Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Feminism: Hillary-ous

Camille Paglia is the favorite feminist of conservatives, though she’s not a conservative. The reason they like her is that she periodically takes aim at sacred liberal cows and slaughters them with abandon. She’s done that again in a wide ranging interview, which is interesting for several points, including her depants(suit)ing of Hillary Clinton.

Indeed, the headline grabber from the interview is Paglia taking down Hillary: “It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton is our party’s best chance.” She notes in particular that Hillary has no qualifications whatsoever and a history that doesn’t really inspire:
“She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished – beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband?”
She also slams Hillary for failing in the one instance where she actually had some authority, i.e. Benghazi, though her criticism does strike me as a little off in this regard – she says Hillary should have resigned, which seems politically unrealistic. In any event, it’s interesting to see a liberal point out that the Empress has no pantsuit.

Anyway, more interesting was what Paglia said about feminism. Paglia is a feminist, but isn’t a traditional feminist. She’s part of a different group of feminists who really don’t like the people we normally think of as feminists. In fact, when she first appeared on the radar screen, it was in her struggles against the feminists, who were at the peak of their power in the 1990s. And what she notes now is something we’ve pointed out before here: feminism is dead.
“Oh, feminism is still alive? Thanks for the tip! It sure is invisible, except for the random whine from some maleducated product of the elite schools who’s found a plush berth in glossy magazines.”
That is exactly right. The feminism Rush called “Femi-nazis,” which was born in the 1960s and peaked when it dominated academia, Hollywood and the nation’s universities in the 1990s is dead except for a couple random whiners, and the ideology it constructed has been abandoned. I love this quote in particular: “They keep dusting Steinem off and trotting her out to pin awards on her, but she’s the walking dead.”

It’s interesting to have a real insider confirm this and put a reason to it (one of which actually matches my Fifty Shades argument as you’ll see in a moment). So what reason does she give for feminism being dead? Partisanship is the big reason, and puritanicalism.

According to Paglia, feminism got crushed because “[t]heir shameless partisanship eventually doomed those Stalinist feminists.” In other words, they became so aligned with the Democratic Party that they became just another interest group and lost the respect of the public at large. Unions made this mistake too. Both unions and feminists decided they could get what they wanted through the Democratic Party rather than trying to win the public. Thus, they stopped pressuring everyone but Democrats. This destroyed their “moral authority” because they came to be seen as partisan rather than principled. In other words, rather than their cause being about equality for women, people came to see the cause of feminism as being the election of Democrats. So whether or not they were right as a matter of principle no longer mattered.

Indeed, Paglia notes that this is a continuing problem today:
“While it’s a big relief not to have feminist bullies sermonizing from every news show anymore, the leadership vacuum is alarming. It’s very distressing, for example, that the atrocities against women in India — the shocking series of gang rapes, which seem never to end — have not been aggressively condemned in a sustained way by feminist organizations in the U.S. . . The true mission of feminism today is not to carp about the woes of affluent Western career women but to turn the spotlight on life-and-death issues affecting women in the Third World.”
Paglia doesn’t specifically connect this dot to partisanship, but that is the logical cause of what she notes. Since feminists have aligned themselves with the Democratic Party and since the Democratic Party has aligned itself with “people of color” against white males, Christians, and the West, it goes against party politics to criticize things like Muslim atrocities or to point out that the rest of the world is a racist, sexist sh*thole. Hence, feminists have remained deafeningly silent about various atrocities as they instead focused their energies on things like getting healthplans to pay for condoms for rich girls. Because of this, feminists have squandered their credibility because it’s clear they are no longer about “women,” they are about “Democrats,” just like unions are no longer about workers, they are about Democrats.

In addition to the above, Paglia adds the following. First, she notes that old-school feminists were puritanical. Indeed, they worked hand in hand with the Religious Right in the 1990s to try to stop pornography. And in the process, they alienated the vast, vast, vast majority of women because women aren’t actually opposed to sex like those feminists thought they were. To the contrary, most kind of like it. Of this, Paglia says that these “Stalinist feminists. . . were trampled by the pro-sex feminist stampede of the early ‘90s.” This is my Fifty Shades point. Feminism imploded because it tried to impose a condition that ran counter to what women wanted, so they rebelled.

So what are the takeaways? Well, feminism is dead, at least in the form it took until the 1990s. It died because it lost the public through partisanship and it lost women through being puritanical, and those womyn are relegated to history and a few pointless academic posts at this point. It also explains why modern feminists won’t speak out for women today, not in any serious context, and why they are unlikely to regain any influence with the public any time soon. Finally, Paglia confirms that even liberals recognize that Hillary is an empty pantsuit.

87 comments:

Tennessee Jed said...

I loved that article, and I think your article is right on point, Andrew. This is provably my last post for a bit. All the best!

Koshcat said...

Interesting. I would like to hear or read more about the take down of Hillary. I think it was the blue dress that was probably the end of the feminists. Prior to that they were weak and had an opportunity to regain respect by criticizing Bill (and perhaps defend Monica) but they chose to look the other way. As you stated, the were nakedly partisan.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Jed! Be well! :D

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, There wasn't really anymore about Hillary or I would have discussed it. I would love to hear more on this to see what Paglia thinks of Hillary's supposed status as high-powered attorney in Arkansas (indicted firm), her failure with HillaryCare, how she became cookie-recipe mom and then vanished until she needed to defend Bill, how she did nothing as a Senator and really did nothing as Sec. of State either. I think there is a lot there to tear apart and expose.

It also kind of explains how Obama could be seen as her equal in 2008 in a way... he's held fewer jobs, but has no fewer qualifications than she does.

In terms of regaining respect, I think attacking Bill's "bimbo eruptions" and doing so so crudely was probably the straw that broke that camel's back. That was the moment everyone said, "Wait a minute, they don't care about women... they care about Democrats." And I think they were too partisan to see it at that point and change course.

Koshcat said...

I've got it. The democrats are having an image problem in that they don't really have anyone else to run in 2016 except Hilary and uncle Joe. We also have a problem with Hollywood trying to destroy an icon. I know who should run:

Ben Afflack.

Kit said...

"The true mission of feminism today is not to carp about the woes of affluent Western career women but to turn the spotlight on life-and-death issues affecting women in the Third World.”

Amen.

AndrewPrice said...

LOL! That would solve some problems.

As an aside, I'd actually to see some of these liberal actors who keep talking about running for something actually doing it. It would be great to see them get destroyed or elected and then destroyed... so communism doesn't work after all, does it Mr. Penn? And what will we do with the ruins of Los Angels now, sir? I particularly like the idea of Alec Baldwin becoming the mayor of NYC. What a mess that would make!

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, I think she's spot on, but I also think she will be ignored. It's hard to rally the troops from their ivory tower jobs to work themselves up about abuses by non-white-male-westerners. Muslims are scary people in real life... best to leave them alone. Better to stick with issues like rich girls who need condoms.

Kit said...

Andrew,

Oh, I'm sure she will be ignored. AS you said, those folk "are scary people in real life".

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, I think there's a lot to that. It's a lot easier and safer to attack people who won't fight back than it is to fight against people who will happily kill you.

Not to mention, that by engaging fundamentalist Islam, the feminists inadvertently demonstrate how far the West has come and how little there is to complain about here. That would undermine their need to keep people thinking that things are horrible here.

K said...

Well feminism as a cultural movement may be dead, but it still has political clout aplenty, having morphed into a union movement.

If you doubt that consider the hearings on women in science. I watched some of them on CSPAN and even Republicans were bowing and scraping to give them what they wanted - more women in science and engineering and damn the test scores.

Anthony said...

A couple of points:

1) Human rights abroad isn't something ordinary people get worked up about unless the violations are systematic and extreme and they don't tend to favor action unless the action is low cost and low risk (lives are expensive, money is low cost).

2) On a related note, people tend to care more about what impacts them and what they can change. For example, no Christian conservatives are happy about Christians being persecuted and murdered by Islamic fanatics abroad, but the overwhelming majority are more worked up/vocal about gays getting married in the US, abortion, random mosques being constructed, the 'war against Christmas' and Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMAs in part because it impacts them in part because its what they can change. Denouncing Al Queda isn't going to make them rethink decapitating Americans, putting pressure on a teacher in Albany might make him decide to turn the Holiday Party back into a Christmas Party.

3) Hillary isn't the sort to make a liberal happy but that is why she is dangerous. Thrilling the wings works great for primaries and safe seats, not so well for national elections. What's more encouraging is that Mrs. Clinton just isn't much of a politician (someone competent wouldn't have had 2008 snatched from under them).

Patriot said...

Andrew.....Every "liberal progressive" group that aligned themselves with the Democrat Party hearkens my thoughts back to the old Martin Niemöller quote..."First they came for the communists, but I didn't speak out for I wasn't a communist," etc..... All these groups, Blacks, unionists, feminists, true liberal thinkers, etc., came after the white, evangelicals because they were an easy target for their hatred and what they considered their rightful place at the table.

However, look at the abolitionist movement in America. Who supported it? Quakers, Repblicans (Whigs), white men and women. When blacks aligned themselves with Dems in the 60's, 100 years after "emancipation," they aligned themselves with a party with no morals or ethics, just a naked desire for the power they felt was rightly theirs. Look at the black experience in America today and see what that partnership has brought.

Now look at feminism. Your article clearly points out how they have co-opted their original intent in order to get what is "rightfully theirs." Money, fame and power which the Dems promised them as long as they turned their backs on the blatant sexism, misogyny and death-culture that the Dems offered. True feminism would be appalled at what the movement has turned into.

So, first they came for the evangelicals ("fundamentalists"), but I didn't speak out because I wasn't one. Etc., etc., etc.

Clear thinkers like Paglia, who were NOT seduced by the Dems siren song on feminism (even though I'm sure she is a reliable dem voter), can see what happens next and she wants no part of it.

I just think we can't keep destroying a society and culture that has developed over time by being inclusive (Western civ) and go back to racial, class and sex factions pitting one group against each other and hope to survive.

tryanmax said...

I agree with this:

Human rights abroad isn't something ordinary people get worked up about...

However, people do expect interest groups to get worked up about those things. It is part of how they maintain their credibility. You'll see it when people get stirred up about the latest gaffe--they'll be equally upset with feminists for being too focused on it. It's as if they're saying, "we don't need the feminists to tell us to be upset over this." And they certainly don't help their cause by giving a pass to Democrats, which gets noted every time they attack a Republican.

I think the fact that feminists are relegated to pressing Congress to put more women in tech jobs says it all. That doesn't effect people's daily lives either. If a woman wants to pursue a tech job, she certainly doesn't need congress's help, and as for the rest of us, when's the last time you worried about how many of your electronics were designed by women?

But the public won't engage to block it either because no one wants to be labeled as against anything. The only way to get large numbers of people to oppose something is to frame it as favoring something else.

Anthony said...

Tryanmax,

I doubt people expect commentary on international issues but I agree that groups that only call out the misdeeds of one of the two sides get recognized as partisan.

I agree that who designs something isn't the sort of thing consumers worry about (as a general rule) but in the game industry (I'm not in it, but I am an avid gamer) is any indication producers worry because companies believe (with some justification) that an unusual designer can attract an expanded/unusual audience.

BevfromNYC said...

Human rights abroad isn't something ordinary people get worked up about unless the violations are systematic and extreme...

...I doubt people expect commentary on international issues but I agree that groups that only call out the misdeeds of one of the two sides get recognized as partisan


Anthony and Tryanmax - You are absolutely wrong. Actually, YES, I DO expect these groups to speak out on international issues when it comes to womens' rights! Which is the main reason why N.O.W. and other women's rights groups are completely irrelevent as Paglia states. They keep harping imaginary "Wars on Women" over the right to be irresponsible, when women are actually being executed for driving cars. Widows with children are expected to starve to death because they cannot leave their homes without a man to accompany them!

YES! WE EXPECT N.O.W. TO COMMENT ON THESE ISSUES AND TO FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN EVERYWHERE!!!

But they remains deafeningly silent which is why they are now irrelevent.

BevfromNYC said...

And further to that, Tryanmax, I agree with you and have since the '80's that there comes a time where women cannot rely on outside intervention to achieve. You are either quailified as any man must be or you are not. I have always been adamantly opposed to lowering standards just so women (or other protected class) can get ahead. And there is a time where individuals must fight their own battles.

Shannon Faulkner was the final straw for me. I am not sure if anyone remembers her. In the early '90's she sued Virginia Military Academy - a publicly funded all-male college - for the right to matriculate. She had a point. There should be no sex discrimnation for institution funded by the tax payers. The case lasted for over two year and she finally won. Yippee.

But here is what ended it for me. With all the fanfare, she entered the hallowed halls of VMI...only to wash out after 1 day. She was not physically qualified to go there like so many MEN were not too. Instead of spending those years working to prepare herself to qualify like any man would have to, she sat on her but in a courtroom expecting that no matter what they would have to let her in.

That's when I realized that the point of the entire women's movement was no longer about an equal opportunity for qualified women to compete on the same level as any man would have to do. Equal opportunity had taken a back seat to equal outcome even for the unqualified just because they are fill in aggrieved victim class here].

To this day, Shannon Faulkner epitomizes to me all that went wrong with the womens movement.

Patriot said...

Bev...I don't believe feminism was anything more than a US phenomenon. Some Euro countries followed suit to a point, once they got what they wanted, which was equality of opportunity in the workforce.

All the other tired, self-aggrandized "rights" that US feminists were braying for were to improve their access to the political process here in the US. The Dem party in particular. Just look at how they've completely marginalized conservative women here.

So, I don't think the women's rights movement ever intended or cared about the rights of Indian women being raped, Middle Eastern women being beaten and killed, etc. Strictly a US based and led movement for American womyn.

The All Male Interstellar Society said...

Deploy full battle shields....Aaoooogah!!

Anthony said...

Bev,

I don't doubt the sincerity of you or Mrs. Paglia but all the evidence I've ever seen indicates that international politics is extremely low on the public's list of priorities unless something goes spectacularly wrong (apparently the death of an American Ambassador wasn't spectacular enough). Unless people believe that a screw up will bite them in the butt they will forgive an awful lot.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, when something atrocious happens overseas that gets recognition in the American press, you don't have to be tuned in to Fox News to hear people ask, "Where is N.O.W. (or whatever relevant org.) on this?" Whether they mean it sincerely or rhetorically, the point is still the same: This sort of thing is their turf; we expect to hear an opinion.

On video games, the example defeats itself b/c, while gamers might flock to a unique designer, they're savvy enough to eschew an appointment designer, and they're almost totally lacking in PC, so they'd probably rip in to her, at that. Especially girl gamers. They can be viscous.

T-Rav said...

Personally, my favorite feminist (or at least, my favorite female pundit from the other side) is Kirsten Powers, but for the same qualities as Paglia seems to have: logical consistency, a willingness to buck the party line on certain issues, etc.

Good on her for rejecting this idea of Hillary as our latest greatest Messiah--though it may only result in her ostracism, until she makes penance.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, sorry to double-post on the same subject, I was typing my last comment before I saw your last.

We're arguing two different things. You're saying people generally don't care about international issues, and I already agreed with that.

BUT, when the exception to the rule occurs, people expect some interest group to be leading the conversation. That's how Americans tie the international to the local--somebody I know or identify with is concerned.

On Benghazi, there was an interest group pushing that--talk-radio and their cohorts. But that's another interest group that has lost credibility with the public b/c they've proven to be so anti-Obama they go after their own for saying nice things about him. But if they'd said nothing, everyone else would be trying to figure out why.

It is a bit hard to discuss at present b/c most if not all interest groups have squandered their influence in favor of political alliances. So, by extension, no body cares what they think. However, people routinely state the conditions under which they would care.

AndrewPrice said...

K, I don't think an effort to get women to go into science is quite the same thing as 1990s feminist, who basically wanted women to live independently from men in all things and who were demanding things like laws to guarantee an equal number of women in boardrooms and in Congress.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I agree in principle, but that's not really the issue. The issue isn't that they aren't trouping over to Afghanistan. The issue is that they turn a blind eye to this. If you tell a feminist, "What about Arab girls who ___?" The answer comes back either "You don't care about girls!" or "Islam is the religion of peace, why are you so prejudice against them."

There is a huge difference between "I don't have the resources to do two things at once" and what amounts to collaboration.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, Let me also add that there is a wealth of example of how feminists selectively attack things they oppose.

Take the way they stand up for woman-bashing when the woman is a conservative. Or how they defend Democratic slime like Weiner until it because too untenable. Or look at how they handle abuse. The profile of a typical "spousal" abuser is a young black male in his 20s who isn't married to the woman he's beating. Statistically, that is the demographic by a mile. The least likely abuser is a married white male in his 50s -- so few they almost don't chart. Women are more likely to be abusers than 50 year old white men. Yet, feminists only allow the portrayal of abuse as a 50 year old white married male. That is all they talk about, that is the image they use all the time in ads, that is the image they use exclusively in movies and the one reporters use when they do these stories. If this were about women and not attacking a voting block they oppose, then why stick with this?

The reason is that feminism like so much of liberalism isn't about protecting anyone, it's about attacking political enemies.

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, I would disagree on a couple point.

First, I don't think the deal with feminists was as blatant as that. I think the feminist in the 1960s saw the Democratic Party as a tool they could use... they weren't offered anything. It was a bit like the Tea Party and the Republicans. The feminists moved in, moved up the ranks, and started playing party politics. That is what discredited them, as soon as they put party loyalty above principle.

Secondly, I'm not sure what a "true feminist" is, but the ones in the 1960s were on board with this -- it was their way to achieve their goals. The younger ones, to the extent they still consider feminism something apart from everything else, clearly don't agree. So really, "true feminism" is dead and what has replaced it is something else.

I actually think that conservative feminism has replaced it for the most part, though there are still a cadre of whiners in the universities. But they have no influence that I can see.

Third, as for what happens next, that ship has sailed. Their goal evaporated in a sex-loving backlash and now feminism is rudderless. I don't think they could tell you what their goals are today.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, On tech jobs, I think the big problem for feminists today is that they have no agenda whatsoever. I'm not even sure they exist as a moment anymore frankly, so they latch onto whatever they can find, no matter how ludicrous.

I think what you have today is this:

You still have the old school dinosaurettes who have a minor, laughable agenda: pass a law letting us designate pay for all jobs, unfettered abortion, totally equal representation in Congress and in boardrooms, and make the number of women in each high-paying job equal to the number of men by magic. They are also the ones who turn out to scream whenever some issue arises... like Al Sharpton. But no one takes them serious. Their ideas are DOA. This is maybe 100 women.

Then you have young women. A tiny number are like Fluke, who want to be feminists, but don't have the foggiest how. So they look for things that annoy them in their own lives and turn them into causes... "Someone should pay for my birth control!"... "Why should I pay more for a haircut than a man?" This is probably 1% of women and their ultimate goal is to end up in academia to warp the next generation of girls into rebels/feminists without a cause.

Then you have the rest who want legal equality, do get outraged about things like Islam, will support domestic violence laws, but don't see feminism as a part of their lives and won't actively support an agenda.

The dinosaurettes are the 100ers.
The Flukes are the future 1%ers.
The others are the 99%ers.

Feminism is dead.

tryanmax said...

"Why should I pay more for a haircut than a man?"

LOL! I know there are some women who don't even know what it means when I tell my stylist to use the #2. That's why they pay more for a haircut. (It's the secret code! ♪♫Duh, duh, du-u-uh!♪♫)

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Please don't scream, I have a head ache. :P

I agree with you. I think women expect feminists to speak out about any injustice that hits the public's radar screen. In other words, they don't expect feminists to go crawling through the brush in Africa to find an injustice, but when an injustice becomes known, they do expect that feminist will speak out about it and demand that the government do what it can to stop it.

And that is what feminists are not doing. They are picking and choosing what they want to object to, and in the process they've ended up looking partisan and elitist, and that has lost them their moral authority and turned off millions of women who no longer see them as speaking for women, but instead speaking for Democrats.

Paglia is very right here. They have thrown away their credibility by turning a blind eye to real abuses.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, LOL! True. The reason is obvious -- men are in and out in under 10 minutes. Women take an hour.

BUT... that doesn't stop them. Every year there are womyn in law school who participate in "workshop" classes where they are supposed to represent the poor and inevitably one of them will sue a local hair dresser alleging gender discrimination. This has been going on since the 1990s and it's pathetic.

Patriot said...

Yet they still want to be treated like a lady by men when the time is right. I give up.....I can't understand the rules anymore. Thank you "feminism."

Anthony said...

Andrew said:

Anthony, I agree in principle, but that's not really the issue. The issue isn't that they aren't trouping over to Afghanistan. The issue is that they turn a blind eye to this. If you tell a feminist, "What about Arab girls who ___?" The answer comes back either "You don't care about girls!" or "Islam is the religion of peace, why are you so prejudice against them."

There is a huge difference between "I don't have the resources to do two things at once" and what amounts to collaboration.
---------

Andrew,

I don't think its a question of resources, I think it is what people care about. People care about the issues close to them. Mainstream American feminism is a mostly white, middle to upper class movement whose preoccupations reflect those of its members (which isn't all women in America let alone around the world).

I think another problem might be the perception that one is trying to distract from a real problem by pointing to a worse problem. 'How can you make a big deal about getting called a slut when women are being gangraped in India!?'.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I remember Shannon Faulkner and I agree with you. I believe the law should not discriminate, but you need to meet the requirements. Unfortunately, when feminism in the 1980s and early 1990s demanded "equality," they really were talking about a lowering of standards... equality of outcome.

To me, this was most evident in SAT testing and in the military. In SAT testing feminists demanded that any question which girls did "disproportionately poorly" on should be removed from the test because it must be biased (they didn't mind questions boys did poorly on). So rather than spotting something girls weren't doing right and fixing it, they instead demanded that the test be changed to mask the failure.

Then the women in combat stuff started and at each phase, feminists like Pat Schroeder were saying things like "You shouldn't make women carry packs when they run" and "Who need to do pullups in combat?" This told me that the goal was not to admit qualified women, it was to lower the qualifications.

Then in the 1990s, they went insane with things like demanding equal representation in Congress. Plus, they pushed insanity like "you can say 'no' after the fact." Huh?

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, I think feminism has always focused on the West because that's who is receptive of the idea. What I find ludicrous is despite the fact that the people of Western countries have happily gone along with them, they keep painting those same people as villains.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony and tryamax, I think the difference is this: feminism is supposed to be a principle, not a policy. Foreign policy gets almost no attention by the public unless a disaster happens that involves us. But when judging a group that claims to stand for a principle, the public holds it against the group if they don't at least voice outrage in accordance with their principles.


On girl designers, I agree with both to a agree. Like tryanmax, I think the game is what matters. Once you have a cool game, you develop a cult of followers, but you can't get the followers without making the game first. And simply announcing "we have a girl designer" will be seen as a PR stunt.

That said, I agree with Anthony that tech companies and others are very aware that just having one group of people, e.g. all white male nerds, will cause them to be blind to new trends and potentially revolutionary ideas. That's why companies do look for diversity, so they see what they might be missing. And once they find talent, they exploit it no matter what race/gender it is. At that point, being the only girl designer with a hit would probably count as rock star points.

Anthony said...

Andrew said:

Or look at how they handle abuse. The profile of a typical "spousal" abuser is a young black male in his 20s who isn't married to the woman he's beating. Statistically, that is the demographic by a mile. The least likely abuser is a married white male in his 50s -- so few they almost don't chart.
--------

In fairness, black guys bouncing their wives and girlfriends off of walls has been pretty common in black film and television (including those of Tyler Perry, hands down the most popular black filmmaker).

As I alluded to before, the problem may be the composition of feminists. Most of the women black guys are bouncing off of walls are probably black women (interracial relationships are extremely common nowadays, but still the exception to the rule) and most feminists aren't.

darski said...

One little note about spousal abuse... If you take the incidence of abuse wherein you consider any 10 couples within a group you get interesting but not surprising information.

Far and away the highest incidence of abuse is for Lesbian couples, next in order is homosexual men and in last place would be heterosexual couples. Now since the SADs only make up about 2% of any population the number of abuse incidents is largest with heterosexuals but I find the "incidence of abuse" stats very interesting.

I don't think there is any doubt about the anger factor of lesbians and in fairness their anger stems from incest and molestation acts by men. (Incidentally the same accounts for homosexual anger)

I cannot locate my source for this information because I got it at least 10 years ago and don't remember from where :P I would appreciate it if someone could locate the stats again)

I used to identify as a feminist (a married feminist to be sure) but they lost me when they demanded that physical requirements be lifted so women could qualify. My idiocy only travels as far as where the safety/life issues arise.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, I think the liberal world is split on Hillary. She has her fans, but she has her opponents too. It will be interesting to see how the primaries play out. I still think Cuomo is the horse to beat.

I like Powers, but I don't see her often.

darski said...

>> when they demanded that physical requirements be lifted so women could qualify. <<<

should have ended with "women could qualify as firefighters" Oops, my bad ;)

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, That's a good point about interest groups squandering their credibility. And I think that's because they tend to tie themselves to a political party. That becomes their undoing.

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, Actually, the "true feminists" used to get pissed off at common courtesies, at least in the 1990s. At this point, I think the rules are pretty clear actually.

BevfromNYC said...

"Yet they still want to be treated like a lady by men when the time is right. I give up.....I can't understand the rules anymore.

Patriot - Actually that was done on purpose from the beginningto keep you so confused that you will agree to all of our demands! It is our eeeevil plot that we discuss in our super-secret meetings in the bathrooms of all the best restaurants! Why do you think we want you take us to those places and go to the bathroom in pairs?

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I agree that their primary motivation is their little part of the world. And the feminists were college-education, upper-middle class white women. So that is what they focus on. BUT the problem is that the mandate they claimed was "we speak for all women... big sisterhood... all colors, all religions, all places." They claimed to speak as a matter of principle.

But once they became a Democratic wing, that stopped. Suddenly, harassment was bad, unless it was a Democrat. A raping Kennedy was not a big deal. Using the "b-word" was a castrating offense, but calling a conservative woman the c-word was totally fine... "she deserved it" (wait a minute, a moment ago you said that word many never be use?). And when the public looks at India and says they are outraged about gang rapes and the feminists respond with, "Huh... did you know Sandra Fluke needs to pay for her own birth control?", those are reasons they lost the public. When you claim to speak on principle, but then you subvert that principle or ignore it selectively, people start to see you as partisan and that's the end of your credibility because partisan means: dishonest.


On India etc., that is a good point, though not a valid excuse. By talking about real outrages, it makes the petty outrages they attack here seem petty, and that's bad for business. But that doesn't make it valid to not attack those things.

Kit said...

"Every year there are womyn in law school who participate in "workshop" classes where they are supposed to represent the poor and inevitably one of them will sue a local hair dresser alleging gender discrimination."

Please tell me this does not happen. And if it does, please tell me they lose their cases.

BevfromNYC said...

Darski - You had it right the first time. They wanted the physical qualifications lowered in many different jobs, not just for firefighters. It was the same with me. They lost me when they got whiny.

"Wah, wah, wah, they won't let me be a whatever just because I can't [fill in some very important aspect of a job]! That's not fair!"
It has gotten so extreme that it undermines when woman who HAVE and DO qualify on the same level as the men.

AndrewPrice said...

darski, I haven't found reliable stats on gays and lesbians, but I have read that the incidence of spousal abuse is really high in those relationships.

On my point above, I actually looked up the DOJ statistics for the film guide I've written (but haven't published yet). And it's shocking the difference between reality and what the "domestic abuse establishment" pushes. Incidents involving abuse from married white males over 50 are incredibly low, yet every film involves such a character, every feminist commercial involves that demographic. The highest by far is single, young, black, males with incomes at the poverty level.

AndrewPrice said...

darski, Yeah, I remember that too. I don't remember the numbers, but they were claiming a female firefighter should only have to be able to carry half of what they demanded of men, which meant they would qualify without being able to pull a grown human from a burning building. That's the kind of thing that exposes the idiocy of the movement.

I'm opposed to discrimination, but you have to be able to do what the job requires.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, LOL! I knew it!

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, It happens all the time and usually the students win because they are suing under some local statute or state law that broadly prohibits discrimination.

There was actually an attempt to place into law in Congress a provision which would forbid price discrimination in haircuts. Denmark actually has such a law now.

This has been a "big issue" for these losers who can't find any real discrimination to fight about.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, That's the other side of the same bad coin. By advocating this stuff, they end up diminishing the accomplishments of the women who get there through their own talents.

K said...

Andrew: who were demanding things like laws to guarantee an equal number of women in boardrooms and in Congress.

Why is demanding equal numbers of women in science and technology any different? Affirmative action and media highlighting of women in science has been in place for 30 years to get women into these fields. It failed - so the next step is quotas - as produced by tying your research group's gender ratio to funding. "Encouraging" women to go into science has taken the form of girls only government sponsored science summer camps.

The feminist philosophy may be dead but the political organization (or front group) for the Democrats is still there.

= waronwomen.

tryanmax said...

It occurrs to me that a better way to illustrate what people expect of interest groups is to look at the ones they actually respond to.

In politics, look at the gay movement. In spite of everything, they've remained largely non-partisan. They embrace groups like GOProud and Log Cabin Republicans. Contrast that against the treatment of successful conservative women or black Republicans. Because the movement itself is non-partisan, but the parties have staked out opposing positions, the gay movement is able to bring people to the Democrat side which just happens to be their side, as well.

Now, look at movements against drunk driving or texting and driving. These are not top-of-mind issues for most people and, I would venture, just as many people consider them meddlesome as consider them worthwhile. But they have traction b/c they are non-partisan and positions are not staked out on party lines.

Looking internationally, think of all the international aid organizations: Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, Project Hope, Oxfam etc. Providing international aid is a special interest of its own and it has significant effect on foreign policy. People don't seek out information about the things these groups address. They have very coordinated PR strategies to raise and keep awareness (and money). They, too, are able to make policy accomplishments because they are not aligned with either side. And, they are able to find a large receptive audience because they haven't turned off half the country through partisanship and they don't pick-and-choose who to aid based on the political situation.

Kit said...

Gender discrimination against women... by female hairstylists.

Patriot said...

I don't know guys.....I don't know why women would want to do some of the same things men do. Now the Corps is allowing women to go through infantry school, even though they won't have a 0311 MOS.

I have alway thought that if a women wanted to try and pass the same tests that men attempt, be it math, science, infantry or sports, let them try. But if they get the shit literally or figuratively beat out of them, like a lot of men do, then so what? If they can meet the standards of a test, then more power to them. Don't lower standards or have separate units for women.

I know that since the Corps allowed women to try out for Infantry OCS not one has succeeded in passing the training portion. But by all means, if they want to try out for it, go for it.

AndrewPrice said...

K, The fact that a handful of dinosaurs push for quotas doesn't mean anything because no one is paying attention. There are people pushing for us to convert to metric, would you say that movement is alive and well in this country?

As for quotas, I see no quotas. Quotas died in the 1990s when the Supreme Court started striking down race quotas at universities. All they are doing now is trying to encourage women to go into science. Huge difference... force of law v. asking. And even the asking isn't widespread. In fact, compare that to how the 1990s were awash in films and television shows and advertisements trying to force girls into sports. Funding was cut off from colleges who didn't play the game, lawsuits were filed against sports leagues, and a real propaganda campaign was waged to make that a nation crisis. There's nothing like that today.

And yeah, the front group is still there. That's what we're talking about, that they've just become a Democratic front group.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, Ironic, isn't it?

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, I think you mean "partisan" for gays?

That said, I concur. The groups you mention have avoided getting aligned with either side, even as one side or the other has tried to put them in that box. As a result, they command a lot of respect across the board and they can get all sides to support their causes, even when they are political in nature.

There is definitely a lesson here, which is to avoid aligning yourself with just one side. Once you do that, you've blown your mission.

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, I think that's the conservative feminist position -- if a woman can meet the standards, then let her in, but don't lower standards for the sake of inclusion.

As to why women would want to do some of the things men do, I have no idea. I don't know why men want to do some of them either. But if they do, more power to them.

tryanmax said...

Maybe I was confusing: What I'm trying to say is that the gay movement doesn't strike the average person as partisan. Rather, the average person perceives the parties as either pro- or anti-gay. And the gay movement bolsters that perception by not offhandedly rejecting gay conservatives/Republicans the way feminists and blacks reject conservatives in their ranks.

AndrewPrice said...

Ok, I agree with that. I thought you had said first that they remain nonpartisan, but then they steer people to the Democrats.

I think the gay movement is not actually partisan in an ideological sense and that's helped them win the public -- and they would leave politics if they got what they want. However, they are "partisan" in the sense that conservatives keep trying to shove them into the Democratic box. We do the same thing with environmentalist, consumer groups, and... well, pretty much anyone else. But that hasn't hurt them, except with conservatives.

BevfromNYC said...

Patriot and Andrew -

I have alway thought that if a women wanted to try and pass the same tests that men attempt, be it math, science, infantry or sports, let them try.

That is what we pushed hard for in the beginning - we just wanted the opportunity to compete fairly. I say "We" because I was part of it too. Then, again, I state - we were betrayed. I could rant and rail about "these women today" and how they whine, whine, whine about every little slight..but I won't bore you.

Now what businesses must be constantly aware of is if there are 10 people in a room - 5 must be women, 5 must be men. But wait - then you have to figure out how to balance that equally by race/sexual preference. But wait, there's even more!

Next up "sort by age"! With more and more older workers being laid off but too young to retire, just wait...age discrimination suits in hiring are going to blossom into the legal money-maker when businesses start hiring again!

Kit said...

"Kit, Ironic, isn't it?"

Yup.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Age discrimination suits will be huge business soon.

tryanmax said...

Yeah, that's what I was trying to convey, the gay movement itself has not been partisan. It's the parties themselves that have created the split. And it is very informative to note how the public responds differently to that scenario than the one with the feminists.

It's better to side with the public than against the opposition. I think the Democrats have ended up in that position by default and accident, which means they wouldn't know how to defend it if the Republicans wised up enough to seize it.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, The more I think about it, the more it truly pays to appear to be non-partisan/non-ideological with the public.

You know, we think of Reagan as this great conservative, and he was, but think about his rhetoric. He rarely attacked the Democrats, he chided government (no anger). He never spoke in ideological terms, he spoke in common sense. He didn't crusade, he persuaded. He spoke about a vague better future and invited people to join him. And he made it clear he would work with anyone who would help him achieve his goals.

And that made him easily the most popular man in this country since probably George Washington or FDR.

T-Rav said...

Andrew, I'm inclined to think it will be Hillary, simply because there are too many people on the Left who believe that the first black president just has to be followed by the first woman president. Because that's how they roll. Plus, there's a feeling that because the Clintons did finally swing behind Obama back in '08, now it's their turn. Again.

But with the primaries more than two years off, this is just a bunch of idle speculation.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, On the left, it's always idol speculation. :P

I think Hillary is the front runner, but I have a hard time seeing her making it through. She really strikes me as someone who has retired and I don't think she has the mindset for it anymore. But we'll see.

Koshcat said...

I think this sums it up for me:

http://colonyofcommodus.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/this-is-what-a-feminist-looks-like.jpg

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, LOL! Yeah, that sums it up very nicely.

Here's the link: LINK

T-Rav said...

Andrew, I would type a longer reply, but my eyes rolled so far back in my head from that pun I can't actually see the keyboard right now and am just working by touch.

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew - Hillary always plays this game. Will she run, won't she run. She did it when she ran the first time for NY Senator, and she did it when she ran for President in 2008. I don't know if it's that she wants to be begged, she is can't make up her mind, she's waiting for some opportune time to declare, or whatever. But don't take her "retirement mindset" as anything more than her game.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, LOL! Sorry.


Bev, I mean that a little differently than it came across. I don't mean it in the sense of "she acts like she doesn't want it." I mean it more in the sense of she looks really tired and lethargic and like she really doesn't care anymore.

Kit said...

Bev,

Sarah Palin did that 2 years ago as well. It got old fast.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, She's doing it again. After dropping tons of hints that she would drop for Senate and then not saying no to people who said she was definitely running... now she's said she's not running.

Newt does this too.

Kit said...

"Kit, She's doing it again."

Ah, crap.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

She makes a lot of good points. Sadly, like Bill Cosby, she will be ignored or ostracized by the people that need to hear what she is saying.

I wonder why she remins a democrat? Looks to me that, like with Reagan, the party has left her.
I also wonder why Kirsten Powers and Pat Caddell are still democrats.

I mean if your party no longer stands for hardly anything you believe in why stay loyal?
Certainly, the democratarty isn't loyal to conservative or even moderate democrats. In fact, they don't tolerant dissent in their own ranks at all so I don't get it.

AndrewPrice said...

Ben, I suspect that the Republicans offer even less that she believes in. I know a lot of women who have conservative beliefs, but have been totally turned off by conservatives over the past decade.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Perhaps. I'm sure they would all have objections to the views of some in the GOP, but the GOP does have moderates, independents, and even left leaning representatives, so our tent is, essentially, much bigger than the democrats.

Not saying we don't have our work cut out for us, and I agree, some on the right can be real a-ho's, but whatare the democrats offering again?

AndrewPrice said...

Ben, Trust me, I've fought this battle and this will be a problem until there is real change in the GOP. Right now, the GOP is completely inhospitable to all but the fringe. And saying, "they're not all like that" just doesn't work when everyone on talk radio, everyone at the blogs, most of pundits and most the presidential candidates are all spewing the same angry line attacking them and their friends. Only a fool would join that group.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

I agree there needs to be changes, hopefully for the better, but there is double standard among some democrats when it comes to comparing the two parties.

Overall, the GOP is still better, despite the problems and even in areas where the democrats seem more hospitable the results are always bad or worse than doing nothing at all.

AndrewPrice said...

Ben, I agree, but this a problem of conservatism's own making. All the people I spoke to in this category formed their opinions about conservatism directly from the words and actions of conservatives, not from the liberal filter.

That's the real problem. Conservatives are using the idea that the media and Democrats distort them as an excuse to ignore their own misbehavior. The media and the Democrats don't need to say a word right to win these people over, because conservatives have so repulsed them.

Seriously, I urge you to spend a day listening to talk radio from the perspective of someone who is apolitical or only a leaner. Listen to how often and how regulatory you hear the host proclaim that only "true" or "genuine" conservatives are good people... f* the rest of them. Then listen for how often the host (1) slanders the public (low information"), (2) attacks/mocks Mexicans, (3) mocks young women, (4) mocks single people, (4) rails against blacks as fraudsters and fighting a race war against whites, (5) mocks environmentalists, (6) mocks college students, (7) attacks the unemployed, (8) attacks teachers, (9) demands the end of public school, (10) demands to let business pollute, (11) mocks of consumer complaints, (12) denigrates liberal Christians as "not really religious", (13) denigrates gays, (14) denigrates Muslims, (15) etc. Combine that with intense anger and snarling in the presentation of these smears and the passing of massive amounts of conspiracy theories.

If you were a normal mother of two who a gay person or had Hispanic friends or had a child in college... would you ever consider joining a group led by these hosts? Never.

AndrewPrice said...

BTW, let me be clear. Conservatism is by far the superior theory of government. The Democrats are a disastrous dead end in that regard. BUT conservatives are cutting their own throats right now. If they went back to the language and policies of Reagan, they would win 60% of the public. Instead, we've become the party of Pat Buchanan, and that's an angry, hateful 40% party.

Individualist said...

Hillary is an empty pant suit....

and her all along I thought she was full of excrement.... who knew?

AndrewPrice said...

LOL! Ok, she may be a partially full pants suit. :)

Ghost of Feminists Past said...

Andrew! Andrew!

Wooo aaa oooooogh!

Pass the ERA Andrew! Pass the ERA!

Ooooo waaaa oooooggghhhhh!

AndrewPrice said...

Good luck with that. Even the Democrats won't embrace that one openly anymore.

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