Archive for the ‘Flogs’ Category

Does “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” Need a Subplot About Female Ninjas?

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Tom Schlegel, Taki’s Magazine, “Feminist Delusions About Children’s Fairytales.”

Feminist sensibilities have brought us heroines such as Samantha on Sex and the City: materialistic, self-obsessed, defined by work and, oh yes, someone who abandons a man to find a more experienced male model.

The argument goes something like this: Women are seeking out divorce in record numbers because there isn’t enough husband material with Fabio hair, a noble steed, and a return address that simply says THE CASTLE.

Stories are the best way to teach. Even the transvestite hookers on Sex and the City understand that.

I’ll take Sleeping Beauty any day. At the end of her story she knows that our behavior has good and bad consequences that affect the people around us.
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The Little Mermaid taught us we need to sacrifice for the one we love. The problem here isn’t the fairytale’s message. No, the trick is in teaching our daughters how to recognize good men from bad ones.

Thankfully we have Little Red Riding Hood, who shows us that sometimes the sweetest tongue is also the sharpest.

By the way—that schlub you’re about to divorce could be the real Prince Charming. Just so happens he’s prematurely bald, allergic to horses, and castles are out of his price range.

“Femisogynists”

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Fellow Right Wing News contributor Lori Ziganto from Snark & Boobs guests on Smart Girl Nation. They take on the people who call themselves “feminists” who actually hate women. The result is awesomesauce.

Download MP3

“I’m tired of having them say they speak for us when they absolutely do not.”

“They seem to not like womanhood as a whole.”

At about 8:00, the comment that is being discussed about checking under skirts, is by Tennessee State Rep. Janis Baird Sontany: “You have to lift their skirts to find out if they are women. You sure can’t find out by how they vote!” Niiiiiiiice. So apparently all the chicks are supposed to vote the same way or else there’s something wrong with ’em and you need to look under their skirts.

4. That it isn’t really about empowering women to choose things. Whenever feminism brings women a choice, feminism wants women to make the choice a certain way, so it isn’t really bringing them the choice.

From my list of things people say about feminists (which feminists could prove wrong every hour of every day if they chose to…but they don’t).

What They Say About Feminists

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

Consider it a public service. I notice in the last few years that feminists have become so outspoken, so rugged, so courageous, so capable and so tough, that they’re now scared to death to sustain a conversation with a non-feminist for any length of time. And by that, I mean someone outside of their militant movement, not someone who seeks to repeal womens’ suffrage. They have very passionate opinions about the issues of the day, but if you talk with them about it you quickly realize they’ve only been discussing them with other militant feminists.

It’s like they’ve been living inside a circle as it has been constricting.

The tragedy of it is, when you talk about the broad definition of “feminist,” most women qualify for that, or want to, and they should. These are the women who say: Yes, I am ready to really count, I am ready to embrace the responsibility that comes with being important. I refuse to raise my daughter to be a second-class citizen. That is supposed to be the goal. But in the twenty-first century, that isn’t really what feminism is anymore. Lately it seems in order to be a “proper” feminist, you have to subscribe to and promote a victimology. Individuals cannot meet up with challenges and simply overcome them; that is far too simple. There has to be a villain somewhere. And the villain can only be vanquished by a collective, not by an individual. The movement must be nourished, it must grow, and then we’ll all get what we want when we show numbers and our anger.

The feminists who have become strident and militant, however, have trouble understanding how their precious “movement” could ever be seen in a hostile light. They’re blind to it, because they’ve been living in a bubble in which nobody’s allowed to ever acknowledge it. They have not been policing their own.

And so they must reckon with the following dozen things people say. Of course they may choose not to; they can persist in the “If You Don’t Agree With Us About Everything You Must Think Women Are Property So Fooey On You.” They have that choice. But if they go that route, this yawning divide between hostile, brittle, extremist militant feminists, and everybody else, will just become wider and deeper.

Here is what establishment feminists have a chance to disprove, if they try. People outside the movement say:

1. That it will abandon women as soon as defending them would get in the way of promoting a progressive agenda; “feminists” proved this when they defended Bill Clinton. The movement’s credibility suffered an injury during that time, from which it has never fully recovered.
2. That it’s just another ploy to get democrats elected. Some entitlement program will be proposed, and “since women are always stuck with the kids” it’s supposed to become an “issue affecting women.” Of course, when it comes to “the environment” they don’t even bother to come up with a justification. Instead, “environmental issues” become “womens’ issues” as well, as if men don’t have to live in the environment.
3. That it has very little to do with a more important role for women; it’s really about greater power and prestige without the associated responsibility. It is an organized process of collective bargaining, to make it more profitable for women to get married, have kids, and get divorced. And so over time it does not make women more respected. It does not invigorate womens’ intellect because it does nothing to challenge it. Women must go above feminism if they want to make themselves more rugged, intelligent, capable and esteemed.
4. That it isn’t really about empowering women to choose things. Whenever feminism brings women a choice, feminism wants women to make the choice a certain way, so it isn’t really bringing them the choice.
5. That abortion is quite a profitable industry — in fact, it’s about as male-dominated as any other — and feminism is in bed with it. People who call it “pro-abortion” rather than “pro-choice” are, for the most part, absolutely right.
6. That they aren’t very curious about ideas, not very well-read. They hang out with other feminists. They frequently fall prey to False Consensus effect, and are very often taken by surprise with what non-feminists really think. Mosts feminists will find this list shocking and waste no time and saying so.
7. That it fails to promote individuality because it fails to encourage logical discourse. They do not argue logically. If a feminist disapproves of something, usually her reaction will be to rally other feminists around her and they’ll all help each other to ridicule and deplore it. Invariably, that will be the feminist reaction to this list.
8. That they are interested in complaining, not about learning. All feminists step forward, now anybody who hasn’t learned to drive a stick shift step back. There won’t be many left.
9. That it’s hostile and negative. Women earn scorn from “feminists” when they do something nice for a man, place importance in a man, say something nice about a man, dress up for a man.
10. That it has a lot of scope creep to it but it doesn’t want to be called out on it. Their two favorite issues actually would diminish the role of women in our society — gay marriage and abortion-on-demand — and if you utter a peep of protest, suddenly all they want to talk about is how they want to give women the right to vote, as if we were still living in 1910.
Women Are Not For Decoration11. It is divisive. It has to be; when you’re protesting that Congress is 80 percent male, or whatever it is, you’re saying it’s impossible for someone in Congress to represent constituents of another gender. Without that baseline premise their argument falls flat, and with it, they have to be placing men and women in two separate societies.
12. That it is rude. It associates itself with jokes about female body parts. It encourages young ladies to behave in ways that will repel male attention when they’re in their twenties (and bring it when they’re about eight).

I think what’s been going on for the last generation or so is this: Someone will occupy a position of great influence within an organization of militant feminism, and at some point this person will have to retire; of the candidates available to fill the vacancy, the more “energetic” candidate will prevail, which generally means the more hostile one. And so across the decades, the movement pickles. The people inside it cannot see it, and they end up mystified as to why their movement is losing sympathy with the broader populace.

Most of the feminists I’ve talked to who are really enthused about crusading under the banner of that “F” word, are filled with admiration for Hillary Clinton and scorn for Sarah Palin. This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever. They cannot explain why this is. Of course, they know the reason and I know the reason too.

But if you were to bring me to a space alien who was interested in our culture, and feminism, and he was able to understand all the concepts that were really relevant but was entirely ignorant of recent events, and Republicans-and-democrats…I wouldn’t be able to explain it to that space alien. You wouldn’t either. Not without a word-for-word explanation involving that Item #2 — which, of course, would tick off the militant feminists.

And then if they could hear that conversation, they’d lose no time at all in invoking Item #7. It would become very noisy.

And so the word is losing meaning. It has a broad definition and a very narrow one. The narrow definition of “feminist” is becoming acrid and vituperative. It has been marinading in victimology, and in victimology you always have to have a bad guy behind every problem. Bad things cannot simply happen, nor can they be solved without lots and lots of drama. The persons who have been living in this world, I’m afraid, are becoming useless to others and to themselves. Their efforts are not compatible with their stated goals.

The problem is even more pronounced with men. Men can be feminists; men can be both kinds of feminist. Men without a progressive bone in their whole bodies can get plum-tuckered-out of dating dim, helpless women and become hungry for someone more worthy, responsible and competent. And men can also become self-loathing. They can sign onto the Sally Field nonsense and codswallop about “If mothers ruled the world, there wouldn’t be any G*****mned wars in the first place.” It’s a real puzzle for a fella when he meets a woman who says something like “I’m a feminist, are you a feminist too?” That could mean just about anything.

Maybe it’s time for a different word.

Women on Top?

Saturday, June 12th, 2010

Chris Wysocki has an excellent round-up of our post-modern feminists lately going batshit-crazy. This is useful right now, because this week a whole lot has been happening at once and you need to be looking in a lot of directions to see how nutty it all is.

The people who call themselves “feminists” are filled with hate, looney-tunes, and they’re acting that way. There is very little unusual about this, in & of itself. What’s different about this week is that their grip on sanity has so weakened that they cannot even act to preserve their precious movement. This is why I call them, not “feminists,” but “the people who call themselves ‘feminists’.”

Treated Like ChildrenLet’s just be refreshingly blunt: This is not a pro-woman movement. It’s just another gimmick to get liberal democrats into office and to keep them there.

ReelGirl is pretty pissed about me pointing this out. She insists that “Morgan seems unable to listen to logic” but this reveals a failure to keep track of her own argument, because any discourse that ensues from “Keep mean girls out of office” is going to be inherently illogical. If logic is your lodestar, then what’s up with this business of adjudicating meanness? It’s just a way to change the subject. We can’t afford sound policies, we can’t afford logic or common sense, we have to keep the mean people out of office.

I pointed out that if the message is “We cannot afford to consider replacing Barbara Boxer because her challenger is a meanie-cow,” it doesn’t resonate much because Sen. Boxer is a very poor archetype of nice-ness. And that’s being charitable.

You guessed it. I’m on the attack now. I’m a sinister, shadowy, menacing remnant of the patriarchy…and the feminists are recoiling, like a 1950’s housewife climbing up atop a chair to escape a mouse. Eek!

How do you get more thin-skinned than that. Seriously. Try to envision a way. You can’t. This is a movement to empower women?

After winding up my vacation with my girlfriend, who is properly deferential to my masculine will on matters where she knows she should be, although she’s quite strong willed and anything but a wallflower, we headed back into town (the man driving of course), and pulled into Hooters for a big ol’ mess of hot wings. We briefly reflected on this Internet dust-up, and how the owner of the flog is threatening to ban me. It was then I realized something:

I have been arguing with left-wing twits on some kind of networking computer system for twenty-four years now. To my knowledge, I have yet to be banned from anything.

It’s not that I see getting banned as a badge of honor, but a quarter century without having it happen certainly doesn’t command any bragging rights. My God, all the mental instability I’ve seen out there in all that time. Someone should have banned me by now. If this is where my cherry gets popped, I’d say it’s way overdue.

ReelGirl doesn’t seem too interested in dialogue; flog-posters typically are not. I point out the many inconsistencies with what’s been said, and they go away and I figure I’ve killed the whole conversation. And then a whole day later someone comes back and tut-tuts me, demands to know of my military service record or embarks on some other similar tangent.

If they do it again I’m gonna go all Cartman, and tell them to get their fat asses back in the kitchen & make me a pie. If you don’t see why, go back and read Wysocki’s piece from top to bottom. Republican women are pulling off exactly the kind of revolution feminists say they want, and far from celebrating or throwing a ticker tape parade, they’re crying in their Ben & Jerry’s.

Like I said. It’s just another ploy to elect democrats. It’s been reduced to that and nothing more for a very long time now; every now and then we get a stark reminder of it, and it’s up to us to decide whether to pay attention to it or not. We just got another reminder.

P12Update: Forgot to make a note of it. Everything said from their side on that site, is pure garbage. Every single speck. But there is something revealing and notable in what one of ’em said…others have commented on it before. The graphic that has been in the sidebar on & off for quite awhile now, and has been a constant fixture since the year began. Wonder Woman, side profile, in an action pose, slightly altered to look like Sarah Palin. This brings down thundering disapproval because it is a testament to my “shallow thinking.”

Purest bile, purest nonsense — because if my politics were more in line with theirs and I used exactly the same graphic, the graphic would “reveal” entirely different things. I know it, they know it, everybody knows it, they know everybody (who cares) knows this.

Ever watch a Justice League cartoon? Wonder Woman never really has been just-another-super-heroine, has she. She can’t be, because she was endowed by her mother with the powers of all the Greek gods, including love and wisdom. She negotiates before she fights, but once she’s started fighting she’s all-in, and she’s in it to win it. She does not need any experts to tell her whose ass to kick, she figures it out. She’s a natural leader, possessing both power and judgment. When the other members of the JLA are quarreling like little kids, she’ll put a stop to it. She possesses perhaps the greatest potential, out of all of them, to come up with the most constructive resolution to whatever the problem is. She may even surpass Superman in this respect.

This is not a justification for Heather or for ReelGirl to be reading. They don’t need it. Like I said: They’d see this aspect immediately, on their own, if only my political leanings resembled theirs. (Of course, to make that happen, the reference would have to be to someone besides Palin…but still.)

But I lean right and they lean left. So all that matters is Wonder Woman’s flowing hair, her generous heaving bosom, her succulent bare thighs, and her curvy, sensuous, beautiful star-spangled rear end. Things I personally hadn’t ever even noticed before, myself.

ReelGirl spoke of logic. They’re not really using it over there. They’re “thinking” with their emotions, and this is precisely the trouble into which one gets. You look at things, and before you see what’s really there, you see what you want to see. Your God-given powers of managing your own senses to interact with your environment, naturally deteriorate. Notice that your intellect is not diminished in this way; it simply becomes irrelevant, because you’re only going through the motions of taking information in and not really doing it.

Update: Fellow Right Wing News contributor Kerrie Heretic comments on the nationwide sweep:

Also, as you skim through the Wysocki piece, don’t miss the link to Blogsister Cassy’s spot, she does a very nice job of capturing the widespread psychosis.

We really need to make a record of this and see to it it’s preserved in our long-term collective memory. It’s important. “Feminists” are saddened, shocked, appalled, disappointed…as women on the conservative side are making an historic advancement. Whatever they have in mind for a vision of what’s supposed to happen in our society, this is not it.

Their agenda, agree with it or not, is hidden because it must be. They cannot be trusted.

Update 4/13/10: Lori Ziganto’s post at David Horowitz’s blog contained a graphic I could not resist swiping.

Got a feeling it’s going to come in handy. Again and again.

Jeans Are Sexist

Saturday, August 29th, 2009

I’m going to go ahead and link this one without comment, too.

Because feminists don’t have much to legitimately complain about, they have to resort to making up sexism. They can go so far as to even find it in different styles of jeans. (No, I’m not kidding.)

Okay, forget the creepy “modelquins” commercials for a second. Old Navy has managed to once again be condescending to its customers. They have added a new style to their ridiculously named women’s jeans that neatly packages their women customers into brightly colored, cotton, female stereotypes.

Previously, you could be slutty (the Flirt ), a doormat (the Sweetheart ), or a bitch (the Diva ). Now you can be The Dreamer.

In other words, you’re fat and you better push those curves into the appropriate shape.

Cause if you don’t, you’ll only get to daydream about a boyfriend to steal jeans from when you would rather not be a slutty, doormat, bitch.

These are cuts of jeans that this feminist is complaining about. Here is how Old Navy actually describes them.

The Dreamer: classic-rise jeans that sit at your waist, are straight through the hip and thigh. Have a front panel that slims the tummy and a no-gap band for full coverage in the back.

The Flirt: mid-rise jeans that sit right below the waist, are straight through the hip and thigh.

The Sweetheart: classic-rise jeans that sit at your waist, are relaxed through the hip and thigh.

The Diva: low-rise jeans that sit on your hips, are slim through the hip and thigh.

The Weekend: low-rise jeans that sit low on your waist, and have a relaxed boyfriend fit.

Yes, I can clearly see how these five styles translate to fat, slut, doormat, and bitch. It’s SO obvious. That girl isn’t reading too much into it at all!

D’JEver Notice? XXXVI

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

Another post at Feministing, and this is among the one-outta-ten posts that do not confine themselves to that erstwhile topic of “I hate this thing over there so much, help me hate it.”

Which of course can mean only one thing: Celebrating the killing of unborn babies. No, not just celebrating; today’s feminists don’t stop at celebrating, nor does Jessica Valenti. Crusading for more people to do it, and to do it casually. Up to, and past, the point of giving people instructions about whether they are supposed to feel sad or not.

In another win for reproductive justice this week, a federal judge called a South Dakota anti-choice law – which mandates that doctors tell women seeking abortions that the procedure increases the risk of suicide and suicidal thoughts – “untruthful and misleading.”

On the suicide issue, Schreier was convinced by multiple studies showing women who get abortions have no increased risk of suicide. The state provided arguments, but no evidence, to the contrary, she said.

“Because such a risk is not ‘known,’ the suicide disclosure language of the statute is untruthful and misleading,” Schreier wrote.

You know, because there is no link between abortion and depression.

The bad news?

But the judge upheld a portion of the informed consent law, which says abortions “terminate the life of a whole separate unique living human being.”

Well, I’ll take a small victory. For now.

Keep plugging away Jessica darling; You’ll be able to define humans out of existence any year now. You’re James Taggart, and I’m afraid what happened to him in the last few pages is what is one day going to happen to you, for precisely the same reason. I don’t want to see it happen but I don’t see how it can be avoided.

Ever notice this about the modern feminist movement? It’s supposed to have something to do with re-making our society, solidifying the role of women who live in it. So that they remain important to us, and our society becomes culturally encouraged to recognize that importance; to offer them the dignity they deserve.

And in its most recent phases of evolution, what are the two most indispensable positions? They are head & shoulders above all the rest: pro abortion, and pro gay marriage.

Those are the two positions most emphatically antithetical to the role of women in our society. The two positions most assured to belittle them, to confine their labors to things men could do just as capably. To condemn the female sex to roles most marginal, most replaceable, and least respected…at least when compared to motherhood. Feminism is supposed to make the female vibrant and vital, and yet as the years go on by it continues to nurture this petulant, pissy resentment against motherhood.

Pro abortion…pro gay marriage.

Some “feminist” movement you’ve turned out to be.

No Such Thing as Work-Life Balance

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

You know how feminists work. Just listen to a fair sampling of them argue any one of a number of things, for a few minutes. “I find this thing over here reprehensible; help me abhor it.” That, when you snip off all the meaningless trivialities and throw ’em in the gut bucket, get down to the bare essentials, is an accurate illustration of all modern feminist argument. About anything.

This week Ann at Feministing got all twisted off about a rather frank comment from former General Electric CEO Jack Welch about women taking off from work, raising kids for up to a year or so, coming back and having a shot at being The Boss way up tippy top. Ann’s pretty cranky. She calls the comment “pretty astounding,” and in feminist parlance you know exactly what that’s supposed to mean. Well I guess she should be somewhat torqued. Welch pulled no punches; none at all.

…Welch recently declared that moms who take time off to stay at home with their children don’t have a chance at becoming CEOs when they return to work.

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance,” Welch told the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual conference in New Orleans on June 28. “There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.”

A Wall Street Journal article offers up a summary of Welch’s words that day:

Mr. Welch said those who take time off for family could be passed over for promotions if “you’re not there in the clutch.”

“The women who have reached the top of Archer Daniels, of DuPont, I know these women. They’ve had pretty straight careers,” he said in an interview with journalist Claire Shipman, before thousands of HR specialists.

“We’d love to have more women moving up faster,” Mr. Welch said. “But they’ve got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one.”

Taking time off for family “can offer a nice life,” Mr. Welch said, “but the chances of going to the top on that path” are smaller. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have a nice career,” he added.

Now if you actually click open that WSJ article, you find a fair sampling of educated opinions about this…and a plurality of them agree with Welch.

Sandra Brangan, vice president of administration at Accountants International, a unit of staffing firm Randstad Holding NV, says Mr. Welch’s comments are realistic. “When people are not visible, it does hurt,” she says, praising his bluntness. “That’s not the popular thing to say.”

Kim Ruyle, vice president of leadership and talent consulting at executive recruiters Korn/Ferry International, agrees. “I think it’s absolutely true,” he says. “You can bet that people don’t get to the corner office unless they make some tough choices.”

My own thoughts? I’m not moderate. Quite to the contrary, I’m just completely aghast that there can be any disagreement about this, political-correctness or not.

The hypotheticals with which readers are challenged, have to do with taking off from work for a year or two. For cryin’ in the sink. For twenty-four months, you think the business concern won’t be facing some kind of a crisis? The prospective female boss takes off, goes home, does that “tough” work, the “most important work there is” — and hey, in all seriousness I’m a big fan of that line of thinking. It’s true. Being a Mom is the most important work there is.

But still. Meanwhile, back at the office there’s a crisis. You’re not there. Someone else is. And it’s no fun for them…but there are some tough decisions to be made, decisions that require a real education about what’s goin’ on day to day, and a real personal sacrifice to get that education. Someone will be there to get it all done, while you’re being a Mom…

…and at the end of two years of that, you just want to show up and take “your” place at the top of the org chart? What. The. Hell. That is precisely the kind of personal disrespect that is tolerated only because it is targeted at the “correct” groups of people.

Unless, of course, you’re talking about some business that can go 730 days without any kind of a real crisis. I’m sure there could be some of those, somewhere. But then, what kind of prestige is supposed to be commanded by being the boss of a company like that?

But be that as it may. Your mission is clear. Log in. Help Ann get mad at Jack. She needs you. Again.

“The Tent Sure is Tiny”

Friday, June 19th, 2009

Amen to that, Melissa. Today’s organized feminists have something wrong with them. They’re getting my OCBASASBDII acting up (Obsessive Compulsive Bullshit Alphabet Soup Acronym Shopping and Behavioral Disability Invention Impulse) as I try, in vain, to meaningfully comprehend what is going on upstairs that stops them from acting like normal, decent, clear-thinking human beings. They’re bringing up the thoroughly debunked urban legend about Sarah Palin and the rape kitsagain. And they’ll do it again and again, anytime Palin’s name is brought back into the news and the general public reaction isn’t already quite as negative and visceral as they’d like it to be.

Meghan McCain, next time you want the Republicans to become more inclusive, I have a suggestion on where else you can swivel your spotlight, you lover-of-big-tents-you. Melissa’s onto something here. You’re needed Mrs. Peel!

Feminists aren’t about defending women, and therefore, they aren’t about defending any other demographic group. They aren’t even about progressive policies; for if they were, it’s reasonable to expect they’d pick some policies that accentuate, rather than diminish, the worthiness and importance of women in our modern society. Abortion? Gay marriage? Those aren’t them. No, they are about finding an outlet for a destructive psychological impulse — the impulse to define anomalous persons as undesirable aliens, separate them, ostracize them, destroy them.

They are at the epicenter of a storm that has engulfed many in this late era. After my Bullshit Behavioral Disability Invention Impulse really gets going, I might think of some letters I can arrange into a cutesy acronym to describe it…or I might not…busy weekend ahead, and all. But the problem that afflicts so many appears to be — a long-accumulated stockpile of skills and long-refined personal drive to destroy things, leaving the sufferer feeling unfulfilled and burdened with a burning, unspoken desire to pretend to be creating something.

One Revolution AwayIn this way, they share a malady with the Obamabots. And they, in turn, with the environmentalists. And all those three, in turn, with all the most powerful progressive-politic types in general. They all have this in common: Meaningless cliches tossed out to suggest something wonderful and grand is being built, but if you watch them across a meaningful length of time you see all they do is destroy things. By now, it’s safe to say that if you don’t have this sickness, you aren’t running anything. Nothing so big that it’s assured to come out on top of things.

That is the root cause of what ails feminism lately, and it’s a far-flung widespread sickness now. All these people perched, like vultures on fence posts in some long-abandoned ghost town, ready to point, to heckle, to invent sordid tales about rape kits, to slander, to excoriate, to shun, to fling their insults. To do as much damage as they can to a designated target…once it’s been designated. All that poo just ready to be flung. And interspersed with all that scat, with all the bile, are these meaningless but carefully-chosen focus-group tested catchphrases that suggest constructing something. “Together we can do this” and all that.

Left to be discovered: Do they have some creative energies that are frustrated with the lack of an outlet? Is it possible that a desire to create can share a single human host with such a passionate impulse to destroy? Or are they wholly lacking in creativity…seeking to find new ways to offer a convincing illusion of something that isn’t there?

It’s late June now. Throughout this year, those who so overwhelmingly won an election — by slandering women, among other things, thereby “uniting” with the feminists one could have reasonably presumed wouldn’t have had their fancies so tickled — have constructed absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but staggering debt…and a vegetable garden.

It’s a sweeping epidemic. It’s obviously quite contagious. And deadly. You were worried about Swine Flu?

What Feminists Want Men to Do

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Nugget of Wisdom I left at Cassy’s blog. The subject under discussion is a feminist who hates, hates, hates people paying too much attention to her overly-large breasts.

Angry brittle feminist (language not suitable for a general audience):

Hello, good friend/acquaintance/classmate/stranger. I’m just writing to let you know that I am in fact aware that my breasts are big. Thanks.

I mean, I’ve only been living with them for years. But thank you, person/classmate-who-I-may-or-may-not-know-particularly-well-and-don’t-necessarily-feel-comfortable-with for informing me. Your comment about my chest really spurred meaningful and insightful conversation and didn’t embarrass or dehumanize me in the slightest. I feel incredibly respected.

No but seriously. Don’t tell me to, “put them away,” or notify me that you could probably swipe a credit card through my cleavage. I don’t want to hear it. If my bra is visible and you would like to enlighten me of that fact, that’s fine, but making a “hilarious” comment about my breasts because you somehow feel that it’s appropriate or because you “only want to give me a compliment” ISN’T charming. What it tells me is that you’re more interested in discussing cup size than anything I may have been able to add to our conversation.

And another thing, wearing a low-cut shirt doesn’t give you the right to comment either. I’m sorry if I’m showing cleavage, that must be really difficult for you, but I’m sure you can move your eyes about six inches to the north . It is NOT my fault that you think yourself incapable of doing the simple task of looking at my face. And NO, wearing a low-cut shirt does not mean I’m “asking for it,” no matter how many people may have told you so. Please desist.

This may seem harsh, but I have HAD IT with STRANGERS and even CLOSE FRIENDS of both genders thinking it’s entirely normal to say, “Wait, oh my God, but you have really big tits,” in the middle of a conversation. And I’m fucking sick of letting such inconsiderate assholery get to me.

With the most sincere “go fuck yourself” I can muster,
Phoebe

Cassy’s wisdom:

I know what it’s like to have these kinds of comments. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s creepy, and most of the time it’s inappropriate. But guess what? People do not always behave perfectly, and life is not going to fit into this perfect little model of what you want it to be. I have had all kinds of comments from men and women alike about my boobs, and I certainly do not carry around this baggage, thinking about how horrible it is and what a victim I am…My freshman year of high school, when I first started — ahem — developing there were two boys who rode the bus with me who used to say stupid shit like that all the time. It got them nowhere and did nothing to me beyond getting me to roll my eyes and call them some name, probably the equivalent of today’s “assclown”. And then I went on about my day. I never felt like these guys were acting like terrible men trying to keep me, a woman, down. I thought, “Gee, what immature assholes.” And then I’d forget about it. Stressing about it and dwelling over it so much that you have to write a blog post about it is pathetic.

Because you know, letting someone define you by their insults says more about you than it does about them.
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The other part of her post that I found interesting was how she apparently didn’t like people staring or even mentioning her breasts, even when she says herself she’s wearing low-cut shirts. Honey, if you wear low-cut tops with your boobs hanging out, people are gonna look. They just are. Either learn to deal with it or cover up more, because there will never, ever be a complete absence of people ogling a woman with large breasts. There are simply some people who will just look, and it’s our responsibility to find a way to handle the situation. Oh, and if there are so many people pointing out your boobs, it may not be a compliment. They might be trying to tell you something — as in, “Um, Phoebe? Your boobs are like, huge, and maybe you should put them away,” meaning, “Um, Phoebe? I’m about half a [centimeter] away from seeing some nipple action and I really don’t want to, so why don’t you cover up before you start stripping in the middle of my calc class, OK? Great.” I guess when you’re completely self-centered and narcissistic (and modern-day feminists are by definitely self-centered and narcissistic), it may never cross your mind that when someone mentions your body, it’s not automatically because they’re looking at you as a sex object.

My contribution, from a man’s perspective:

It’s generally been my experience that feminists have engaged their thinking about the proper role in society for women, at the expense of any and all reasoned thinking about the proper role in society for men; just thirty seconds of that, were they to indulge in it, would do enormous benefit to them. But they won’t ponder it for even that long.

Suppose all men woke up one morning and resolved to do whatever feminists want them to do, just as soon as the feminists all agreed on what exactly that is. I guess that would have something to do with the new-boyfriend stock character on Lifetime TV, who makes tons and tons of money but doesn’t have any opinions about anything except for how incredibly devoted he is to whoever-the-starlet-is.

In a world like that, what do we think of boobs, anyway? It seems we’d be regarding them purely clinically. A woman’s entire body, I guess, would have no sensual value to us at all…but we’d fall “madly in love with” one and only one woman. Over the course of an entire lifetime. If she’d have us. So we won’t have any attraction toward physical attributes whatsoever, but that one woman — oh, how beautiful she is! So we would have some.

The whole thing is such a dizzying mess of glaring contradictions. But hey, we’ve been oppressing you for five thousand years, we deserve to get a little dizzy.

It’s interesting how many of these progressive movements, all of which have thus far achieved only a fraction of what they someday want to, are concerned with a piece of a plan about how societies should work. They bitch, and bitch, and bitch some more about Come A Long Way We’re Not There Yet. But the flaw is the lack of agreement they have, and therefore coherence, about the hated oppressors. Within the activist groups and constituents, everyone agrees on who these are…conservatives, whites, males, straights, whatever…but there’s no agreement on anything else about us, other than that we’re just plain bad.

They’re non-influential, or influential only to a limited magnitude, because they’re incoherent, or coherent only to a limited magnitude. They’re all run by folks plenty sharp enough to notice and comprehend the link. And yet the conundrum remains the same, and it remains unresolved, across the generations. Which tells me the people who follow the movements, place trust in things that they know, deep down, they should not — or they’re not bright enough to figure out who they shouldn’t be trusting.

Womens’ Armpit Hair

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

The point of the commercial (aside from to sell the product) is that you shouldn’t look down on it.

You’d think the feminists would be jumping for joy. Well, nope. Silly you. When’s the last time you saw a feminist jumping for joy…when a man wasn’t rolling around on a floor in agony clutching his nuts?

Men’s armpit hair does not grow that long, why would a woman’s? It kind of reminds me of the movie Without a Paddle (specifically @ 1:20) and how women’s body hair, when we allow ourselves to have it, is greatly exaggerated in the media. Because we’re supposed to be hair free, otherwise we’re masculine. *rolls eyes*
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Screw you for enforcing gender stereotypes and body issues.

People fighting for men and women to be exactly the same. And feedin’ on their own, like sharks at a frenzy.

I think “Maeve” has language issues. Doesn’t exactly strike me as virginal to the college-curriculum of Entirely Useless Skills. I mean, real people, who get real things done…don’t talk like this. “Screw you for enforcing gender stereotypes”?

The word “feminist” is gradually devolving into something that has to do with crusading for bits and pieces of a world in which most people do not want to live. I mean, think about it. Women with hairy armpits. Men and women exactly the same. Men not allowed to have opinions. Women acting like Dr. House. No one has a gun except the bad guys.

Nothing really going on to reign them in, is there? So expect to see a whole lot more of it.

But it can still get a whole lot worse. When I was coming of age, it was the early 1980’s…and whatever feminists wanted, they got, no questions asked. I wonder if we’ll go that far this time.

She’s Upset About Something…

Friday, January 2nd, 2009

“Samitha” from Feministing is upset about some kind of double-standard, but as she explains it over and over again, she persistently fails to coherently express exactly what it is.

Last week Salon put up a list of the sexiest men alive and boyyyy they sure were sexy! …when I get written about as sexy on other people’s blogs it is usually in a “get back in the kitchen-shut up bitch-you are hot” kind of way which is far from flattering.

So this morning I was reading through the HuffPo and came across the world’s sexist woman alive. Here is the list as decided by E!

1. Karolina Kurkova 2. Bar Rafaeli 3. Angelina Jolie 4. Gisele Bundchen 5. Scarlett Johansson 6. Adriana Lima 7. Heidi Klum 8. Penelope Cruz 9. Manuela Arcuri 10. Shakira

OK, obviously one main difference is that one of these lists is via E! and the other via Salon. But there are never lists of women that are considered sexy because of what they do, but always for how they look, in either outlet type. The list of sexy men was extremely diverse and picked from an array of men doing different types of work. Salon is cool and progressive like that. So these men are not only sexy, but they do different, unique and innovative things that make them sexy.

Maybe what’s missing from her life, is she needs to become a fan of Sarah Palin, who is a “VPILF” not just because she’s hot-looking, but because she’s done stuff. Well Palin isn’t ever gonna have any fans from that corner…so this is kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy is it not?

How much more coherent this rant would be, if they came up with some examples of ladies who have accomplished something, and are put on the list partially because of that.

There’s the rub. “Partially.” There is a double-standard at work here…and it’s theirs. Take Shakira for example. Shakira is gorgeous, has an amazing, mesmerising curvy body, and is smart as a whip. Unlike Sarah Palin, Shakira is on the “E!” list. Why does that not soothe the feminist angst?

Partly because of Thing I Know #52

Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.

Feministing has the double-standard. They want pretty boy-men and ugly women.

Don’t take my word for it. Go ahead and browse this list of “accomplished” men from “cool and progressive” Salon.

He’s an award-winning writer who wrings humor from chaos. His dreamy eyes don’t hurt…An astonishing athlete with his priorities (and his Speedo) in the right place…The swaggering MC every woman wants to bang and every man wants to be…A Renaissance man with a tireless work ethic, an aesthetic in the kitchen and piercing blue eyes…Hip-hop vlogger, self-confessed nerd and darn cute to boot…This athletic heartthrob is not only tall, dark and dashingly handsome, but an heir to the throne. [emphasis mine]

This is where feminists don’t understand themselves, very well. They don’t want “womens’ other accomplishments” to be factored in along with their looks. They don’t want the female aesthetics to be evaluated at all. At least not positively.

Rush Limbaugh is right. The movement exists “to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society” (Undeniable Truth of Life #24). Superior facial and body appearances are to be helpful to the gentlemen but harmful to the ladies.

If you are a woman that is sexy because of the work you do, you are rarely, if ever, put on a list of sexy women. You must first and foremost, look hot in a bikini.

Yeah, for that to make sense, what I need to be looking for is a homely-lookin’ dude tossed in with those other sexpots and then blended in. That’s what Samitha is demanding for the women, isn’t it? Sexy because of the work she does…does not look hot in a bikini. Okay. Where’s the counterpart-dude? Salon didn’t offer one…maybe, in their bitterness and hatred, the feminists forgot to notice. Every cock-on-the-block has dreamy eyes.

I scanned through the comments to see if I could get a better lock on what the real focus of the complaint was. Problem is, when feminists are in the company of the like-minded, they become very comfortable, and they start to drop things in their scribblings. First commas, then periods, then verbs. So many of the sentences that were supposed to define the complaint for the benefit of whoever might be happenin’ along wondering about it, failed to do so because they were babbling and incomprehensible. But angry. No mistaking that. That’s one mission in feminist writing that never seems to go unfulfilled.

Buck’s right. I really do need to put a maximum-quota on the time I spend reading that angry, angry blog. There’s still a whole world out there of gas turbine engines, diesel generators, tasty dead animals basted with yummy barbeque sauce, and Hooters’ waitresses in little orange short-shorts. His Holiness The Obamessiah will make sure I’m drowning in feminist claptrap to my heart’s content in the years ahead, any time I want to be.

Quite Simply the Best Commercial Ever Made

Thursday, December 25th, 2008

That isn’t my headline; it’s TechCrunch‘s.

And it really got to one of the posters at Feministing. Because it’s, you know, *yawn* sexist.

Not safe for work. Because it’s got bare breasts. Of gorgeous women. Hundreds of ’em.

Okay…now if you aren’t firing that sucker up already, you’re just not paying attention.

Feminists. Pffft. You realize how utterly muddled and disoriented they would be if they were confined to battling…oh, let us say…two dozen different forms of what they call “sexism,” and committed to disassociating themselves from any issue that couldn’t be tied into such a list? Theirs is the single most confused political agenda in modern times. It’s got something to do with young girls screwing indiscriminately, although it shouldn’t; it’s got something to do with homosexuals getting married and adopting children, although it shouldn’t; it’s got something to do with protesting wars, grabbing guns away from law-abiding citizens, Christian-bashing, cutting down carbon emissions — although it shouldn’t have anything to do with any of those.

And it has a lot to do with keeping Sarah Palin away from any job with responsibility in it. And gosh, you know, if they were honest with themselves, let alone anybody else, and their movement meant anything it was supposed to mean, they’d love ‘er all to pieces, or at least get out of her way. But that’s not the way it works, of course. There’s something special about Sarah. Which means there’s something special about God only knows how many other women, who have the proper reproductive aparatus in their bodies, but don’t seat their gorgeous tight little bottoms on the correct spot on the political spectrum.

Kind of a “nobody can tell the womyn folk what to wear and do except us” thing.

Anyway — my favorite thing about the commercial? It’s for washing machines. But it manages to spend three minutes not showing one of ’em. And lots of other stuff does get shown. Just watch.

Merry Christmas.

A Labor Movement and a Character Defect

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Quoth me, opining on Cassy’s blog, about the latest Please Help Me Deplore This post over at good ol’ Feministing

It’s a labor union. Except you don’t have to have a job to belong to it; you DO have to have a verginer; and the labor union officials are so passionate about what they do, they don’t have to be paid. If you applied those three simple changes to any labor union, you’d have feminism.

Viewed in those terms, it all makes sense. You see it isn’t that feminists should be allowed to get away with violating the dress code. It’s that, when they violate it and you blow the whistle on ‘em, you are subjected to such an endless acid rain of crap that next time you’ll decide it just isn’t worth the hassle. Yeah, in the minds of some, this is what “representation” means: Someone cheerleading the notion, whether they ultimately succeed at it or not, that you and people like you shouldn’t be held to standards, but everyone else outside your clique should be.

The subject under discussion is that Jessica Valenti doesn’t think women should be held to the standards of a dress code, if they’re willing to join her union and call themselves feminists.

I’m kind of obsessed with the site Passive Aggressive Notes; I think it’s hilarious. This one I found particularly irritating/interesting:

Apparently this woman’s supervisor sent this charming note because someone had been complaining (!) about her showing a bit of cleavage. According to the sender, “as I’m currently 7 months pregnant, i could be wearing a turtleneck and still be showing ‘too much’ cleavage.”

Ugh.

I really don’t understand this comment about wearing a turtleneck and showing cleavage. But I’m a guy, I don’t have to face the rigors of dressing up on planet-woman every single day, other people do, so we’ll just let that one go. I’m a little bit more curious about this “sender,” Jessica herself, and other folks climbing on the sender’s bandwagon. The full quote is —

“the shirt in question was a run-of-the-mill top with an empire waist…but as i’m currently 7 months pregnant, i could be wearing a turtleneck and still be showing ‘too much’ cleavage.”

And NO, there is not a pic. Just a one-line description of this run-of-the-mill top, which Jessica didn’t even see fit to carry forward on the help-me-deplore-this jungle-telegram.

So maybe we have two camps. The “people in our group shouldn’t be held to standards at all” camp, and the “people in our group always tell the truth all the time” camp, somehow laboring under the delusion they’ve been allowed to independently evaluate this run-of-the-mill top, when they haven’t. This nameless-faceless nipple-exposing hussy could be claiming she saw Elvis at lunch that day, and goddamn it you better believe it, because it’s Gospel.

This brings me to the second front of what we now, today, call feminism — the character disorder.

Rather than spell out the next point about the above clip, which would be tedious, try to imagine just a few differences injected into it which, in a sane situation, would be meaningless differences.

A couple of dudes raising emergency funds for the financially troubled “Asshole Magazine” who’ve been working extra hard at making themselves unattractive. Not like Wayne and Garth. More like Jimmy and Adam — plus 150 pounds each, their sneakers and blue jeans not quite as clean looking, foregoing the blubber-hiding untucked-shirt look in favor of the “Why Can’t Men Wear Half Shirts?” look. Big ol’ spare tires spilling out over their filthy frayed grease-covered blue jeans, maybe one of ’em picking his nose every few seconds…”Dude! We gots ta get hold of fifty billion dollars cause our magazine is in trouble!”

Just those few minor changes would expose what’s going on here.

People…entirely inexperienced at (or not giving a ripe about) figuring out what others want…just got an idea in their heads about what their product should be. Not the timeless entrepreneur’s idea of “If I build X, the world will beat a path to my doorstep.” Just a child’s idea — after she’s spent too much time playing with dolls. “This guy wants X.”

In the psychological domain, this is what feminism is. That you are here, feminists can accept. Everything else about you, including the thoughts in your head, is either irrelevant, or pre-planned. And where the plans disagree with reality, the plans win. Wherever the feminist mind is confronted by some uncomfortable difference, the answer is revolution.

It is, in the psychological makeup of people, the simple character deficiency of being unable to perceive.

The labor-union part of it, is a cause-and-effect consequence of multiple people struggling with this same deficiency, and banding together to get what they want.

Multiple generations of people have now been born since those long-gone days when feminism was something much bigger than it now is. And so while it’s obvious to those who lived through it, it should be jotted down for the benefit of those who did not:

Mainstream society used to accommodate this. You may have been wondering why workplaces are so yielding to the feminist movement, when the feminist movement seems to be nothing more than a bunch of chubby goth chicks scribbling down acrid blog posts and sending money to each other. The answer is tradition. These deficiently-charactered harpies, thirty years ago, had the world by the balls. If word got out they wanted something, things stopped under the capitol dome, and in the corporate board rooms, until someone could figure out what they wanted and give it to ’em.

Back in those halcyon days, was feminism more than a labor union and a character defect? No, not really. Not among the true believers. Not among the work-for-free union officials (and vastly greater numbers of them did not work for free). The only difference between then, and now, is that they had more people fooled. They’ve had this line of propaganda that “it’s all about ensuring women make a fair wage,” et cetera…they’re still trotting it out to this very day…there are far fewer takers.

Why is nobody believing it anymore?

Because when Bill Clinton takes advantage of women, thus completing the very picture of an overly-powerful male staying in power while abusing women sexually, socially, legally…they support him.

And when Sarah Palin runs for the Vice-Presidency, thus completing the very picture of a woman who represents others, courageously, attempting to achieve a bigger voice in forming the policies that affect the lives of so many millions, while at the same time dedicating herself to her family…they snark away at her with the hatred that used to be reserved for abusive men.

It’s been exposed.

It’s a labor union, formed for the purpose of achieving political goals that really don’t have that much to do with opening up options for women — killing babies (half of whom are girls), gay marriage, hippie peacenik protests, the two-minute-hate of the target-of-the-hour. And it’s a labor movement made up of people who’ve made it through childhood without developing the ordinary, everyday attributes of their personalities that the rest of us have to have, that enable us to work together and live together. And those attributes have to do with recognizing what the other guy thinks is important that we don’t, and somehow learning to deal with it.

Simply put, most people…if they started a magazine exploring what dickheads they are and glorifying their nose hairs and butt cracks, and the magazine started to go out of business…would say to themselves “Huh. I guess most people don’t want to see my butt crack.” And move on.

Feminists who cover themselves with tatoos and call themselves bitches, need forty big ones.

So won’t you please donate today. C’mon, those soldiers who need prosthetics and those kids whose homes burned down, can wait; we need your help calling ourselves bitches.

Little Kelly

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Kelly can be a girl’s name as well as a boy’s name…so poor little Kelly has a problem with Santa Claus leaving him adorable pink girl stuff.

And the feminists have a problem with Kelly having a problem with it.

Okay, one MORE time…what does this have to do with promoting dignity in the stature and treatment of women in a civilized society, and developing and defending the opportunities they have?

Feminists. They want so badly for people to listen to their propaganda. And they want so badly for people to join on in when the feminists say “please help me deplore the latest thing I’ve placed in the crosshairs, today.”

But that ends up meaning they don’t want people to have memories.

Because if you remember all the things that have ever been in-the-crosshairs-today, across any significant swath of time…the propaganda just crumbles. You know what propaganda I mean. The “narrow agenda” propaganda. The “oh no, we’re not here to dismantle gender differences or anything like that, we just want a fair wage.” The a-man-can-be-a-feminist propaganda.

The it-doesn’t-have-anything-to-do-with-being-a-bitch propaganda.

The propaganda that says feminists are just as loving and charming as any other kind of woman. If you aren’t knocking a woman’s tooth out, or swatting her on the butt, or behaving in a way toward a woman that you wouldn’t behave around your own grandmother, then we have no beef with you.

The propaganda that comes out anytime they’re called on their crap. The propaganda we saw when Cassy, Hawkins, myself and others helped Jessica Valenti get that free publicity for her book.

It’s all a crock o’ bullshit. At least, on web sites like Feministing, it is.

Keep sufficient wits about you to observe and remember trends, and you can’t help but form some opinions about these post-modern feminists they aren’t gonna like. They aren’t friends to chastity, or even to any kind of discretion an available young lady might use in choosing her sexual partners or keeping the number thereof down beneath a non-scandalous ceiling. Somehow, that rankles them. It always has. The one exception seems to be the woman who resolves not to sleep with any conservative Republicans — that’s alright. Any other kind of criteria applied…no. If you have something to say about an Aspirin between the knees, or waiting for marriage, or waiting until he meets Mom and Dad, or waiting a few weeks — feminists ain’t gonna like it.

They might like it if you say women can do something.

If you say men can do something, they won’t like it.

If you say women and men can do more things than they’re doing, feminists won’t like it.

If you say women can’t do something, they’ll come out swinging.

If you say women and men can do things together, they aren’t going to be too happy about it. Unless it’s holding a candlelight vigil and calling George W. Bush a war criminal.

It’s pretty tough to get them to opine at length about the draft.

They’re very passionate about gay marriage. I don’t think I’m ever going to understand that one. If a woman wants to support the feminist movement with her time or her money, but she’s opposed to gay marriage, feminists don’t want her support? What’s gay marriage got to do with womens’ rights? It’s just stupid, in my opinion. It’s like starting a movement to promote responsible pet ownership, and spaying and neutering and proper veterinary care for your pet — and oh, by the way, we’re also big Monster Truck fans. If you don’t go to the shows then we don’t want your support. One has nothing to do with the other, so why tie the two together?

Actually, re-defining marriage has a distinct effect of diminishing the role of women in society. So I would say it’s like promoting responsible pet ownership and also owning your own monster truck. But whatever.

When Feministing opined about Sarah Palin for the first time — that is when the site hit the low nadir. That just completes the picture, doesn’t it? A more complete and fulfilling role for women in society, goes off in this direction…progressive politics dashes off in the other…Feministing follows the progressive politics. Embarrassing to watch. Just like when liberals circled the wagon around Bill Clinton when he was trying to stop the women he’d been exploiting from having their day in court — and went on to call themselves staunch defenders of womens’ rights. Based on what? Just plain ol’ tradition? We’re supposed to think left-wingers think highly of women just because they’re left-wingers?

Left-wing politics, in general…and the feminist movement, in particular…these are, at a breakneck pace, rapidly degenerating into places that are ideal for a lifelong male chauvinist pig to join, places where he can feel at home. I mean, just stand back and look at it. If a male politician supports the right policies he should be able to exploit women, shove his penis into the faces of perfect strangers, and that’s okay. The whole world should be his glory hole. If women are offended by that and want to sue, they shouldn’t have their day in court. They aren’t entitled to it. Because the right political agenda is worth exploiting a few broads, if they’re good lookin’. Wives aren’t special. Housewives aren’t special. Stay-at-home-moms aren’t special. There’s no need to feel appreciative about any of these women or what they do. Actually, when they get down on their hands and knees and scrub your toilet so it sparkles, you should behave as if it just happened…by magic. Like Tinkerbell flew in and sprinkled some pixie dust on it. Anything but show the goddamned minimal gratitude your mother eventually insisted you start showing.

And wives are disposable, because now we’re going to re-define marriage as being whole and complete if there aren’t any women involved in it at all. Two guys can raise a kid just as nicely — which means mothers are disposable too — and oh by the way, if you dare to disagree with us about it, we’ll crush you.

Anything a woman can do a man can do better. Including playing with pink toys.

Looks like a chauvinist pig platform to me.

So after today, let’s not have any further discussion about whether modern feminism, or Feministing anyway, is all about erasing the gender divide, trying to make men and women the same. We don’t need to wonder about it anymore. It’s settled. That is what it’s about. And it’s about eradicating masculinity. They don’t like it; they want to see it go away. I guess when a boy is unfortunately saddled with fluffy pink toys, he should just turn gay on the spot.

Monogrammed Branders

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

Next up on the list of things feminists would like help hating…is a catalogue entry for these cool irons you can have customized so they brand your own name into things. The idea is that when & if you’re extra-extra proud of this steak you barbequed, you can “sign” it.

I think it’s a pretty cool idea. Only thing is, I’d value it at about…$14.95. They want five times that, so that’s gonna be a no. And that’s the way things will stay, I’m afraid. After I make my first billion, the price I put on this kind of ego trip is still in the low teens.

Feminists are almost just as candid about their feelings. They don’t like ’em. At least I think that’s what the message is.

I generally love RedEnvelope for their nice gifts (though a bit overpriced), yet this made me laugh out loud. Of course the picture of their monogrammed branders (of your monogrammed choosing) has to be of “son” and “dad.” Because there’s nothing manlier than doing some grillin’ some steak and branding your manliness into the meat.

I’m presuming “laugh out loud” has pejorative intent. It’s the “yet” that so inclines me.

Here’s the part I can’t quite make out: Why does this make the feminist “help me deplore this” list? I know it’s about as exclusive a club as your phone book’s white pages. I find that question intriguing, because I don’t think the feminists themselves understand the answer to it.

Let’s see…

We have — eating meat. Feminists are at odds with that. I’ve been wondering why that is, for decades now, and if I haven’t figured it out by now I’m not going to figure it out today. Meat makes people strong. Women are people. Feminists want women to be strong, yet meat ends up on the “Hate” list.

Grilling. Grilling is a manly thing. Feminists don’t like manly things. Okay, that’s a little bit easier to see, although it contradicts the talking points put out by the feminist P.R. machine…which say, they love men as much as anyone else, and if you don’t get in the way of female empowerment then they have no “beef” (har!) with you. Well, I think anyone who’s watched ’em for a minute or two knows that’s a load of bullshit. So if you end up in an argument with a feminist over whether the movement is all about man-bashing or not, I guess this is something to chew on (snicker).

What interests me is the signing, and the pride in workmanship that it represents. I believe, if you were to subject the enraged feminists to an afternoon of deep psychiatric probing — eww — you’d eventually find out this is a primary bone of contention. Feminism has a whole buffet of antithetical relationships to simple but important things, antithetical relationships to which feminist advocates will avoid confessing. It is at odds with all kinds of beneficial human activities and situations, and spends so much energy trying to pretend not to be at odds with them. One of those essential elements is individualism. Which means work, achievement, and pride taken in it.

Feminism is hostile to that.

Feminism doesn’t want people to think of it as being hostile to that.

But it is.

We-ell…whether it’s the taking pride in the work you’ve been doing, eating meat, grilling, or doing silly man-stuff that doesn’t make too much sense…you have to admit. A feminist movement that is truly confined to opposing oppression against women, or promoting the dignity of women in a civilized society, wouldn’t give even a passing thought to this. I realize this is more of an elbow-in-the-ribs to the like-minded (bitter) girls in the neo-feminist movement, than any kind of call for storming a male mysoginist fortress with pitchforks and torches. But the point stands — that this item interests the people who call themselves feminists, even in a humorous way, interests me. It is a window into their dark souls. Condemning the monogrammed branders, or even chuckling derisively at them, has nothing at all to do with any kind of human-rights movement. Not unless they’re being used on human flesh, which doesn’t seem to be the case here.

It’s just another overpriced rich-person’s silly toy. One of thousands. Get over it.

And that’s your latest specimen of scope creep in the man-bashing feminist movement. You haven’t too much longer to wait for the next one.

Showgirls on Fast Track to Become Powerful Politicians

Sunday, December 7th, 2008

And the feminists don’t like it.

Won’t you please join them in deploring…X.

Feminist Bloggers Face Criticism and Scrutiny and Don’t Get Paid

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Oh, this is rich. (Warning, dirty words used, like right outta the gate, so mute this if you’re at work.)

The other day my girlfriend came home from work and she found me whacking myself in the head with a claw hammer. She asked “why are you hitting yourself in the head with a claw hammer?”

And I replied, quite sensibly, “Because the ball peen is way downstairs, in the garage.” Looking at her like she’s an idiot, of course.

It’s exactly the same logic. Exactly the same as saying “Feminist bloggers put in long hours, face lots and lots of criticism, and they do it for free.” Duh…yeah. Scuba diving involves getting wet. Blogging involves being called out on your crap if you jot something down that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and furthermore, everybody gets it at some time or another.

Why are feminist bloggers subjected to this torture? Because bloggers are. And complaining about how nobody’s paying you for doing it, puts the Big Reveal on feminism itself.

It’s the science of complaining. And being ready to do a whole lot more of it. It’s proven, here…lots of bloggers aren’t feminists, they’re scrutinized, they’re unpaid, they’re not famous. In fact, some of us who write for what’s informally known as The Blog That Nobody Reads, and things like those, don’t give a rip about the not-being-famous part. That’s part of the reason why we call it that.

In the mind of the feminist, being subjected to exactly the same treatment, is a manifestation of oppression…I suppose. Or something. How pathetic. She assigns herself the task of listing all the reasons why feminist bloggers are entitled to some belated kudos, and she can’t think of a single thing applicable to feminist bloggers, that doesn’t apply to all bloggers.

Heh heh. Next up — if bloggers did get paid, as a dude, I would be getting a bigger cut. In fact, with things as they are, the feminists are being paid only seventy percent of the nothing I’m being paid. And it’s just not fair, dammit!

You know, if the innernets ever get hit with some kind of meteor, and we have to choose, let’s say, a thousand resources to be shielded in some kind of underground cave so they can emerge after the disaster and re-populate the ‘net all over again — I want Feministing to have one of the very first spots. World wouldn’t be the same without ’em. Wouldn’t be half as entertaining. Sure, a little bit of ’em goes a long, long way, but I’d miss them.

Feminists Outraged: Women Underrepresented in Publication of Stupid Crazy Nonsense

Friday, November 21st, 2008

Really:

Writer Jessica Wakeman recently had an interesting study published by media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting on the present number of bylines belonging to women on Huffington Post.

After two months of tracking the number of bylines on the homepage, she found that only 23% of them belong to women:

The Post does seem to be making a conscious effort to include women’s voices; despite the low percentages, the study found at least one female byline on the home page at all times. But if there is indeed such an effort, it stops far short of parity. Of the 89 times bylines were checked during the study, not once did the number of women’s bylines equal those belonging to men. Only eight times did women account for more than a third of all bylines. And Arianna Huffington, appearing 57 times, accounted for more than a fifth of all women’s bylines; 45 of those occupied the most visible top post. Only once, in fact, did a woman other than Arianna Huffington get her byline in the most visible top slot–Post editor-at-large Nora Ephron (8/26/08).

I’d like to see a larger study around this; too many of us feel that women bloggers are undervalued in the progressive blogosphere, but hard evidence is always helpful.Thoughts?

Yeah here’s a thought, you whiner: A utopian’s work is never done. There’s always a scintilla of unfairness left lying around. Utopianism, therefore, whether it’s feminism, “civil rights,” hyper-environmentalism or general left-wing thuggery, will always be the packaging of extremism behind a veil of phony compromise.

Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met..

Here’s another.

When I think of a hybrid construct of all the HuffPo bloggers of whom I’ve read, be they male or female — and I probably speak for quite a few who have dabbled in that corner, here — the general picture that emerges, closely resembles a stereotype of women that might be tossed out by careless piggish men, right before feminists like you start waving around their patented theatrical outrage.

Products of lifetimes spent getting attention, and not trying to accomplish too much else.

Thoughtless. Spoiled. Snarky.

Cute to the point of irritating.

Thinking well of themselves, while never straying too far from, or reigning in too tightly, a streak of viciousness.

Unhappy if everyone in the room isn’t watching them every second.

Full of punchlines, with absolutely no solutions to the problems of which they like to complain so much, showing absolutely no effort to find any.

And so it occurs to me that you’re caught up in a cyclical protest here, feminists: You’ve been spending all these years demanding people think of women as rationally thinking, strong, reliable and capable beings — and that women take this to heart as much as anyone else. Maybe, just maybe, when women started to comply, that’s when the female-authored posts to HuffPo took a tumble.

Let’s face it. You really don’t have to wait that long for a post written by a woman to emerge from the depths of the cistern that is Huffington Post. And if I want to think more positively of women and the contributions they can make to our society, I have a lot of other things I can look at besides that. No, the real flesh-and-blood women I know, inspire much more confidence in me about what they can do, and cause me to look forward much more positively to the next time I’m called on to work on something with a female, compared to the average female-written contribution to HP.

Or to Feministing, for that matter, now that I give it another think or three.

Retreat to the Oasis

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Speaking of Feministing…I was clicking around in the sidebar and I stumbled across this beauty that was uploaded apparently Monday.

Be thankful for your girlfriend (or boyfriend, for that matter) who enjoys having fun. Be thankful for friends still in possession of a decent sense of humor, and a willingness to share same.

And spare a little bit of pity for the fellow with a feminist gal-pal.

Ok, so my boyfriend and I are kind of kinky. He got the idea to wear sexy costumes for each other on halloween, and I think it would be fun. So I did some investigating, and as I expected, most ‘his and her’ costumes consist of a fully clothed man and half-naked woman. This is issue number one.

Issue number two is the lovely outfits I will post at the end of my rant. They are the ‘Coroner’ and ‘Sexy Jane Doe’ or whatever. In otherwords, a man who’s job is to deal with dead people is looking at a sexy dead stranger. Yeah, I couldn’t find a costume where the man is dead. After seeing a whole one outfit for men being skimpy and the rest being complete while the girls are all showing at least some skin, this just set me off.

So, am I right being mad about the whole coroner and Jane Doe outfit? Am I just looking into it too much? Or is there a deliberate power dynamic being displayed?

Feministing is the long, tough, personal-record-setting eighty-mile bike ride under a blazing sun on a hot summer day. Hooters is the ice-cold mug of lager right afterward.

Can you imagine being around a “lady” like this on a regular basis? She demands the partying and revelry take a back seat to cultural reform…on the thirty-first of October fer chrissakes.

Where is this world. Where is this fantasy planet, in which an unpleasant, complaining woman holds more appeal to a gentleman than a damsel with a more pleasing disposition and a skimpier costume. This is the utopia you want? This is what you think you can bring about? What sort of lobotomy must take place upon the male mind to make your dreams come true, battleaxe. Men are visual creatures. We like looking at you, and your various parts, if you take the time and effort to make yourself look nice. It’s been that way for hundreds of years, perhaps thousands, and the true irony is that during that time it has been an unspoken fountainhead of real female power in our various societies, around the world.

Here you “feminists” are trying to get rid of it. Jousting at windmills. And doing a fairly stop-and-go, here-and-there, half-assed job of it.

Begone from my sight, you snarky grumblebunny thoroughly unpleasant termagant. Bring on the hot wings and ale. Wenches! The Emperor’s palate is parched! Step lively!

Heteronormative Dating

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Our soceity’s rules for dating give men most of the power. Did you know that?

Sometimes I just have to wonder where we’d be if the angriest and most bitter feminists were naturally inclined toward reaching out toward and empathizing with those of a different mindset, rather than toward preaching to the converted. Heteronormative? Who the hell do you know who talks that way?

H/T: Cassy.

When Truth is Ignorance

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

It CAN be, you know. Case in point…another female slut bellyaches away about being called a slut, right after calling herself one

The idea that sexual women are worthless derives, pretty clearly, from a time when women were property; yes, ye olden days. Days when your father could trade your virginity for a goat. In that time, if you had the gall to bone someone before marriage, you damaged Dad’s goods, and might therefore cause him to get a low-quality goat, or no goat at all. It wasn’t really a moral question so much as a question of ownership; your body belonged to Dad or Husband, not to you, so using it for your own pleasure was equivalent to borrowing someone’s car and bringing it back with a broken headlight and a big dent in the hood.

*sigh* Here we go again…ye olde facts of life…

Women, whether they choose to be insightful about this stuff or not, are in a position to be spoiled rotten here. If & when they have a child, it’s their’s. There is no question. Therefore, some of the more ignorant ones are a little slow to catch on to the pitfalls of too much “experience.”

Let’s sum it up this way. If you were a guy, ladies — IF you were a guy — how much money would you have to be paid, to father a child you had good reason to believe was not yours? And so, yes…what was jotted down above about fathers and daughters and goats, while a crude summary, remains a fairly accurate summary of how things worked. Ignorant truth. Back in ye olden days, a man trying to marry off his sexually seasoned daughter was placed into a compromising position. That’s the way an economy works. Econ one-oh-one. Sorry, feminists, that’s just the way it is.

And it works that way now, too. If a lady says a gentleman is good enough for her, for marriage, for a movie, for a cup of tea, for a roll in the hay…that’s a pretty big compliment, even if she’s been granting the same privilege to other suitors. But it’s a much, much bigger compliment if she’s been showing some discretion. If she discriminates in favor of the fella. Yeah, discrimination. It’s usually a good thing if you’re on the pleasant end of it, especially if you’re wanting to get some attention from a lady who already has a good bit of yours. And so when one of the Sex in the City girls motions for that night’s stud to come on up, well…it’s not going to cause too much of a thrill for him, compared to the same gesture from another lady who asks more questions first.

In other words, if a lady accommodates casually, she is appreciated casually as well. She’s no longer capable of extending to her various beaus a true compliment. So this strain of feminism longs wistfully for a time and place and plane of existence, in which sluts are valued as much as, more more than, the girls who are more chaste.

Not gonna happen. Sorry.

Wow, we sure have a lot of people stumbling around, dreaming of perfect fantasy societies that never have been, and can never be.

Date Local

Saturday, October 25th, 2008

What a painful awakening. A bunch of loyal liberal readers of Feministing are just starting to figure out that the word “liberal” has absolutely nothing to do with liberty. It’s quite the opposite. It’s all about large mobs of people telling each other what to do.

The activist side of liberalism is truly a loose cannon on deck. It is a cannon ball rolling around on deck. There is no telling what will end up in the crosshairs next. It’s like a frenzied chubacabra…no, a Tazmanian Devil. A Terminator robot that has somehow fried a circuit and is consequently convinced that everything in earshot or line-of-sight is somehow Sarah Connor.

The next cultural activiity in the path of the juggernaut: Long-distance dating. It’s that green thing again. Long-distance dating is bad for the environment.

The Census tells us there are about 100 million single people in America over the age of 17. We don’t know how many of those folks are in long-distance relationships, but the available research suggests that at least a quarter of all college students are dating out of town. Since the rate is going to be much lower among the general population, we’ll make a conservative estimate of 1 in 15 for all single adults. That gives us around 6.7 million unmarried Americans in long-distance relationships. Add in the 3.4 million married people who told the Census that they live separately but aren’t “separated,” and our total rises to more than 10 million individuals—or 5 million LDRs.

If all of these people made like our two-career couple and drove the distance from D.C. to New York City every two weeks, they would produce a total of about 18 million metric tons of CO2 a year. For comparison, 6.9 million metric tons would be added to the atmosphere if we suddenly eliminated all the public transportation in the United States.
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No, our Date Local movement won’t be overbearing. It shouldn’t try to break up every cross-country love odyssey. Instead, it will discourage this special type of conspicuous consumption at the margins, nudging people toward the realization that breaking up is in their own, and enlightened, economic self-interest.

So let’s give it a try. Date Local’s message is a simple one, in the best traditions of liberal reform. All you have to do is date here. Date now. Date sustainably. And if you absolutely have to date long-distance, do it via Amtrak.

You ever watch a group of young kids play together? I mean, barely just past toddler stage? You know how there’s always one girl, who’s figured out how to string syllables together…and because she’s just so adorable, she’s become accustomed to people doing things she tells them to do? And so for the time being, this has become her mode of communication — do this, do that, don’t do this, don’t do that.

That’s modern feminism there. That’s modern liberalism. What people are told to stop doing, doesn’t really matter. The important thing is the knuckle-rapping. It’s like a shark swimming — they can’t stop doing it. It’s an inherent contradiction, because within the twenty-something set, when most people have been recruited into being good liberals, they rallied to the cause for the express purpose of not being told what to do.

That’s probably why the comments under the Feministing post, are just a tad…scathing.

I don’t like the idea of anyone telling me who I should love.
Posted by JenTheFem | October 24, 2008 11:12 AM

I think the problem with this is that if you love someone enough to opt for a long distance relationship, you love them enough to try to keep your relationship together against all odds. As bad as I feel for the environmental ramifications in this situation, I do not think I could just break up with the person I love more than anyone in the world just to date someone closer. I don’t think there’s anyone on this planet who could hold a candle to my loving, brilliant feminist boyfriend. This waiting will pay off someday.
Posted by Sparkles | October 24, 2008 11:13 AM

“if we have a local food movement, why not a date local movement?”

Not exactly the same, yeah? I mean, okay, some people are in long distance relationships for the wrong reasons (I have been), but that doesn’t mean we should shame the rest.
Posted by MaggieF | October 24, 2008 11:16 AM

uhhhhhhhhhhhh.
this is ridiculous. i dont even know where to start.
Posted by Aint I A Woman | October 24, 2008 11:18 AM

Ok, no, I’m a lot pissed. A large number of good friends are in life-long partnerships that started as long term relationship. And a more than fair number of good friends have been raped by “local” boy dates. Including my SO twice.

From this should I assume that all local relationships are doomed to failure and guaranteed to end in rape? That they’re filled with misery and cause an endless expenditure in gas costs for driving endlessly around the city?

I’m sorry, but this is ludicrous, offensive, poorly thought out and dismissive for no worthwhile reason. I don’t care why Slate thought it was a brilliant idea, but for you to try and expand on it with a disgustingly short-sighted and exclusionist post really demonstrates a lack of forethought and empathy.
Posted by Cerberus | October 24, 2008 11:27 AM

This is an awful post. I never thought i’d see a post on feministing about how one should lead their love life. Thanks a lot.

The love of my life and I have been together for almost 7 years (anniversary in November). Last year I had to move 3 hours away to continue my education. I now commute back and forth once a week (spending 3 days in Toronto, 4 days in Kingston). I refuse to own a car, so I take either the bus or the train, and buy ticket packets ahead of time.

… and you want me to feel GUILTY for trying to sustain this long-term, supportive, positive relationship?

OR would you rather I gave up my dreams of achieving a PHD so i could “stay local”?

Yeah, basically, you can take this post and shove it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bus to catch.
Posted by kitty stockings | October 24, 2008 11:29 AM

Liberal feminists. They exchanged one institution of self-important, strutting martinets — for another one. And they don’t even know it.

H/T: Cassy Fiano.

I’m a Terrible Person Who Must Be Stopped

Friday, October 17th, 2008

Ah…fame is on its way. Perhaps in the next month or two, we’ll make Keith Olbermann’s Worst Person in the World. For now, we’ve been identified by a flog, or feminist blog, as a terrible person who must be stopped. So says Ethical Slut.

Once again, we’re reminded that our modern-day feminists don’t actually disagree with anyone about anything. They identify targets, announce to all within earshot how the target makes them feel like barfing, and then demand moral and spiritual support from their peers in their quest to virtually destroy it.

As you can see, mkfreeberg judges women for a behavior that hurts no one. Sure, he tries to make a straw man argument, that Jessica Valenti is bitter and angry and disorganized in her life (we have to protect her from herself!), when simple facts (extremely successful career as a writer at a very young age, good relationships) all say otherwise.

Jessica Valenti’s schtick is to be bitter and angry. She runs a website that is dedicated to bitter and angry behavior. If she isn’t bitter and angry in real life, and has no desire to be seen as bitter and angry, then her communication skills must be truly abysmal.

As for being disorganized — hey, here’s a challenge. Name one single curriculum…or elixir…or some other agent…possessing an inimical relationship to sexual recklessness, particularly within young people — that does not simultaneously earn for itself an inimical relationship with post-modern feminism in general, and the Feministing flog in particular. Name five of those. You probably can’t even find one. To call for sexual discretion, good judgment, monogamy, standards in selecting a partner, et al, is to become an enemy of our modern feminists. Their words say they are all about privacy, people minding their own business, etc. etc. etc. Their actions say something else.

Feminists are not about privacy. Here’s a typical flog post:

1. Embedded YouTube clip, this commercial just started airing
2. It makes me want to vomit
3. When drunk horny dangerous men watch this, they will want to…etc…etc…etc…
4. It objectifies women
5. Did I mention it makes me want to vomit? What were they thinking??
6. Here’s the contact info for you to lodge your protest. Let’s whack ’em now, and make it look like we all got offended at the same time over the same thing, without actually collaborating on this.

But “Ethical slut” isn’t lashing back in the same way as Valenti herself. No, her whole thing is to whine and moan about the double standard.

We’ve been talking about neo-conservatives as if the “neo” meant that their arbitrary condemnation of people is something new. Anyone who has studied the role of religion in our world knows that this sort of thing is as old as time. Women as commodities is as old as time too. You see it in things like honor killings, women killed because their “value” has been damaged, even through rape. Would mkfreeberg ever write a long diatribe about men who use their dicks as jackhammers, cheap meat, who disrespected their own chastity? Never. (Except in the context of “ruining” a future man’s wife).

Yup, men and women are treated differently in our society, Ethical Slut. And, as long as our society remains somewhat strong, it’s gonna stay that way. One stigma for male sluts, a different one for female sluts.

Oh, and yeah, if I saw someone put up a blog about men using their dicks as jackhammers, and then follow it up with several books on the same — especially if the books were about a societal obsession, while the individual writing said books clearly suffered from a counter-obsession — yes, I’d write a long diatribe about it. Male sluts do suffer from a stigma. It isn’t the same as the stigma for female sluts…real people don’t treat the sexes exactly the same, any more than post-modern feminists with feminists blogs do (!). But out here in the world of reality, we recognize that male sluts aren’t exactly elevated to tall pedestals and then worshipped, as feminists seem to think they are.

There’s a certain urgency involved in desiring to cool the behavior of a female slut, and there’s a good foundation of reason for this urgency. There are reasons why their family members are ashamed and sad. There’s the whole thing about women getting pregnant, something men can’t do. Feminists know that, right? And then there’s the time honored position women have in our culture, of resisting. Slowing things down. Putting the brakes on things.

That’s their role. You may not like it, but who cares…you don’t like that men have penises and women have vaginas, but that’s just the way things are. A man is sexually reckless — his behavior is put into check by the lady he is attempting to seduce. A woman is sexually reckless — that’s different. There’s nobody to put that behavior in check. I mean, what…you think the man will do it? Seriously?

I like it when feminists decry that double standard. I like it a lot, because it enables others to see how silly and ridiculous feminists really are. The keymaster-gatekeeper relationship dates back to biblical times, those times when feminists claim women were being treated like property and cattle and dirt and what-not…when in reality, this particular social custom that has spanned so many continents, in which men make things go and women make things stop, is perhaps the one social custom that has conferred the greatest respect upon the fairer sex. And put them in charge of something rather important. Civilization itself, one could argue.

Feminists want to get rid of it. I find that ironic and interesting.

Homosexuals can be wonderful parents. Sluts can be happy, productive people. People who follow religious rules to a T can stone a person to death and watch them die slowly of internal injuries and starvation. This is why you’re a terrible person who must be stopped, mkfreeberg. Is that simple enough for you to understand?

Uh…it will be, as soon as you show me some examples of those, and “prove a negative” with regard to the opposites: That homosexuals can be crappy parents, sluts can be unproductive, people who follow religious rules to a T can do wonderful things for those less fortunate. As to whether I understand how this shows I’m a terrible person who must be stoped, I’m having trouble making the connection because I didn’t say too much with regard to homosexuals being good or bad parents or sluts being productive or unproductive.

But nevermind. I think I understand why Ethical Slut would think I’m terrible, and why I must be stopped. I said something outside her value system. Time for the fire-ant treatment. Let’s all attack mkfreeberg, and can I get an amen here from my fellow nattering-nabob feminists?

Post-modern feminists, for people who are supposed to be champions of freedom, liberty and free expression, are, in their own way, quite puritanical. As I’ve said about other factions of grumbling, snarky outspoken people — they’ve exchanged one religion for another.

Feminists: Inherently Nasty

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.

The demands of the feminists have not been met here, but they got the very next best thing: A man, one not particularly sensitized to feminist complaints, who sincerely admits “I understand what women are enduring, now that I’ve been put in their shoes.”

I’m married. Been married for 14 years. I moved away from my family to be with my wife’s family, left my career, friends, & family behind. I now work out of my house because my wife got a “better” job else where and now I do ALL of the cooking and cleaning and take care of my 3 kids. She’s the typical MALE now…comes homes, I have dinner ready. She works more at home. I play with the kids. She goes to bed, I have to go to bed. My whole life revolves around her now. She’s the Sun and I’m Uranus. She leaves dirty clothes on the floor. Trash on tables. HAIR everywhere!! I SIT to pee now cuz I hate to clean up pubic hairs off the toilets….it’s disgusting. I feel I’m being converted to a female in some sick way. I AM NOT A WOMAN! I love women. But I now know what they put up with. It sucks. No thanks for dinner….not even “dinner was great dear…how ’bout I clean up the dishes”….NNOOOOOO. Just a couple of grunts and it’s off to work….kinda like a guy going to the garage for the evening. I have tools. I’d love to go to the garage and work. But I think my kids come first. I’d love to have an affair but don’t think I can deal with the guilt. If I start to PMS…….I’ll scream. Oh…and don’t think she’s “MAN” enough to mow the yard or shovel the drive…nope…that’s me too. Who gets the groceries….ME. My nipples stick out in the frozen food section too by the way. No one tries to pick me up though. I did get asked by the cashier what was for dinner once!!! I must have something written on my forhead. So women, ladies, how do you put up with it??? I read an analogy once about a cup. Love is like a cup of water. You give some to people in need. But eventually that cup goes dry with no one to refill it. MY CUP IS AS DRY AS A 100 YEAR OLD BONE.

Go ahead — explore the comment section. How many notes of congratulation to you see? How many notes of “Welcome to the Fold”? How many feminists treating him as a compatriot?

How much “Go forth, my son, and help us spread the word”?

Please note…if feminism was about equality, and increased empathy between the sexes, that’s pretty much all you’d see. But here in the plane of reality that is not what you see.

What you see is spite.

Let the record show — as far as my own, not-so-humble opinion is concerned — there is a problem with men appreciating the household contributions of women. It’s not altogether possible to be resolved; it’s part of our internal design. Men are built to manage enclaves of responsibility only so large, and only to a certain limited extent. We exchange depth and breadth of such an enclave, for the potential of the elements within it. We lack the organizational skills women are built to have; and, of course, there’s the matter that we can’t see dirt.

Feminists, however, are not women who seek a resolution where it may or may not be possible. A resolution is not what they want. What they want is to be angry.

And if, when you skimmed those thirty-plus comments, this did not become obvious to you — you need to skim them again. Here’s a guy who sincerely understands the problem, admits it, and all he gets from the feminists is a bunch of bullshit and snark.

And then there’s that other matter.

How many feminists do you know, who threw their feminist temper tantrum and tirade, got those household chores equitably distributed, and then proceeded to whistle an ecstatically satisifed happy tune as they scrubbed the toilet bowl but only fifty percent of the time? How many feminists do you know like that? How many feminists can you name, like that? Doing half the chores, but happily, because it’s only half and the stud of the household is doing his half?

Can you name even one?

I can’t.

They’re just inherently nasty people who like to complain about things, and be angry.

And they don’t want fifty percent of the household chores. They want zero. The bitches are just lazy.

Lazy…and angry. And if they get every little thing they want, they will not stop being angry. They’ve had forty years to stop being angry, and it’s never once happened. Anger is part of the identity. Anger, and laziness.

Valenti Backpedals

Thursday, October 9th, 2008

Jessica Valenti says I can’t give her book a fair hearing unless I buy a copy of it and read it for myself. Sounds reasonable. It also sounds suspiciously convenient.

Anti-feminists tell me what my book is about: Turning teens into sluts!

I figured that my new book would get some negative attention from conservative blogs, but I kinda thought that would happen once the book was, you know…published.

But it seems that there’s no reason to wait for pesky things like the actual content of the book to start blogging about what The Purity Myth is all about. So apparently, the purpose of my book is to “turn America’s teenagers into raging whores.” Woo hoo!
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House of Eratosthenes: “Feminism, somehow, has come to be about everyone who can be a slut, being one.”

But Cassy Fiano’s post was my fave, “Putting out is SO much better for girls than abstinence.” (And it’s not just because her blog design uses a rose/gun combo that speaks volumes.)

Fiano writes that I have an “obsession with sluttiness.”

Why is it so many feminists are so obsessed with turning teenage girls into raging whores? How is that something you tell girls they should aspire to?

…I honestly think that what most of this is about when it comes to feminists like Jessica is self-loathing… you know, misery loves company and all. I can’t help but see someone extremely misguided, bitter, and angry in Jessica and the feminists like her. What’s truly pathetic is that they aren’t content with screwing up their own lives. No… they’ve got to ruin the lives of American teenage girls as well.

What I find most interesting about Fiano and the other posts is that they’re the ones who are talking about ‘sluts’, ‘whores’ and women being promiscuous. (In fact, one of Fiano’s classy commenters suggests that I’m promiscuous and that’s why I wrote the book.) The book cover says nothing about sex, promiscuity or the like – they make that jump. Why? Because for conservatives and purity pushers, the only alternative to being a virgin is being [a] whore. There’s no in-between for them, there’s no complexity or nuance when it comes to sexuality. And that’s why I wanted to write this book. Seriously, these bloggers are making my point for me!

Another thing I found amusing about these responses was that almost all of them took the subtitle to mean that I think virginity is hurting young women, when what when I actually wrote is that “America’s obsession with virginity” is what’s damaging.

So for the record: I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don’t really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that’s the point. I believe that a young woman’s sexual choices – no matter what they be – shouldn’t have a bearing on how they’re seen as moral actors. I also believe that slut-shaming and fetishizing virginity is not just about only valuing women for their sexuality (or lack thereof), but that it’s also part of a larger agenda that seeks to regress women’s rights and return to traditional gender roles. But if you want to know more about that, you’ll have to read the book.

Oh, I see, so it’s not virginity that is damaging, it is the obsession with virginity. Feminists aren’t about young girls having as much sex as possible, they’re about people minding their own business. It all seems so clear now!

Except…it doesn’t. As Yoda said, “This one, a long time have I watched.” We are frequent visitors to Feministing. It’s one of the most entertaining sites on the net. Back in July, the site chose to attack Brad Henning, who gives abstinence-only presentations at schools. Now, I don’t have much of an opinion about Mr. Henning one way or another, and I don’t know how you feel about abstinence-only presentations.

But I was fascinated at Feministing’s choice of spokesperson against Mr. Henning. It was a girl who used to sit through Henning’s lectures, grown up into an older girl who’d lost her virginity, grown up still further into a married lady living in an open marriage, screwing another eight guys since tying the knot. She didn’t make much of a point with her letter, other than that she didn’t believe in abstinance-only education…a point lots of others could make. But good heavens, all the pats on the back she got from screwing lots of other guys, with her hubby’s consent, and with that background daring to boldly confront that awful Brad Henning!

As a point of interest, our marriage is open. My husband was the seventh man I slept with, and now that number has almost doubled to 15. Our marriage is more happy and healthy since we’ve opened it than it was before. This is because it is not sex which binds us together, but our commitment to each other. We are not wearing sex blinders. The key to a good marriage is trust and communication, two things that HAD to grow exponentially when our marriage opened up. If you wish to prepare students for solid marriages, then exercises in building trust and communication skills will take you much farther than telling the kids to just wait to have sex until they’re married.

Huh. I know quite a few married couples. I haven’t made the acquaintance of any open-relationship folks, since my days in Seattle…some twenty years ago. Wouldn’t it have been easier to find someone in a normal, monogamous union to offer this kind of personal testimony? Wouldn’t that message then be much clearer? I’d say if Feministing is concerned about confusion between its attacks on virginity, and obsessions with virginity — it’s only concerned about this to a certain extent. Not exactly losing sleep over it.

I don’t think there’s been any such confusion at all. This is pure backpedaling.

It’s not really about minding your own business; it’s about anybody who can be a slut, being one. Feminists may want others to mind their own business with respect to whether a young lady is keeping herself intact or not. But that doesn’t mean they themselves intend to mind their beeswax with regard to same. And yes, we have more than adequate reason to believe third-wave feminists in general, and Ms. Valenti & fellow modmins in particular, are infatuated with the idea of nubile young ladies ridin’ the baloney pony. The more the better. Cassy’s words ring true, and I’ll stand behind my own as well.

They aren’t hostile to the idea of chastity? I’ll take on that debate. But only with people who are familiar with the Feministing website. In the world of Feministing, parents must take absolute zero interest in whether their children are coming to sexual maturity in a responsible way. If they pay any attention to this at all, it is called “fetishizing.”

I nearly lost my mind when I read this gushing piece from Time Magazine about purity balls.

What was amazing to me about the reporting of this article was despite hearing all of these creepy anecdotes – and admitting that girls as young as four are participating in a ceremony about their virginity – writer Nancy Gibbs still managed to be smitten over the whole shebang.

But first…a creepy anecdote.

Kylie Miraldi has come from California to celebrate her 18th birthday tonight. She’ll be going to San Jose State on a volleyball scholarship next year. Her father, who looks a little like Superman, is on the dance floor with one of her sisters; he turns out to be Dean Miraldi, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. “We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today’s world,” she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet–a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. “On my wedding day, he’ll give it to my husband,” she explains. “It’s a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I’m supposed to be loved.”

Paging Dr. Freud! But Gibbs is loving it.

Leave aside for a moment the critics who recoil at the symbols, the patriarchy, the very use of the term purity, with its shadow of stains and stigma. Whatever guests came looking for, they are likely to come away with something unexpected. The goal seems less about making judgments than about making memories.

And making sure young women think their worth is dependent on whether or not they’re sexual. So, no Ms. Gibbs, I think I won’t “leave aside” that very real and very dangerous message. Thanks anyway!

Gibbs continues to totally miss the point:

Purity is certainly a loaded word–but is there anyone who thinks it’s a good idea for 12-year-olds to have sex? Or a bad idea for fathers to be engaged in the lives of their daughters and promise to practice what they preach? Parents won’t necessarily say this out loud, but isn’t it better to set the bar high and miss than not even try?

Are families who don’t expect their daughters to promise their virginity to their dads promoting sex for 12 year-olds? Can’t dads be engaged in the lives of their daughters without worrying about the state of their hymen? And is telling women that their moral compass lays in between their legs really setting the bar high?

Flowery language and valorizing these days doesn’t change what purity balls are about: the ownership and fetishizing of young girls’ sexuality.

Funny. If you open up the Time Magazine article and read it for yourself, what you find doesn’t have an awful lot to do with four-year-old girls being told their “worth” is measured by whether they have sex or not. You don’t even read anything, contrary to what you might expect, about contingencies laid down upon a young lady’s worth as a person. Quite to the contrary, what you read about is such pre-conditions being removed…as in…the girls are made to understand they don’t have to hook up with a guy in order to be worth something. I guess Valenti didn’t want you to read that part for yourself.

Kylie talks with an unblinking confidence about a promise that she says is spiritual, mental and physical. “It’s something I’m very proud of. I plan to keep pure until marriage. It’s a promise I made to myself–not pressure from my parents,” she says. She speaks plainly about what she wants in her life, what she thinks she has the power to control and what she doesn’t. “I’m very much at peace about this,” she says, and looks out across the twirling room. “I don’t feel like I need to seek a man. I will be found.”

Irony. This used to be what feminism was all about. Jessica Valenti says it’s creepy. What she means by “fetishization,” I don’t know for sure, and I’m not sure shelling out a bunch of greenbacks for her latest book will clear it up for me.

I do know one thing for absolute sure.

The brand of feminism practiced at Feministing, has very little, or nothing, to do with minding your own business. Feminists there regularly get involved, get their cackles up, write their letters, when old magazines are dug out of dusty archives that they find displeasing; or when advertisements for household cleaning products are aimed at women; or when private citizens choose to form their own opinions about Sarah Palin being a liberated woman (since she is one); or when said private citizens form other disturbing opinions, such as marriage being between a man and a woman.

Nope. Feministing’s brand of feminism has nothing to do with minding your own business.

Not unless the Feministing-feminists can keep an exemption from such a rule, for themselves.

About everything.

Having said that — glad they think us worthy of mention over there. Now we know we’ve arrived. Maybe by the end of next week we’ll be Keith Olberman’s Worst Person in the World.

Hook Up Culture

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

We put a scratch or two in Jessica Valenti’s argument, that our culture’s “obsession with virginity” is somehow hurting girls and young women.

Blogger friend Cas just drove her freakin’ monster truck over it. She also ‘fessed up, she is the “female friend” John Hawkins was talking about. We had that one pegged when we saw the female friend was asking the question we’d been asking awhile…

What is it with feminists and wanting to turn America’s teenagers into raging whores?

In spite of all the shredding that has been going on, however, there is one other point that has to be made. It lies precisely at the fork in the road, where reality veers away from what is politically correct:

For the last several decades, the feminist movement has upheld as an ideal that women of marriagable age should assume all of the responsibility of deciding on their couplings, and that Dad should butt out. This has been an unspoken agenda item, and it’s good for the feminist movement that it is unspoken, for the effect it has is to force feminism to indict itself.

A picture has emerged during the heyday of the feminist movement, of the desired male object-of-affection — the stud who is chosen most often, now that it’s all up to the liberated woman and Dad has nothing to say about it. It’s not a pretty picture at all. Tragically, most of the time, it’s a picture of a guy who’s no longer there. It’s “(Insert name of oldest kid)’s dad,” small-d.

Lots of fun. Never could hold down a job. Turned into an asshole a year after the marriage…or when the kid was born…and that, of course, is all his fault. Maybe this inspires the next question “If he’s a dick down to the marrow of his bones and he’s never been anything else, why’d you pick ‘im?” — which, in the feminist age, is the quitessential Question Of Rudeness. The answer to which is: He changed. Or the subject abruptly changes. Or both.

What does reality embrace, that political correctness does not?

Feminism was all about experimenting — having women just coming to an age of maturity, making decisions about their suitors that their daddies used to make for them, or at least influence.

And the experiment failed.

It failed because those young ladies were still virgins, in this age of eschewing virginity. Sure — perhaps they weren’t virgins in the traditional sense. But they were virginal to this world of going to bed early Sunday through Thursday and waking up fresh and energized so you could go to a job, and bring home a paycheck to buy groceries and pay a mortgage. They were virginal to that. And they picked their studs, before losing that virginity.

Their score overall? You’d have done a much better job calling heads-or-tails a thousand times in a row. They mucked it up. They screwed the pooch. They went out looking for a guy who’d be with them, help them raise the kids, help them pay off the house, and they selected as their criteria does he make me laugh. Fast forward a few years, they were forced to saddle some other poor schlub with all the responsibilities after blowing their own fun-filled younger years on some “fun” guy who got ’em pregnant and then ran off.

Which, irony of ironies…is not fun. They went lookin’ for something, and failed to find it, when they’d have stood a much better job finding it if they didn’t sacrifice so much to go lookin’ for it.

Fun is a lot like love that way.

Best Sentence XLII

Monday, October 6th, 2008

John Hawkins wins the forty-second award for Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL); he wins it for something he said regarding that new book by angry young flogger Jessica Valenti of Feministing.

The book is called — wait for it — The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. I’m thinking of buying it. I mean, I really don’t understand and I do have a need to have it explained to me. You ask me “How is America’s obsession with cheap and easy casual sex between young girls and scummy subprime guys hurting young women” and by this time I’m more than sufficiently informed, I think, to comment. Like Hawkins, I have to question whether we have a similar obsession with virginity. Must’ve missed that one.

Hawkins goes on to explore other ways in which this might be somewhat ridiculous…then goes in for the kill.

If you want to know why liberals and conservatives don’t get along, books like this tell you all you need to know.

People who long for “bipartisanship,” good as their intentions may be, miss the point. Somewhat, to completely. Conservatism versus liberalism is a conflict lacking any no-mans-land and cannot ever have any no-mans-land. It is order versus chaos. It is productivity versus dysfunction. Health versus sickness. Life versus death. No “gray area” is logically possible.

Don’t take my word for it. Head on over to Jessica Valenti’s turf, and read for awhile. “Equal pay for equal worth” has very little to do with the agenda. In fact, you’d be pretty surprised what has to do with the agenda. The PATRIOT Act — that’s a womens’ issue now. Same-sex marriage is a womens’ issue…although not in the way you might think. Young girls not having enough sex.

This is Third Wave Feminism and as you scan the Wikipedia article behind that link looking for a concise definition of what that is, you’re going to emerge from the exercise dizzy and frustrated. The common themes can only be expressed in terms that are derogatory to the third-wave movement itself…or else…not expressed. What it is, is controlling the opinions of the masses. Cracking a ruler over the knuckles of anyone who doesn’t think the right thoughts about feminism itself.

And “maybe girls who are just starting to become women shouldn’t sleep with any sleezy guy they happen to meet” is a decidedly wrong thought. Feminism, somehow, has come to be about everyone who can be a slut, being one. And anyone who says maybe it’d be a good idea not to be a slut, getting a nasty note on Jessica’s blog, a smartass comment thrown back in their face, or both. So yes. Of course. Anybody who needs to see how and why conservatives and liberals don’t get along…go ahead and check this stuff out.

IceColdBath is a Feminist

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

I’ve decided to help her get the word out about that.

It’s a YouTube clip. Comments have been disabled. Ratings have been disabled. Embedding has been disabled.

You see, as feminists set out to make the world a certain way, exactly how they want it to be…it is vitally important that the rest of us are exposed to their opinions, whether we want to be or not. That’s the way modern feminism is. Everything’s a one-way relationship. Forget all about reciprocity, and feminists will always live up to your expectations.

Just don’t go looking for a way to let ’em know that.

“Of course. How sssselfish of me. Let’s do all the things that YOU wanna do.” — Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)

Feminists and Women Cleaning Things

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Speaking of Feministing: Ever wonder what the inside of a feminist’s house or apartment looks like?

In my relatively brief lifetime thus far, I’ve seen the perimeter of “Things That Honk Off Feminists” flung outward so far and wide, that I can’t think of a single idea that incorporates both “females” and “cleaning things” that does not fall within it.

To hear them tell it, when feminists live with men they bring their bitching and pissing and moaning to an abrupt halt once they have achieved “equality” as far as “help with the household chores.” But that would imply, would it not, that the feminist of the household is mopping the floor and scrubbing the toilets fifty percent of the time. It’s been over twenty years since my last romantic relationship with a real die-hard post-modern feminist now…I’m not even sure the phrase “post-modern” can apply to days so far gone.

But the image of a self-professed feminist grabbing those Windex wipes and happily scrubbing toothpaste droplets off the bathroom mirror, cheerfully whistling to herself because she’s only doing this half the time — it’s a bit much for me to envision. The message that’s been ground into my cranium, forcefully, for decades now, is that housework and feminine things do not go together. Not even for a moment.

And in case I should forget (warning, suggestive content):

Theory A is that they’re sincere, and they just want a more equitable divide in the household labor.

Theory B is the bitches are just lazy.

It occurs to me that if I was stuck with the household labor and ready to mount a mini-revolution for a more equitable distribution, starting a blog to be read by others, constantly carping away at total strangers what they should find disgusting and reprehensible in movie tropes and everyday television commercials and other blogs — this would have very little to do with what I was trying to do. Right? I mean, I’d whack that schmuck in the back of the head to get him to help out. If he goes for it, it’s just a piece of history, and if he doesn’t, I’ve got a choice. Blogging would be a completely unrelated activity. A distraction, even.

So I’m leanin’ toward B.

Paleofeminism II

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

On the last day of last year, I said

I hope 2008 sees the end of this brand of feminism, I really do. The subject of the link in question is Page 8 of possible reasons Home Improvement jumped the shark, and “Guest” writes in with…

The show jumped with the “sandwich episode” where Jill really started to assert her own special brand of aggressive feminism. It was angering to watch Jill call her son a sexist because his girlfriend did his housework; the problem couldn’t possibly be on the girlfriend’s end, it must be the EVIL MISOGYNIST BRAD at fault because he LET her do his housework. In the end, everything was resolved, of course, when Jill converted everyone over to her point of view, aka the right one, including dimwitted Tim, who, of course, buckled under his wife’s demands yet again. Was there ever a single episode where Tim said, “Tough crap, Jill, this time it’s my way”?

I was watching this episode with my ten-year-old son, and found myself answering some complicated questions.

I went on to point out the flaw in Jill’s logic. I was garrulous, so let me sum it up in a single short paragraph here:

It’s the knight who is drawing this tangible benefit from the lady’s attentions. What, exactly, is he supposed to do according to this moral code handed down on high from matriarch paleofeminist Jill? The answer according to the script of the episode was — STOP the thoughtful girlfriend from making him sandwiches. Yeah that’s right. Snatch the peanut butter and jelly right outta her hands. That’s the scripted answer; the answer, in spirit, was “I don’t know.” That’s the trouble with paleofeminism. Paleofeminists won’t admit that their goal is really to get rid of men — but the elephant comes lumbering into full view in the middle of the room, when they are observed spraying instructions and orders at everyone in earshot, like some fully automatic rapid-fire trebuchet — or to invent a metaphor more functionally fitting, a claymore — and at the same time don’t know what to tell the men to do. We’re sexist pigs if our girlfriends make us sandwiches…how, then, do we remedy the situation and stop being sexist pigs? Catch the samrich-makin’ bitch in a full nelson and force her to drop the mayonnaise? It just doesn’t make any sense.

SardoSo I had good reason for wishing 2008 would see the end of paleofeminism. Very good reason. I like it when pretty ladies make me samriches. That’s because I’m sane.

Good reason…but not high hopes. And rightly so. For the frost is nearly upon the pumpkin, and what did blogger friend Cassy Fiano find for us. That’s right, another screeching screed at Feministing.

Check out this 1970 ad for bath oil (via Found in Mom’s Basement):

The text reads:

Sure. You live with him and take care of him and hang up his clothes. But just because you do the things a wife’s supposed to do, don’t forget you’re still a woman.

One of the nicest things you can do for a man is take care of your skin. That means Sardo. No other bath oil or bead has Sardo’s unique dry skin formula. It’s pure bath oil. The richest. The best. 3 out of 4 women saw and felt and loved the difference after just one Sardo bath.

How about you? Why don’t you do something soft and young and special for him. Feel wonderful all over with Sardo.

Wow, this is really taking some early-nineties Bryan Adams to its sexist extreme. I wonder if, when she wipes her ass, she’s also doing that for her husband?

Cassy unloads. And as usual, it’s pretty priceless:

What’s hilarious is how offensive the feminists say this ad is, but the commenters have zero problem whatsoever insulting and deriding the man for the hair on his arms. So it’s OK to criticize men for their looks but not women? What if a bunch of men were making fun of a woman because of something beyond her control, like her arms being hairier than normal, these same women would be shrieking with outrage.

It’s stories like these that make modern feminism so out-of-touch with reality and the average woman. When you’re worried about trivial bullshit like an ad from thirty years ago, or a Bryan Adams video that’s over fifteen years old, and make abortion the holy cow of your entire movement, and then call it fighting for women’s rights, it makes people not really take you very seriously. The thing is, there is real sexism in the world, and real women who are fighting real oppression. Most of this does not take place in the Middle East, but modern American feminism finds things like thirty-year-old bath oil ads and abortion more important than, oh, say three girls being buried alive for the “crime” of choosing their own husbands.

What motivates these bitter women? It obviously is not the “rights” of the modern woman. If it was about that issue, the girls being buried alive would at least register as a blip on the radar, one would hope. In fact, the samrich issue would not — Brad’s girlfriend wants to make him a samrich, she can go ahead and make him a samrich…the “choice” is hers, you see.

*sniff* *sniff* Smells like…some sort of collective bargaining.

Yes, that’s exactly what I think it is. Start out slow, and slack off. You get hired on to the team, which pumps out eight widgets per man per hour — you start cranking out twenty widgets an hour, boss gives you a big atta-boy, life will be all wonderful. Until you go home from work that day. It’s your co-workers, you see. You’re making ’em look bad.

This is exactly the same principle. You’re a woman, taking baths in oils to make your skin soft for that man o’ yours, make him a samrich or two…you know how those uppity men are, sooner or later they’ll start talking! And this puts pressure on the other jealous wrinkled up old gals. Can’t have that.

Perhaps this is why the feminists aren’t too interested in the teenage girls being buried alive, Cassy. See, not being murdered is an individual right. Forcing one amongst your peerage to start out slow & slack off, so that mediocrity can continue to be confused with excellence, that is a group right. A collective-bargaining right. Don’t do good works as an individual person, because you’re making the group-collective look bad.

Lower the expectations. For the good of the collective.

Just as union management demands to step into the role of the “real” boss…the wrinkled up old paleofeminist harpies are demanding to become the “real” husband. That hairy ape you’re living with, he’s just in the way. Don’t do anything to please him, or we’ll make you sorry.

Okay that explains everything — except one thing. With all this Sarah Palin news floating around, we’re already getting a crash-course that the feminist movement is pulling a bait-n-switch on us. They’ve been pissing and moaning that not enough women are winning high offices because not enough women are seeking those high offices…and that must have something to do with us grubby, awful, icky sexist men. Along comes Gov. Palin. To a rational mindset, she would appear to be the fulfillment of everything the feminists had been demanding all these years. Well, the feminists don’t like her, which proves the “womens’ rights” movement never had anything to do with women, and most certainly didn’t have much to do with their rights. It was all about a political agenda. Putting pressure on people to vote for unqualified angry women, was just a tactic for enacting that agenda.

What’s really awful for the feminist movement, is that Sarah Palin and the attacks against her don’t clearly state this for the understanding of whacky bloggers like myself. These events make all this plain to the average, Main Street voter. It’s the kind of damage only self-evident truth can do.

So why now for the attack on the Sardo ad? Why choose right here-and-now to really solidify that message to us…that feminism is all about marginalizing men, and driving a wedge between the sexes — that it has little or nothing to do with womens’ rights? It’s as if Feministing is terrified someone out here was not quite clear on things, and wanted to make sure the message was really spelled out for everyone.

Heyyyyyyy, here’s an idea. Let’s make the 2008 elections all about this. Vote McCain/Palin if you want men and women to get along, vote Obama/Biden if you think whenever a lady is softening up her skin or making samriches for her man, someone should jump in and force her to stop, whether she wants to stop or not. In the name of womens’ choice.

Meanwhile, if any nice-lookin’ ladies come along and start making me hot juicy pies and fetching me cold beers, I fully intend to support womens’ rights. I intend to let them. Sorry if that offends anyone.