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?

Posted on | September 6, 2014 | 118 Comments

“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 of society’s discomfort with homosexuality is a discomfort about the upending of the traditional patriarchal model of dominant man/submissive woman pairs with children in tiny box houses.”
— Marie Lynn “Riese” Bernard, 2013

Everybody remembers in 2010 when BuzzFeed found Rachel Maddow’s 1991 senior picture from Castro Valley (Calif.) High School. That incident inspired a rant at the lesbian blog Autostraddle:

BuzzFeed’s “Rachel Maddow Yearbook Picture” post, which has gone completely uncontrollably viral, is subtitled “Three words I never thought I could say about Rachel Maddow: I’d tap that!”
Hahahah! That’s so funny! You know, ’cause in this photo she has long blonde hair and is so PRETTY like a WOMAN and now she’s this scary butch lesbian with short hair and glasses and Opinions and who the hell would ever want to tap THAT? I mean, besides everyone and all of us here. But isn’t it so super-special that once upon a time, Rachel Maddow was still you know attractive by heteronormative patriarchal standards of beauty? I’d tap that! Hahaha!

That 2010 post showed up while I was searching for the word “heteronormative,” which is, like “patriarchy” and “gender roles,” a linguistic dye-marker of radical feminist thinking.

Anybody can be merely gay, but you need a theory — an ideology, a political philosophy — in order to have this kind of jargon that interprets your gayness in the context of oppression and social justice.

Wednesday’s citation of two lesbian feminist texts, one from 1973 and another from 1993, demonstrates how this radical theory of women as oppressed by the gender roles of heteronormative patriarchy (or “heteropatriarchy,” as feminist psychologists Celia Kitzinger and Rachel Perkins call it) originated in the Women’s Liberation movement of the late 1960s and early ’70s, and has been institutionalized by the faculty and curricula of Women’s Studies programs.

One of the rhetorical tricks of radicalism, a tactic at least as old as Karl Marx’s claim to have developed a scientific doctrine of socialism, is (a) to produce an elaborate theoretical explanation of whatever phenomenon they wish to criticize, (b) to denounce as a self-serving “myth” whatever common-sense justification is offered by defenders of the status quo, and (c) to claim that the inability of the status quo’s defenders to refute the radical challenge is proof that the “system” is illegitimate and must be destroyed. (It is certainly no accident that nearly all feminist theorists cite Friedrich Engels’s The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State in expounding their own critiques of “male supremacy.”) Defenders of any traditional way of life are always at a disadvantage in debate with radical intellectuals who, having built or borrowed some theoretical argument for revolution, scornfully dismiss the defense of tradition as mere sentimental prejudice in favor of the status quo. Hurling accusations of bigotry and ignorance at their antagonists, radicals insist that progress beckons us toward an enlightened future, if only we can overcome the irrational opposition of The Forces of Darkness who wish to keep society enslaved to the benighted past.

If you have read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, you recognize such “arguments” as the dishonest sophistry they really are. And if you have also read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, you understand how radicalism appeals to certain personality types. Understanding these things, the defender of tradition realizes that what actually requires explantation is not how “the system” works in theory, but rather why certain people are so implacably hostile to a system that works in practice. If the system does not work perfectly, we can consider how best to improve it, but mild reform projects are not what radicals have in mind, and feminism has always been inherently radical. This has been my longstanding disagreement with Christina Hoff Sommers’s 1995 book Who Stole Feminism?

As the title implies, Sommers postulates that there was (and still should be) a “mainstream” feminism of which she approves, but that this benign democratic reform movement has been hijacked by radicals of whom Sommers does not approve. My contention, which I have spent years endeavoring to demonstrate, is that this is a complete misunderstanding of what feminism is and has always been since the rise of the Women’s Liberation movement in the 1960s. Having traced the history of this movement to its origins in the New Left — specifically, the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) — I am obligated by my commitment to historical truth to call bullshit on anyone who tries to tell me that radicals stole feminism. It was their rightful property all along; radicals created feminism, they theorized and promoted feminism, and if anyone joined the feminist movement because they bought into its mainstream facade, their folly in doing so is not my problem.

Radicals didn’t “hijack” feminism. Radicals own the feminist plane. Anyone woman who buys a ticket on Feminist Airlines should not be surprised when she arrives at her lesbian destination.

There are lesbians who are not feminists, just as there are feminists who are not lesbians, but if you attend the annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association, you’ll find that the NWSA’s Lesbian Caucus is large and influential. Read more

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

Obama Is All: “Ha ha, Holland! I Got A 35% Approval Floor, And I’m Not Even Named After A Foreign Country”

Posted on | September 6, 2014 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

Via Instapundit, the excellent Daniel Hannan, emphasis mine:

Snobbery is not confined to any party or faction, of course. What seems far more common on the Left, though, is the need to find some inert, subjugated, grateful mass to champion. At first, that mass was supposed to be the industrialised proletariat. But, when working people were enfranchised, they often turned out to have troublingly conservative opinions. The needy politicians then turned to immigrants and other minorities. Annoyingly for them, some of these groups were equally unwilling to play the part allotted to them. So Lefties began to cast the net wider, searching for people who could be relied on not to contradict the official line: oppressed colonials, Palestinians, black South Africans. Sadly, these groups, too, refused to be either unconditionally grateful or politically correct.
I sometimes wonder whether political neediness explains the popularity of the animal rights movement: here, finally, is a constituency that can be relied on never to gainsay its self-proclaimed champions. Passive, predictable and in need of protection, animals are the perfect political prop.
As for Hollande, the French saw through him long ago. With 13 per cent approval ratings, he is the most unpopular leader in the history of his country (though, in fairness, there were no opinion polls during Charles X’s reign). Some French people may be toothless, but they’re evidently not mindless. They are on the receiving end of the Euro-correct socialism that is immiserating France, and they know it. Vivent les sans-dents!

The whole snobbery/unpopularity thing is as viral as ebola. Consider the utter disdain with which someone bearing actual charisma and a heart for reform, e.g. Sarah Palin, is met. I don’t see how she could possibly have been less effective than #OccupyResoluteDesk, without, say, getting a carrier battle group sunk somewhere while having her feet done. And yet we’re instructed to ridicule her, meanwhile overlooking the rodeo clown stylings of President “Sorry, I think I left my ISIS strategy in my seersucker suit.”

Thursday, while driving to the airport, I got a call from the NRCC, wanting to loot me for $150-$200 to help “fight the Liberal agenda”. I pressed the speaker for more detail on just exactly what that meant. Is the GOP really going to repeal ObamaCare, or just fanny about until Americans get bored and roll over (an admittedly reasonable strategy).

By the time the huckster had worked the panhandle down to $50 I was all “Seriously. I’m calling Boehner’s bluff. The suspicion is that the GOP is tacitly colluding with the IRS. Get the reform plan out there, and I’ll think about contributing.”

The apparent lack of a GOP wave this November is due to the water being confused as to which direction of flow is not Progressive. Which is why it is heartening to see the likes of Tom Coburn calling for a Convention of States. I sort of waffle on which branch of the Progressive Party is the bigger pack of liars;

  • the overt statists know as Democrats, or
  • the closet statists who make occasional patriotic bleats, the Republicans.

In any case, if you like a candidate, don’t bother giving one red cent to any national campaign committee: these career jackwagons are the problem, not the solution.

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Republicans

‘Our Deepest Feelings’

Posted on | September 5, 2014 | 63 Comments

“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 had made us want to become lesbians in the first place.”
— Lillian Faderman, “Afterword,” in Cross Purposes: Lesbians, Feminists, and the Limits of Alliance, edited by Dana Heller (1997)

Any reader can research Lillian Faderman who, prior to her retirement in 2007, was a professor of English at California State University, Fresno and a visiting professor at UCLA. Some dutiful reader might try Googling her name in conjunction with the terms “Women’s Studies” and “syllabus” and see how widely her works are assigned (e.g., Washington State University). It might also be helpful to take the titles of some of Professor Faderman’s more influential works, plug them in as Google terms and find how frequently they have been cited in academic literature. Furthermore, what about Professor Dana Heller, chairwoman of the Department of English at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia? Why isn’t her full curriculum vitae listed on her university home page? Pardon my crowd-sourcing request, but I’ve found myself sucked into the ravenous Brain-Eating Zombie Essay From Hell.

Thursday, I didn’t post anything to the blog because I woke up at 4 a.m. and began writing something — inspired by Professor Glenn Reynolds’ remarks about “broken people” — that rapidly sprawled out of control. By the time I went to bed Thursday night, it was past the 4,000-word mark and so I woke up early Friday morning with the idea that I’d finish it off by noon. WRONG!

Damn it, I hate when this happens, but the work must be done. If my “Sex Trouble” project about radical feminism’s war against human nature is to be complete as an ebook by Thanksgiving, I’ll have to crank out the draft chapters at a grinding pace between now and mid-October, then convert this all into book format during a three-week blitz of editing. My next sledgehammer assault — the brain-eating zombie that is now more than 7,000 words in length — would be ready for publication in a few hours, except that I’m now  babysitting grandson James. Training the next generation of heteronormative patriarchy is a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. So maybe I’ll finish the Brain-Eating Zombie From Hell later tonight, or it might have to wait until Saturday. Meanwhile . . .

Palmira Silva, an 82-year-old widow and grandmother, “was beheaded in a north London suburban garden by a man with a machete.” Police are investigating whether the attack was “inspired by recent footage of terrorists beheading two American journalists in Syria.” Officials have not yet confirmed reports from the victim’s neighbors that the 25-year-old suspect “was a local man who had converted to Islam last year.”

Does anyone suppose feminists can stop complaining about “sexism . . . male chauvinism and double standards and inequality” long enough to notice that crazed barbarians are beheading helpless elderly widows in suburban gardens? I don’t think so.

Anyway, between trying to finish this massive essay and taking care of my grandson, I’ll be quietly busy a while.

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!




 

 

Category: Feminism, Sex Trouble

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.05.14

Posted on | September 5, 2014 | 8 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
US Agency For International Development Provides $75 Million To Expand Ebola Care Centers

Health workers in Liberia spray each other with disinfectants

Will fund 1000 more beds, buy 130,000 protective suits
US doctor infected with Ebola heading for Nebraska and treatment
Ebola’s economic toll on Africa beginning to emerge



NATO Agrees To Cheer For Ukraine, But Not Much More
NATO SecGen Andersson: “Our support is concrete and tangible”
Poroshenko expresses “cautious optimism” on peace deal

European Central Bank Takes Aggressive Measures
Cutting interest rates, resorting to stimulus



POLITICS
Former Virginia Governor McDonnell, Wife Convicted On Corruption Charges

Former Governor McDonnell, his sister Maureen (L) and son Bobby (R) leave the courthouse in Richmond

McDonnell’s lawyers to appeal

ISIS Threat Brings Out Dems’ Hawkish Side

Federal Court Strikes Down Gay Marriage Bans In Indiana, Wisconsin

Berkeley Mandates Free Medicinal Pot For The Poor

Hillary Urges US To Become Clean Energy Superpower

Congress Poised To Punt Budget Duties Again

Former Google Exec Megan Smith Named New Federal CTO

Battle Over Keystone Pipeline Lands In Nebraska’s High Court

Rep. Wassermann-Schultz Apologizes For Scott Walker Comments



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Continues Sinking Under Pressure From Strong Dollar: WTI $94.45, Brent $101.75
Asia Stocks Slip Ahead Of US Jobs Report; Nikkei Up On Weaker Yen
MetLife Disputes Feds’ Too Big To Fail Ruling
How Market Basket Put Itself Back Together Again
Wall Street Ends Down As Energy Shares Decline
ADP: Private Sector Slows But 204K Jobs Added
Two Years Later, A Huge Back Door In iCloud Is Still Wide Open
AT&T And Box To Pave Secure Path To Cloud Content Via VPN
Nvidia Sues Qualcomm, Samsung Over Graphics Patents
Healthcare.gov Hacked But No Personal Information Stolen
EA Launches “Madden GIFerator” For Your Looping Pleasure



SPORTS
Seahawks Rip Packers To Begin Title Defense

Seahawks QB Russell Wilson: “We don’t believe in that whole Super Bowl hangover thing.”

Seattle dominates Green Bay in NFL season opener, 36-16

Yankees Homer Twice In Ninth, Edge Red Sox 5-4

O’s Beat Reds 9-7 For The Sweep


Tigers Score Seven In Eleventh To Rout Tribe 11-4

Twins Waste Tons Of Chances, Fall 5-4 To Angels

M’s Rough Up Rangers In 10-2 Rout

Cardinals Beat Brewers 3-2; Streak Extends To Six Games

Snakes Top Padres 5-1



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Legendary Comedienne Joan Rivers Dead At 81

Good night, bittersweet princess

Tragic end to life of groundbreaking comedienne, “Fashion Police” host


Scarlett Johansson, It’s A Girl!


And Alyssa Milano Gives Birth To A Daughter Too!



Betty White Alive And Well Despite Rumored Death By Homophone

“Dancing With The Stars” Season 19 Celebrity Cast Revealed

Justin Theroux Talks Bulge On “The Leftovers”

Ben Affleck Stars In David Fincher’s “Gone Girl”

Supergirl Takes Flight With TV Series

Floyd Mayweather’s Ex Sues: “He Beat My Ass, Threatened To Shoot Me”

“Cinderella” To Close On Broadway; NeNe Leakes To Join Final Cast

Mariah Carey Has Started The Divorce Process, But Nick Cannon Wants Another Chance



FOREIGNERS
Kids A Major Target As Boko Haram Gains Ground In Nigeria
Cameron Offers To Expand Aid To Kurdish Peshmerga In Iraq
Ragtag Volunteers Line Up To Defend Mariupol
Reconstruction Of Gaza Could Cost Almost $8 Billion
Woman Beheaded In London Suburb With Machete
Al-Qaeda In India Tests Modi’s Bid To Unite Hindus. Muslims
Marina Silva Creates Competition For Rousseff In Brazilian Presidential Race
Heavy Rains Kill 65 In Kashmir
Chicoms To Help Zimbabwe Build Special Economic Zones
US Expresses Support For Nawaz Sharif As “Elected Leader” Of Pakistan



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: Don’t You Understand? The Gun-Grabbers Are Happy About Stories Like These!
Doug Powers: Rep. Gwen Moore Arrested While Demanding Fast Food Restaurants Pay Their Workers $15/Hour More Than Her Interns
Twitchy: Popcorn Time – Marie Harf Wants To Discuss Her Resume With Critics
American Power: Obama Given Detailed Intelligence On ISIS Last Year
BLACKFIVE: Obama – “Can’t Draw Borders With The Barrel Of A Gun”
Conservatives4Palin: Victor Davis Hanson – Obama Fails History 101
Don Surber: More Oil From North Dakota Than Saudi Arabia
Jammie Wearing Fools: In Lieu Of Consistent ISIS Strategy, Team Obama Opens New Front In War On Fox News
Joe For America: Most Transparent Administration In History Hiding 100K Illegal Alien Children
Protein Wisdom: The Rapes In Rotherham Were Possible Because Of The Left
Shot In The Dark: The Peasants $trike Back
STUMP: Public Pensions Watch – Alternative Asset Classes Part III – South Carolina
The Gateway Pundit: Oops! Democrat Governor Tweets Out Picture Of Bondage Queen
The Jawa Report: Reader Love Mail!
The Lonely Conservative: Petition Launched Calling For Debbie Wassermann-Schultz To Resign
This Ain’t Hell: Don Morgan Couldn’t Finish Boot Camp So He Joined ISIS
Weasel Zippers: NFL Quietly Asked Teams To Sign Michael Sam After He Was Cut By The Rams
Megan McArdle: Feminism Starts In The Kitchen


The September 12 Smittypalooza is next week!


Category: Live at Five

LIVE AT FIVE: 09.04.14

Posted on | September 4, 2014 | 16 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
UN Says $600 Million Needed To Fight Ebola In Africa

World Health Organization bureaucrats at a briefing for the UN Foundation in Washington

Death toll tops 1900
More deaths than all past Ebola outbreaks combined
Latest American doctor to contract Ebola skipped protective gear in 100-degree heat

Ukraine Derides Russian Ceasefire Plan Before NATO Summit
Kiev denounces plan as a “deception”

Department Of Justice To Investigate Ferguson Police
Separate from ongoing civil rights investigation



POLITICS
Democrat Candidate Pulls Out of Kansas Senate Race

Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) in a recent parade

Democrats’ PPP poll shows Roberts trailing independent Greg Orman 43-33 with Democrat Chad Taylor out

Federal Judge Upholds Louisiana Gay Marriage Ban

RNC Dumps On Wassermann-Schultz For Walker Remarks Trivializing Domestic Violence

Kurds Say US Aid Not Effective Against ISIS, Ask For Heavy Weapons

US Ground Troops To Train In Ukraine Next Week

Mary Landrieu Lists DC Address As Home On Voter Registration Card

McAuliffe Breaks With Democrats On Gas Pipeline



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Slips As US Fuel Stocks Increase: WTI $95.09, Brent $102.20
Bloomberg Returns To His Media Company As CEO
Tesla Picks Nevada For Battery “Gigafactory”
Wall Street Mixed As Apple Weighs On NASDAQ
CVS Snuffs Out Tobacco Sales
Airline Stocks Fall After Delta Trims Margin Outlook
Samsung Unveils 5.6″ Galaxy Note Edge
Intel’s 3G Snakeskin Smart Bracelet
Not A Phad: Phablet Sales Could Pass Laptops, Tablets
The Internet’s Not Really Going To Slow Down On “Internet Slowdown Day”
Get A Job: Latest “Sims” Believable, If Not Realistic



SPORTS
Guess Who’s Got The Angels’ Number?

Angels reliever Fernando Salas hangs his head after feeding his gopher in the eighth inning

Astros’ Carter homers twice, Houston wins 4-1 and sweeps two-game set


Most Overhyped Player In NFL Draft Finds His True Home In Dallas

Braves Top Phillies 7-4

Mets Rally Late, Edge Fish 4-3

Royals Beat Rangers 4-1 For The Sweep

Twins Hit Danks Early And Often In 11-4 Rout Of Pale Hose

Salazar Shuts Out Tigers, Tribe Prevails 7-0


King Felix Outduels Jon Lester: M’s Over A’s 2-1

Cards Edge Bucs 1-0 On Walkoff Single

Bombs Away! Rockies Rout Giants 9-2

Yankees Snap Skid With 5-1 Win Against Red Sox

Gonzalez Pitches First Shutout As O’s Blank Reds 6-0

Jays Top Rays 7-4

Cubs Beat Slumping Brewers 6-2

Collmenter Dominates Again As Snakes Smash Padres 6-1

NASCAR Chairman France Mum On Tony Stewart

Bruins, Krejci Sign Six-Year, $43.5 Million Extension

Nats Grind It Out: Beat Dodgers 8-5 In 14th Inning On Three Unearned Runs



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
A Life Of Liberty

The September cover girl

Back in the spotlight after a harrowing divorce

Joan Rivers Out Of The ICU

TBS Cancels Cee Lo Green’s “The Good Life”

Diaz: Pictures Leak “A Major Violation”

Phil Robertson Breaks His Silence

Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert, Keith Urban Lead CMA Award Nominations

George Clooney’s Fiance Isn’t Pregnant

Rosie Perez, Nicolle Wallace To Join “The View”

See Alison Williams As Peter Pan

Kate Hudson Slams Eating Disorder Rumors

The Rock To Play Black Adam In New Line’s “Shazam!”

Eva Longoria Complains Apple Employees Breached Her Privacy By Calling Her Directly

Britney’s Booted BF Claims “We Were On A Break!”

“Frozen” Characters To Return In “Frozen Fever” Animated Short

Rachel Bilson’s Baby Shower Details

Netflix Nabs Rights To New Series “Gotham”



FOREIGNERS
No Change In Bank Of Japan’s Monetary Policy
Cameron, Obama Vow To “Confront” Islamic State
US Open To New Gaza Resolution If It Helps Truce
Al-Qaeda Leader Says They’ve Expanded Into India
Japan’s First Lady Speaks Out On Sales Tax, Nuclear Power
French President Hollande’s Ex-GF Claims He “Dislikes The Poor”
Iraq Claims To Have Captured Chinese ISIS Jihadi
Fiji General Denies Backlash Against Nation’s Muslims Over Peacekeeper Hostages
“Silly Walks” Buckingham Palace Guardsman Under Investigation
Economists: Scottish Independence Means “New Wave Of Painful Austerity”
Pakistani Army Claims Over 900 Jihadis Killed In North Waziristan
Taliban Attack On Afghan Government Compound Kills 12



BLOGS & STUFF
The First Street Journal: We Told You So – The First Street Journal Beats CNBC By Two Years
American Power: Tyranny Of The Home-Cooked Family Dinner
American Thinker: Barack Obama And The Last Czar
BLACKFIVE: Islamic State Propaganda
Conservatives4Palin: Sarah Palin And September 3 – How Two Speeches Redefined The Planes Of Politics
Don Surber: Polls Show A Democrat Party Prolapse
Jammie Wearing Fools: “I Think The Remarks Were Absolutely Hideous And The Motive Behind Them Despicable”
Joe For America: Ricky Gervais Blames Hacking Victims For Nude Pics Online
JustOneMinute: Friedman On ISIS – It’s Complicated
Shot In The Dark: The Client Is Obviously My Client
STUMP: Public Pensions Watch – Alternative Asset Classes, Part II (New Jersey)
The Gateway Pundit: Another Deranged Democrat Accuses GOP Of Fomenting Civil War
The Jawa Report: Islamic State Of Losers Not So Tough After All
The Lonely Conservative: At Least Someone In The Administration Is Bothered By ISIS
This Ain’t Hell: 350 More Troops To Iraq
Weasel Zippers: Turkish Minister – Christianity No Longer A Religion, It’s A Culture That Threatens Islam
Megan McArdle: Your Nude Selfies Will Never Be Safe


Eight days until the September 12 Smittypalooza!


Category: Live at Five

Whose Agenda Is the Feminist Agenda?

Posted on | September 3, 2014 | 53 Comments

“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 female in relation to the man is only half a woman and a disadvantaged one at that. . . . You are who you sleep with. Thus the lesbian rightfully says she is the woman par excellence. . . .
“Gay revolution addresses itself to the total elimination of the sexual caste system around which our oppressive society is organized. . . . It is now recognized that any Marxist-Socialist analysis must acknowledge the sexist underpinnings of every political economic power base. Gay liberation cannot be considered apart from women’s liberation. . . . The mere feminist is an incipient revolutionary. She is a woman in revolt against her prescribed and confined feminine role but she has not yet envisioned the solution to her dilemma . . . The lesbian is the key figure in the social revolution to end the sexual caste system, or heterosexual institution . . . The issue keeps turning back over and over to the oppression of women. . . . The lesbian as practicing woman is now reversing the cultural appraisal of womanhood.”
— Jill Johnston, Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (1973)

“The word ‘homophobia’ defines fear of lesbians as irrational. . . . This is completely at odds with radical lesbian politics. We cannot think of lesbianism as a challenge to heteropatriarchal structures and values and simultaneously claim that there are no reasonable grounds for men (or heterosexually identified women) to fear us. . . If lesbianism is a blow against the patriarchy, the bonding of women against male supremacy, then it is entirely rational for men to fear it. Contemporary psychology evades these political implications of lesbianism and presents us as essentially harmless.”
— Celia Kitzinger and Rachel Perkins, Changing Our Minds: Lesbian Feminism and Psychology (1993)

With several thousand words in draft awaiting completion of new installments of the “Sex Trouble” series, I felt an obligation to give readers a small taste of what I’m reading in radical feminist books. After all, you paid for these books — “Hit the freaking tip jar!” — that I ordered via Amazon, and it’s important that readers supporting this project know that they’re getting what they’ve paid for.

Johnston’s reference to a “Marxist-Socialist analysis” as a basis of her own lesbian-feminist agenda in 1973 is important to understanding what the feminist movement’s actual goals were at the outset. Johnston makes clear that “women’s liberation” is part of “the social revolution to end the sexual caste system” (i.e., heterosexuality), which she describes as “the sexist underpinnings of every political economic power base.” She wrote this more than 40 years ago, in a book praised by such feminist leaders as Gloria Steinem and Alix Kates Shulman. Considering what Kate Millett’s sister Mallory has recently written about the Marxist influence on the Women’s Liberation movement, doesn’t this seem rather significant?

When feminists talk about “patriarchy,” they mean that our society is one in which all women (collectively) are oppressed by all men (collectively); therefore heterosexuality is inherently oppressive to women, hence the reference by Kitzinger and Perkins to “heteropatriarchal structures and values,” i.e., what most people consider simply normal life. It does not matter, ultimately, whether any particular feminist is herself a Marxist or a lesbian; the movement of which she is a part is ideologically committed to these understandings of women’s oppression and demands a “social revolution” to overthrow the “system” of “our oppressive society.”

More than four decades after the rise of the Women’s Liberation movement (so-called “Second Wave” feminism), the question is whether what Johnston called “the oppression of women” (in 1973) by what Kitzinger and Perkins called “male supremacy” (in 1993) has been significantly ameliorated by feminism. The more any feminist in 2014 considers herself “radical,” the more likely she sees the glass half-empty, believing that women’s oppression has scarcely been eroded at all. Yet no feminist of 2014 can repudiate the original radicalism of Women’s Liberation while simultaneously claiming to be part of the same movement, nor can a contemporary woman call herself “feminist” without accepting the movement’s radicalism as now institutionalized within Women Studies programs and other feminist organizations. Otherwise, the label “feminist” has no useful meaning.

There is no such contradiction, however, if feminism is actually a political movement with a coherent understanding of its own purposes and goals. Insofar as feminism is indeed such a movement, then its purposes and its goals cannot be an ad hoc improvisation, continually revised, so that what feminism means on Wednesday becomes something different on Thursday. Nor can there be multiple and diverse “feminisms,” if such a movement is to claim to speak for the interests of all women. Otherwise, any woman could claim to speak on behalf of the movement, arguing for anything that happened to cross her mind.

Feminism must be one thing or another. It cannot be everything. And if radical feminists don’t speak for feminism, perhaps someone should explain that to the radicals. Good luck with that.





 

Category: Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox, 09.03.14

Posted on | September 3, 2014 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho


Apologies for the lack of Live at Five this morning; not enough sleep on Monday night plus a late tax class Tuesday night equaled complete collapse when I got home Tuesday night.


First Street Journal: The Work Ethic
Michelle Malkin: Deport The Tsarnaev Sisters
Twitchy: Wassermann-Schultz Suggests Scott Walker Beats Women
American Power: Devastating Megyn Kelly Segment – “Obama Just Doesn’t Know What To Do”
American Thinker: Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Speaks Truth To The Powers
BLACKFIVE: A Real Strategy For ISIS And Islamist Extremism
Conservatives4Palin: Ramesh Ponnuru – Republicans Misread Their “Gender Gap” Problem
Don Surber: Diversify – Texas Style
Jammie Wearing Fools: After Six Months In Captivity, Mom Of Marine Jailed In Mexico Makes Pleas To Obama; He Ignores Her
Joe For America: Rape And Slaughter Surrogacy Centers – The New Sweatshops
JustOneMinute: This Will Work…
Shot In The Dark: Trulbert! Part IX – Freedom
STUMP: Public Pensions Watch – Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls, or, Alternative Asset Classes, Part One Of Many
The Gateway Pundit: Boko Haram Announces Second Islamic Caliphate In Eastern Nigeria
The Jawa Report: Ten Years Ago Today – The Beslan Massacre
The Lonely Conservative: When Did Common Sense Become Offensive?
This Ain’t Hell: 6000 Missing Students
Weasel Zippers: Berkeley Professor Outraged When Michigan Governor Says Israel Has A Right To Exist
Megan McArdle: Are Liberals The Real Authoritarians?


The September 12 Smittypalooza is in nine days!


Category: Blogging, Linkagery

Leave Mary Landrieu Alone!

Posted on | September 2, 2014 | 21 Comments

by Smitty


Hot Air reports on AFP’s praisworthy ad for Mary Landrieus’s re-election campaign:

For crying out loud, Americans: Mary Landrieu is the MOAST HONEST POLITICIAN EVAR! She openly doesn’t care about the benighted peasants of the swamp that hatched her. She’s an aristocrat now; all full of indigna-tion at the situa-tion of the humilia-tion at the thought of losing the election.

In these trying times, we need to preserve the integrity of the Ruling Class contempt for the serfs out there in flyover. That’s why this blog hopes that the continued repression of reform-minded Americans results in another reliably corrupt Congress on our way to the fabled hothouse in this here handbasket.

Category: Farce, Louisiana
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