Greek girl has an epiphany



Girls in the Greek diaspora are often subjected to traditional expectations that have rather faded in Greece itself.  Koraly Dimitriadis is obviously one of them.  She first lists the expectations that were put on her by her family and then declares herself free of them.  In declaring her freedom, however, she may have gone too far. She says that she is now a "a vocal, vibrant, happy, powerful woman".  The number of men who want to live with that might be few -- JR

The expectations

Want to get yourself a man? Then shut up

In order to secure a man it is in the woman’s favour if she is relatively quiet. Men don’t like drama. They also don’t like neediness. It’s a turn off. Men like it simple.

Keep quiet and take your meds or you may end up being dragged off to a mental institution... just like ‘crazy’ Blanche DuBois in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

In the dating game, it’s important to adhere to these guidelines. Don’t send, friendly, conversational texts. Men don’t like womanly chitter chatter. It’s pointless to them. Don’t text if he hasn’t responded for a week and has ignored all your messages. Don’t tell him he is being disrespectful if he said he would call and he hasn’t. Don’t pull him up on his behaviour if he’s being evasive about that next date. Don’t go crazy on him. Don’t say anything because it will ruin your chances. Men don’t like any of that inappropriate behaviour. It’s abusive towards the man when a women speaks up and defends herself.

If you want him to like you then you need to get with the program. Men like to be free. They don’t like to answer to anyone, especially women. You are not the man, they are.

If you do make it to a few dates, try not to talk too much — or too loudly. It’s embarrassing for the guy. It also gives them a massive headache. If you are chatty you might get greeted with an awkward “Sshh”. And you should shush, right? After all, this is a man’s world. We are only walking the earth among them because men are allowing us to do so. Women can only do what they can today because at different points over the course of history men congregated together and decided — by majority vote — to drip feed us some rights. We should be grateful.

Don’t be strong. Men like vulnerability and cluelessness, they like us to look to them for the answers because they are the wise ones. Men know what’s best. If you are getting into a relationship and you feel like you are having too many crazy episodes, you might want to consider medicating yourself for the sake of the relationship. After all, love comes first. Everyone wants a peaceful life. And you do want to be normal, right? You can’t be alone. You need someone to look after you. The world is dangerous. You’ve waited so long for a man to finally want you. The dating game is so hard. All that rejection. If you end the relationship now who knows if you’ll meet anyone else.

When you are having sex, try to keep the noise levels down, especially if living in a share house, block of flats, or densely populated area. If people hear you moaning they will definitely question your integrity, especially if you have men over often. I know it’s hard to keep it down as it may be challenging to reach orgasm, especially since it’s the woman’s responsibility to negotiate the positioning during the act to assist her in reaching such places. But you don’t want to be bothersome and interrupt the man’s trajectory. Remember — the man’s needs come first.

Aspire to be a wife? Shut up, and you’ll be rewarded with a lavish wedding. When you’ve finally got that picture postcard marriage, do your housework, make him a sandwich, and pop out as many kids as he wants, even if you’re not quite sure you want them yourself. Raise your daughters in your shadow, raise them to be quiet just like you.

Laughing loudly is another doozy. I, for instance, have a really loud, expressive laugh. In a cinema, for example, my laugh can generally be heard above the crescendo. Sometimes when I talk I don’t realise that my voice is louder than some. When a male I went to the cinema with tapped me on the shoulder to shush after I laughed at a funny scene I was so enraged I wanted to stand up, right there in the cinema, and give him a piece of my mind.

I wanted to use every profane word to explain how all my life I’ve been taught to bow to the male, and all my life I was told to shush, and not to swear. I wanted to explain how I actually never used to laugh loudly and that I do laugh loudly today because I’m actually really, really happy.

The revolt

That’s right, for the first time in my life I’m really, really happy because I found the strength to not only break out of all the bullshit I’ve expressed in this article, but also I found the strength to break out of an unhappy marriage, and stop taking medication, and I started to embrace my femininity not as a weakness, but as a strength.

Because I’m done keeping my head low. I’m going to hold my head high. And to be honest, all men who don’t embrace a vocal, vibrant, happy, powerful woman, who feel threatened by such a woman, who run away from such a woman, can run for all I care.

I am done defining my self-worth by men with chauvinistic, backward mindsets, who feel threatened by my happy, vocal voice. I am not afraid to be single. If men who are single ask themselves why they may want to consider on evolution of their mindsets. It’s all fine to say you believe in equality, but if you can’t get equality right at such a basic, fundamental level, your words are fruitless.

But of course, such behaviour would be seen as crazy and unladylike. To get up in a cinema and rant like this, in such a disruptive, unladylike way. So I said nothing at all.

SOURCE





   
Republicans Battle to Roll Back Washington State’s New Transgender Bathroom Rules

OLYMPIA, Wash.— Pressure is mounting at the state capitol for lawmakers to undo a divisive new rule that allows transgender individuals to use bathrooms, locker rooms, and other gender-segregated facilities of the sex the individuals identify as being.

“People don’t understand the magnitude of the rules that they’re making,” Jill Wade, a mother of two from Spanaway, Wash., told The Daily Signal. “Nobody had any idea that any public meetings were going on because they weren’t on their site.”

Wade is part of a group of conservative Christians working to inform the public about the new rules and pressure lawmakers to scale them back. If more people knew about the rules, Wade believes, more people would be fighting against them.

The rules, which were quietly adopted by the state’s Human Rights Commission on Dec. 26, apply to schools and businesses—both public and private—with eight or more employees.

The Human Rights Commission, which is tasked with handling discrimination complaints in the state, branded the rules as an update or clarification to Washington’s 2006 anti-discrimination law. While intended to protect transgender individuals from discrimination, some feel that the updates came at the expense of others’ personal privacy and comfort.

Already, two Republican state legislators, Sen. Doug Ericksen and Rep. Graham Hunt, are working to reverse the regulations through legislative action.  On Wednesday at the state capitol, they explained how they plan to do so.

Ericksen, a Republican senator from Bellingham, Wash., told The Daily Signal that he plans to introduce a “simple” one-paragraph proposal that would immediately repeal the rules drawn up by the Human Rights Commission. His proposal would also ban the agency from “initiating” any further rules regarding transgender individuals’ use of sex-segregated facilities. 

With his bill, Ericksen aims to leave sensitive decisions about the use of sex-segregated facilities by transgender individuals to local businesses, schools, and communities.

“Isn’t that a unique thought, that individual businesses, individual school districts can make the choices that are best for them?” Ericksen sarcastically asked.

His policy is “not an issue of being scared,” Ericksen said, but rather, a way of adhering to “societal expectations.”

“I believe that when I drop my kids off at school, or when I take them to a private gym, I have a right to expect that the men will use the men’s locker room and the women will use the women’s locker room,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to worry about my young daughters having to come face to face with things that they should not have to be exposed to at their age.”

Ericksen has hopes to pass his one-paragraph bill through the Republican-controlled Senate before Washington’s legislative session ends on March 10—with at least some bipartisan support.

“There is broad based support to repeal this rule and it transcends political ideology, makeup, identification,” Ericksen said. “People can read it in 30 seconds, and we can correct a grave overstep by a government agency.”

Rep. Graham Hunt, a conservative from Orting, Wash., wants to go even farther in correcting what he also considers a “grave overstep by a government agency.”

“Repealing is great because it undoes what happened,” Hunt told The Daily Signal minutes before dropping his own bill addressing the updated rules. “But I don’t think it preserves or protects to prevent this from happening again in another way.”

On Wednesday at the state capitol, Hunt introduced a bill that bans transgender individuals from using bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, or saunas if such individuals are “preoperative, nonoperative, or otherwise [have] genitalia of a different gender from that for which the facility is segregated.”

“I’ve tried to make this about the genitalia,” Hunt said bluntly. “If you don’t have the parts…if you don’t have the plumbing, then you don’t go in.”

The legislation includes exceptions for parents and caretakers of minors or persons with disabilities, and enforcement, he said, “would be complaint driven.”

In a Democrat-controlled House, Hunt admits he faces an uphill battle. On Wednesday, Hunt introduced the legislation with the support of 34 members “and counting”—but none of them was a Democrat.  Specifically, he said, one is standing in the way.

In order for his bill to reach the House floor, Hunt must first pass the measure through the Judiciary Committee, which is chaired by state Rep. Laurie Jinkins.

According to Hunt, Jinkins, an openly gay Democrat from Tacoma, Wash., is blocking the measure from coming to a committee vote, refusing to even hold a public hearing on the bill.

“At this point, we just frankly don’t agree,” Hunt said. “She believes my bill is offensive to the transgender community, and I said that I think the [Washington Administrative Code] is offensive to the non-transgender community.”

Jinkins declined to speak with The Daily Signal about this story.

According to Hunt, Jinkins fears that allowing a hearing on the issue would be overtly “political.” 

Hunt took issue with that notion, arguing there’s no better place to take up the issue than in “the people’s house.”

“How can you say the legislature—the people’s house—is not the place to have an open discussion? How can you say that?” Hunt asked. “What else are we here to do —make decisions for the people without their input? That’s not a representative form of government.”

Absent an influx of calls into Jinkins’ office from people concerned about the regulations, Hunt said his bill won’t stand a shot in this legislative session. In the long term, however, he has more hope.

At the end of a meeting on Wednesday, Hunt said he and Jinkins were able to reach an agreement to find “middle ground” in the coming months.

“What she has agreed to is having some sessions during the interim to try to find middle ground,” Hunt said. “I’m happy that she said some middle ground could be found, it’s just not going to be during the 60-day session.”

If that falls through, then Hunt said it’s up to Washington “to make a change with our vote.”

“If there’s not a hearing and they’re not allowed the opportunity to be a part of the conservation, then we make the change with our vote. And if you don’t vote, you’re not going to have a change. That’s what representatives are ultimately accountable to…the vote.”

SOURCE






Manufacturer stands by policy on Muslim prayer breaks after workers walk out

AN AMERICAN-ISLAMIC civil liberties group is asking a Wisconsin manufacturer to back away from a policy that doesn’t allow an extra break for prayer for Muslim employees.

Ariens Co., however, said Tuesday that it can handle the matter internally and that it’s not interested in negotiating through the Council for America-Islamic Relations.

The friction comes after 53 workers left their jobs in protest after the company decided to enforce a policy of two 10-minute breaks per work shift.

The workers, all of whom are of Somali descent, who joined the company last summer through an employment services contractor. Ariens — which is based in Brillion, about 90 miles north of Milwaukee — initially had allowed the newly hired Muslim employees to leave their work stations a third time to accommodate Muslim prayers.

But CEO Dan Ariens said the prayer breaks were disrupting production at the lawnmower and snow blower manufacturer, which employs about 2,000 people, nearly half of them in Brillion. He said the best solution was to schedule break time and “stay within the policy of two, 10-minute breaks.”

“Let’s say I’m on an assembly line with 10 people, and two of those people take an unscheduled break. Everything stops. Those two people might be using five minutes but the other eight are standing there waiting for those five minutes,” Mr Ariens told a news conference.

CAIR is asking the company to revert to its previous policy until a resolution can be reached. Jaylani Hussein, of CAIR in Minneapolis, said that the two scheduled break times don’t line up with Islamic prayer times, which is why the workers need a third break. He also said that the company accommodates other short breaks, including people stepping away to use the rest room.

“It seems like a crackdown on Muslims wherever they are,” he said.

CAIR also has been involved in discussions with Cargill, one of the largest beef producers in North America, over Muslim prayer accommodations at a meat processing plant in Colorado. The company has recently changed a policy to allow fired workers to reapply for their jobs in 30 days, rather than six months. The prayer policy, however, still hasn’t been resolved, CAIR said in a release.

Ariens says it has had longstanding religious accommodations for Muslim workers, including a prayer room. Ariens said the two-break policy isn’t new and that it was discussed during employee orientation.

He said none of the workers have been fired and that he also wants to find a resolution that will allow them all to come back to their jobs without hindering production. He said the employees are valuable and would need to be replaced if they left.

Ariens said the company’s position is reasonable and legally sound. He said that if the prayer breaks were only five minutes each — and his supervisors tell him they’re often longer — then it would cost the company about $US1 million ($1.45 million) annually.

Hussein said if the company maintains its position, he will take the issue to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“The law is clear on this subject: They had been accommodated before,” he said, “so it’s much more difficult to say they are no longer covered.”

SOURCE






Attacks on Women in Cologne Highlight Double Standard of Multiculturalism

The horrendous attacks on women in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve have exposed a deep crack in the façade of radical multiculturalism. On one side are radical feminists who argue that sexism, no matter how innocently expressed, must be vigorously repressed. On the other are the mavens of racial and ethnic identity politics who preach that Muslim refugees must be exempt from too much censure for sexual assault, lest we be guilty of “Islamophobia.”

Forced to choose between the two, some feminists come down on the side of anti-Islamophobia. Harvard University International Nieman Fellow Laurie Penny, for example, was far more outraged by the supposed “theft of feminist rhetoric by imperialism and racism” than by the attacks themselves. She doesn’t excuse the attackers outright, but it’s clear she’s far more worried about confirming the “narrative” of Islamophobia than defending the rights of women.

Many people think that multiculturalism is all about defending common humanity. It isn’t.

Why is that? One reason is that Muslim refugees now enjoy the pre-eminent position in the canon of multiculturalism. They are thought to be the most victimized, so they get most of the attention, even to the point of sacrificing the feminist cause.

But there are deeper philosophical reasons. Many people think multiculturalism is all about defending common humanity. It isn’t. It’s about creating a new power structure that divides humanity into competing and unequal groupings.

As I explain in my upcoming book, “The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left”:

In order to justify the plethora of self-generated identities, the very notion of the human being must be eradicated. It must be sliced and diced only according to what each identity establishes as its own local truth. … If we believe, as identity theorists do, that the individual human being as we commonly understand him or her is a social fiction, then it is not that big of a tragedy if some people are sacrificed for the sake of others. Without a respect for all human beings, regardless of their place in the identity pecking order, it is fairly easy, even necessary, to separate people into winners and losers in the power game.

In the Cologne case, the losers of this new power game are women. In the current sweepstakes of multicultural victimhood, they are lower in the pecking order than Muslim refugees.

It’s a blatant double standard—one for Western women and another for Muslim refugees. But we really shouldn’t be surprised. After all, radical multiculturalism is philosophically grounded in the logic of the double standard. According to the canon of “white privilege,” all white people, regardless of their individual views, are assumed to be racist by definition. Racial minorities, on the other hand, cannot by definition be racist. Only white people can be. There’s one standard for one and another standard for another.

In the case of Cologne, the same is true for not only for Western women and Muslim refugees in Germany. It also is true for German and Muslim refugee men as well. Does anyone doubt for a second that Penny would have bent over backwards to explain away the import of Cologne attackers if they had been German men?

Here’s the root of the problem: Multiculturalism and its offshoot identity politics are supposed to be about equality, but they are not. They are actually about pretending that different things are the same. According to the canon of identity theory, a white woman who claims she’s black is “really” a black woman. A male who insists he’s a woman is “really” a woman. A Muslim refugee’s victimhood status entitles an assailant to be treated “as if” he were innocent because he’s a victim of Western cultural oppression. In all these cases, people claim to be something they are not. And yet they grab the mantle of equality as if they were.

This contradiction is why the defenders of multiculturalism must always change the subject. As Ralf Jaeger, minister of the Interior for North Rhine-Westphalia, explained after the Cologne attacks, “[w]hat happens on the right-wing platforms and in chatrooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women.”

Never mind all the actual acts of rape and groping—what matters more are the words of people who committed no crimes.

Yes, we all know Germany’s horrible past, but Jaeger’s hyperbole is not merely overcompensation. Jaeger is descending into the very same moral abyss he claims (and I assume sincerely) to abhor. By invoking such a false moral equivalence, not only are the actual crimes of men minimized, but the equal rights of women are sacrificed. It represents an astonishing Faustian bargain with a new and different kind of intolerance.

As I explain in “The Closing of the Liberal Mind”:

In practice, identity and equality work against each other. The more the former is pushed, the more the doctrine of equality is Balkanized. It becomes a contest between competing demands for recognition and privilege.

In that contest, there are winners, and there are losers. And in Cologne, it looks as though the losers are women and the cause of feminism.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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