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Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

theguardian.com

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Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#21

Post by MrMcCall »

fiftyacorn wrote: post #16

I like to think that prior to the ban the meetings were like the stoning in life of brian

I agree that that would be great, but -- as a man -- I'm painfully aware of the knuckle-dragging nature of most of our fellows.

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?"

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#22

Post by booleandilemma »

MrMcCall wrote: post #19

"I would never join a club that would have me as a member." --Groucho Marx 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-K…

I used to believe the same thing. The covid era opened my eyes to how many selfish assholes there are.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#23

Post by MrMcCall »

627467 wrote: post #14
lynx23 wrote: post #2

This sounds like borderline stalking. I am not a woman, but I have my experience with getting treated unfairly/getting patronized. And I never felt like I wanted to give a bad actor a second chance to talk down to me, even if they pretend to have good intentions. If you fucked someone over, you dont have the right to run after them. Leave them alone, stop confronting them over and over again with your own stupidity.

It's stalking and it's objectifying the person for publicity decades later. Failing to locate her privately and now doxing her name in a major paper

Yeah, it's just another symptom of the same damned disease.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#24

Post by crazygringo »

Wait -- the Magic Circle didn't admit female members until 1991?!

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.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#25

Post by MrMcCall »

crazygringo wrote: post #24

Wait -- the Magic Circle didn't admit female members until 1991 ?! 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 mal…

'Functional' reasons are in the eye of the beholder. Most people work at a far lower level than what a compassionate person considers functional.

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.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#26

Post by PittleyDunkin »

627467 wrote: post #13
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Americans, the best parallel is the Alliance of Magicians from Arrested Development.

Not the Academy of Magical Arts at Magic Castle?

Earnestly, they don't seem nearly messy enough.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#27

Post by MrMcCall »

booleandilemma wrote: post #22
MrMcCall wrote: post #19

"I would never join a club that would have me as a member." --Groucho Marx 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-K…

I used to believe the same thing. The covid era opened my eyes to how many selfish assholes there are.

The intensity of world events is nature's way of separating the wheat from the chaff.

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.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#28

Post by poincaredisk »

MrMcCall wrote: post #19

"I would never join a club that would have me as a member." --Groucho Marx 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-K…

>The pity is that most people are naive enough to believe that most other people are decent human beings

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.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#29

Post by astura »

crazygringo wrote: post #24

Wait -- the Magic Circle didn't admit female members until 1991 ?! 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 mal…

Doesn't surprise me even a bit.

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.

Re: Magic Circle tries to track down first female member – who posed as a man

#30

Post by [deleted] »

diggan wrote: post #6
AdrianB1 wrote: post #5

I don't understand the story, can someone explain? What I got is they try to track someone who was expelled for misrepresentation. Why? What is different today vs 30 years ago?

The organization first was male-only. A woman disguised herself as a man, and managed to join the organization. 18 months later, the organization stopped being male-only and would start accepting women to join too. The disguised woman undisguised herself, and the existing members got shocked enough that even if women were now allowed, they were so angry at her "deliberate deception" that she got kicked out regardless…

[deleted]
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