The Other McCain

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

In Which @AmandaMarcotte Reveals Her Disturbing Lack of Self-Awareness

Posted on | June 16, 2014 | 49 Comments

Everybody’s Favorite Feminist™ begins her latest column by ranting about — what else? — the “misogyny” of abortion opponents:

Anti-choice activists are well aware that their position would be seriously undermined if the public understood the misogyny that actually drives their movement, so . . .

Yadda yadda yadda. What follows is mostly routine Marcottean feminism: Abortion is the essence of Women’s Rights; ergo, anyone who is against abortion must be motivated by hatred of women. The belief requires her to ignore, inter alia, the result of a Gallup poll which found that 41% of women are pro-life, and a National Journal poll finding a majority of women favor banning late-term abortion.

Marcotte’s hostility to facts and her tendency to present her bloodthirsty fanaticism as expressing the interests and beliefs of all women are nothing new, and there would be no point in calling attention to her latest screed, were it not for the bizarre lack of self-awareness she exhibits in criticizing conservative arguments about how marriage benefits women:

What this shows is that, with social conservatives, we’re dealing with a view of heterosexual romance that assumes men and women are fundamentally at odds, imagining men as selfish and even violent hedonists and women as priggish police officers who bring unruly men into line by manipulating them sexually.

WHOA! Who has spent the past four decades portraying men and women as “fundamentally at odds,” condemning “heterosexual romance” as oppressive to women, and denouncing men as “selfish” and “violent”? Feminists, that’s who.

“Feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice.”
Ti-Grace Atkinson, 1971

“Lesbianism is a threat to the ideological, political, personal, and economic basis of male supremacy. . . .
“Lesbianism is the key to liberation and only women who cut their ties to male privilege can be trusted to remain serious in the struggle against male dominance.”

Charlotte Bunch, 1972

“The simple fact is that every woman must be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be fully feminist.”
Sheila Cronan, 1988

“Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women’s bodies.”
Andrea Dworkin, 1989

“Fucking is a large part of how females are kept subordinated to males. It is a ritual enactment of that subordination which constantly reaffirms the fact of subordination and habituates both men and women to it, both in body and in imagination.”
Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1992)

“Male sexual violence against women and ‘normal’ heterosexual intercourse are essential to patriarchy because they establish the dominance of the penis over the vagina, and thus the power relations between the sexes. . . . Men’s sexual violence against women is the primary vehicle through which the dominance of the penis over the vagina is established.”
Dee Graham, Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives (1994)

“Male supremacy is centered on the act of sexual intercourse, justified by heterosexual practice.”
Sheila Jeffreys, 2005

The typical response of feminists, when confronted with evidence of their implacable hostility toward men, per se, and toward heterosexuality, per se, is denial.

No matter how many examples of anti-male sentiment by important feminist activists, authors and professors you quote — and I’ve only scraped the surface here — the evidence is never sufficient to compel feminists to admit that their core ideology involves a radical hatred of men that makes lesbian separatism the logical expression of feminist philosophy. (Even Melissa McEwan denies being a man-hater.)

What is remarkable about Amanda Marcotte’s latest rant is how she manages to project onto social conservatives her own anti-male beliefs, evidently without seeing the paradox. But if she were capable of introspection, she wouldn’t be a feminist, would she?




 

Comments

49 Responses to “In Which @AmandaMarcotte Reveals Her Disturbing Lack of Self-Awareness”

  1. Anarchy6
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:28 pm

    George Carlin said the same thing:

    “You’re not “pro-life” you’re anti-woman.”

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:28 pm
  3. Amanda Marcotte’s latest lunancy | Batshit Crazy News
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:28 pm

    […] TOM: In which @AmandaMarcotte Reveals Her Disturbing Lack of Self-Awareness […]

  4. FenelonSpoke
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:32 pm

    Man heating pagan feminist becomes a Roman Catholic. So there’s even hope for Andrea Marcotte. Pray for her:

    http://tinyurl.com/n6l5hes

  5. RS
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:33 pm

    Actually, given the evidence that married women with children are likely to be better off financially and less likely to be subject to abuse of all kinds, it would seem that Men are the stabilizing influence, not the other way around.

  6. robertstacymccain
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:42 pm

    The simple logic of nature — the fact that men and women are born in roughly equal numbers, and that the union of male and female is necessary to reproduction — argues for the male-female pair-bond as the basis of human society. Only under conditions of affluence, modernity and democracy do intellectuals feel free to challenge the logic of nature, which is why most of what feminists complain about can be so easily characterized as “First World Problems.” Under conditions of extreme poverty or political oppression (or both), people simply do not have the luxury of fomenting a Culture of Grievance that targets male-female relations as a political problem.

    I can guarantee you that women in Syria and Iraq are not sitting around today talking about the theories of Andrea Dworkin, et al.

  7. Escher's House
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:43 pm

    Ah, the Ladies of the Short-Circuited Womb.

  8. Escher's House
    June 16th, 2014 @ 2:45 pm

    I suppose then that this problem will quickly solve itself, as soon as the economy collapses. Obama brings that joyous day nearer with each pronouncement, executive order, regulation, etc.

  9. Quartermaster
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:01 pm

    Empthy heads, empty wombs. Not sure which is the worst here.

  10. maniakmedic
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:02 pm

    I’d say both stabilize each other. Like two halves of an arch. Either one alone is prone to falling, but put both together and you get one of the stronger structural shapes (from what I understand). Of course, if both halves want to lean in the same direction, you have problems. Which is probably why normal women are drawn to alphas and normal men are drawn to women who want to have their children. The non-lesbian feminists seem to have everything ass-backwards where they are the alphas and they will only date betas or lower (preferably a gamma). Holy crap! It all makes so much sense now!

  11. Quartermaster
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:04 pm

    They want someone they can dominate, not the other way around.

  12. RKae
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:36 pm

    Damn! It starts right off with “Anti-choice activists.” Euphemisms. Everything must be spoken of with euphemisms. Try to show a picture of an aborted baby and that’s a “scare tactic.”

    I’m tired of having to play the game with reality tied behind my back.

    It’s like trying to teach someone to play the guitar, only a guitar will not be allowed in the room; nor are you allowed to show pictures of a guitar or even draw a sketch of one. In fact, you are forbidden from using the word “guitar.”

  13. Kirby McCain
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:48 pm

    Pro Abortion Enthusiasts

  14. Kirby McCain
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:51 pm

    It’s legal why are they still bitching? Epitaph: never stopped bitching!

  15. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:54 pm

    The same old tropes:
    Trope 1: You must hate women (even though male female opposition to abortion is roughly the same)
    Trope 2: You are hypocrites because you don’t support massive expansion of programs and entitlements for children (so beyond being a false argument, it is better to let them die).
    Trope 3: They are not babies anyway.

  16. RS
    June 16th, 2014 @ 3:56 pm

    I’d say both stabilize each other. Like two halves of an arch.

    Or, as mentioned in some writings a couple of millenia ago by a long dead white guy, “the two shall become one flesh,” i.e. no longer independent by united in a new entity. The old verities, as they say.

  17. Pablo
    June 16th, 2014 @ 4:16 pm

    “Fucking is a large part of how females
    are kept subordinated to males. It is a ritual enactment of that
    subordination which constantly reaffirms the fact of subordination and
    habituates both men and women to it, both in body and in imagination.”

    Au contraire! Intercourse is a physical manifestation of how men are trapped by women. They don’t call it a honey trap for nothing!

  18. Phil_McG
    June 16th, 2014 @ 4:17 pm

    Yes, yes. That’s why people are horrified and disgusted at the thought of healthy unborn babies being killed with toxic chemicals, vacuum-sucked out of their mothers’ wombs and then disposed of like garbage: they hate women.

  19. Pablo
    June 16th, 2014 @ 4:18 pm

    Your mother said “I’m having a baby!”

  20. RKae
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:02 pm

    Making something legal is merely “Step #1.”

    “Oh, and we’re never going to tell you how many steps there are. We just demand that you go along for the entire ride and never try to get off the train.”

    Or maybe it’s that bitching “is a journey and not a destination.” I dunno.

  21. Adjoran
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:05 pm

    In cases like that of Mandy-girl Marcotte, the lack of self-awareness is a defense mechanism.

  22. CrustyB
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:06 pm

    How convenient! She wants abortion, hates children and it just so happens that unborn children aren’t really unborn children!

    Being pro-life doesn’t make you anti-woman any more than being against the Holocaust makes you pro-Zionist.

  23. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:22 pm

    Oh I left out Trope 4:
    You are all a bunch of raaaaacists!

  24. Anarchy6
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:35 pm

    None of that has anything to do with the woman, and everything to do with the fetus. It’s telling that the woman who is carrying never even entered the argument for you, which mean her feelings, and life, are subordinate to a fetus, and I guess to Jesus, or some other crap. Like I said, you’re anti-woman. Her body; her life; her choice. Pretty simple.

  25. Dana
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:37 pm

    Two halves of an arch? I guess that’s what Elliot Rodger missed!

  26. Anarchy6
    June 16th, 2014 @ 5:45 pm

    The only sensible pro-life argument I’ve ever heard, and doesn’t include banning abortion.

    At 2:35

  27. Bob Belvedere
    June 16th, 2014 @ 6:41 pm

    Bingo!

  28. Archy1
    June 16th, 2014 @ 6:49 pm

    Didn’t know a woman’s body had four lungs, two hearts, two brains, four arms, four legs, 20 fingers, 20 toes, and often two different blood types.
    What about the baby’s choice, asshole?

  29. Dingy
    June 16th, 2014 @ 6:50 pm

    Anti-Child Zealots.

  30. Phil_McG
    June 16th, 2014 @ 6:56 pm

    So far, so boilerplate. You are correct on one point though – I don’t believe a woman’s convenience ever trumps an unborn child’s right to life. So, yup – the woman’s likes and dislikes don’t strike me as being relevant unless carrying the child to term would threaten her life.

    The burden of pregnancy can seem terribly unfair on women. As a father I felt a mixture of guilt and helplessness on seeing my brave wife fighting through the pain and complications of childbirth. But I didn’t invent biology, that’s just how we humans come into the world. Seems to me you’d have to be some kind of psychopath to have held a tiny newborn person in your arms and still support the “right” to dismember them while they’re still in the womb.

    Similarly, we generally frown on people who bump off their elderly relatives. Sure, grampa can be such a pain when his mind wanders and his continence takes a break and he gets more food on his clothes than in his mouth. But suffocating him with a pillow is still murder in our pesky time-tested Judeo-Christian moral code, even if it would save money on Geritol. Hey – d’you think that makes me “anti-people-with-elderly-relatives” too? Whatever happened to “my parents, my choice”?

  31. Anarchy66
    June 16th, 2014 @ 7:11 pm

    Good grief, what a worthless little creep you are, and a fine example of the typical, christian conservative hypocrite, weasel. Look, asshole, when you can get pregnant and raise a child on minimum wage then you can have some input about what convenience is, and what the state’s authority is in this department. Until then, quite simply, shut the fuck up, twerp. Your wife obviously has no self respect to be married to someone like you and would do the world a favor if she clipped your nuts while you’re sleeping.

  32. Anarchy66
    June 16th, 2014 @ 7:13 pm

    You mean the fetus? It’s growing in her body, she’s the one it’s living off of, which makes it part of her, and subordinate to her will. In other words, the fetus has no choice, and no rights, which is what the courts decided too. Now go pray, or more likely whine, to Jesus.

  33. Phil_McG
    June 16th, 2014 @ 7:34 pm

    Wipe your mouth, son. Did your Dad not stick around to teach you how to behave?

    I’m guessing you don’t have kids, which is probably for the best at this point in your emotional development, although you may man up someday. My wife and I have three and counting. She’s sitting beside me on the sofa and we both had a good laugh at your attempt at fencing wits with me. I’ve heard cleverer retorts from my four year old. 🙂

  34. RKae
    June 16th, 2014 @ 7:48 pm

    Gestation Interruption Aficionados.

  35. RKae
    June 16th, 2014 @ 7:53 pm

    It’s interesting thing about the abortion debate: Which side is floating on a sea of defense mechanisms, and which side is trying to shine a light on the event and get it into crystal clear focus?

    Bingo is right, Bob.

  36. Dana
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:11 pm
  37. Zohydro
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:16 pm

    This “subordination” meme—I wonder if these people just cannot fathom normal, natural intercourse as a complementary function: Sex absolutely must always resemble the “top” and “bottom”, domination/submission or reciprocal patterns of homosexual behaviours—because “equality” or some such nonsense!

  38. Zohydro
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:19 pm

    You’re a cold, cold man, Adjoran…

    : )

  39. Dana
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:20 pm

    Miss Marcotte’s problem is that she really does recognize that the sexes are different, and they are different in ways which she interprets as male superiority. Because she cannot see men and women as complementary, but only as competitors, she is unable to see our physical differences in any terms but competitive, and the greater size and strength of the average male is thus something which must be fought, must be torn down, must be shamed out of existence.

  40. Dana
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:24 pm

    Thing is, if we were all a bunch of raaaaacists, we’d have to support abortion. After all, black women have abortions at about five times the rate of white women, and thus legalized abortion is actually holding down the black percentage of the population.

  41. Pablo
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:40 pm

    I would recommend the Kama Sutra to these unimaginative fools.

  42. Pablo
    June 16th, 2014 @ 9:41 pm

    She might, in fact, have been having another asshole.

  43. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    June 16th, 2014 @ 10:25 pm

    You are using facts and logic again, and that is misogynistic!

  44. Kirby McCain
    June 16th, 2014 @ 11:29 pm

    I identify with the reality tied behind your back sentiment. Maybe I’m just a dumb pug but to read these feminists you’d think women don’t enjoy sex with men but mention abstinence and the m*****f****rs go nuts? It’s quite illogical.

  45. Allen
    June 17th, 2014 @ 12:12 am

    Women are forced into shotgun marriages? Since when did the shotgun get pointed at anyone except the guy? Amanduh is a piece of work.

  46. Adjoran
    June 17th, 2014 @ 12:18 am

    Or just taking a big dump.

  47. Adjoran
    June 17th, 2014 @ 12:31 am

    No, can’t be – she seems to be enjoying life.

    Mandy would be strangling the boy kittehs.

  48. Dana
    June 17th, 2014 @ 7:09 am

    Man heating, as in being cooked?

  49. Daniel O'Brien
    June 17th, 2014 @ 10:00 pm

    Not in a symmetrical way. Ever hear the old adage: Women are crazy and men are stupid. That’s the balance.