LEADING ARTICLE
DEI must die to prevent another Jason Arday scandal
The Spectator
(NB. This article was written and published prior to Arday’s death.)
WEEKLY VOICE
THE NUZZO LETTER IN THE NEWS
Study: School police officers utilize ‘niceness as whiteness’ to validate arrests of students
The College Fix
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
Sex/Gender
The Gender War Is Real And Goes Far Beyond The Web
Institute for Family Studies
A Forgotten Debate: Washington’s Paternity Fraud Legislation
Washington Initiative for Boys and Men
Showcasing the strongest arguments people offered for and against allowing a man to terminate parental obligations if genetic testing proves he is not the father.
The Relentless War on Masculinity : Does it Ever End?
David Maywald of Celebrating Masculinity has made the digital version his first book, The Relentless War on Masculinity, freely available through the National Library of Australia.
My review of David’s book:
“David Maywald’s book on the war on masculinity highlights many of the issues currently facing boys and men. Maywald overviews the causes of this war, its effects on men and society, and how the war can be resolved. Maywald’s conceptualization of the “four horsewomen” of modern feminism – misandry, gamma bias, gynocentrism, and gaslighting – is a particularly important contribution. To progress on boys’ and men’s issues, which Maywald believes is possible and indeed necessary for a healthy society, the “four horsewomen” of modern feminism must be acknowledged and addressed accordingly.”
100 of the Best Books for Men : Honouring the Authors, Elders, and Thought Leaders
David Maywald has also made the digital version of his second book, 100 of the Best Books for Men, freely available through the National Library of Australia. David published this book earlier this month.
The Double Standards in Genital Mutilation
European Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract: This article extends a decade of phenomenological research on female genital mutilation (FGM) in Iran (Ahmady et al., 2015) to critically examine the parallel practice of male genital mutilation (MGM). The initial study, which documented the perpetuation of FGM outside its commonly assumed geographical borders, revealed the need for a comparative analysis of MGM, a practice often defended by similar cultural and religious arguments. This paper confronts the profound double standard in which FGM is internationally condemned as a human rights violation, while MGM persists with broad societal and even medical endorsement. Presenting a comparative ethical and human rights analysis, this paper deconstructs the complex matrix of justifications rooted in tradition, patriarchal authority, and religious mandates that sustain non-therapeutic male circumcision. The analysis revealed that MGM and FGM share striking parallels, functioning as mechanisms of social control and gender identity construction. It is argued that MGM constitutes a significant violation of a child’s right to bodily integrity and is as much an attack on masculinity as FGM is on femininity. By challenging the segregated ethical discourses surrounding genital cutting, this article calls for a consistent, gender-neutral application of human rights principles, concluding that the protection of all children requires unequivocal rejection of medically unnecessary genital alterations.
Health Science
Inflammatory Bowel Disease Among Adults Age 18 and Older: United States, 2023–2024
NCHS Health E-Stat
Abstract: In 2023–2024, 1.6% of adults had ever been diagnosed with any inflammatory bowel disease, including 1.2% who had ever been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and 0.5% who had ever been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. The prevalence of Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and overall inflammatory bowel disease increased with age. Women were more likely than men to have ulcerative colitis and overall inflammatory bowel disease. White non-Hispanic adults had the highest prevalence of Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and overall inflammatory bowel disease.
Education
Harvard lays off nearly one-third of social sciences staff covered by latest restructuring
The College Fix
First-year classes this fall range from Wonder Woman to ‘queer’ art to the occult
The College Fix
Georgetown center requires work-study students to attend ‘white supremacy’ training
The College Fix
Fox News
Next year, the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will no longer include letter grades on first-semester transcripts.
Will pass/no credit curb stress or lower standards? UMich’s new grading policy draws fire
The College Fix
Other
Most Americans Favor the Death Penalty for Those Convicted of Murder
Pew Research Center
Wide partisan gaps over whether capital punishment is morally justified, deters people from committing serious crimes.
Thomas Sowell Legacy: A Conversation With Justice Clarence Thomas and Peter Robinson
Hoover Institution
Episode description: Justice Clarence Thomas reflects on the ideas, friendship, and intellectual courage of Thomas Sowell—and the enduring importance of thinking for oneself.
RUBBISH BIN
Gender Studies
Gothic Black Feminist Interventions: The Dilapidated American Mansion and Other Peculiar Rites
Psychology of Women Quarterly
Abstract: Black womxn’s endurance of the American Gothic is distinct—one filled with corporeal violence, blood-thirsty systems, and haunting histories—thus, their healing requires the development of an equally attuned Gothic approach. Gothic Black feminism is an emerging theory that considers Black American womxn’s madness to be the intended consequence of presumably permanent systems of power—henceforth referred to as the American Gothic. This piece, the third within a three-part Gothic Black feminist series, carries the thread of its conceptual and clinical innovation. The present work presents five novel interventions organized between two overarching sections: (1) Gothic Psychotherapy: Roots of an emerging praxis and (2) Gothic Black feminist intervention: Applying its lens to existing approaches. Section one, Gothic Psychotherapy, introduces two interventions foundational to the emerging praxis: (1) Co-witnessing and (2) Gothic Black feminist psychoeducation. Section two, Gothic Black feminist intervention, introduces three novel interventions that demonstrate the application of its lens to existing clinical approaches: (1) Gothic card sorting/clinical cartomancy/Gothic Black feminist tarot, (2) Macabre metaphors and Gothic storytelling, and (3) Gothic narrative work. Two composite case vignettes, demonstrating the applied use of these interventions in the treatment of Black womxn clients, are included.
Teacher education as visionary feminist projects in anti-feminist times
Critical Studies in Education
Abstract: This manuscript argues for the framing of teacher education research and programs through a visionary feminist lens. We believe that teacher education serves as an important space for the education of women, yet these spaces have a history of reproducing patriarchal, sexist, and misogynistic ways of thinking and being in the world that are not in the best interest of the very students in these programs, and indeed are harmful to them. Thus, we present the work of Jane Addams, analyzed through the work of bell hooks to illustrate a visionary feminist theory and pedagogy that incorporates: the critique and decentering of patriarchy and patriarchal power through the centering of girls’, women’s, and other marginalized people’s lives; non-hierarchical ways of being in solidarity; and approaching education as a political project grown out of lived experiences. Overall, we argue that the radical, visionary feminist projects of Addams and hooks is one possible combination that can inspire a conceptual lens for designing and studying teacher education that is up for the task of our personal, social, political, and economic lives in 2025 and beyond.
(My brief comment on this article is available on X here.)
Reactionary dis/affect: exploring the affective politicization in the manosphere
Journal of Gender Studies
Abstract: This article examines the affective politicization of the manosphere, focusing on how a discourse of dis/affect shapes its political imaginaries. This theory-building piece with ethnographic insight conceptualizes the manosphere as an affective space embedded in digital affect culture. Drawing on theories of disaffection as a politics of feeling, the article argues that manospheric actors appropriate and rearticulate the affective logic of disaffection through narratives of male grievance, dispossession and perceived victimization. Rather than challenging existing structures of power, this discourse reverses the political orientation of disaffection, mobilizing feelings of loss and resentment in ways that feed anti-feminist and reactionary imaginaries. It traces how a discourse of dis/affect circulates through digital interactions and media practices, mobilizing a constellation of subject positions: (1) the injured subject, (2) the dis/affected man and (3) the counter-revolutionary. Rather than unfolding as linear stages, these positions coexist and intersect, offering a repertoire through which participants navigate and articulate political belonging. By theorizing dis/affect as reactionary appropriation of a politics of feeling, the article shows how emotions shape political subjectivities, reinforce anti-feminist gender imaginaries and sustain the affective politics of the manosphere, offering new insights into the relationship between affect, digital publics and politicization online.
Journal of Gender Studies
Abstract: This article offers an analysis of qualitative data from a multi-phased project entitled Understanding and Addressing Everyday Sexisms in Australian Universities. The project’s key aim was to improve the ways in which gender-based discrimination is understood and addressed in Australian universities. It achieved this aim through adopting a situated, intersectional, and creative approach to data generation and analysis. The authors examine data from phase three of the project, a large-scale survey that was distributed across 12 of Australia’s 39 public universities, yielding 1257 responses. The survey was designed to encourage academic staff of all genders to participate and aimed to understand experiences of and attunement to everyday sexisms across gender and disciplinary lines. Analysis of open-ended survey responses showed that anti-trans and trans-exclusive feminist epistemologies were present in the data; therefore, in this paper the authors grapple with how these sentiments were articulated and with what this reveals about the rise of anti-trans ideologies within Australian universities.
(My brief comment on this article is available on X here.)
Health and inequality in Australia
The Economic and Labour Relations Review
Abstract: Drawing on primary and secondary data, the article illustrates that whilst the health system in Australian certainly dissipates the social determinants of health and lessens health inequality, there remain significant inequalities in life expectancy, health access, utilisation and outcomes. The key argument is that class, gender, racial and spatial inequalities are mirrored in the health system. With respect to class, the weakening of bulk billing, where the full cost of the medical consultation is borne by the government, means that a proportion of low-income individuals defer visiting their GP. The problem is far more acute with respect to specialist, dental and mental health consultations where the out-of-pocket costs are greater. Again it is far more likely to result in low-income people deferring or avoiding necessary consultations. ‘Medical misogyny’ - the argument that the medical concerns of women are taken less seriously than those of men, is shown to be a major issue. The Indigenous - non-Indigenous health divide is acute; the life expectancy of Indigenous Australians is eight years less than non-Indigenous Australians. Spatial inequality is also significant; the health outcomes of people in rural and remote areas are shown to be poorer than those of people in the metropolitan areas.
(Nuzzo note: For the specific reason why I tossed this paper in the Rubbish Bin, please see my brief post on X here. The reason relates to an article that I published at The Nuzzo Letter earlier this year.)
Race
Breaking the siege: whiteness, difference and racial transformation
Whiteness and Education
Abstract: In this paper, the author argues that investigating what Thandeka (1999) described as a siege mentality of whiteness produced through the policing of internal and external nonwhite zones is a crucial aspect of understanding and disrupting white supremacy. The author turns to critical whiteness studies in relationship with Boldt’s (2021) theorisation of vitality and learning to consider how siege mentalities of whiteness deny difference and protect white supremacy. This article offers the radical affirmation of difference as an anti-racist stance in education that can promote antiracist learning by cultivating movement between internal and external nonwhite zones. The author uses honest storytelling to tell and interpret three stories and, ultimately, conceptualise how vitality that can emerge from travelling between racial zones shares a relationship with racial transformation. Ultimately, the author argues that cultivating capacity to affirm difference is a vital element of pedagogy intended to interrupt white supremacy.
Antiracist Practices Across the Stages of a Research Project: A Narrative Review
Health Equity
Abstract: Objectives: There is a need for formal guidance around antiracist research practices to dismantle structural racism, which has been embedded into the design and conduct of health sciences research. Our objective is to review and summarize recommendations from published literature published on antiracist research practices applicable to all health sciences research studies. Method: In 2022, we systematically reviewed PubMed, SCOPUS, Excerpta Medica Database, British Nursing Index, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Sociological Abstracts using search terms about antiracist research. We found 5362 papers, screened 3962 titles, assessed 171 abstracts for eligibility, and reviewed 103 using a standardized extraction form. We reviewed 11 papers twice to confirm accuracy. We narratively synthesized recommendations relevant to six stages of the research process via combined deductive and inductive qualitative analysis. Results: A total of 1407 individual recommendations were grouped into themes and subthemes within each research stage. Project development had the most themes (n = 7) and subthemes (n = 24); dissemination of findings had the fewest (2 themes and 5 subthemes). When designing a project, researchers are encouraged to develop diverse, representative, and empowered research teams; design projects important to marginalized groups; and use conceptual frameworks that build on the work of marginalized scholars. Researchers were encouraged to promote inclusive consent processes, accessible recruitment materials, and recruitment and retention strategies that maximized diversity. When analyzing data, recommendations included involving community partners to ensure appropriate conceptualization and measurement of race, justifying the selection of reference groups, and considering intersectional identities. Recommendations for data interpretation include contextualizing findings, considering structural racism, and improving community involvement to enhance the transparency of data analysis. During dissemination, recommendations highlighted increasing accessibility of research findings. Conclusions: We identified a comprehensive list of recommendations describing antiracist research practices. Our synthesis can be used to guide individual research teams, institutional review boards, and grant committees, and to develop educational curricula around antiracist research practices.
Autism in Adulthood
Abstract: Background: Autistic camouflage describes how autistic individuals assimilate allistic behavior for societal acceptance, while White mimicry demonstrates how non-White individuals assimilate White identities. These coping strategies, although different, are significant for non-White autistic individuals. Understanding them is crucial for mitigating racial and ethnic biases in autism research and clinical practice, emphasizing the importance of addressing ethnic and racial identity assimilation. Methods: I used a critical autoethnography aimed at advancing the decolonization of research and fostering equitable knowledge production. This approach entwined personal narratives with theoretical frameworks, transcending mere depiction. Validation of findings through peer debriefing was instrumental, while my positioning as a multiracial Latina expounded the intricate dimensions of racial identity and bias within the study’s context. Results: The findings revealed the “dual masking phenomenon” in non-White autistic individuals, encompassing both White mimicry and autistic camouflage. These complexities reveal challenges within racially influenced societal contexts, advocating for tailored support for non-White autistic individuals. Narratives unveiled prevalent tokenism, microaggressions, privilege, epistemicide, and meritocracy within predominantly White autistic environments, uncovering systemic barriers and the pressure to assimilate Whiteness to access opportunities. The study underscores the imperative to question neutrality and rectify disparities within the non-White autistic community. Discussion: The inadequacy of relying solely on autistic camouflage among non-White autistic individuals within racially influenced societal settings is highlighted. Instead, adopting traits associated with Whiteness seems to offer a more effective approach. The “dual masking phenomenon” reveals this systemic challenge—the pressure for assimilation faced by non-White autistic individuals, worsened by the prevailing systemic racism in predominantly White environments, as illustrated in the results. Recommendations include incorporating racial factors into research by racializing the experiences of White autistic individuals, educating health care professionals on racial dynamics, and fostering resilience and racial stamina, to address disparities within the non-White autistic community.
Other
A democracy tax in support of science
Science Magazine
(My brief comment on this article is available on X here.)
Football, fossil fuels, and public health in the era of climate crisis
Environmental Epidemiology
Abstract: Global professional football (soccer in the United States) is increasingly integrated with fossil fuel-derived capital through club ownership, expansive sponsorship deals, and tournament hosting. While often discussed in ethical or political terms, these developments have received limited attention from an environmental health perspective. This commentary examines the growing alignment between fossil fuel-derived wealth and global football, focusing primarily on club ownership, while situating it within a broader ecosystem of commercial and geopolitical influence. We argue that these relationships function as a commercial determinant of health by shaping social norms, legitimizing carbon-intensive industries, and delaying policy action on climate change. Drawing parallels to the historical regulation of tobacco sponsorship, we highlight how such dynamics contribute to the persistence of exposures that drive climate-related health risks. Climate change is the great public health challenge of the 21st century, just as tobacco was in the 20th century. Greater scrutiny, transparency, and leadership from the public health community with regard to fossil fuel-derived funding of sport are warranted. It is no longer acceptable for major sporting bodies and events to accept tobacco industry funding. It should also be unacceptable for them to accept fossil fuel-derived funding.
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The rubbish bin never fails to amaze me…
Regarding the way ECU treated you James reminded me of America's Modis Operandi which is built around the policy of promoting people into positions of power by their ability to be "willing and able" to support government policy. Thus the female composition at the top of ECU were political appointees influenced by the feminist movement .
Unfortunately Australia in the current day and age has also been poisoned by DEI . It is not working well imo and I can only hope our next election will correct DEI by introducing merit.
Present government policies make me worried for my grand children. And what ECU did to you is an example of how badly our culture has changed for the worse.
Thank you for your articles.