The Other McCain

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

Feminist Tumblr: Don’t Even Ask

Posted on | August 2, 2015 | 93 Comments

 

Ashley is @sailor_P00N on Twitter, where she advertises herself as “BIG GAY HATE MACHINE . . . I’m the feminist Rush warned you about.”

She has piercings in her right nostril and the middle of her upper lip. She shaves the sides of her head, she wears dramatic eye makeup, and she is obese. Her appearance over the years, Ashley says, has been “an exciting adventure.” Oh, did I mention that Ashley is obese? Because she mentions that a lot, the same way she mentions her lesbianism a lot. Of course, she’s got a Tumblr blog and her profile describes her as a “Fat femme lesbian feminist.” More than an attitude, this is an ideology:

So-called “fat-positive feminism” is a movement that “addresses how misogyny and sexism intersect with sizism and anti-fat bias.”

This movement has been analyzed by Women’s Studies professors who invoke “neo-Gramscian theories of hegemony” to explain how “power hierarchies” contribute to the oppression of fat women:

Problematizing the existence of a singular, oppressive beauty standard has been a useful corrective to monochromatic understandings of gender inequality and oppression. However, the emphasis on feminine beauty and the body as a site of individual meaning and empowering play is prone to a naive self?determinism that assumes that women act completely voluntarily, thus minimizing corporate domination and the “normalizing power of cultural images” . . . The persistence of domination in the realm of beauty ideals raises serious questions for our two cases of beauty rebellion, as well as for the cultural turn in beauty analysis. Can resistance to beauty ideals rely on therapeutic, individually focused strategies, or must activists also target the institutions and material structures that support hegemonic beauty standards?

Feminist theory justifies Ashley’s view of her obesity as resistance to the “normalizing power” of “hegemonic beauty standards.” For feminists, obesity is not a personal problem, but a political issue in the same way that feminism, by a sort of theoretical alchemy, transforms lesbianism from an individual erotic preference to a revolutionary challenge. The lesbian feminist sees herself as a freedom fighter against heterosexuality, which is condemned as “the ideology of male supremacy.”

Feminism reframes psychological maladjustment (an individual’s inability to fit into normal adult life) as a critique of society. It is not the individual’s failure to adjust that is the problem, according to feminist theory. Rather, society’s definition of “normal” is inherently wrong and oppressive. Feminism insists that the misfit minority are justified in rejecting “socially constructed” expectations — the gender binary imposed by the heterosexual matrix, in Professor Judith Butler’s jargon — because the normal majority are beneficiaries of oppressive privilege exercised through Foucauldian discourses of power.

Are these ideas crazy? Well, I’ve been accused of ableism for using the word “crazy” to describe feminists who make a point of discussing their mental health problems. Feminists hurl labels like “ableism” at their critics in the same way Stalin’s enemies in the 1930s were accused of being “Trotskyist saboteurs.” Feminism is a non-falsifiable theory. Anything and everything can be cited as proof of women’s wrongful oppression by a male-dominated society. The correlation between feminism and mental illness (remember that Shulamith Firestone was a paranoid schizophrenic) therefore is construed by feminists as proof that (a) male supremacy inflicts psychological harm on women, or (b) psychiatric treatment is one of the mechanisms the patriarchy uses to control women, or (c) both. Whatever explanation she offers, no feminist is ever personally responsible for her own problems, because somewhere there is always a male scapegoat who deserves blame.

Therefore, when Ashley isn’t posting alluring selfies on her Tumblr, she’s on her “pop culture criticism” blog Pussy Goes Grrr, talking about being in a mental hospital for bipolar depression, an experience she interpreted through a feminist perspective:

I guess it was silly of me to think I’d be safe from sexism in the nut house. Beyond the fact that there’s an long history of institutional sexism in mental health facilities themselves, there’s a simple reason why I should’ve known better: men would be there. Men don’t stop participating in sexism or perpetuating microaggressions just because you’re all sick.
The most overt example was the man who told me how beautiful and sexy I was every chance he got. . . . Gross as his aggressive come-ons were, he was the easiest to deal with. His explicitness made it easy to report him to the techs. I felt his wide eyes moving over me even though he stopped speaking to me. I watched him move on to a patient who was more receptive to his grossness. . . . I was relieved that he’d stopped talking to me.
There were other men who were more difficult to deal with.

So, a man who was hospitalized for mental illness found Ashley “beautiful and sexy.” Ashley was released from the psychiatric ward last year, and yet heterosexual males continue to pose a threat to her:

it doesn’t f–king matter how “nicely” or “respectfully” you ask a lesbian out on a date if you’re a dude. it doesn’t matter how much you clearly express that you don’t have any expectations. that. doesn’t. f–king. matter.
because there is a social expectation and pressure for women to accept relationships with men. so even if you are being “nice” and “respectful” you are still creating a potentially coercive situation even if you are not intending to. there is an inherent power imbalance and when you disregard a lesbian’s sexuality (because i don’t care how respectful you are about it, you are still DISREGARDING their sexuality for your own feelings) you are disrespecting their identity and boundaries.
please understand how compulsory heterosexuality works. it’s not like a cold that you get over and suddenly you’re totally sure in your lesbianism. there is constant social pressure for women to include men in their sexuality and when you ask a lesbian out on a date you are an active participant in that. that is not respectful. That is not nice. there’s is literally no way to do such a thing respectfully.

Lesbianism is not a problem, heterosexuality is — that’s the bottom line of feminist gender theory. To invoke the title of a Women’s Studies textbook, Feminism Is Queer. Women like Ashley are under “constant social pressure . . . to include men in their sexuality,” and any male who expresses interest in any female is “creating a potentially coercive situation” because of society’s “compulsory heterosexuality.” A man who is attracted to Ashley is attempting to coerce her, so don’t even ask.

Men must never talk to Ashley, because there is “literally no way to do such a thing respectfully.” Men are “participating in sexism” simply by being heterosexual and they are “perpetuating microaggressions” if they talk to women. This kind of anti-male hostility (a characteric paranoia, “Fear and Loathing of the Penis”) provides the emotional basis of feminism, which is why it is impossible to debate a feminist.

Facts and logic can never refute emotions like hate, fear, envy and self-pity. It does no good to cite indicators of widespread opportunity for women (e.g., females are 57% of U.S. college students) nor to point to the examples of happy, successful women in society, because evidence cannot change the feminist’s feelings of victimhood.

“Feminist consciousness is consciousness of victimization . . . to come to see oneself as a victim.”
— Sandra Bartky, Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression (1990)

Her “consciousness” enables the feminist to evade responsibility for the problems in her life. Even to suggest that a woman could be responsible for her own unhappiness is to engage in “victim-blaming,” according to feminists. If a college girl gets so drunk that she doesn’t even remember having sex with a guy she met at a party, and her morning-after remorse leads her to claim she was raped, your skepticism — or even your belief that the accused should be entitled to due process — makes you a “rape denialist,” as feminists at Oberlin College branded Christina Hoff Sommers. (“A rape denialist is someone who denies the prevalence of rape and denies known causes of it,” they explained.) Of course, Dr. Sommers was not actually trying to deny anything. She was pointing out that the actual “prevalence of rape” is far lower than the deliberately exaggerated “1-in-5” statistic promoted by feminists. Making such distinctions, however, is not possible in feminist rhetoric, because totalitarians don’t debate their critics, they silence them.

Feminists are always right, because shut up.

Whether they speak the crypto-Marxist dialectic of Catharine MacKinnon or the postmodern babble of Judith Butler, feminists always seek to “win” the argument by silencing opposition, so that feminism becomes the dominant ideology by asserting its authority as the only ideology. Thus, nothing is true unless feminists say it is true, and no analysis is valid unless it is a feminist analysis. This feminist Catch-22 has the effect not only of invalidating anything said by men (because they are men, and therefore, shut up) but also invalidates anything said by a woman who does not share “feminist consciousness.” Feminism becomes an echo chamber crowded with angry chattering lunatics because the voices of sanity are systematically excluded.

“Fat femme lesbian feminist” Ashley is an example of this principle of epistemic closure by which feminists separate themselves from explanations that do not conform to their ideology. Consider something she wrote six years ago when she was 19 and in college:

So, if it’s not obvious, I am an insanely neurotic individual. The kind of neurotic and paranoid that makes me believe that the wholly illogical is actually going to happen to me. Like oh, a pregnancy, despite the fact that I’m on birth control and haven’t had intercourse and haven’t had any semen anywhere near me. . . .
So, I could talk more about my deeply internalized fears of pregnancy and motherhood, the paralyzing terror I experience when faced with the idea of being pregnant and the ridiculous amount of neurosis involved with this (like how I used to be afraid I was pregnant before I was ever even in a relationship) but instead I’m going to take this opportunity to talk about how this has created a bit of a shift in my art.

Click to see her bizarre 2009 drawing “Motherhood.” This “insanely neurotic” phobia of pregnancy is a continuing theme of Ashley’s work, as in her 2011 cartoon series:

That last cartoon begins, “Loving sex while simultaneously being neurotically terrified of pregnancy seems like a conflict of interest,” and features Ashley’s “impressively long list of reasons why I don’t want kids,” including, “I hate kids,” “I would be a horrible mother,” “I’m emotionally unstable,” and “I have no maternal instincts.”

Which is to say, she’s a feminist.

Antipathy toward pregnancy and motherhood has been a core value of feminism for decades. In her 1970 book The Dialectic of Sex, Shulamith Firestone declared flatly, “Pregnancy is barbaric” (p. 180) and described motherhood as “a fundamentally oppressive biological condition” (p. 202). Fat lesbian Ashley has turned her persistent nightmares about pregnancy into artwork, but she is certainly not the only feminist who views her own reproductive anatomy as an existential menace.

“I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding . . . time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness. . . . I don’t want a baby. . . . Nothing will make me want a baby. . . . This is why, if my birth control fails, I am totally having an abortion.”
— Amanda Marcotte, March 14, 2014

A frenzied horror toward the biological and natural consequences of human sexuality is abnormal. At least fat lesbian Ashley recognizes that she is “an insanely neurotic individual” for feeling that way, whereas Amanda Marcotte has no such self-awareness.

Are there men who find feminists attractive? Yes, and the scary thing is not all of those men are locked up in mental institutions.

P.S.: Ashley wants you to sign up for a contest to win a free vibrator, otherwise known as the “Hitachi Feminist Boyfriend.”

The Sex Trouble project has been supported by contributions from readers. The first edition of Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the War on Human Nature is available from Amazon.com, $11.96 in paperback or $1.99 in Kindle ebook format.





 

Category: Sex Trouble

Hugo Awards and Other Stuff

Posted on | August 2, 2015 | 23 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The deadline for voting on the 2015 Hugo Awards was midnight on Friday, and I got my votes in. The CHORFs and their allies tried to get in some last-minute shots, notably the Grauniad, only to be met with derision and an excellent fisking by the International Lord of Hate.* Also worth noting was the triumphant tweet by Mary Robinette Kowal that they’d succeeded in handing out seventy supporting memberships. Seventy out of over three thousand supporting memberships? Great job there, guys, we’re just shaking in our boots. Oh, wait, no we’re not.

The Empress protects! 🙂

So what did I do with my ballot? Well, for one thing, I read pretty much all the fiction in the voter packet Sasquan sent out, with the exception of samples (screw you, Orbit) and one short story from The Baen Big Book of Monsters, which was an oversight on my part. And this is how I rolled:

BEST NOVEL

  1. 1. Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu
  2.  The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison
  3.  Skin Game, by Jim Butcher

BEST NOVELLA

  1.  Big Boys Don’t Cry, by Tom Kratman
  2. One Bright Star to Guide Them, John C. Wright
  3. The Plural of Helen of Troy, ditto
  4. Flow, Arlan Andrews
  5. Pale Realms of Shade, John C. Wright

BEST NOVELETTE

  1.  The Journeyman: In the Stone House, Michael F. Flynn
  2.  Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust Earth to Alluvium, by Gray Rinehart
  3.  The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale, by Rajnar Vajra
  4.  Championship B’tok, Edward Lerner

BEST SHORT STORY

  1.  Totaled, Kary English
  2.  Turncoat, Steve Rzasa
  3.  The Parliament of Beasts and Birds, John C. Wright

BEST RELATED WORK

  1.  Wisdom from My Internet, Michael Z. Williamson
  2.  Transhuman and Subhuman, John C. Wright
  3.  The Hot Equations, Ken Burnside
  4.  Why Science Is Never Settled, Tedd Roberts

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (LONG)

  1.  Edge of Tomorrow
  2.  Interstellar
  3.  Guardians of the Galaxy
  4.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier
  5.  The Lego Movie

BEST DRAMATIC PRESENTATION (SHORT)

  1.  Game of Thrones, “The Mountain and the Viper”
  2.  Orphan Black, “By Means Which Have Never Yet Been Tried”

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR (SHORT)

  1.  Vox Day
  2.  Mike Resnick

BEST PROFESSIONAL EDITOR (LONG)

  1.  Toni Weisskopf
  2.  Vox Day

…and you can take it as given that I voted No Award in the rest of the categories or (in the case of Best Fanzine) only voted for one (Tim Bolgeo’s The Revenge of Hump Day). Hopefully there’ll be enough fans like me who want to recapture the Hugos for people who want them to mean something entertaining and good again, so we don’t have to do as Wendell the Manatee suggests:

“Yes, Wendell!”


Aside from all that, I did read some other stuff. James Pylant’s In Morticia’s Shadow: The Life & Career of Carolyn Jones is a very, very detailed biography of the actress most famous for playing Morticia Addams on the original “Addams Family” TV series, but it would have benefited greatly from an editor who would have made sure the photographs didn’t slide off the bottoms of the pages. Pylant obviously did his homework, interviewing a lot of people who worked with Miss Jones throughout her career, and I doubt there’s anything he missed.


I am into the third volume of the Winston Churchill biography, Winston S. Churchill: The Challenge of War, 1914-1916, which is the one uniquely done by both Randolph Churchill and Martin Gilbert, as Randolph died while this volume was in process. It covers WSC’s tenure as First Lord of the Admiralty in the opening years of World War I and his downfall, which was not solely rooted in the Gallipoli disaster – that hadn’t yet turned sour – but rather in vile partisan politics and the treacherous, erratic personality of Admiral “Jackie” Fisher, who Churchill had summoned out of retirement to serve as First Sea Lord. An excellent, excellent book.


Later this week I’ll have something to say about Stanley Payne and Jesus Palacios’ biography of Franco and William Forstchen’s One Second After, both of which were kindly purchased from my wish list by Loyal Commenters.

*Correia and Torgerson really need to collect their essays and fisks into a book. They could call it The Peoples’ History of the Sad Puppy Revolution; wouldn’t it be great to see them and Mad Mike win Best Related Work back to back? 🙂


Shop Amazon – ALL-New Kindle Paperwhite – For Reading, Tablets Can’t Compete

Category: Books, Zeitgeist

FMJRA 2.0: Woke Up This Morning

Posted on | August 1, 2015 | 7 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Sunday: Fightin’ Words
Animal Magnetism
Regular Right Guy
Ninety Miles from Tyranny
A View from the Beach
Proof Positive

About the #Cuckservative Thing: By Whom Is the ‘New Right’ Being Trolled?
IOTW Report
Tree of Mamre

Hulk Hogan Pulls ‘Bigger Digger Trigger’
Regular Right Guy

FMJRA 2.0: Common People (William Shatner ST:TOS Video Remix)
BlurBrain
The Pirate’s Cove
Regular Right Guy

Conference Teaches Iowa Kids About Diversity, Tolerance and Butt Sex
Constantinople Not Istanbul
Regular Right Guy
A View from the Beach

A Cheap ‘Rape’ Smear on Trump
Blogistan Polytechnic Institute
The Pirate’s Cove
Bits Blog
Regular Right Guy

Late Night With In the Mailbox
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: Total Windows 10 Takeover Edition
Proof Positive

Sex Scandal Hits Foreign Billionaire Who Gave $5 Million to Clinton Foundation
A View from the Beach

God Bless Kentucky
Bits Blog

Top linker this week:

  1.  Regular Right Guy (5)

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery!


Woke Up This Morning

Category: FMJRA Award

Why Does Obama Hate Your Babies?

Posted on | August 1, 2015 | 104 Comments

 

Obama Will Veto Bill to De-Fund
Planned Parenthood Despite
Selling Aborted Baby Parts
— Steven Ertelt, LifeNews

Obama Appointee And Bundler
Blocks More Video Releases By Group
Behind Planned Parenthood Sting
— Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist

White House threatens to veto bill
blocking Planned Parenthood’s funding
— Jordan Fabian, The Hill

Does a Future Planned Parenthood Video
Contain ‘Prima Facie Evidence
of Born-Alive Infants?’
— David French, National Review

It is important to keep in mind during this controversy that, despite everything the abortion industry will try to tell you, the question is not Planned Parenthood’s existence, but whether federal taxpayer dollars should be used to fund it.

Apologists for the Culture of Death are experts at rhetorical prestidigitation, deflecting criticism and distracting the public’s attention with emotional appeals about “rights” and “women’s health.” They will use character assassination against their critics, trying to “kill the messenger” by demonizing their opponents with accusations of bad faith (mala fides) that are irrelevant to the issue. However, we do not need to engage in metaphysical or existential debates about “rights” in order to say that American taxpayers should not be required to fund an organization that profits from what everyone with a conscience recognizes as a ghastly and abominable business:

We have passed the point where Nazi comparisons are inappropriate. In the latest video about Planned Parenthood, if you want to watch it, you will see an admission that some of the children are born alive before being killed and carved up — their bodies being sold essentially for scrap.
These are children. They entered into the world alive and were killed, chopped up, and sold bit by bit.
“It’s a boy,” one person commented in the latest film. They talk about the commoditization of children’s eyeballs (the ones in the video were not developed enough), hearts that turn to mush they are so small, and reference the legs, feet, and hands of the children.
They are children being killed, butchered, and sold in pieces.

You can read the rest at Red State.

Democrats are the Party of Death, forever stained by their embrace of this hideous evil. No honest person believes their lies.




 

Category: Abortion, Barack Obama, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Planned Parenthood

Guilt As A Binder

Posted on | August 1, 2015 | 10 Comments

by Smitty

One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them–Tolkien

Over at Instapundit, Ed Driscoll points to Fernandez offering a power exposition on what the Center for Medical Progress has done.

I’ve always known that life begins at conception. This truth has been underscored by becoming a father. My two little guys (ages 4 and 1) that have curbed my blogging so severely underscore the preciousness of life. Legal gymnastics aside, what other defensible argument is there? The pursuit of evil, therefore, begins with a rejection both of truth and the need to pursue truth when we (inevitably) find ourselves off course.

And boy are we, culturally, off course! When an author like Fernandez juxtaposes your culture with that of Germany 80 years back, and you’re forced to admit that it’s a fair cop, that is a wrenching, sickening revelation. AND OUR TAX DOLLARS HAVE PAID FOR THIS!

I don’t accept guilt for actions I have not done; nor do I dispense guilt to others. I do encourage others in a positive way. Thus, my prayer is that God restore souls to the Planned Parenthood staff, who are surely as blighted as the human wreckage they purvey. Then, may God have mercy on their souls.

And may we all understand that the evil of Planned Parenthood is of a piece with the rest of the falsehoods in circulation today. For example, global warming.

Let us understand that Progressives are those who would bind, via one lie or another.

Category: Abortion, Planned Parenthood

An Honest Feminist on Tumblr

Posted on | August 1, 2015 | 42 Comments

She describes herself on Tumblr as “a queer radical leftist. Feminist, anti-gun, vegan, body positive, anti-racist, etc.” She wants it to be known that she hates men:

I fucking HATE men I haTE the way they’re socialized I hate the way they talk I hate the way they take off their shirts like the world wants to see their nasty nipples I hate the way they don’t shave the fucking birds nest in their armpits but throw up a fuss if girls have leg hair I hate the way they think they’re the center of everything and how they erase women’s contribution to literally everything and make women believe that they’re worthless and sexualize women’s bodies I hATE men

She posted that five days ago and it’s got 1,200 notes already.

This is what feminism really is — raw hatred toward men. Some feminists manage to conceal the furious intensity of their hatred, but on Tumblr it comes pouring out as incoherent rage. Men “erase women’s contribution to literally everything and make women believe that they’re worthless”? It’s been a busy week. I’ve fallen behind on my erasing.

 

Category: Sex Trouble

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | July 31, 2015 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

The flood abated, and Korban son of Korbill surveyed the ruin by the light of a harvest moon. He and his archers had climbed high in a thick copse of trees on a flanking hill as the orc horde forded River Myzods. The arrival of the flood waters had taken out half of the invasion, as well as the engaged defenders. Father.
The confusion of the deluge had thrown the balance of the orcs into a frenzied retreat, saving the kingdom.
His kingdom.
Father would. . .be picking his way back to the rally point now.
His armor was heavier, somehow.

via Darleen. Also rocking: Jimmy Bise.

Category: Friday Fiction, Protein Wisdom

In The Mailbox: 07.31.15

Posted on | July 31, 2015 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.31.15

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Thanks to all the folks who bought stuff through my Amazon links this month, and special thanks to Loyal Commenter RS, who bought Preston & Palacios’ Franco: A Personal and Political Biography off my wish list!


OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Major Bambi, Also, Mandy Nagy Needs Our Help!
Da Tech Guy: A Tale of Two Emmets
Louder With Crowder: Former Planned Parenthood Director Abby Johnson Leaks All
Michelle Malkin: Desperate Dems Recycle Planned Parenthood’s Mammogram Lie
Twitchy: Senator Boxer’s Lecture About “Legitimate” Health Care Ends With Truth Booms


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: CBS Evening News Covers Release Of Fourth Planned Parenthood Video
American Thinker: Exposed – America’s Enemies Within
Conservatives4Palin: Sarah Palin – Thanks, Senators Deb Fischer And Joni Ernst!
Don Surber: Camille Paglia, Frenemy Of Conservatives
Joe For America: Satanic Temple Raises Money For…Guess Which Party?
JustOneMinute: We Hardly Knew Ye
Pamela Geller: Kerry Claims Iran’s “Death To America” Chants Don’t Mean They Want To Kill Us
Protein Wisdom: Planned Parenthood – Even Worse Than You Thought
Shot In The Dark: Rolling In Glorious Victimhood
STUMP: Public Pension Quicktakes – All About Illinois And Chicago
The Gateway Pundit: DNC Chair Stumped, Can’t Explain Difference Between Democratic Party And Socialism
The Jawa Report: This Is Un-Freaking-American
The Lonely Conservative: US Intel Community Bracing For Security Breaches Thanks To Hillary’s E-Mails
This Ain’t Hell: Marine Corps Gazette Censors LTC Germano
Weasel Zippers: Why Is Planned Parenthood Trying To Suppress Videos? Evidence Of Buyers Getting “Fully Intact Babies”
Megan McArdle: Campus Rape Debate Needs Better Numbers
Mark Steyn: Unnatural Selection


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Category: Linkagery
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