When I was a kid, my mom explained to me why she didn’t really enjoy Mother’s Day: she felt as if celebrating mothers one day a year gave everyone free reign to take them for granted during the other 364. I kind of got it after a while, but I couldn’t relate — until the corporate world started making such a big fucking deal out of International Women’s Day.
A few years ago, one of my previous employers released a promotional IWD video in which various female employees explained how the company made them feel included and supported. The next year, that same company fired their majority-female office support staff and hired them back as contractors so it wouldn’t have to pay them benefits.
Another year, a different company I was working for at the time decided to commemorate IWD by giving all the women in the office (or everyone perceived as a woman, anyway) a potted plant and a personalized card featuring quotes from famous women throughout history. As a dyke with a case of the Genders who had no interest in going to paint nite, I was firmly on the margins of the “Women of [COMPANY]” social group; the card perfectly encapsulated that whole state of affairs. It featured a quote from Margaret Thatcher.
You know, noted LGBT ally Margaret Thatcher.
The plant was also a bit on-the-nose. “Here is a thing you are now responsible for keeping alive whether you like it or not. Happy International Women’s Day.”
Coming Soon: The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, Collected Edition
There’s one week left before the release of my first Casefile of Jay Moriarty anthology! The collection comes out on March 16 in print and ebook formats, and includes the first five installments of the series as well as three bonus stories.
This Week’s Links
NHS closed Tavistock over trans care concerns – there were just eight complaints
One article from The Times, published in 2022, claimed that at least 1,000 families were planning mass legal action against the Tavistock gender clinic for rushing youngsters into taking puberty blockers.
However, a freedom of information (FOI) request to the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, shared by Yorkshire Bylines, revealed that, between 2012 and 2022, only eight complaints over healthcare provisions had been lodged.
The Bystander Effect Started from a Lie
… the bystander effect is actually more complicated than its mythological version, and it begins with a story that has been distorted beyond recognition—that of the murder of Kitty Genovese herself.
The Gender Politics of Abandoning Your Girlfriend on a Mountain
And now we have Thomas Plamburger, someone who clearly does not possess the emotional regulation to help a partner through a difficult hike. The judge said he “struggles to switch from his own abilities to the abilities of others,” but to be clear, the actual problem (in my opinion) is that he just doesn’t view his female partners as fully human or worth considering. Their inability to keep up with him makes him angry, and so he punishes them by abandoning them in dangerous conditions — twice, that we know of.
Apparently the UK has recently been experiencing something called “blood rain.” Wasn’t me.
-K
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