The Other McCain

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

Is Rachel @Maddow’s Haircut Waging War Against Heteronormative Patriarchy?

“I’m a big lesbian who looks like a man. I’m not Anchor Babe and I’m never going to be. … I one hundred per cent believe that the reason I have not gone further in television is not only because I’m gay but because of what I look like.” — Rachel Maddow, 2007 “A lot […]

‘Our Deepest Feelings’

“Many of us who came to lesbian life in the 1950s greeted the . . . feminist movement in the sixties with exuberance and relief because it articulated our deepest feelings. What feminists were saying — about sexism, for example, about male chauvinism and double standards and inequality — touched precisely on those dissatisfactions that […]

Whose Agenda Is the Feminist Agenda?

“Every woman who remains in sexual relation to man is defeated every time she does it with the man because each single experience for every woman is a reenactment of the primal one in which she was invaded and separated and fashioned into a receptacle for the passage of the invader. . . . The […]

Kate Millett’s Tedious Madness

“[A] disinterested examination of our system of sexual relationship must point out that the situation between the sexes now, and throughout history, is . . . a relationship of dominance and subordinance. What goes largely unexamined, often even unacknowledged (yet is institutionalized nonetheless) in our social order, is the birthright priority whereby males rule females. […]

Thank You, Professor Kitzinger!

“[R]adical feminism offers a theory central to which is an analysis of lesbianism and heterosexuality as political institutions and a rejection of personalized interpretations. . . . “Central to radical feminism is the belief that the patriarchy (not capitalism or sex roles or socialization or individual sexist men) is the root of all forms of […]

Sex Trouble: Feminism, Mental Illness and the Pathetic Daughters of Misfortune

“The idea that acts of violence can be excused due to a victim’s dress, state of intoxication, location and sexual history is absolutely ridiculous and feeds into a cultural view of sexual assault as not a real crime.” — Liz Sheridan, SlutWalk Chicago organizer, 2014 “Yesterday’s mental illness is today’s social policy.” — Kathy Shaidle, […]

Reading Feminist Theory …

. . . so you don’t have to! Shulamith Firestone, circa 1970 “Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior beings, whose only purpose is to enhance men’s lives. . . . […]

The Madness of ‘Gender Theory’

Feminists and friends of Amy Austin (@amymarieaustin) have spent the past day-and-a-half chastising me on Twitter for the tone and content of Wednesday’s post, “Feminism Repeats Itself, the First Time as Tragedy, the Second Time as Farce.” It may help to examine the “gender theory” gibberish piled into Ms. Austin’s 995-word screed entitled “Patriarchy and the Problem of Being Born […]

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