The Other McCain

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

Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace’

Posted on | July 14, 2014 | 240 Comments

“The supersensitivity of the [Women’s Liberation] movement to the lesbian issue, and the existence of a few militant lesbians within the movement, once prompted [NOW founder Betty] Friedan herself to grouse about ‘the lavender menace’ that was threatening to warp the image of women’s rights.”
— Susan Brownmiller, New York Times, March 15, 1970 (quoted in In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution)

“What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion. …
“It should first be understood that lesbianism … is a category of behavior possible only in a sexist society characterized by rigid sex roles and dominated by male supremacy. … In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.”
— Artemis March, et al., “The Woman Identified Woman,” May 1970

No one can honestly discuss feminism without addressing the enduring question, “Which feminism are you talking about?” From its inception as the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1960s and ’70s, modern feminism has been fractured by schisms that its would-be mainstream leaders have sought to conceal from the larger public.

Many women who today identify themselves as feminists have never examined the history of these conflicts and are unfamiliar with the militant personalities and radical ideologies that have influenced feminism for the past half-century. When confronted with the extremist rhetoric of feminists — vehement denunciation of males, condemnation of heterosexuality, claims that men (collectively) oppress and victimize women (collectively) in ways comparable to the Holocaust — the average woman is understandably startled and, if she thinks of herself as a feminist, she quickly shifts into denial mode. The anti-male passage you’ve just quoted to her is an aberration, an anomaly, an expression of fringe beliefs that does not represent the feminism that she endorses. She is not a Marxist, she is not a lesbian or a man-hater, she is not the kind of pro-abortion fanatic who views motherhood as male-imposed tyranny. The question thus arises: Is she actually a feminist?

Any honest person who undertakes an in-depth study of modern feminism, from its inception inside the 1960s New Left to its institutionalization within Women’s Studies departments at universities, will understand that without the influence of radicals — militant haters of capitalism and Christianity, angry lesbians who view all males as a sort of malignant disease, deranged women who can’t distinguish between political grievances and their own mental illnesses — there probably never would have been a feminist movement at all. Yet no matter how many examples of radical feminism we may cite, or how crucial the connection between ideological extremism and the rhetoric of “mainstream” feminists, many women (and men) will continue to insist that the evidence offered is irrelevant to the kind of feminism they endorse and advocate.

Unthinking acceptance of simple slogans, a superficial discourse built around glittering generalities — “equality,” “choice,” etc. — is not an ideology, nor could this bland kind of feminism ever have been enough to inspire an enduring political movement. Even while they ignore the chasm between radical theory and their own feminism, however, women seem surprised to find that real life contradicts even the least controversial understanding of “sexual equality”:

I have always found it hard and confusing to be both a feminist and happily married. Why? Because in a good marriage, where both parties are equally happy, no one is keeping score. Feminists emphasize equality of roles, but in a real life marriage, this isn’t always realistic.

If women make equality the measure of their happiness, they are hopelessly doomed to misery in real life, if their ambitions include men, marriage and motherhood. Somewhere, there may be a perfect Feminist Man acceptable to the egalitarian ideal, but feminists generally mock that possibility. “Not My Nigel” is feminist shorthand for the claims of women that their man — their boyfriend, their husband, their son — does not engage in the sexist oppression that feminist rhetoric attributes to the male-dominated system of patriarchy. Feminists scorn the idea that any man can be an exception to their general condemnation of men, so that the acronym NAMALT (“Not All Men Are Like That”) is deployed to ridicule any woman who takes offense at feminist claims about the ubiquitous villainy of males.

Even if a woman is certain that she herself is not being victimized by her husband, even if she refuses to accept the claim that all men are violent oppressors complicit in “rape culture,” however, she will find that the routine conflicts and misfortunes of her everyday life are characterized by feminists as proof of women’s universal victimhood. If she heeds the voices of feminism, she will mentally magnify her problems into evidence of a pervasive pattern, and view the men in her life — her husband, her father, her male co-workers — as participants in, and beneficiaries of, the system of “male supremacy” denounced in the 1970 manifesto, “The Woman-Identified Woman”:

Lesbian is a label invented by the Man to throw at any woman who dares to be his equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives . . . who dares to assert the primacy of her own needs. To have the label applied to people active in women’s liberation is just the most recent instance of a long history. . . For in this sexist society, for a woman to be independent means she can’t be a woman — she must be a dyke. That in itself should tell us where women are at. It says as clearly as can be said: women and person are contradictory terms. For a lesbian is not considered a “real woman.” . . . [W]hen you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the essence of being a “woman” is to get fucked by men.

Is this brief excerpt taken out of context? Read the whole thing and see for yourself if the “context” attenuates the meaning. Nor can this manifesto be dismissed as an obscure fringe document irrelevant to feminist history. It was published less than two months after Susan Brownmiller’s important New York Times article about the nascent Women’s Liberation movement had mentioned the effort of Betty Friedan to prevent “the lesbian issue” from “warp[ing] the image” of feminism. Brownmiller herself dismissed Friedan’s fears, playing on the phrase “red herring” to mock the “Lavender Menace” as a “lavender herring,” only to see that clever jest thrown back in her face by the collective that published its manifesto as “Radicalesbians.”

“Well,” replies the defender of “mainstream” feminism, “those lesbians were just a bunch of extremist kooks nobody ever heard of.”

Except they weren’t, and their kooky extremism did not hinder their influence. The “Radicalesbians” collective included Rita Mae Brown, a former staffer at Friedan’s National Organization for Women. In January 1970, Brown and another lesbian NOW staffer, Michela Griffo, resigned and joined forces with Ellen Shumsky and Artemis March (neé March Hoffman) to form a lesbian faction within the male-dominated Gay Liberation Front. In a series of meetings in Brown’s apartment, they formed a conspiracy to stage a disruptive protest as the Second Congress to Unite Women in May 1970. “The Woman-Identified Woman” was a statement largely written by March on behalf of the collective, and no one can say that either the manifesto or its authors were “fringe” obscurities. Artemis March, Ph.D., taught at Harvard University and was awarded a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute, without ever repudiating her militant anti-male ideology (here’s an example from 2010). Rita Mae Brown became a best-selling author whose 1973 lesbian novel The Rubyfruit Jungle is often featured in high school reading lists (e.g., Belmont High School in Massachusetts). Ellen Shumsky became a psychotherapist; her 2009 book, Portrait of a Decade 1968-1978, featured an introduction by lesbian historian Flavia Rando. Michela Griffo became an artist and was recently a featured Gay Pride Month speaker in Boston.

The authors of “The Woman-Identified Woman” were not as famous as celebrity feminists like Gloria Steinem, but even if they were completely unknown, their radical manifesto would continue to be influential, because it is routinely included in the curricula of Women’s Studies courses across the United States: Michigan State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Minnesota, to name a few. It is not difficult to trace the influence of this early radicalism down to the present day, or to cite similarly influential treatises — e.g.,  “Lesbians in Revolt” by Charlotte Bunch (1972) and “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” by Adrienne Rich (1980) — commonly included in the syllabi of Women’s Studies programs. Any attempt to separate this kind of explicitly anti-male/anti-heterosexual ideology from “mainstream” feminism would require us to argue that the most eminent academics in the field of Women’s Studies (including the lesbian editors of the widely used textbook Feminist Frontiers) are not “mainstream.”

Once we go beyond simplistic sloganeering about “equality” and “choice” to examine feminism as political philosophy — the theoretical understanding to which Ph.D.s devote their academic careers — we discover a worldview in which men and women are assumed to be implacable antagonists, where males are oppressors and women are their victims, and where heterosexuality is specifically condemned as the means by which this male-dominated system operates.

“But the hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right. Intercourse appears to be the expression of that contempt in pure form, in the form of a sexed hierarchy; it requires no passion or heart because it is power without invention articulating the arrogance of those who do the fucking. Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men’s contempt for women . . .”
— Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, 1987

“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

All these quotes are from authors and academics whose works are widely cited in feminist journals and included in Women’s Studies curricula. To say that these feminists are outside the “mainstream” is to invite the question of who has the authority to define feminism.

If lifelong activists and professors who have devoted their lives to feminism aren’t “mainstream,” who is? To understand this problem, consider the career of Charlotte Bunch.

Then and now: Charlotte Bunch (left) in the 1970s and (right) as Rutgers professor.

In 1968, Bunch was one of the organizers of the first national Women’s Liberation conference and in 1971 — after being seduced by Rita Mae Brown — she divorced her husband and became a radical lesbian separatist, publishing “Lesbians in Revolt” in January 1972:

In our society which defines all people and institutions for the benefit of the rich, white male, the Lesbian is in revolt. In revolt because she defines herself in terms of women and rejects the male definitions of how she should feel, act, look, and live. To be a Lesbian is to love oneself, woman, in a culture that denigrates and despises women. The Lesbian rejects male sexual/political domination; she defies his world, his social organization, his ideology, and his definition of her as inferior. Lesbianism puts women first while the society declares the male supreme. Lesbianism . . . politically conscious and organized . . . is central to destroying our sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system. . . .
The only way oppressed people end their oppression is by seizing power: People whose rule depends on the subordination of others do not voluntarily stop oppressing others. Our subordination is the basis of male power. . . .
Lesbianism is a threat to the ideological, political, personal, and economic basis of male supremacy. The Lesbian threatens the ideology of male supremacy by destroying the lie about female inferiority, weakness, passivity, and by denying women’s ‘innate’ need for men. . . .
Our rejection of heterosexual sex challenges male domination in its most individual and common form. We offer all women something better than submission to personal oppression. We offer the beginning of the end of collective and individual 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.

Is that an extremist statement? Do most feminists disagree with Charlotte Bunch? Did her radical lesbianism cause her to be ostracized, marginalized and excluded from the feminist “mainstream”?

Au contraire! Charlotte Bunch became one of the most influential feminists in the world. She is a professor and founding director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She is a top advisor to the United Nations on women’s issues; she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in October 1996; and in 1999, President Clinton bestowed on her the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights. Let us ask an obvious question:

Q. If Bunch’s radical ideas are rejected by “mainstream” feminists, where are the books, articles and essays by leading feminists denouncing her as an irresponsible extremist?
A. There are no such denunciations, because the feminist movement endorses Bunch’s radical anti-male ideology.

How “mainstream” is Charlotte Bunch’s radicalism? In 2010, the Young Feminist Task Force promoted an International Women’s Day symposium where Professor Bunch was not only a featured speaker, but the agenda included a “Tribute to Charlotte Bunch” that included a preview of the film documentary Passionate Politics: The Life & Work of Charlotte Bunch. Her advocacy of “rejection of heterosexual sex” as a necessary means to ending “male supremacy” is therefore not radical feminism or extreme feminism, it is simply feminism.

Nevertheless, every time feminists complain about normal women who refuse to identify themselves as feminists, it is claimed that “the negative view of feminism” as being an anti-male lesbian advocacy movement is a false stereotype rooted in ignorance. The same feminists, meanwhile, insist that one cannot oppose their radical gay agenda “unless you are part of the extremely extreme extremist right wing.” One almost wonders if these feminists have ever read any feminist literature, or even if they are capable of comprehending the logic of their own words.

More than four decades after Artemis March and her radical comrades took up the banner of the “Lavender Menace,” their rhetoric condemning “rigid sex roles and . . . male supremacy” is more influential than ever. University faculty devoted to the study of “Gender Theory” reject the categories of masculinity and femininity. What most people understand as the natural traits and normal roles of the sexes are, according to the proponents of Gender Theory, an elaborate deception into which we have been brainwashed by the anti-female, anti-gay social system called heteronormative patriarchy.

Such intellectual jargon strikes the normal person as ludicrous, yet it is taken so seriously on university campuses that no one who aspires to employment in academia would dare treat it as a joke.

The ferocity of campus feminists, most notoriously demonstrated by their destruction of Lawrence Summer’s tenure as president of Harvard University, imposes a fearful silence within the world of higher education. Unaccustomed to criticism or opposition, academic feminists are emboldened to speak in terms of hateful extremism. Seldom does anyone even notice the poisonous quality of this rhetoric, much less object to it. One of the rare critics, Professor Daphne Patai, spent a decade teaching Women’s Studies at the University of Massachusetts, and exposed the problem in her 1998 book Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism:

[M]uch of the zealotry we are seeing in the university (and out of it) on the issue of sexual harassment should be construed as an attack, quite specifically, not only on men but on heterosexuality itself. … [M]en are the main target and … the cessation of heterosexual expression — or even interest — seems to be the chief agenda of many feminists. …
[T]he standard feminist critique … sees private heterosexual life, and heterosexual interaction in school and workplace, as a patriarchal imposition that must be resisted and transformed.

What Professor Patai recognized was that feminism’s rhetoric about sexual harassment was focused entirely on condemning male expressions of heterosexual interest in women. This was a manifestation of the complaint in Artemis March’s lesbian manifesto that “all women are dehumanized as sex objects” by men, and of Charlotte Bunch’s celebration of lesbianism as a rejection of “the ideology of male supremacy . . . by denying women’s ‘innate’ need for men.”

Does heterosexuality “dehumanize” women? Has the woman who thinks of her sexual interest in men as “innate” been brainwashed by “the ideology of male supremacy”? Mocking laughter would be the response of most women to such claims, and if you told them that they had to accept such beliefs in order to escape the oppressive impositions of patriarchy, normal women might think you were insane.

Yet the faculty in Women’s Studies departments are not normal women, and the concept of “sexual harassment” was popularized by a lesbian, Lin Farley, who was the first director of what became the Women’s Studies program at Cornell University.

A man who expresses romantic interest in a female has dehumanized her as a sex object, feminism tells us, and if this male expression of heterosexuality occurs in the workplace, the man is guilty of sexual harassment — he has violated her civil rights.

No such condemnation can be made of women expressing their lesbian interest in other women. In fact, any woman who objected to a lesbian’s sexual advances could be accused of homophobia — possibly violating the civil rights of her lesbian pursuer!

This attitude of hostility toward heterosexuality as male oppression of women, and the celebration of lesbianism as the feminist ideal, has become so mainstream that we scarcely notice its manifestations. Why was it, we may ask, that both the American Civil Liberties Union and Florida’s largest gay-rights organization sided with lesbian sex offender Kaitlyn Hunt when it was claimed that homophobia caused her prosecution for molesting a 14-year-old girl ? The idea of a “lesbian loophole” in sex offender laws is startling, as is the number of recent cases in which minor girls, some as young as 12, were victimized by women teachers and coaches. The tenured radicals on university Women Studies faculties have been notably silent about such criminal cases.

Traditional morality is now routinely denounced by feminists as a “social construct” of the “heteronormative patriarchy.” What has happened in the past four decades is that feminism has waged a war on human nature, and has striven (with remarkable success) to replace our normal understanding of Right and Wrong with a new system of values: Women, good; men, evil.

Thus we return to contemplate the schisms that have divided feminists since the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Women who claim to endorse only “mainstream” feminism are quick to reject as a “stereotype” the image of feminists as man-hating lesbians. Yet these “mainstream” feminists refuse to criticize or condemn the influential man-hating lesbians who rule the academic world where feminist theories are promulgated. These campus radicals are not content merely to rule their collegiate domain, however. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is now pushing to introduce “gender studies” to the high school curriculum, “creating innovative spaces for young people to engage in feminism and activism, equity, and social justice in today’s classrooms.” One of the leaders of this AAUW program is Ileana Jiminez, a lesbian English teacher from New York who is, among other things, an alumnus of elite Smith College, a founder of the New York Independent Schools LGBT Educators Group and a board member of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

Perhaps someone should tell Ms. Jiminez that her feminism is not “mainstream.” Good luck with that. Feminism is no longer threatened by the Lavender Menace — now it is the Lavender Menace.




 

Category: Education, Feminism, Gays, Sex Trouble

They Always Blame the Jews

Posted on | July 14, 2014 | 43 Comments

The “Final Solution” to the Mideast problem:

As Hamas Rockets continued to rain down on Israeli population centers, a large anti-Israel rally took place in Seattle’s Westlake Center this Saturday, July 12. Protesters screamed anti-Israel slogans calling for the destruction of the Jewish state while waving signs and marching through the downtown sidewalks. But this was more than a rally in opposition to Israel or her defensive operations. The signs being waved and the chants hollered constituted a shocking public display of shameless Jew hatred right in the heart of Seattle.
Signs comparing Jews to Nazis were commonplace . . .
While you may have thought that blood libel accusations are a relic of the past, in fact the slander was alive and well in downtown Seattle this past Saturday.

Read the whole thing — with numerous photos. Is it merely a coincidence that President Obama’s approval rating is highest among Muslims than among any other religious group? I think not.

The most fervent disciples of anti-American hatred know who their friends are — and we know who their enemies are, don’t we?

 

Category: Islam, Israel, Religion

Democrats Dump Obama

Posted on | July 14, 2014 | 25 Comments

Hope and Change have become a campaign liability:

Obama’s approval ratings are in the basement and show no signs of improving, so Democrats are keeping their distance. On the stump, in campaign ads and at fundraisers, Obama’s absence is increasingly conspicuous.
Democrats are voicing their displeasure with his policies and campaign advisers are telling candidates to avoid being photographed with him, so as to deny Republicans effective visuals for campaign ads.
“It’s a no-brainer,” said one operative who works for a senator up for reelection in 2014. “The second term has been a bit of a disaster, his approval ratings are the lowest of his presidency and Washington is in disarray.”
Many of the Democratic senators elected in 2008 rode to office on Obama’s coattails. Six years later, they’re asking, “Barack who?”
Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) last week avoided being at his own fundraiser while Obama was there, excusing himself on the grounds that he had to attend votes at the Capitol. . . .

Read the whole thing.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.14.14

Posted on | July 14, 2014 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
IDF To Palestinian Civilians In North Gaza: GTFO

A Gaza mosque flattened by air strikes after Israel ignores UN calls for a ceasefire

IDF commandos destroy rocket launching site; civilians warned to evacuate “for their own safety”
Palestinian-Americans, other dual citizens fleeing Gaza in droves
IDF shells Lebanon after cross-border rocket attack


Ukrainian Forces Close In On Lugansk
Russia warns of “irreversible consequences” after Russian civilian killed by errant artillery shell

Tommy Ramone Dies, 65
Original drummer of the Ramones, the seminal American punk band



POLITICS
GOP Leaders: No Border Money Without Tighter Border Security

Sen. McCain: “The best way to stem the flow is to expedite deportation of these kids”

House GOP balking at size of request


Pentagon Pink Slips Thousands Of Soldiers, Including Active-Duty Officers

Illegal Pot Grower Accused Of Starting California Wildfire


Press Secretary Earnest Defends Notion Of “Most Transparent Administration”

State Officials Raise Outcry Over Resettlement Of Illegal Alien Kids



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Brent Trades Near Three-Month Low As Libya Comes Back: WTI $100.84, Brent $106.84
Citigroup Poised To Settle Mortgage Probe For $7 Billion
Wall Street Ends Week Higher, But Indexes Post Losses
Asian Stocks Rebound As Gold Slips, Corn Retreats
Crumbs Lives To Bake Another Day
Lindt Close To Deal For Russell Stover
Satya Nadella’s Big Bid To Reshape Microsoft
Apple Denies Red Chinese Accusation That Location Info Is Security Risk
Google Silent As Net Neutrality Hangs In The Balance
Yahoo Buys Streaming Startup RayV
Tekken Goes Next-Gen, Will Use Unreal Engine 4



SPORTS
Posey-Bumgarner Battery Hits Historic Grand Slams

Catcher Buster Posey jacks a grand slam in the fifth inning; pitcher Madison Bumgarner does the same thing in the sixth

Giants beat Snakes 8-4

Germany Tops Argentina For World Cup In Extras

Padres Lose Second Straight 1-0 Game To Dodgers

Keselowski Finishes Weekend Sweep With Sprint Cup Win In NH

Marlins Stagger Into All Star Break On Sour Note After Being Crushed 9-1 By Mets

Dozier Homers Twice As Twins Rout Rockies 13-5

Buchholz K’s 12 As Red Sox Blank Astros 11-0

Braves Pound Wood, Cubs 10-7

Sonny Gray Notches #10 As A’s Beat Mariners 4-1

Streaking Angels Sweep Rangers

Tribe Edges ChiSox 3-2, Ends First Half At .500 On Winning Note

Jayson Werth Leads Nationals’ Rout Of Phillies



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Forever 21 Once Told Chrissy Teigen She Was Too Fat

O RLY?

Fired from shoot – and she hasn’t forgotten or forgiven


Dinesh D’souza’s “America” Now #7 Political Documentary Of All Time

Jenni “JWoww” Farley Spawns

“Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes” Opens to Bigger Than Expected $101.4 Million Weekend

Cops Called To Bloody Brawl At Paris Hilton’s Party


Kill Me Now, CNBC Anchorman

“X Factor” Judge Cheryl Cole Marries French Boyfriend

Pixar Tried Pressuring Sony To Join Alleged Wage-Fixing Cartel

Nickelodeon’s “Sam & Cat” Axed After One Season

SAG-AFTRA Pact Goes To Vote

Tracy Morgan Sues Walmart Over Deadly Crash

Chris Brown, Drake – Screw Rihanna And Friendship, Let’s Make Money

Bobby Brown Quits New Edition Concert Tour

Steven Spielberg Finally Gets Called Out On Facebook for Being A Cold-Blooded Dinosaur Killer

Fox Halts Production On Naked Dating Show Pilot



FOREIGNERS
Beijing Orders Local Governments To Buy More Electric Cars
Boko Haram Mocks Social Media Plea To Free Kidnapped Girls
Main Libya Airport Closed As Militias Clash
Vatican Representative Denies Sex Abuse Comments Attributed To Pope
Jihadis Fire On Egyptian Military Post, Killing Two Soldiers, Seven Civilians
Koreas To Hold Talks On Asian Games
Deadlock In Iraqi Leadership Vote As ISIS Gains Ground
Red Chinese Prosecutors Arrest Top TV News Anchor
C Of E Takes Second Swing At Female Bishop Vote
Abe-Backed Candidate Loses Local Election; Defense Policy Shift Blamed



BLOGS & STUFF
Proof Positive: Under The Dome
Michelle Malkin: Hey, Snotty Bloomberg – Mind Your Own Crumbling City!
Twitchy: Brit Hume Has No Idea What Ann Coulter Is Raving About
American Power: Anchor Baby Aliens – Surge Of Illegals Includes Pregnant Teenage Mothers
American Thinker: The Political Left Is Deconstructing The Middle Class
BLACKFIVE: Benghazi Stand Down Order Bogus?
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: BDS Anti-Semites Want You To Boycott These Brands
Conservatives4Palin: NYT – All This Talk About A Border Crisis Is A GOP Myth
Don Surber: In Defense Of Rosie O’Donnell
Jammie Wearing Fools: Delusional Democrat On Obama Crisis – “The Border Is Secure!”
Joe For America: Wave Of Immigrant Disease Coming To Your Community
JustOneMinute: Billionaires Need Cheap Labor Too
Pat Dollard: DHS Chief Visits Processing Center, Lies Through His Teeth For US Public Consumption
Protein Wisdom: Obama’s TSA – Allowing Illegals To fly Without Identification
Shot In The Dark: Things I’m Supposed To Like But Never Really Did – Billy Idol
STUMP: #WarOnWomen – The Absurdity Of Statistical Equality
The Jawa Report: Pallywood And The Left
The Lonely Conservative: Obama’s Border Request Would Pay For Schooling, Health Care, And Lawyers For Illegals
This Ain’t Hell: State Department Runs Out Of Visas For Afghan Terps
Weasel Zippers: In France, Muslims Protesting Israel Trap Jews Inside Synagogue


Join Amazon Prime – Watch Over 40,000 Movies & TV Shows Anytime – Start Free Trial Now

Category: Live at Five

The Lighter Side Of The Border Crisis

Posted on | July 13, 2014 | 13 Comments

by Smitty

Category: humor

What ‘Precocious’ Means

Posted on | July 13, 2014 | 55 Comments

The blogospheric badminton continues with Sophia the Teenage Feminist who, having made a point of bringing up her theoretical “bisexuality,” now objects to this topic being discussed critically.

Or sarcastically, for that matter.

In case you’re arriving late, a recap: While conducting a Google search Saturday as part of my ongoing series about feminism, I encountered a blog called “Please Excuse My Vagina: My life as a teenage feminist.”

OK, congratulations, you got my attention. Under the topic of “heteronormativity” (!!) I found she referenced an occasion when she and her friends were “messing around” with a Ouija board, which became the theme of my post, An Omen of the ‘Mystifying Oracle’?

To this she responded here and also here, and then I responded this morning with “The Precocious Feminist Replies.” This afternoon, while I was watching the World Cup final (damn those Germans), Sophia the Teenage Feminist responded yet again and, among other things, wonders if calling her “precocious” was intended as an insult.

No, it was a mere description of someone who is intellectually advanced at an early age — a prodigy, the Mozart of feminism, as it were.

How many kids are slinging around the word “heteronormativity” in high school? Precocious. Her prose style was impressive enough that some of the commenters here suspected her blog to be elaborate hoax, i.e., an adult pretending to be a teenager. Precocious.

She is “upper-middle class,” she takes dance lessons, and her creepy ex-boyfriend “goes to a gifted goddamn school“ — from which I deduced that Sophia the Teenage Feminist also attends this school for the gifted, which explains her own intellectual precocity.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Having established the plausible veracity of her biography, so that we can presume she actually is a high-school student, we now proceed to Sophia’s latest volley in the badminton match:

At the age of eighteen or nineteen I hope to be studying Sociology at Columbia [University], far away from my asshole dad and my ambitionless ex. I hope to be dating a nice guy. I hope to be having the time of my life.

(Green Day allusion? Never mind. The reference to Columbia generally fits her “upper-middle class”/”gifted” profile.)

I am in fact bi on a theoretical basis. . . . But if you can say my sexuality is only theoretical, then aren’t all the good little Christian boys and girls only theoretically straight? This is heteronormativity in action, folks.

(Very clever. When you view the world through an ideological prism, no fact can disprove or discredit your ideology. A word like “heteronormativity” sets up a tautology, so that argument becomes impossible. It’s like trying to argue with a Marxist who insists that your criticism is a product of “false consciousness.”)

And you know what, maybe I’m being unnecessarily rude here . . .  and you know what? I don’t care at this point. I tried to be civil, but you can’t even call me by name or validate me as a person because of my age.

(Have I been less than civil? I didn’t call you by name because — hello? — “Sophia Hudson” is a pseudonym, as you say yourself. Is it my job to “validate [you] as a person”? What does that even mean? Never mind. Here is her response to one of my points . . .)

Oh good lord. I don’t even know how to respond to this because it is stupid on a deeper level than anything I’ve experienced. . . .
I could go on and on for years about why this is so end-all ridiculous but in the interest of not beating a dead horse, I’m just going to keep my mouth shut for now.

Well, what was this incredibly stupid point of mine? It was this:

Given the direction our culture is heading, one can imagine a scenario in which anyone who rejects a homosexual advance — “No, thanks, I’m straight” — is accused of being a homophobe, so that society is effectively divided into two groups: Gays and Haters.

Sophia the Teenage Feminist seems to think this is right-wing paranoia, but what was the argument of the “Free Kate” crusade? That enforcement of Florida’s age-of-consent law was “homophobic” when it was applied to a lesbian having sex with a 14-year-old girl. How far a leap is it from such an argument to the claim that rejecting a homosexual advance is evidence of homophobia?

And wasn’t this the whole point of Sophia’s Ouija-board story?

When the “Mystifying Oracle” indicated Sophia’s same-sex interest — gosh, I wonder how that happened? — her girlfriends were shocked and this, Sophia tells us, proved “they’re homophobes who are terrified of girls being in love with them.” What would have been the appropriately non-homophobic reaction, Sophia?

Excuse my cynicism. I used to be precocious, too.

“I’m just going to keep my mouth shut for now.”

 

Category: Feminism

Rule 5 Sunday: On The Beach

Posted on | July 13, 2014 | 11 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Holy guacamole, I’m actually getting this done on a Sunday for once. As usual, exercise discretion when clicking the links; if you don’t know why that is, maybe you’d be better off reading some other post.

Rotten to the Core leads off this week with Jennifer Lawrence, followed by Fishersville Mike with Taylor Swift, Goodstuff with Helena Bonham Carter, and Ninety Miles from Tyranny with Morning Mistress Cameltoe, Hot Pick of the Late Night, and Girls With Guns. Blackmailers Don’t Shoot offers a Rule 5 Linkfest with Yaya Han, and First Street Journal contributes a very timely salute to the women of the IDF.

EBL’s herd this week includes vintage cat calls, Frieda Pinto, reporting on water parks, Jeri Ellsworth, Brazil’s agony of defeat, Global Warming and the threat to gingers, Esquire’s mockworthy salute to “older women”, more World Cup Rule 5  from Germany and of course, Argentina.

Postaldog returns after a long absence with Maria Sharapova, the Spring Breakers girls, Eva Green and more Eva Green, Paris Hilton, and Cameron Diaz.

A View from the Beach chips in with Christy Turlington, Tip Well at Shooters Cafe, Stay Classy, Virginia!, Renowned Climate Scientist Predicts End of Curvaceous Women. “Toxicity”, Climate Change to Lessen Ginger Menace, Zombie Obamacare Schadenfreude, Ban the Pill – Save the Fish!, and Hoop de Doo!.

At Soylent Refuge, it’s your Sunday morning spoon licker, an Evening Awesome with blue eyes, Monday Motivationer Rockin’, The Queen of Linky Love, Happy Hour Hawtness Formal, Tuesday Titillation, Overnighty Masque, Humpday Hawtness – Sweet Hitchhiker, Because Irish Can’t Put Her In His Own Header, Falconsword Fursday Ferocity, Evening Awesome, Corset Campfire, T-GIF Friday Shimmy, Cocktail Hour, Weekender Adrienne, and Bath Night Bliss.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Draya Michele, his vintage babe is Lillian Gish, and Sex in Advertising is all about the lingerie. At Dustbury, it’s Faye Emerson and Carole Lombard.

The DaleyGator’s DaleyBabes this week were Shoko Takasaki, Reima Tachibana, Patricia Mizen, Julia Kelly, April Bowlby, Andrea Parker, Kozue Nitta, more Reima Tachibana, Miho Imanmura, Kelly Jensen, Samara Redway, Rei Toda, Miyako Akane, and Random Beauty.

Thanks to everyone for their linkagery! Deadline to submit links to the Rule 5 Wombat mailbox for next week’s Rule 5 roundup is midnight Saturday, July 19.

Visit Amazon’s Intimate Apparel Shop

Category: Rule 5

How to Get Raped at College

Posted on | July 13, 2014 | 106 Comments

A long article in the New York Times describes the fate of “Anna,” who was a freshman last fall at Hobart and William Smith Colleges (tuition $46,852 a year). This elite liberal arts college in Geneva, N.Y., has an enrollment of 2,300 students and, apparently, a campus culture that turns a blind eye to illegal underage alcohol consumption. So when a girl shows up as an 18-year-old freshman . . .

She had entered what is commonly known as the Red Zone, a period of vulnerability for sexual assaults, beginning when freshmen first walk onto campus until Thanksgiving break.
“Students arrive and you have a new environment, new social circle and the fear that goes with new expectations,” said Robert S. Flowers, vice president for student affairs. That can lead to experimentation, including excessive drinking and attendant problems.
For that reason, the school held what students call rape seminars, the first in a program that, Mr. Flowers said, has made Hobart and William Smith a leader in preventing sexual violence.

Do these “rape seminars” warn freshmen girls against drinking rum and partying with football players at the Kappa Sig house? Two weeks after school started, that’s what Anna was doing:

Anna and a senior football player she had just met were grinding to the music, rubbing their bodies together. . . .
Anna said she had begun the evening drinking shots of rum mixed into Gatorade.

By the time police Sgt. Anthony Pluretti showed up at 2:10 a.m., Anna had reportedly had sexual intercourse — evidently including anal intercourse — twice with the football  player, and had also performed oral sex on another player. Rather than this incident being investigated and prosecuted as a crime, however, it was handled as a school disciplinary matter by the college, and Anna was shocked by what she perceived as the unfairness of the proceedings:

The panel’s initial questioning was based mostly on the investigative work of campus officers who aggressively sought out witnesses, followed leads and conducted interviews. According to the federal Education Department, a sexual-assault investigation typically takes around 60 calendar days. Hobart and William Smith did it in a little more than a week.
The hearing followed almost immediately. . . .
Anna was questioned first. “It was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through,” she said later, adding, “I felt like I was talking to someone who knew nothing of any sort of social interaction; what happens at parties; what happens in sex.”
She had to relive that evening through questions that jumped around in time, interrupted her answers and misrepresented witness statements. . . .
Two of the three panel members did not examine the medical records showing blunt force trauma — it was the chairwoman’s prerogative not to share them. Instead, the panel asked what Anna had drunk, who she may have kissed and how she had danced. It was, Anna said, as if admitting you were grinding — a common way of dancing — “means you therefore consent to sex or should be raped.”

You can read the whole thing. One wonders how the world could be arranged so that 18-year-old girls can get drunk at parties and “grind” with football players without the players inferring from this behavior that the girls are interested in having sex.

One also wonders why colleges are treated like bubbles where normal rules do not apply. In the normal world, sexual assault is a felony, and is investigated and prosecuted as such. On college campuses, it seems, sexual assault is treated about as seriously as laws against providing alcohol to teenagers, i.e., not seriously at all: “Oopsie! You got drunk. Oopsie! Is that a football player’s penis in your butt?”

See, there is an unspoken agreement involved: If parents are paying $46,852 a year to send their daughter to college, the college isn’t going to kick the girl out (and forfeit $46,582) just because her idea of fun is chugging rum at the Kappa Sig house. If it weren’t for drunk freshman girls “grinding” on the dance floor, why would the guys at Kappa Sig — all of whom represent $46,852 in annual revenue to the college administration — bother throwing parties? And if the football players can’t take turns banging the drunk girl they picked up at the Kappa Sig house, what’s the point of playing football?

These are the implicit assumptions of 21st-century elite college life: Underage drinking and sexual promiscuity, for $46,852 a year.

If you don’t like that deal, go to community college. Full-time tuition at Fingers Lake Community College is only $4,022 a year, and it’s less than 14 miles from the campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges. But you don’t get the social prestige of the elite liberal arts college experience by attending community college, and prestige is what these parents are paying $46,852 a year for, isn’t it?

Having your teenage daughter raped by football players at Hobart and William Smith Colleges is a luxury most people can’t afford.

UPDATE: Professor Donald Douglas at American Power:

I certainly don’t know what to believe, which brings me back to the notion of personal responsibility. Anna got herself into trouble. So many of these “rape” stories I read about are just like this. It always comes down to he said, she said, and alcohol is involved . . .

Alcohol is always involved in these stories, see? But colleges aren’t willing to discipline kids for underage drinking. If you want to stop “rape culture,” do something to stop “drunk culture.”

 

Category: Crime, Education, Feminism, Sex
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin