Imagining a world without men is a staple of a certain kind of bad feminist literature, e.g. Joanna Russ, in which invariably the only thing wrong with the planet is the presence of men. Without it, utopia would be nigh. They take this stuff seriously enough that they often come out and actually say it.

Meta Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has suggested Russia and Ukraine wouldn’t be at war if they were run by women.

“No two countries run by women would ever go to war,” Sandberg told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble in Dubai on Tuesday during a fireside at a Cartier event marking International Women’s Day.

But these days conventionalist feminist statements that would have been blandly cheered not all that long ago, like Jane Campion’s “you do not play against the guys like I have to”, are suddenly outrageous. And imagining all the men gone is no longer okay unless you make it clear that it’s only the straight white men who have vanished. Or at least the men who aren’t women’s champion swimmers.

Here’s the latest lefty cancel culture eating its own culture nonsense.

Hough said in an interview Monday that an editor had recently informed her that the nomination had been pulled, following a social media dust-up in which Hough had defended, at times heatedly, a forthcoming novel by the author Sandra Newman, a friend of hers, from criticism that it was transphobic.

The novel, “The Men,” which is set to be published in June, describes a scenario in which “all people with a Y chromosome mysteriously disappear from the face of the earth,” according to Newman’s publisher. Hough, who said she had read “The Men,” wrote on Substack that she had told the critics “to read the book before condemning it.”

Personally, I’m on Team Giant Volcano Should Swallow Up Everyone Involved In This. But nonetheless, it’s quite stupid. 

In her Substack newsletter, Hough said that she had discussed “The Men” with Newman, including “how to make the book recognize the reality of transgender people.”

“Other books that started from this premise — all the men disappear — have erased the existence of trans people, and it was important to her not to do that, to be as sensitive as possible,” Hough wrote. “So when I saw people assuming that simple idea was the entirety of the plot, I told them to read the book before assuming the worst.”

For this, she wrote, she was labeled a trans-exclusionary radical feminist — something she denied.

It’s hard for the men to become women if they’ve all vanished, maybe the book should have begun with an option allowing the men to identify as women and win swimming championships before they all vanish from the earth.

It’s the only sensitive thing to do.

My question though is what happens to Valerie Solanas’ literary legacy now. I hope the psychotic aspiring killer doesn’t get canceled.