What is a Woman? (2022)

The controversial film from last year is now available on Twitter.  Matt Walsh declares that, though he thought he knew what a woman was, some doubts have arisen in recent years.  In order to clarify, he set out on a quest across the country and even around the globe to find out What is a Woman? 

Among those he asked to define a woman were academics, participants of a Women's March, doctors, politicians, and even random people on the street.  Most of those asked either could not give a definition or refused to give a definition.  One politician ended the interview rather than provide any answer to the question.  Those who did give a definition tended to provide a circular one: a woman is someone who identifies as a woman.  This reluctance to pin down a definition is tied to the rise in transgenderism.  To provide a biological answer would be to exclude transgender women from womanhood.  Walsh interviews a transgender man who paints a grim picture of his experiences.  He also addresses the issue of transgender women participating in sports.  One woman - interviewed anonymously - detailed her experience of being displaced in sports by transgender women.  Why an anonymous interview?  She feared being labeled transphobic, which would stain her forever.  Opposition to transgender athletes has been labeled bigotry by many.  Also covered is the debate over pronouns.  Walsh talked to Jordan Peterson on this subject, who rose to prominence on that very topic.  At the end of the film, he still had not been provided with a definition for a woman, so he asked his wife.

"Adult human female."

It is noteworthy that among his interviews were a transgender man - who claimed no knowledge of how women feel - and a transgender doctor whose specialty was transgender patients.  As such, he didn't only talk to those who had negative experiences with transgenderism.  Most of those he interviewed were on the transgender side of the debate.  However, it should be noted that Walsh and Daily Wire edited the film; a skilled editor can flip the meaning of almost anything through clever cuts and remixed questions and answers.  He also has some dramatizations of himself, which was silly.  Even so, recommended to those interested in the view of trans-opponents.

Hoaxed (2019)

Hoaxed is a movie about the fake news, mainly told by fringe figures of the media landscape.  Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, Scott Adams, Jordan Peterson, James O'Keefe, Tim Pool, and other online personalities provide their perspectives.  Having read two of Scott Adams' books, Jordan Peterson's book, and being a regular viewer of Tim Pool's YouTube channel, I was familiar with most of the complaints leveled.  Of course, the leftist slant of the media is covered, which was old news to me.  However, there were some surprises.

 

Cassie Jaye, an actress turned documentary director, had some success with feminist films.  She decided to tackle the men's rights movement in her next film.  Though she expected to uncover bigotry and misogyny, her interviews and research led her to different conclusions.  To her surprise, she was attacked by former allies for creating a pro-male film and abandoning feminism.  Though I have not seen the film, I did watch her Ted Talk.  She diverged from the party line and was attacked.

 

Multiple personalities noted that the media highlights conflict because it leads to more viewers on TV or more clicks on the internet.  If it bleeds, it leads.  That's hardly a surprise.  However, a Black Lives Matter activist was interviewed.  While in Washington DC with his group, he had seen some All Lives Matter folks and things looked tense.  But he was invited to speak and the two groups found common ground.  He was cheered by the crowd.  Here was the feel-good story of the day and somehow it didn't make it into the news.  The BLM activist was asked if he had heard of Dylan Roof storming into a black church in South Carolina.  Of course.  How about Emanuel Samson (a black man) storming into a church and shooting white people in Tennessee?  No, had not heard that story.  Nor had I.  One fits the America is racist narrative and the other doesn't.

 

The big surprise was that the media hypes conflict.  Conflict generates viewers and viewers generate money.  A war provides a 24/7 news cycle and high ratings.  Does the media provide fake news to lead to war?  The Gulf of Tonkin incident never happened.  The media floated the government line and Vietnam escalated dramatically.  Was the media more circumspect the next time government pushed for war?  Well, it has since been proven that the babies being yanked from incubators story that turned opinion for the first Gulf War (1991) was false.  Never happened.  Again, the media was fooled.  Or were they?  CNN had awesome ratings throughout the Gulf War.  Was Saddam really trying to build nukes as George W Bush said?  Judith Miller was eventually dumped by the New York Times because her stories about weapons of mass destruction proved inaccurate.  Oh, but the ratings were fabulous.  This is a really dark view of the media.

 

This only scratches the surface of topics from the two-hour movie.  It is an exploration of what the media has become.  The media has become an echo chamber - best exemplified by Twitter - and it thrives on conflict.  Rather than providing news, it sows division.  At least, that is what is argued here.  Check it out.

Legislating Pronouns?

Justin Trudeau has announced the "Great news" via twitter that a bill has passed the Canadian Senate that criminalizes discrimination on gender identity or expression.  Professor Jordan Peterson, a fierce critic of the bill, claims that it will infringe on free speech.  Last year, he very openly declared that he would not be coerced into using preferred gender pronouns.  Peterson stated:  I will never use words I hate, like the trendy and artificially constructed words "zhe" and "zher."  The University of Toronto responded with warning letters but, so far, no formal disciplinary action.

 

If Bill C-16 is signed into law, will it be considered discriminatory to refer to a biologically female student who identifies as a male as 'she' or 'her?'  If Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner were to vacation in Canada, would it be a crime to say, "He visited Montreal?"  Those are just the tip of the iceberg.  There are a vast array of non-traditional pronouns that date back to the 70s: E, Ey, Hu, Peh, Per, Thon, Ve, Xe, Yo, Ze (which comes with a trio of possessive variants: hir, mer, or zir) and Zhe.  Could failure to keep track of everyone's preferred pronoun result in prosecution?  In the case of Peterson, who has preemptively declared that he will not use them, he may now be in legal jeopardy if he persists.

 

You will use the words that the government has decreed or suffer the consequences.  Of course, what I'd like to see in the wake of this foolishness would be for wave after wave of non-traditional pronoun people confronting Muslims to see which side the government takes.  In the US, no Muslim baker has been driven out of business by an outraged media and malicious lawsuits.