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| Behind the Research: Julie Young |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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Behind the research: julie young
julie young, research associate, botany & plant pathology
- coordinating an enormous, multidisciplinary darpa project on using plants as potential chemical sensors
- mentoring undergrads and graduate students
- helping innovate new solutions for herbicide-resistant weeds
weed scientist julie young’s workweeks are sometimes chaotic — but never dull. On any given day, young, a research associate in the department of botany & plant pathology, might be out doing fieldwork, or working in the greenhouses, or helping graduate students, or learning about new technologies, or reading journal articles, or doing supply orders.
the most difficult part?
“probably just keeping track of things,” young says. “I’m pretty dependent on my google calendar!”
a ‘farm kid’ taking the long way back to agriculture
though young grew up on a farm near lansing, michigan, she didn’t originally consider agriculture as a career. She thought she wanted to be a physical therapist, but her university required students in the program to do volunteer hours in the field.
“it had sounded so noble and helpful, but after i volunteered for a semester, i saw what physical therapy really is: making people have a lot of pain so they can get better,” she says. “I thought, ‘no, i don’t want to do that.’”
she studied biology and chemistry instead, then taught the subjects in high school for two years. Ultimately, she heard agriculture calling and went back to school to earn a master’s in weed science at michigan state. She studied roundup ready soybeans, which were just being launched at the time, focusing on how to control the weeds left behind by glyphosate.
“i learned an incredible amount,” she says. “I really enjoy research, looking at new things and trying to solve problems.”
after her master’s, young spent several years working in industry for a pesticide manufacturer before taking a research associate job at southern illinois university, where her husband, also a weed scientist, had been hired. She stayed there for 15 years, until her husband was hired in botany and plant pathology at purdue.
a little bit of everything
young has been in her current role for 13 years, working closely with professor bill johnson, professor of botany & plant pathology, and thomas butts, clinical assistant professor of site-specific weed management. The work is “somewhat seasonal,” she says. During the summer, she’s in the field at multiple sites in indiana. Much of her time is spent guiding undergraduate researchers or helping graduate students with their projects. She’s also involved in coordinating cross-disciplinary projects.
“we have so much opportunity to work with professors in agronomy, in abe, in horticulture,” she says. “Even within our own department, there are people with equipment we don’t have. It’s a very collaborative environment.”
young does her fair share of “mundane” tasks — “making sure things keep moving and get done,” she says — though she’s rarely at a desk for long. Her favorite part of the job is having a front row seat to cutting edge technology in action.
“we get to see new technologies through our collaboration with dr. Jin,” she says. Jia jin is an associate professor in the department of agricultural & biological engineering. “Sensors and imaging tech — these things are really blowing up right now with the use of ai. That’s the exciting thing to me.”
young is involved in a major defense advanced research projects agency (darpa) project, testing whether plants show responses to synthetic chemical exposures. Contributors to the project, a collaboration with information science company str, include jin and joshua widhalm, an associate professor of horticulture. The goal is to see if plants can be used as natural chemical sensors.
pride in tackling challenges and having real-world impact
the darpa project has a “huge scope,” she says. “It’s been an incredible challenge, trying to figure out how to accomplish the objectives while working with an enormous number of people.”
she’s also proud of the discoveries she and her team have made on herbicide resistance in weeds.
“our group has a positive direct impact on agriculture, so that makes me feel good about what we do,” she says.
a dream to see rainforests and volcanoes
though young’s three children swore they wouldn’t go into agriculture “after being dragged into the greenhouse” throughout their childhoods, two seem to have caught the bug anyway. Young’s oldest daughter works for the office of the indiana state chemist, a government department on purdue campus that administers agricultural laws involving animal feeds, fertilizers, pesticides, seeds and hemp. Her son is a graduate student in purdue’s abe department, specializing in new farm equipment technologies. Her youngest daughter stuck to her no-agriculture guns; she’s an undergraduate at purdue polytechnic, studying user experience design.
“it’s really quite wonderful to enjoy time with them,” young says, acknowledging her luck in having all three adult children in one place, at least for now.
young dreams of traveling. Puerto rico’s rainforests and bioluminescent bays, the volcanoes of hawaii’s big island and national parks out west are on her wish list, but for now, she enjoys her days in and around lilly hall.
“it’s crazy busy, but it’s never boring,” she says.
about the feature
many people are involved in the remarkable range of programs, services and facilities that undergird research in the college of agriculture. Collectively they’re integral to the college fulfilling its research mission. “Behind the research” explores their individual roles. Each academic year, we profile six people whose work supports the college of agriculture’s global reputation for developing innovative, multidisciplinary solutions to challenges and then putting those solutions into action. |
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| Surrounded by the Best... Heres How I Found My Place! |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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There is a moment many cornell students experience during their first semester. For me, it happened at about 11:47 p.M. In uris library, staring at my first prelim grade and thinking, “okay… cornell might actually be as hard as everyone says it is.”
i am a first-year student in the college of agriculture and life sciences studying agricultural sciences. I am passionate about sustainability, land management, and exploring how communities interact with food systems. But in that moment, none of that confidence mattered. I just felt like another student, wondering if i truly belonged here.
at that point, uris library and i were just getting acquainted. Now i can confidently say we are best friends. Between late-night study sessions, the 24/7 access, and quick trips to okenshields for snacks, uris has seen a lot of my cornell life. But it is also where i learned one of my most important lessons: giving myself grace.
cornell brings together students who were the top of their class, leaders in their communities, and incredibly driven individuals. It is easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to them. Someone next to you might have started a nonprofit. Someone else might already have research experience. It can feel like everyone knows exactly what they are doing, and that you do not. But comparison is not helpful. What you excel at is what someone else might not, and vice versa. Cornell is full of people with different strengths, backgrounds, and perspectives, and that is what makes this community so rich.
one of the most important things i have learned at cornell is how to give myself grace. In high school, things often came naturally to me. At cornell, i quickly realized that everyone is capable, motivated, and working hard. That means you will probably face challenges you did not expect, and that is okay. I had to remind myself during the first exams that one grade does not define me or my ability to succeed. Growth does not always look perfect, and it often comes in small, surprising ways.
i grew up in houston, texas, where agriculture is not something most people talk about. On top of that, as a minority entering this field, i did not always see people who looked like me pursuing it. For a while, that made the field feel distant. Cornell changed that. Through hands-on experiences in class and trips to local farms, i have seen agriculture connect to communities, the environment, and sustainability. It is more than farming. It is policy, science, and people. Remembering why i chose this path helps me stay grounded when things get overwhelming.
at cornell, you are not just attending school. You are literally living at school. Your classes, homework, clubs, social life, and even where you sleep are all within the same environment. That can make it harder than it sounds to step away and breathe. But once you do, you start noticing all the opportunities around you.
some of them are literally hanging on bulletin boards. Research programs, student organizations, internships, and paid opportunities are everywhere; you just have to look. For example, i discovered my current position at the toni ditomasso weed science lab, where i work on an agrivoltaics project, because i paid attention to a flyer and reached out. That small step turned into a hands-on experience i never imagined i would get as a first-year student.
professors are another huge resource. They often share what they are working on and welcome students who are curious. If a topic intrigues you, email them. Do not be afraid to reach out. These connections can open doors you did not even know existed.
college is also a fresh start. You meet people from all over, and the friends, mentors, and classmates you connect with help you navigate challenges. Having people to talk to and rely on makes a huge difference.
there are also easy, free ways to take care of yourself and meet people. For example, cornell has free yoga/zumba classes at noyes fitness center, which are perfect if you just want to move, breathe, and reset. Sometimes i like to grab a book or my notebook and find a quiet spot under a tree to sit for a few minutes. Little things like that help you slow down, clear your head, and recharge. Taking time for yourself, even for a few minutes, is just as important as any class or assignment.
these days, uris library still sees a lot of me. But now, when i sit there late at night, the feeling is different. Instead of questioning if i belong, i see how much i have grown since that first semester. Cornell is full of incredibly talented people, but the goal is not to be the person next to you. The goal is to grow into the best version of yourself. Once you embrace that, cornell starts feeling like home. |
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| Love Can Withstand Anything |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
i corinthians 13:13
(love) endures all things.
i corinthians 13:7
as a mom was about to send her son off to college, she told him, “i will always love you, no matter what!” The son decided to challenge his mom. He asked her, “will you still love me if i commit a crime and end up in prison?” She answered, “yes, i will still love you, even if you commit a crime and end up in prison. Crimes have consequences. I will not be happy that you committed a crime. I will not be happy to see you in prison. But i will come and visit you. And i will still love you.”
real love has no conditions and knows no boundaries. I remember years ago i was nervous about making a decision in ministry that might upset people. Upsetting a lot of people is oftentimes the cause of priests being transferred to another parish. Sometimes priests make decisions and they don’t really know what the reaction will be, so there is a risk for reward, but that risk also comes with failure. In a heavy moment of conversation, my spiritual father said, lightheartedly but also purposefully, “what’s the worst that can happen? They can’t take away christmas. They can’t take away your birthday.” When i think about that phrase, i always add “they can’t take away your salvation.” Only god determines that. And along with this, no one can take away love from us. Nothing can make us stop loving someone. We can love even people who reject us. No one can take away someone’s love from us. Using the example of the person going to prison, the state can take away our freedom, but the state cannot stop a family from loving someone who is in prison. They cannot stop someone in prison from loving their family. They can prevent someone from seeing their family or talking to their family, but they can’t stop someone from loving their family. Because love is inside of us. It is a choice that we make, to love others. It is a choice that others make, to love us. And no one can take what is inside of us away. No one can take away love, or faith, or hope. Because these are choices, they are not feelings, they are not possessions.
in every life, there will be things we endure. Whether that is failure, or illness, or a job change, a move, a setback, etc. And love can endure all of those things. When two people get married, they choose one another. They continue to choose one another because love is what binds them together. Not possessions or successes, but love. And love endures when we choose to let it endure. One can be disappointed but still choose to express love. One can fail and still be loved by others.
god loves us. That never changes. God may not love what we do, but he loves us. God wants us to succeed, he wants us to inherit his kingdom. He is like the teacher who wants every student to get an a, and who gives every student every chance to do that. He starts the class by saying “the ‘a’ is yours to lose.” Most of us have had teachers in our lives who were not like that. There are some (thankfully few) teachers who seem to not want their students to succeed, who begin by saying “not everyone will pass,” as if they are hoping not everyone will. There are teachers who say “virtually no one will get an ‘a’,” as if they as hoping no one will. God has said that there will be a judgment between this life and eternal life, and he has told us that not everyone will make it. That is not like the hard teacher or professor who says not everyone will pass. Our failure to enter into the kingdom of heaven will be god’s judgment on bad decisions we have made.
we are to love god in all times and in all circumstances. We can choose to continue to love god even in the most dire of circumstances. Just as his love for us endures our mistakes, our love for him should endure regardless of our misfortunes. Love is supposed to be enduring because the choice to love is supposed to be enduring. Love involves sacrifice, and sometimes sacrifice means overlooking an unfulfilled desire for the sake of the relationship. If we could not endure setbacks in relationships, no relationship would endure, including our relationship with the lord. Love should be a mindset that because of god’s love, that one can endure any setback, any difficult situation. Endure doesn’t mean succeed or survive. Endure means to pass through a situation with faith in god and love for him intact.
love should endure the things that happen between people and between people and god. God loves us even when things happen between us and him that are of our doing, not his. We are supposed to love god in the setbacks, those caused by us, and those that are the result of living in a fallen world.
lord, thank you for the gift of love, and for the gift of your love. Help me to endure the setbacks that happen between me and the people i love. Give us a spirit of patience and forgiveness when things go amiss. Help me to endure spiritual setbacks, to seek repentance, and to have confidence that you will not reject my heart when it is crushes and humbled. Strengthen my faith so that even in the times when i can’t seem to hear your voice, i am still filled with love for you and for my neighbors. Amen.
love is a choice to endure all things. The power of love helps to make this endurance possible. |
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| Nathan Cofnas and the E-Personality: The Auditor, the Performer, and the Cambrid |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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Elias aboujaoude (b. 1971) published virtually you: the dangerous powers of the e-personality in 2011. The book is remembered for its diagnostic categories: grandiosity, narcissism, ordinary everyday viciousness, impulsivity, infantile regression, the illusion of knowledge, the collapse of privacy, and virtualism. What is often missed in casual summaries is the book’s careful qualification. Aboujaoude’s e-personality is not a moral verdict. He writes explicitly that the virtual personality can liberate people from inhibition, make them “bolder, stronger, and more efficient,” and make it easier to voice unpopular positions or to organize against injustice. The pathology arises when those strengths become grandiosity, impulsiveness, cruelty, unwarranted certainty, or a self-reinforcing identity that begins to absorb the offline person.
which parts of nathan cofnas (b. 1988) does the internet reward? Which parts does it suppress? What happens when the reward system starts shaping the intellectual product itself?
the benefits and costs of cofnas e-personality are large. The best online cofnas is an auditor. The worst online cofnas is a performer. The jason arday plagiarism affair of july and august 2026 is remarkable because both figures appear in the same story, in the same weeks, addressing the same subject.
give the e-personality its due. Cofnas has spent much of his adult life working on subjects that carry severe professional costs. His credentials are real. Columbia ba, cambridge mphil, oxford dphil, a substantial peer-reviewed publication record in human nature, philosophical psychology, biology and philosophy, and utilitas, a leverhulme early career fellowship at cambridge, and now a postdoctoral position in philosophy at ghent. Dismissing him as an internet crank requires ignoring a body of scholarship.
his strongest habit is forensic. His 2018 audit of kevin macdonald’s the culture of critique (1998) is the crowning achievement of his career. Cofnas spent a year examining the evidence and citation structure on macdonald’s terms. That is the intellectual practice that later made him dangerous to jason arday.
his targets include macdonald, thomas sowell (b. 1930), donald trump’s economic populism, the “podcast bros,” conservatives he considers unserious, and hereditarian allies such as noah carl. His archive covers why we need to talk about the right’s stupidity problem, thomas sowell’s wishful thinking about race, maga communism and the end of america, podcast bros and brain rot, and don’t scapegoat women. This is evidence against the simplest theory that he searches for what his coalition wants to hear.
the online medium has done for him something the normal academy was unable to do. It gave him distribution. An argument that might circulate among a few hundred specialists in philosophical psychology can reach tens or hundreds of thousands of readers through substack, x, podcasts, and youtube. His interview circuit has included amy wax (b. 1953), nicholas wade (b. 1942), michael huemer (b. 1969), noah carl, and stephen kershnar, alongside appearances on brain in a vat, andrew gold’s heretics, and various heterodox-academic podcasts. Carl and wax have disagreed with him about human worth and the political consequences of hereditarianism. Huemer can pull him into ordinary professional philosophy. The long format sometimes improves cofnas because it lets the careful philosopher reappear.
the internet did not merely corrupt nathan cofnas. It created the conditions under which a professionally isolated academic could continue producing intellectually consequential work.
the four registers of his output contain the journal paper, the long substack essay, the substack note, and the x post. That distinction becomes more important under aboujaoude.
the journal cofnas is the least aboujaoudean cofnas. He defines terms. He anticipates objections. He narrows claims. He distinguishes the procedural question, may this hypothesis be investigated, from the substantive question, is this hypothesis true. His 2020 defense of research on group differences in intelligence is controversial, but its architecture is academic philosophy.
long-form substack is intermediate. The evidence remains. The titles get hotter. Research on group differences in intelligence becomes a guide for the hereditarian revolution. A disagreement with cambridge becomes cambridge university’s war on free speech. Footnotes persist. So do villains, heroes, and calls to action.
notes and x are different again. Qualifications disappear first. Then argumentative structure. Then occasionally ordinary civility.
that is close to what aboujaoude predicts. His e-personality begins with disinhibition and then tends toward grandiosity, narcissism, darkness, regression, and impulsivity. The important question is not whether cofnas possesses each trait. It is whether the movement from journal to substack to note to x systematically increases their observable equivalents.
grandiosity is one of the easier dimensions to see. It requires care because cofnas has suffered institutional and personal persecution for his beliefs.
a guide for the hereditarian revolution is grander than “here is what the behavioral-genetics evidence permits us to infer.” Cambridge university’s war on free speech is grander than “i believe emmanuel college applied its policies improperly to my case.” “Here i tell the true story” is grander than “here is evidence bearing on a contested story.”
cambridge received 58 complaints against him. Emmanuel terminated his college affiliation. He sued. A county court rejected his claim but produced legally significant findings that his hereditarian and anti-woke beliefs qualified for equality act protection. Cambridge’s separate disciplinary investigation concluded that his published views did not violate the law or the university’s free-speech regulations.
the internet has not made cofnas imagine himself as a persecuted dissident. He became one.
the danger sits past this. Repeated institutional opposition can make the persecution narrative self-validating. Every petition confirms the taboo is real. Every cancellation confirms the institutions are captured. Every hostile newspaper story confirms that journalists cannot tolerate the truth. Every sympathetic podcast confirms that outsiders understand what insiders refuse to understand.
at that point an important distinction can disappear. Being punished for a proposition does not establish the proposition is true.
cofnas knows this. His whole career demonstrates that he can distinguish social reception from evidentiary validity. But the architecture of his online career rewards their fusion.
aboujaoude devotes a chapter to the internet’s ability to make the self the center of its own media system. He is interested in the online feedback apparatus of followers, mentions, self-searching, applause, and public identity. Clinical narcissism is not the relevant category.
cofnas is less obvious a case than many public intellectuals. His substack is not a diary. He does not disclose his relationships or moods. Much of his work concerns arguments, documents, and other people’s claims.
his professional story has increasingly become one of his principal subjects.
cambridge investigated me. Emmanuel expelled me. A newspaper attacked me. Students petitioned against me. Ghent students are organizing against me. I went on television. I won this part of the legal argument. I lost that part. Here is another attack. Here is another vindication.
his july 13, 2026 note about ghent is characteristic. Administrators, he wrote, were giving “anti-cofnas ppt presentations,” while a students against cofnas group had complained about his effect on student safety and wellbeing.
the events are true. The aboujaoude question is what happens when a person’s persecution becomes content, the content brings attention, the attention produces new opposition, and the opposition produces new content. That is a closed feedback loop.
cofnas’s professional identity has become inseparable from being nathan cofnas, the academic whom institutions try unsuccessfully to silence. The persona has adaptive value. It explains his setbacks without requiring surrender. It gives supporters a continuing narrative. It generates interview invitations. It turns institutional exclusion into proof of relevance.
identities that explain everything eventually become difficult to falsify.
ordinary everyday viciousness is where aboujaoude lands hard. Cofnas is often good at distinguishing an argument from its author in academic writing. Social media repeatedly reverses that discipline. His public output contains “medieval peasants are still there, just as dumb as ever,” “catturds with dumb intuitions,” jordan peterson (b. 1962) reduced to “clown content,” and other formulations that could not survive his journal register.
the arday episode supplies an almost controlled experiment because we can watch the same subject move between registers.
in the july 21, 2026 long-form investigation, cofnas considers arday’s extraordinary biographical claims and then stops himself. He writes that they are impossible to prove or disprove without more direct evidence. “Therefore, i will only address questions about his scholarship.” He then turns to documents, plagiarism software, dissertations, passages, citations, and journal corrections.
that is good epistemic hygiene.
six days later, notes cofnas writes about arday’s claim to have played professional football and snooker and ends: “white liberals hear this and think it is real!”
on july 28: “we can literally see the plagiarism with our eyes. 1/10 cover-up attempt by cambridge.”
on july 30: “jason arday should not be fired. He was hired to represent dei, and he’s doing a great job.”
nothing about moving from substack essay to note improved the evidence. What changed was the social function of the speech.
the long article was an investigation.
the notes were dunks.
that is virtually you. Aboujaoude argues that virtual environments weaken the ordinary restraining mechanisms that accompany face-to-face contact and can make the e-personality harsher than the person otherwise is. He worries about aggression becoming normalized when immediate interpersonal consequences disappear.
the lower the friction and the shorter the format, the more readily contempt substitutes for analysis.
cofnas is not an industrial hot-take machine. On his own substack about page he says he comments on news only when it connects with subjects he already knows and “generally avoid[s] hot takes.” His long-form archive largely bears that out.
he writes fewer substantial posts than the typical professional substack personality. Some take considerable research. The arday investigation plainly did. The macdonald work took years. His attack on sowell involved reading and checking claims rather than reacting to a news cycle.
aboujaoude’s impulsivity chapter fits the notes and x layer much better than cofnas’s intellectual production as a whole. His problem is less intellectual impulsivity than rhetorical impulsivity. He may spend days checking a claim and thirty seconds deciding how contemptuously to announce the result.
aboujaoude argues that online language encourages a more impatient, immediate, and childish style that can migrate outward into the rest of personality.
cofnas supplies small examples rather than spectacular ones. “1/10 cover-up attempt.” Sarcastic declarations that a professor should not be fired because he is doing an excellent job representing dei. “Zero respect left for simon baron-cohen (b. 1958).”
the language belongs to internet adolescence rather than to academic adulthood. It turns a dispute about plagiarism standards, university governance, racial politics, and someone’s career into the scoring language of a meme.
and it performs well online. A three-page reconstruction of institutional responsibility is hard to repost. “1/10 cover-up attempt” is frictionless. The platform selects the latter cofnas for reproduction.
aboujaoude argues that the internet erodes distinctions between information producers and consumers. Everyone becomes a journalist and an expert. Control shifts toward the person with the mouse, while enormous quantities of accessible information produce inflated confidence that one has mastered a subject.
cofnas is not a man who googled “race and iq” for three hours and opened a substack. He is a trained philosopher of science. His characteristic method finds primary documents, reconstructs citation chains, and checks what sources say. On an internet full of pseudo-expertise, that is a comparative advantage.
the arday investigation demonstrates it.
cofnas independently found extensive textual overlap between arday’s 2015 dissertation and paula zwozdiak-myers’s 2009 dissertation. Retraction watch later reported that times higher education had independently developed similar material the previous year before abandoning publication after a letter from arday’s lawyers. Purdue biochemist david sanders, who had independently reviewed the the dossier, told retraction watch there was “no question” of extensive plagiarism. Earlier inquiries by other academics had already produced corrections in two arday papers.
the guardian then conducted its own investigation and uncovered serious discrepancies around some of arday’s public biographical claims.
cofnas did not invent an internet scandal from nothing.
he also did not discover every underlying problem. Dave harris and others had been asking questions earlier. Times higher education had independently investigated the plagiarism allegations in 2025. What cofnas did on july 21 was break the material through the barrier into wide public circulation. That is an important distinction.
it is also an extraordinary vindication of the positive e-personality aboujaoude describes. The man willing to absorb opprobrium was willing to publish evidence that people with more institutional reputation to lose had not succeeded in publishing.
the uncomfortable possibility is that cofnas’s damaged reputation gave him a comparative advantage.
once you have already been called racist, protested, removed from a college affiliation, and sued an institution over it, the marginal cost of another accusation becomes much smaller. The person least vulnerable to reputational intimidation can investigate something that more reputable people regard as professionally radioactive.
the exclusion that produced the platform dependence also produced the freedom the investigation required. These are the same condition seen from different angles. Aboujaoude’s framework identifies the condition as pathological in most respects. In this respect it enables a legitimate watchdog function.
that is a contribution of the online cofnas.
the jason arday story may be the most consequential thing cofnas has published outside conventional scholarship.
his july 21 article displays engagement vastly above his normal posts. More importantly, it led into reporting by the times, retraction watch, the guardian, and other outlets. Cambridge announced further investigations. Arday resigned. After arday’s death, cofnas himself became the subject of mainstream profiles. The observer now describes him in a headline as “the man at the centre of arday plagiarism row.”
cofnas is significantly more famous than he was a month ago.
he is not yet a mass celebrity. His substack has a little over 6,000 subscribers according to its public profile. He has crossed an important boundary. Before arday, he was famous within overlapping niches: hereditarianism, academic free speech, heterodox philosophy, dissident-right media, cambridge controversies. After arday, major british newspapers explain who nathan cofnas is because general readers are encountering the name.
that is a different kind of fame.
now comes aboujaoude’s most brutal mechanism: context collapse.
arday was found dead on august 14, 2026, after weeks of intense scrutiny. Police described the death as unexpected but not suspicious. His family and supporters say the sustained public campaign against him caused enormous distress. Others argue the underlying investigation was justified and that cambridge’s earlier failure to resolve questions internally helped produce the eventual public explosion. Current coverage ranges from calls for reflection on racism and media excess to criticism of universities for failing to vet and protect arday.
there is no public evidence establishing that cofnas caused arday’s death. Treating temporal sequence as causation would be irresponsible.
the new york times front-page test
imagine an intelligent, scrupulously accurate but unsympathetic new york times reporter putting cofnas’s words on tomorrow’s front page. Nothing is distorted. Nothing is stripped of context. Links go directly to the evidence. His strongest arguments are included. His history with cambridge is described accurately. So is arday’s.
would cofnas be comfortable?
much of his work passes easily.
“nathan cofnas compared the two dissertations and documented dozens of closely corresponding passages.”
fine.
“he noted that journal articles had already received corrections following earlier complaints.”
fine.
“he argued that cambridge should investigate rather than dismiss allegations because of the politics of the complainant.”
fine.
“he discovered material independently of a previously aborted times higher education investigation.”
excellent.
“he stated explicitly that arday’s more extraordinary biographical claims could not then be proven or disproven and therefore confined his principal case to scholarship.”
that one makes cofnas look very good.
now put the notes on the front page.
“white liberals hear this and think it is real!”
harder.
“we can literally see the plagiarism with our eyes. 1/10 cover-up attempt by cambridge.”
more childish than damning.
“jason arday should not be fired. He was hired to represent dei, and he’s doing a great job.”
much harder after the whole story is known.
the observer reports that cofnas told times radio that arday was “not smart” enough to be a cambridge professor.
that last statement may express cofnas’s sincerely held judgment. The front-page test does not ask whether he sincerely believes it. It asks whether the statement still looks necessary, proportionate, and defensible when removed from the sympathetic audience that understands the surrounding wink.
some of these lines fail the test.
not because arday later died. A person’s death cannot retroactively make accurate criticism impermissible.
they fail because the mockery contributed nothing to the evidentiary case.
delete “white liberals hear this and think it is real!” And every piece of evidence remains.
delete the joke about arday being a good dei representative and every plagiarism comparison remains.
delete “1/10” and cambridge’s conduct can still be criticized.
that is the cleanest distinction between cofnas the auditor and cofnas the performer. The auditor produces the information that changes the public record. The performer adds the material most likely to be quoted back at him after circumstances change.
the auditor and the performer
the auditor-performer distinction cuts through the four-register analysis and identifies what actually varies. The registers are the venues. The operations are what matter.
auditor mode does forensic work. Documents, comparisons, citation chains, careful hedging, the discipline that peer review trained.
performer mode does audience work. Dunks, mockery, coalition signaling, meme scoring, the discipline that platforms train.
a writer can produce auditor work in a note, in principle. Cofnas rarely does. A writer can produce performer work in a peer-reviewed paper, in principle. Cofnas never does. The venues carry incentive structures that pull the operations toward the venues that reward them. The pull is not deterministic. The writer’s choice about which operation to run in which venue remains available. Cofnas has chosen to run auditor operations in academic and substack-essay venues and performer operations in notes and x. The choices are legible. They are choices.
the important observation is that the same writer produced both operations about arday in the same three weeks. The auditor produced the july 21 investigation. The performer produced the july 27–30 notes. Neither cancels the other. The auditor did work of public value. The performer produced material that failed the front-page test. Both are the same writer. Both are what he chose to produce.
aboujaoude’s framework predicts that platform pressure erodes auditor discipline over time. The arday case shows the erosion running in parallel with the discipline rather than replacing it. The writer holds the discipline in one register while producing the erosion in another. This is not the standard trajectory the framework anticipates. It is a case where the writer retains more discipline than the pure framework prediction would allow, while also displaying the erosion the framework predicts. Both halves are real.
the arday affair delivers an enormous psychological and professional reward to the auditor persona.
for years cofnas has claimed that elite institutions suppress inconvenient truths, that conventional gatekeepers cannot be trusted on politically sensitive subjects, and that someone willing to endure ostracism can see things insiders refuse to confront.
then he investigated a cambridge superstar whom the university initially defended, published the evidence independently, watched mainstream outlets follow, watched cambridge open further inquiries, and watched arday resign.
whatever one thinks about cofnas’s wider worldview, that sequence is going to feel like proof.
some of it is proof. Cambridge and academic publishing had quality-control problems in this case. Retraction watch’s reporting about the aborted times higher education investigation makes the institutional failure harder to wave away.
the psychological danger is extrapolation.
“i correctly detected a serious problem with jason arday” can become “my model of dei is correct.”
“my substack succeeded where institutional channels failed” can become “institutions generally cannot be trusted.”
“critics called me racist while i was right about this evidence” can become “being called racist is evidence that i am probably right.”
“i paid a professional price for heterodox positions and later broke a real scandal” can become “the positions for which i paid the price have been vindicated.”
none of those follows.
an auditor of all people should know that. David sanders, the purdue biochemist who reviewed the the dossier, supplied the crucial control when he told retraction watch that universities and journals often fail to take plagiarism seriously and that this failure is not specific to race or dei. Cambridge did have a quality-control problem. So does much of academic publishing. The problem is broader than the racial-political framing suggests. Compressing the broader phenomenon into the narrower framing is the extrapolation error the framework predicts, and it is the specific error the writer’s professional training equips him to avoid if he chooses to.
video adds a different distortion
the video and podcast cofnas is better than the social-media cofnas.
long interviews allow qualifications back in. They also display intellectual competence that disappears in a screenshot. The brain in a vat conversation spends more than an hour moving through definitions of race, genetic variation, environmental explanations, iq, policy, and academic freedom. His nicholas wade podcast ranges through environmental explanations, academic censorship, racial hierarchy, and the lab-leak controversy. His huemer conversation spends more than two hours on academic publishing, wokeism, vegetarianism, and metaethics.
video adds a different distortion. It turns the intellectual into a recurring character.
the hosts introduce cofnas as the controversial cambridge academic willing to say what others will not say. Then comes cambridge. Then censorship. Then race. Then what academics privately know but refuse publicly to acknowledge. The story becomes ritualized.
the autobiographical material expands. Qualification shrinks. Repeated appearances consolidate a role: the credentialed truth-teller who has paid a price for telling forbidden truths.
that role can be accurate and dangerous at the same time.
once a man has become “the guy who says the forbidden thing that turns out to be true,” the audience no longer merely evaluates his next claim. It anticipates vindication.
that is when an auditor needs to become more skeptical of himself rather than less.
what made the arday investigation possible
before july, there was a plausible reading in which cofnas’s move toward substack was mostly professional self-destruction.
he had traded the slow prestige accumulation of conventional philosophy for a much smaller but intensely engaged heterodox audience. His cambridge affiliation ended. Ghent generated another student campaign. His public persona seemed to be narrowing around race, wokeism, censorship, and the story of his own persecution.
the arday story changes the calculation.
for once, the properties that conventional academia punished became assets.
his suspiciousness helped. His willingness to read boring documents helped. His taste for contradiction helped. His refusal to be intimidated by an accusation of racism helped. His existing ostracism helped. His substack independence helped. His willingness to publish without institutional permission helped.
his audience gave the evidence enough initial velocity that mainstream journalists had to examine it.
aboujaoude’s “third hand” metaphor for the e-personality is uncannily appropriate. The online cofnas could perform an institutional function his ordinary academic role could not. It was investigative journalism produced by a philosopher.
that deserves real credit.
the irony is that the same platform machinery immediately encouraged him to cheapen his own accomplishment.
the article said: here are the documents.
the notes said: look at these idiots.
the first changed the story. The second changed how people felt about nathan cofnas.
the gatekeeping chain has partly collapsed
what makes cofnas different from most public intellectuals is how far the e-personality has swallowed the occupational boundary.
paul bloom (b. 1963) still has enough institutional and genre separation that a provocative substack post can move upward through the new yorker, the chronicle, a lecture, or scholarly publication, acquiring qualifications along the way. The different media regulate one another.
philip n. Cohen (b. 1966) has an online persona that can become harsher than his scholarly persona, but professional sociology remains a powerful external reference point.
with cofnas the gatekeeping chain has partly collapsed.
his academic work, substack, podcasting, x persona, employment controversies, litigation, and journalism now form one career.
aboujaoude worries that traits cultivated online can be imported into offline life until the e-personality begins reconfiguring the original. For cofnas, there may no longer be an “offline” professional identity separate enough to compare against.
a blog post helped end his emmanuel affiliation. The resulting controversy became podcast material. The podcast material enlarged his dissident identity. The identity brought a substack audience. The substack enabled the arday investigation. The arday investigation produced mainstream press attention. That attention now sends journalists back through his previous substack and x history.
the loop is complete.
nathan cofnas is not a cautionary tale about why academics should stay off social media.
without his online independence, the arday allegations might have stayed inside private correspondence, abandoned journalism, and university procedure for substantially longer. The internet gave a professionally marginalized academic enough autonomy to perform a legitimate watchdog function. Subsequent independent reporting showed there was substantial material warranting investigation.
cofnas is not simply vindicated by arday either. The success of one investigation does not validate his entire racial or political framework. It does not validate every inference about why cambridge hired arday. David sanders supplied the alternative hypothesis. Universities and journals often fail to take plagiarism seriously, and that phenomenon is not specific to race or dei. That control matters.
the deepest virtually you interpretation is therefore not “the internet made nathan cofnas bad.”
it is that the internet found two real cofnas traits and supercharged both.
one is intellectual courage allied to forensic persistence.
the other is contempt allied to certainty.
the first exposed a story powerful institutions had failed to resolve.
the second keeps trying to turn every successful audit into a morality play.
applying the method to the method
the next intellectual step should almost write itself. Apply the nathan cofnas method to nathan cofnas. Separate the evidence from the coalition story. Separate what the arday case establishes from what it makes emotionally satisfying to believe. Separate criticism that survives hostile quotation from the jokes that require a friendly audience. Treat every viral vindication as a hypothesis rather than a credential.
the online cofnas has demonstrated he can audit cambridge.
the more difficult question is whether the auditor can audit the e-personality that cambridge helped create.
that is not a rhetorical question. The arday affair is the strongest possible test of whether the writer can hold discipline at the moment discipline is hardest to hold. The reward for abandoning discipline is enormous and immediate. The reward for maintaining it is invisible and delayed. Auditors who cannot audit themselves at moments like this eventually become prosecutors. Prosecutors who succeed at prosecution eventually become the thing they were prosecuting.
aboujaoude wrote in 2011 for ordinary users. He did not fully anticipate the case where the writer’s damaged reputation would function as an asset for legitimate investigative work that more reputable venues could not conduct. His framework treats the e-personality as pathology to be resisted. The arday case forces a modification.
some of what the e-personality produces is pathology. Some of it is enabling condition. The pathological output and the enabling output can appear in the same writer in the same weeks addressing the same subject. The framework has to hold both.
aboujaoude’s positive account of the e-personality’s potential appears briefly at the start of the book and then largely drops out. The cofnas case shows why the positive account cannot be dropped. Writers who have absorbed enough reputational damage to be immune to further intimidation can perform institutional functions that intimidation-vulnerable writers cannot perform. The immunity is aboujaoude’s e-personality operating as advertised. The mockery that comes with the immunity is aboujaoude’s e-personality operating pathologically. The two arrive together because they run through the same channel.
this has implications beyond the cofnas case. Investigative journalism performed by professionally marginal writers is a growing category. The category will produce more cases in which pathology and public service run through the same output. Framework users need to be able to hold both halves at once. Reducing the analysis to either half loses the case.
coda
after jason arday, nathan cofnas gets more interesting and more important.
he has demonstrated that the online cofnas can perform an institutional function the conventional academic cofnas could not. He has also demonstrated that the online cofnas produces material that will not survive hostile quotation once the case moves out of the sympathetic-audience frame.
the two demonstrations belong together. They are the same platform doing both things. Aboujaoude predicted that the platform would produce the second demonstration. He did not predict the first. His framework needs the modification the arday case forces.
what cofnas does next will determine whether the arday affair reads as the beginning of a more disciplined phase of his career or as the moment when the auditor persona became too rewarding to audit. The framework cannot predict the outcome. It can name the choice.
the auditor can audit himself. The performer cannot. Which figure produces the next essay is up to the writer. The rest of us can watch and take notes.
aboujaoude’s book will remain useful for taking those notes because it identifies the specific pressures the writer is under. |
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| Anti-Cultism Down Under. 2. Dubious Foundations |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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False quotes of non-existent books are just one problem in the victorian inquiry report’s reliance on anti-cult apostate patrick mcivor, who is mentioned 215 times.
by bernard doherty
article 2 of 3. Read article 1.
the sweeping conclusions and recommendations of the victorian inquiry discussed in the first article of this series were to be expected and are an artifact of the entire procedural course of the inquiry as much as of the evidence that was presented.
when an inquiry commences with a preconceived list of behaviors it considers troubling (in this case, the guidance note), invites submissions dealing with said behaviors, and then conducts a survey of a self-identified victim population asking which of these behaviors occurred in the group, it is hardly surprising that they found evidence of the victimization.
if you ask a group of self-identified victims about how they were victimized, you will find victimization. This is not an inquiry; it is a circular argument: it assumes the conclusion in the premise.
the claims made in the submissions and in the survey, moreover, were not tested in any forensic manner; they were accepted at face value—sometimes with truly bizarre results.
for example, one submission (no. 28), entitled “psychological mechanisms found in scientology” (which was subsequently turned into an ai-generated podcast on youtube), has all the hallmarks of having been directly generated by ai.
throughout the submission, various uses of the term“cliché” occurred as “cliché.” This curious error is repeated five times.
anyone who has spent any time in academia dealing with the raft of ai-slop that some students are now passing off as their work would immediately raise an eyebrow here. Not the inquiry committee, however, even though its chief researcher has actually published on the topic of the use of artificial intelligence for parliamentary procedure. Instead, this submission was treated, in all seriousness, as “lived experience” by the inquiry.
this would almost be laughable, except that the submission is quoted—with the idiosyncratic mistake left uncorrected—in the second volume of the report itself, entitled “in their words: coercion and harm in high-control groups.” The quotation reads: “the practice of looking up misunderstood words in scientology’s own tech dictionary can function as a thought?Terminating cliché by discouraging questioning and critical analysis. Additionally, it involves the use of loaded language, reinforcing emotional associations and making it harder for individuals to challenge or explore alternative perspectives” (vol. 2, p. 27) (the interested reader can check the quotation in the report on the inquiry website here).
social researchers interested in religion will no doubt have more to say about the methodological weaknesses of the victorian inquiry. Still, my focus here is more documentary and draws on my training as a historian—and my professional experience in dealing with a decade’s worth of cases of academic misconduct within a university setting.
here, and in the following article, i present three examples drawn from the written submission, hearing testimony, and public presentation of patrick mcivor, which i believe raise serious questions about the uncritical way in which the victorian inquiry examined evidence presented to it. I choose mcivor here because he has been one of the most public former members who have appeared in media around the victorian inquiry.
i preface what i say below by noting that i believe mcivor to be sincere in his desire to help genuine victims of religious harm, even if i believe his approach to be misguided and his claims about scholarship to be mistaken. I bear no personal animus toward him, but i do believe he has been misled.
mcivor’s story of negative experiences during his time in city builders church in sale, victoria, is well-known, and some were even featured on a “60 minutes australia” episode entitled “praying for power,” which appeared before the last victorian state election in 2022.
i say nothing here to gainsay his personal experience. However, it is important to note that in that election, mcivor’s sister-in-law, dr. Renee heath, was a candidate for the liberal party and this report did center around the role of city builders church in her political ascent. She was subsequently elected and is currently a member for eastern victoria.
the estrangement between members of the wider heath clan has been a major precipitating factor in the victorian inquiry, and this political aspect is directly relevant for how the government responds to the committee’s recommendations.
in terms of evidence, mcivor was the lead author of the most significant submission placed before the victorian inquiry entitled “beyond belief: responding to cults and high-control groups in victoria.” This is a lengthy document and makes some quite startling and troubling claims that warrant further scrutiny.
this submission is cited over 150 times in volume 1 (“crossing the line”), and 3 times in volume 2 (“in their words”) of the committee’s report. Patrick mcivor himself is mentioned 208 times in volume 1 and an additional 7 times in volume 2.
its recommendations, moreover, were influential on the recommendations made in the inquiry report. “Beyond belief” was arguably the major document guiding the committee, and so it requires scrutiny along with mcivor’s testimony.
so, what do we find when we examine this evidence?
i provide one example here, and two additional examples in the third part of this series.
example 1. The faked reference.
on december 1, 2026, mcivor appeared before the committee’s public hearings. As part of his testimony, mcivor included a 25-page powerpoint presentation entitled “group-based coercive control: findings and recommendations.”
the presentation, like the “beyond belief” submission itself, is largely a hotch-potch of standard anti-cult works on “cultic brainwashing,” all of which have been the subject of critique elsewhere over recent decades. All the usual suspects are listed: steven hassan, margaret singer, alexandra stein, and janja lalich, alongside more moderate and respected anti-cult figures like michael langone and the late robert jay lifton.
one name on this list, however, stood out: j.J. Feliciano. The reader well-versed in anti-cult writings will immediately observe on page 25 of mcivor’s presentation that he includes the following citation: “feliciano, j. J. (2023). Coercive group dynamics: understanding collective manipulation and control. Routledge.”
as you can observe if you search routledge’s catalog, no such book appears.
this is because this book does not exist.
as for the author j.J. Feliciano, i am unable to find anyone who publishes on coercive control under this specific name—though there does appear to be a very talented child baseball prodigy named j.J. Feliciano whom american sports fans should watch in the future.
to apply the principle of charity, i believe the reference mcivor wished to cite is actually that of sarah e. Feliciano, “an application of the coercive control framework to cults.”
however, this is not a published book from a reputable press like routledge, but a master of arts (ma) dissertation in criminology from john jay college of criminal justice awarded in august 2023. This could have been an honest mistake, but it is not mcivor’s first, nor the last, involving documentation. (Interested readers can check the powerpoint for themselves at the official inquiry website here).
remember, this was presented to a parliamentary inquiry, and “group-based coercion” is being presented as a new and ground-breaking framework for dealing with “cults” or—using the euphemistic argot of the victorian inquiry—“coercive high-control groups.”
as the victorian inquiry recommended criminalizing “group-based coercion,” we should be very interested in the foundations of this theory. Feliciano, moreover, was to feature elsewhere in mcivor’s testimony, as i will demonstrate in the third part of this series.
bernard doherty is an associate professor in the school of theology and a research fellow in the centre for religion, ethics and society (cres) at charles sturt university, australia, based at st mark’s national theological centre in canberra. He is also an honorary fellow of inform at king’s college, united kingdom. He has published extensively on new religions in australia. |
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| Eulogy - Memories of My Beloved Gambian Friend, Dr. Sidi Cherno Jammeh - The Gam |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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Gambiaj.Com – (banjul, the gambia) – i felt deep sadness when my gambian friend, mr. Habib ghanim, informed me of the passing of dr. Sidi cherno jammeh. Dr. Jammeh was a “ larger than life ” figure— bright, eloquent and kind. In any meeting, one could not be struck by dr. Jammeh’s presence.
he had a way of carrying himself and speaking in such a weighty manner that commanded people’s attention. Masterfully eloquent (perhaps a relic of his broadcast journalist days at radio gambia), dr. Jammeh spoke slowly and measuredly, picking his words carefully, showing that he belonged.
he was not a silent back-seater. He was a natural leader. I admired sidi as a leader, brother and a friend, and i will miss him immensely. In this eulogy, i wanted to reminisce about our friendship.
in the late sixties and seventies, long before i met dr. Jammeh, he was a major broadcaster (popular especially with broadcasting sports) over radio gambia and already a popular household name in urban and peri-urban gambia. He worked at radio gambia for 8 years (from 1965 to 1973). As he revealed in an email message to a distribution: ‘ these were “the glorious days , if you will. Broadcasting (radio gambia) was my 2nd reincarnation job. I was a uk-trained telecommunications engineer (trained in belfast, ulster in 1964) before i joined the broadcasting service. My journey has taken so many twists and turns, since i left home in 1973 to pursue further studies at georgetown university .”
his stint in belfast, ireland was not uneventful as he also had a son there with an irish woman. I was fortunate to meet his irish son, a nice “ young ” man, who, despite his father’s absence in his childhood, came to meet him and developed good camaraderie with his father.
i have known dr. Jammeh for over forty years. I first met him around 1981 when he was a graduate student at johns hopkins university, school of advanced international studies (better known by its acronym, sais).
prof. Michael nwanze of howard university had organized a model oau event in which students from various colleges and universities in the united states modeled the operations of the oau, each college or university representing an african country delegation. We came as students from berea college in kentucky representing one african country (can’t remember which). It was the first time i met dr. Jammeh — and also prof. Sulayman nyang— and we became instant friends.
in my subsequent visits to dc, dr. Jammeh was then a student, single, and staying at alban towers apartment complex (near the washington, dc national cathedral), i stayed with him at his apartment. He was friendly and hospitable, and we would go to the kilimanjaro nightclub (then near dupont circle in the adams morgan area) and have fun together.
dr. Jammeh, that time, would work shifts at the front desk of the alban towers, managing the keys, mail and visitors to the apartments, to earn pocket money to pay his way through graduate school. He was a hard worker, self-confident in his abilities, pulling himself up by his own bootstraps.
dr. Jammeh attended top notch universities in the u.S.; First georgetown university from 1973-1977, graduating with a bsc degree in international economics. He then continued on for his masters (1981) and phd degree (1987) in international relations/international economics at sais, johns hopkins university.
after completing his ph.D, dr. Jammeh worked as a researcher at the world-class think tank, international food policy research institute (better known by its acronym, ifpri), which carries out research on agriculture and food systems to provide evidence-based policy solutions to help reduce poverty and hunger in developing countries.
he produced high quality research, working with eminent agricultural economists such as christopher delgado. This resulted in a book he co-edited with delgado titled the political economy of senegal under structural adjustment published by praeger, new york in 1991.
dr. Jammeh continued to demonstrate that he was a serious scholar by publishing a highly important paper titled “politics of agricultural price decision-making in senegal” in the volume the political economy of risk and choice in senegal , a prestigious book edited by mark gersovitz and john waterbury, two then eminent professors, one at johns hopkins and the other at princeton university respectively.
from ifpri, dr. Jammeh joined the world bank where he served for about twenty years. He initially worked as a researcher with the distinguished indian agriculture economist, dr. Uma lele, on a program of agricultural development known as managing agrcultural development in africa better known by its acronym, madia).
the program included world class researchers such as dr. Jammeh, dr. Chandra ranade, dr. Osita ogbu (later to be a minister in the nigerian government), etc who carried out comparative studies of agricultural performance of six african countries (cameroon, kenya, malawi, nigeria, senegal and tanzania) looking at their policies and the role of donor assistance over a 25-year period. The madia work was one of the major research programs in the world bank in the 1980s and dr. Jammeh was a big player in it.
following his stint as a researcher, dr. Jammeh embarked as an economist on project and program operational work in the bank, first working on sahel countries, then on rwanda and finally nigeria. In nigeria, he led the design and implementation of a major national investment program in community driven development, irrigation and agricultural business value chain development known as the fadama project aimed at increasing smallholder farmer incomes and reducing poverty.
he became famous in nigeria as the “ father ” of that nationally consequential agricultural program known as the fadama.
dr. Jammeh’s career in the world bank did not move as fast as he had wished. Although he was a highly competent professional and worked hard, the world bank he worked in had many structural barriers for africans and other minorities.
when he entered the world bank, it was dominated by americans and europeans (many of whom came from the british, french and portuguese colonial services). These people were highly skilled and experienced on developing countries but had superior attitudes.
and, knowing dr. Jammeh as a fighter, he fought these attitudes and his career therefore suffered and moved slowly. He ended retiring only as a senior economist. Although he was more than competent and deserving, the world bank and imf environments were never easy ones to navigate for minorities; so he never made it to the rank of management at the world bank. He did not network effectively and was not aligned with the powerful at these institutions; regrettably he did not advance up as he had wished.
but dr. Jammeh was not one who lied low and complained in the dark. He thought africans and other minorities needed to organize and advocate for a level playing field so that future minorities will not fight the same battles as we had. My suspicion is that frustrations with his own career progress led him to run for the chairpersonship of the world bank- imf africa society.
following his election, it seemed he seemed to have found a new mission, and he led to become one of the most effective leaders that the africa society had ever had. What made his leadership even more consequential was that it coincided with the selection of mr. James d. Wolfensohn as president of the world bank.
wolfensohn cared about africans and developed excellent relationships with dr. Jammeh. In fact, president wolfensohn gave him his direct phone line; so he had direct frequent communication with the president. Dr. Jammeh used his new found leverage to push for major reforms to help africans in the bank and reform bank policies towards africans. I worked closely with him in the africa society as his adviser.
we drafted a major policy paper for wolfensohn advising him about what he should do to support africans and other minorities in the world bank, and what the world bank should do to to improve its approach to africa. President wolfensohn was so happy with this internal initiative by the africa society that he spoke about it in one of his meetings with the african governors of the world bank.
in the subsequent efforts that followed, the world bank, under wolfensohn, made major efforts to improve the recruitment of more africans into the bank, to facilitate the promotion of competent and deserving africans into management, and the adoption of a zero-tolerance policy for racial and gender discrimination at the world bank.
in fact, it was wolfensohn who appointed the first african to be a vice president at the world bank, the zimbabwean economist, dr. Callisto madavo, the most senior african in the world bank at the time.
today, because of the reforms that wolfensohn led (pushed by the determined efforts of dr. Sidi jammeh and his team), the world bank is a fairer and more level playing field for africans and other minorities.
president wolfensohn also championed some of the other recommendations by the africa society— pushing for debt forgiveness for poor african economies so they can have the fiscal space to invest in education, health and infrastructure. In fact, it can be argued that the heavily indebted poor countries (better known as hipc) initiative was initiated in 1996 under the championship of president wolfensohn because of also the supporting influence of that africa society paper.
the africa society paper also called for wolfensohn to help with mobilizing the u.S. Private sector to partner with the africa private sector to crowd in investments.
it is in the spirit of the latter, that dr. Jammeh as chairman of the world bank-imf africa society, with financial support from president wolfensohn’s office, organized the africa business forum in1998, which brought together the african private sector to meet and partner with the u.S. Private sector in washington, dc to help catalyze investments to boost foreign direct investment in africa.
the event was unprecedented in the history of the bank and dr. Jammeh’s leadership was responsible for its success. One impressive quality of dr. Jammeh was his unrivaled knowledge of washington, dc with extensive outreach to the u.S. Congress, especially to the congressional black caucus, and its members like donald payne, john conyers and william jefferson.
dr. Jammeh had impressive political and diplomatic skills which made him one of the few african staff at the world bank known in capitol hill and by the african ambassadors. He was a “larger than life” figure who operated in important political circles.
it was no surprise, therefore, that dr. Jammeh received, on june 26, 2018, a lifetime achievement award from the africa trade and investment global summit (atigs).
i could go on and on to recount the impressive achievements of dr. Sidi cherno jammeh. He was an extraordinary man who insisted on being ordinary. He mentored and supported many young people along the way- gambians (eg, the late dr. Karamo sonko) and non- gambians (eg, dr. Hippolyte fofack). He was not an angel (none of us are), and he will be the first to admit, but he was a truly consequential gambian whose enormous achievements deserve an important place when a balanced history of the gambia is written.
one thing i always liked about him was that, when faced with his imperfections—and i have had moments when i spoke frankly to him, he was not defensive and always appreciated critical feedback. He was a man who did not suffer fools but, once he respected you and knew you were well-intentioned, he listened to critical and constructive advice.
in fact, in the world bank he witnessed many staff who were less competent or experienced rise in the system above him, and he will sometimes seethe with irony, recognizing life was sometimes unfair. Its fortunes did not go sometimes to people who deserve it.
when president yahya jammeh carried out his coup on july 22, 1994 (overthrowing the civilian government of sir dawda kairaba jawara), gambian professionals, comprising prof. Sulayman nyang, dr. Sidi jammeh, dr. Sukai prom-jackson, professor momodou darboe, mr. Yusupha crookes, prof. Abdoulaye saine, mr. Ousainou mbenga, ms. Sohna sallah, myself and others, formed the gambia pro-democracy movement. Dr. Sidi jammeh was selected to be the chief spokesperson for the movement and he was an able one.
the yahya jammeh government sent a delegation to washington comprising captain ebou jallow, etc and dr. Jammeh and team held discussions with them about restoring the country to constitutional order and preparing the country for competitive elections. President yahya jammeh, however, had other intentions and little did we know he will entrench himself in power for over twenty years. Dr. Jammeh will speak to me that, after that meeting and his subsequent interactions with president jammeh by phone, he was a marked man with his life at risk whenever he visited the gambia.
at the world bank, we had about twelve professional gambians (??) At the time (not counting local field staff): mr. Yusupha crookes, dr. Sukai prom-jackson, mr. Seringe omar fye, dr. Rakey cole, mrs. Lucy fye, ms. Deggie young, ms. Haddy jatou sey, mr. James oremie monday and dr. Ousman jah, and later consultants such as dr. Mohamed edrissa faal in the legal department.
on the world bank’s board side was dr. Jabez ayo-langley (an executive director or ed) and mr. Sering cham (who served as adviser to one of the african eds). Of all these gambians, dr. Jammeh was my best friend, whom i knew very well and interacted frequently the most. Dr. Jammeh was strategic and was an activist, and he thought that, in the bank, it was just not okay to only do your job but to also push to create a level playing field for all africans and other minorities, and to fight for the interests of africa. I too shared that conviction. So, we became bosom buddies.
dr. Jammeh was born in banjul in 1943 and died in virginia on august 10, 2026. He once told me, when we had deep discussions about family, that his mother was from baddibu, suwareh kunda. I then asked him if he was related to chief mama tamba jammeh of baddibu.
i told him that my own father was a cousin of mama tamba through the badjan clan. My grandfather, musa jojo sallah, was son of jojo badjan, and mama tamba’s grandmother, jabou badjan (the wife of nyiramasang jammeh) was her sister. Mama tamba’s father, jatta sirang, was a son of jabou badjan. When i told this to dr. Jammeh he was curious and deeply interested but admitted that he was not related to mama tamba jammeh. I told him that my father (who was born in 1914) recounted to me once that while he was at the banjul town council (btc) working in the rates and assessment department during the colonial days, he was assigned to go to collect taxes in baddibu.
mama tamba told my father, “ cousin, don’t come to collect taxes in baddibu. Here they kill tax collectors.” Dr. Jammeh laughed at this episode, and relished the idea that we both had some baddibu links. His comment was “gambia was small ”— a reference that many families (even sometime unbeknown to some) were related and therefore we should work to avoid social divisions and promote social solidarity.
dr. Jammeh was popular in the greater washington dc community, attending various gambian social events as a respected elder. Many called him “ koto sidi” or “ koto-ke ” as a sign of respect. For me, it was dr. Jammeh and dr. Nyang who were among the two gambians i invited to the naming ceremonies of my two kids in the nineties.
dr. Jammeh also reciprocated when he had his first us born daughter with his last wife, whom he gave me the privilege to hold while they were naming the baby. Our relations were close.
when i gave my us library of congress reading and talk on my poetry in their program of african authors, dr. Jammeh, professor sulayman nyang, prof. Mbye cham, dr. Jabez ayo- langley, mary njie-langley and ambasador alieu ngum were there in the audience. It was a “ who is who ” of gambian professionals in the greater dc are,a and they came to give their support and participate in the discussions. It was a memorable event.
later when my world bank friend, dr. Sukai prom-jackson arranged for me to give a poetry reading at her house in howard county, maryland, dr. Sidi jammeh, professor sulayman nyang, mr. Habib ghanim, mr. Rene prom, the nigerian novelist helon habila, ambassador george haley (brother to alex haley of roots fame) and his wife and many other gambians and non- gambians were there. Many young gambians were also there.
dr. Jammeh and prof. Sulayman nyang intellectually dominated the discussions. The intellectual discussions were so rich, lively, and the audience’s response so enthusiastic that after the event, email exchanges flowed that we gambians needed to organize ourselves better to continue to culturally enrich our children.
my last communication with dr. Jammeh is when i learned from an email i sent to him, querying that i did not see him at the professor mbye cham memorial at howard university, he replied that he had a stroke and was at a rehabilitation center. I was shocked and felt deep empathy for him. I told him that i will come for a visit.
when i visited him at the carlin spring post-rehab center in virginia, he was in an exercise room with other patients. He was seated. Immediately, he smiled when he saw me and proudly started to introduce me to his assistants.
he was fully with his faculties but had lost weight and aged a lot since i last saw him, and his body appeared weak. We sat and chatted for half an hour, but i felt uneasy that i was interfering with his exercise routine. I told him that he should continue his therapy and rest assured he will recover. After i left, i sent him the following message on november 18, 2025:
“ bro dr. Jammeh, it was great to see you today. I was pleased to see you recovering well. You are a good and great person, and you have the right attitude towards your care. I am confident you will get back to normal. ”
“ i felt bad that i came the wrong time while you are having your rehab therapy. But i was so happy to see you.
we don’t control our lives. I have come to this recognition after my car accident in london. All we can do is to think and act positive and ask our creator to help with the rest. I know you mentioned rehab is tough. But keep faith. I have known you always to be a positive and resilient person.
stay hopeful, my brother.
we will continue to pray for you.”
and dr. Jammeh replied on november 19, 2025 with his usual humor calling me tallubeh cheikh referring to my tijani connection, (as i used to tease him that he was a murid):
“ talubeh cheikh!
visiting me was very timely and your goodwill message and warmth and prayers inspired and fortified me in my resolve to win this fight of and for my life!!
abaraka. Jerejeuff! ”
after that visit, we had a few more exchanges but then in 2026, i could no longer get responses from him on his phone. I learned later he was moving between various care institutions.
i will miss dr. Jammeh. He was a great and good man, caring about people, lively in spirit to the end. He was also a professional and a highly accomplished gambian. I was at his funeral this thursday, august 8, held at the adam’s center masjid.
his bereaved wife, mrs amie menga; his children, and some members of the mbenga clan were there. His bereaved wife was in tears. There were other gambians there: mr. Momar mbergan and his wife, mr habib ghanim and his wife, mr. Alieu demba (formerly imf), mr. Saul mbenga (his in-law), mr. Amadou cisse (from timbuktu, mali and formerly of the world bank), mr. Alpha barry (guinea, formerly of the world bank), mr. Mathurin gbetibuo (ivory coast, formerly of the world bank), imam ahmed sy (from the sy family of tivaone) and several other attendants whom i could not identify.
we had a graceful prayer for dr. Jammeh following usual moslem practice and he was taken for burial in sterling, virginia. We pray that our gracious god, in his infinite mercy, grant our beloved dr. Jammeh the best of abode in al-jannah (heaven).
the author, dr. Tijan m. Sallah, the author of some 13 books, is a former economics professor and world bank economist, poet and writer. |
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| UMass Law News 2023 | UMass Law |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (6 reads) | |
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Umass law news 2023
owens and tabor represent umass law at northeastern conference
umass law professors lisa owens and annamarie tabor present at northeastern university
mcdonald interviewed on the purdue pharma bankruptcy case
professor mcdonald was interviewed on the purdue pharma bankruptcy case, which brings attention to the opioid epidemic.
umass law adjunct professor judge george phelan reflects on a busy 2023 and his unlikely path to the judiciary
judge george phelan reflects on a busy 2023, while focusing on the year ahead.
u.S. Supreme court hears maritime insurance case researched by jonathan goldman, jd 21
first maritime law case heard by the court in nearly 70 years could change insurance rulings across the u.S.
spencer argues at supreme judicial court on alimony law
umass law’s shaun spencer argued before the mass. Supreme judicial court that the state’s alimony law should allow alimony awards that maintain patterns of savings that the parties followed during their marriage.
tabor testifies before erisa advisory council on record keeping in the digital age
professor anna-marie tabor tells the u.S. Department of labor’s erisa advisory council why retirees need stronger benefit protections.
chaudhry presents in berlin on real estate taxation
professor chaudhry presented his latest research on real estate taxation and affordable housing in berlin.
umass law students assist newly arrived migrant families in ma shelter
students experienced real-world issues in international law
dunlap joins the executive committee of the massachusetts access to justice commission
umass law professor justine dunlap joined the executive committee of the massachusetts access to justice commission.
umass law and nichols college establish an accelerated law degree partnership
nichols becomes the 16th institution to offer a joint undergraduate and umass law degree in six years
sylvia discusses the legal ramifications of using generative artificial intelligence in the workplace
with conversational and generative ai systems like chatgpt on the rise, professor sylvia gave a talk on the ramifications of using artificial intelligence in the professional sphere.
owens publishes a new article in special issue of frontiers in sociology
professor owens recently published a new article in a special issue of frontiers in sociology on ethnography in the open science and digital age. The article, encountering deception in virtual spaces: guidelines for virtual ethnography, draws from an experience of deception in virtual fieldwork and considers implications for those designing methodologies for virtual ethnographies.
duncan and alumnus tocci publish on silence and the presumption of innocence in st. Thomas more’s early writings
duncan and tocci publish a paper on the use of silence in legal history.
owens publishes “the court of student excuses” in a teaching resources & innovation library
professor owens recently published a discussion-based activity she developed to help students learn more about the function and concepts of law and society. The exercise encourages students to build a new ‘court’ in the classroom which will adjudicate the excuses that students communicate to instructors.
owens serves as judge in harvard law school’s inaugural mock trial tournament
professor owens was invited to serve as a judge in harvard law school’s inaugural mock trial tournament. The tournament brought together 24 mock trial teams from law schools across the country.
mcdonald publishes on bankruptcy solutions to homelessness in the yale law & policy review
professor mcdonald published an article on bankruptcy solutions to homelessness in the yale law and policy review.
clifford submits an amicus brief to the u.S. Supreme court on real estate tax foreclosure systems
professor ralph clifford submitted an amicus brief to the u.S. Supreme court that argues that real estate tax foreclosure systems are unconstitutional.
owens presents on expert housing policy panel
on an expert panel called “good intentions vs. Good laws: why housing advocacy matters”, professor lisa lucile owens discussed the housing choice voucher program and its strengths and shortcomings.
umass law blsa moot court and mock trial teams make a strong showing at regional competition
black law students association moot court team wins best petitioner brief award in first appearance at the event
owens leads legal workshop for new bedford entrepreneurs
professor owens led a workshop to help local new bedford entrepreneurs with the legal challenges of starting a business.
newly released american bar association data establishes umass law as one of the nation’s fastest-growing law schools
ranks 3rd in u.S. For enrollment growth while setting record high lsats and ugpas and maintaining the smallest class sizes and most affordable tuition of any ma law school
phelan looks back on an accomplished 2022
umass law adjunct faculty member judge george phelan looks back on an accomplished year.
shaun spencer examines a new era of law, technology, and privacy
umass law associate dean shaun spencer informs emerging debates over the appropriate regulation of privacy, technology, and information policy
strong year of growth for umass law
in 2022, umass law reached record high lsats and ugpas while expanding enrollment, adding 3+3 programs, and pursuing justice
drew participates in the aba’s hiv/aids impact project discussions
professor margaret drew was invited to participate in a series of discussions hosted by the american bar association in honor of world aids day.
spencer presents on the eu-us data privacy framework
umass law’s shaun spencer presented on the eu-us data privacy framework and the history of us surveillance regulation. |
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| Poll: Gendebien leads Constantino for NY-21 - CNHI |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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The first public poll of voters in the 21st congressional district is showing that blake gendebien, the st. Lawrence county dairy farmer and democrat, is leading his republican opponent, sticker mule ceo anthony t. Constantino.
this poll is the first independent, nonpartisan survey to focus on this year’s race and the first to focus on the north country district in at least six years.
reaching likely voters, the survey asked their opinions and their self-reported likelihood to vote for the candidates in the race, as well as their positions on other politicians and issues relevant to the region.
commissioned by albany news station wnyt, channel 13 through pollster surveyusa, it found that gendebien is leading constantino by 4 percentage points, 43% to 39%. The poll also included independent, write-in candidate christopher schmidt, who carried support of 5% of voters, with another 13% of voters undecided.
both constantino and gendebien have the backing of a strong majority of their party membership, although gendebien seems to have a stronger backing among democrats than constantino does with republicans.
among self-described “very conservative” voters, constantino has the support of 83% of voters, 51% from republicans in general, and 45% among “somewhat conservative” voters. Among people who say they may vote but are not sure, constantino leads by 6 percentage points, but among people who said they are sure to vote, gendebien has a 6 percentage point lead.
gendebien has the support of 86% of self-described “very liberal” voters, and 71% from “somewhat liberal” voters, and has the backing of 69% of democrats, which is an 18 percentage point lead over constantino’s support from republicans. Gendebien also has a strong lead among moderate and independent voters, with a 29-point lead with moderates and a 19-point lead with independents.
gendebien also does better with the more educated residents of the 21st district; he’s got a 31-point lead with college graduates, while constantino has a 33-point lead among high school graduates and a 6-point lead with people who attended, but didn’t graduate from college.
as for the issues, the largest proportion of voters said inflation and the cost of living are their top concerns at 46% of voters. Those voters who put cost of living at the top of their issues prefer gendebien by 18 percentage points.
the next-most-popular issue is housing costs and property tax rates, cited as a top issue by 13% of voters. Constantino leads with that group by 15 points.
third on the list was jobs and economic growth, cited as the top issue by 11% of voters, who prefer gendebien to constantino by 6 points.
the other cited issues include healthcare access, with 9% of voters putting that at the top of their list. Those voters preferred gendebien by 57 points. The last issue of border security and immigration was cited as a top concern of 8% of voters, who preferred constantino by 72 points.
this poll also asked voters for their opinions on five politicians; constantino, gendebien, outgoing congresswoman elise m. Stefanik, r-schuylerville, president donald j. Trump and gov. Kathleen c. Hochul. Among those five, only gendebien came out with a net-favorable rating, with 44% reporting a positive opinion of the democratic candidate to 22% with a negative opinion and 34% unfamiliar with him.
constantino carries a 39% positive, 50% negative favorability rating, with a smaller proportion of just 12% who were unfamiliar.
stefanik carries a 43% favorable, 51% unfavorable rating among the voters in her district with 5% reporting they were unfamiliar with her.
trump carries a 44% favorable, 55% unfavorable rating, while hochul has a 40% positive, 57% negative rating among the voters in ny-21.
this poll showed that republicans are having a voter enthusiasm problem; while the pool of respondents for the poll was 41% republican, 26% democrat, roughly matching the partisan breakdown of the district according to state board of elections data, 11% of those republicans failed the surveyusa “likely voters” screen, indicating they are less likely to vote; 3% said they are likely not going to vote and 8% said they are not sure if they will.
among the democratic respondents, only a combined 4% said they won’t or are not sure if they will vote.
“if constantino and the republican party can convert some or all of that 8% into certain votes, the gop will increase their odds of retaining this seat,” the surveyusa release concludes.
the poll was met with serious backlash from constantino and his campaign and with celebration from gendebien’s team.
in a statement put out on social media shortly after wnyt published the results, constantino accused the television station of trying to indirectly swindle money out of donors’ pockets by boosting gendebien, thereby driving more ad revenue from his campaign.
“this ‘story’ is clear violation of journalistic ethics and example of rampant political corruption as democrats will use this fake poll and the channel 13 brand to lie grab money for themselves,” he said in a jumbled post on x, formerly twitter.
he also trashed the poll for including schmidt, the independent candidate running a write-in campaign and questioned its finding that stefanik is seen only three points more favorably than hochul in the deep-red district that has not historically supported the democratic governor.
“i am calling on blake gendebien to disavow this dishonest poll and return the money that he is taking from citizens using dishonest messaging,” he said.
gendebien celebrated the results in a statement shared thursday night.
“we’re ahead because we’re not playing the same old partisan games,” he said. “I’m focused on the issues that cross party lines out here: fuel prices that are squeezing every family, hospitals and clinics disappearing from our communities, and people who are just tired of the fighting in washington. This campaign isn’t about left versus right, it’s about who’s actually going to show up and fight for northern new york.”
clarkson university political science professor alexander cohen said the results of this poll look fairly reasonable, but still cautioned that it’s not enough to truly understand the state of the race. Cohen has said that constantino has some serious advantages in the race, top of which is the larger number of republicans in the district.
in an email on friday, cohen said that gendebien’s 4% lead sits within the poll’s margin of error or credibility interval, meaning gendebien is ahead by “somewhere between 0 — 4 points.”
surveyusa provides a “credibility interval” for each question, which they describe as a more conservative rating of the survey’s error margins. This includes question wording, survey design and other potential influencing factors. The “who would you vote for” question carries a credibility interval of 4.1 points, meaning each result could be off by as much as that in either direction.
but cohen said that the results of the poll, especially its finding that trump is broadly unpopular, track with other poll results.
“affordability is the largest issue, which also tracks,” he said. “Those numbers should worry constantino.”
he noted the 34% of voters who reported they were unfamiliar with gendebien in this poll.
“that 34% is untapped opportunity — if he can raise those numbers and grab at least some of those voters,” cohen said.
overall, cohen said that he’d prefer to see several different independent polls conducted, then take the average of their findings.
“i wouldn’t read too much into this — yet,” he said. “But if more information like this keeps coming out, it could be significantly predictive.”
the surveyusa poll was conducted between aug. 4 and 8, reaching 800 ny-21 residents by web platform, voice call and text-to-web. That number was whittled down to 612 likely voters who were asked the substantive questions on the candidates and other lawmakers. |
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| So, How Powerful Is Jean Grey Actually? |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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If youve already seen spider-man: brand new day, and even if you dont, you probably know sadie sink is playing jean grey in the marvel cinematic universe. The tony nominee and stranger things alum is now the third actress to play the iconic character, following in the footsteps of famke janssen and sophie turner, and shes set to reprise her role when the mcus first x-men movie premieres in 2028.
jean grey is one of the most enduring characters in marvels pantheon, perhaps the most recognizable member of the x-men, and one of the most powerful beings in the history of comic books—its this last part that well be focusing on today. Everyone might know who jean grey is, but how many of you know what shes capable of? Her story in the comics isnt easy, further complicated by a series of retcons, but the fact remains that jean is one of the most powerful characters, to the point where she probably ranks in the top 5 in the entire marvel universe.
who is jean grey?
jean grey was born into a loving family, her father a college professor, and her mother a homemaker. Shes usually depicted as having at least one sister, sarah, although future storylines have introduced additional siblings. Jean suffers a traumatic event as a child when her friend, annie richardson, is hit by a car and killed. Jean mentally links with annie at the time of her death, entering into a comatose state. Its usually at this point when xavier enters the scene, bringing her back but blocking her telepathic abilities. If this last sentence made you ick at the idea of xavier binding a part of jeans psyche so freely, then youre not alone; its one of many icky things xavier does throughout his long tenure as leader of the x-men, but thats a story for another day.
after xavier recruits her as a teen, jean becomes a member of the x-men under the alias marvel girl. She is initially the teams only female figure, and pretty much every male member of the team expresses a romantic interest in her. Her longest and most famous relationship, however, is with scott summers, aka cyclops, with whom she eventually marries and has a few children, albeit in alternate realities because, well, comics. Traditionally, jean is depicted as a nurturing figure, the caretaker of the x-men—you know, when her darker, near-almighty, indestructible alter ego isnt in control.
like most other mutants in the x-men, jean lives at xaviers institute either as a student or a teacher. She is intelligent, well-meaning, and mature, qualities that usually make her xaviers golden child, the one hes most proud of, and the epitome of what his students should be. At different points in her history, jean has been part of other teams, including x-factor and x-force. During the krakoa era, jean is part of the quiet council as part of the summer table alongside fellow x-men nightcrawler and storm. Also, jean dies a lot—a lot, a lot. Comic book characters are no strangers to death and rebirths, but jean is looking at all those in the rearview mirror.
what are jean greys powers?
jean grey is both a telepath and a telekinetic. As the former, she can enter other peoples minds, project illusions, manipulate and control, astral project, wipe out memories, and incapacitate multiple individuals at once. As the latter, she can move objects with her mind, lift herself to fly, generate force fields, and produce powerful energy blasts. Jean is an omega-level mutant, meaning her power reaches an undefinable upper limit of that powers specific classification. Although she was initially just an omega-level telepath, she has since become an omega-level telekinetic, too. Also, fun fact: jean can communicate with animals telepathically!
its now time to talk about the trickiest part of jean greys story: the phoenix force. Best described as a cosmic representation of life and death, creation and resurrection, the phoenix is one of the primal forces in the universe. It has the power to consume entire planets at once, birth new life, and can even rewrite reality. The phoenix force resides outside space and time while simultaneously existing within the main universe; it has been described in the comics as the nexus of the universes psionic energy, which is honestly a pretty accurate description.
the nature of the phoenixs connection to jean is... Difficult. To simplify it, jean and the phoenix are separate entities that are inexorably connected. Powers of x #5 explained it best, comparing them to two planets perpetually orbiting each other: sometimes theyre closer, sometimes theyre far apart, but they are always connected. Jean is generally agreed to be the phoenixs ultimate avatar; when theyre entirely bonded in full harmony, they become the supreme being known as the white phoenix of the crown, who exists in the white hot room, outside the confines of time and space. The white phoenix of the crime experieces all time simultaneously and has complete control over matter and energy itself across the multiverse.
how powerful is jean grey?
jean grey is a very powerful mutant, even without the phoenix forces enhancements. Famously, and romantically, she can hold back scotts powerful optic blasts, thus looking into his eyes without fear. She has also bypassed magnetos iconic helmet and, in an incredible display of both abilities, she simultaneously went into hank mccoys mind to secure his medical knowledge while telekinetically reassembling emma frosts broken diamond form during the new x-men run. Talk about multitasking! Jean has also proven her strength by assembling xaviers broken psyche and tanking attacks from the celestials themselves.
with the phoenix, jean has devoured literal stars—seriously, thats a very famous comic book panel that you should probably know. The phoenix has also defeated galactus in a one-to-one by absorbing the psychic energy of his herald and even of galactus himself. During the dark phoenix storyline, she also healed the mkraan crystal, the nexus to all realities in the marvel universe. Recently, jean literally created a new universe for moira mactaggert to live in peace, free from her reincarnation mutation. As previously mentioned, the phoenix and jean are life incarnate, meaning they can create life on a cosmic level.
the 2010 women of marvel: celebrating seven decades handbook has detailed jeans powers at length, noting she is capable of manipulating atomic structures on a cosmic level. The phoenix fire can manifest even in the vacuum of space, burn intensely hot, and even resurrect the dead. Famously, the phoenix force manifests itself as a flaming bird, fitting, considering its mythological origin. So there you have it: its safe to say that jean grey is really as powerful as youve been led to believe. Very few marvel characters come even remotely close to her, mutant or otherwise. Indeed, above her are only the supreme cosmic deities of the marvel universe, like the one above all or the living tribunal. |
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| woman ~ forbidden word |
| Posted on Tuesday, August 18 @ 00:00:49 PDT (4 reads) | |
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Forbidden word: woman
this is one of the terms you can’t say in the trump regime. See a comprehensive list at the forbidden words project.
woman
woman¹, noun
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an adult female person.
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a female employee or representative.
a woman from the real estate agency called.
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informal.
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a wife.
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a female lover or sweetheart.
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older use: a female employee who cleans a house, cooks, etc.;
housekeeper. -
(in historical use) a female attendant to a lady of rank.
your woman informed us of your travel plans.
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the nature, characteristics, or feelings often attributed to women; womanliness.
he has always loved and admired the woman in her.
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women collectively.
woman is no longer subordinate to man.
woman¹, verb (used with an object)
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to put into the company of a woman.
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to equip or staff with women.
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obsolete. To cause to act or yield like a woman.
woman¹, adjective
-woman²
a combining form of woman.
chairwoman; forewoman; spokeswoman.
idioms
see feel like oneself (new woman); marked man (woman); (woman) of few words; own person (woman); right-hand man (woman); scarlet woman.
sensitive note
although formerly woman was sometimes regarded as demeaning and lady was the term of courtesy, woman is the designation preferred by most modern female adults: league of women voters; american association of university women. Woman is the standard feminine parallel to man. As a modifier of a plural noun, woman, like man, is exceptional in that the plural form women is used: women athletes; women students. The use of lady as a term of courtesy has diminished somewhat in recent years ( the lady of the house ), although it still survives in a few set phrases ( ladies’ room; ladies’ day ). Lady is also used, but decreasingly, as a term of reference for women engaged in occupations considered by some to be menial or routine: cleaning lady; saleslady. See also girl, lady, -woman.
usage
what does -woman mean? The combining form -woman is used like a suffix meaning “woman,” most often to indicate a woman who performs a particular job or function. It is often used in a variety of technical and everyday terms. The form -woman ultimately comes from the old english w?Fmann, meaning “woman” or, more literally, “female person,” from w?F, “woman” or “wife,” and mann, which was then a gender-neutral term for an adult person. Want to know more? Check out our words that use entry for -wife. What are variants of -woman?The plural form of -woman is -women, as in saleswomen. An ending that’s less commonly used but means the same thing is -lady, as in saleslady. The male equivalent of -woman is -man, as in salesman. However, use of this kind of gendered language for professions has decreased in recent years, with gender-neutral terms often being preferred. Namely, the ending -person is often used, as in salesperson. Some terms are changed altogether, such as mail carrier being used instead of mailman. Still, some people may prefer to use the gender-specific version of a term that applies to them—a mailman may prefer to call himself a mailman and congresswoman may prefer to call herself a congresswoman, for example. For more guidance, check out the thesaurus.Com guide to gender-neutral language.
synonym usage
woman, female, lady are nouns referring to an adult female human being, one paradigm of gender and biological sex for adult human beings. Woman is the general term. It is neutral, lacking either favorable or unfavorable implication, and is the most commonly used of the three: a wealthy woman; a woman of strong character, of unbridled appetites. In scientific, statistical, and other objective use, female is the neutral contrastive term to male and may apply to plants and animals also: 104 females to every 100 males; among lions, the female is the chief hunter. Female is sometimes used in disparaging contexts: a gossipy female; a conniving female. Lady meaning “refined, polite woman” is a term of approval or praise: a real lady in all things; to behave like a lady. When used as a form of address, lady may be polite or neutral in tone: ladies, did you hear about the new brunch menu with bottomless mimosas? However, in the singular it is often perceived as rude: hey, lady, i don’t have all day.
gender
feminine compounds ending in -woman are equivalent to the masculine compounds with -man. When the person referred to is a woman, the feminine form is often, but not always, used: alderman, alderwoman; assemblyman, assemblywoman; chairman, chairwoman; congressman, congresswoman; spokesman, spokeswoman; businessman, businesswoman. However, some forms ending in -man are applied to women, and occasionally terms ending in -man are specified by legal code: alderman dorothy lavelle. In general, the practice in current edited written english is to avoid the -man form in reference to a woman or the plural -men when mixed genders are involved. Instead, a gender-neutral term is used: councilmembers rather than councilmen and councilwomen; representative or legislator rather than congressman or congresswoman. See also chairperson, -man, -person.
other word forms
derived forms
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antiwoman, adjective
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woman-like, adjective
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womanless, adjective
inflected forms
nouns
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women, plural
etymology
origin of woman
first recorded before 900; middle english womman, wimman, old english w?Fman(n), w?Fmon(n), equivalent to w?F “female, wife, woman” + man(n) “human being, man”; see origin at wife, man
related words
example sentences: woman
he got his first name from the woman who delivered him as a baby while his mother was in labor.
from[los angeles times]? Aug. 16, 2026
to a man and woman, they made themselves earth’s protectors because they have the means and muscle to take on the job.
from[salon]? Aug. 16, 2026
a maysville woman traveling with her husband on a work trip coincidentally met a man who said he’d been in the area on behalf of meta.
from[the wall street journal]? Aug. 16, 2026
police have arrested a man and woman on suspicion of arson in connection with the stoke-on-trent fire.
from[bbc]? Aug. 16, 2026in a normal week at the hospital, you might have one person who’s a food deliveryman or -woman, or you might have someone who worked at the mta.
from[slate]? Sep. 10, 2020they fit the great-man or -woman narrative of history, seducing us into forgetting how powerful we are.
from[the guardian]? Nov. 7, 2016a congressman or -woman is elected as a representative of his or her constituents and has a social and moral responsibility to them.
from[new york times]? May 31, 2016the six -woman jury heard from two couples — mark and sondra osterman, and leanne benjamin and john donnelly — as well as one of zimmerman’s work colleagues, geri russo.
from[washington post]? Jul. 8, 2013“i’ve been on the side of the average workingman and -woman,” he drawled earnestly.
from time magazine archive
a week since the entire family gathered to honor that amazing woman.
from “legendary frybread drive-in” by cynthia leitich smith“they say it’s about protecting women and children, but it’s not,” zoe says.
from[bbc]? Aug. 17, 2026at first the women agreed to the offer from an unknown company.
from[the wall street journal]? Aug. 17, 2026two women witness the strange murder of a neighbor and begin to believe that something could be lurking in the mist that’s enveloped the earth.
from[salon]? Aug. 17, 2026bowen makes her money from her course for women, which has had 625 participants.
from[the wall street journal]? Aug. 16, 2026the master squeezed the wooden peg, and the veiled “women” started shouting their good wishes.
from “adventures of don quixote” by argentina palacios
from — definition of woman. (N.D.). In dictionary.Com. Retrieved august 17, 2026
~ ~ ~
woman
a woman is an adult female human.[[A]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-2)[[2]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-mosby-3)[[3]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-venes-4) before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl.[[4]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-5)
anatomically the general female characteristic of human sexual dimorphism is the human female reproductive system, which includes the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, vagina, and vulva. Accompanying characteristics are larger breasts, which might produce human milk, and generally a wider pelvis and broader hips. These characteristics facilitate pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Additional common characteristics are less facial and body hair, a higher body fat composition, shorter stature, and less muscle mass. Women are at greater risk of certain diseases like breast cancer, and at lower risk of other diseases like lung cancer. Genetically, women inherit typically a pair of x chromosomes, one from each parent. Sex differentiation of the female foetus is governed by the lack of a present functioning sry gene on either one of the respective sex chromosomes.[[5]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-passarge-6)
transgender women were assigned male at birth.[[6]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-7)[[7]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-apa.Org-8) some women are intersex, meaning they have unusual sex characteristics (chromosomes, genitalia or internal sex organs), such as trisomy x or vaginal atresia.[[8]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-9)[[9]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-10)
women are fundamental to human societies and have occupied positions at every level of society throughout history, but patriarchal gender roles have often limited or dominated women and femininity. With roles loosening during the 20th century in many societies, women have gained wider access to careers and education. Reproductive rights and women’s rights have been raised globally, with some countries denying some of those rights to women. Violence against women is primarily committed by men. Many religions and governments stipulate certain rules for women. Feminist movements aim to achieve gender equality.
etymology
the spelling of woman in english has progressed over the past millennium from w?Fmann[[10]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-11) to w?Mmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman.[[11]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-12) in old english, mann had the gender-neutral meaning of ‘human‘, akin to the modern ‘person‘ or ‘someone‘. The word for ‘woman‘ was w?F or w?Fmann (lit. ‘Woman-person‘) whereas ‘man‘ was wer or w?Pnedmann (from w?Pn ‘weapon; penis‘). However, following the norman conquest, man began to mean ‘male human‘, and by the late 13th century it had largely replaced wer.[[12]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-13) the consonants /f/ and /m/ in w?Fmann coalesced) into the modern woman, while w?F narrowed) to specifically mean a married woman (‘wife‘).[Citation needed]
it is a popular misconception that the term “woman” is etymologically connected to “womb”.[[13]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-14) “womb” derives from the old english word wamb meaning ‘belly, uterus‘[[14]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-oed-15) (cognate to the modern german colloquial term “wamme” from old high german wamba for ‘belly, paunch, lap‘).[[15]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-starostin-16)[[16]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-kluge-17)
terminology
the word woman can be used generally, to mean any female human, or specifically, to mean an adult female human as contrasted with girl. The word girl originally meant “young person of either sex” in english;[[17]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-18) it was only around the beginning of the 16th century that it came to mean specifically a female child.[[18]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-19) the term girl is sometimes used colloquially to refer to a young or unmarried woman; however, during the early 1970s, feminists challenged such use because the use of the word to refer to a fully grown woman may cause offence. In particular, previously common terms such as office girl are no longer widely used. Conversely, in certain cultures which link family honour with female virginity, the word girl (or its equivalent in other languages) is still used to refer to a never-married woman; in this sense it is used in a fashion roughly analogous to the more-or-less obsolete english maid or maiden.[Citation needed]
the social sciences’ views on what it means to be a woman have changed significantly since the early 20th century as women gained more rights and greater representation in the workforce, with scholarship in the 1970s moving toward a focus on the sex–gender distinction and social construction of gender.[[19]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-20)[[20]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-21)
different countries have different laws, but age 18 is frequently considered the age of majority (the age at which a person is legally considered an adult).[[21]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-22) menarche, the onset of menstruation, occurs on average at age 12–13. Many cultures have rites of passage to symbolise a girl’s coming of age, such as bat mitzvah in judaism, or a custom of a special celebration for a certain birthday (generally between 12 and 21), like the quinceañera of latin america.
alternative spellings of woman, such as womyn and wimmin, have been used in feminist contexts, especially since the 1970s.[[22]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-23)
biology
genetic characteristics
typically, the cells of female humans contain two x chromosomes, while the cells of male humans have an x and a y chromosome.[[23]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-hake-24) during early foetal development, all embryos have phenotypically female genitalia up until week 6 or 7, when a male embryo’s gonads differentiate into testes due to the action of the sry gene on the y chromosome.[[24]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-pardue-2001-25) sex differentiation proceeds in female humans in a way that is independent of gonadal hormones.[[24]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-pardue-2001-25) because humans inherit mitochondrial dna only from the mother’s ovum, genealogical researchers can trace maternal lineage far back in time.[[25]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-26)
puberty, menstruation and menopause
female puberty triggers many bodily changes. In response to chemical signals from the pituitary gland, the ovaries secrete hormones that stimulate maturation of the body, including increased height and weight, body hair growth, breast development and menarche (the onset of menstruation).[[26]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-uk_menarche-27) most girls go through menarche between ages 12–13.[[27]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-canadian_menarche-28)[[28]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-u.S._menarche-29)
menstruation is a monthly hormonal cycle that involves the shedding of the lining of the uterus. Blood and tissue exit through the vagina. Menstrual cycles may be irregular at first, and usually become more regular by a woman’s 20s.[[29]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-30) most women are able to perform all their daily activities during menstruation,[[30]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-31) though some women experience symptoms ranging from uncomfortable to disabling[[31]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-afp2011-32) or are prohibited from regular activity by strong social stigma.[[32]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-33)
the changes of puberty typically enable sexual reproduction. Pregnancy generally requires fertilisation of a woman’s egg cells with a man’s sperm cells. Humans are similar to other large mammals in that they usually give birth to a single offspring per pregnancy, but are unusual in being altricial, meaning young are undeveloped at time of birth and require the aid of their parents or guardians to fully mature.[[33]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-34) sometimes humans have multiple births, most commonly twins.[[34]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-35)
usually between ages 49–52, a woman reaches menopause, the time when menstrual periods stop permanently, and they are no longer able to bear children.[[35]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-nih2013def-36)[[36]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-pubmed2013-37)[[37]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-tak2015-38) symptoms of menopause include hot flashes, night sweats, headaches, and more; both lifestyle changes and medications can help to mitigate these symptoms.[[38]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-39)
morphological and physiological characteristics
in terms of biology, the female sex organs are involved in the reproductive system, whereas the secondary sex characteristics are involved in breastfeeding children and attracting a mate.[[39]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-buss_2019-40) humans are placental mammals, which means the mother carries the foetus in the uterus and the placenta facilitates the exchange of nutrients and waste between the mother and foetus.[[40]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-41)[[41]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-42)
the internal female sex organs consist of:[[42]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-43)
- the
ovaries, gonads that produce female gametes calledova, - the
fallopian tubes, tubular structures that transport the egg cells, - the
uterus, an organ with tissue to protect and nurture the developing foetus and itscervixto expel it, - the accessory glands (
bartholin’sandskene’s), two pairs of glands that helplubricateduring intercourse, and - the
vagina, an organ used in copulating and birthing.
the vulva (external female genitalia)[[43]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-kirkpatrick-44) consists of the clitoris, labia majora, labia minora and vestibule. The vestibule is where the vaginal and urethral openings are located.
the mammary glands are hypothesised to have evolved from apocrine-like glands to produce milk, a nutritious secretion that is the most distinctive characteristic of mammals, along with live birth.[[44]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-45) in mature women, the breast is generally more prominent than in most other mammals; this prominence, not necessary for milk production, is thought to be at least partially the result of sexual selection.[[39]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-buss_2019-40)
oestrogens, which are primary female sex hormones, have a significant impact on a female’s body shape. They are produced in both men and women, but their levels are significantly higher in women, especially in those of reproductive age. Besides other functions, oestrogens promote the development of female secondary sexual characteristics, such as breasts and hips.[[45]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-pmid9393999-46)[[46]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-47)[[47]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-titlescience_blog_--_estrogen_linked_to_sperm_count,_male_fertility-48) as a result of oestrogens, during puberty, girls develop breasts and their hips widen. Working against oestrogen, the presence of testosterone in a pubescent female inhibits breast development and promotes muscle and facial hair development.[[48]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-webmd-49)
circulatory system
women have lower haematocrit (the volume percentage of red blood cells in blood) than men; this is due to lower testosterone, which stimulates the production of erythropoietin by the kidney. The normal haematocrit level for a woman is 36% to 48% (for men, 41% to 50%). The normal level of haemoglobin (an oxygen-transport protein found in red blood cells) for women is 12.0 to 15.5 g/dl (for men, 13.5 to 17.5 g/dl).[[49]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-50)[[50]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-51)[[51]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-52)
women’s hearts have finer-grained textures in the muscle compared to men’s hearts, and the heart muscle‘s overall shape and surface area also differs to men’s when controlling for body size and age.[[52]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-53)[[53]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-54) in addition, women’s hearts age more slowly compared to men’s hearts.[[54]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-55)
sex distribution
girls are born slightly less frequently than boys (the ratio is around 1:1.05). Out of the total human population in 2015, there were 1018 men for every 1000 women.[[55]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-56) historically, male children tended to be preferred over female children, which led to exposure) being commonplace.[[56]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-57) female infanticide is less acceptable in contemporary times but still occurs.[[57]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-58)
intersex women
intersex women have an intersex condition, usually defined as those born with ambiguous genitalia, atypical chromosomes, or atypical gonads.[[58]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-59)[[59]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-unfe-fact-60) most individuals with ambiguous genitalia are assigned female at birth, and most intersex women are cisgender.[[60]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-sumerau-61)[[61]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-62) the medical practices to assign binary female to intersex youth is often controversial.[[62]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-dreger-2009-63)
some intersex conditions are associated with typical rates of female gender identity, while others are associated with substantially higher rates of gender transition compared to the general population.[[63]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-64)[[64]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-65) for example, women with cais showed no psychological differences from non-intersex women, including in gender identity or orientation.[[65]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-66) women with other intersex conditions, such as 5alpha-rd-2 or 17beta-hsd-3, showed increased rates of gender transition to live as men.[[66]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-67)
sexual orientation
most women are heterosexual. Fewer than 5% of adults are primarily attracted to the same sex. Women who are primarily attracted to other women may be lesbian or bisexual.[[67]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-68)
gender
most cultures use a gender binary by which women are of one of two genders, the others being men; other cultures have a third gender.[[70]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-nadal-re-binary-71)[[71]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-72)[[72]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-73) femininity (also called womanliness or girlishness) is a set of attributes, behaviours, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Different people have held femininity to be socially constructed,[[73]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-books.Google.Com-74) biologically influenced,[[73]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-books.Google.Com-74)[[74]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-gender,_nature,_and_nurture-75)[[75]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-referencea-76)[[76]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-referencec-77) or on some point in the spectrum between “nature” and “nurture”.[[75]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-referencea-76)[[74]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-gender,_nature,_and_nurture-75)[[76]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-referencec-77) it is distinct from the definition of the biological female sex,[[77]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-78)[[78]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-79) as both men and women can exhibit feminine traits.
most women are cisgender, meaning their female sex assignment at birth corresponds with their female gender identity. Some women are transgender, meaning they were assigned male at birth.[[7]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-apa.Org-8) trans women may experience gender dysphoria, the distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.[[79]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-80) gender dysphoria may be treated with gender-affirming care, which may include social or medical transition. Social transition may involve changes such as adopting a new name, hairstyle, clothing, and pronoun associated with the individual’s affirmed female gender identity.[[80]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-81) a major component of medical transition for trans women is feminising hormone therapy, which causes the development of female secondary sex characteristics (such as breasts, redistribution of body fat, and lower waist–hip ratio). Medical transition may also involve gender-affirming surgery, and a trans woman may undergo one or more feminising procedures which result in anatomy that is typically gendered female.[[81]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-beidel-2014-82)[[82]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-koellen-2016-83)
health
factors that specifically affect the health of women in comparison with men are most evident in those related to reproduction, but sex differences have been identified from the molecular to the behavioural scale. Some of these differences are subtle and difficult to explain, partly due to the fact that it is difficult to separate the health effects of inherent biological factors from the effects of the surrounding environment they exist in. Sex chromosomes and hormones, as well as sex-specific lifestyles, metabolism, immune system function, and sensitivity to environmental factors are believed to contribute to sex differences in health at the levels of physiology, perception, and cognition. Women can have distinct responses to drugs and thresholds for diagnostic parameters.[[83]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-84)[page needed]
the medical practice dealing with female reproduction and reproductive organs is called gynaecology (etymologically, “science of women”).[[84]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-85)[[85]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-86)
disease risk
women have higher rates of some diseases, such as osteoporosis, auto-immune diseases, alzheimer’s,[[86]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-europa-87) and breast cancer.[[87]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-88)
women have lower rates of other diseases, such as lung cancer, parkinson’s, chronic liver disease,[[86]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-europa-87) hypertension, diabetes, and hiv/aids.[[88]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-89)[[89]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-90)
some female-specific diseases include endometriosis.[[90]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-91) pcos,[[91]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-common_concerns-92) and gynecologic cancers such as uterine or cervical cancer.[[92]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-93)
maternal mortality
maternal mortality or maternal death is defined by who as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.”[[93]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-94)
between 2000 and 2023, the rate of maternal mortality dropped by 40% worldwide. In 2023, around 260,000 women died from complications of pregnancy, delivery, or abortion. Over 90% of maternal mortality deaths occurred in low-income or lower-middle income countries, with sub-saharan african and south asian women accounting for 87% of the deaths. Most of these deaths were preventable. Maternal mortality can be reduced by ensuring pregnant women have adequate healthcare access, administering medications for preeclampsia and haemorrhage, and using good sanitation practices during delivery.[[94]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-95)
life expectancy
the life expectancy for women is generally longer than men’s. This advantage begins from birth, with newborn girls more likely to survive the first year than boys. Worldwide, women live six to eight years longer than men.[[96]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-who2019-97) however, this varies by place and situation. For example, discrimination against women has lowered female life expectancy in some parts of asia so that men there live longer than women.[[96]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-who2019-97)
the difference in life expectancy are believed to be partly due to biological advantages and partly due to gendered behavioural differences between men and women.[[96]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-who2019-97)[[97]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-sciam-2004-98) on average, women are less likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours like smoking and alcohol use, and consequently have fewer preventable premature deaths from such causes.[[96]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-who2019-97)
in some developed countries, the life expectancy is evening out. This is believed to caused both by worse health behaviours among women, especially an increased rate of smoking tobacco by women, and improved health among men, such as less cardiovascular disease.[[96]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-who2019-97) the world health organization (who) writes that it is “the extra years of life for women are not always lived in good health.”[[96]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-who2019-97)
the fact that humans live a significant amount past reproductive age is unusual for mammals.[[98]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-99) many elderly women contribute to the care of grandchildren and other family members,[[99]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-100) and many biologists believe that the extended human lifespan is evolutionarily driven by kin selection, though other theories have also been proposed.[[100]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-101)[[101]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-102)[[102]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-103)[[103]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-104)
reproductive rights
reproductive rights are legal rights and freedoms relating to reproduction and reproductive health. The international federation of gynecology and obstetrics has stated that:[[104]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-105)
- … the human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. Equal relationships between women and men in matters of sexual relations and reproduction, including full respect for the integrity of the person, require mutual respect, consent and shared responsibility for sexual behavior and its consequences.
the world health organization reports that based on data from 2010 to 2014, 56 million induced abortions occurred worldwide each year (25% of all pregnancies). Of those, about 25million were considered as unsafe. The who reports that in developed regions about 30 women die for every 100,000 unsafe abortions and that number rises to 220 deaths per 100,000 unsafe abortions in developing regions and 520 deaths per 100,000 unsafe abortions in sub-saharan africa. The who ascribes these deaths to:
- restrictive laws
- poor availability of services
- high cost
- stigma
- conscientious objection of health-care providers
- unnecessary requirements, such as mandatory waiting periods, mandatory counselling, provision of misleading information, third-party authorisation, and medically unnecessary tests that delay care.
[[105]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-106)
history
the earliest women whose names are known include:
neithhotep(c. 3200 bce), the wife ofnarmerand the first queen of ancient egypt.[[106]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-107)[[107]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-108)merneith(c. 3000 bce),consortand regent of ancient egypt during thefirst dynasty. She may have been ruler of egypt in her own right.[[108]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-books.Google.Co.Uk-109)[[109]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-110)peseshet(c. 2600 bce), a physician inancient egypt.[[110]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-111)[[111]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-112)puabi(c. 2600 bce), or shubad– queen ofurwhose tomb was discovered with many expensive artefacts. Other known pre-sargonic queens of ur (royal wives) include ashusikildigir, ninbanda, and gansamannu.[[112]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-113)kugbau(c. 2500 bce), a taverness fromkish)chosen by thenippurpriesthood to become hegemonic ruler ofsumer, and in later ages deified as “kubaba”.Tashlultum(c. 2400 bce),akkadianqueen, wife ofsargon of akkadand mother of enheduanna.[[113]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-114)[[114]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-115)baranamtarra(c. 2384 bce), prominent and influential queen oflugalandaoflagash. Other known pre-sargonic queens of the first lagash dynasty include menbara-abzu, ashume’eren, ninkhilisug, dimtur, and shagshag, and the names of several princesses are also known.Enheduanna(c. 2285 bce),[[115]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-116)[[116]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-117)thehigh priestessof the temple of themoon god)in thesumeriancity-state ofurand possibly the first known poet and first named author of either gender.[[117]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-118)shibtu(c. 1775 bce), kingzimrilim‘s consort and queen of the syrian city-state ofmari. During her husband’s absence, she ruled as regent of mari and enjoyed extensive administrative powers as queen.[[118]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-119)
the glyph (?) For the planet and roman goddess venus), or aphrodite in greek, is the symbol used to represent the female sex.[[119]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-120)[[120]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-stearn1962-121)[[121]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-schott2005-122) in ancient alchemy, the venus symbol stood for copper and was associated with femininity.[[121]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-schott2005-122)
culture and gender roles
in recent history, gender roles have changed greatly. At some earlier points in history, children’s occupational aspirations starting at a young age differed according to gender.[[122]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-123) traditionally, middle class women were involved in domestic tasks emphasising child care. For poorer women, economic necessity compelled them to seek employment outside the home even if individual poor women may have preferred domestic tasks. Many of the occupations that were available to them were lower in pay than those available to men.[[123]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-124)
as changes in the labour market for women came about, availability of employment changed from only “dirty”, long hour factory jobs to “cleaner”, more respectable office jobs where more education was demanded. Married women’s participation in the u.S. Labour force rose from 5.6–6% in 1900 to 23.8% in 1923.[[124]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-125)[[125]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-126)
in the 1970s, many female academics, including scientists, avoided having children. Throughout the 1980s, institutions tried to equalise conditions for men and women in the workplace. Even so, the inequalities at home hampered women’s opportunities: professional women were still generally considered responsible for domestic labour and child care, which limited the time and energy they could devote to their careers. Until the early 20th century, u.S. Women’s colleges required their women faculty members to remain single, on the grounds that a woman could not carry on two full-time professions at once. According to schiebinger, “being a scientist and a wife and a mother is a burden in society that expects women more often than men to put family ahead of career.” (P.93).[[126]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-127)
movements advocate equality of opportunity for both sexes and equal rights irrespective of gender. Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement, in recent decades women in many societies have gained access to careers beyond the traditional homemaker. Despite these advances, modern women in western society still face challenges in the workplace as well as with the topics of education, violence, health care, politics, and motherhood, and others. Sexism can be a main concern and barrier for women almost anywhere, though its forms, perception, and gravity vary between societies and social classes.
the gender parity index in school enrolment varies by country.[[127]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-128) the gender gaps in mathematics and reading show girls tend to have higher reading skills. The gender pay gap varies between countries and age groups.[[128]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-p218-129)
violence against women
the un declaration on the elimination of violence against women defines “violence against women” as:[[129]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-130)
…any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.
it identifies three forms of such violence: that which occurs in the family, that which occurs within the general community, and that which is perpetrated or condoned by the state. It also states that “violence against women is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women”.[[130]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-131)
violence against women remains a widespread problem, fueled, especially outside the west, by patriarchal social values, lack of adequate laws, and lack of enforcement of existing laws. Social norms that exist in many parts of the world hinder progress towards protecting women from violence. For example, according to surveys by unicef, the percentage of women aged 15–49 who think that a husband is justified in hitting or beating his wife under certain circumstances is as high as 90% in afghanistan and jordan, 87% in mali, 86% in guinea and timor-leste, 81% in laos, and 80% in the central african republic.[[131]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-132) a 2010 survey conducted by the pew research center found that stoning as a punishment for adultery was supported by 82% of respondents in egypt and pakistan, 70% in jordan, 56% nigeria, and 42% in indonesia.[[132]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-133)
specific forms of violence that affect women include female genital mutilation, sex trafficking, forced prostitution, forced marriage, rape, sexual harassment, honour killings, acid throwing, and dowry related violence. Laws and policies on violence against women vary by jurisdiction. In the european union, sexual harassment and human trafficking are subject to directives).[[133]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-134)[[134]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-135) governments can be complicit in violence against women, such as when stoning is used as a legal punishment, mostly for women accused of adultery.[[135]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-136)
there have also been many forms of violence against women which have been prevalent historically, notably the burning of witches, the sacrifice of widows (such as sati)) and foot binding. The prosecution of women accused of witchcraft has a long tradition; for example, during the early modern period (between the 15th and 18th centuries), witch trials were common in europe and in the european colonies in north america. Today, there remain regions of the world (such as parts of sub-saharan africa, rural north india, and papua new guinea) where belief in witchcraft is held by many people, and women accused of being witches are subjected to serious violence.[[136]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-137)[[137]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-138)[[138]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-139) in addition, there are also countries which have criminal legislation against the practice of witchcraft. In saudi arabia, witchcraft remains a crime punishable by death, and in 2011 the country beheaded a woman for ‘witchcraft and sorcery’.[[139]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-140)[[140]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-141)
it is also the case that certain forms of violence against women have been recognised as criminal offences only during recent decades, and are not universally prohibited, in that many countries continue to allow them. This is especially the case with marital rape.[[141]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-142)[[142]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-143) in the western world, there has been a trend towards ensuring gender equality within marriage and prosecuting domestic violence, but in many parts of the world women still lose significant legal rights when entering a marriage.[[143]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-144)
sexual violence against women greatly increases during times of war and armed conflict, during military occupation, or ethnic conflicts; most often in the form of war rape and sexual slavery. Contemporary examples of sexual violence during war include rape during the armenian genocide, rape during the bangladesh liberation war, rape in the bosnian war, rape during the rwandan genocide, and rape during second congo war. In colombia, the armed conflict has also resulted in increased sexual violence against women.[[144]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-145) the most recent case was the sexual jihad done by isil where 5000–7000 yazidi and christian girls and children were sold into sexual slavery during the genocide and rape of yazidi and christian women, some of whom jumped to their death from mount sinjar, as described in a witness statement.[[145]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-rudaw-26082014-146)
fertility and family life
the total fertility rate (tfr)– the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime– differs significantly between different regions of the world. In 2016, the highest estimated tfr was in niger (6.62 children born per woman) and the lowest in singapore (0.82 children/woman).[[147]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-148) while most sub-saharan african countries have a high tfr, which creates problems due to lack of resources and contributes to overpopulation, most western countries currently experience a sub replacement fertility rate which may lead to population ageing and population decline.
in many parts of the world, there has been a change in family structure over the past few decades. For instance, in the west, there has been a trend of moving away from living arrangements that include the extended family to those which only consist of the nuclear family. There has also been a trend to move from marital fertility to non-marital fertility. Children born outside marriage may be born to cohabiting couples or to single women. While births outside marriage are common and fully accepted in some parts of the world, in other places they are highly stigmatised, with unmarried mothers facing ostracism, including violence from family members, and in extreme cases even honour killings.[[148]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-149)[[149]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-150) in addition, sex outside marriage remains illegal in many countries (such as saudi arabia, pakistan,[[150]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-151) afghanistan,[[151]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-152)[[152]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-travel.State.Gov-153) iran,[[152]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-travel.State.Gov-153) kuwait,[[153]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-154) maldives,[[154]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-155) morocco,[[155]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-156) oman,[[156]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-157) mauritania,[[157]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-158) united arab emirates,[[158]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-159)[[159]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-160) sudan,[[160]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-161) and yemen[[161]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-162)).
the social role of the mother differs between cultures. In many parts of the world, women with dependent children are expected to stay at home and dedicate all their energy to child raising, while in other places mothers most often return to paid work (see working mother and stay-at-home mother).[[162]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-163)[[163]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-164)
education
single-sex education has traditionally been dominant and is still highly relevant.[Citation needed] universal education, meaning state-provided primary and secondary education independent of gender, is not yet a global norm, even if it is assumed in most developed countries.[Citation needed] in some western countries, women have surpassed men at many levels of education. For example, in the united states in 2005/2006, women earned 62% of associate degrees, 58% of bachelor’s degrees, 60% of master’s degrees, and 50% of doctorates.[[164]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-165)[[165]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-166)
in 2020, 87% of the world’s women were literate, compared to 90% of men; at the same time, only 59% of women in sub-saharan africa were literate.[[166]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-167) the educational gender gap in organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) countries has been reduced over the last 30 years. Younger women today are far more likely to have completed a tertiary qualification: in 19 of the 30 oecd countries, more than twice as many women aged 25 to 34 have completed tertiary education than have women aged 55 to 64. In 21 of 27 oecd countries with comparable data, the number of women graduating from university-level programmes is equal to or exceeds that of men. 15-year-old girls tend to show much higher expectations for their careers than boys of the same age.[[167]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-168) while women account for more than half of university graduates in several oecd countries, they receive only 30% of tertiary degrees granted in science and engineering fields, and women account for only 25% to 35% of researchers in most oecd countries.[[168]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-169)
research shows that while women are studying at prestigious universities at the same rate as men they are not being given the same chance to join the faculty.[Citation needed] sociologist harriet zuckerman has observed that the more prestigious an institute is, the more difficult and time-consuming it is for women to obtain a faculty position there. In 1989, harvard university tenured its first woman in chemistry, cynthia friend, and in 1992 its first woman in physics, melissa franklin.[[169]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-170) zuckerman also observed that women were more likely to hold their first professional positions as instructors and lecturers while men are more likely to work first in tenure positions. According to smith and tang, as of 1989, 65% of men and only 40% of women held tenured positions and only 29% of all scientists and engineers employed as assistant professors in four-year colleges and universities were women.[Citation needed] women show a drop in self-esteem in the first year of college.[[170]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-171) in the soviet union, 40% of chemistry phds went to women in the 1960s.[[171]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-172)
in 1992, women earned 9% of the phds awarded in engineering, but only one percent of those women became professors. In 1995, 11% of professors in science and engineering were women. In relation, only 311 deans of engineering schools were women, which is less than 1% of the total. Even in psychology, a degree in which women earn the majority of phds, they hold significantly fewer tenured positions, roughly 19% in 1994.[[172]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-173)
government and politics
women are underrepresented in government in most countries. In january 2019, the global average of women in national assemblies was 24.3%.[[173]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-174)
suffrage is the civil right to vote, and women’s suffrage movements have a long historic timeline. As an early example, in districts of friesland, in the netherlands, women began voting in 1689.[[174]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-175) on the other end of the spectrum, in kuwait women gained the right to vote in 2005,[[175]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-176) and in saudi arabia women gained the right to vote in 2015.[[176]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-177) organisations that fought for women’s right to vote in different countries are numerous, from switzerland’s association internationale des femmes (which was formed in 1868) to liechtenstein’s komitée für das frauenstimmrecht (founded in 1969).[[177]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-178) as of 2025, the vatican city only allows women to vote in limited lay capacity,[[178]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-179) and other countries such as afghanistan lack functional democracies entirely.[[179]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-180)
science, literature and art
science and medicine
women have historically had access to practice midwifery, obstetrics and gynaecology. In europe, prior to the 18th century, caring for pregnant women was undertaken by other women. However, from the mid-18th century onwards, society began to require rigorous formal education to practice medicine. Since women were prohibited from higher education, women’s reproductive healthcare was transferred to male practitioners.[[181]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-gelis-182)[[182]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-183)
early women in other scientific fields include hypatia (b. 350-370 ce), a mathematician and astronomer who edited the almagest.
literature
the earliest author known by name was an akkadian woman named enheduanna, who wrote in the 23rd century bce.[[183]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-184) ghosha, an indian composer of hymns in the rigveda, was active around 1500–900 bce.[[184]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-185) the first recorded female chinese poet was duchess mu of xu, who wrote in the 7th century bce.[[185]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-186) the tale of genji, one of the earliest novel-like works and sometimes called “the first novel”, was written by the japanese murasaki shikibu in the 11th century ce.[[186]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-187)
in western society, writing was generally considered acceptable for upper-class women. However, achieving success as a female writer in a male-dominated world could be very difficult; as a result, some women writers adopted male pen names (e.G. George sand, george eliot, currer bell, ellis bell, acton bell, and vernon lee).[[187]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-188) this has continued into more modern times, with 20th-century writers such as andre norton and james tiptree jr[[188]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-:1-189) adopting male pseudonyms, and some authors such as j.K. Rowling[[189]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-190) and harper lee adopting purposefully unisex pen names.
music
women have been composers, songwriters, instrumental performers, singers, conductors, music scholars, music educators, music critics/music journalists and other musical professions. There are music movements,[clarification needed] events and genres related to women, women’s issues and feminism.[Citation needed] in the 2010s, while women comprise a significant proportion of popular music and classical music singers, and a significant proportion of songwriters (many of them being singer-songwriters), there are few women record producers, rock critics and rock instrumentalists. Although there have been a huge number of women composers in classical music, from the medieval period to the present day, women composers are significantly underrepresented in the commonly performed classical music repertoire, music history textbooks and music encyclopaedias; for example, in the concise oxford history of music, clara schumann is one of the only female composers who is mentioned.[Citation needed]
women comprise a significant proportion of instrumental soloists in classical music and the percentage of women in orchestras is increasing. A 2015 article on concerto soloists in major canadian orchestras, however, indicated that 84% of the soloists with the montreal symphony orchestra were men. In 2012, women still made up just 6% of the top-ranked vienna philharmonic orchestra. Women are less common as instrumental players in popular music genres such as rock and heavy metal, although there have been a number of notable female instrumentalists and all-female bands. Women are particularly underrepresented in extreme metal genres.[[190]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-191) women are also underrepresented in orchestral conducting, music criticism/music journalism, music producing, and sound engineering. While women were discouraged from composing in the 19th century, and there are few women musicologists, women became involved in music education “… to such a degree that women dominated [this field] during the later half of the 19th century and well into the 20th century.”[[191]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-parlorsongs.Com-192)
according to jessica duchen, a music writer for london’s the independent, women musicians in classical music are “… too often judged for their appearances, rather than their talent” and they face pressure “… to look sexy onstage and in photos.”[[192]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-music.Cbc.Ca-193) duchen states that while “[t]here are women musicians who refuse to play on their looks, … the ones who do tend to be more materially successful.”[[192]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-music.Cbc.Ca-193)
according to the uk’s radio 3 editor, edwina wolstencroft, the classical music industry has long been open to having women in performance or entertainment roles, but women are much less likely to have positions of authority, such as being the leader of an orchestra.[[193]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-theguardian.Com-194) in popular music, while there are many women singers recording songs, there are very few women behind the audio console acting as music producers, the individuals who direct and manage the recording process.[[194]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-referenceb-195)
see also
notes
- female may refer to sex or
gender.[[1]](https://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/woman#cite_note-1)the plural women is sometimes used in certain phrases such aswomen’s rightsto denote female humans regardless of age.
from — wikipedia contributors. (2026ao, august 16). Woman. Wikipedia. Retrieved august 17, 2026
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reporter asks what’s a woman. Somebody who can have a baby, replies trump
on his first day in office, he signed an executive order that defined “women” as adult human females and “person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.”
washington:
in honor of women’s history month, us president donald trump on friday weighed in on a question that plagues conservatives– “what’s a woman?”. Speaking at a press conference at the oval office, america’s commander in chief defined a woman as someone “who can have a baby” as his colleagues in republican-led states moved to legally define gender based on a person’s sex at birth to limit transgender rights.
the question was raised as trump introduced alina habba as interim us attorney for the district of new jersey. A reporter praised the president’s female appointees in his administration and asked, “what’s a woman and why does it matter to understand the difference between men and women?”
the president’s somewhat lighthearted yet serious remark reinforced his administration’s stance on the issue following recent executive orders.
“a woman is someone who can have a baby under certain circumstances,” trump said, adding that “a woman is a person who is much smarter than a man, i’ve always found,” drawing laughter from the crowd. His reply earned a laugh from the gathered crowd.
trump went on to say that “a woman is a person that doesn’t give a man even a chance of success.”
he ended on a more serious note: “a woman’s a person that, in many cases, has been treated badly,” referencing transgender women participating in women’s sports. The president labelled the practice “demeaning” and “very unfair.”
trump’s remarks align with the executive orders he signed after taking the oath of office, barring federal funding from schools that allow transgender women to compete in female athletic categories. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order that defined “women” as adult human females and “person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.”
his administration’s other recent policies include restricting gender-marker changes on passports, barring transgender women from women’s federal prison facilities, and eliminating federal funding for gender-affirming care for minors. Trump had also ordered the federal government to recognise only two sexes- male and female- and barred grants from funding “gender ideology” programs.
from — nath, s. (2025, march 30). Reporter asks what’s a woman. Somebody who can have a baby, replies trump. Ndtv world. Retrieved august 17, 2026
~ ~ ~
nearly 60 years ago, comedian lenny bruce was arrested for saying “forbidden” words in his stand-up show.1 a few years later, george carlin carried on the tradition and was arrested for a routine on the “seven words you can’t say on television.”2
what was transgressive then, and what subjected bruce and carlin to arrest, is less than shocking today and has, with the election of donald j. Trump as us president, become normalized and transformed into what has been called “middle-finger politics.”3
a big difference, though, is that the words bruce and carlin used, which may have offended the conscience of many people (although limited to those paying to see their shows), were not part of a political circus seeking to erase the identities and restrict the human rights and civil liberties of millions of americans, as well as hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide.4
since his inauguration, president trump has launched a blizzard of executive orders upending government programs affecting science, public health, the environment, trade, education, sports, and more. As part of these efforts, he has authorized a new list of banned words: gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, lgbt, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, and biologically female.5
these are words that trump demanded be eliminated from the us centers for disease control’s website, erasing not only identities but also critical information on the health status and health inequities of often vulnerable populations. The orders also limit the ability of public health professionals, within the us government and outside of it, to implement programs and conduct research to ensure that everyone’s health needs are met.
on its face, this campaign seems ludicrous and laughable: as archaic as the trumped-up charges against bruce and carlin. Have we really stepped back in time to a world where the police, or the us president, is policing language?
the obvious answer is yes, we have.
but this effort is clearly much greater, and much more powerful, than a couple of comedians pressing against the boundaries of quaint, and often hypocritical, social conventions. Trump’s campaign against these words is part of a much larger effort to upend public health and health care in the united states and globally. It is as much a war against words as it is a war against science and against the progress that has been made over decades building global partnerships to advance the right to health.
global health and human rights
to understand more of trump’s global impact on health, we need look no further than a news article published on february 3 in the standard, a kenyan newspaper. The article reported that the united states agency for international development had suspended the supply of hiv antiretroviral medicines to the kenya medical supplies authority “until further notice.”6 kenya has approximately 1.4 million people living with hiv and, with the support of internationally funded hiv prevention and treatment programs, has seen a sharp decline in new infections, falling from 270,000 new infections in 1992 to 21,000 in 2023.7 the continuing success of these programs is now at risk.
the nonprofit research organization amfar estimated that globally the us pepfar program supports 271,229 health workers who deliver new supplies of antiretroviral drugs to 222,333 people every day.8 among those being reached are 679,936 pregnant people living with hiv and receiving antiretroviral treatment for their own health and to prevent transmission to their children. The organization forecast that during the 90-day us stop-work order, 135,987 babies would acquire hiv. Making matters worse, these children would likely go undiagnosed because infant hiv testing services are also being suspended. Every day of the work stoppage an estimated 1,471 infants would be infected.
thankfully, two weeks after the announcement of a 90-day “pause” for all us foreign assistance, the us department of state issued a memo allowing “life-saving hiv care and treatment services,” “prevention of mother-to-child transmission services,” and payment of “reasonable” administrative costs to continue. Confusion reigns, however, about the details of what is permitted, and funding reportedly remains blocked. The amfar report also highlighted the stop-work order’s impact on critically important public health programs that were related to hiv but were not strictly treatment programs. For example, in 2024, pepfar provided post-violence care to more than 1.3 million people, or more than 3,600 survivors of domestic and sexual violence every day, including by providing rape kits, hiv testing, post-exposure prophylaxis, and other essential services. These programs are stalled.
malaria programs have also been affected. In kenya, 70% of the population is considered at risk of malaria, and more than six million people are affected each year, mostly children under five years of age and pregnant people.9 recent progress against malaria has come from a new vaccine developed over the past four decades through work by the us government’s walter reed army institute of research and national institutes of health, in partnership with the pharmaceutical company gsk, the nonprofit organization path, and the gates foundation, among others. It has reduced cases of severe malaria and child deaths and increased health care access for children more broadly.10 few americans are likely aware that malaria was endemic in parts of the united states until 1950; but as climate change advances, what are now rare cases of transmission may become more common.11
malaria programs throughout sub-saharan africa have shut down mosquito control efforts and suspended shipments of bed nets to protect people from malaria because of trump’s orders. Programs to end maternal mortality lack medicines to stop hemorrhages. Inexpensive treatments, such as oral rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea, are not being delivered through health systems because of stop-work orders issued by the trump administration.
clinical trials have been suspended. Family planning programs halted. While there have been announcements that exemptions exist for some programs, again confusion reigns, resulting in paralysis as program implementers wait for clarity on whether the exemptions apply to their programs. Meanwhile, thousands of staff experts in these programs and in how to navigate the communities where they are implemented have been furloughed or fired. In bangladesh, the international centre for diarrhoeal disease research has laid off more than 1,000 employees.12
right to health in the united states
these actions “pausing” aid internationally might seem to be consistent with trump’s campaign slogan of “america first.” But are they?
trump’s recent executive orders and the actions of his administration also imperil the health of all americans. Withdrawing the country from the world health organization will interfere with its ability to defend the united states against future pandemics. Withdrawing from the paris agreement on climate change makes us more vulnerable to the climate-related catastrophes measured in lives and in gdp that are already occurring. Ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs makes it harder for public health workers to represent and work with the communities they serve and to fight back against misinformation and disinformation.13 for trump, who has proposed the blatantly unqualified, anti-science, conspiracy-minded robert f. Kennedy jr. To lead the department of health and human services, that may be intentional. But the impact on americans, especially those most vulnerable, is inescapable, and affects the enjoyment of the right to equality and nondiscrimination, the right to information and to science, and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
trump’s orders have especially affected the rights of lgbtq+ americans. Discrimination against lgbtq+ people, particularly transgender people, was getting worse in the united states well before trump came into office, with some states passing legislation limiting the rights of transgender individuals, especially children. These laws included restrictions on access to bathrooms, participation in sports, and any discussion of gender and sexuality in schools.14 as of 2023, 22 states had banned at least some form of gender-affirming health care for children, and five had laws classifying gender-affirming care as a felony.15
these policies contradict protections under the international covenant on civil and political rights, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. As noted by the united nations independent expert on sexual orientation and gender identity following a 2022 visit to the united states, “these actions rely on prejudiced and stigmatizing views of lgbt persons, in particular transgender children and youth, and seek to leverage their lives as props for political profit.”16
the right to information on gender and sexuality has also been repeatedly restricted in the united states through bans on educational materials and books in schools and libraries. These bans violate the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds” guaranteed under the international covenant on civil and political rights and erase the visibility of transgender individuals.17
prior to trump’s second term, lawmakers in many us states were already attempting to prohibit transgender people from expressing their gender identity by preventing them from sharing their pronouns and restricting discussions of gender identity and these were among the first steps taken by trump across all federal agencies after he assumed office.18
the right to benefit from scientific progress has also been upended by trump’s actions, impacting the right to health in the united states and globally. Trump’s actions to strip the centers for disease control’s website of information on lgbtq+ health and to prohibit the collection of information that includes the self-identification of people’s gender identity impedes our understanding of us and global public health challenges and successes. The denial of gender-affirming care for transgender individuals also violates the rights to health and privacy and can deny the rights to security of person, life, and freedom from cruel and degrading treatment.
conclusion
the words used by bruce and carlin harmed no one, and the comedians’ use of them was to call out hypocrisy and make america a more honest, open, and free country. Trump’s forbidden words deny reality and demonstrate ignorance. We should follow in the comedians’ vein by using them loudly, openly, and in defense of human rights.
references
- 1.Schultz d. “Lenny bruce,” free speech center at middle tennessee state university. (July 9, 2024)
https://firstamendment.Mtsu.Edu/article/lenny-bruce/. [Google scholar%20https://firstamendment.Mtsu.Edu/article/lenny-bruce/.)] - 2.Radcliffe j. R. “George carlin was arrested for profanity after performing ‘seven words’ at summerfest in 1972, but he got the last laugh,”. Milwaukee journal sentinel. (June 7, 2021),
https://www.Jsonline.Com/story/news/2021/06/07/george-carlin-arrested-after-milwaukee-summerfest-show-1972-seven-words-you-cant-say-on-television/7588568002/. [Google scholar] - 3.Klein e. “The rise of ‘middle-finger’ politics,”. New york times. (March 29, 2024),
https://www.Nytimes.Com/2024/03/29/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-john-ganz.Html?Showtranscript=1. [Google scholar] - 4.Flores a. R., Conron k. J. Adult lgbt population in the united states. (Williams institute 2023).
[google scholar] - 5.Faust j. “Cdc orders mass retraction and revision of submitted research across all science and medicine journals. Banned terms must be scrubbed,”. Inside medicine. (February 2, 2025),
https://insidemedicine.Substack.Com/p/breaking-news-cdc-orders-mass-retraction. [Google scholar] - 6.Kahenda m. “Us suspends essential drugs supply to kemsa,”. Standard. (February 3, 2025),
https://www.Standardmedia.Co.Ke/health/health-science/article/2001510889/us-suspends-essential-drugs-supply-to-kemsa. [Google scholar] - 7.Unaids, “kenya,”.
https://www.Unaids.Org/en/regionscountries/countries/kenya. - 8.2025,. Amfar, “impact of stop work orders for pepfar programs”.
https://www.Amfar.Org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/impact-of-stop-work-orders-for-pepfar-programs-2.Pdf. - 9.Elnour z., Grethe h., Siddig k., Munga s. “Malaria control and elimination in kenya: economy-wide benefits and regional disparities,”. Malaria journal. 2023;22(1) doi: 10.1186/s12936-023-04505-6.
[doi] [pmc free article] [pubmed] [google scholar] - 10.World health organization, “the first malaria vaccine in kenya: the view from health professionals, community leaders and parents”. (April 2, 2023),
https://www.Who.Int/news-room/photo-story/detail/the-first-malaria-vaccine-in-kenya-view-from-health-professionals-community-leaders-parents. - 11.Winny a. “What to know about malaria in the u.S.,” Johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health. (September 5, 2023),
https://publichealth.Jhu.Edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us. [Google scholar,%20https://publichealth.Jhu.Edu/2023/malarias-comeback-in-the-us.)] - 12.Nolen s. “Health programs shutter around the world after trump pauses foreign aid,”. New york times. (February 1, 2025),
https://www.Nytimes.Com/2025/02/01/health/trump-aid-malaria-tuberculosis-hiv.Html. [Google scholar] - 13.Yudell m. And amon j. J. “What’s next for public health?,”. Health affairs. (January 23, 2024),
https://www.Healthaffairs.Org/content/forefront/s-next-public-health. [Google scholar] - 14.Human rights watch, university of miami school of law, and equality florida, “human rights violations against transgender communities in the united states,”. (September 12, 2023),
https://www.Hrw.Org/sites/default/files/media_2023/10/2023.09.12_hr%20violations%20against%20trans%20communities.Pdf. - 15. Ibid.
- 16.2022. Human rights council, protection from violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, report by independent expert victor madrigal-borloz, country visit to the united states of america: preliminary observations.
- 17.International covenant on civil political rights, g.A. Res. 2200a. (Xxi) 1966, art. 19.
- 18.Us commission equal employment opportunity, “removing gender ideology and restoring the eeoc’s role of protecting women in the workplace,”. (January 28, 2025),
https://www.Eeoc.Gov/newsroom/removing-gender-ideology-and-restoring-eeocs-role-protecting-women-workplace.
articles from health and human rights are provided here courtesy of harvard university press & françois-xavier bagnoud center for health and human rights
from — amon, j. J. (2025b, june 1). Trump’s banned words and disastrous health policies. Nih national library of medicine. Retrieved august 17, 2026
~ ~ ~
defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government
by the authority vested in me as president by the constitution and the laws of the united states of america, including section 7301 of title 5, united states code, it is hereby ordered:
section 1. Purpose. Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire american system. Basing federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
this unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
accordingly, my administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.
sec. 2. Policy and definitions. It is the policy of the united states to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the executive branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all executive interpretation of and application of federal law and administration policy:
(a) “sex” shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. “Sex” is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of “gender identity.”
(b) “women” or “woman” and “girls” or “girl” shall mean adult and juvenile human females, respectively.
(c) “men” or “man” and “boys” or “boy” shall mean adult and juvenile human males, respectively.
(d) “female” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.
(e) “male” means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell.
(f) “gender ideology” replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity, permitting the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa, and requiring all institutions of society to regard this false claim as true. Gender ideology includes the idea that there is a vast spectrum of genders that are disconnected from one’s sex. Gender ideology is internally inconsistent, in that it diminishes sex as an identifiable or useful category but nevertheless maintains that it is possible for a person to be born in the wrong sexed body.
(g) “gender identity” reflects a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex.
sec. 3. Recognizing women are biologically distinct from men. (A) within 30 days of the date of this order, the secretary of health and human services shall provide to the u.S. Government, external partners, and the public clear guidance expanding on the sex-based definitions set forth in this order.
(b) each agency and all federal employees shall enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes. Each agency should therefore give the terms “sex”, “male”, “female”, “men”, “women”, “boys” and “girls” the meanings set forth in section 2 of this order when interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, or guidance and in all other official agency business, documents, and communications.
(c) when administering or enforcing sex-based distinctions, every agency and all federal employees acting in an official capacity on behalf of their agency shall use the term “sex” and not “gender” in all applicable federal policies and documents.
(d) the secretaries of state and homeland security, and the director of the office of personnel management, shall implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and global entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex, as defined under section 2 of this order; and the director of the office of personnel management shall ensure that applicable personnel records accurately report federal employees’ sex, as defined by section 2 of this order.
(e) agencies shall remove all statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications, or other internal and external messages that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology, and shall cease issuing such statements, policies, regulations, forms, communications or other messages. Agency forms that require an individual’s sex shall list male or female, and shall not request gender identity. Agencies shall take all necessary steps, as permitted by law, to end the federal funding of gender ideology.
(f) the prior administration argued that the supreme court’s decision in bostock v. Clayton county (2020), which addressed title vii of the civil rights act of 1964, requires gender identity-based access to single-sex spaces under, for example, title ix of the educational amendments act. This position is legally untenable and has harmed women. The attorney general shall therefore immediately issue guidance to agencies to correct the misapplication of the supreme court’s decision in bostock v. Clayton county (2020) to sex-based distinctions in agency activities. In addition, the attorney general shall issue guidance and assist agencies in protecting sex-based distinctions, which are explicitly permitted under constitutional and statutory precedent.
(g) federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology. Each agency shall assess grant conditions and grantee preferences and ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology.
sec. 4. Privacy in intimate spaces. (A) the attorney general and secretary of homeland security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers, including through amendment, as necessary, of part 115.41 of title 28, code of federal regulations and interpretation guidance regarding the americans with disabilities act.
(b) the secretary of housing and urban development shall prepare and submit for notice and comment rulemaking a policy to rescind the final rule entitled “equal access in accordance with an individual’s gender identity in community planning and development programs” of september 21, 2016, 81 fr 64763, and shall submit for public comment a policy protecting women seeking single-sex rape shelters.
(c) the attorney general shall ensure that the bureau of prisons revises its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and shall ensure that no federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.
(d) agencies shall effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.
sec. 5. Protecting rights. The attorney general shall issue guidance to ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex and the right to single-sex spaces in workplaces and federally funded entities covered by the civil rights act of 1964. In accordance with that guidance, the attorney general, the secretary of labor, the general counsel and chair of the equal employment opportunity commission, and each other agency head with enforcement responsibilities under the civil rights act shall prioritize investigations and litigation to enforce the rights and freedoms identified.
sec. 6. Bill text. Within 30 days of the date of this order, the assistant to the president for legislative affairs shall present to the president proposed bill text to codify the definitions in this order.
sec. 7. Agency implementation and reporting. (A) within 120 days of the date of this order, each agency head shall submit an update on implementation of this order to the president, through the director of the office of management and budget. That update shall address:
(i) changes to agency documents, including regulations, guidance, forms, and communications, made to comply with this order; and
(ii) agency-imposed requirements on federally funded entities, including contractors, to achieve the policy of this order.
(b) the requirements of this order supersede conflicting provisions in any previous executive orders or presidential memoranda, including but not limited to executive orders 13988 of january 20, 2021, 14004 of january 25, 2021, 14020 and 14021 of march 8, 2021, and 14075 of june 15, 2022. These executive orders are hereby rescinded, and the white house gender policy council established by executive order 14020 is dissolved.
(c) each agency head shall promptly rescind all guidance documents inconsistent with the requirements of this order or the attorney general’s guidance issued pursuant to this order, or rescind such parts of such documents that are inconsistent in such manner. Such documents include, but are not limited to:
(i) “the white house toolkit on transgender equality”;
(ii) the department of education’s guidance documents including:
(a) “2024 title ix regulations: pointers for implementation” (july 2024);
(b) “u.S. Department of education toolkit: creating inclusive and nondiscriminatory school environments for lgbtqi+ students”;
(c) “u.S. Department of education supporting lgbtqi+ youth and families in school” (june 21, 2023);
(d) “departamento de educación de ee.Uu. Apoyar a los jóvenes y familias lgbtqi+ en la escuela” (june 21, 2023);
(e) “supporting intersex students: a resource for students, families, and educators” (october 2021);
(f) “supporting transgender youth in school” (june 2021);
(g) “letter to educators on title ix’s 49th anniversary” (june 23, 2021);
(h) “confronting anti-lgbtqi+ harassment in schools: a resource for students and families” (june 2021);
(i) “enforcement of title ix of the education amendments of 1972 with respect to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in light of bostock v. Clayton county” (june 22, 2021);
(j) “education in a pandemic: the disparate impacts of covid-19 on america’s students” (june 9, 2021); and
(k) “back-to-school message for transgender students from the u.S. Depts of justice, education, and hhs” (aug. 17, 2021);
(iii) the attorney general’s memorandum of march 26, 2021 entitled “application of bostock v. Clayton county to title ix of the education amendments of 1972?; And
(iv) the equal employment opportunity commission’s “enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace” (april 29, 2024).
sec. 8. General provisions. (A) nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the director of the office of management and budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) this order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) this order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the united states, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
(d) if any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
the white house,
january 20, 2025.
from — house, w. (2025, january 21). Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government. The white house. Retrieved august 17, 2026
~ ~ ~
trump’s maga beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers
for karoline leavitt and other women working for trump, the daily beauty routine can be exhausting
women working in donald trump’s white house were not surprised that press secretary karoline leavitt announced last week she was leaving her job — and they don’t think it was just because she wants to spend time with her young children.
in an interview with the daily mail, several anonymous white house employees spoke of the pressure that leavitt, executive assistant natalie harp and other female staffers are under to adhere daily to a “maga perfect” standard of beauty that requires a lot of time, energy and money. The beauty routine can involve daily hair blow-outs, time at the gym and regular botox treatments — on top of long hours and being available to a famously demanding president 24 hours a day, every day of the week.
“you have to be exceptional at your job, which is a given, but if you’re a woman you have to look a certain way, dress a certain way and be available 24/7, because this is a president who barely sleeps,” one “burned-out” white house staffer told the daily mail.
“add to that the pressure of a family at home, and it’s no wonder so many of us flame out,” the employee said.
it’s perhaps no coincidence that six women from trump’s inner circle have left since january, according to the daily mail. These women include director of national intelligence tulsi gabbard, attorney general pam bondi and homeland security chief kristi noem.
noem, especially, became known for adopting the maga aesthetic, which also has been likened to the ideal embodied by barbie dolls. Starting in trump’s first term, his oldest daughter and senior white house adviser ivanka trump often had barbie-related monikers attached to her. Noem, meanwhile, was dubbed “ice barbie” during her 14-month tenure, because of her habit of pairing her cascading hair and heavy makeup with uniformed bullet-proof vests while joining in immigration and customs enforcement operations.
the pressure on female white house staffers to adopt this look has came up since leavitt’s announcement, the daily mail reported. While trump’s “formidable press secretary” said she wanted to devote herself full-time to being a mother to her two young children, including to a daughter who was born in may, the daily mail suggested that she may not miss having to constantly live up to the idea of being a “maga glamazon.”
as trump rose to power in politics, the women around him — including his wife melania and daughter ivanka — became known for adopting an ultra-feminine appearance that’s become a recognizable aesthetic among pro-trump women. That generally means having cascading hair and wearing heavy make-up, as cultural critics at mother jones, the new york times and other news outlets observed. Maga woman also generally aspire to puffed-up lips, slim figures and long legs, which can mean getting surgical enhancements, spending time at the gym and carefully watching what they eat.
critics of trump say his ideas about female appearance stem from his misogyny. Trump likes attractive, “subservient” women in his orbit who lavish him with praise, according to anthony scaramucci, who famously served as the president’s communications director during his first term.
“remember, people are transactions to donald trump — they’re not people,” scaramucci told author nell scovell and host joanna coles on the daily beast podcast, explaining that the president sees the women around him as “transactions in his field of vision.”
looking a certain way to please trump can be especially challenging for younger aides who don’t make a lot of money, but who are still expected to pay for professional wardrobes and styling, the daily mail reported. “Most of the women at the white house get their hair blown out at least twice a week before work and then there is pressure to go to the gym and dress well,” a legal source said.
supporters of trump told the daily mail he’s not wrong to demand “a certain level of professionalism and beauty” because he’s a businessman and “has always believed that you need to dress to impress.”
these defenders also say trump himself doesn’t “force these women to have 6 a.M. Blow-outs or get plastic surgery or go on weight-loss drugs.” The source said the women do what they can to impress their boss.
“they get the botox and fillers because the white house is a competitive place,” the source said. “Everyone is vying for his attention. He’s the president of the united states, for god’s sake.”
from — ross, m. (2026, august 17). Trump’s maga beauty standards ‘exhausting’ for press secretary, female staffers. The mercury news.
august 17, 2026
hudson valley, new york
this is one of the words/ phrases you can’t say in the new trump regime. See a comprehensive list at the forbidden words project.
image: woman waiting © holly troy 7.2026
discover more from holly troy ~ sacred folly
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