In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: January 2007

Step away from the computer.

Scott noticed this:

SULLIVAN (1/28/07): I think she’s been a very sensible senator. I think—find it hard to disagree with her on the war. But when I see her again, all me—all the cootie-vibes resurrect themselves. I’m sorry—

PANEL: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I think I’ve figured it out: this is our fault. They’re doing this to taunt us. Every time we make some crack about invading Venezuela or outlawing silicone-based lube, they note it down somewhere and start nudging that Overton window.

“Madame Speaker” is good for all of us

I know it’s been a brain-popping week here at Feministe, between PETA and Dr. Helen and Purity Kids and slutty cat-ladies. So today I bring you something happy: This Alternet article about why feminism is good for everyone. We’ve written quite a bit in the past about how sexism and patriarchal social structures hurt men, too (even while certain classes of men also benefit). Neil Chethik tells his personal story about how coming of age during the women’s liberation movement helped him to realize his own autonomy and choose his own path:

I noticed this first in college as I contemplated my future work life. Feminism freed me from the expectation that I would be the primary wage-earner in my family. Where I had once considered a career based largely on how much money I would earn, now I could ask myself: What do I really want to do?

Thus, my interest in going to law school vanished; my passion for writing took precedence. I entered a profession that I still enjoy today.

Feminism also benefited me in my relationships with women. The women I dated in college and afterward no longer looked at me as a “success object” — someone who would provide for them. They were strong and motivated enough to take care of themselves. They sought careers and adventure, and a man who would be an equal partner. Thus, I had the luxury of dating, and eventually marrying, a woman whose full potential was not curtailed by society’s limitations.

After I married, my options continued to expand. With my wife sharing the responsibility of earning our family income, I had the opportunity to share in raising our son. In his earliest years, I stayed home with my son every morning before handing him over to my wife in the afternoons.

Later, when he started school, I was the one who met him as he came off the bus at the end of the school day. My wife treated me as a parental equal. Our relationships allowed me the flexibility to coach my son’s baseball teams, attend his band performances and visit his classrooms to meet his friends and teachers.

My own father has lamented to me that he didn’t have as close a relationship with his children as he would have liked. Whatever regrets I have in raising my son, a lack of time with him will not be one of them.

Indeed, I’ll be sitting next to my now 13-year-old son on Tuesday when the president stands to deliver his State of the Union address. I’ll point to Pelosi and remind him that this is a historic day. Her rise to third-in-line to the presidency, I’ll tell him, is an indication not only that girls and women can achieve their dreams, but that boys and men can do the same.

Indeed, feminism and the reproductive freedom movement have brought fantastic benefits to American society. As Neil points out in his article, men have wider career choices now that the burden of being the sole family bread-winner has been alleviated. Parents of both sexes spend more time with their children than they did 25 years ago when far fewer women were in the work force; they spend more time with their children than they did even in those mythical 1950s. Maternal and infant mortality rates have dropped. Poverty has been cut in half. More people have access to education. More people have voice in the public sphere.

Of course, there’s still a lot more to be done. But it’s worth taking stock of the victories that feminism has achieved for men and women and boys and girls.

Those Maligned Peta Ads

A quick Google image search for “peta ad” will bring up a lot of images — most of them featuring naked, skinny white chicks. Some are cheesy Playboy-esque poses with hot veggie babes posing alongside cuddly animals. Their rejected TV ad used women in the same way that those Axe Body Spray ads do — to prove that if you do what the ad tells you, hot chicks will totally dig you. Others demonize the natural female body — if you have natural human “fur” (i.e., pubic hair), it’s Not Attractive. Still others use women’s bodies as stand-ins for animals, to show how those animals are abused. The abused women are still hot, naked, white, and sexy, again tying sex with violence, and sexualizing the abused female body.

They also infamously show Rudy Giuliani wearing a milk moustache with the words, “Got Prostate Cancer?” And then there are the fat-shaming ads (as a side note, I lost 10 pounds when I started eating meat again). Note that men’s bodies are used when PETA is mocking them for being fat and therefore ugly.

I agree with a lot of PETA’s goals. I wish we were less dependent on meat-food. I think the meat industry is abhorrent in their treatment of animals. I think there need to be stricter regulations when it comes to animal testing — especially cosmetic testing, which is largely unnecessary at this point. I think we need to raise awareness about animal abuse in all its forms.

But I object to the tactics that PETA uses. This doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize that PETA has been very successful in getting animal rights into the greater cultural consciousness and discussion. It doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize that PETA has done some very good things on behalf of animal rights. It doesn’t mean that I don’t support animal rights as a cause.

It does mean that I think their campaigns are sexist and racist, and that they’re willing to sacrifice the dignity and the rights of one group in order to make the case for the rights of another. As I wrote in the comments to a previous post, would we argue that it would be acceptable for feminists, in trying to demonstrate how cultural requirements of femininity are harmful to women, to take a critter, wax off its hair, put make-up on it, put it in a dress and make it walk in high heels?

Actual PETA ads below the fold. Trigger warnings abound. And I’m not even putting the Holocaust on your Plate ads in there.

Read More…Read More…

We’re not racist, we just hate niggers

Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration.

Nope, not racist at all.

The response to Burt Prelutsky’s column pretty much writes itself, so I won’t bother. But I will say that the complaints about the “loud, crude” music that those crime-committing black kids listen to made me laugh. He’s right, though. That blasted hippity-hop is just like the rock and roll: It’s full of foul language, and it encourages young people to thrust their pelvises in ways which tempt them to sin. It’s the Devil’s music I tell ya.

A girl’s best friend: Now, with less cruelty

Man-made diamonds are now being graded by the Gemological Institute of America. Good news for people who like expensive jewelry but dislike the cruelty of the diamond industry. Bad news for DeBeers and other diamond companies, which have exploited entire countries, enslaved people, and caused a whole lot of bloodshed. Naturally, they aren’t happy about the whole manufactured diamond business.

But I sure am. And I’m crossing my fingers that they put the diamond mining industry out of business.

This is how you get people to go vegan

Cupcakes.

Adapted from “Vegan With a Vengeance,” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (Marlowe, 2005)

Time:
1 hour 45 minutes

FOR THE CUPCAKES:

Nonstick cooking spray
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
3 tablespoons black cocoa powder (see note) or more Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain soy milk
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

FOR THE FILLING:

1/3 cup nonhydrogenated margarine, such as Earthbalance
1/3 cup nonhydrogenated shortening
21/2 to 3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the chocolate icing:

1/3 cup plain soy milk
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup or confectioners’ sugar

For the royal icing:

2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons plain soy milk.

1. For the cupcakes: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-muffin pan with paper liners, and spray lightly with nonstick spray. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a mixer, combine the soy milk, oil, syrup, sugar, vinegar and vanilla. Mix at medium speed for 2 minutes. Add half the dry ingredients and mix to blend. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix for 1 minute.

2. Use a standard ice cream scoop to fill cupcake liners 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

3. For the filling: In a mixer, beat margarine and shortening until combined. Add 21/2 cups confectioners’ sugar and beat until very fluffy, about 10 minutes. Taste for sweetness and add remaining 1/2 cup sugar if desired. Add vanilla and beat for 1 minute more.

4. For the chocolate icing: In a small skillet, bring soy milk to a simmer. Reduce heat to very low and stir in the chocolate and maple syrup, stirring until just melted. Turn off heat.

5. For the royal icing: Using an electric mixer or by hand, sift sugar into a bowl and add 1 tablespoon soy milk. Mix, adding up to 1 more tablespoon soy milk until consistency is like stiff toothpaste.

6. To assemble: Prepare two pastry bags, one fitted with a large plain tip, and one with a small writing tip. Fill large-tipped bag with filling, and the small-tipped bag with royal icing. (Instead of pastry bags, thick resealable plastic bags may be used. For filling, cut off one corner of bag so the opening measures a scant 1/2 inch across. For icing, opening should be just large enough to pipe a thin line.)

7. Using your pinkie, poke a hole in center of each cupcake top about an inch deep. Push tip of pastry bag with filling into each hole, firmly squeezing in filling and slowly drawing tip up and out. When all cakes have been filled, wipe off any excess that sticks out from holes; tops of cupcakes should be flat.

8. Place cupcakes on a baking sheet or tray that fits in refrigerator. Rewarm pan of chocolate icing over low heat if necessary, stirring constantly. Dip top of each cupcake into icing, swirling to coat completely. When all cupcakes are dipped, refrigerate 10 to 15 minutes to set. When set, use royal icing to make squiggles across center of each cupcake. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve, up to 1 day.

Yield: 12 cupcakes.

Note: Black cocoa, which gives the cake its characteristic dark color and bittersweet flavor, is available from King Arthur Flour, (800) 827-6836, kingarthurflour.com

See also here, here, here.

Via

Purity Boys Take on Feminism

This essay — Feminism and Biblical Roles — is really something. These kids aren’t idiots, that’s for sure, but they do have a nasty little habit of shifting and re-defining reality in order to make it fit into their world view. Example: This paragraph, written under the heading “Feminism: A Predictable Movement”:

From a Christian perspective, the development of such a movement is entirely predictable. In the book of Genesis, chapter 3, verse 16, after sin enters the world for the first time, God says to the guilty Eve: “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

SAT Question: In the context of that sentence, what does the word “desire” mean? Sexual desire? Desire to be his companion? Desire to be ruled by him? Desire to be his wife? Love?

No, silly rabbit, none of that would “prove” that the Bible predicted feminism. So let’s make something up:

This word “desire” is properly translated as, “a desire to conquer”, and implies that Eve would have a wrongful desire to usurp authority over her husband. Furthermore, the word “rule” as used in the phrase, “he shall rule over you,” is a strong term usually used to refer to monarchical governments and containing nuances of dictatorial or absolute, uncaring use of authority.

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