Mick Hartley

Defining women as a subgroup of people with cervixes or ovaries

Debbie Hayton in the Spectator - Why is the NHS erasing women?

Cervical cancer and ovarian cancer only affect women. So why has the NHS been quietly erasing the word ‘women’ from information pages on its official website?

According to the Mail, NHS advice pages on these conditions were edited at the beginning of the year to remove references to the word ‘woman’.

Last year, women seeking information about cervical cancer were told that, ‘cervical cancer develops in a woman’s cervix (the entrance to the womb from the vagina). It mainly affects sexually active women aged between 30 and 45.’ But in 2022, the advice reads, ‘cervical cancer is a cancer that is found anywhere in the cervix, [and] the cervix is the opening between the vagina and the womb (uterus).’

Similarly, women looking for information online were previously told that ‘Ovarian cancer, or cancer of the ovaries, is one of the most common types of cancer in women.’ Now they are only informed by the health service that ‘Anyone with ovaries can get ovarian cancer’.

The health service’s cancer advice and guidance is extensive, and rightly so. Women concerned about their health need to know about symptoms, causes, tests and treatment, and where to get help and support. But, crucially, they need to know whether or not the guidance applies to them. If this obfuscation of reality was hidden in some obscure academic paper, it might be forgivable – or at least ignorable – but the NHS has a duty of care to a wide audience, not all of whom might know that the information is aimed specifically at women.

Interestingly, the equivalent pages on men’s health have not been edited in the same way. Those searching for information on prostate cancer are told quite simply that, ‘Most cases develop in men aged 50 or older.’ No chances are taken with testicular cancer: the word, ‘men’ appears eight times on one page.

Well now, isn't that interesting? You could perhaps understand the reasoning if it worked both ways: trans men might be offended - the thinking would go - if they felt they were being excluded from advice on cervical cancer, seeing as how they have female bodies but have re-categorised themselves as men; and equally trans woman might feel excluded from advice on prostate cancer, having male biology but calling themselves women. But apparently it only works one way. Which suggests that the NHS have not only taken on board gender ideology, but its ingrained misogyny as well.

Women’s health, therefore, seems to be an ideological playing field that men’s health is not. In the guidance the word ‘woman’ has generally been culled, with two notable exceptions on another page of the website, which explains that: ‘Anyone with a cervix can get cervical cancer. This includes women, trans men, non-binary people, and intersex people with a cervix.’ and, ‘Anyone with ovaries can get ovarian cancer. This includes women, trans men, non-binary people and intersex people with ovaries.’

But by framing the advice in this way the NHS appears to be re-defining women as a subgroup of people with cervixes or ovaries. How that helps anyone is hard to fathom....

Those in the NHS who signed this guidance off, perhaps blissfully unaware of what they were agreeing to, should in my view revise these pages as a matter of urgency. The NHS might have taken on board the LGBT rainbow for its branding and badges, but it must think critically before assuming the thinking of this particular strand of activism. Because where human bodies are concerned, human biology still matters, and we need clear labels to define the two sexes: women and men.

A social contagion spreading through the school

After that story of the girl who expressed her doubts about gender beliefs and was subsequently forced out of school after being hounded as a "transphobe", here's another teacher telling of the sudden growth in young children - tutored on social media and by the likes of Mermaids and Stonewall - who are convinced that they can change sex, and that it's liberating, and that anyone who disagrees is a horrible bigot.

From today's Sunday Times:

Some teenagers would say: “Why can’t I be non-binary or why can’t I be a boy?” Children seemed to feel emboldened, absolutely certain that there was only correct point of view. The school seemed to be reinforcing this. If a teenager questioned the prevailing view among their peers and said: “You can’t just become a boy, you can’t change your sex”, then they could be sent to the pastoral hub and it might be suggested they undertake an LGBT course.

Around the same time, more children in the lower years were starting to question their gender identity. It began to feel like a social contagion was spreading through the school.

Eventually I decided that it was time to move on. I kept quiet until I had a new teaching job — I knew I would need a reference. Then I aired my concerns in my exit interview. The head listened but pointed out that the changes in the school had been welcomed by some LGBT pupils who had told him how much they appreciated them.

I don’t blame the school for its chaotic approach; the arguments about gender identity and biological sex have become a fearsome culture war. Teachers lack the training and information to cope. Like most parents facing the same questions, they are afraid of doing something that is not in a child’s best interests.

That is why it is imperative that the Department for Education (DfE) gives clear guidelines for schools on how to tackle this problem; it should be a policy that is evidence-based and universal. That is the only way to calm the anger bubbling up in classrooms and to allow teachers to get on with their jobs.

A return to the standards of science and biology might be a good place to start.

I chose this profession because I wanted to impart knowledge; that’s about more than teaching my subject, it’s considering a child’s wellbeing and their mental health too. I believe that most teachers feel the same way. But in the current climate, this is becoming increasingly hard to do.

We are under instruction from the DfE to teach British values and to teach tolerance in particular. The idea that it is transphobic to suggest that sex and gender are different and to howl down opposition is not tolerant, nor is it tolerant to brand a teacher transphobic or to bully a pupil out of school.

But that's what's happening. That's where we are now.

Several recurring fallacies

An Open Letter to Noam Chomsky, from a group of Ukrainian academics (via):

Having familiarized ourselves with the body of your interviews on this matter, we noticed several recurring fallacies in your line of argument. In what follows, we wish to point out these patterns to you, alongside with our brief response...

Pattern #2: Treating Ukraine as an American pawn on a geo-political chessboard

Whether willingly or unwillingly, your interviews insinuate that Ukrainians are fighting with Russians because the U.S. instigated them to do so, that Euromaidan happened because the U.S. tried to detach Ukraine from the Russian sphere of influence, etc. Such an attitude denies the agency of Ukraine and is a slap in the face to millions of Ukrainians who are risking their lives for the desire to live in a free country. Simply put, have you considered the possibility that Ukrainians would like to detach from the Russian sphere of influence due to a history of genocide, cultural oppression, and constant denial of the right to self-determination?...

Pattern #4. Stating that the U.S. isn’t any better than Russia

While you admittedly call the Russian invasion of Ukraine a “war crime,” it appears to us that you cannot do so without naming in the same breath all of the past atrocities committed by the U.S. abroad (e.g., in Iraq or Afghanistan) and, ultimately, spending most of your time discussing the latter....

This of course is Chomsky's whole schtick: America is the world's only true criminal state, and everything else is window dressing. He's got just the one hammer, so that's the only way he can interpret world events - by banging in the anti-US nails.

Pattern #6. Assuming that Putin is interested in a diplomatic solution

All of us very much hoped for a cease-fire and a negotiated settlement, which could have saved many human lives. Yet, we find it preposterous how you repeatedly assign the blame for not reaching this settlement to Ukraine (for not offering Putin some “escape hatch”) or the U.S. (for supposedly insisting on the military rather than diplomatic solution) instead of the actual aggressor, who has repeatedly and intentionally bombed civilians, maternity wards, hospitals, and humanitarian corridors during those very “negotiations”. Given the escalatory rhetoric (cited above) of the Russian state media, Russia’s goal is erasure and subjugation of Ukraine, not a “diplomatic solution.”

Pattern #7. Advocating that yielding to Russian demands is the way to avert the nuclear war

Since the Russian invasion, Ukraine lives in a constant nuclear threat, not just due to being a prime target for Russian nuclear missiles but also due to the Russian occupation of Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

But what are the alternatives to fighting for freedom? Unconditional surrender and then elimination of Ukrainians off the face of the Earth (see above)? Have you ever wondered why President Zelenskyy, with the overwhelming support of the Ukrainian people, is pleading with Western leaders to provide heavy weapons despite the potential threat of nuclear escalation? The answer to this question is not “Because of Uncle Sam”, but rather due to the fact that Russian war crimes in Bucha and many other Ukrainian cities and villages have shown that living under Russian occupation is a tangible “hell on earth” happening right now, requiring immediate action.

Arguably, any concessions to Russia will not reduce the probability of a nuclear war but lead to escalation. If Ukraine falls, Russia may attack other countries (Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Finland or Sweden) and can also use its nuclear blackmail to push the rest of Europe into submission. And Russia is not the only nuclear power in the world. Other countries, such as China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are watching. Just imagine what will happen if they learn that nuclear powers can get whatever they want using nuclear blackmail.

And so on. Worth reading in full. Chomsky's thoughts on the matter, not so much - though, regrettably, these are familiar arguments on the Left.

Off to the women's facility

Yet another violent criminal, faced with the prospect of serious jail time in a male prison, suddenly decides he's really a woman. Now why on earth would he want to do that?

A man facing murder charges abruptly declared he was transgender, and was subsequently moved to a women’s facility. Alex Ray Scott, 26, is currently awaiting trial for the killing of Kenneth Savinski, 64, whom Scott allegedly met on a dating app.

As first reported in The Daily Mail, Scott appeared in court on Wednesday, May 18, with notably altered appearance and was referred to with female pronouns by his attorney for the first time since his arrest.

Scott was initially booked as a male on the charges of murder, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. But New York Department of Corrections records now list Scott as “female,” and state that he is being held at the Rose M. Singer Center (RMSC), a Rikers Island detention facility reserved for female adults and adolescents.

Scott is being held in connection to the murder of 64-year-old antiques dealer Kenneth Savinski. On January 27, 2020, Savinski was found dead in his New York City apartment, with neck wounds and a deep gash in his head. A friend had visited Savinski’s home to check up on him when he discovered the other man’s body.

Police had believed Savinski’s death may have been an accident, but closer examination demonstrated his wounds were the result of an attack.

Two days after the body was found, Scott allegedly walked into a Manhattan police station covered in blood, saying, “I think I may have killed someone last night.”

According to The New York Daily News, Scott was caught on camera walking out of Savinski’s apartment building, wearing the victim’s black jacket and counting money with noticeable hand injuries.

Hmm. A bit of a giveaway.

But that's not all.

In addition to the charges related to Savinski’s murder, Scott was previously arrested in his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in October 2018 on three counts of lewd molestation of a child.

He was released on bail July 2019 and required to wear an ankle monitor. It was during this investigation that Scott relocated to New York. Court records show several occasions when Scott failed to appear for his hearings, and in September 2019, it was noted that Scott had left the state.

In January of 2021, court records show that Scott was neglecting to use his monitoring device correctly and avoided uploading information on his whereabouts.

So not just a murderer, but a child sex offender as well. Not the kind of crime that's generally approved of, shall we say, in the tough environs of a men's prison in New York. A quick gender change might well have seemed like a smart idea to the wretched Scott. Happily in today's trans-friendly world such a move isn't a problem. Just say you're a woman and, hey, you really are a woman. How brilliant is that?

Media outlets covering the trial have begun uniformly referring to Scott as a ‘woman’ and utilizing ‘she/her’ pronouns to address him.

The women’s facility where Scott is now being held, Rose M. Singer on Rikers Island, was recently the subject of widespread outcry after it was reported that a trans-identified male transfer had raped a female inmate.

Ramel Blount, 33, approached a woman in the bathroom at Center on February 8, 2021. The victim had just finished showering when she was grabbed by her neck, held down, and sexually assaulted. Blount was convicted on lesser charges of attempted rape in April after accepting a plea deal, and was sentenced to 7 additional years in prison.

Duluth rails

With a lot of photos of US cities from the start of the 20th century - those away from the Eastern seaboard, at any rate - it's hard to credit that they've only been there a few decades, so well established do they seem. A testament, no doubt to the astonishing energy of those Yankee pioneers. 

Not so much with Duluth here, on the western end of Lake Superior. It really does look like a recent settlement of houses and rail tracks, stuck onto a bleak hillside.

Duluth, Minnesota. "Up the incline from Superior Street." 

[Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

Views from the towpath

On the Lea:

The inspirational surfer

He was getting too old for the male competitions, so he switched to the female - well, why not if all you have to do is say you're a woman now? - and of course won easily:

Surfing’s first competitive transsexual surfer Sasha Jane Lowerson has continued her dream run through the women’s division of the Western Australian longboard titles, winning the open gal’s crown easily.

In the final, Lowerson, a forty-three-year-old strawberry blonde [!] who has ridden “stupidly big Waimea” and who won the male division of the WA longboard titles in 2019 as Ryan Egan before transitioning, combo-ed one surfer, the other three gals needed nine-pluses to win.

The triumph was a sweet return for Lowerson who says she was close to killing herself a few months back, even had a few swings at it.

Depressed as hell, Lowerson gave up surfing, shaping, but once she decided to transition and the female hormones kicked in, woke up one day in February, felt a little better, called up Surfing Australia and said,

“Umm, this is me, the last time I competed in your Australian titles I was third, what are you going to do? I was pretty frank about it. We can do this two ways. We can do it together and make it amazing or we can do it terribly and it’s a circus and you guys are the only ones who are going to  come out looking silly… I’d prefer to not go through that.” 

Head judge Glen Elliot was super cool, says Lowerson, and told her he’d “love to see you still competing.”

Lowerson says, “To be the first trans woman competing in surfing hasn’t been an easy ride emotionally but the amount of support I’ve been showed has been phenomenal and I’m so grateful to be involved, welcomed and embraced within the longboard community in Australia.”

Inspirational.

For him, no doubt. Not so inspirational for the genuine women surfers - "gals" - he was competing against.

And here he is, showing off his moves and his, um, strawberry blonde locks:

[Photo @ Sharon Morris]

We heard from Ryan - sorry, Sasha - last November:

Sasha Jane Lowerson doesn’t identify as a transgender woman, just simply a woman with a “trans-experience”.

“I am human. I’m a woman, just like you, I don’t want to be treated any differently,” Lowerson told AAA.

But the Mandurah surfer is making a difference for all transgender people with her quest for more equality in her sport. In her former life, Lowerson was among the top longboard surfers in the country and the world but now living her full truth, as her authentic self, she said the sport that helps her feel “as free as a bird” is now caging her in like a criminal.

“I’ve been hiding in this male shell up until a year ago, for 42 years. To still be made to be that guy that I’m not, it’s shattering,” she said.

In December 2020, she began her journey to be given the right to compete as the gender with which she identifies.

“I want change for myself as an elite athlete but I also want to see fairness in community-level sport and for a better future for the next generation,” she said.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in this space, we need to get away from that old-school way of thinking.”

Oh yes. That'd be the old-school way of thinking that biological sex is real, and women's sport should be for women only.

Male breast-feeding

Trans women are now keen to experience all the joys of motherhood - well, apart from the actual and very painful business of giving birth, though they're working on that. So yes, breast feeding, aka chest-feeding, is all the rage. Never mind if it's harmful to the baby: this is all about validation of the man-as-woman. 

Shay Woulahan at Reduxx:

A Reddit post showing a trans-identified male “breast feeding” a newborn baby is circulating on Twitter and sparking concern and discussion from feminists.

On May 16, 2022, Reddit user u/AdmiralFisticuffs published a post on the r/MtF subreddit, a community of over 150,000 users for males who identify as women.

The post, titled “Oh my God I’m breastfeeding my daughter,” details how the user worked with a lactation consultant and his gender physician for several months prior to his female partner giving birth. The baby was born last week, and the user states the child has been alternating feedings between his wife, formula, and himself. The user also included a link to a photo gallery showing snapshots of himself “breast feeding” the baby. Since published just hours ago, the post has garnered over 1,000 ‘upvotes,’ bringing it to the top of the r/MtF page.

On Reddit, users offered congratulations and asked him for advice on how to replicate his results with lactation. In the comment section, u/AdmiralFisticuffs provided a step by step guide, detailing when to use an electric breast pump, and which cocktail of hormones he had to take to be able to lactate. He also notes he had to illicitly import domperidone from Canada, as it is not approved for use in the USA.

While the response within the transgender subreddit was largely positive, the user’s post was received drastically differently elsewhere on the web after the post was screen captured and began to circulate on Twitter....

“This poor child. This is an experiment on an infant who can’t consent. This is abuse for validation and it’s disgusting” one user said.

In the replies, many expressed concerns that the child was being used as a tool to ‘affirm’ the man’s gender identity. Another user questioned whether the hormone-induced discharge from a man’s nipples would be healthy or safe for babies.

Speaking to Reduxx, retired physician Dr. Maja Bowen said she had “several concerns” about the practice.

“What comes out of a man’s nipple is not mother’s milk, but a watery substance devoid of antibodies and nutrients that are found in mother’s milk, the composition of which changes as the baby grows up.”

Dr. Bowen says that the few previous studies done on trans-identified males who have induced lactation show a paucity of evidence the discharge is nutritious or in equivalent of a mother’s breast milk.

“Men are not women or mothers. They are not designed to breast feed. So the question is why is this man doing this, when the baby has a mother and access to both actual breast milk and formula?” Dr. Bowen also notes that there are questions about the man’s intentions.

“For all we know, the mother is breast feeding and he is using the baby as a prop. What is the benefit to the baby here? It seems to be all about him and his needs.”

Peer-reviewed research into the nutritional value of male breast fluid is hard to come by, and some researchers report even having been discouraged from inquiring out of fear of medically justified “transphobia.”  

In 2018, an endocrinologist from Boston Medical Center claimed that breast feeding was an important method of validating a trans-identified male’s gender identity. 

In an interview with The New Scientist, Dr. Joshua Safer said: “Many transgender women are looking to have as many of the experiences of non-transgender women as they can, so I can see this will be extremely popular.”

Reports of trans-identified males seeking support from lactation consultants have increased. On social media, many new and breast feeding mothers have also stated they’ve noticed an increase in men attending breast-feeding groups.

A "hormone-induced discharge". Lovely.

Arousing the masses

Just what's needed in a pandemic: a strong dose of ideology. From North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun - Ideological Campaign Launched to Curb Health Crisis:

All the Party organizations and officials in the DPRK have turned out to arouse the masses to the anti-epidemic campaign.

The Pyongyang City Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea launched a work to implant the ideas and spirit of the 8th Political Bureau Meeting of the 8th WPK Central Committee and the consultative meeting of the Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee into the masses through motivation means, while displaying the revolutionary slogans and watchwords at industrial establishments and in streets and villages.

The North Phyongan Provincial Party Committee disseminated a radio program calling upon the people to safeguard their own precious lives and future to the end by emerging victorious in the ongoing anti-epidemic war. It has also made sure that itinerant art squads in the province conduct vigorous agitation activities for encouraging the people to the anti-epidemic campaign.

The North Hamgyong Provincial Party Committee has scrupulously organized the work to inform the people of the orders and instructions from the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters and the anti-epidemic rules in combination with the faults revealed in the past epidemic prevention work, thus awakening the masses.

The Party organizations in North Hwanghae Province made their officials go among the masses and conduct a political work for inspiring them to positively respond to the state emergency steps under the present circumstance in which the people are separately working with each enterprise or family as a unit in a state of tight closure.

The Party organizations in Nampho and Kaesong cities focus their efforts on raising the awareness of the masses that it is very important in safeguarding safety of the country and people as well as themselves and their families to more strictly observe the epidemic prevention rules of the state.

Party organizations and officials across the country, including those in South Phyongan, South Hamgyong and South Hwanghae provinces, have found themselves among the popular masses and shared joy and sorrow with them, positively conducting the organizational and political work for inspiring the people with confidence in sure victory in the ongoing anti-epidemic war and for overcoming the current health crisis.

That should do the trick.

The angry black woman

Raquel Rosario Sánchez on The remarkable poise of Allison Bailey:

In her month-long Tribunal, Bailey alleges that both her chambers, Garden Court, and Stonewall discriminated against her after she expressed the view that biological sex is a reality. She started expressing concerns after her chambers, like hundreds of public and private bodies around the UK, signed up to Stonewall’s Diversity Champions scheme.

This scheme enables the trans lobby group to supervise, vet and influence an organisation’s internal policies. The scheme argues that everybody has a inner “gender identity” and that this trumps people’s biological sex, in all aspects of private and public life. In her witness statement, Bailey explains why this did does not sit well with her:

My experience of being female has not been defined by my feeling female. I don’t know what it means to feel female; I just am female. My life has been defined by having a female body: gynaecological problems, sexual abuse in childhood, sex discrimination, being a lesbian, a black woman, gender non-conformity and menopause. These experiences are all located in my physical, female body. I cannot identify into or out of them.

This represents a problem for any law firm because Stonewall, through its “trans women are women” sloganeering, has sought to get ahead of the law, advocating against the legal rights that women and LGB people already hold in the UK....

When Allison Bailey voiced her opinion, Stonewall filed a complaint against her, demanding that her Chambers investigate her for “transphobia”, which they duly complied with. Kirrin Medcalfe, Head of Trans Inclusion at Stonewall, wrote to her employers:

For Garden Court Chambers to continue associating with a barrister who is actively campaigning for a reduction in trans rights and equality, while also specifically targeting members of our staff with transphobic abuse on a public platform, puts us in a difficult position with yourselves: the safety of our staff and community will always be Stonewalls first priority. I trust that you will do what is right and stand in solidarity with trans people.

In a highly competitive field where black women are underrepresented at the bar and those that do make it get paid the least when compared with their colleagues, this threatening email from Stonewall sought to expel the high-profile and successful Bailey from her chambers simply for dissenting. When Medcalfe, a white man, was questioned about the complaint he filed as a witness during her Tribunal, he asked for last minute accommodation so that he could have his mother, a support dog and a support person to handhold him through the cross-examination. The Tribunal acquiesced.

Nobody accommodated Allison Bailey while she withstood the onslaught from trans activists and an openly hostile work environment inside her chambers. On the contrary, she had to put up with a climate that was expressly disrespectful of her. Employees and barristers would oftentimes refer to her in internal communications as “delusional”, “unprofessional”, “a massive hypocrite” and “the terfy barrister”.

Her work load was vastly reduced. Her security concerns, given the climate of abuse meted out against feminists who speak out in favour of sex-based rights, were dismissed or entirely ignored by her chambers, who showed her no sympathy. On the contrary, she was the one who was framed and treated like a problem. Her white, male colleagues kept transcripts of her private conversations and shared them with the people investigating her.

People watching her cross-examination saw the thoughtful and measured Allison Bailey belittled and dismissed by Defendants who sought to characterised her as an “angry” black woman who just needs to calm down....

The purpose of the “angry black woman” trope is to create caricatures out of complex people. A black, lesbian barrister who has endured slight after slight, is presented as uncivil and improper in the insipid environment of a courtroom, even when her speech and cadence is tempered and restrained. If she were to complain about this one-dimensional narrative created about her, this would become further evidence of her aggressive nature.

We are living through a period of mass delusion, in which trans lobby groups demand we ignore material reality and replace it with autocratic dogma. Organisations like Stonewall and Garden Court Chambers should be celebrating women like Allison Bailey. In order to become a criminal barrister, she had to overcome immense odds and prejudice. Yet, when she spoke out, she was targeted and ostracised.

Deep down, like many women having to be poised and articulate while their detractors get coddled and rewarded for their yobbish behaviour, Allison Bailey must be seething with rage. Yet she is not allowed to display anything other than immaculate decorum, and she has more than risen to the challenge.

There could hardly be a clearer demonstration of the different standards at play here, where the white male "head of trans inclusion" is allowed to have his mummy, a support dog, and a support person to hold his hand through the cross-examination, while the black defendant is treated with barely disguised condescension.

Jo Bartosch unpacks that "angry black woman" trope:

"Take a breath” instructed Barrister Andrew Hochhauser QC. Allison Bailey, the black, lesbian barrister he had been cross-examining replied, “I don't need to take a breath — don't patronise me.” Without waiting to inhale himself, Hochhauser called Bailey, “angry,” an accusation she neatly rebuffed with well-practiced composure.

This small exchange was loaded: a white man tried to goad a black woman, and when she responded by asserting herself and drawing attention to his tactics, he cynically pulled-out the “angry black woman” trope to undermine her credibility. As a witness in her own case, Bailey was not afforded the space to express how she may have felt, though her resolute rebuttal was exquisite. It spoke of a lifetime of having to politely correct bigoted bores without rising to their bait.

Whatever our color or sexual orientation, any woman watching that exchange would doubtless recognise to varying degrees what Hochhauser was trying to do. In Bailey’s case, there are dimensions of racism and lesbophobia. But, more broadly, male abusers the world over use similar tactics to undermine the credibility of women. Often this is accomplished by zooming-in on the incidental, the small details — after all, who would interpret advice to “take a breath” as hostile?

Acts where men assert their dominance are presented as gifts. The kindly neighbor who believes that having matching chromosomes means one needs help backing into a parking space. The “compliment” from a stranger who remarks we “look so much prettier when we smile.” The instructive lesson on politics from a dullard at a party who assumes his female would-be interlocutor has been hitherto trapped in a walled convent, with no knowledge of current affairs. Objecting to such male beneficence would be churlish and hostile, but the impact of biting it back with a smile is a soul-crushing death by a thousand slights.

Sometimes, powerplay isn’t sanitized by a veneer of chivalry or humor but, in those instances, politely excusing it is still deemed the only socially acceptable option.