Witch hunts in various forms are one of those recurring themes of human history. One variation, known as McCarthyism, has returned recently, at least in the lexicon. The word McCarthyism has been thrown around a lot lately. Like ‘fascist’ or ‘marxist,’ it is a part of the word arsenal deployed in our current culture wars.
Nadine Strossen, former president of the ACLU, joins Sasha to discuss a range of issues that revolve around freedom of expression including cancel culture, at-will employment laws, pornography, and the importance of speaking out to defend those who are under attack for exercising their freedom of expression.
Recently, Oklahoma University contributed their own stark example of how the core values of free speech and critical thinking are being misunderstood and misapplied in the spheres of what we call ‘higher education’.
We are proud to support Raquel with a grant from the Free Speech Fund, and we are always accepting applications from anyone who needs material support after being punished for their speech or subject to a hostile work environment due to their speech or beliefs.
For women, whether or not to call yourself a “feminist” has been a hotly-debated issue. Men have long pushed back against progress by branding any woman who resists patriarchy as a feminist — a word hurled often like a slur from the mouths of misogynists.
In. this episode, we have a conversation about why we do or not consider ourselves feminists. From victimhood to group based identity, we discuss several issues within feminist ideology as well as the value of taking on labels at all.
Kathleen Stock, professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex, joins Sasha for a conversation about her new book, Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism.
Last week Plebity awarded its most recent Free Speech Fund grant to Valerie Pelletier. Plebity thanks Jodi Shaw for her generous donation to our Free Speech Fund which makes our support for individuals like Valerie possible.
In February of 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was reaching Canada, a large Montreal women’s agency fired Valérie Pelletier because of allegedly “transphobic” posts on her personal Facebook account.