Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I thought the 1960's and 70's were when all the all-male universities and other organizations opened up to women. And that mostly groups left after that were those that had a functional reason for being all-male, i.e. male tenor-bass choirs. Or certain male "fraternal" organizations.
But magic obviously doesn't have any functional reason for being male, and it's about an activity (magic), it's not a fraternal organization. So how the heck did they go until 1991 before admitting women? That sounds crazy to me.
I was born in the early 1980s. My entire childhood was filled with people[1] explicitly telling me I can't do this-or-that because I was a girl. Other things I wasn't explicitly told I couldn't do, but I just thought weren't for me because they were zero women doing them.
I badly internalized some of it. I think I've gotten over it now though.
My first job was explicitly sex segregated, this was the late 90s. It was in a kitchen and they only had men do certain jobs even though literally every person in that kitchen was perfectly capable of doing every job, physically. Just some jobs were considered manly and given only to men. My female friend begged to be allowed to wash pots and pans, which was a "man's job" in our kitchen. She was told no, because she didn't have the correct genitalia to wash pots! She was eventually allowed to, after being persistent enough. Guess what? she could wash pots just fine, lol.
[1] the people included everyone but my parents.
Its 2024 and that day has not come yet.
For men, long hair is quite normalized (think viking look, metalheads), but women with short hair could need some action.
All the talk about “women are too emotional” or things like that have always been after-the-fact excuses.
Considering the subject matter of the organization it wouldn't surprise me if there were some other women pretending to be men who weren't kicked out. With really turnover being only 18mo in probably made her a boat rocking newb in the eyes of leadership at the time.
Nearly all organizations are intrinsically discriminatory, but the only valid (indeed, necessary!) discrimination is, "Does the person accept the unity of humanity and the need for a compassionate world society?"
One must always remember the importance of considering the paradox of tolerance.
Unfortunately, our daughter has learned that many women are crap, too, just not nearly as horrible overall as men.
Men (and many women, too) have long complained that women are not fit to be, for example, the POTUS, to which I say, "How much worse could a woman be than all those men?"
Now the organization wants to allow that same woman to join again, but they cannot find her apparently.
The pity is that most people are naive enough to believe that most other people are decent human beings. It took me nearly five decades to understand that I shouldn't project my basic sense of decency on others, which is a grave mistake as most people are just selfish, exclusionary morons who think they're on the 'expert' side of the Dunning-Kruger scale.
Selfless compassion in the small and in the large -- that's the solution to all Earth's problems.
But some people definitely are not decent human beings. Just like if you have a couple apples in the barrel that are spoiled you have to treat the whole barrel as spoiled, we have enough evil human beings to spoil the whole barrelful.
Global heating is caused by selfishness born of ignorance, and that ignorance is selfish for our currently untenable status quo, especially here in America.
A few people are not decent, and it only takes a small number of those to ruin it for everyone.
Exactly. The laws of the mob apply.
Gather a large number of decent people. Seed that mob with a small number of evil people. Now that mob is evil.
People who have no spiritual growth do not understand this fact. In fact, they deny it, even as it is happening right in front of their face.
Lack of spiritual growth prevents a person from comprehending the facts of evil. A person of worldly means usually has an even more difficult time apprehending such facts.
That a flat Earther has never looked through a telescope does not make their opinions fact, yet how they deny the truth, huh?
Unfortunately, that flies in the face of everything both science and religion say. It's a rare case when the two agree on a point, but this one is it.
(Unfortunately for your argument; fortunately for humankind.)
Not quite following your gist.
I disagree with you to some degree. Maybe I'm a slow learner (I've had 6 decades to learn my lesson) but I still find that most people do in fact want to be and do good. I find this often when I travel on the road, make myself a stranger in strange parts.
To be sure, I have been called Pollyanna, but I do wonder sometimes if in fact it isn't cynicism that is the problem with the world.
While we must work to establish a world society of compassionate service to one and all, we must also acknowledge the paradox of tolerance, and take that into consideration for how we manifest our compassion.
That a significant percent of America has just rejected truth and compassion in favor of lies, meanness, and bigotry is evidence enough of the stark truth, my friend.
If most means "over 50%", isn't that a contradiction? (people who assume others are good are probably good too)
In truth by far most people are good, but:
* we are held back by out human nature - tribalism, xenophobia, fear of things that are different
* there are indeed some bad actors who use this to their advantage
People are good by nature. Don't anyone let you convince you otherwise.
We each sit upon the razor's edge, with the free will to be how we are, each day anew, to embrace selfishness or selflessness.
That most people embrace the selfishness of their tribe is evident by world events, my friend. How many tribes embrace selfless service to humanity and have power in this world? Not nearly enough.
As Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
It is really difficult for us to see people who are very different from ourselves, and it is damn near impossible until we, ourselves, have leveled up our own personal ethics, morality, and understanding of what humanity entails.
Also I don't think it is stalking, when they did not even found her. If they did and she said go away, and they pressured on - that would be stalking. As of now, it is likely she does not even know about it.
Minor quibble: the current Magic Circle is not "different from the last one" because it is the same organisation—though it has obviously had a significant change of policy and a considerable turnover of membership in the three and a half decades since Sophie Lloyd was accepted as a member.
Indeed. Maybe that was the point?
Or well, I actually rather suspect the motive to be the planned movie about the events, which is in need of PR ..
So that's why we suddenly had a change of misogynists' heart after thirty three years.
Magic Circle needs this expelled members written consent to use their likeness in film.