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

Feminists: Hoaxers and Whores

Jill

So, wait, are we Birkenstock-wearing hairy man-haters or stilletto-wearing pole-dancing sluts? Make up your damn mind, because I need to know what kind of shoes to put on tomorrow. And do we hate men, or do we simply ask that the people we care about — male and female — behave like decent human beings? Apparently, feminists really go too far:

At the same time women wanted men to be wage earners, they also wanted them to act like girlfriends: to time their contractions, feed and diaper the baby, and go antiquing.

You mean, we expect men not only to be employed, but there are some women who kinda want their partners in the delivery room with them? Geez, lady, your husband makes his contribution to the family by being the breadwinner and funding your ass. Call your friend Gina if you want someone to hold your hand while you’re giving birth.

Shockingly, there are also women who think that when they’re raising children with their husband/partner, it’s totally acceptable to ask that Dad helps feed and diaper the kid from time to time. This is outrageous. Man-hating at its worst.

UPDATE: Hugo has more. And more eloquently.

It’s probably Georgia Tech’s fault. They’re trying to establish an LGBT resource center, which is ridiculous, because everyone knows that the queer community is embraced in this country while College Republicans are the outcasts. Oh, and if you agree with Dr. Mike that Yellow Elephants are persecuted, queers have it made, and women are whores, donate to Townhall!

Also in wingnuttery today, the Crusades were justified. No, they aren’t kidding.

In other news, sex is good.

50 thoughts on Feminists: Hoaxers and Whores

  1. Speaking as an Atlantan, I can tell you there’s absolutely no place more liberal than Georgia freakin’ Tech.

    And yes, some emails expressing support for the program are all the evidence we need for a queer conspiracy!

  2. Interesting post. I just had a discussion with my students in which they told me(the males, the women were silent throughout) that women should be glad to find a good man who makes enough money to support them and that people should be grateful to recieve $5.15 an hour–not a living wage–because if they didn’t want to work the jobs someone else would. Oh, purdue.

  4. Jill, I get the sense that at Townhall, there’s not much distinction between hairy-legged radical and sex worker: each is a “bad woman,” failing to pursue her ordained role. Dr. Mike would not approve.

  5. So, wait, are we Birkenstock-wearing hairy man-haters

    Come on, Jill. You’ve confessed to not preferring Birkenstock-wearing, hairy men. It’s only a step from that to actually hating us.

  6. Oy, Jill. Where to start? In the Townhall world, men don’t ever leave — they are thrown out by demanding feminists. No such thing in this world as men who won’t grow up, no such thing as alcoholism, work-aholism, porn addiction or the sort of chronic restlessness that afflicts too many young (and not so young) men and leads them out the door.

    I have to wonder if Parker knows any single moms.

  7. Also in wingnuttery today, the Crusades were justified. No, they aren’t kidding.

    Oh jeez. I used to know this guy. He’s got a website, makes LGF look sane and tolerant.

    Michelle Malkin is one of his number one fans, btw.

  8. Hugo, of course she doesn’t know any single moms. Either they got themselves knocked up without the benefit of clergy, in which case they’re not worth talking to, or they walked out on their man, in which case they’re fallen women, or they drove their men out, in which case they are shrill harridans.

    The world is so simple for those people.

  11. aarrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
    oh, a particularly insightful line was this:

    “I would never insist that women have to have children to be fully female. Some women aren’t mother material – and some men don’t deserve the children they sire. But something vital and poignant happens when one’s own interests become secondary to the more compelling needs of children.
    You grow up. In the process of sacrificing your infant-self for the real baby, you stop obsessing and fixating on the looking glass.”

    so get out there and have those damn babies, women, otherwise you’ll remain the selfish nasty bitch that you were pre-babies.
    Sure, she doesn’t insist that everyone have babies…but really seems to like taking a dig at those of us who want some say in the matter of NOT having them.
    Did I say dig? I meant, poking at us with a big spiky fork thing.

  12. Aside from the fact that she probably doesn’t know any single moms, it is also quite likely the choir she is preaching to is stay at home moms.

    When the world was mostly married couples with the wife staying at home, it was not an unreasonable assumption that the wife would take care of the kids and house while the husband worked. That was a fairly equal sharing of the labor. That is not the world most of us live in any more. Most families have both partners working out of the house. That means that the kids and house need to be taken care of in the remaining time. If some men find dividing up the household work to be emasculating (or castrating) I think the problem lies with the men in question not the women.

    I was brought up in a house where my father (who worked evenings so he had until 1pm free), did all the cooking (which we reheated in the evening) except on weekends and did the laundry and dishes. My mother took care of other house tidying. In my current relationship, I tend to follow his example. I do all cooking, and the dishes and laundry. My girlfriend takes care of other things.

    No one who knows my dad or I would ever consider us emasculated. I certainly don’t feel castrated. It is all a matter of your perspective, and some men really just can’t adapt.

  13. The whole Parker article seems to rest on a begging the question fallacy; one of her premises is that feminism breeds hostility to men, this hostility drives men away, and that’s why feminism needs to stop being hostile toward men.

    I blame David Brooks for this type of thinking. But then, I blame David Brooks for pretty much everything.

  14. I would never insist that women have to have children to be fully female

    She wouldn’t insist but she certainly suggests. Now she may be a little correct if she changed the wording. To be fully female, women should have the physiology to have children. Otherwise there would be no point in have two sexes. The suggestion however that you aren’t truly female until you’ve had kids absurd on it’s face and doesn’t bare debating.

  15. She wouldn’t insist but she certainly suggests. Now she may be a little correct if she changed the wording. To be fully female, women should have the physiology to have children. Otherwise there would be no point in have two sexes. The suggestion however that you aren’t truly female until you’ve had kids absurd on it’s face and doesn’t bare debating.

    I just re-read what I wrote and I can see where it could be limiting (I’ve learned from this site that you need to be careful with your words). I certainly don’t intend to not include anyone who is infertile for whatever reason (say for example someone born without a uterus). For the transgendered, I don’t know enough to make any statement other than I don’t enough about the issue and I am not in anyway trying to disenfranchise you.

  16. but there are some women who kinda want their partners in the delivery room with them?

    Why? It’s not like the guy can do anything other than take up space and give redundant advice like “Push, push, git-r-done!”

  17. I just re-read what I wrote and I can see where it could be limiting (I’ve learned from this site that you need to be careful with your words). I certainly don’t intend to not include anyone who is infertile for whatever reason (say for example someone born without a uterus). For the transgendered, I don’t know enough to make any statement other than I don’t enough about the issue and I am not in anyway trying to disenfranchise you.

    It also seems to exclude women who have hysterectomies, women who are otherwise infertile, and, most importantly, women who don’t base their womanhood on their ability to bear children.

    But I think the problem is that you’ve gotten into a debate about what is and is not “fully female.” That always disenfranchises at least some women. It’s not specifically transphobic or insensitive, just…a red herring.

  18. My wife gripped my hand and stared into my eyes to focus past the pressure and pain. I wiped the sweat from her brow. I stroked her hair. I reminded her to breathe. I breathed with her to resist the urge to push, so her cervix could dilate, and maybe she’d get one last shot at a vaginal delivery. Our obstetrician, a woman my wife knows well, walked in, leaned over, and said, “you two are good.”

    My wife still tells me that the six hours of hard labor, and the hour of super-hard contractions after they broke her membrane and before the unplanned C-section (the hour with no pain meds because the epidural missed) seemed like just minutes. Painful, yes, extremely so. And exhausting. But fast.

    I sure didn’t do the hard part. But I didn’t do nothing, either. I did what partners do. I supported he when she had to do the hardest thing most folks ever have to do.

    David, hang your head in shame and do not speak about things beyond your knowledge.

  19. That’s not true David… my husband was in the delivery room with me for the birth of my daughter and my son and he was fantastic… he made me laugh, he rubbed my back in the middle of contractions, he wiped my forehead with a washcloth when I was sweating beyond belief, he kept me company (I was in labor with my son off and on for three freaking days) when I desperately needed it. Could I have done it by myself? Absolutely. Would it have been ten times harder without my husband helping me through it? Without a question

  20. Thomas,

    Reading your response to David reminds me that there are some great guys out there. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget…

    Your wife is a lucky woman.

  21. It also seems to exclude women who have hysterectomies, women who are otherwise infertile, and, most importantly, women who don’t base their womanhood on their ability to bear children.

    But I think the problem is that you’ve gotten into a debate about what is and is not “fully female.” That always disenfranchises at least some women. It’s not specifically transphobic or insensitive, just…a red herring.

    Okay, I should have avoided the phrase “born without a uterus” and just said, “without a uterus” but I did say “infertile for whatever reason”. I tried to be inclusive;-).

    You are right it is a side-point to the discussion and I regret it. I’m not smart enough to come up with a definition of what is female or male. I shouldn’t have said it and I regret it!

  22. Thomas,

    Reading your response to David reminds me that there are some great guys out there. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget…

    Yeah, except maybe where he went off on him at the end, like a terribly serious, insufferable douche.

  24. Thomas, Julie, you’re trying to explain the concept of emotional support to David Thompson.

    Why not try to teach calculus to a lamppost? You stand a better chance of being understood.

  25. You are right it is a side-point to the discussion and I regret it. I’m not smart enough to come up with a definition of what is female or male. I shouldn’t have said it and I regret it!

    Not at all! I’m just saying that all of these definitions end up excluding someone who deserves in, or offending someone who doesn’t want to be included for those reasons.

  26. >>Yeah, except maybe where he went off on him at the end, like a terribly serious, insufferable douche.>>

    Not especially. I take that as a reasonable notification to David Thompson that he had been served. And he has been.

    Piny: It strikes me as a reasonable compromise to draw the definition as broadly as possible, then tack on “and identifies as such” at the end. Clumsy, maybe, but a bit more flexible.

  29. Not at all! I’m just saying that all of these definitions end up excluding someone who deserves in, or offending someone who doesn’t want to be included for those reasons.

    Well I was trying to be a little funny. How about this, in most cases a penis indicates a male and a vagina (no matter how deep) indicates a female – I’ve dropped the word “fully”. I’ll purposefully leave aside the transgendered to a different dicussion.

  30. terribly serious, insufferable douche

    For real?

    C’mon, the offending remark lifted phraseology from Larry the Cable Guy, ferchrissakes. And while I too lazily dream of a Princess Charming that will wipe my sweaty brow and look supportively into my eyes as I pass, uh, well, kidney stones or somethin’, if she busts out “hang your head in shame and do not speak about things beyond your knowledge” in response to “GIT ER DONE!” – I am OUT OF THERE.

  31. David, hang your head in shame and do not speak about things beyond your knowledge.

    In lieu of that, I’ll suggest you can go hang yourself. Sanctimonious jackass.

  35. Git er done is practically the the next Republican catchphrase.

    I dunno… kinda sounds like “now watch this drive,” a DU fave for about 20 minutes…

  37. Also in wingnuttery today, the Crusades were justified. No, they aren’t kidding.

    Yeah, this isn’t really new. We wingnuts have long believed they were justified. Something about Christian lands being conquered by the sword of Mohammed or some such nonsense. ‘Course, that doesn’t fly when, as sucklings, you’ve been told Islam is profoundly peaceful and the Christians have always, always been the evil aggressors. ‘Course, at NYU, where one has to take courses like “Innocent Bloodletting by Zionist Demons” and “Right-wing Terror Squads after 1865” before graduating, we should expect such things. However, not even modern-day evidence seems convincing enough. Muslims killing Christians, Muslims killing Hindus, Muslims killing secular Muslims in about 14 different places around the world today. No matter, your professor said it, let you read it in the book he co-authored, so it must be true. Damn the contrarians.

  38. >Speaking as an Atlantan, I can tell you there’s absolutely no place more liberal than Georgia freakin’ Tech.

    Then, Anne, you haven’t been out of Georgia.

  39. Um, Joel, you knew I was being sarcastic, right?

    (Not very sarcastic — it’s reasonably progressive.)

  40. You know, the more I read social commentary on both sides of the spectrum, the more I realize that there are tons of people who have an inability to see the positive, companionship aspects of relationships. Some (like many social work/therapy literature authors) see relationships only for their danger value (e.g., what if you get abused, what if she/he cheats/leaves you/is an asshole/whatever), others (mainly on the right wing) see them only as a utilitarian religious contract.

    By the latter I mean that those commentators (Parker, Mike Adams, etc.) believe that a marriage means that he provides and money and does his guy thing (which she can’t understand), she produces babies and does her girl things (which she can’t expect him to understand) and any sort of friendship or fun interaction between them is ridiculous or counterculture or uber-feminist or whatever name they want to call it.

    In either case, these folks–the social work texts and the Townhall nutcases–don’t seem to understand that a truly happy marriage, whether between Dems or Republicans, Christians or atheists, involves two people working together as friends as well as sexual partners. Being there for your wife in the delivery room is supporting your best friend in her most painful moment. Helping out your partner with chores after they’ve had a long work day is called common courtesy, even if you are male. Hitting your partner is an asshole thing to do, regardless of your values or politics. Anyone who truly loves and respects their partner as a human being–not just as a sex partner or child producer–should know this.

    I know a lot of couples where he’s the provider and she’s the SAHM. My husband and I plan on that arrangement in a few years. but in most of those relationships, there aren’t strict lines for what constitutes “his thing to do” and “her thing to do.” We are Republicans, but we watched the superbowl together, and liked it–and watched Mean Girls and Mona Lisa Smile together, and liked it…well, the list goes on. I will expect him to support me through any pregnancies, and I know he looks forward to helping out with the kids as much as possible. He’s a man who loves kids, which according to several pundits, makes him not a real man.

    Man, I think I should start taking my Feministe comments over to my own blog, as this is getting too long. 🙂

  42. In lieu of that, I’ll suggest you can go hang yourself. Sanctimonious jackass.

    When you mock what you don’t understand, like the milestones in people’s lives that you have not passed, you can probably expect that someone is going to call you an impertinent boy. As to “terribly serious, insufferable douche” and “sanctimonious jackass,” keep ’em coming. I intend to collect the whole set.

  43. Also in wingnuttery today, the Crusades were justified. No, they aren’t kidding.

    The Crusades were about as justified as anything else that went on during the 11th and 12th centuries. I mean, no one claims that anything was wrong with the Viking invasions of Europe, these days, do they? No, we just accept that, for the Vikings, “that’s what they did.” Same with marauding Turks overruning Asia Minor. Sure, the Latin Crusaders were a bunch of illiterate rampaging barbarians who ended up doing more damage to Christendom in the middle east than protecting it, but for 11th century Franks, “that’s what they did.”

    But, cripes, reading a WND-sponsored book “not available in stores” is likely to make you less informed about the Crusades, not more informed.

  44. ‘Course, at NYU, where one has to take courses like “Innocent Bloodletting by Zionist Demons” and “Right-wing Terror Squads after 1865″ before graduating, we should expect such things.

    Huh. I must have missed those while I was taking classes on Russian history which taught us how crappy Communism was, and politics classes on American poverty which taught us how crappy welfare is. Or my human rights class which spent about half the semester going over how the UN, most of Europe (but especially France) and the Clinton Administration botched things in Rwanda.

    NYU has quite a liberal student body, but if you’re looking for Jew-haters (which is what I’m guessing you’re hinting at with your “Zionist Demons” comment), search elsewhere. And I’m sure a lot of the professors are liberal (like, you know, smart people everywhere), but I’ve never seen that bias creep into any of my classes. To be fair, I know it has in others, but I’ve had and heard of notoriously conservative professors injecting bits of their politics into class, too. I’m guessing you either didn’t go to NYU or are one of those Mike Adams types who believes that college republicans are a discriminated-against minority. By the way, how do you think Dr. Adams teaches his classes? I wonder if he’s the pinnacle of even-handedness.

    BTW Jill, off-topic are you coming to the NYU debate?

    Yeah, I’m gonna try… my room mate’s boyfriend is debating, and I would love to see all the old dems. Hopefully I’ll see you there!

  45. I was around when my husband had a heart valve replaced at the age of 31. While I wasn’t in the OR (and, honestly, neither was he), I advocated for him when bitchnurse was too lazy to get more meds and he hurt too much to breathe or rip her a new one himself. I took care of him during after his hospital stay, I made sure he was clean, wasn’t hurting, and could navigate the house. I moved an AC into the bedroom window and moved his most comfy chair in their when July got too hot. I was there for him.

    He didn’t see being there for me when I gave birth to our sons as being much different. I was working hard, he was there. I had hours and hours of back labor, he was their. Hospital staff got intrusive, and he was on them like ugly on an ape.

    So tell me why it is any different either way?

  46. Huh. I must have missed those while I was taking classes on Russian history which taught us how crappy Communism was, and politics classes on American poverty which taught us how crappy welfare is. Or my human rights class which spent about half the semester going over how the UN, most of Europe (but especially France) and the Clinton Administration botched things in Rwanda.

    What department? The social work school is the exact opposite.

  47. ““In the Temple and the porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridal reins,” wrote Raymond of Aguilers, an eyewitness chronicler of the First Crusade. Women were not spared, he observed: “The Franks did no other harm to the women whom they found in the enemy camp, save that they ran their lances through their bellies.”

    http://www.beliefnet.com/story/164/story_16413_1.html

  48. “So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?”

    Am I the only one who has a problem with this opening quote of dowd’s (above) in this imbecilic article;as iftosay damn, we were all expecting and and/or hoping, that by becoming successful, we would be more desirable to men-and following that same reasoning we as a gender are all now sitting around wringing our hands, at the awful irony that becoming fullfilled women in our own rite backfired on us because men didnt like us smart they liked us dumb!
    Thus the new feminism”is to play dumb-all in that big giant effort to be attractive to men….yikes, I cannot believe they pay these people to write…

  50. Are you telling me that to be a feminist I only get ONE PAIR OF SHOES!!!

    I have to toss the Berk Rios or the Chanel pumps?

    Harumph. No wonder feminism is geting a bad name.

    I am keeping all of my shoes.

    MORE SHOES! MORE POLITICS!

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