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6:00 am, January 13th, 2026 - 43 comments
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Open mike is your post.
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Step up to the mike …
I am probably just slow to this…
In October last year, Helen Andrews published an article, The Great Feminization in Compact magazine. Apparently when it was dropped it 'nearly broke the internet'.
The article opines on "the great wokeness" and examines wokeness = feminization. Why institutions went woke and this was a reflection of women's group behaviour where tools such as exclusion and ostracism are used as social control.
https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-great-feminization/
I have only dipped my toes (first two paragraphs) into this and it seems interesting.
" Larry Summers gave a talk that was supposed to be off the record. In it, he said that female underrepresentation in hard sciences was partly due to “different availability of aptitude at the high end”
"Some female professors in attendance were offended and sent his remarks to a reporter, in defiance of the off-the-record rule. The ensuing scandal led to a no-confidence vote by the Harvard faculty and, eventually, Summers’s resignation."
"The essay argued that it wasn’t just that women had cancelled the president of Harvard; it was that they’d cancelled him in a very feminine way. They made emotional appeals rather than logical arguments. “When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn’t breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill,” said Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at MIT."
Lol. To miss-quote Terry Pratchett,
The state of our society is based my anecdotal projections about how institutions have been feminized.
Yes, but what is that based on?
Larry Summers socially offensive anecdotal projections about how capable females are.
and where does that stand?
Oh, It's turtles all the way down.
Hey, that's a damn good essay. If the academy had a silo for cultural analysis, and her exposition appeared within that context, and I was one of their reviewer hierarchs, I'd mark it 10 out of 10. Sadly our world is nowhere near that level.
However I do empathise with biologist Nancy feeling ill about his bias. I also think society is still rebalancing after millennia of patriarchy. We must experience the consequences of the social pendulum swinging to the opposite extreme to learn what we need to know about human nature.
It is an interesting one, because there is data to support Summers: males have more variability than females, ie for any particular trait the average may be the same for males and females, but the male bell curve may have wider extremes with more individuals at those extremes.
That isn't necessarily a good thing, eg if the bell curve for 'propensity for violence' has a wider extreme for males and there's more individuals at the extreme end than the female curve, no-one is going to be happy about that. Or if this holds true for IQ, there might be more men than women at the extreme high-IQ end but there'd also be more men than women at the extreme low-IQ end. That isn't obviously a net gain for men.
Summers' claim was that if an elite institution is looking for the best mathematicians or scientists in the world, it's looking for people at the extreme end of a bell curve so is likely to find more men than women there, due to that higher male variability. It's at least a plausible claim, not something that should make a professional academic "physically ill." His opponents should have argued against it if they disagreed with it, not tried to get him fired.
Mind you, it seems a stretch to extrapolate that incident out into "women are emotional and like to ostracise people."
Yes, the research shows that while there are some women at the higher and lower extremes of my individual characteristics across cultures, they tended to cluster more about the mean than males. males.
There's also research that shows academically women are equally or more present than males in sciences generally early on, but there's a tendency for women to choose some kinds of science-based careers more than others.
In Sweden, I think it was, they bent over backwards to try to recruit more women in , I think engineering as they were under-represented there. and were unsuccessful.
The explanations I saw focused on a couple of things.
1. Women who are very good at maths also tend to have very good verbal skills. This is not the case for men. This was put down to males having only 1 X chromosome – the Y chromosome doesn't contain very much genetic material other than genes related to sex. Females therefore have 2 shots at having a gene that is very good in both maths & verbal skills.
2. This may also be related to 1. Women with good science/maths backgrounds, tend to opt for career paths that are more people oriented: ie human sciences. Women tend to be least attracted to science careers that are not people oriented eg engineering & I think some tech or IT careers, physics.
"This was put down to males having only 1 X chromosome – the Y chromosome doesn't contain very much genetic material other than genes related to sex. Females therefore have 2 shots at having a gene that is very good in both maths & verbal skills."
Sigh – that makes sense and unfortunately also supports my wife's contention that men are inferior specimens because they got the crappy 'Y' gene.
I've linked to this (old) essay in PNAS before on TS. Don't know how well its conclusions have stood the test of time, but many of them still ring true to me.
The brain sex thing is pretty controversial and, as far as I know, not anywhere near as clear cut as some people like to think. I've seen stats that show it breaks down to a vast range of skills and can't easily be summarised as average differences between males and females.
It has been more of a popular/liberal form of feminism that tries to downplay some of the obvious physical differences between men and women and to claim any acknowledgement of sex-based differences is sexist and socially constructed. But ignoring the obvious differences does nothing to change the overall system, which still tends to privilege males over females – and that is seen on both the left and right wing of politics.
Edit: Carole Hooven (developmental anthropologist has spoken & written about this:
As here:
She’s written a book called “Testosterone”
When I searched for some of her stuff just now, the AI assistant said:
“Carole Hooven discusses that while there are biological differences between males and females, such as those influenced by testosterone, cultural factors also play a significant role in shaping gender roles and behaviors. She emphasizes that understanding these differences is important for informed discussions about gender, but acknowledges that culture significantly influences how these biological traits are expressed in society”
How do women get on in NZAO which seems to have fewer careers available working in human sciences which has led to or from a drop in the study of Humanities. There is a loss of trained people in the welfare and human-based departments of government? It seems however there are plenty of women getting authoritarian positions who have no interest in considering people's reality and real needs and advancing humane society.
"Mind you, it seems a stretch to extrapolate that incident out into "women are emotional and like to ostracise people."
Clearly it isn't the whole answer but a lot of it feels familiar. It's in the mix with a Brian Easton observation I read recently, 'that society needs to be reordered in a direction that doesn't just favour white, straight middle class men'.
There is no evidence that shows men are more logical and women more emotional, as far as I'm aware. There is some, I think, that shows, on average" men tend to express emotions differently from women. That may have something to do with some sex-based differences in verbal skills vs physical skills.
I really don't know what "wokeness" means – it usually means anything the person using the term doesn't agree with.
But, I think, more women will express emotions verbally, than men, while men will be more likely to act out eg get aggressive either verbally or physically when feeling hurt or humiliated etc (See Donald Trump for a prime eg of that). Women are more likely to express the hurt verbally or to cry.
Also, these are tendencies rather than applying equally to all men and all women.
There's lots of anecdotal evidence that females taking testosterone say they cry less than prior to starting T, even though the actual feelings they experience haven't changed.
There is also currently a misogynistic claim that women are responsible for cancel culture etc. I see no evidence of that. Cancel culture is not just ostracising anyway. It's usually led by quite aggressive attempts to ban and censor people, and males have been very good at that since whenever, and often use the law or political or social power to do it.
As far as I've seen, cancel culture re transactivism is very male-led & male-dominated (however they might identify). And a lot of the pressure for hate speech laws comes from male-dominated left wing parties. They do get a lot of support from some women, but there are also a large number of women who don't support the censorship & banning, though they may not fell safe to say that publicly.
This developer says that the local council should never have approved the plan change that enabled him to develop coastal sections.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/home-property/360923158/developer-says-councils-should-not-have-allowed-him-develop-land
This is the kind of please-pay-me-for-my-own-business-risk bullshit from land developers that should have them kicked out of the country.
They went into that entire land purchase with their eyes open, flood risk was taken into account, and now 15 years later after Gabrielle wipes some people out and the remainder of the sections are unsellable, he goes crying to the Environment Court.
Goddam the cheek of these people trying to get ratepayers to compensate them.
Couldn't agree more Ad. Fortunately the developer was given short shrift by the judge who threw the case out.
It does try to tap into the old business mantra of privatise the profits and publicise the losses.
2019 consent, bloody hell. The company shouldn't be paid out. But the council should never have allowed that subdivision to go ahead.
Lol that they think Gabrielle is a one-in-100-year event.
From the link: "Judge Lester noted that the consent that allowed the subdivision to proceed had considered risk mitigation for a one-in-100-year event and Cyclone Gabrielle was a one-in-1000-year event."
The Judge thinks it is a one-in-1000-year event …
weird isn't it. Presumably the planners who allowed the subdivision weren't thinking about climate change either. Mindboggling.
Council can only consider the operative District Plan, and any related Environment Court judgements. In 2008, when the initial plan change was approved, it's highly unlikely the Hastings District Plan would have the phrase climate change in it anywhere, and any reference to change would have been regarding the facilitation thereof. Sad but reality and probably not much different now.
that explains the one-in-a-hundred years flood nonsense I guess.
resource consent for the subdivision was done in 2019 though right? Were they not using a 10 year plan and hadn't they updated?
Is there nothing that allows councils to decline subdivisions in stupid places?
The interesting legal argument to come will around the point when the unforeseeable becomes foreseeable. You, and I, would argue that happened many years ago, others still need a lot of convincing. I'm beginning to realise that convincing moment is going to be rather brutal.
The beak told him to go forth and multiply, quite comprehensively. From the Stuff piece, whole judgement bit worth reading several times.
We'll see more of this with National's more permissive regime as developers go ahead with ideas that could have done with a bit more scrutiny. The great loss with chucking the RMA is that we've lost a very effective tool to establish the impropriety, environmentally and by inference commercially, of a developer's great plan for world dominance. This judgement, provided it survives appeal, might make people think about what they are doing. It also gets ratepayers / councils off the hook for Climate Change mitigation, by saying Council's can't be responsible for reasonably unforeseeable events (1000 year floods). Standby for Order in Council to fix that.
There has been cases about that for some time. For example a case in Gisborne that said that Councils were not required to build coastal defences to protect private properties.
The EDS commentary on the RMA changes is worth reading: https://eds.org.nz/resources/documents/media-releases/2025/rma-replacement-bills-introduced/
A lot of power to be held by ministers, it seems.
Surely Iran's Revolutionary Guards must be getting to the point where protecting the 90% of its sanctioned and discounted oil going to China actually needs protecting. Are we getting to the point where China shores up the Ayatollah?
Also, are we at the point where massive instability in a global oil producer no longer juices up the per-barrel oil price? That would be an awesome signal about the decline in the power of oil in global politics.
Maybe Landman was wrong.
Just saw some numbers, that the EROI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) for some of the newer oil wells is significant less than 10:1. So with the current oil price of under $60 per barrel there's very little point investing large sums of money.
So the US oil executives weren't overly interested when Trump invited them to his residence. One participant even publicly pointed out him farting, which reminded me of Monty Python – "I fart in your general direction" (The Holy Grail).
In reply to Ad above, well said indeed. The judge made a highly sensible decision.
I wonder how the terrible new replacement for the RMA would treat the developer?
PS I'm overseas and for some reason I can't use reply on TS here.
if you're on a mobile device, it's an issue for a number of people. Lynn is aware and working on it.
Yesterday, a plastic-wrapped 3-pack of Watties baked beans were $1 cheaper than 3 loose cans. That's a significant difference, and there's absolutely no justification in selling it that way. $1 might seem like nothing but for price-conscious shoppers (ie, most of us) it all adds up. Plus it's the principle of the matter.
We want to use less plastic in our lives, but the system is rigged against us.
It's not just the plastic, it's being forced to buy more stuff than I need. So many things that used to be sold singly now come in multipacks of three or four or more.
(But at least we don't now see so many of those plastic "harnesses" which were used for six-packs of beer, and which too often ended up strangling water creatures after being discarded.)
A 33 cents per can difference suggests that it is the single cans that are over priced, but it depends on how long they stay on the shelf. A greater churn may well justify the difference; however I'm only guessing.
It's pointless for someone like me who lives alone & has limited storage space – live in a studio. I will never use most of the mutli-packs even if I could store them – especially if there's a short use-by date.
Much the same is true of the (theoretically) cheaper bulk buys at CostCo (and other warehouse operations)
You have to have a large family, and a reasonably large shopping budget to be able to 'afford' the discounted items.
So, even though it's true that the per-item cost is less – many people on limited incomes can't afford to buy the 'deal'.
If you can only afford to buy 2 loo rolls per week, it doesn't matter if the 48 pack is cheaper per roll. You can't afford it, and don't have anywhere to store it, even if you could.
The issue is whether they can justify selling a can at (say) $2.00 when the same can sells for $1.67 when it is part of a three can deal.
That's exactly what economies of scale are: the single item is more expensive than the individual items in the bulk deal.
The 3 can deal has only one lot of associated sales and marketing data – so it's definitely 'cheaper' to supply.
And, of course, it's up to any company to price point anywhere they please – they don't have to 'justify' it to any one. We are all free to shop elsewhere [mild sarcasm due to the effective supermarket monopoly]
What I find more bizarre – and I've seen several times in the local supermarkets, is where the bulk deal individual prices are greater than purchasing the individual items… I don't know if they are economically illiterate, or they are relying on their belief that their customers are…
That's exactly what economies of scale are: the single item is more expensive than the individual items in the bulk deal.
The 3 can deal has only one lot of associated sales and marketing data – so it's definitely 'cheaper' to supply.
I don't know what the actual prices are since I don't buy baked beans usually. However, bulk supply advantages notwithstanding, 33 cents difference per can does seem excessive.
Or, possibly the multi-can combo is a loss-leader.
That kind of difference in price, is usually a marketing ploy to encourage shopping at Supermarket X (with the 'deal') rather than Supermarket Y (which doesn't have it)
The total value of the shopping trip, combined with the encouragement to regard Supermarket X as the preferred supplier, cancels out the 'loss' that the supermarket makes on the individual deal [Or, at least, that's what I was taught in Econ 101, a good many years ago]
Tough at the top: https://www.reuters.com/commentary/breakingviews/trumps-imperial-fed-push-meets-its-waterloo-2026-01-12/
It's terrific when top establishment dudesters act like male rhinos locking horns. I had to google Trump's rock faves to confirm that he ain't into the Dead – way more mainstream stuff like Stones, Metallica, Aerosmith showed up.
Poor old Don, they're ganging up on him. The would-be imperator will have to seek expert advice for his next move on this particular chess-board.
The latest reiteration of the triad ruling US political alignment has independents on a substantial roll: https://apnews.com/article/poll-independents-moderates-republicans-democrats-trump-ba353eb6807fd854f5b6e6de52d152fa
If you examine the 3 trend lines in the Gallup graph you see establishment left/right sheeple options in parity at 27%, with the clued-up now at 45%. The 3 had parity during Bush Jr's second term, when the Reps got their peak. Then Obama got the Dems to their peak before his performance in office alienated too many who noticed and drifted away. The big surge towards non-alignment began then, and is now 12% above that parity.
Making civil air travel safe again.
/
The Pentagon used a secret aircraft painted to look like a civilian plane in its first attack on a boat that the Trump administration said was smuggling drugs, killing 11 people last September, according to officials briefed on the matter. The aircraft also carried its munitions inside the fuselage, rather than visibly under its wings, they said.
The nonmilitary appearance is significant, according to legal specialists, because the administration has argued its lethal boat attacks are lawful — not murders — because President Trump “determined” the United States is in an armed conflict with drug cartels.
But the laws of armed conflict prohibit combatants from feigning civilian status to fool adversaries into dropping their guard, then attacking and killing them. That is a war crime called “perfidy.”
https://archive.li/bfFyf (nyt)
"Making civil air travel safe again."
So that will give justification to armed forces to destroy civilian aircraft on the grounds that they might be military aircraft in disguise?
I bet Trump and his rule-breaking comrades in harms thought that one through.
The range of anti-aircraft missiles goes from a few kilometres to hundreds. (Can an air defence system even distinguish between civilian and military aircraft at a range of 400 kms?) As you point out, Joe90, this is a very slippery and dangerous slope.
How can the US recover any claim to be honourable in war after such a perfidious attack sanctioned by the highest levels?
Indeed, consider the practice of war we see currently- apartments hit with missiles, hospitals bombed, boys killed by army snipers, civilians seeking food from aid convoy shot, power networks in wintry countries attacked, use of mercenaries, taking of hostages, imprisonment of civilians, blockades and denial of humanitarian aid.
Soon, I predict, AI will be making such decisions if it's not already happening….
Reminiscent of Malaysian Flight 17…..
Yes, that was a civilian plane shot down. The following was written in a Wikipedia article- "Such air defence systems cannot reliably identify and avoid civilian aircraft." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_17
The plane was above 6000m when hit.
I admit I have no expertise when it comes to weapons systems, but I seem to remember that, at the time, it was said that a BUK launcher was needed to bring down MH17, and that normal anti aircraft weaponry would not have had sufficient range.