The left has so politicized this issue that one of Cahill’s colleagues warned him that pursuing this area of study could destroy his career.87 But he survived and says that many neuroscientists have come to realize “that their deeply ingrained assumption that sex does not matter is just plain wrong.”88 There is evidence of sex differences in research involving human beings as well as in animal research, including studies on human brain structure and other human brain genetics. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that women’s brains show significantly stronger patterns of interconnectivity across brain regions, including across the hemispheres, than men’s brains, while men’s brains show greater average connectivity within local brain regions. “This means we cannot explain the sex differences in their results as simply being due to different cultural experiences between males and females,” writes Cahill. “… In a comprehensive review of human-brain connectivity studies from several years ago, Gaolang Gong and colleagues concluded that ‘it should be mandatory to take gender into account when designing experiments or interpreting results of brain connectivity/network in health and disease.’ The data since then confirms this view.” Another important study shows that sex differences exist even down to the genetic level in human beings, which means that the biological mechanisms of brain aging and disease cannot be assumed to be the same in men and women.89
Some other biological differences between men and women—and there are many more—are: a man’s brain is about 10 percent heavier than a female’s; male skin is microscopically thicker; women show more sensitivity to odors; a man’s bones are heavier and his muscles bulkier, his shoulders broader, his heart and lungs larger, on average, making him physically stronger; the regions of the brain involving language and fine motor skills develop earlier in girls, but those areas involving targeting and spatial memory develop faster in boys; in adolescent girls a greater fraction of brain activity connected with negative emotion moves up to the cerebral cortex, so a seventeen-year-old girl, for example, is better able to explain in detail why she is feeling sad; and studies show that boys are more likely to engage in physically risky activities than girls are.90
Despite abundant evidence of the biological differences between males and females, you’d better think twice before saying it publicly. One liberal luminary, Lawrence Summers, former U.S. Treasury secretary and Harvard president, learned this the hard way. Summers, it should be noted, was never ridiculed by the liberal media for his maliciously ludicrous claim that the Trump tax cuts would kill ten thousand people.91 But it was a different story in 2005 when he discussed various theories to explain why women hold fewer elite academic positions in science and math. One of the theories Summers mentioned was that men and women have different natural aptitudes and that married women tend to devote less time to demanding jobs than men do. The ensuing feminist uproar was fierce, with MIT biology professor Nancy Hopkins professing that Summers’s comments forced her to leave the room. “I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up,” she claimed. Predictably, multiple groveling apologies couldn’t spare Summers from being ousted from Harvard in the aftermath.92
A few years after Summers’s comments, liberal columnist Ruth Marcus grudgingly conceded his point with some caveats, citing studies that show men greatly outnumber women in scoring the highest (and lowest) aptitude test scores in math and science. Columnist Michael Barone, however, notes that Marcus nevertheless argues that Summers shouldn’t have expressed his opinion because academics shouldn’t utter truths that people don’t want to hear.93 Marcus’s actual words were, “Summers was boneheaded to say what he said, in the way that he said it and considering the job that he held. But he probably had a legitimate point—and the continuing uproar says more about the triumph of political correctness than about Summers’s supposed sexism.”94
Irrespective of whether innate aptitudinal differences exist between men and women in the hard sciences, the object lesson is that political correctness is oppressively censorious. People should be allowed to express controversial and politically incorrect opinions, and our common goal should be the pursuit of truth—not finding evidence to confirm our biases. Regardless of whether the theory Summers discussed was correct, there are biological differences between men and women, and political correctness should not bar discussion about them.
A more recent example of the dangers of bucking the gender thought police occurred when Google employee James Damore submitted an internal memo called “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” contending that women are biologically less suited for tech jobs. Google fired him for violating the company’s code of conduct, which evidently requires employees to align their thinking with the company’s minister of propaganda. Google said Damore’s memo crossed “the line by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in the workplace.”95
Diversity bean counters aren’t interested in a diversity of ideas and life experiences. They are intoxicated with the exuberance of projecting moral superiority by showing they care more than others about historically disadvantaged groups—not people, but groups. They are possessed with a leftist compulsion to control people’s lives, and they’ll succeed until the private sector resists this bullying. While such private suppression of speech usually doesn’t rise to the level of a constitutional infraction, it is nevertheless a grave concern for a free society. In the next chapter, we examine how the left’s latest nostrums on gender ideology are manifesting themselves in societal insanity.
CHAPTER SIX Weaponizing Gender
Gender-baiters are giving race-baiters a run for their money. Just as the left blames racism—instead of Obama’s leftist agenda—for conservative opposition to his presidency, its members blame criticism of female politicians on sexism. CNN’s Brian Stelter tweeted about AOC, “She’s got a target on her back because she ticks every box that makes conservative men uncomfortable.”1 In fact, her biggest “box” upsetting conservatives is that she’s a self-avowed socialist, but that’s obviously not what Stelter was driving at.
Similarly, leftists claim that men find Elizabeth Warren unlikable because they’re sexist—the same reason men supposedly didn’t like Hillary Clinton. “Many of these voters are people who esteem themselves to be feminists or otherwise free of bias, but who will nevertheless find themselves uncomfortable with a woman in power, unable to articulate what it is that bothers them about Elizabeth Warren—except for a vague sense that they just don’t like her,” writes columnist Moira Donegan. “The issue with Elizabeth Warren isn’t likability. It’s sexism.” Likewise, liberal writer Peter Beinart insists that conservative criticism of Warren has “nothing to do with her progressive economic views or her dalliance with DNA testing,” but stems from the simple fact that “she’s a woman.”2
Sorry, but these critics are overthinking it and projecting their own gender fixations. Neither Warren nor Clinton are likable, and it’s not due to sexism but to their lack of any semblance of authenticity. “The truth is Warren isn’t so likable.… Her full-time video team has been working since last year to capture the real Elizabeth and counter her image as a schoolmarm and a scold,” writes columnist A. B. Stoddard.3 But of course, according to leftists, if we don’t support their unlikable scold then we hate women. And there’s a certain irony in feminists blaming sexism when people are repelled by the phony elitists they push to the political forefront. If Warren has what it takes then she’ll be competitive, but blaming voters’ prejudices for her own shortcomings won’t help her cause. Perhaps voters can be shamed into some things, but liking unlikable people isn’t one of them.
Leftists just can’t follow their own inane precepts. They insist that only women and minorities can lead their respective causes and that it’s time for a woman president—but they can’t get their base to comply. In April 2019, the RealClearPolitics poll average of the Democratic presidential candidates showed that four white men—Biden, Sanders, O’Rourke, and Buttigieg—had the support of 62 percent of all Democratic voters. Thr
ee white women—Senators Warren, Klobuchar, and Gillibrand—together had only 8 percent. African Americans Harris and Booker had 10 and 3 percent, respectively. Granted, this poll represented only a snapshot in time, and some of the female candidates sporadically rose in popularity. But these changes obviously had little to do with their gender or race, or support for them would have been more consistent. In August 2019 the same poll average still showed the aging white Biden far ahead of the pack, Warren (female but white) a distant second, and crazy, old, white Bernie third.4 For all their lecturing on identity politics, white privilege, and intersectionality, Democrats can’t even persuade their most loyal supporters to submit to their nonsense.5
LEFTIST GENDER HYPOCRISY
Leftists are just as hypocritical on gender as on race. They demand respect for females—provided they’re good progressives. Leftists certainly didn’t treat conservative judge Neomi Rao with feminist respect when she was nominated to replace Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Perhaps female Indian Americans haven’t secured their proper place on the intersectionality totem pole because Rao, like Nikki Haley, gets no deference from the left for her “identities.” Despite her brilliant legal scholarship, the left attacked Rao based on her college writings. Some were outraged that she wrote that if a woman “drinks to the point where she can no longer choose, well, getting to that point was part of her choice.” She further argued that “[a] man who rapes a drunk girl should be prosecuted. At the same time, a good way to avoid a potential date rape is to stay reasonably sober.”6 This should be uncontroversial, yet the left wildly accused Rao of blaming women for being raped.
These criticisms mask the main reason leftists oppose conservative judicial nominees. Political conservatives tend to be originalists—advocates of judicial restraint and interpreting the Constitution according to the framers’ original intent. Leftists see the appellate courts as vehicles to rewriting laws when congressional legislation doesn’t suit them. Originalist judges strive to keep their political opinions from influencing their judicial decisions, but the left doesn’t recognize that separation. For leftists the personal is political—in fact, everything is political—and so liberal activists are the only suitable justices.
Rao’s leftist critics were also incensed that in her youth Rao challenged the tenets of identity politics, an unforgivable blasphemy. She wrote, “[M]ulticulturalists… separate and classify everyone according to race, gender and sexual orientation. Those who reject their assigned categories are called names: So-called conforming blacks are called ‘oreos’ by members of their own community, conservatives become ‘fascists.’ Preaching tolerance, multiculturalists seldom practice it.…”7 Rao’s observations are irrefutable. The gender-scolding left talks a good game on feminism but treats conservative women like it treats conservative minorities—with contempt—proving again that its political agenda trumps everything.
In an op-ed in The Hill, three women summarized leftist opposition to Rao: “Our communities count on women of color in positions of power to ensure that our fundamental and civil rights are protected, yet Rao repeatedly has shown that she will not, and cannot, fulfill that role. It is incumbent upon our senators to do their job to protect our communities and the integrity of the judiciary by refusing to confirm Neomi Rao.”8 That is, if you won’t put the leftist political agenda above the Constitution, you are dead to them—so to speak.
A HODGEPODGE OF GENDER INSANITY
Inarguably, the left is on a mission to fundamentally transform our culture and browbeat Americans into submitting to its abnormal gender theories. Here is another small sampling of examples:
As the left seeks to normalize abnormal behavior, it demonizes what is normal and wholesome. A staff writer for New York Magazine and Vulture launched into a Twitter rant over a fictional character in the TV show The Big Bang Theory reacting happily to news of her pregnancy in the series finale. “IN THIS CLIMATE?! my mind is still boggling,” tweeted Dr. Kathryn VanArendonk. “REALLY? THAT’S THE END? REALLY!? when I say that I feel sure this is an accident, what I mean is that it seems likely to have been written with no reference to current events re: abortion laws. it’s clearly not an accident as far as how they decided to find an ending for that character.” So the show’s ending was an outrage because it didn’t celebrate abortion? An intelligent human being actually posted this tweet? Sadly, I feel sure this was not an accident.
A video shows the ACLU, in collaboration with California school districts and Planned Parenthood, instructing public school teachers on progressive sexual education and gender theory. Teachers were allegedly told how to help students obtain abortions without parental knowledge and how to prevent parents from opting their kids out of graphic lessons on sexuality and homosexuality. “They talk about mutual masturbation,” said Murrieta School District parent John Andrews. “They discuss gender roles, the gender spectrum, and in the support materials… they take it even further. They discuss everything, topics like roleplaying for different genders, blood play, dental dams… fisting is mentioned. I mean, they mention it all.… They talk about anal and oral sex as an alternative to regular sex because you can’t get pregnant.”9
Critics blasted Taron Egerton, the straight actor who plays Elton John in the biopic Rocketman, insisting the role should have been given to someone from the gay community. When asked about the criticism, Elton John retorted, “That’s all bulls***, I’m sorry.”10
Similarly, in 2018 actress Scarlett Johansson was forced to drop out of the film Rub and Tug amidst leftist abuse for accepting a role as a transgender man. A year later, she sparked another two minutes of hate when she criticized the stifling effect of political correctness on art and asserted that as an actress, she should be allowed to play any role she wants. This was quickly followed by the obligatory self-denunciation and cringing apology. “I recognize that in reality, there is a widespread discrepancy amongst my industry that favors Caucasian, cisgendered actors and that not every actor has been given the same opportunities that I have been privileged to,” groveled Johansson. “I continue to support, and always have, diversity in every industry and will continue to fight for projects where everyone is included.”11 Aside from all the nonsense about appropriation, what is it that keeps leftists from understanding that acting involves people pretending to be other people?
Social justice warriors lambasted actor William Shatner for defending the lyrics of the Christmas classic “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” against feminists who claimed the tune promotes sexual harassment. When the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation decided to ban the song, Shatner encouraged his Twitter followers to demand they reinstate it, which they eventually did. Meanwhile, Shatner responded to his critics with admirable directness: “I would think that censorship of classics because certain ‘types’ need to judge things through their own 2018 myopic glasses and demand they be stricken from history is important. Or is this 1984 only 34 years too late?”12 When an SJW accused him of not caring about sexual assault victims, Shatner countered that the lyrics shouldn’t be interpreted as if they were written today, because the context in which they were written in 1949 was merely that men and women were flirting with each other on a cold winter’s night. The daughter of Frank Loesser, the song’s creator, agreed.13 This incident illustrates how all considerations—including tradition, joy, and humor—must give way to social justice scolds who are on the prowl for ideological transgressions.
Laura Bassett, senior culture and politics reporter for HuffPost, womansplains that conservative men are confused by being drawn to AOC “while loathing everything she stands for.… There’s an existential, panicked tinge to the behavior here—what you might call ‘AOC Derangement Syndrome.’ Indeed, some experts say conservative men are obsessed with Ocasio-Cortez because they’re threatened by her.” AOC’s power and “her very existence in Congress as a young, Latina, working-class woman threatens to upend the social order that has kept white
men in the ruling class for centuries.”14 Bassett cites bizarre pseudoscience from which “experts” conclude that conservatives’ brains are likely to display attention biases of people with anxiety. Likewise, neuroscientist Bobby Azarian divines the real motivation underlying conservatives’ opposition to AOC: “The one main cognitive difference is that conservatives are more sensitive to threat. Their fears are sometimes exaggerated. I think they fear her.”
CNN host Joan Walsh called Trump “sexist” for his “appalling” off-the-cuff suggestion that Melania could make salads for the Clemson Tigers during their White House visit. “It seems to me like the president will not be happy until there is not one single female Republican voter in the country,” said Walsh. “It’s incredibly sexist.”15 Happy liberals.
President Obama directed public schools to allow transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identities. President Trump rescinded this order as civil rights officials from the Justice Department and Education Department concluded that Obama’s directive was improper, arbitrary, and issued “without due regard for the primary role of the states and local school districts in establishing educational policy.”16
In 2016, North Carolina passed a bill limiting the use of men’s restrooms to biological men and women’s restrooms to biological women in many public facilities. This provoked a hysterical overreaction on the left, with businesses, sports leagues, and Hollywood stars alike vowing to boycott the state. The next year the provision was repealed17 and replaced by a bill that prohibited cities from enacting nondiscrimination ordinances for workplaces, hotels, and restaurants until December 2020.18
Guilty by Reason of Insanity Page 15