Matt Taylor’s Shirt Lifts Off: Feminists Have Us In Stitches
AND on its goes, the row over Dr Matt Taylor’s shirt.
Dr Sheldon:
“Modern feminists’ focus on behaviour, its propensity for censorship and its increasingly anti-man rhetoric, is creating a dogmatic and divisive feminism that turns women into victims who need protecting from the big, bad world, rather than equipping women with the tools to tackle real issues of gender inequality.”
“In short, feminists want a monopoly on when everyone must be outraged or offended. A few weeks ago, feminist idiots rolled out a video of little girls dressed as princesses, cursing like foul-mouthed comedian Andrew Dice Clay. Unlike Taylor, they set out to offend. But that was in support of feminism, so it was OK. (I’d like to see the parents of those kids tearfully apologizing for exploiting their kids as cheap propaganda props.)”
There are not enough women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics jobs, the White House tells us. And they, along with feminists, assure us that sexism is one reason why women don’t enter STEM fields.
“There are many possible factors contributing to the discrepancy of women and men in STEM jobs, including: a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields,” a U.S. Department of Commerce study claims.
Women need to choose STEM jobs, the White House assures us, because they will earn more and the so-called gender wage gap is smaller.
But what’s keeping women out? Is it that some male scientists wear tacky shirts?
“Somewhere between demands that men ‘speak no catcalls’ and ‘wear no inappropriately geeky shirts’ and assertions that a woman’s full-frontal/champagne glass nudity is seriously empowering, there is cognitive dissonance. A disconnect.”
The offending shirt which was made for the scientist by a female friend, has received outrage from several outlets, most notably the Verge, for depicting leotard wearing women, and forced Taylor to make a very public apology where he choked back tears. What should be the greatest day of his life has now been tarnished by the wide variety of hate and harassment he has received over wearing the offending item. Harassers made one of the most brilliant men in science cry for his choice of clothing. It would be almost comical if it wasn’t so horrifying.
This is not about women being able to have careers, or stopping guys who beat their wives, or some other topic where you might expect equal rights for women to naturally arise as a direct issue. Now it’s about every minute little part of every area of your life. . . .
Which is to say that this is a power play. It reminds me of what Shelby Steele has written about the phenomenon of “white guilt”: the presumption that all white people are complicit in the crimes of slavery and segregation and are therefore guilty until they prove themselves innocent. And they can prove their innocence by embracing whatever political agenda the guardians of racial grievance choose to decree.
So call this new system “male guilt.” Every man is presumed sexist until proven otherwise, and his only hope is appease the self-appointed arbiters of offensiveness.
Those politically-correct Earthlings who ensured Taylor was “bombarded across the Internet with a hurtling dustcloud of hate” should be ashamed of themselves, Johnson wrote. After all, Taylor may study heavenly bodies, but he is not a priest…
“He is a space scientist with a fine collection of tattoos, and if you are an extrovert space scientist, that is the kind of shirt that you are allowed to wear,” Johnson wrote.
The nimble-minded mayor went on to point out that the treatment of Taylor represented a double-standard when juxtaposed to that afforded Kim Kardashian; the shirt showed no exposed nipples or buttocks; and more nudity can be seen at the National Gallery than hanging in Taylor’s closet.
“What are we all – a bunch of Islamist maniacs who think any representation of the human form is an offence against God?” Johnson thundered. “This is the 21st century, for goodness’ sake.”
“…there’s a certain kind of nerd who wears that kind of shirt, and I’ve always had a soft spot for that guy and the way he sees the world. The sort of hope and love of space fantasy and dream of a bullet-bra’d fantasy woman of that guy is the stuff jobs landing spacecraft on comets are made of.”
The space pod has gone into hibernation mode. Maybe if Matt puts his lucky shirt back on, things will improve…
Posted: 19th, November 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
