House of Eratosthenes

Blogger friend Phil, through a chat session, asks me if I saw a Gloria Steinem article which he refuses to link. Now that he’s picked on Ms. Steinem, he thinks he has some sexist vouchers to sell into the system, to make available for purchase by someone else. If that is the case, then of course under my rules, someone could purchase the “right” to say nice things about Sarah Palin, or some other woman, without polluting the landscape by eroding the institution of chauvinism.

Twenty-five sexist vouchers It’s a pretty important question. For decades, now, feminists have been running around treating sexism like it’s some kind of ooze that’s “everywhere” and behaving as if anyone who doesn’t agree with them about something, is just evidence of more-of-the-same. If the last week has taught us anything, it’s that the mental stability of our modern feminists is placed in danger when they see hard evidence that this just might not be so. They have to believe in it. Men like me, who think males & females are actually different (and do all that other yucky stuff…go to Hooters, drink cold bear, eat hot spicy meat, go to archery & gun ranges to hit things with projectiles, etc.) are the boogeymen in which they have to believe. Therefore, we are determined to do our part. Hence, the voucher system.

You can read the Steinem piece here, although Phil’s right — you already know what it says. Sarah Palin is the wrong woman!

Which, of course, is precisely why feminism is dead. It isn’t about looking out for women at all; it is about promoting a specific political agenda. Palin is not friendly to that agenda. Wrong woman, indeed.

Here’s the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing — the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party — are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women — and to many men too — who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the “white-male-only” sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes

Heh. Try again, Gloria. I’ve got my reasons for supporting Sarah Palin, and they really don’t have a great deal to do with Shirley Chisholm. But anyway.

But here is even better news: It won’t work. This isn’t the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

Well, you don’t really mean “women everywhere,” do you. You clearly are not referring to Gov. Palin; she’s part of “women everywhere,” isn’t she? One would presume so, but it seems you don’t agree, Ms. Steinem. And since blogger friend Cassy Fiano is Sarah Palin, you don’t think Cassy is part of “women everywhere” either. So I’m going to go waaaay out on a limb, and guess you don’t think that other Michelle is part of women everywhere, or Rachel, or Dr. Melissa Clouthier, or Dr. Helen, or American Princess, or Karol, or Phil’s wife, or my girlfriend, or Laura Bush or Cindy McCain or Lynne Cheney or…or…or…

This is the bogus thing about “everyone,” and it isn’t just liberals who abuse it. Everyone, as I have noticed more than a few times, is a concept that hardly ever is intended to mean what the culturally unacquainted might expect it to mean.

Most of the time, what it means is “the person speaking, and those who agree with him/her.”

This is one of those times.

Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton’s candidacy stood for — and that Barack Obama’s still does.

Okay so it does nothing to address your complaint when the Republicans pick a woman for the Vice-President job. And yet, the substance of your complaint is manifested through the fact that there are still twice as many men as women.

You know what? I think I’ll check back with Ms. Steinem in a another decade or two, to see if she’s made up her mind whether she wants to be a bean-counting quota queen or not. In the meantime, I’m done. She can’t stick to one side of that question, or the other, consistently throughout a couple of paragraphs. Why in the world do I want to waste some of my precious hours reading the words of some flibbertigibbet like that?

I’m much more interested in Phil’s chat-session question: Does he have a sexist-voucher or two he can sell to the marketplace, now that he’s picked on Ms. Steinem?

Oof. Um…I dunno. Gloria Steinem is a chick. But Gloria Steinem is kicking around Sarah Palin, who is also a chick. To attack Steinem for attacking Palin, you’d have to defend Palin, and in so doing you’d be creating a need to purchase sexist offset vouchers. The object of the exercise is to preserve our national heritage of chauvinism, sexism and general male piggery. Perhaps engaging in such an exercise unleashes two equal and opposite forces upon each other, producing a zero net result.

I’m stumped on this one. Anybody got any ideas?

Well, don’t worry too much about it. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with the windfall profits tax on it anyway.

Divisive, huh? I’ll repeat the challenge question I asked here, slightly re-phrased:

What, excactly, was divisive about it? Pick an example from the speech, and tell me why it is divisive.

Is she supposed to say “we’re really no different from our opponents, so it really doesn’t matter who you vote for.” ????

More likely, she’s supposed to say, “We’re mean, racist, sexist, gun totin’, God-clingin’ white people. We suck. Vote for Barack, Savior of the Universe, Amen.”
- philmon | 09/05/2008 @ 14:40
Damn. I forgot to add “uneducated, back-woods, small-town rednecks.”

Well, you can’t blame me. I am one of those idiot conservatives, you know. 🙂
- philmon | 09/05/2008 @ 14:41
More likely, she’s supposed to say, “We’re mean, racist, sexist, gun totin’, God-clingin’ white people. We suck. Vote for Barack, Savior of the Universe, Amen.”

Hah! Yeah, I’ve been noticing this for awhile. Conservatives make an argument in favor of conservatism, and liberals scream out-of-bounds.

Reminds me of the old joke…

“Your honor! I vehemently object to this proof of my client’s guilt. It prejudices the jury to prove my client’s guilt!”
- mkfreeberg | 09/05/2008 @ 14:56
“Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere.”

I’ve heard that exact phrase before, directed at me. A long time ago, I was a lowly member of the Teamster’s Union. My boss wanted to give me a raise, but the Union didn’t want this to happen. The Union wouldn’t allow managment to give me a raise because they would only allow raises if they were for a job category that affected more people.

The Union Steward broke the news to me directly, and acted as if this was the most understandable position in the world. After all, it was for the good of the members of the Union; who was I to care about myself? There weren’t any other employees with my job title, and that was the point. It didn’t matter how well I did my job, or that my raise would help the Union acheive its stated goal of getting more money from the company to the workers. That’s the point of being in a Union, right? Solidarity, and all of that BS. I left a year later and never looked back.

What a bunch of bullshit. To the collectivist mindset individuals don’t matter. Only your membership in a group matters; your membership expands the power of the collective, just don’t expect the collective to help you out personally.

But who speaks for the collective? Answer that question and you’ll see who holds power on the Left.

Gloria Steinem? Like any leader of a heirarchal power structure, she only wishes to see women succeed who toe her party line. In this way her power is increased since she considers herself atop this collective. Other women who acheive greatness on their own discredit this idea and effectively reduce her power and influence. What a bitter and shrill old phoney.
- emj | 09/05/2008 @ 15:58
I think I’ll check back with Ms. Steinem in a another decade or two…

Really? Unless the actuarial tables LIE (or she’s an outlier) she’ll have gone on to her reward by that time… such as that reward might be. I’ll bite my lip considering the timing… 😉
- Buck | 09/05/2008 @ 16:19
“Your honor! I vehemently object to this proof of my client’s guilt. It prejudices the jury to prove my client’s guilt!”

As Dennis Miller would say, “Beautiful, baby!”

I am going to have to co-opt that one. File it away for future use. Probably not-so-distant-future use the way things have been going lately.

It fits the situation perfectly.
- philmon | 09/05/2008 @ 22:31
ejm —

That was brilliantly put.

You bloggin’ somewhere? We need more of this stuff out there.
- philmon | 09/05/2008 @ 22:39
sorry … emj 🙂
- philmon | 09/05/2008 @ 22:40
philmon-

Thanks for the compliment,
I blog at mbmusings.wordpress.com
Stop by anytime.

emj – aka: eman
- eman | 09/06/2008 @ 16:05

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Phil’s Sexism-Voucher QuestionFriday, September 5th, 2008

Phil’s Sexism-Voucher Question
Friday, September 5th, 2008