Woman returns $3K engagement ring because it's too 'cheap'
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: FOX News
{Ed: as my husband said, "Ye gods. Such women exist." For the record, I wear a plain gold band with which I would not willingly part for any amount of money.] It seems the rules for how much to spend on an engagement ring aren’t dead yet -- at least to some. A woman reportedly returned her engagement ring to her partner because it didn’t cost 10% of his salary. The ring, which is made of white gold with diamonds and sapphire, cost the man about $3,000. However, he allegedly makes enough that if he followed the 10% rule, which says he should spend one-tenth of his salary on an engagement ring, he should have spent between $10,000 and $15,000.

Prince Andrew's family diary unearths fresh allegations in blow to his alibi
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: The Express
PRINCE Andrew went horse riding yesterday as fresh allegations were made casting doubt on his infamous Pizza Express alibi. The Duke of York trotted around the grounds of Windsor Castle with a female groom and was earlier seen driving around the royal estate in Berkshire. It came on the same day as fresh allegations claimed to blow a hole in his claim that he had taken his daughter Princess Beatrice to a birthday party at the pizza chain's branch in woking. Instead, a family diary allegedly showed he had a manicure booked on the day Virginia Roberts claims she had sex with him, aged 17, after being trafficked by his friend Jeffrey Epstein. The Duke's spokesman last night said it was "inappropriate" to comment on the new claims.

What Is #DisruptTexts?
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Quillette
Lorena Germán is an award-winning Dominican-American educator and author. On November 30th, she posted this on her Twitter feed: “Did y’all know that many of the ‘classics’ were written before the 50s? Think of US society before then and the values that shaped this nation afterwards. THAT is what is in those books. That is why we gotta switch it up. It ain’t just about ‘being old.’ #DisruptTexts.” That tweet caught the attention of Jessica Cluess, a successful author of Young Adult (YA) fiction, who responded with a lengthy and scornful thread, in which she pointed out that many of those classics were written in defiance of then-existing power structures: “Yeah, that embodiment of brutal subjugation and toxic masculinity, Walden. Sit and spin on a tack.” And, “If you think Upton Sinclair was on the side of the meat-packing industry then you are a fool and should sit down and feel bad about yourself.”

Op-Ed About Jill Biden Raises a Ruckus
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Vox
Essayist tells her to drop 'Dr.' before her name. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed about Jill Biden on Saturday, and it has not landed well in some circles. The piece is by 83-year-old essayist Joseph Epstein, who implores Biden to lose the "Dr." in front of her name. The soon-to-be first lady has a doctorate in education, and Epstein thinks that doesn't cut it. "'Dr. Jill Biden' sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic," writes Epstein. The op-ed is now being widely slammed as sexist. The tone: As Vox notes, Epstein is touching on the long-running debate of whether the title should be reserved only for medical doctors. The Associated Press, for example, does not use the title for non-medical doctors in its stories, while the New York Times does. But the tone of Epstein's op-ed has struck many as sexist and condescending.

Former Cuomo Aide Accuses N.Y. Governor Of Sexual Harassment
Topic: Sexual Harassment
Source: Huffington Post
A former adviser to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused him of sexually harassing her “for years” while she worked in his administration. Lindsey Boylan, who is running for Manhattan borough president, made her allegations on Twitter Sunday morning and claimed that she wasn’t the only woman to have been victimized. “Many saw it, and watched,” she said in a Twitter thread. “I could never anticipate what to expect: would I be grilled on my work (which was very good) or harassed about my looks. Or would it be both in the same conversation?”

Another Controversial Team Name Is Getting Changed
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: ESPN
Sources say Cleveland's baseball team could make formal announcement this week In a not altogether unexpected move, the Cleveland Indians will no longer be called the Indians. Three sources tell the New York Times that the baseball team will drop the name, though it's not yet clear what will happen next. As the Times notes, there are quite a few "logistical considerations," including replacing uniforms, equipment, signage, and the like, and one source says the team may keep the name for 2021 and try to phase it out by 2022. The move comes after years of protests from Native American groups and other supporters against a name decried as racist; the Washington Football Team, formerly the NFL's Redskins, also recently changed its name, but other similarly controversial names continue to be used among sports teams.

Girl Asks Progressive Santa For Barbie, Gets Lectured On Gender Stereotypes
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Babylon Bee
Little Sally Perkins was excited to go to the mall and ask Santa for a Barbie doll set, but she ran away in tears when the progressive Santa at the mall just began lecturing her on harmful gender stereotypes. "Girls who play with Barbies are reinforcing patriarchal norms of gender - ho ho ho!" he said with a jolly laugh. "Now, you're on the naughty list. Well, you were already on the naughty list because you're white. The only way to move to the nice list is to repent of your privilege and try for the rest of your life to do better. Oh, and hope you don't get canceled, because then you've got to start all the way at the bottom of the naughty list again." "Ho ho ho!"

Women’s Student Group Offers 10 Pronoun Options on Application
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Washington Free Beacon
A women's professional-development group at Georgia State University provided 10 pronoun options—including male pronouns—for students to select on their membership application. WomenLead, an organization that provides professional-development classes to female students, allows applicants to select masculine "he/him" pronouns and plural "they/them" pronouns in addition to the feminine "she/her." But students also have a plethora of other options: "Co, co, cos, cos, coself," "En, en, ens, ens, enself," "Ey, em, eir, eirs, emself," "Xie, hir, hir, hirs, hirself," "Yo, yo, yos, yos, yoself," "Ze, zir, zir, zirs, zirself," and "Ve, vis, ver, ver, verself."

In Germany, a Witch Hunt Is Raging Against Critics of Israel.
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Haaretz
Cultural Leaders Have Had Enough. Scholars are boycotted for signing a petition, artists are subjected to background checks and critical texts are censored. Now, in an unprecedented move, leaders of top German cultural institutions have joined forces to declare: enough

Self-Victimhood Is a Personality Type, Researchers Find
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Reason
People who suffer from a "tendency for interpersonal victimhood" present themselves as weak, hurt, and vengeful. Many social commentators have argued that an emerging "victimhood culture" incentivizes people to see themselves as weak, traumatized, and aggrieved. In higher education, this has been associated with increased demands for specific accommodations like trigger warnings (which don't work) and the policing of microaggressions (which is ill-conceived). But what if this is not merely a trend but an entire personality type? A new paper in the scientific journal Personality and Individual Differences posits a Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood (TIV), an archetype defined by several truly toxic traits: a pathological need for recognition, a difficulty empathizing with others, feelings of moral superiority, and, importantly, a thirst for vengeance.

Students Reject Free Speech in Favor of Political Correctness
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Moonbattery
In the past, the natural rebelliousness of youth served as a bulwark against tyranny. But then the brainwashing inflicted by authoritarians became both more sophisticated and more ubiquitous. Now college students oppose free speech, as Ophelia Jacobson confirmed at the University of Florida, where students want to ban “hate speech” regardless of the Constitution

Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill will tear society apart
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked Online
The Hate Crime Bill, if passed, would have consequences far beyond the regulation of what we can and cannot say. The worldview that has so far shaped this bill begins with the premise that Scottish society is fractured, broken and divided, and we need protecting from each other. This legislation affords SNP misanthropy the status of a legal norm. It promotes social division and encourages individuals to see themselves as victims, and other people as aggressors.

The Problem with Kinship Care
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Quillette
Thanks, but no thanks. That was the message that aspiring foster parents got this fall when they sent inquiries offering their services to the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. According to an automatic email reply from Dawn Marlow, administrator for the Office of Resource Families, the state is not accepting applications from any foster parents except those who are willing to take care of children with “complex developmental or medical needs.” How is it that states from Georgia to Michigan are struggling to find enough qualified foster homes to take in children—especially during a pandemic when many homes have closed and recruitment is hard—but New Jersey is doing just fine? The letter explains that: “In New Jersey, the number of youth in foster care continues to be reduced each year because we are focusing first on kinship placements.”

The Troubled Maker: Transgressive Art, Public Shame, and Mike Tyson
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Quillette
In many ways, my personal experience with life after public shaming has gone exactly as one might expect: depressing, painful, and weird. Yet, at some point over the past three years, after managing the existential crisis of fractured identity, and learning to refrain from scratching at the phantom limb of my reputation, I’ve noticed something strangely liberating about it too. I no longer struggle to reconcile my blue-collar background with my former aspirations of being a successful and cool artist; I no longer find it necessary to cultivate the avant-garde persona of an active performance artist and theatre director. Instead of worrying about every detail of ignominy, I can finally indulge in vulgar interests like Monday Night Football, Bo Jackson YouTube compilations, or Mike Tyson’s latest exhibition bout against fellow boxing legend Roy Jones Jr. I didn’t even watch the fight, to be honest. I didn’t need to. At this point in his career, I’m more interested in Tyson’s redemption narrative than what remains of his athletic prowess. So I tuned in just in time to catch the post-fight press conference.

No, women are not ‘better’ at politics
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: Spiked Online
Joe Biden likes to keep women close. And in one of the most talked-about steps on his way to the presidency, he has announced the appointment of an all-female media team at the White House. His picks are uncontroversial. Jen Psaki will be his press secretary. She’s a long-standing Democratic spokeswoman who worked in the Obama administration and only narrowly missed out on the top job in previous years. Kate Bedingfield is communications director. She’s a friend of Psaki’s and is likewise a veteran Democrat campaigner. Karine Jean-Pierre (previously Kamala Harris’s chief of staff) will serve as deputy press secretary. Elizabeth Alexander takes the role of communications director for Jill Biden, while Neera Tanden will lead the federal Office of Management and Budget (now that she has deleted all her #MoscowMitch tweets about the Democrats’ favourite conspiracy theory – that Russia stole the election from Hillary Clinton in 2016).

‘The elites don’t understand those they lord over’
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Spiked Online
While many commentators have hailed Joe Biden’s election as president as a moment of unity, America remains deeply divided, and large-scale apathy persists. Political elites still seem a world away from the everyday lives of the people they rule. Chris Arnade is a photographer, writer and the author of Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, which reflects on his experiences travelling across the US and speaking to people in poor and working-class communities. spiked caught up with Arnade to discuss his work.

No man left behind
Topic: Men's Movement
Source: The Lancet
The fight for equal political, social, and economic entitlements for women is rightfully front-and-centre in the public consciousness, after centuries of injustices experienced by women, particularly those in marginalised groups. As such, the term gender equality is often thought of as synonymous with female empowerment; as one example, the fifth Sustainable Development Goal includes both in a single breath. But this misconception overlooks part of the equation: the inequalities disadvantaging men.

Dad who had sex with stranger on pavement in middle of day is jailed
Topic: Gender Discrimination
Source: The Sun
– but woman is let off with fine. A DAD who had sex with a stranger on a pavement in the middle of the day has been jailed – while she walked free. Jonathon Pisani, 45, romped with Kate Jackson, 40, in full view of passing shoppers after they got chatting while waiting for a train. The pair admitted outraging public decency but while she was let off with a £50 fine he has been handed an 11-week sentence.

What We Know of Sappho
Topic: Individualist Feminism
Source: The Paris Review
We know that Sappho came from Lesbos, an island in the eastern Aegean situated so close to the mainland of Asia Minor that, on a clear day, you might think you could swim across—to the coast of the immeasurably rich Lydia of those days, and from there, in what is now Turkey, to that of the immeasurably rich Europe of today. Somewhere there, in the lost kingdom of the Hittites, must lie the origins of her unusual name, which either means “numinous,” “clean,” or “pure source,” or—if you trace its history back by a different route—is a corruption of the ancient Greek word for sapphire and lapis lazuli.

For me, self-identification was a con
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Unherd
I dreamed of being able to reincarnate as a new me when the old one didn’t suit. In 2005, I changed my name to Sebastian, because the internet told me to. That was a fairly eccentric thing to do 15 years ago. Now, it seems like everyone’s at it. Far from being a set of fairly stable cultural norms with a few outliers, gender is now at the heart of an insanely toxic debate, which seems on course to swallow all of culture and politics. The right to personalise one’s gender is now backed by corporate philanthropy, well-funded third-sector lobbying and prominent celebrities. But while it may feel like mainstream culture has gone down the gender rabbit hole with bewildering speed, the enabling conditions have been gathering force for some time.