Monday, October 24, 2022


The Real Problem for single women in their '40s

What Yael Wolfe writes below is reasonable but unrealistic: Totally out of touch with the modern world.

She rightly sees a small, closed community as being an effective form of support for all the people in it. And she sees that as a viable alternative to monogamy. I have sad news for her. That ain't going to happen in the modern world

She overlooks the fact -- and I myself grew up in a small, rather closed traditional community -- that such communities require a lot of tolerance and conformity. You have no privacy and reduced freedoms in all sorts of ways.

And I don't want to be too invidious here but the sort of closed, mutually aware and culturally homogeneous communities that she idealizes do still exist in Australia -- among Aborigines. And the level of violence towards women and children in such communities is phenomenal. Stereotypes of traditional societies can be most misleading.

And it is to avoid the limits of traditional society that the modern nuclear family has evolved.

So it follows that many single women in their 40s will inevitably be uncomfortably isolated socially. What is to be done about that?

Many older women find a satisfactorfy solution in the form of a network of friends. And those friends do help and support one-another. That can be satisfactory most of the time but it is no substitute for the support that a live-in lover can give. When you literally fall over, who is there to help you up? Who is there to cry out to?

So with or without a network of supportive friends, women do have at least some incentive to develop satisfactory physical relationships. But how to go about it? That is the besetting problem for most people today. Good relationships and hence good partners are hard to come by. I am sorry to say it, but the only real solution for most people is tolerance and compromise.

I have a rather joyous relationship with my present partner but we both had to make big compromises to achieve that. It would be inappropriate to go into detail here but perhaps I could mention that she grew up in Europe and still speaks English so badly that I don't get rather a lot of what she says to me. But with goodwill, even that problem can be overcome. To do so has been well worth it

So perhaps Yael Wolfe could look for the good in the "buffoons" she despises and work with what is available. We all have our limitations and it behooves us to respect the limitations in others


Last month, a 46-year-old woman posted a video of herself on TikTok sharing a tearful story about her impending surgery and how much it has brought the pain she feels about being single into focus.

Her problem? She has no one to take care of her but her mother and sister and it clearly causes her distress, as she chokes up at one point so much, she has to pause the recording. She says she still needs her mama, still needs her sister, and you can sense the shame she feels around that.

She later goes on to admit that all her lighthearted jokes about the “buffoons” she encounters in the dating world are actually covering up immense pain, because that’s the “shit” that’s available to her at this point in life when, as she explains, most of the “good men” got married in their twenties and thirties.

When this video went viral, it particularly caught my attention. I am, after all, also 46 and single and have been known to have an occasional breakdown over the lack of partner support in my life.

I watched in horror as the first wave of misogynistic responses hit, in which countless people assumed she was choosy, demanding, crazy, slutty, or just plain stupid which is why she was single at 46 and why she goddamn deserved it.

Yep. We middle-aged, never-been-married gals know exactly what it’s like to be criticized, judged, psycho-analyzed, and berated by everyone from family members to strangers who all assume that our singleness is a problem — and a problem that we created. And you know how that goes…you made your bed, hon, now you gotta sleep in it.

(As if any of this would ever cross our minds had she been a single 46-year-old man.)

But after the angry villagers quieted, no doubt finding someone else to target with their ire and pitchforks, those of us who still had this video on our minds witnessed the second wave of responses from the cultural analysts, the armchair psychologists, the feminists, and the Virgos.

They talked about why her feelings are valid. They pointed out the misogyny her post inspired. They re-debated whether or not marriage has been unfairly vilified. They commiserated about the challenges of being a single woman in a culture that treats single women like second-class citizens.

Important conversations grew from the brave vulnerability this woman displayed. And yet, I’m not convinced that we haven’t entirely missed the real problem.

Once upon a time ago, humans lived in egalitarian communities. No, not neighborhoods. No, not nuclear families led by a man. Egalitarian communities.

Many people are convinced, thanks to clever propaganda, that humans have always lived the way we live today: in a patriarchal hierarchy organized into nuclear families born to heterosexual, monogamous couples.

This is simply not true.

Scientists have been reinforcing patriarchal theories about early humans that mirror and reinforce our modern-day social hierarchies, even in the face of mounting evidence that early humans were polyamorous and lived in clans that actively enforced gender equality. Children were raised by the group, rather than one set of biological parents. Resources and labor were shared. And sexual bonds overlapped.

These social structures achieved a goal for which modern humans should be grateful: the survival of the human race.

Ifan early human were to time travel into the modern world, she would not recognize what she’s seeing.

I’m not talking about technology, or a skyline altered by the silhouettes of skyscrapers, or the sartorial evolution of humankind. I’m talking simply about our social structures.

Two parents and their children living alone in tiny, isolated tribes? Sexual relationships that exist in vacuums, bound by legal contracts, that are supposed to thrive over the course of three to seven decades? An absence of the consistent presence of older generations? Working all hours of the day in order to procure resources that will only benefit a handful of people?

And what happens to the people who were not favored by the fickle hand of fate and did not get the chance to opt into couplehood? That’s a lot of solitary people who just ended up outside the tribe.

And how does today’s culture look upon them? Tough luck, sister. You had your chance and you blew it.

Our time-traveling early human would shake her head. This is not how a species survives.

Asa middle-aged single woman, I can tell you that getting sick, or being physically vulnerable (i.e. recovering from surgery) is one of my worst nightmares.

Being ill or physically impaired in any way as a single woman is a special kind of hell. We are already living our lives without the benefit of the emotional support that our coupled contemporaries have, struggling to pay the same bills that couples struggle to pay but without a partner’s second income, and often feeling pressure to do more than our fair share of labor at work or within our families of origin (i.e. taking care of aging parents because we allegedly have so much more time on our hands than our married siblings).

And then we get sick, and it all comes crashing down.

There are no social supports for single women recovering from injury, surgery, or illness. There is no one around to cook for us. Check on us. Call an ambulance in an emergency. Help us get around.

Nothing.

When I had the flu in 2016, I was so violently ill, I couldn’t stand up long enough to cook for myself and by Day 4, I was so weak, I fell and blacked out on my way to get a glass of water.

I suffered through Covid last year all by myself, curled into a ball of agony for ten hours, desperate for the comforting presence of another person to comb their fingers through my hair and assure me that everything was going to be okay.

And I recently endured an on-again-off-again illness that flattened me for the better part of three weeks, during which time I had to drive myself to the grocery store in the midst of a 101-degree fever so I could pick up some medication, and had to stop mid-aisle and bend over in order to keep from passing out. I cried when I got back in the car and realized I still had to make it home, somehow.

So yes. There’s a reason why 46-year-old women are crying in their cars.

But it isn’t because we’re single. It’s because our modern-day social structures are broken.

Let me be clear: this woman has my sincerest compassion. I have been there. I will be there again. This isn’t easy.

But I think she has misidentified the problem.

There is no problem in her life that was caused by her singleness, including needing help after surgery. Everyone needs help. Everyone needs care. Everyone needs social support. Everyone needs a safety net, backup plan, and yes, an occasional caregiver.

This woman seems to feel ashamed that she has to rely on her mother and sister for this care, instead of a husband. This is actually a good thing — there is nothing wrong with relying on our family of origin for help and support. This is how it was meant to be.

But in our culture, there is only one acceptable way to receive support: through a monogamous marriage. Anything else — particularly when it comes to women — is seen as a failure.

I’d also like to point out that this woman basically explained one of the fundamental reasons why she’s in this position in the first place, though without realizing it. Lamenting about her experiences with the “buffoons” she’s dated is a very real issue that countless women are facing today. Dating culture is toxic for women — nearly every abuse is excused or rationalized away. And that’s the product of a society that hates women. That is not her fault, nor any other woman’s fault.

But worrying about missing the boat with all those “good men” who got married in their twenties and thirties? I have to question that. What does “good man” even mean? A man who doesn’t treat women like shit? I hate to say it, but I know plenty of husbands, the ones who got married in their twenties and thirties, who treat their wives like garbage.

Further, we know for a fact that half the men who got married then (or at any other time in life) will be divorced at some point, so really, there’s no such thing as missing the boat when it comes to finding a life partner.

This woman’s singlehood is not the problem. The problem is that our culture has literally turned its back on single women. It keeps us close enough to benefit from all the extra labor we perform in the workforce and our families of origin, but it makes sure to let us know that it isn’t going to be there to support us when we need help.

Look at the evidence: We don’t teach people to check on their single friends when they’re sick. We don’t think to leave a pot of chicken soup at their door or offer to pick up some groceries for them. We don’t even text them every morning to make sure they’re still alive (yeah, I’m kinda serious) and reassure them that they are on our minds.

We’re taught to spend our time prioritizing the care of our husbands and children. Our single friends made their beds, remember? I mean, no offense, but who has time for that?

Would early humans have done this? Just left someone who was ill or injured to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger? I suppose they might have, depending upon the severity of the circumstances. But I suspect that typically, everyone banded together and took care of one another. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t still be here a couple million years later.

Today, though, all it takes to show a single woman where she stands in the hierarchy is one bout of Covid or a simple operation. Then we discover that we’ve been left in the woods while the tribe moved on to more fertile ground.

We can lament all we want about not having a partner to stay behind and help us — god knows, that’s a totally legitimate response. But really, we ought to spend our time pondering how our social bonds became so rigid and callous.

We’ll fare just fine without a spouse, after all. But we’ll never survive without community.

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Sweet victory! California court rules in favor of Christian baker who refused to bake cake for a lesbian couple in 2017

A California baker has won a discrimination lawsuit after she refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple's wedding - citing her Christian beliefs.

On Saturday, Cathy Miller, owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, announced that a Kern County judge had sided with her after a years-long battle.

In 2017, Miller refused to make a cake for a lesbian couple, Eileen and Mireya Rodriguez-Del Rio, claiming that her religious beliefs were grounds to not make a masterpiece for the pair's special day.

At the time, the baker allegedly politely refused to make the cake and gave the couple the name of an alternative bakery.

But the furious couple lodged a lawsuit against her, claiming that they were being discriminated against. Five years later, Miller announced that she had finally won the legal battle.

Writing on Facebook after the win, Miller said: 'Thank you Tastries friends and family.

'Yesterday, after much consideration and analysis of details regarding the Cathy's Creations and Tastries Bakery discrimination case, Judge Eric Bradshaw ruled in favor of Cathy Miller.

'We appreciate your prayers and support as we joyfully continue to do business with you in the future.

'I'm hoping that in our community we can grow together,' Miller said, 'and we should understand that we shouldn't push any agenda against anyone else.'

The Thomas More Society, whose lawyers represented the woman, called the win in a California courtroom a 'First Amendment victory.'

The organization is a 'conservative Roman Catholic public-interest law firm based in Chicago,' according to their website.

'We applaud the court for this decision,' Thomas More Society Special Counsel Charles LiMandri said.

'The freedom to practice one's religion is enshrined in the First Amendment, and the United States Supreme Court has long upheld the freedom of artistic expression.'

The discrimination lawsuit, one of many, had been brought forth by the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment under the Unruh Civil Rights Act.

Another lawyer with the Thomas More Society said that it's the correct ruling for the woman and the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment.

'There's a certain irony there,' said Paul Jonna, Thomas More Society Special Counsel, 'that a law intended to protect individuals from religious discrimination was used to discriminate against Cathy for her religious beliefs.'

'Cathy believes in the Bible,' said Jonna, citing Miller's belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.

In their press release, the Thomas More society also shared deposition from February where prosecutors appeared to question Miller's religious beliefs, which they found 'disturbing.

'Do you try to follow everything that the Bible says?' asks attorney for the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment, Anthony Mann.

'I do my best, but I'm a sinner, but I do my best,' Miller responded while testifying.

'Do you follow some of the eating practices from the Old Testament in terms of not eating pigs, not eating shellfish, et cetera,' Mann said.

The lawyers for the Thomas More Society said they saw this as a clear violation of her rights.

'The state was actually questioning the sincerity of Cathy's faith,' said Jonna.

'The fact that they called Miller's open and sincerely held beliefs into question is almost as disturbing as quibbling over her status as an artist,' the lawyer continued.

'Miller's only motivation, at all times, was to act consistent with her sincere Christian beliefs about what the Bible teaches regarding marriage,' Judge Bradshaw wrote in his decision.

'That motivation was not unreasonable, or arbitrary, nor did it emphasize irrelevant differences or perpetuate stereotypes,' the judge said.

Bradshaw also said that baking cakes is still an expression of 'pure speech' and rooted in artistic expression.

'Defendants' pure and expressive speech is entitled to protection under the First Amendment,' Bradshaw wrote.

'Of course we're disappointed, but not surprised,' Eileen Rodriguez-Del Rio said Friday after the judge issued the ruling.

'We anticipate that our appeal will have a different result,' the woman said.

In 2017, Miller told one local news outlet that she didn't mean to discriminate, but that the request for her to make a new cake would go against what she believed.

'Here at Tastries, we love everyone. My husband and I are Christians, and we know that God created everyone, and He created everyone equal, so it's not that we don't like people of certain groups, there is just certain things that violate my conscience.'

Additionally, the woman claimed that she would have been willing to sell the same sex couple a pre-made cake.

The act of baking and designing a cake, however, is where the line was drawn.

Tastries, which has nearly 10,000 followers on Facebook, received dozens of comments on their post Saturday. Most commenters seemed to be in support of Miller and Bradshaw's ruling. 'Praise God! May He continue to protect over you,' said one follower. 'Fervent prayers answered,' wrote another.

Not all were were so approving of the way that Bradshaw sided, however.

'You are not Christians,' said one person who appeared to be upset over the judge's decision. 'You spread a message of hate, you are not Christian, you are evil in disguise,' the commenter continued.

This wasn't the first legal woe for Miller and Tastries.

In 2018, Superior Court Judge David Lampe ruled in favor of Miller, saying the act of making cakes was 'artistic expression' and did not violate California anti-discrimination laws.

'A wedding cake is not just a cake in a free speech analysis,' the judge wrote in his eight-page ruling. 'It is an artistic expression by the person making it that is to be used traditionally as a centerpiece in the celebration of a marriage. There could not be a greater form of expressive conduct.'

The case was initiated when same-sex couple Eileen and Mireya Rodriquez-Del Rio complained to the California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing after they tried to buy a cake from Miller's bakery for their wedding in October 2017.

The state ruled in the couple's favor arguing that the First Amendment did not apply because the couple had not asked for any words or messages on the cake. They issued an order to force Miller to make the cake.

But Judge Lampe rejected the ruling and said his decision was based on the fact that Miller had not yet prepared the cake.

He said it would have been discrimination if the cake was already on display at the shop and Miller refused to let the couple buy it.

'A retail tire shop may not refuse to sell a tire because the owner does not want to sell tires to same sex couples,' Judge Lampe wrote in 2018.

'No baker may place their wares in a public display case, open their shop, and then refuse to sell because of race, religion, gender, or gender identification.'

At the time, Eileen Rodriquez-Del Rio said Miller had told them she would take their order, but give it to another bakery to make because she doesn't 'condone same sex marriages and will have no part in this process'.

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UK: NHS reveals tighter rules on child transgender treatments - including putting medical doctors in charge rather than therapists or psychologists

NHS plans for tighter rules on transgender treatments for children have been welcomed by campaigners – but criticised by trans-rights pressure groups.

NHS England has outlined its strategy to replace the Gender Identity Development Service at the controversial Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust in London.

The plans include putting medical doctors in charge rather than therapists or psychologists.

They also state that staff should not automatically ‘affirm’ a child’s desire to ‘socially transition’ to the opposite gender and add that ‘puberty blocker’ drugs can only be prescribed as part of an NHS research programme.

Stephanie Davies-Arai, of campaign group Transgender Trend, said the moves were ‘welcome’.

Trans-rights group Gendered Intelligence described the approach as a ‘completely needless pathologisation of social transition’.

The proposals are out for public consultation

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Australia: The problem of politics in sport again

This was raised but never settled decades ago, with boycotts of the Springboks in the Joh Bjelke Petertsen era.

I can see some reasons why the political opinions of sports people should be respected but this latest episode is absurd. Why is the political views not of the person but of that person's FATHER critical?

There is a basic judicial principle that a person is responsible for their own actions only, not for the actions of others -- even when the "other" is an ancestor. So it is simply unjust to hold Gina Rinehart responsible for something her father said in 1985. Yet so doing was what lost the Netballers their sponsorship. Their loss of their sponsorship was simple justice and a proper response to political fanaticism


There has been a tsunami of support for Gina Rinehart’s decision to walk away from her $15m sponsorship deal with Netball Australia. Rightly, outrage has been directed at players spurning an exceedingly generous and altruistic deal for reasons that range from the businesswoman’s own political views to offensive remarks made by her father 50 years ago.

Australians have clearly had a gutful of overpaid but under-informed sportspeople who think their personal opinions on matters outside their areas of expertise are worth inflicting on sport.

Sky News host Cory Bernardi says Australia’s sport is becoming controlled by “woke whingers” and “public… displays of virtuous hypocrisy”. “You’ve seen a bit on Sky News this week about sporting cancel culture, only this time it’s not the punters cancelling sports, it’s the players,” Mr Bernardi said. More
If only Woodside would likewise demand the Fremantle Dockers either stand up proudly for their sponsor or stop taking its money.

It’s high time too that Cricket Australia told the hitherto sainted Pat Cummins to put a sock in his criticism of Alinta Energy, the company that pays at least part of his enormous salary. Ricky Ponting was brave to point out the political posturing of older, richer players hurts young players who have not had the luxury of sponsorship deals that pay for big lifestyles replete with first-class flights and shiny four-wheel-drive cars. There is no doubt politics and sport cannot be completely divorced but it is tiresome to watch everything from netball to footy being subjected to, and damaged by, zealotry from undergraduate political activists dressed in green and gold.

It has now come to pass that every two-bob political opinion from every minor sport star not only deserves to be aired but indulged. Hypocrisy is no barrier. Jetsetting ex-footballers whose carbon footprint is surely only just less than Al Gore’s think they are entitled to chide Woodside for keeping the lights on in Western Australia and employing so many of their fellow West Australians. Woodside, whose activities are regulated to within an inch of its corporate life, and which pays a big chunk of the taxes Mark McGowan is now using to build everything from mental health facilities to desalination plants, is entitled to tell these sporting politicians to keep their personal political views out of sport.

Likewise, netballers are free to harbour whatever political views they wish, and indeed to act on their individual consciences. They can leave sport and enter politics if they are passionate about changing the world off the field. But for so long as they are on the field, and receive sponsorship money, the decent thing would be to say thank you to Rinehart for her generous deal.

Alas, good manners and gratitude are now apparently optional extras for our pampered players. No wonder so many Australians might be thrilled that Rinehart called their bluff.

Rinehart has been a terrific supporter of Australian sports from rowing and swimming to volleyball and synchronised swimming. And, of course, netball. Hancock also inked a deal with the Australian Olympic Committee to sponsor Australian teams at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026, as well as the Youth Olympics and Pacific Games. Dismal results at the London Olympics led many sponsors to withdraw funding from Swimming Australia. After Rinehart stepped in with financial help, Australian swimmers in Tokyo produced best-ever performances.

Rinehart’s money goes directly to sports people so they can focus on their sport, rather than try to hold down a job and train too. During the Tokyo Olympics three-time Tokyo medallist Cate Campbell recognised the businesswoman’s contribution: “I don’t say this lightly, but Gina Rinehart saved swimming.”

The Hancock deal with Netball Australia would have provided a significant pay increase to players at a time when NA has millions of dollars of debt and the country faces a challenging economic outlook. The objections to Rinehart’s deal need to be understood against behind-the-scenes shenanigans by some players who apparently want NA to revisit a private equity deal rather than take money from Rinehart.

Diamonds players driving this fiasco have shown themselves to be both selfish and foolish. Imagine telling those who care for children afflicted with cancer to refuse $2m donated by the Hancock Group to the WA Telethon this past weekend. In total, mining companies donated millions more to the same terrific fundraiser, as did the WA government, using mining royalties.

Now it is over to NA to hold out the begging bowl in search of suitably woke corporate sponsors who will both indulge every political thought bubble an individual player has and keep paying the bills when those thought bubbles insult or injure the sponsor. Or will taxpayers be forced to foot the bill for the misdirected political activism of their players?

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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