roles away from legitimate black actors, but because the white actor in blackface usually played a buffoon. The sting was in the behavior more than a white person playing a black person. Blacks at that time weren’t allowed to act in the theater, so this was a way to have a black role in a play, etc. At least that’s what I’ve understood about blackface. This is also, to me, why Dylan Mulvaney is the worst yet of transsexual M to F aping femininity. It’s the buffoonery. It’s demeaning, strips women of our dignity (although the Kardashians have done a lot in that area to pave the way), and mocks everything that we have to manage in our daily lives as girls and women. If the feminists aren’t making that distinction clear it’s no surprise. Their logic is often muddled.
I have never thought that the term "Womanface" was literally about the ridiculous makeup that so many men who attempt to masquerade as women or worse, "gurls" like Dylan Mulvaney so often wear as a component of their minstrelsy. And make no mistake - it is a form of minstrelsy.
I've always been under the distinct impression that the term is in reference to the offensive array of condescending, regressive and outright mockery these men engage in as the bulk of their LARP.
Further, I believe that the term is also deployed in reference to the fact that these men apparently believe that our womanhood boils down to the experience of possessing a crude pharmaceutical derived simulacrum of the body parts possessed by women. That because they have grown some extra moob tissue and perhaps extra padding around the hips and buttocks they are suddenly and unequivocally a "laydee". They try to deny it, resorting to DARVO by accusing women who point out that we are women precisely because we were born female of "bioessentialism", yet are very quick to tell on themselves by asserting that the presence of gynecomastia from exogenous estrogen dosage is "proof" of some kind of "womanhood".
Lastly, it's not feminists who are gender critical going around revelling in some feeling of "oppression", at least not that I have observed. Again - that seems to be the province of trans-identifying males and is part and parcel of their BDSM related forced feminization kink. It's right at the core of what turns the vast majority of them on about their attempt at forcing the rest of us to perceive and treat them "as a woman".
Which feminists are doing this? I can’t imagine that the argument is a simple “This is the exact same thing as blackface!” because it’s such a shallow and ridiculous statement.
What I’ve personally seen argued is that if we have a problem with pretending to be black, we should also have a problem with pretending to be the opposite sex. The argument is that purchasing another person’s identity is gross. It gets even grosser when the group being imitated isn’t allowed to be offended by what can be grotesque and bigoted insults to their character, and if they protest, they get shut down and attacked. In that way, I think it’s easy to see that that’s the position women are in.
It’s funny. I’ve never been terribly affected by drag. I know it’s meant to insult women. That much is obvious. I mean, it was originally gay men performing for other gay men. Drag queens are even now pretty brutal to and about women. I just saw it for what it is: the acting out of childish jealousy. Basically the same thing as gay men talking about “tuna” and “fleshy bags of fat” etc. No gay man who has accepted himself as he is feels compelled to talk that way. That many do is hardly a secret, though.
NOW we have men invading our spaces, raping girls in former safe spaces, *and* they’re full on claiming they’re “better women than women” and NO real female is allowed to correct them or they might get targeted by unhinged cult members. It’s not exactly like blackface, no. But it’s not totally lacking in parallels, come on now.
I know you were raised by a self proclaimed feminist who abused you. I feel you there. My mother made similar claims about her own identity, but everything was secondary to her own narcissistic needs. Any and all self aggrandizing labels were blissfully forgotten, because they were only ever about how others saw her. That’s what the idiots calling themselves feminists, while destroying women’s rights and protections for the sake of their “image” are no different.
I started saying “not all men” unironically when men I knew told me that women making broad statements about men online was hurtful and made them feel helpless to prove it untrue. I’ve been hurt by a few selfish men in my life, but their selfishness had nothing to do with their sex, really. They just used whatever advantages they had to get things they wanted. Bad people are just bad. Call out bad people for being bad, but be specific, please. So “not all women” and “not all feminists” might annoy you, buuut I dunno what you expect. I want to support you and I’m grateful for your voice, but how many good feminists and women do you need to meet and work alongside on this trans bullshit before you stop pointing to the very *worst* possible people who call themselves feminist and claiming we’re all like that? We are not. In general we care deeply about children, and protecting them from harm. We also don’t look for things to be upset about. In other words, we have lives outside of advocacy.
You said yourself that these people are just professional bellyachers (not in those words, of course). This is a well off cohort of spoiled, sheltered young people who were overly coddled and under challenged. Looking at the people in your town who are showing up at these lawmaking sessions, they are so obviously miserable and dissociated that I’d feel deep sympathy for them, if they weren’t also so resentful, spiteful, and openly sadistic, looking for people they can get away with attacking. These people aren’t “feminists,” or anything else other than self interested and self absorbed. This urge to control is coming from fear, and a lifetime of pointing blame at other people. I honestly think some might have honest to god brain damage from puberty blockers, or growing up horribly undersocialized, or both.
No. I will not play the "which feminists are doing this?" game.
Support what and whom you want to support, and I will do the same. If you find that you can't stomach "supporting" me because I disagree with you on feminism, then you should withdraw your support.
I'll still work against the abuse of children, men, and women, that trans ideology brings.
If you want to demand accuracy and specificity, but you can’t or won’t offer it yourself, I dunno what to tell you. I’m not playing a game with you. Quite the opposite.
I apologize if that sounded like I was trying to imply that my support is dependent on you agreeing with me on everything. That wasn’t and isn’t my intention. I was being straight with you. I prefer that, just as you do, and probably for the same reasons.
You know, just the other day I read a piece by a drag queen, who seemed very confident that women who are offended by drag were full of shit. He even asked TWO other men if women had any right to be offended, lol. Apparently these men agreed with him. I guess asking a woman might have meant getting an answer he didn’t like.
See the problem? I mean yes, it’s kind of a stretch to call it as bad as blackface, but why was it okay when Fred held the sign, then? Is it only trustworthy when a man says it? Am I not allowed to have an opinion?
You are allowed to have opinions, and you're allowed to post them here.
From long experience (this isn't to do with you at all, as I don't really know you) over many years, I no longer respond to requests to explicate "which feminists."
No matter what I have said, no matter how I have phrased it (calmly, as I'm speaking to you now, or with passion), it is a neverending treadmill.
I understand that this is disappointing when a person is asking me in good faith. I can't help that it's disappointing.
I decided to refuse to do this long before we "met each other," because I've already done the conversation you'd like me to do. Repeatedly. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of times.
Though you, personally, did not witness this, I did "do the work."
I do not "do the work" any longer. I know you find it unsatisfactory. In your shoes, I would too.
For the record, I wouldn't have held Fred's sign, and I don't like the message. But that wasn't the point of the video.
Had you, Justine, been in Fred's shoes, I would have covered the issue the same way I did when I covered it with Fred. By not mentioning that, because it is beside the point.
This conversation is now closed. That is not a discussion or a request, it's a statement.
When I was a young person, not very many years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed and Johnson had recently become and unpopular president (fuck, I'm old!), one oft-repeated crie among civil rights supporters was, "Why be prejudiced against people just for being black? It's only skin color!" That is color was supposed to be a trivial matter no intelligent person in their right mind would care about so we should just ignore it. Lenny Bruce was a cultural hero for, among other great bits, his infamous "Are there any niggers here tonight?" routine, the point of which was the best way to defeat racism and racial tension was to just not give a shit about inflammatory language. As a Jew, he was sure to put at least one "Kike" in there at a time when the Holocaust was still a living memory for most people. So, you know he was serious while he was being funny.
Now, identity politics pea brains are, instead, ever on the look out for even the slightest excuse and grotesquely-tortured extrapolations to play victim and destroy careers and reputations, thereby vindicating Bruce's wisdom. Not that these ignorant jerks would be in a position to get that.
For the record, Al Jolsen, the most infamous blackface performer ever, was regarded as a valued and beloved ally by the black community during the days of Jim Crow. Not only was his tomb eventually designed by a black architect but the Amsterdam News encouraged every black person to see the picture in celebration. Because Jolsen always portrayed his black characters as good, intelligent people in opposition to the noxious stereotypes of the day.
Tragically, that sort of nuance is just way over the head of our present culture. We live in both stupid and tragic times.
I find it annoying that people are boycotting a beer that had a fake women on it MORE than drag queens/trans in schools & libraries & cutting parts off children.
First of all: "yes" to everything you said as usual, Josh.
One of the saddest things, to me, about blackface, is the Zwarte Piet "controversy" in the Netherlands. Black Pete is an ancient Indo-European tradition. How old? There's an Iranian version. It's related to Santa Claus. It goes back as far as 7,000 years.
It has nothing to do with minstrelsy, the postbellum (or antebellum) South, the transatlantic slave trade, or American folk traditions.
Nothing at all.
And yet: ignorant Dutch people have cancelled Black Pete because of "systemic racism." Any time a person with fair skin darkens their face anywhere, for whatever reason, it's automatically racist: that seems to be the extent of the thought process.
They're doing violence to their own culture because they're ignorant of their own culture. So maybe, like complaining feminists, they deserve everything they get. Maybe they deserve to have their culture destroyed.
As a woman... yes, I am starting my sentence this way... I am annoyed by Dylan. I find it infuriating that he is gaining so much attention and money with his stupid act of “girlhood”. I find the political and corporate set ups that allow for him to be successful this way appalling and dangerous for our kids. We need to be outraged where it is important: when kids are hurt and laws are changed for the worst.
This is where my outrage with this gay man ends: Dylan = annoying. He does not impact how I present and he does not speak for me as a woman. At best it is an stupid skid that went way outside the boundaries of SNL and will eventually end. A bubble yo burst when he or others will get bored with it.
Dylan is a symptom not the cause. He is not even the offense, but just a looking glass to where our society is at.
Wow- a looking glass. That is so sad. I'm afraid you are right. What we choose to celebrate says something about who we are. It's quite embarrassing really
Hi Josh. I always enjoy hearing your take on things! I'm a therapist and I think you nail Cluster B and it's takeover of our culture.
I don't really know what to say about Dylan Mulvaney. I find him grotesque and annoying, sort-of an obscene characature of womanhood. Although, there are biological women who chose to present themselves in a similiarly foolish histrionic manner and quite frankly they piss me off too!
“Feminists have long complained about “the patriarchy” “imposing” these sartorial requirements on them. Now they want to claim that’s actually what women’s faces look like?” I’m out of the loop on what feminists are saying,, but interesting point here. I’ve been wondering lately that when our empire collapses, as the Romans did, if the very fake make up, skimpy dresses that barely cover someone’s butt, and high heels will go out of fashion all together.
This cynical marketing strategy is disturbing and needs to be kicked in the nuts . 🥜
Good points, Josh.
Recently, my very savvy, smart, 25 yr old , but sadly reality tv, Instagram viewing daughter said to me: who is Dylan Mulvaney.? That made me happy for a moment.
You nailed it, Josh. Feminists are angry because “trans women” now outrank actual women in the hierarchy of victimhood.
Excellent as always Josh
🤗👍♥️
Blackface was demeaning not because it took roles away from legitimate black actors, but because the white actor in blackface usually played a buffoon. The sting was in the behavior more than a white person playing a black person. Blacks at that time weren’t allowed to act in the theater, so this was a way to have a black role in a play, etc. At least that’s what I’ve understood about blackface. This is also, to me, why Dylan Mulvaney is the worst yet of transsexual M to F aping femininity. It’s the buffoonery. It’s demeaning, strips women of our dignity (although the Kardashians have done a lot in that area to pave the way), and mocks everything that we have to manage in our daily lives as girls and women. If the feminists aren’t making that distinction clear it’s no surprise. Their logic is often muddled.
I have never thought that the term "Womanface" was literally about the ridiculous makeup that so many men who attempt to masquerade as women or worse, "gurls" like Dylan Mulvaney so often wear as a component of their minstrelsy. And make no mistake - it is a form of minstrelsy.
I've always been under the distinct impression that the term is in reference to the offensive array of condescending, regressive and outright mockery these men engage in as the bulk of their LARP.
Further, I believe that the term is also deployed in reference to the fact that these men apparently believe that our womanhood boils down to the experience of possessing a crude pharmaceutical derived simulacrum of the body parts possessed by women. That because they have grown some extra moob tissue and perhaps extra padding around the hips and buttocks they are suddenly and unequivocally a "laydee". They try to deny it, resorting to DARVO by accusing women who point out that we are women precisely because we were born female of "bioessentialism", yet are very quick to tell on themselves by asserting that the presence of gynecomastia from exogenous estrogen dosage is "proof" of some kind of "womanhood".
Lastly, it's not feminists who are gender critical going around revelling in some feeling of "oppression", at least not that I have observed. Again - that seems to be the province of trans-identifying males and is part and parcel of their BDSM related forced feminization kink. It's right at the core of what turns the vast majority of them on about their attempt at forcing the rest of us to perceive and treat them "as a woman".
You make a lot of good points. I disagree in some spots, but that's normal. Thanks for posting your thoughts.
Thanks :)
Which feminists are doing this? I can’t imagine that the argument is a simple “This is the exact same thing as blackface!” because it’s such a shallow and ridiculous statement.
What I’ve personally seen argued is that if we have a problem with pretending to be black, we should also have a problem with pretending to be the opposite sex. The argument is that purchasing another person’s identity is gross. It gets even grosser when the group being imitated isn’t allowed to be offended by what can be grotesque and bigoted insults to their character, and if they protest, they get shut down and attacked. In that way, I think it’s easy to see that that’s the position women are in.
It’s funny. I’ve never been terribly affected by drag. I know it’s meant to insult women. That much is obvious. I mean, it was originally gay men performing for other gay men. Drag queens are even now pretty brutal to and about women. I just saw it for what it is: the acting out of childish jealousy. Basically the same thing as gay men talking about “tuna” and “fleshy bags of fat” etc. No gay man who has accepted himself as he is feels compelled to talk that way. That many do is hardly a secret, though.
NOW we have men invading our spaces, raping girls in former safe spaces, *and* they’re full on claiming they’re “better women than women” and NO real female is allowed to correct them or they might get targeted by unhinged cult members. It’s not exactly like blackface, no. But it’s not totally lacking in parallels, come on now.
I know you were raised by a self proclaimed feminist who abused you. I feel you there. My mother made similar claims about her own identity, but everything was secondary to her own narcissistic needs. Any and all self aggrandizing labels were blissfully forgotten, because they were only ever about how others saw her. That’s what the idiots calling themselves feminists, while destroying women’s rights and protections for the sake of their “image” are no different.
I started saying “not all men” unironically when men I knew told me that women making broad statements about men online was hurtful and made them feel helpless to prove it untrue. I’ve been hurt by a few selfish men in my life, but their selfishness had nothing to do with their sex, really. They just used whatever advantages they had to get things they wanted. Bad people are just bad. Call out bad people for being bad, but be specific, please. So “not all women” and “not all feminists” might annoy you, buuut I dunno what you expect. I want to support you and I’m grateful for your voice, but how many good feminists and women do you need to meet and work alongside on this trans bullshit before you stop pointing to the very *worst* possible people who call themselves feminist and claiming we’re all like that? We are not. In general we care deeply about children, and protecting them from harm. We also don’t look for things to be upset about. In other words, we have lives outside of advocacy.
You said yourself that these people are just professional bellyachers (not in those words, of course). This is a well off cohort of spoiled, sheltered young people who were overly coddled and under challenged. Looking at the people in your town who are showing up at these lawmaking sessions, they are so obviously miserable and dissociated that I’d feel deep sympathy for them, if they weren’t also so resentful, spiteful, and openly sadistic, looking for people they can get away with attacking. These people aren’t “feminists,” or anything else other than self interested and self absorbed. This urge to control is coming from fear, and a lifetime of pointing blame at other people. I honestly think some might have honest to god brain damage from puberty blockers, or growing up horribly undersocialized, or both.
No. I will not play the "which feminists are doing this?" game.
Support what and whom you want to support, and I will do the same. If you find that you can't stomach "supporting" me because I disagree with you on feminism, then you should withdraw your support.
I'll still work against the abuse of children, men, and women, that trans ideology brings.
If you want to demand accuracy and specificity, but you can’t or won’t offer it yourself, I dunno what to tell you. I’m not playing a game with you. Quite the opposite.
I apologize if that sounded like I was trying to imply that my support is dependent on you agreeing with me on everything. That wasn’t and isn’t my intention. I was being straight with you. I prefer that, just as you do, and probably for the same reasons.
You know, just the other day I read a piece by a drag queen, who seemed very confident that women who are offended by drag were full of shit. He even asked TWO other men if women had any right to be offended, lol. Apparently these men agreed with him. I guess asking a woman might have meant getting an answer he didn’t like.
See the problem? I mean yes, it’s kind of a stretch to call it as bad as blackface, but why was it okay when Fred held the sign, then? Is it only trustworthy when a man says it? Am I not allowed to have an opinion?
Come on.
You are allowed to have opinions, and you're allowed to post them here.
From long experience (this isn't to do with you at all, as I don't really know you) over many years, I no longer respond to requests to explicate "which feminists."
No matter what I have said, no matter how I have phrased it (calmly, as I'm speaking to you now, or with passion), it is a neverending treadmill.
I understand that this is disappointing when a person is asking me in good faith. I can't help that it's disappointing.
I decided to refuse to do this long before we "met each other," because I've already done the conversation you'd like me to do. Repeatedly. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of times.
Though you, personally, did not witness this, I did "do the work."
I do not "do the work" any longer. I know you find it unsatisfactory. In your shoes, I would too.
For the record, I wouldn't have held Fred's sign, and I don't like the message. But that wasn't the point of the video.
Had you, Justine, been in Fred's shoes, I would have covered the issue the same way I did when I covered it with Fred. By not mentioning that, because it is beside the point.
This conversation is now closed. That is not a discussion or a request, it's a statement.
When I was a young person, not very many years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed and Johnson had recently become and unpopular president (fuck, I'm old!), one oft-repeated crie among civil rights supporters was, "Why be prejudiced against people just for being black? It's only skin color!" That is color was supposed to be a trivial matter no intelligent person in their right mind would care about so we should just ignore it. Lenny Bruce was a cultural hero for, among other great bits, his infamous "Are there any niggers here tonight?" routine, the point of which was the best way to defeat racism and racial tension was to just not give a shit about inflammatory language. As a Jew, he was sure to put at least one "Kike" in there at a time when the Holocaust was still a living memory for most people. So, you know he was serious while he was being funny.
Now, identity politics pea brains are, instead, ever on the look out for even the slightest excuse and grotesquely-tortured extrapolations to play victim and destroy careers and reputations, thereby vindicating Bruce's wisdom. Not that these ignorant jerks would be in a position to get that.
For the record, Al Jolsen, the most infamous blackface performer ever, was regarded as a valued and beloved ally by the black community during the days of Jim Crow. Not only was his tomb eventually designed by a black architect but the Amsterdam News encouraged every black person to see the picture in celebration. Because Jolsen always portrayed his black characters as good, intelligent people in opposition to the noxious stereotypes of the day.
Tragically, that sort of nuance is just way over the head of our present culture. We live in both stupid and tragic times.
The charges of "woman-face" are ridiculous.
No one deserves having Dylan inflicted on them.
I find it annoying that people are boycotting a beer that had a fake women on it MORE than drag queens/trans in schools & libraries & cutting parts off children.
First of all: "yes" to everything you said as usual, Josh.
One of the saddest things, to me, about blackface, is the Zwarte Piet "controversy" in the Netherlands. Black Pete is an ancient Indo-European tradition. How old? There's an Iranian version. It's related to Santa Claus. It goes back as far as 7,000 years.
It has nothing to do with minstrelsy, the postbellum (or antebellum) South, the transatlantic slave trade, or American folk traditions.
Nothing at all.
And yet: ignorant Dutch people have cancelled Black Pete because of "systemic racism." Any time a person with fair skin darkens their face anywhere, for whatever reason, it's automatically racist: that seems to be the extent of the thought process.
They're doing violence to their own culture because they're ignorant of their own culture. So maybe, like complaining feminists, they deserve everything they get. Maybe they deserve to have their culture destroyed.