The Viennese Squeeze writes me to highlight her delight in finding a couple of feminists in a post below.
Robin Morgan is one her leading feminist lights, which is OK with me, although the link comes through Judith Warner, another feminist who correctly calls Ms. Morgan’s “Goodbye to all that No. 2″ a “screed.”
I personally found Ms. Morgan’s … uhm … polemic to be little more than a Manichean frothy bubble surrounding the same-old toddler’s temper tantrum about not being fair and not getting her way, but opinions are like rectums, everyone has one.
My opinion nonwithstanding, Bridezilla, the “running of the brides” every year in Boston, indicates that it’s women, not men, who are the biggest stumbling block for feminists. While it is true that Democratic Party WHITE women by a 57-43 majority support Hillary over Obama (black women, not so much; race apparently trumps gender for them), when you look at polls of women voters of all political stripe, you’ll find that the biggest “Hillary Haters” (has anyone bothered to trademark that phrase? I hereby claim it! TM All rights reserved) in America are not the big, bad, old, white guys, it’s WOMEN.
Even upon a shallow inspection of Ms. Morgan’s piece, it’s clear that the biggest problem for and with feminists lies with women. You can shout about women being put in Burkas, but it’s Islamic women that police the patrimonial custom; you can rage at female mutilation in Africa, but it’s women who insist upon it and who perform the wretched cutting. And, btw, has anyone noticed that the practices that feminists decry the loudest just happen to be a product of the cultures of dark-skinned, third world folk?
Perhaps my feminist friends can go to Africa or the Middle East and take up their White Girls Burden of civilizing the colonialized nations and we could get some latter day Rudyard Kipling writing going. It’d make better reading.
blogblah, agent provacateur and the 15th Marquis of Ennui writing from his non-ancestral abode, Pont du Ennui, whilst awaiting the feminized poker game scheduled for tonight.
SIGH. After all my brilliant baiting of feminists, above, I still feel it necessary to update contra. Read this by ABC’s Jake Tapper, who I really think is a very good and strong reporter:
Sen. Hillary Clinton went on the offensive today during her campaign sweep through Ohio, vigorously scolding her opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, over two mailings his campaign made that she said misrepresented her views and created a division within the Democratic Party.
SIGH. OK. If John McCain, Obama, Edwards or anyone else had attacked an opponent’s campaign tactics like this, would the word “scold” be used? Hell, McCain would “launch a fusillade” and Edwards would “lambast” or Barry O would “barrage”.
In addition, use of such militaristic and sports jingo attached to men is equally bad. This is just bad language usage all around, in so many ways. How about: Sen. Clinton took offense at her opponent’s campaign today during her sweep through Ohio, accusing Sen. Obama of misrepresenting her views in two mailings she found divisive.
(An Aside) Damn right it’s divisive, Hillary. You’re lucky I’m not working on Barry’s campaign or you’d see some “divisive” mailers for sure. Dividing you and my candidate is precisely what those mailers were meant to do. Myself, I’d have written a mailer that said: First, Sen. Clinton was all for NAFTA, but things didn’t work out so well for the industrial workers of Ohio. So, now that the factories have all moved out of the country, she has four new ways to fix that. Just like she voted for the war in Iraq and now that things didn’t work out so well for the country and 4,000 Americans have shed blood in this senseless war, she has a string of proposals for how to fix that, too. Isn’t an ounce of Obama prevention worth a pound of Hillary’s cures for her own mistakes?
This, by the way, is the absolutely wrong way to respond to Obama’s mailers. If I’d been working for Hillary, I would never, ever let her do this. The “negative” about her is that she’s seen as a “bitch”. Everybody’s first wife and mother in law. Yeah, yeah. Unfair, but an accurate portrayal of her widely held negative image. I would never let her get red faced and wag her finger like Bill did. She does look like a “scold” to those so inclined to see her that way already. But here’s the deal: BHO spent a good bit on those mailers. They are not cheap. She’s getting free airtime. I would have told her to hold up those mailers and look right into the camera and say: “Barry. Silly season? That’s what you said last night. This is beneath you and it’s beneath a candidate who has raised all our hopes that politics can be different this time around. Stop this. We disagree but you can face me with your disagreements like a man instead of sneaking around with this low level of distortion and false innuendo. Anyone who wants to know where I really stand on these issues can go to my website or call 1-800-HILLARY.” End of press conference. Just walk away and don’t take questions.
SUNDAY UPDATE: APPARENTLY I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO LOOKED TWICE AT “SCOLDED” IN JAKE TAPPER’S STORY. HERE IS HIS RESPONSE AND DISCUSSION OF SEXIST LANAGUAGE IN REPORTING.
B — I can’t get the cut and paste to work with paragraphs. I’m sorry.
SHE RESPONDS, but not this run-on way, that’s my fault.
Your are right. And: I know all that as well. Do you honestly think our society would look the way it does if all women – we are the majority in the US and worldwide, after all – were feminists? No, of course not. I know it and every feminist knows it. Not every black liked to be subjected to manumission either. And psychologists can tell you a lot about how people dislike someone who shows them that they could have done better by doing something else. Hillary must be a sore in the eye of any traditional woman who had been obsessing about getting married and “taken care of” from age 13. And who by now when by herself is be wondering whether this really has been all there is to life, although the corny romantic novels and movies she has devoured throughout most of her life had told her that this was IT. Having been the target of the wrath of my unliberated sisters for decades who didn’t want to know that another world is possible: By now, I don’t care that much any more. Contrary to the 60s and 70s, information has been around for decades, if they want to learn, they’ve had all the chances in the world to do so. If they don’t want to get out of their stereotypical roles, tough shit. Islamic women are a particular creed, though. The educated ones among them are often pretty feminist these days, far more than the mainstream in the West nowadays and A LOT more than eastern European women who to a shocking extent have the attitude of whores (no nasty generalisation, I live among them, and so do we all here in Europe) and who see men primarily as a way to get things or get things done, if you act the way that pleases them, emotions normally don’t enter the equation, it’s a business. They are very popular with men (no, no envy, the men get exactly what they’ve asked for in these deals). Islamic women’s take on headscarf et al does resemble many feminists’ take on “do we have to look like hookers?” and the often discussed question of female dignity, which makes it intellectually interesting. They are more challenging discussion partners than the eastern European women, I have to admit. Because they do touch on an old problem. Margaret Atwood summed up this dilemma in her sci-fi “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Story: a part of America has become a theocracy ruled by Christian fundamentalists, most women are barren, only some are still fertile and used as birth machines, attitudes about sex and female attire make Saudi Arabia look like Las Vegas) and she cleverly draws parallels between what some radical feminists and fundamental religions expect of how women are supposed to dress, for example). And, sure, billions of women around the world are oppressed and accept it, or at least they buy into the whole patriarchial society and definitely would burn women like me on the stake. But OTOH, whenever I hear or read women whining about finding the perfect man or what to do to prevent looking old and where to find the next guru or esoteric therapy or ultimate outfit and all that crap in order to window-dress the commodity nicely for men, I just lean back and shake my head. Their problem. That’s the bonus I get from having realised early on how ridiculous all this is. Liberation endowed me with a huge reward for the rest of my life. BTW: We had originally hoped that men would walk away from their sterotypical role models and expectations, too! Our Hillary might be a closet feminist, who knows. I don’t know who she really is. “It Takes a Village” centered on the effort of a collective to raise children, though, which is a feminist thought, would be a nice attitude for a prez – contrary to the “I need a personal saviour”-creed of American society at large. But of course she wouldn’t have won half a primary on that ticket. Kucinich would have looked good compared to her in that case.The Zeitgeist would have been against it. The Zeitgeist will turn around again one day, I know, though, once women wake up again and realize that having relied on the achievements of some activists way back when while not doing a fucking thing themselves (except shrieking “oh no, I am no feminist!”), they have been losing out again slowly. Tough shit for them. But it will turn around too late for Hillary. Still: I can only hope that Obama isn’t the rhetorically exquisite flake who I fear he deep down is. I fear that he’ll become the puppet of many advisers for lack of experience who will ruin his message and him as well. But I’d be utterly delighted if he can prove me wrong and if he really can pull it off. Because I don’t think that you need dynasties in that country, and someone not called Clinton or Bush would be a welcome change. But McCain isn’t beaten yet. It’s just worrying that Americans keep voting for people on looks, speeches written by speech writers, money collected in a campaign (don’t you find it odd that you keep being ruled by millionaires and billionaires? – what do they know about the average American?? – who needed 1776 if that’s all it boiled down to, i.e. the same ruling class as was British aristocracy?) and likability. That’s not really enough of a test for the task at hand, I find. B
A POST SCRIPT FROM B, ALSO WITHOUT PROPER PARAGRAPHS, RE: THE McCAIN VS. NYT POST BELOW
Sorry, I read your reply too late to include it in my other mail. Yeah, makes sense. But since this alluding to sexual relationships in a primary is by now as American as apple pie, it would have been A LOT better if the NYT had disclosed his relations to lobbiyists without ever getting near the notion of sex and romance. You can see for yourself how the real message was completely drowned by the sexual connotation!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24rich.html?em&ex=1204002000&en=1eaf7624ae72ae11&ei=5087