Stuff to Read January 15, 2008 Jill Loads of good stuff out there: Huckabee calls for wifely submission Senator’s Inquiry Into Megachurch Money Hypocrisy Sparks Church-State Showdown Abortion Clinic Violence: Is “Pro-Life” Murder An Oxymoron? Teen Moms Say: Too Little, Too Late The Secret Ballot (a little elction “fiction”) I’m a FEMALE Male Chauvinist — a little something to raise your blood pressure and make you roll your eyes all the way back into your head.
Was it really necessary to post the link to the female male chauvinist pig article? It was nothing new and purely aggravating. There may be some wisdom in the idea that one should know what they’re up against, but this seems gratuitous.
OMG, Are fucking kidding me? Seriously? The fact is that when we women are tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable, nothing beats the strong arm of male capability and its implied protection. Umm…when I’m particularly tired, weak and in need of sympathy I want my girlfriends. My chauvinistic feelings may be sourced in the fact that every girl inherits the princess gene which dictates her desire for a strong male role model to cosset and comfort her. No. You have a rescue fetish. Many women can save their own damn selves and appreciate men as friend and companions or just like living human beings rather than the knights in your own fantasy.
With regards to the FEMALE male chauvinist… do we get combat pay for reading stuff like that, I wonder?
Oddly enough, the ‘female MALE chauvinist’ doesn’t raise my blood pressure or roll my eyes at all – I just felt sorry for the poor, pathetic soul. This quote is pretty telling: I wanted the key decisions about my unborn children to be in male hands. Basically, she wants men to be in positions of power so she doesn’t have to worry her pretty little head about important, risky decisions. The whole spiel about being swept off your feet, damsel in distress, a courageous doctor coming to the rescue, yadda yadda so forth, just reveals a woman who’d rather have someone else do all the hard work for her. I don’t want to throw burning bras at her – more like give her a dignity transfusion.
Oh god…i’m going to puke… Face it, ladies, if you were trapped in a burning building would you rather be rescued by a strapping bloke or a woman who looked like a librarian? Um, which ever one can do it, thanks. When you have a flat tyre and need help, do you stop a male or female passer-by? Here’s a strange concept, I can change my own damn tires! The fact is that when we women are tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable, nothing beats the strong arm of male capability and its implied protection. No, actually a beer, a long bath, and a good book do it just fine! There always should be and will be female soldiers, surgeons, airline pilots, world leaders. except, you then worry your pretty little head about them doing anything with any level of skill… To these highly skilled and talented women, I salute your success. But perhaps I’m even more grateful to those who don’t get right to the top. Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn! (hey, that quote should work for her). The word for this women is “Relic”.
Yeah, the chauvinist bit was rather funny. And poorly written. They published it precisely because it would garner a reaction. I like me some strong, hairy men, tee hee and all that – but how exactly should that influence my voting decisions? *shrug* Best to ignore that pile of non sequiturs.
I definitely snorted at her comment about relief when the male OB saved the day from the female midwife. Of the six OB’s in my life, 5 have been female, including the one that did my emergency c-section. And my sons run to me, not Daddy when something scares them. Does this mean they want big, strong women to be in charge their whole lives? Using her logic, it would seem so.
My chauvinistic feelings may be sourced in the fact that every girl inherits the princess gene which dictates her desire for a strong male role model to cosset and comfort her. This is the part where I started suspecting satire. Do you suppose Disney’s copyrighted that princess gene yet?
Could it be that Mrs Clinton’s mannish trouser suits and selfaggrandising, policy-driven speeches smack of the masculine touch – and what heterosexual woman wants fake machismo in power? Umm… as a lesbian I take offense to the idea that just because I’m *not* heterosexual I want fake machismo. I actually much prefer a real woman. But I also don’t think that Hillary Clinton is masculine. Really… why are we talking about her wearing pants? I wonder if the reader wears dresses every day? Or if her daughters are unable to wear jeans… I see it in my three-year-old daughter who runs to her older brothers or her daddy when a dog barks at her in the park. She trusts them more than me to protect her Actually, I believe this might say more about your ability of a mother then your daughter thinking she’s safer with daddy or brother. Maybe she *is* safer with them because you’re a fucking idiot. I know when I was a little girl, when I was scared I went right to my mommy, passing up big brother and daddy along the way. Face it, ladies, if you were trapped in a burning building would you rather be rescued by a strapping bloke or a woman who looked like a librarian? Actually, I think librarians are sexy. My girlfriend is going to go to grad school to become one. I would rather be saved by a lady with a brain then some large piece of meat. But really… I’m a lesbian, so what do I know. Woman’s disdain for their own gender utterly confuses me. How can someone hate themselves so much that they actually believe they are less then the other gender? *wonders off to be sad about the human condition*
Men have always had all the thankless, dangerous jobs like mining, armed forces and construction. Did we ever get any thanks for it? No, we got called ”patriarchal oppressers”, yet let’s face it, you women have always been catered for and shielded from most of the horrors of life. Women have never had it so good, and they always had it better than men, yet still women want men to do all the dangerous jobs, yet pick and choose what they want, when they want it. Feminists even halted the Equal Rights Amendment once they realised they too would be subject to the draft in the U.S. About time women started giving men some credit for a change is what I say. Who knew? Dying in childbirth at an incredibly young age and pumping out babies until your health fails isn’t a “dangerous job”! Who knew? Being denied the choice to work was all about protecting us! Well, I’m certainly converted… (from the comments of the FEMALE Male Chauvinist) I love how she assumes that women aren’t flocking to vote for Clinton because she’s a woman. Like that’s the only quality we can judge her by. Actually, I think that pretty much sums up that woman’s worldview.
My comment on the FEMALE Male Chauvanist article (since it doesn’t look like they will publish it): It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t trust yourself to really be able to protect your daughter, she sees you running to men every time something goes wrong. This isn’t innate. This is learned behaviour that she’s learning from YOU. As for Clinton, have you ever considered that women don’t just flock to vote for other women, but rather try to pick the better candidate? And that many women simply dislike Clinton for her history and policies and nothing to do with her gender? As for being “reduced to tears,” that’s a plain old lie. You’re a liar. What does that say about the rest of your article? She didn’t cry, her voice briefly cracked while she spoke about the state of the US and the terrible direction it’s taking under the Bush administration. This is something anyone with two eyes and a heart would choke up (if not all out cry) about. You have shown yourself to be a liar, to get your evidence from questionable sources, and to misrepresent a situation to your advantage.
Huckabee is on my last good nerve. The signs popped up overnight, so I guess the fundies were out late putting them up EVERYWHERE. If he takes SC, I will scream.
This is the part where I started suspecting satire. Do you suppose Disney’s copyrighted that princess gene yet? Ahahahahahaha. I was thinking the same thing. Does the princess gene come with predilection for all things pink? – (says Natalia, the pink aficionado to out-glam them all, har har)
what heterosexual woman wants fake machismo in power? Well, I don’t want real machismo in power, either. I agree that fake machismo is bad because the person doing it is usually way overcompensating and causes more problems than a non-macho approach. Example A: George W. Bush. Example B: the late Norman Mailer. Feminists even halted the Equal Rights Amendment once they realised they too would be subject to the draft in the U.S. Wow, talk about delusion. What’s next, the cops with fire hoses turned on civil rights demonstrators were just providing a nice shower and everyone misunderstood?
Did anyone but me find that “secret ballot” piece incredibly disturbing and borderline offensive? I’m trying to put my finger on “why”, other than the fact that Sen. Clinton are about as far apart on the political spectrum as two people could be. I don’t know….I feel like that essay’s “everywoman” (although I realize she’s just supposed to represent some iconic NH voter) has experiences that I don’t share and that are shaped by generation, race, geography and class to the point where they totally fail as iconic women’s experiences. It seems symbolic of a lot of the pro-HRC writings I’ve seen on the blogosphere that frustrate me so much. There is this idea that intersectionality is meaningless. There is this idea that the issues facing white, upper-middle class, bi-coastal women in their 40s are The Women’s Issues and anyone who disagrees just isnt’ really a feminist. After hearing Mike Huckabee’s speech the other night, I honestly think that he shares more of my political views on the issues that actually affect my life than Sen. Clinton does.
That “female chauvinist” chick is gonna be fun to be around when she starts going grey. Heh. *cackles meanly*
The column about “pro-life” violence quotes a priest as saying: “You’re comparing the lives of morally guilty persons against the lives of manifestly innocent persons. That’s like trying to compare the lives of the Jews in the incinerators in Nazi Germany or Poland or wherever, with the lives of the Gestapo.” It doesn’t explicitly say this guy is a Roman Catholic priest, but if he is, someone needs to tell him 1) about the discreet, accommodationist role the Vatican played with Nazi Germany while the Holocaust was actually occurring and 2) that in light of the Vatican’s silence, present-day comparisons of abortion to the Holocaust by Catholic clergy are profoundly offensive.
Face it everyone, if you’re trapped in a burning building and someone comes to rescue you, are you going to stop to think for a minute “oh no, that person looks like a librarian and I’d rather be saved by a strapping bloke”.. seriously.
Does the author of the “pro-life violence” article not get that we can and do have myriad exceptions to our no-homocide rule already and not just hypo-pathetically? For instance, there is the death penalty. If you disagree with the death penalty, is it right to use deadly violence against those who perpetrate that? I know … teh evil criminals are not like teh innocent sweet babeez. Which is an odd attitude for a Christian to have — considering that Christianity worships as the Son of God someone executed for treason (and “that which you do to the least of them, you also do to me” and what not) and traditionally considered even babies born with the taint of Original Sin. Also, if someone were to hook you up to a machine (without your consent) that circulated your blood into him in order that he could extract the nutrients, you could unhook the machine, even if that ment he would die. I doubt if anyone would even arrest you for homocide. And I bet even if you agreed to be hooked up to the machine and then changed your mind later on and unhooked the machine, it would be difficult to convict you for homocide. Nu? How is this different from abortion? Will the pro-life movement have violent protests until people can be forced to donate kidneys in order to preserve life? If the state cannot compel a person to even give up a spare kidney, how can the state compel someone to remain pregnant? OTOH, this assumes killing a fetus is homocide. Do the pro-life people really believe this? Certain Ron Paul must not (either that or he rejects the legal notion of “negligent homocide”) — as nothing could be more coercive and involving of big-gummint than actually enforcing our homocide laws on the books if they apply to fetuses (and, c.f. above, even if they do, it’s debatable as to whether abortion would be illegal in that case): the state must first know who is pregnant in order to know whether a pregnancy ends. And then it would have to investigate every miscarriage to find out whether criminal negligeance was involved, etc. Or would the pro-lifers want another exception to rules against homocide? Or is it that so-called pro-lifers really aren’t that pro-life?
are you going to stop to think for a minute “oh no, that person looks like a librarian and I’d rather be saved by a strapping bloke” – Michelle As a male (not so chauvanist, hopefully) pig, I’d turn away the strapping bloke and wait for teh hawt female librarian. 😉 Of course, what about strapping blokes who happen to be librarians by trade?
Uggh … pardon the heteronormativity of my last comment. I should have said “as a straight male” … I’ll not apologize for my piggishness, although I’ll note I’m not the first to have made the “I’d rather be rescued by the librarian” comment (although I didn’t see it when I posted my comment). Great minds think alike I guess?
Okay, to make up for the female chauvinist one, can we add Bob Herbert’s column about misogyny in the NYT today to the list?
Given that the big guy is probably better capable of carrying my 160 lbs than a woman who looks like a librarian (what do librarians look like? and I’m pretty sure a woman dressed as a firefighter doesn’t look like a librarian), sure, of course, I’d rather that the big guy firefighter is the one carrying my unconscious body. But if I was just raped, I would totally rather that the cop who takes my statement be the woman who looks like a librarian. And if I go to the ob/gyn, I want the person who treats me for my miscarriage, the person who advises me on my birth control pills, the person who is going to carry through my wishes that I don’t want an episiotomy, and the person who is going to deliver my baby to be a woman. And if I am feeling depressed, or if I’m having marital problems and want to talk to a counselor, I want the person I talk to to be a woman. Also, yeah, who the fuck seriously depends on “men”, as a category, to help out when you’re tired and vulnerable? A *specific* man might be good for that, if you’re dating, living with or married to the right one, but as a category, men are emotional leeches. They are taught by society to offer concrete assistance, not emotional support, and to rely on you for all of *their* emotional support rather than turning to male friends. You’re totally better off getting emotional support from female friends. Unless, of course, you hate women, as this writer does. Then of course you don’t have any female friends, because they all sense that you really think women are weak and pathetic, and aside from being insulted they also don’t want to be friends with a spineless self-hating turd like you. There are almost no professions where physical strength is as important as attitudes, beliefs and whether or not the person in that profession respects *you.* Being a firefighter is about the only one I can think of. Or being a grunt doing construction work on your house as part of a team, but the head of the damn team had damn well better listen to the woman who owns the house and not ignore her in favor of the man, and odds are, a woman construction crew leader would be better at that. A female cop might be more sympathetic if you were raped, beaten up by your boyfriend or spouse, or suffered other forms of female-specific violence. (Not always — some female cops are terrible. But odds are, a female cop will be better in these situations.) Women are more likely to hold the door open for your baby stroller, to help you pick up stuff you dropped, to show forbearance and tolerance toward your child crying in public, to be polite to you as a service professional, to assume that you too have a brain if they are working on your computer, and so on. I actually have no use for the category of “men.” There are about a bazillion individuals with penises that I have love or great respect for, but everything about the cultural construct of masculinity is wrong. And if this lady were in a burning building, I can guarantee she’d prefer my friend Dixie, who is tall, overweight, and extremely physically strong, to my husband, who is skinny, wiry, and can’t pick up the average adult, male or female, without hurting himself, to be her rescuer. Comparing “big strong men” to “small skinny women” overlooks that some women are big and strong, and some men are small and skinny.
the state must first know who is pregnant in order to know whether a pregnancy ends. And then it would have to investigate every miscarriage to find out whether criminal negligeance was involved, etc. Or would the pro-lifers want another exception to rules against homocide? As anyone who followed the Questions for “pro-lifers” commentary would know, LOL….murder is murder feti or born, but murder of fetal persons should not be preosecuted because they also happen to die naturally. Just read the pro-force commentary there for the complete migrane headache.
Umm… this is kind of off topic, but I love Hillary’s pantsuits. I think they are super flattering and professional. I actually kept her in mind when I was shopping for job interview outfits a while ago.
Will the pro-life movement have violent protests until people can be forced to donate kidneys in order to preserve life? If the state cannot compel a person to even give up a spare kidney, how can the state compel someone to remain pregnant? I recently proposed this scenario to an anti-choicer: My brother-in-law needs a kidney. Yours (the anti-choicer) is the only one that will suffice. He will die without it. Denying him your kidney is a death sentence for him. If you believe that everyone has a right to life and that right is not superceded by the bodily autonomy of someone else, cough up the kidney. Her answer: “Needs and rights are not the same thing.” To which someone else responded: Extrapolate: An embryo may need a uterus, but it doesn’t have a greater claim on said uterus than the fully formed human being on the other end of the umbilical cord. she, of course, refused to even address the scenario. Anti-choicers are, at the core, just interested in making other people do what they themselves are not willing to do.
Or being a grunt doing construction work on your house as part of a team, but the head of the damn team had damn well better listen to the woman who owns the house and not ignore her in favor of the man – Alara Rogers This actually was an issue when my parents added a new room to our (old) family house. The construction crews would listen to my dad (who doesn’t know jack about construction) but not my mom who’s the daughter of a brilliant sheet-metal worker and knows her way around a construction site. Unfortunately, my dad is not the best of communicators or understanders, so he couldn’t even act as an effective go between to repeat correctly what my mom said to tell the crews/contractor.
To follow Ren’s example, I’ll give my responses: face it, ladies, if you were trapped in a burning building would you rather be rescued by a strapping bloke or a woman who looked like a librarian? If I were a firefighter I’d want all of my coworkers to be able to do the job–I wouldn’t care what their gender identity, hormone levels, or genitals are. And if you tell a woman firefighter to go on and you’ll wait for the next bloke, well it’s your own damn fault if you get burned. When you have a flat tyre and need help, do you stop a male or female passer-by? Lady, you’d better learn how to change your own tire because their is no way I’m stopping for you or anyone else. The fact is that when we women are tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable, nothing beats the strong arm of male capability and its implied protection. I’m really not that strong, nor do I intend to protect random women/girls at the drop of a hat (and I certainly won’t be their knight or marry them!). Furthermore, when I’m upset, I go to my boyfriend or certain female friends for support/comfort; us guys need shoulders to cry one too you know.
I was so mad I did a whole frickin blog entry on this nonsense. I’m glad I’m not alone in my fury. You guys rock. http://tobestalks.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-need-blood-pressure-medication.html My fave part of this blog entry is that I get to make fun of Bush’s flightsuit again … it never gets old.
The fact is that when we women are tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable, nothing beats the strong arm of male capability and its implied protection. Well, for what it’s worth, whenever my wife is tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vunerable, nothing beats, apparently, my strong arm. Doubly for what it’s worth, when I’m tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vunerable, nothing beats the strong arm of my wife. And neither of us tip our caps to “implied protection” outside of what we’re afforded because we love each other. As it should be.
Alara, you hit it dead-center. I’d rather wait for the librarian. At least she won’t pull the shit on me that’s been pulled before of helping me out and then standing there waiting for his thank-you BJ. And where no BJ is forthcoming or appropriate, like you said, it’s women who help. Picking up stuff that falls, holding a door, etc. Where the assistance is just polite one-person-to-another and can’t be used to extort sexual favors (meaning almost always), it’s a woman who helps. That said, if my ass is ON FIRE, I’m taking any help I can get, the opinion of some dipshit in the Daily Wail be damned.
The fact is that when I am tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable, nothing beats the… soothing, understanding purr of my four female cats and the way they have of always knowing when to commiserate and when to play. 🙂 I have some fine male friends and I appreciate them when it’s appropriate, but when I am tired and weepy and hurting, I would rather cuddle my cats. As for the rest, my dad – a male chauvinist pig par excellance – taught me to change the oil, the spart plugs, the battery and the tires on my truck. A couple years ago, I left work only to find the battery on the truck had gone dead. I walked back in and told a co-worker I needed to borrow her car to jump off my truck. A customer – an older woman – looked at me incredulously and said ‘don’t you have a man to do that?’ That customer and the writer of that article are obviously cut from the same cloth. Although, my co-worker, also an older woman, didn’t even blink at my request.
. . . I am obviously a defective woman, since I failed to receive my copy of the princess gene ™. I wonder if they offer gene therapy for this yet?? . . . and I don’t think anyone else has pointed this out yet re: famale male chauvinists (apologies if I missed it scrolling through the comments), but what are MEN supposed to do when they’re “tired, weak, compromised, in need of sympathy and vulnerable” if they have to be on call 24/7 to cater to our every physical and emotional need? Are women, like, incapable of growing beyond the emotional age of three? And can guys never be the cared-for ones? I know I’m preaching to the choir, but as human beings men, just as much as women, deserve to be nurtured when they need it.
woo. the female chauvinist caught my attention, as well. terrifying. But I totally understand why her kids run to their dad for help, instead of her. Good idea, actually. Poor kids.
Sheesh, why doesn’t she just plaster up a sign saying: I DON’T WANT ANY RESPONSIBILITY and be done with it? Doesn’t like to fly in a plane flown by a female pilot, can’t change a tire…kiddies probably run to each other and to Daddy because they know Mommy will just wring her hands and wail: “oh, I’m a poor weak helpless female, I can’t do anything!” Feh. Luckily the rest of us don’t think that being an adult female means we have a life-long “run away from responsibility” card.
Thankfully, her daughters will probably be so repelled by her helplessness that they explicitly reject her teachings, model themselves after Daddy, and go out to do everything themselves. Unfortunately, they will probably soak up a good bit of Mom’s misogyny unconsciously and her weakness will just back it up for them, so instead of being open feminists, they’ll be “I’m not a feminist because I think *most* women are retarded, but I’m a fantastic exception because all the guys think I’m one of them” apologist for anti-feminism. And now we know where those kind of women come from — the Carly Fiorinas (at least when she was CEO) of the world, who say “Being a woman never hurt me, and therefore any woman who claims it hurt her is just being a whiny weak bitch like my mom.” (Okay, Fiorina never actually said that, but I imagine that the Female Male Chauvinist’s daughters will.)
This is in regards to the Huckabee calls for wifely submission article . . . . “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.” I would love to know how when “submitting” to my husband and “serving” him I am some how considered to be “equal to him”. I’m pretty sure that does not sound like equality. It’s completely contradictory.
They didn’t post my comment there either….If she lived up to her beliefs she would shut up, let a man do the talking, and stay home and bake her husband a pie like a “good little girl.” Needless to say she’s a clueless hypocrite who spoon feeds regurgitated male privilege to whiney misogynist males… I didn’t even really read the article, because it would have been a waste of 5 to 7 minutes of my precious and valuable life.
Huckabee is on my last good nerve. The signs popped up overnight, so I guess the fundies were out late putting them up EVERYWHERE. If he takes SC, I will scream. Sadly, he will. If he wins SC, he’ll win the GOP nomination and he’ll easily win the White House.
I read the female male chauvinist article quite a while ago, but for some reason i never made a comment . . so i thought i would now . . . First off, the whole article just makes me very angry . . does this woman know how hard our ancestors have worked just so that we can vote? I think this woman needs a little lesson in women’s studies. Second did anyone happen to notice that the picture of hillary clinton looks looks as though she is posing like hitler. .. . awww that’s just great. This whole article is just completely ridiculous.