Girls, ladies, women you know what to do.

Code these nut jobs out (oh, and vote).

Where does it mention God-botherers? Strikes me that this is simple US-style Conservative politics, though granted the two often go together.

just... no, don't do that. Even if it is something I agree with. Unless it is a politics mailing list that I signed up for. I'm on the list for (insert activity I enjoy, like coding, role playing games, cycling, whatever).

(but then I do not know what the messages were - and in the US, I feel, people are really easily offended by things not matching their world view, and in other countries these things would be completeley inoccuous, and those movements that include "FREEDOM" in their name usually seem to try to curtail said freedom for, say, non-cis, non-white, non-male people, so it is similar to a "people's democratic republic").

The last sentence of the article has it. Stick to your mission and don't let it be associated with the hot button causes du jour.

No, the entire article has it, it's about how the right want to make other people behave, how they want to cancel anything that doesn't agree with their viewpoint and how stupid it gets when you start banning books.

The last sentence was the excuse for the stupidity.

It's not difficult to understand unless you're trying not to.

Girls Who Code's founder, Reshma Saujani, has pinned the ban on a group called "Moms for Liberty", which advocates for parental rights in schools and oversight of educational material.

Saujani detailed her reaction to finding the books on the PEN America list:

To be honest, I am so angry I cannot breathe. This series was our labor of love, our commitment to our community to make sure that girls – all girls – see themselves as coders. You cannot be what you cannot see, and this was our effort to get more girls, girls of color interested in coding. And it worked!!

Can you see the "hot button causes du jour" in her tweet?

the right want to (...) cancel anything that doesn't agree with their viewpoint

to be honest, I associate such behavior more to the "left" and "woke" brigade.

It's a bit confusing. Why do the books need to be banned to prevent a mailing list?

I can understand parents seeking to prevent certain political agendas being taught and promoted to their children, but the books sound perfectly reasonable and fine; isn't it possible to stick copies into the school libraries and discourage signing up to politicised mailing lists?

That's much too nuanced an approach. It has to be a simple binary, good/bad, because Goddess forbid a girl might get empowered.

No, once one bad book is in a School Library the whole thing has to be closed down to prevent infection, like with the mailing lists.

Reading a book does not automatically sign you up for a mailing list. Especially a book from a school library or that is taught in the classroom.

If the mother didnt like the mailing list, there is always an unsubscribe button. And since when do kids read anything from the mailing list?

This just another stupid excuse for getting a book banned because you dont like the authors...

.. and just look at Iran - it actually happens.

It happens in Islamic Theocracies, not in modern secular states.

" not in modern secular states "

Of course it does. Sanitary products (as an example) being expensive (prohibitively in cases), sports bras being incredibly expensive, preventing girls from taking part and succeeding in sports is just one example of how women are pushed down or at least blocked from having the same sort of access to sports as boys enjoy.

Misogyny isn't exclusive to religion.

The cost of those items is simply due to market forces that are part and parcel of capitalist economy. It's not some male conspiracy to prevent girls from succeeding in life.

Markets are a lot more complicated than two curves representing supply and demand. Also a market is not a natural phenomenon, rather it is a human creation and so is subject to all the prejudices and preconceptions that us humans are full of. Thus, the price of sports bras and sanitary products is not determined by some invisible hand. For example, here in Blighty, sanitary products are not zero rated for VAT and so are more epxensive than they need to be. Essential products are not supposed to carry VAT.

If you want to get pedantic - they've been zero-rated for over 18 months:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/tampon-tax-abolished-from-today#:~:text=The%20'tampon%20tax'%20has%20been,today%20(1%20January%202021).

"Misogyny isn't exclusive to religion."

+1 for that.

Obviously not but also completely missing the point actually made.

He specifically titled his post: "One day they will look at their daughters killed by the Moral Police..."

You can straw man with the best of them, obviously, but that was what I responded to.

Sure, but what about the USA?

Unfortunately the USA is rapidly moving from being a modern secular state to becoming a fundamentalist Christian theocracy.

But it does happen in medieval Christian theocracies, and that is where the US is heading towards.

A handful of states standing up to the woke bulldozer obliterating US culture does not indicate the US is becoming a Christian theocracy.

Muck, from Bob the Builder?

Reshma Saujani claims the ban originated with a group called "Moms for Liberty" but I cannot see any evidence that this is actually the case.

Perhaps they also need to ban cookery books, otherwise they might grow up to be chefs!

A woman in charge of a kitchen! Never!!!

A woman in charge of a kitchen ! Never!!!

No, No, No. A woman's place is in the kitchen, so of course they need cook books!

Just don't let them have the swanky ones that might make them think about becoming a professional chef. That's just not on...

/Sarcasm

They can memorise recipes, you don't want them reading!

This more and more seems to be where "the free world" is going; "freedom of expression advocacy" and "for liberty" groups banning books trying to empower the less privileged. And while we read those reports from the USA, Italy is joining the growing fascist/protofascist part of the EU.

As parent of two teenage kids, it's incredibly hard to find good books for them to read. Most fiction these days is formula product written by committees of staff writers in publishing companies and published under a fake persona. They usually come in trilogies with flashy covers, because it's more profitable. It will undoubtedly soon be replaced by AI-written drivel of even lesser quality.

Then you have the modern trend of supposedly inspiring books, they've usually won some prize or other, and international plaudits. The hero/heroine has to be from a disadvantaged minority group and have some kind of hardship in their life which they constantly struggle with. Served with large helpings of moral messages and politically correct box ticking. Seriously, what's wrong with just a good interesting and engaging story?

Then you have some real authors who are amazingly still writing novels, despite being very old. It often turns out that they have retired and sold their rights to a publishing company that repeatedly pushes out disappointingly poor imitations of the original author's work.

Good writing and storytelling is a hard skill which takes years to master and is unfortunately being lost to modern education standards and corporate profiteering. The best solution that I've found is to stick to older books.