Ugh. I won’t call it an ethics train wreck, because this is really another subset of the nation’s victim-mongering/tribal/white male vilification problem as well as the already running “DEI Ethics Train Wreck” and the “Trans Activism Ethics Train Wreck.”
Of course we have to have a Women’s History Museum. There are four historically “marginalized” groups, and women are the largest and longest suffering of them all. D.C. already has huge museum dedicated to African Americans, and there is a Smithsonian museum called the National Museum of the American Indian. Women have every right to feel snubbed in the current obsession with group identification. You know an LGBTQ+ museum on the Mall will be next: how could it not be?
Conservatives who argue, as one did in the comments to a recent online item about the museum, “[The museum] continues to foment the balkanization of America. The accomplishments of women are just that: accomplishments. Their fruits are enjoyed by all, not just by those of the gender/race/religion, etc of the person who made the accomplishment” are trying to lock the barn door after the horse has escaped and won the Kentucky Derby. This is “National Women’s Month.” The Democrats had a national convention celebrating “The Year of the Woman” (with Bill Clinton as a keynote speaker, but never mind…). Half of the arguments for voting for Hillary and Kamala was their lady-parts. We’re stuck with U.S. women seeing themselves as a special, separate, aggrieved and superior group for the foreseeable future, probably forever.
But there is a problem: the party that at least pretends to be the “party of women” can’t figure out what a woman is. This week House Democrats blocked legislation to establish the “Women’s History Museum” because of an amendment attached by Republicans stating, “The Museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States.”
Ethics Alarms 
I don’t see anything wrong with LI’s framing; it’s basically what they did, and explained in the first few lines of the article.
“House Democrats blocked legislation to establish a “Women’s History Museum” because of an amendment requiring the new institution to only honor real women, not gender-confused men.
“The Museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States,” the bill states.
The legislation forbade the museum from depicting a “biological male as female.”
But that wasn’t the Democrats’ framing, and the article was about their vote. They complained that the museum wouldn’t admit who they regarded as women, not as men. The headline was literally the opposite of their reasoning, and this could not legitimately follow “because.”
If you view the democats’ framing of some men as women as delusional or misleading, the LI headline would have to be considered factual, as the dims did vote against the legislation because it would exclude those men.
A dog only has four legs.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), said, “Let me be clear: the Museum should highlight the experiences of all women, including transgender women.”
Any politician uttering such nonsense should be run out of town on a rail.
jvb
Jack asked, “In other words, Caitlin Jenner will not be in the museum for winning a gold medal as Bruce. (Should [s]he be?)”
When this issue started in about 2011 or 2012, I asked that very question. Some esteemed commenters thought my question was ridiculous. Now, it does not seem so dumb, does it? If “transwomen” are real women, the Bruce Jenner’s Olympic records in the decathlon should be included in the women’s record book, even though the Olympics does not have a women’s decathlon event for reasons that escape me and I am too lazy to look it up.
jvb
Because I’m easily sidetracked…
Did you know that only three fillies have won the Kentucky Derby? In over 150 years, only 40 have run in it. We have a race just for fillies, The Oaks, the day before. The girls’ race is 1/8 mile shorter. In either race, the fillies carry 5 lbs. less than the boys do.
We will know we have reached peak whatever-this-current-nonsense-is when a colt is allowed to run in the Oaks because the trainer is sure he identifies as a filly.
Back on topic, I think the main problem with a museum for women is that I suspect it would choose who is honored based on politics more than who is actually deserving. The thing that would keep Caitlin Jenner out is that she votes Republican, not that she won gold as a male.
Caitlin didn’t identify during the Olympics, properly competed as a man, won gold as a man, and surgically transitioned years later. She gets my respect.