The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Lena Dunham, Sandra Fluke, Joy McCann

Posted on | April 13, 2012 | 70 Comments

One of them’s got an HBO series called Girls and has been called “The Voice of Her Generation,” because . . . I dunno, because magazine editors need angles for feature stories. Anyway, 26-year-old Lena Dunham says (perhaps unintentionally) revealing things in interviews:

If you notice my mincey language, it’s just that I’m still shedding the fact that I went to Oberlin College and if you slightly mangled your women’s/gender studies pronouns, you’d be sent to some Guantanamo for liberal arts students. . . .
I know that sex is in itself a political act, and that can’t be denied.

Another young mind permanently warped by feminism, you see. Frank Bruni of the New York Times comments on her opus:

You watch these scenes and other examples of the zeitgeist-y, early-20s heroines of “Girls” engaging in, recoiling from, mulling and mourning sex, and you think: Gloria Steinem went to the barricades for this? Salaries may be better than in decades past and the cabinet and Congress less choked with testosterone. But in the bedroom? What’s happening there remains something of a muddle, if not something of a mess.

What is happening, of course, is the increasing failure of what anthropologists would call “pair-bonding,” which is in turn related to the waning of what economists would call “division of labor.” Complementarity — the idea that men and women are fundamentally different, and that these differences are essential to their cooperative partnership — has been rejected in favor of competition, under a legal/political/cultural regime based on a zero-sum game.

The entire Sandra Fluke controversy was played out in this context: Women go to law school. If women law students don’t have contraceptives, they can’t have sex without risking pregnancy, and motherhood would hinder their education and career advancement. Therefore, the university must be compelled to pay for women law students to get contraception, or else the women are being victimized by the Oppressive Hegmonic Patriarchy.

Veruca Salt, feminist: “I want the whole works and I want it now!”

Woe betide anyone who responds to this imperative demand by suggesting that maybe Georgetown Law students should keep their britches on, or who points out that students attending a school where tuition is $46,865 a year might be able to spare $9 a month for birth-control pills.

Sex without its natural consequence is now a right, because the casual hook-ups of men and women are inherently unequal, if women alone must deal with the risk of “unplanned pregnancy.” (My wife and I have six children, among whom the “unplanned pregnancies” include our 19-year-old twin sons. Oh, the horrible oppression of it all!)

You are hopelessly old-fashioned, perhaps even a dangerous theocratic reactionary, if you suggest that Sandra Fluke and her fellow coeds might choose the cheap expedient of keeping their britches on, rather than demanding that the university cover the cost of contraception.

Keeping your britches on is the kind of “choice” that feminists don’t advocate, just as they never advocate (as an alternative to what theocratic reactionaries would call fornication) that men and women form permanent pair-bonds, sanctified by religious vows to forsake all others until death do them part.

Alas, the ceremony of innocence is drowned by the blood-dimmed tide and the falcon turning in its widening gyre cannot hear the falconer.

Without faith or tradition to guide them, young people must seek secular sanction for doing what they do, and the dismal science offers little to improve on the basic supply/demand equation of “free milk and a cow.” In a buyer’s market flooded with free milk, the sale of cows has declined. Young men have no incentive to marry and what woman would want to marry one of these slovenly slacker guys anyway?

The generation for which Lena Dunham is hailed as a voice has grown accustomed to viewing life from a selfish and cynical perspective: “What’s in it for me?” Male and female alike, they look at the prospect of marriage as offering no payoff either in security or social prestige, the only currencies they have learned to recognize.

Deprecating moral virtue as a superstitious imposition at best, they will hear no lectures about duty, responsibility or sacrifice.

“Honor”? Who speaks of such a thing nowadays?

Earlier this week, while researching the Bonfire of the Derbyshire, I came across a book review that may shed some light on the situation:

As marriage has declined, so has male industriousness. White men with only a high school education began dropping out of the labor force in the 1970s; the figure stood at twelve percent on the eve of the current recession. . . .
One small but telling statistic concerns working class men who claim to be unable to work due to a physical disability. As the author notes, this figure must have gone down since 1960, given medical advances and the proliferation of labor saving devices. Yet it has risen from two percent to an utterly incredible ten percent. Disability has become a racket.
A time-use study cited by Murray reveals that “between 1985 and 2005, men who had not completed high school increased their leisure time by eight hours a week.” The greatest share of this increase was devoted to television viewing, followed by sleeping. . . .
Even if a particular working class man beats the odds and finds a girl to marry, he cannot expect the satisfaction of supporting her; she may well end up supporting him. And what self-respecting man wants to end up like that poor sap uselessly tagging along behind his wife who just bought all the groceries?

Such politically incorrect samizdat I cite merely for its potential relevance, without endorsing either the book, the review or the publication — a necessary disclaimer if I am not to be unwillingly cast onto the same bonfire upon which Derbyshire immolated his career. Speaking of careers and raging conflagrations . . .

“One thing that is difficult to convey . . . is just how respectable it was to denigrate female competence and intelligence before the women’s movement gained a foothold — and before it was prevalent.”
— Joy McCann, “No, We Aren’t the Party of 1950s Gender Roles”

She was spurred to this by a Wall Street Journal column in which James Taranto dared to mention an “overlooked truth about contemporary feminism,” namely its observable hostility to housewives. Joy responds, as always, by asserting her prerogative to define feminism in a manner reminiscent of Humpty Dumpty:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s all.”

No man can disagree with Joy McCann about feminism, and any attempt to explain that the word has an etymology and a history — that it describes the radical ideology of a left-wing political movement — is rejected as an infringement upon her prerogative.

James Taranto will discover he must either (a) concede the argument, or (b) stand convicted of misogyny. My advice to Taranto: Reply to Joy’s aggression by denigrating her competence and intelligence.

It always works for me.

 




 

 

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Category: Culture, Feminism, Sex

Comments

70 Responses to “Lena Dunham, Sandra Fluke, Joy McCann”

  1. ThePaganTemple
    April 13th, 2012 @ 10:20 pm

     Going further, should a guy and a gal doing the same exact work get the same pay?

    Yes, in the beginning, but the boss should have the option of giving raises to who he (or she) considers the most valuable employee.

  2. Pathfinder's wife
    April 13th, 2012 @ 10:23 pm

    How about women who work with power tools in unheated/uncooled garages?

    Sorry, again, couldn’t resist. 

    (and yeah, been there done that — sometimes outside with not even a garage to keep me warm, shaded, or dry, sometimes with hand tools because the power tools juice ran out…it’s good to know how to do a lot of things; I can sew and crochet too, and hunt things down, kill, and butcher them — it’s good to know how to do a lot of things, so can my husband for that matter).

  3. JeffS
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:01 pm

     Never said I did or didn’t, Joy.  You infer from insufficient data.   I fail to see that I must chant “I believe in equality!” in order to prove my bona fides as a non- misogynistic male.  

    (Please note that I am debating you respectfully.  I hope that actions speak louder than words for you, even if we do  not agree on this matter.)

    OTOH, I do not appreciate being challenged to prove my bona fides, presumably because I disagree with you. 

    And it’s a simple observation on my part when I note that such a challenge is a rhetorical trick often employed by lefties when they wish to change the subject of an argument they are failing to win. 

    (Not “losing”.  “Failing to win.”)

    I’m rather disappointed, Joy; I never thought you’d employ a red herring in response to simple but direct questions. 

    If I am making you uncomfortable, that’s……interesting.

  4. Adobe_Walls
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:10 pm

    @Bob_Belvedere:disqus 
    Stacy is of course correct but that isn’t important to my point which is whatever feminism was it is the property of the left now and no amount of insistence will change that.

    @JoyMcCann:disqus 
    The replies will appear in order but only after the page is refreshed.
    As a conservative I am against sexism. There now see how easy that is.
    There is nothing wrong with conservatives using the word feminism or feminist particularly when prefaced with descriptors such as “radical” or “moonbat”. The phrase feminism damned if you and damned if you don’t when one is deciding whether to hold the door or not. It means affirmative action which is no more moral when it is applied to women than when applied to minorities. It means don’t talk to women your not related to because sexual harassment is whatever she says it is and you are guilty because she said so. It means no pinup girls on the inside of gangbox lids because that is sexual harassment even tho that was common place before there were any women there to harass. It has become merely another Bolshevik meme just like environmentalism, diversity and tolerance among the many cancers that plague us. In short it like almost all the ills that are destroying this country, it’s liberty and the light of humanity it has become political correctness run amok. There is nothing totalitarian about this argument and there is nothing wrong with conservatives using the word feminists as long as the preface God Damned is before it.
    FYI: I almost never attempt to convert people to conservatism particularly leftists, tis usually a fools errand IMAO and I’m certainly not the right person to try.

    P.S. Who you calling a republican?

  5. Adobe_Walls
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:20 pm

    So even DNA is left or right can’t say I’m surprised

  6. Adobe_Walls
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:23 pm

    That last paragraph is well worth stealing.

  7. JeffS
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:38 pm

    Looks like Discus only allows a limited number of replies, so I have to hop down here.  Earlier, Joy commented, which is below, and my responses follow:

    If you remove the term “feminism” from the lexicon of Terms That Are
    Permissible for Conservatives to Use, there is no effective means left
    to say assert that  you stand against sexism, which of course most
    conservatives do.

    I’ve never suggested removing anything.  I’ve only pointed out that your definition of “feminism” is not what the left views it.  Lefties exclude conservative women from feminism (Palin, Bachmann, Ann Romney, etc).  If you are going to re-claim the title, you have to take it/get it back from a dogma that is not much interested in giving it up.   You are fighting this battle on their terms.  If so, you have to play by their rules.  So far, you’ve only done this with…..conservative males.   As far as I know.

    Besides which, this attempt to erase the term strikes me as
    totalitarian in flavor, and therefore about as anti-conservative as it
    gets.

    I’ve never tried to “homogenize” language.  Political correctness is pure bullshit.  I can only assert this with you, but I am blunt to point of making people quite uncomfortable.  It didn’t help the career progression at all, but when things go in the toilet, people know where I stand.  I think they call this “painfully honest”. 

    Feminism is indeed what you defined it earlier.  But that means not only an equal chance to succeed, it also means an equal chance to fail.   People don’t like being told they failed.  Is your reaction a logical extension of feminist beliefs, or an emotional reaction to the suggestion that you may be failing?

    The concept of women being equal to men shouldn’t be treated as if it
    were some exotic rarity, and the assertion that it is any such thing
    drives females away from the conservative movement.

    Anything that gave you the impression that I believe so is purely a figment of your imagination.  I’ve not asserted a single thing about “equality” here.    I’ve debated with you openly and honestly.  If that’s not an endorsement of “equality”, I don’t know what it. 

    I’ve simply not agreed with you.  Is this some form of assertion that I missed during my studies in rhetoric?

    I mean, I get that you guys are having fun doing it, but if the goal
    is to build up conservatism, I fail to see why you persist in this
    harmful tack.
    What harmful tack?  My non-existent intent to “erase” or “remove” feminism from the lexicon?  My inability to agree with the feminist leaders because they are The Feminist Leaders?  Not supporting you simply because you are a conservative woman?  Telling stupid jokes? 

    Seriously.  What is this “harmful tack”?  As much as Smitty likes Discus, it does break up conversations within a thread.  Did I miss something? 

    Why not simply have bumper stickers printed up that read “Republicans
    Are Sexists: Vote for the Other Guys!” It amounts to the same thing.

    How about this:  “Lefties are Sexists.  Conservatives try to learn.  Vote wisely”.

  8. Joy W. McCann
    April 13th, 2012 @ 11:55 pm

    Jeff, the question I asked about equality was directed at Bob, and it had nothing to do with establishing anyone’s bona fides; it had to do with finding out whether there was material disagreement on a fundamental issue.

    It was also important to me in terms of considering Bob as a friend, since I wanted to ensure that I wasn’t entrusting my friendship to someone who regarded me as a lower form of life.

    As to what it is that you want from me, I’m afraid I’m unclear on that: do you want me to confess that the mainstream media likes to put lefty women in front of cameras, and claim that they speak for all women? Because it does. Absolutely.

    It would do that whether or not there were such a thing as feminism, and whether or not the concept of female equality had any place in the conservative movement.

  9. Joy W. McCann
    April 14th, 2012 @ 12:25 am

     Looks like Discus only allows a limited number of replies, so I have
    to hop down here.  Earlier, Joy commented, which is below, and my
    responses follow:

    If you remove the term “feminism” from the lexicon of Terms That Are Permissible for Conservatives to Use, there is no effective means left to say assert that  you stand against sexism, which of course most conservatives do

    I’ve never suggested removing anything.  I’ve only pointed out that
    your definition of “feminism” is not what the left views it.

    Good. There is much that I do not agree with them about. It is a shame that Stacy McCain feels that he needs to march with them in lock-step, here . . . but I suppose no one is perfect.

    Lefties
    exclude conservative women from feminism (Palin, Bachmann, Ann Romney,
    etc).     And the best righties allow strong women to decide for themselves whether they are comfortable with the term. For instance, Governor Palin is.

    If you are going to re-claim the title, you have to take it/get
    it back from a dogma that is not much interested in giving it up.

    No, I do not. If I paint a wall blue, it remains blue until I repaint it. It matters not one whit whether the left regards it as blue, or insists on calling it yellow. It just is. 

    You
    are fighting this battle on their terms.

    No; Stacy McCain is fighting it on their terms, and I’m mystified as to why he wants to do that. 

    If so, you have to play by
    their rules.

    No. I play by my rules. But I’m not going to mutilate language in an effort to be popular.

    So far, you’ve only done this with…..conservative
    males.   As far as I know.

    Oh, no: I argue with everyone. Male, female; conservative, liberal. Everyone. My FaceBook wall is about a third liberal/left, and I’m constantly challenging my friends on the left to think of things in new ways.

    Besides which, this attempt to erase the term strikes me as totalitarian in flavor, and therefore about as anti-conservative as it gets.

    I’ve never tried to “homogenize” language.  Political correctness is
    pure bullshit.  I can only assert this with you, but I am blunt to point
    of making people quite uncomfortable.  It didn’t help the career
    progression at all, but when things go in the toilet, people know where I
    stand.  I think they call this “painfully honest”. 

    Feminism is indeed what you defined it earlier.

    Well, then we agree on the substance and the semantics.

    But that means not
    only an equal chance to succeed, it also means an equal chance to fail.   

    Yes, Sir. Indeed, it does.

    People don’t like being told they failed.  Is your reaction a logical
    extension of feminist beliefs, or an emotional reaction to the
    suggestion that you may be failing?

    Which reaction would that be?

    The concept of women being equal to men shouldn’t be treated as if it were some exotic rarity, and the assertion that it is any such thing drives females away from the conservative movement.

    Anything that gave you the impression that I believe so is purely a
    figment of your imagination. I’ve not asserted a single thing about
    “equality” here.    I’ve debated with you openly and honestly.  If
    that’s not an endorsement of “equality”, I don’t know what it. 

    I’ve simply not agreed with you.  Is this some form of assertion that I missed during my studies in rhetoric?

    You’ve been fine. However, the nesting problem in Disqus and the fact that I was arguing with three guys at once has led you to believe that some things I said to others were directed at you.

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  11. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2012 @ 3:02 pm

    Reply to Joy’s comment that begins: Complementarity implies symbiosis…., can be found in a new nest of comments at the end of this post.

  12. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2012 @ 3:03 pm

    Response to Joy’s comment [http://theothermccain.com/2012/04/13/lena-dunham-sandra-fluke-joy-mccann/#comment-496827587]:

    The OED defines ‘complementarity’ thusly:

    a relationship or situation in which two or more different things improve or emphasize each other’s qualities:
    [Example] a culture based on the complementarity of men and women

    It defines ‘symbiosis’ as:

    [the] interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.

    Notice the word ‘different’ is present again. So far, so good.

    Your reasoning breaks down with the statement, ‘symbiosis implies symmetry’

    The OED defines ‘symmetry’ thusly:

    1 a correct proportion of the parts of a thing; balance; harmony….
    2 a a structure that allows an object to be divided into parts of an equal shape and size and similar position to the point or line or plane of divison….
    3 the repetition of exactly similar parts facing each other or a center.

    Notice that with symmetry’s three definitions [I left out the fourth, which concerns Botany] we clearly see that similarity is the spirit behind the definition, not difference [although, to be fair, ‘harmony’ can be the melding of two different parts into a beautific whole].  Symbiosis does not, therefore imply symmetry.

    As to you final sentence: equality does, indeed, imply
    sameness.  The OED And Thesaurus [American Edition, 1996] offers this regading that word:

    n. the state of being equal.

    -parity, sameness, uniformity, equivalence, similarity, egalitarianism

    Words have specific meanings; A is always A; Humpty Dumpty was a Pinko; the fluff gets up your nose.  Reject the mutated thinking called Leftism.

  13. Bob Belvedere
    April 14th, 2012 @ 3:45 pm

    Reply to Joy’s comment [http://theothermccain.com/2012/04/13/lena-dunham-sandra-fluke-joy-mccann/#comment-496834095]:

    Well now, Joy, you’ve crossed over into the theater of the absurd: who here has advocated that the word ‘Feminist’ be banned from the lexicon, the vocabulary, of conservatives?

    What I have been arguing is that you cannot be a Feminist, in the actual definition of the word, if you are a conservative and that those women who do are committing an error in their thinking, in their application of Right Reason.

    The fact of the matter is the ‘concept of women being equal to men’ is an ‘exotic rarity’; it is a concept that was only developed in the sterile laboratories of minds, like Mary Shelley’s, in the 18th Century.  It is a perversion of the Truth, a mutation of the Reality, known for millennia, that men and women are different biologically, physically, and mentally.

    What you mistake for me ‘having fun’ is the fact that, as a true conservative’ I know that one can never take Life too seriously [this belief is also enforced by having been brought up as a Roman Catholic] – those who take it seriously all the time are those who have made themselves incapable of accepting Life for what it is, Tragic and Absurd, and insist on re-engineering it to achieve a fantastical and nonsensical Heaven On Earth.  These types inevitably descend in the madness known as Nihilism.

    You’re last sentence is a typical retort from a woman suffering from a mild form, as all women do, of Hysteria.  Why don’t you have a nice lie-down before you make my dinner, like a good girl.

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  15. Joy W. McCann
    April 14th, 2012 @ 4:23 pm

    When you get to symmetry, you need to think of the yin-yang symbol; that may help you to understand what I’m talking about: two forces that are different, but each provide something to the other–that, coming together are more than the sum of the parts.

    Also, the dictionary definition of equality is going to be affected by the fact that in mathematics, a number equal to another will be the same number. But people are not numbers, so the words that apply to them in your definition are parity, equivalence, egalitarianism–in other words, when it comes to humans we’re discussing human worth in the sight of God, not the question of what roles people should play here on earth.

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  17. Joy W. McCann
    April 14th, 2012 @ 5:01 pm

    Bob,

    It is really, really important for you and Stacy to get over this idea that equality implies sameness when it comes to human beings, because that will take you down a road that leads to totalitarianism. The notion that in order for people to be treated fairly as a civil matter, they must somehow be alike, or act alike, is fundamentally incorrect, and tragic in its implications.

    You need to read A Wrinkle in Time–which is supposedly a child’s book, but is really a discussion of the nature of evil–and contemplate what is being said about Soviet Russia. Madeleine L’Engle portrays the Soviet Union in a cartoonish way, for purposes of illustration–using a totalitarian planet in which the state controls every aspect of a person’s life. One of the central insights of the book is that in order to achieve human equality you don’t have to create sameness, because once you get away from the numerical realm and into the human, people can be quite different and still have the same human worth. God values everyone.

    I understand your skepticism of “isms,” but there are plenty of them associated with the right: conservatism, constructionism, individualism, constitutionalism, Republicanism, Lutherism, conservatism, creationism, libertarianism, fundamentalism, Roman Catholicism, capitalism, evangelicism, intellectualism, optimism, realism, self-determinism.

    And then, there is the one that they tout, but we actually believe in: egalitarianism.

    The fact of the matter is the ‘concept of women being equal to men’ is
    an ‘exotic rarity’; it is a concept that was only developed in the
    sterile laboratories of minds, like Mary Shelley’s, in the 18th Century.

    I like the word “laboratories” put together with Mary Shelley; I see what you did there. And yet what else did those Enlightenment laboratories produce? Well, the idea that a former English colony could band together and govern itself as a constitutional republic.

    The Enlightenment was a tremendous time, and it did plenty for the Western world–for the entire world.

    There are some who reject its insights, and that’s rather too bad.

    Bob, if you regard me as inferior to you because I’m female, that’s also too bad. I’ll try to overlook it for the sake of the friendship, but I am a bit disappointed.

  18. JeffS
    April 14th, 2012 @ 10:56 pm

     Some random points, none expected to be earth shattering, merely offered as something for you to chew on:

    I read “A Wrinkle in Time” as a child, and it remains one of my favorite books.  I recall it vividly. 

    I have yet to see where Bob has treated you as an inferior.  Unless failure to completely agree, sans argument or dissent, with every word you utter is viewed as “inferior treatment”.  

    But…..accusing Bob of regarding you as “inferior” is not a counterargument.  It’s playing the gender/victim card. 

    And I’m hugely disappointed in you.

  19. Joy W. McCann
    April 14th, 2012 @ 11:07 pm

    Some random points, none expected to be earth shattering, merely offered as something for you to chew on:

    I read “A Wrinkle in Time” as a child, and it remains one of my favorite books.  I recall it vividly.

    Good. Do you remember the pivotal point? That “alike and equal are different things”? This is at the heart of my disagreement with Stacy and Bob.

    I have yet to see where Bob has treated you as an inferior.  Unless failure to completely agree, sans argument or dissent, with every word you utter is viewed as “inferior treatment”.

    Please. Bob has not treated me as an inferior. Bob has stated that he believes the sexes are unequal, with the implication being that women are inferior to men. I am concerned about the implication about what he said.

    But…..accusing Bob of regarding you as “inferior” is not a counterargument.  It’s playing the gender/victim card. 

    And I’m hugely disappointed in you.

    I did not play the victim card; I attempted to point out to Bob–and to some others–the implications of what they were saying.

    This has upset some people, but I don’t see why. I am asking those who preach about the inequality of the sexes whether they really believe what they are preaching. There is an element of ruducio ad absurdum, but no “victim card.”

  20. Joy W. McCann
    April 14th, 2012 @ 11:08 pm

    {Sorry about the html; I’m watching A Night to Remember.}