Serena Williams & the bane of Left’s political correctness

“I’m here fighting for women’s rights and for women’s equality and for all kinds of stuff,” said tennis superstar Serena Williams, after she put on a display of foul temper, lack of grace, and poor sportsmanship at the US Open where she was defeated by 20-year-old Naomi Osaka.

We are to believe that the $3.8-million prize money and the chance to match Margaret Court’s record of 24 grand slam singles titles didn’t have anything to do with her ego-driven, boorish behaviour.

Unsurprisingly, Serena’s supporters went on to bat for her instead of censuring her for using the cause of women’s rights as an excuse for her behaviour. Liberal media outlets like CNN said Williams was “calling out sexism in tennis.” The Washington Post said she had “started a long overdue conversation.” Former tennis star Billie Jean King’s tweet in support of Williams spoke of “double standards” for men and women.

It is, however, far from clear how throwing tantrums, smashing your equipment, calling the umpire a thief, and destroying the dignity of sport is a fight for women’s rights. Moreover, how is it sexism if a player gets penalised for bad behaviour and rules violations when the advantage of the penalties goes to the opponent who is also a woman—one who was clearly the better player on the day.

How does Serena Williams get away with destroying the moment of celebration and glory for a 20-year-old female Japanese opponent by screaming about sexism and racism? How does the world of Social Justice Warriors join her in this? Clearly, it doesn’t matter to Williams’ supporters that Naomi Osaka was pushed into tears by a bully and denied her moment in the sun.

What the Williams fan brigade doesn’t want is a woman being seen by the world as a villain instead of a victim. The villainous woman is turned into a victim of men, and her rotten behaviour turned into a justified reaction against “male oppression.” What they want is that if John McEnroe was foul-tempered and ill-behaved on the court, then so should Serena Williams be allowed to be so, regardless of the rules of the game (never mind that McEnroe too was penalised for his outbursts.)

Apparently, for social justice warriors, this is not about the game, it’s not about good sportsmanship, it’s not about setting an example of taking defeat with dignity as part of the game, it’s not about celebrating the struggle, talent and success of the women who played better and won fair and square. The only thing that matters to them here is that there was a male umpire to blame, to label as a misogynist, to accuse of victimising a woman, despite the fact that the Naomi Osaka was the only true victim here. To these warriors, what Williams subjected Osaka to is completely irrelevant. Nor does anybody seem to care about the time when Williams bullied female umpire Eva Asderaki, calling her “ugly inside.” These “feminists” would never acknowledge the fact that sometimes it is women who end up oppressing women.

Interestingly, this comes at the same time as a controversy on a scientific paper by Theodore Preston Hill, who is professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Georgia Tech, and currently a research scholar in residence at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

In a piece for Quillette, Hill explains how his peer-reviewed paper was junked, all thanks to outrage from ‘academic activists’. Hill’s paper is focussed on the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis (GMVH) that essentially asserts that “there are more idiots and more geniuses among men than among women”. Which means that there is a much greater variation on specific traits among males than females across the animal kingdom, from snakes and fish to insects and apes; on everything from size to birth weights and adult body size to physical and mental capabilities. When it comes to human beings, it is well established that while on average men and women are equally intelligent, there are many more men at the extremes than women.

“There are significantly more men than women, for example, among Nobel laureates, music composers, and chess champions—and also among homeless people, suicide victims, and federal prison inmates,” as Hill puts it. Science knows that it is so. What is not understood is why it is so, why despite being equal on average, males are found in excess at the upper and lower ends of human mental capacity. But the Social Justice Warrior Left thinks it knows the answer: Toxic Masculinity and Patriarchy. 

According to these people, if more men are in jail, it’s because men are more wicked than women. If more men are homeless than women, it’s because they are more irresponsible. If more men are victims of suicide, it’s because men are emotionally weak. If there are more men in science and technology it’s because women are denied equal opportunities by the patriarchy. If there are more Nobel laureates, tech leaders and composers who are men than women, it’s because women have been oppressed and prevented from flowering in the sciences, technology and the arts by men.

These could hypothetically very well be the reasons for the Greater Male Variability. But does that mean that Hill should not be allowed to investigate the causes of GMVH in a scientific manner and present a mathematical argument based on biological and evolutionary principles? Hill’s paper was accepted for publication by a top Mathematics journal. Yet “activists” in the academic world made sure the paper was censored out of existence through organised harassment and threats of boycott to the journal that had published it.

Silencing a scientific study that contradicts Neo-Marxist viewpoints and agendas, though, is not new. The first victim was the brilliant Lawrence Summers, who was forced out as Harvard President in 2006 after a furore that erupted when he offered biological difference as the cause for the over-representation of men at the very upper end of science and mathematics.

Those who support Williams and the silencing of Hill should know this: This is not Liberalism and they are certainly not Liberals. Liberalism does not silence free inquiry and discourse for ideological reasons and then pretend that it’s for the sake of social justice. This is the corruption of what was once a genuine leftist movement for social justice. This is Post-Modern Neo-Marxist ideology as organised religion—wearing a mask of Liberalism.

Indeed the betrayal and destruction of the core values of Liberalism are reasons why the world is turning to the likes of Donald Trump and Jordan Peterson, and why the era of the attitudes epitomised by Barack Obama has come to an end.