Many things worthy of notice in this clip, in which the House Minority Leader appears to have broken protocol to waggle her finger and dish out a lecture while the Chair was recognizing someone else.
The content of what that someone-else was saying, actually, doesn’t interest me too much. I’ve heard it all before. I’m even less interested in what Minority Leader Pelosi said in reply. It is the posturing that has slowly come to be an emblem of the times in which we live, and that nobody seems to have taken the time to name, even in slang. How could we have overlooked this?
I suppose we have difficulty recognizing it’s even there. We have difficulty even recognizing we have the difficulty, so indoctrinated have we been, and for so long, on the feminist claptrap that women are only just now beginning to gather some semblance of influence. It’s just not true. Our society is built on the spectacle of shrewish, “strong willed” condescending women with piercing voices, dishing out lectures to slow-witted gullible boys. We have the spectacle pounded in to our heads all of our lives, whether we’re men or women. It’s expected. Progressive liberals who happen to be unpleasant women lacking in pulchritude, which is to say most among their political class, count on it. The default response to the finger-waggling from an unappealing woman in a pantsuit with a piercing voice, is to acquiesce. San Fran Nan, obviously, expects it.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton counted on it, and used it to prematurely end the grilling she was righteously being given for her screw-up. And, it should be noted, she used it successfully.
Can you imagine a masculine figure pulling this off? Ever? Think of, Sean Connery in the very first Jame Bond film, introducing himself at the casino as “Bond, James Bond” — being grilled in a U.S. Senate committee on some act of denseness and laziness on his part, that got four Americans killed, including an Ambassador. Dismissing the whole thing by throwing a giant hissy fit and wailing “What difference, at this point, does it make?” It wouldn’t even begin to work, because it wouldn’t make any sense. He’d be put in his place; told, yes it is outrageous that these four Americans died, that’s why you’re here. Now answer the damn question.
Most of the silliest stuff you see in our nation’s capitol can be explained in three words: “This shit works.” That’s why we keep seeing it over & over again. Call it what you will. Call it the “I’m an aggravated middle-age female and I’m getting more aggravated, you better back down.”
If we seek to shame it, we need to name the people who are using it, not the act itself.
PWSHNSSMWWTF (n.)
Pantsuit Wearing Scolding Harpy No Sane Straight Man Would Want to Fuck.
The point that deserves emphasis here is that the PWSHNSSMWWTF wields, not miniscule influence or waning influence, but practically infinite influence. People are raised from childhood to listen to the shrewish yard duty teacher telling them don’t-do-that. They’re conditioned to immediately knock off whatever it is they’re doing. We have a whole political class that has learned to play the game, to literally put on the pantsuit and start screeching. Just like baby birds who got the worm that way. Well, like I said. This shit works.
It’s a lie within a lie within a lie. Women are not just now catching up in the “I get to end the argument the way I want” department. They’ve been way out in front, for generations.
And out of necessity, one might add. You’re supposed to listen to your Mother. What pandemonium would ensue had we been conditioned by natural forces toward any other behavior:
Still, I’m glad to see Congressman Marino is not caving. From what I’ve read about it, seems Minority Leader Pelosi was saying — repeating — some very silly stuff. Some boring bromide lacking in useful definition, about “immigration reform” or something.
Yes, you should listen to your Mom. Maybe your shrewish yard-duty teacher too. Hall monitors and those possessing the mentality, I’m not so sure about that.
But it has not escaped my notice, that when advocates of a political position or public policy idea start playing the “I’m an aggravated middle-age woman and I’m getting more aggravated so you better back off” card…start waggling those bony fingers…when they start playing PWSHNSSWWTF…the ideas they are advancing are execrable. It seems what they’re trying to defend is never, ever defensible; what they’re trying to stop is never, ever a bad idea, at least not in the way they’re portraying it. And what they’re trying to promote is always foolish.
It only takes one exception to undue such strident statements. And there may be one, but I’ve not seen it.
And so, just maybe, if an idea really is a good one — it might not be so out of the question to perhaps produce a person willing to take the soapbox and speak out in favor of the idea, who is easy on the eyes? And ears? Maybe even wearing a pretty dress. Or else let’s invoke the “Morgan Rule” about sexism, the “If I’m gonna be accused I wanna be guilty”…and say, get a dude to do it. Any one of those.
But spare us the pantsuits and the lecturing and the screeching and the waggling of the bony fingers. Not because the ideas are consistently bad, but because the image, in addition to being unpleasant, has become boring. Enough of this. I had to wait fifteen years or more for young men to stop wearing droopy jeans that expose their ass cracks. Time for this fad to fade into the oblivion of history as well. Or at least, it would be, if they let me decide that stuff.
But I only get to decide things for me. Nevertheless: When I see the image, my first thoughts are: 1) dumb, bad idea; 2) stalwart extreme let-winger, selling a dumb, bad idea; 3) ow, my ears. That’s what I think first. If I listen further, I don’t often see much reason to reconsider any of it. And I doubt I’m alone. Sorry, am I discriminating against ugly women in pantsuits? That’s not as bad as discriminating against pretty women, is it.
