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

Have We Learned Nothing From Our Previous Conversations?

Lauren

Kevin. Kevin! No you didn’t! Are you serious?

Don’t tell a woman she has no sense of humor if she responds to a post that isn’t funny. Your post was not funny! It might be real cool that you’re going to a tech conference that focuses on women, but try not to insult us before you even get there. No excuse, man!

It’s not about feminism, per se, until you smack feminists with stereotypes we don’t embody.

20 thoughts on Have We Learned Nothing From Our Previous Conversations?

  2. Oh no, the very best part is that he felt no need to object to any of the misogyny in the thread. Just, you know, the first woman who spoke up and gave all feminists a bad name by not laughing at Kevin Drum’s passive-aggressive little attempt at “humor.”

  3. Fuck me. I left one comment on that thread and left it at that. Ugh, I don’t have all day to dismantle that pathetic stereotype but let me say this–Kevin affirms the stereotype that liberal men are pansies who are so willing to compromise they will sell out basic principles.

    They won’t deal with me on Pandagon because every stupid stereotype–that feminists are humorless and undersexed–are robustly refuted on the blog, and effortlessly. Using my posts to hurl these retarded insults at other women is unforgiveable. I may be emailing someone soon.

  4. Yikes. Funny, but I haven’t read Kevin’s blog in a while, but after reading that post, I’m reminded of something I used to hear growing up down south when I acted out. “All that just ain’t neccesary.

  5. I’m a little behind the curve here with all the required reading and background on feminism (in America); however, I do believe that every man should be forced to take a women’s study course if they are to interact with us on any level. Why not? We’ve all had HIStory rammed down our throats everywhich way.

    I’d start with three books: Cunt, a Declaration of Independence, by Inga Muscio; The Madwoman’s Underclothes, by Germaine Greer; and Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan.

    Until every last woman (who is in fact living as one), stops living her life as a stereotype, there’s no hope for the rest of us to escape that mantle.

  6. There’s a reason why we call him “Kevin Dumb.” And it ain’t just his reactionary macho-lite attitudes, either. Nor his sellout behavior. (Question: don;’t you have to have a soul first, before you can sell out? Must check notes…) It’s also the stereotypical “America Only Source of Truth and Justice” paternalism towards the rest of the world – remind me again, just *why* is this guy supposed to be a liberal? He reminds of all the less-fire-eating conservative intellectuals I grew up with.

    Seriously, i don’t know why these pseudo-libs, meo-libs, think that they’re the only ones who matter. I mean, you take a) emancipated women, b) ethnic minorities, c) gay white men, d) decent het men, and e) poor people, and no matter how it overlaps, I bet it adds up to way more than the number of self-proclaimed elitist liberal chauvinists.

    (BTW, Lauren, how conservative a newspaper overall is the Indianapolis Star? And how popular is it? Your post on the hate crime reminded me that the odious July 4th cartoon I’ve been carrying around meaning to scan in and post, originally came from that newspaper. The local one that ran it swipes most of its op-ed straight from Town Hall, its news copy from AP-Moon, and has been losing readers steadily for years.)

  7. Bellatrys, the Indy Star does lean right as evidenced by their choice of story coverage and in the way they place information within the articles. They often, as my local paper also does, run particularly odious political cartoons and almost never publish a cartoon that could be construed as left.

    Many people I know bypass state papers, except for local newspapers, and go to the Chicago Tribune. It still resonates on a regional level but without such a righty bent. Plus it has way better crosswords.

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  9. Woah, I absolutely LOVE the guy that says that there are plenty of women in the technology field that have no problem with the misogyny in it and just suck it up and learn skills, do the work and deal.

    *blink*

    I mean, this idiocy is the guys we are trying to recruit to our cause? This? That is just so wrong on so many levels I just don’t know where to start …

  10. What women in technology. According to this we’ve given up.

    Personally. my new direction is to see if I can get a job at Wal-Mart. I hear they hire women. Next time Kevin Drum asks the question, “Where are the women” we can tell him, “Why, they’re working at Wal-Mart!”

    Is there a “How to get ahead at Wal-Mart session at Blogher?”

  11. Shelley, the first paragraph of that article makes me want to hit the guy. Doesn’t do much to build his credibility on gender issues.

  13. The funny thing is Kevin is far more sanctimonious than any feminist blogger I can think of. He’s in no position to whine that other people need to lighten up.

  15. Chris, that was just mean. I clicked on your link and it took me to the devil’s (Malkin) website and that was just not fun at all. I feel like I need to shower.

    But since I was there I decided to mosey on by the “about” section. For some reason I wanted to torture myself- I don’t know. But anyway, I thought one sentence of her profile was interesting. She said that she worked to oppose race-based affirmative action but not sex-based affirmative action. Hmm… I wonder that might mean.

  18. Can we, the smart folk who post here, and at other “liberal” blogs, just sign a pact and swear to never read or link to Drum’s LINO (liberal in name only) bumble-mumblings? At this point, I’d almost rather read Tierney’s latest misinformation-fest than even think of the Washington Monthly. Could just be me, but Drum really irks me, month after month.

  19. Lauren & Shelley – Obviously I don’t want to speak for all women in IT, but that internetnews article actually does reflect my own experiences in IT & Software Engineering: I wrote a blog about it a few months ago. I said, essentially, that I think the reason we’re leaving is that women, in general, have had enough of doing shit-work. Which to me, IT represents – long days, long weeks, corporation-as-culture attitude, and a wage ceiling – male or female, you top out in IT or Software Engineering within four or five steps.

    I consult, which works out just fine: but I’m never working for a company that expects a 65 hour week, ready for any & all overtime, again. Ugh.

    I’d rather work retail again. At least when the day was over, I got to go HOME.

  20. Lauren, thanks for that background. There’s nothing like hearing from someone on the ground to help assess things! Here’s a quick question – our paper, the notoriously-knee-jerk conservative Union Leader, has lately been challenged by a few upstart moderately-liberal indy papers in the state, which you know, talk about public transportation and homelessness and ex-cons needing jobs and women being paid less for the same work, and they’re going great guns. (The same sort of papers as the Niagra Falls one that helped spread Louise Slaughter’s demands leading to Gannongate.) People *want* alternatives, when provided. Any chance of someone starting something like that out where you are?

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