feminist blogs

Thanks to Hope for the pic.

The mainstream media seems confused these days. It appears that because Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is a woman, she is also a feminist. And not just a feminist, but THE feminist - a sign that all is right in the world when it comes to gender equity. But how could that be, you ask? How could anyone paint Palin - whose policies make it all too clear that she's about as anti-feminist as they come - as feminism's second coming? Well, by pithy misleading headlines - that's how!

The Wall Street Journal: Sarah Palin Feminism

Townhall: Sarah Palin: A Liberated Woman

LA Times: Sarah Palin's 'new feminism' is hailed

NPR: Sarah Palin: New Face Of Feminism?

Adweek: Feminism's Next Wave

The New York Post: A Feminist Dream at the GOP

Even more interesting is that the reporters touting this Palin-as-feminist nonsense are people who pretty much know jack shit about feminism.

Take Wall Street Journal reporter Naomi Schaefer Riley, who writes that progressives should rest easy about Palin's candidacy because "most American evangelicals have wholeheartedly embraced the idea of women in the workplace." A radical feminist sentiment if there ever was one! But perhaps one should take Riley with a grain of salt, considering she's the same reporter who wrote that murdered NY college student Imette St. Guillen should have known better than to be out drinking at 3am. Victim-blamers aren't exactly bastions of feminist thought.

Karin Agness, who wrote the piece for Townhall, calls Palin a "success of feminism" and "truly a liberated woman." Agness is also the President of the Network of Enlightened Women, an anti-feminist college organization that lurves Elizabeth Hasselbeck and even (sigh) mocked a NOW conference attendee in a wheelchair on their blog.

Really, most of the "feminism" talk is coming from conservatives appropriating the language of the movement to push a ridiculously anti-feminist candidate. This, of course, is nothing new (cough, IWF, cough) and fairly transparent.

But what I find even more upsetting is the Palin/feminist talk coming from mainstream outlets who are demonstrating absolutely no knowledge of feminism. Take the Adweek article, for example, which says "Palin is a classic third-wave feminist, benefiting from all that came before her in terms of the women's movement..." So by this definition, any woman who has benefited from feminism is a feminist. So, all women are feminists? Uh, yeah.

So, please, esteemed members of the mainstream media - if you want to write about Palin and feminism, how about you get a feminist to do it? Or at least interview one of us for goodness sake - there's plenty of us around and we'll be happy to talk to you about what the movement is about. (Hint: It's a lot more than thinking any woman is a good choice for all women.)

The Palin groupies are on my last good nerve. However, in reading their effusive praise of Governor Sarah Palin, I am at last able to articulate my problem with her.

I was once in the same position as Sarah Palin. I went into my high-school-aged daughter’s room very late one night, to sneak some clean laundry into a drawer. And alas, she was gone, the window open, the curtain flapping in the night air. ALIEN ABDUCTION!?! Well, sorta.

It was, I knew, the Video Store Guy. I felt the blood rushing to my head. I was livid. As I wrote in the piece linked above, if I’d known about water-boarding then, I might have given it a try.

But quickly….another emotion flooded in. OMG. No. Please, no.

We must act. NOW.

Of course, no gynecologists were available at 3am in the morning here in the Carolinas, but I left a hysterical phone-message anyway: WE NEED AN APPOINTMENT! (Like, last week.)

As a Catholic, I don’t mind admitting to you: I am uncomfortable with abortion. I would never have one. (I would also never make it illegal, FTR.) Therefore, the idea that I may have to make this decision for my minor child, sent me into a panic. I honestly didn’t know if I could. The very idea made me dizzy, seriously. NOT GOING THERE.

Also, the idea that a BABY (Video Store Guy’s BABY!!!!) might materialize on my doorstep, quite literally? NOT GOING THERE EITHER.

It should be noted that here in the south, my daughter was a seasoned veteran of abstinence-based education and workshops. They offer these everywhere; she attended several of these programs at her friends’ churches, as well as one at our own. They aren’t all bad; they are usually fun for the kids, featuring food, music and what-all. They try to emphasize positive family-communication through role-playing. They just didn’t address the actual existence of Video Store Guy and his winsome good looks.

Clearly, that was gonna be MY job.

And so, I acted. After the Rx was given, I could actually breathe again. And as I mentioned in this space last week, I AM now a grandmother, but on my daughter’s terms, and (WHEW!) Video Store Guy is long out of the picture.

~*~

This is why I am suspicious of the Sarah Palins of the world. We were in the same place, and she looked the other way. She allowed her daughter’s biology to dictate her life. As a candidate, of course, any discussion of putting the baby up for adoption (a reasonable and intelligent choice, but one I knew my daughter would never choose, since she is incapable of giving even KITTENS away) has been scuttled. How much of a CHOICE is young Bristol being given? Was it her choice to broadcast her personal business all over the country, climbing on a stage PREGNANT and YOUNG, her sexual history up for discussion before she even realizes that this will follow her throughout her life? (Especially with an identifiable first name like BRISTOL: “Oh yeah, the kid from Alaska that got knocked up!” is not something you want to hear when you are in your 30s and trying to get a decent job.)

It is considered unfeminist to call Sarah Palin a lousy mother, yet she is the type of ‘pro-family’ and anti-feminist Republican woman who called ME a lousy mother when I dialed up the gynecologist. I received a phone call from one of the mothers of the aforementioned church-going teens, my daughter’s friend. (Or, was.) The call went like so:

“Don’t you think that’s [birth control Rx] giving her permission to have sex?”

“Well,” I replied, “She didn’t ask my permission to climb out the window, so I don’t think my permission matters much, at this point.”

Of course, you all know the outcome of this conversation: this woman’s daughter was no longer permitted to hang out with mine. And I’m sure Sarah Palin would have reacted similarly.

Interestingly, during the New Hampshire GOP presidential debate, back in 2000, there was this exchange between candidates Alan Keyes and John McCain:

KEYES [to McCain]: What you would say if your daughter was ever in a position where she might need an abortion? You answered [earlier today] that the choice would be up to her and then that you’d have a family conference. That displayed a profound lack of understanding of the basic issue of principle involved in abortion. After all, if your daughter said she was contemplating killing her grandmother for the inheritance, you wouldn’t say, “Let’s have a family conference.” You’d look at her and say “Just Say No,“ because that is morally wrong. It is God’s choice that that child is in the womb. And for us to usurp that choice in contradiction of our declaration of principles is just as wrong.

McCAIN: I am proud of my pro-life record in public life, and I will continue to maintain it. I will not draw my children into this discussion. As a leader of a pro-life party with a pro-life position, I will persuade young Americans [to] understand the importance of the preservation of the rights of the unborn.

And now, McCain chooses someone who DOES draw their children into this discussion, who is supposed to be an example for all of us. Senator John McCain has uttered the nauseatingly contrived phrase: AND WHAT A LOVELY FAMILY! AND WHAT A LOVELY FAMILY! at least 50 times now. (I just saw another stump speech with Palin today, in which he repeated this.) What are we to take away from that? That teenage pregnancy is good? That forcing girls to get married is good?

Sarah Palin’s motherhood is being presented as a pro-life example. And as such, that POLITICAL example is open to analysis and criticism, since they are the ones making it political.

Not us.

(Crossposted at Daisy’s Dead Air)

It sure is interesting to see conservatives adopt the banner of feminism now that Sarah Palin is on the ticket. I can’t help but shake my head every time I hear or read one of them say, “Had she been a man…” — simply because conservatives have spent the past century or so totally dismissing that line of argument. I guess when it’s a woman on their side — you know, the side that wants to do away with most of the gains that women in this country have made, and that traditionally shames women like Sarah Palin who are “careerists” — it’s valid. And for not offering our full-throated support to Sarah Palin — a woman who is anti-choice, anti-contraception, anti-education, pro-gun — we’re the hypocrites.

At least that’s the story the Wall Street Journal is sticking with. Because, see, sexism is so bad that in order to fight it, you should start your op/ed off like this:

The glummest face Wednesday night might have been, if only we could have seen it, that of Hillary Clinton.

Imagine watching Sarah Palin, the gun-toting, lifelong member of the NRA, the PTA mom with teased hair and hips half the size of Hillary’s, who went … omigod … to the University of Idaho and studied journalism. Mrs. Palin with her five kids and one of them still virtually suckling age, going wham through that cement ceiling put there exclusively for good-looking right-wing/populist conservative females by not-so-good-looking left-wing ones (Gloria Steinem excepting). There, pending some terrible goof or revelation, stood the woman most likely to get into the Oval Office as its official occupant rather than as an intern.

It is hypocritical, I think, to speculate about Palin’s choices in having her children (i.e., “Why didn’t she go to the hospital sooner when she was giving birth to Trig?;” “Why did she go back to work three days after having a baby?”; “How is she going to manage being a mother of five/mother of a special needs baby/mother of a pregnant teenager and be the VP?”) when we would never do the same to a progressive female politician (and let’s be honest, we wouldn’t). So I would be a-ok with everyone on the left knocking off that line of questioning. “How is she going to do it?” She would be Vice President of the United States. She’d have more resources on-hand than the vast majority of women in America. As the governor of a state she has a lot of options. She’s coming from a position of extreme privilege. That’s how she does it.

What I’m more interested in is how she (and all those male politicians who also have kids — remember them?) is going to make the kinds of resources she’s had access to available to all of us. I’m interested in how she’s going to help other working parents, single parents, young mothers, and women who are trying not to become mothers just yet.

Women’s lives, our choices and our health are constantly analyzed and used as political fodder. Whenever I hear someone criticizing Palin for going back to work “too soon” after having a baby, or “endangering” her fetus by getting on a plane instead of going to the hospital when she thought she might be in labor, I can’t help but think of the women are prosecuted for murder because they used drugs during their pregnancies and gave birth to still-born babies. I can’t help but think of paternalistic laws that attempt to criminalize pregnant women who do things like smoke. I can’t help but think of Justice Kennedy’s dissent in the infamous “partial-birth” abortion case, when he said that the procedure should be illegal because in his opinion, abortion was certainly bad for women’s mental health, and we should be protected from ourselves. It’s scary, but that’s the path we go down when we start thinking that because we read a news article somewhere, we know more than a woman and her doctor about her individual circumstances, her health, her choices, and her character.

Mothers everywhere are judged and shamed for making the “wrong” choices. But some mothers — single mothers, mothers of color, poor mothers, immigrant mothers, non-hetero mothers — have it worse than others. For all her talk about “family values,” the real hypocrisy isn’t that Sarah Palin has a pregnant teenage daughter or that she’s a working mom — it’s that the families she values are of a particular kind (and even then, her way of “valuing” them is mere lip-service). And of course, it’s not just Palin — marginalizing women, people of color, low-income people, LGBT people, and immigrants is the GOP party line. They’re all about “family values,” so long as your family was on Leave it to Beaver.

And they’re all about feminism if they can use it as a stick to beat the left with. Palin got to where she is today at least in part because of the paths paved by feminism, and yet she undermines women’s rights at every turn; she talks about her brave “choice” to give birth to a baby with Down syndrome, but wants to take away that choice from everyone else (and cuts funding to special-needs kids to top it off); she claims to value small government and individual rights, but opposes the fundamental right to make choices about your own reproduction, and wants the government to stick its nose in your bedroom and your doctor’s office (not to mention her extreme spending and milking the federal government for all it would give her).

So there’s a fair amount of hypocrisy in the conservatives creaming themselves over Palin and denouncing criticisms of her as uncalled-for sexism when sexism has been their bread and butter for a good long time now. And whenever I hear one of them say “Had she been a man…” as a defense, I think of a better hypothetical: “What if it had been one of Obama’s kids who was pregnant instead of one of Palin’s?” (assuming, of course, that Obama’s kids were slightly older). [I also know I'm hardly the first one to throw this argument out there, but I haven't been reading other blogs at all, so I can't point you to who else has made this case better than I have; feel free to leave links in the comments].

So while conservatives are embracing their new-found feminism by comparing Sarah Palin’s hips to Hillary Clinton’s, they’re also busy relying on one of their other tried-and-true political fall-backs: Racism. Jamelle covered one instance earlier; because I am somehow on radical anti-choicer Jill Stanek’s email list, I came across another this morning. After her usual “Obama kills babies and I testified about it” schtick, Stanek writes:

Obama heard my testimony three separate times and still led the opposition against a bill geared to stop hospitals from shelving abortion survivors to died in soiled utility rooms.

It is black versus white in more ways than one.

It’s just like a cowboys and indians movie!

Paul Krugman has a great column up today about Republicans exploiting voters’ resentments towards cultural elites as a way to secure votes for McCain. It’s worth adding that the GOP has long relied on tying that resentment to the threat posed by uppity black people and uppity women.

And it’s going to be a long election cycle.

Harbinger of the end of days.

A reader sent in what has to be one of my favorite anti-feminist articles to date. Elroy Riggs of the Central Kentucky News Journal believes he has found the reason for the increased divorce rate, the nasty little secret behind the battle of the sexes: canned biscuits.

Give a man homemade biscuits in the morning and he'll come home to you at night. The Pillsbury Doughboy with his dratted canned biscuits is a lousy homewrecker. There was a time, especially in the south, when the woman arose early enough in the morning to prepare homemade biscuits for her husband and family.

It was a simpler time, before most women joined the workforce. Women in those days served plates of piping hot biscuits, big fluffy biscuits. Cut one open and ladle some sawmill gravy over it or slap a portion of real butter between the halves and then cover that with your choice of preserves or jelly. "A breakfast without biscuits," went a famous saying, "is like a day without sunshine."

I actually find this ode to homemade biscuits more hilarious than offensive. It perfectly epitomizes the whiny sexism of entitlement: Breakfasts are ruined! What are men to eat?! What's next? Butter that hasn't been hand-churned?!

Riggs also says that "any woman who serves her family canned biscuits for breakfast in anything but an extreme emergency is guilty of apathy." (Unlike Riggs, whose impressive social engagement compels him to write op-eds about breakfast food.) But I guess he's right in a way - I am apathetic when it comes to biscuit-making. I'd even venture to say I'm apathetic to making any kind of breakfast food, save for cereal. And yet...the boyfriend stays. It's miraculous, really.

Riggs ends with a call to action that I'm betting will have women laughing their asses off rather than running to the kitchen...

It is time, women of America, to come to your senses. Halt the alarming increase in the divorce rate. Bring the homemade biscuit back to your breakfast table. We can all work together. You make 'em, we'll eat 'em. What could be more fair?

Riggs' next article: How the invention of the washing machine (bring back the scrub board!) is responsible for women's promiscuity.

Today the Washington Post covers a new book with the earth-shattering thesis that, if women want to "keep a man" they should start scrubbing floors in lingerie, learning to cook steaks to order, and giving blowjobs in between.

Is that cover condescending or what? And that's not even getting into the content of the book...

Moore's slim treatise purports to explain how women should go about sex, relationships and marriage -- according to men. Here is his mission as a self-described reeducator: "I want to express my anger and frustration as a man with the women I feel are miseducated, misinformed, and ill-prepared about their responsibilities in getting and maintaining a relationship with a man of quality," he writes in the introduction.

Moore, of course, considers himself just such a man. Read his book, ladies, and you can snag a catch just like him. Your responsibilities include cooking, staying skinny, wearing sexy things around the house and doing whatever your man tells you to do (because, Moore writes, "Here's a little secret, ladies: men never really ask for anything. They command. . . . And believe me, what you won't do, ten broads around the corner will.")

Ugh. The sad part is, he's found this method successful:

Moore's girlfriend, Khanequa Tuitt, who's at the book-signing, recalls that when she first read his manuscript, she only got past the first couple of pages before calling him to curse him out. But now she's come to terms with his views. She's started "trying to stay away from wearing frumpy, flannel stuff," even when she's cleaning, for example.

Moore also keeps it classy with a "no fatties" message:

In his book, size matters -- a lot: "The fatter you get, the more you decrease your potential single-man pool. Let me give you an example. When you go to the grocery store to shop, do you pick out the nastiest-looking, most rotten, smelliest fruit or meat you can find? Oh, you don't? Why not? . . . It's the same with men when they see baby elephant-sized, out-of-shape women."

The interesting thing is that (as you may have noticed from the cover above), the book is "presented by" Zane, a best-selling writer of black erotica. (As M.Dot at Model Minority writes today, "Zane sells because her fiction allows Black women to be sexual in a culture that refuses to acknowledge that we are sexual, a culture that calls us ho's if are so inclined to be sexual, talk about sex, or even look like we are human and have a sexual appetite.") But Zane says her name on the book is not an endorsement -- it's a warning: "There are some men who feel exactly like he does. I feel like women should be forewarned and realize what's out there."

If I didn't know better I would think it was my birthday - because it's not often that an anti-feminist organization gives you a gift like this one.

The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute* has put out Sense & Sexuality, a handy little anti-feminist guide to sex by none other than Miriam Grossman, author of the slut-shaming book Unprotected (not to be confused with the similarly titled slut-shaming book Unhooked).

Seriously, every page is priceless - so it's hard to know what to highlight. But here are some of my favorite tidbits.

On the biology of why dudes will fuck you and dump you:

When it comes to sex, oxytocin, like alcohol, turns red lights green. It plays a major role in what's called "the biochemistry of attachment." Because of it, you could develop feelings for a guy whose last intention is to bond with you. You might think of him all day, but he can't remember your name.

On the dangers of "hooking up":

As the number of casual sex partners in the past year increased, so did signs of depression in college women.

On why women with HPV are unlovable drop-outs:

Even though these infections are common, and usually disappear with time, learning you have one can be devastating. Natural reactions are shock, anger, and confusion. Who did I get this from, and when? Was he unfaithful? Who should I tell? And hardest of all: Who will want me now? These concerns can affect your mood, concentration, and sleep. They can deal a serious blow to your self esteem. And to your GPA.

On why you should get to the baby-making ASAP:

Remember that motherhood doesn't always happen when the time is right for you; there's a window of opportunity, then the window closes.

On wishing herpes on fictional characters:

It's easy to forget, but the characters on Grey's Anatomy and Sex in the City are not real. In real life, Meredith and Carrie would have warts or herpes. They'd likely be on Prozac or Zoloft.

But really and truly it's page 16, in its entirety, that's my favorite. Check it after the jump. Then laugh yourself to sleep tonight. I know I will.

*The organization that also brought you one of the top 10 anti-feminist videos and the "bring back the hope chest" campaign.

...and, for good measure, criticizes feminists for decrying violence against women.

On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said,

Obama's patriotism is not being attacked in an ad. McCain's just out there saying he's putting his own personal political ambition ahead of the country's. It's -- you know, it's just -- it's just we can't hit the girl. I don't care how far feminism's saying, you can't hit the girl, and you can't -- you can't criticize the little black man-child. You just can't do it, 'cause it's just not right. It's not fair. He's such a victim.

Ah yes, those ridiculous feminists trying to convince the American people that domestic violence is a bad thing -- even if she was asking for it. And that ridiculous media, daring to publish anything favorable about a black man.

I can't say I'm surprised, though. It's Limbaugh.

Seems like an appropriate moment to republish Samhita's "fuck you" to Limbaugh:

This is rich. A self described anti-feminist lawyer has decided to sue Columbia University for offering women's studies courses because they are discriminatory towards men.

The NYT's City Room blog reports that Roy Den Hollander (pictured) -- "a Manhattan lawyer and a self-described antifeminist" who in the past year has sued nightclubs for favoring women by offering ladies' night discounts and has sued the federal government over a law that protects women from violence -- is now setting his sights on Columbia University. Today, Den Hollander filed a suit against Columbia in the SDNY for offering women's studies courses, which he sees as discriminatory toward men. His suit accuses Columbia of using government aid to preach a "religionist belief system called feminism." A Columbia spokesman declined to comment to the NYT.

In Den Hollander's suit he calls women's studies "a bastion of bigotry against men" and said its women's studies program "demonizes men and exalts women in order to justify discrimination against men based on collective guilt." He reportedly writes in the complaint: "Federal financial aid, state funds and other assistance help proselytize feminism at Columbia," in violation of equal protection safeguards of the Fifth and 14th Amendments.

If his hatred for women isn't apparent enough by his suing the federal government around VAWA, it is clear because he has sued clubs for ladies night (as Ann has covered before). As Jay Smooth just pointed out, "ladies night is for the benefit of men, you idiot! Stop getting in the way of the patriarchy!" (/sarcasm). Obviously, he has never been to a club.

For a little background on what motivates this guy, the Gothamist has some gems from the piece that Ann links about his assault on "ladies night" in the New Yorker.

Den Hollander guy sure knows how to charm the ladies; you'll recall that last summer the New Yorker spent a night out with the divorcee, who explained his life mission: "What I'm trying to do now in my later years is fight everybody who violates my rights... the Feminazis have infiltrated institutions, and there's been a transfer of rights from guys to girls." Hence the Columbia lawsuit, in which Den Hollander maintains that the university should not be using government aid to preach a "religionist belief system called feminism."

This guy might have to get a Feminist Fuck You.

Kind of hilarious.

Pic from Sweet One.