The Other McCain

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

‘Trigger Warning’: How Feminism Promotes Harmful Stereotypes

Posted on | May 23, 2014 | 63 Comments

Is there any stereotype of women more harmful than the idea that women are emotionally delicate creatures incapable of handling stress, prone to hysterical crying at the slightest provocation? And doesn’t the contemporary feminist trope of putting “trigger warnings” on potentially disturbing material tend to justify that stereotype?

But we are just too stupid to understand these things, which is why feminists like Soraya Chemaly must explain them to us:

In an article title “Warning: The Literary Canon Could Make Students Squirm,” the New York Times yesterday described ongoing debates on college and university campuses about whether or not trigger warnings should be used in advance of discussions that include, among other things, violent, racist and misogynistic content. This argument is a repeat of a long-standing one about the uses and efficacy of warnings regarding possibly disturbing and re-traumatizing content. Conversations about trigger warnings, however, seem more and more like superficial proxies for ones about deeper problems on campuses regarding diversity, equity, the corporatization of education, and, the dreaded word, privilege.
Triggers, images, sounds, smells and, yes, texts, that provoke specific emotional and physical responses in people, are not about “squirming.” They are complex, unpredictable and highly individual reactions to material that evokes pain and fear. The idea of trigger warnings started in feminist spaces because experiences with, for example, sexual and domestic violence, are so common that it made sense, out of compassion, to warn participants before revealing graphic descriptions of incest, rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm and suicide.

Let us ask: Is it the case that “experiences with, for example, sexual and domestic violence are so common” universally among women or, rather, is this particularly true “in feminist spaces”? Because “the dreaded word, privilege” may reference, among other things, known correlations of socio-economic factors, e.g., the higher incomes of households headed by married couples, so that the offspring of traditional families are “privileged” in comparison to the children of unmarried or divorced parents. And it can be further demonstrated from social research that women and girls in non-traditional households are at greater risk of “sexual and domestic violence,” and to have “experiences with . . . incest, rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm and suicide.”

What we may surmise — trigger warning for logic — is that “feminist spaces” are disproportionately populated with women who have suffered such traumatic experiences and who, rather than dealing with their psychological problems through therapy, have instead decided that “the personal is political,” so that their feminist politics are actually an attempt to rationalize their personal problems.

It is not at all uncommon for women who identify themselves as feminists to admit that they suffer from mental illness, without seeming to recognize the significance of these admissions.

Women’s Studies Professor Lisa Johnson wrote an entire book about her borderline personality disorder, an affliction the National Institutes for Mental Health (NIMH) describes as “a serious mental illness marked by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships.” And she is just one of many examples of this tendency: Over and over, when you read the autobiographical writings of feminists, you encounter admissions of psychiatric problems — clinical depression, bipolar disorder, substance abuse, et cetera — so frequently that you wonder if the entire feminist movement is on Prozac.

Crazy is an acceptable synonym for feminist, and “trigger warnings” are evidence that the lunatics are running the asylum.

 

Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot: Trigger warning for Amanda Marcotte.

“I don’t particularly like babies. They are loud and smelly and, above all other things, demanding. No matter how much free day care you throw at women, babies are still 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

This kind of bloodthirsty fanaticism — “I hate babies! Kill all the little time-sucking monsters!” — is profoundly abnormal.

Parenthood is often difficult and, even under the most ideal circumstances, parents must deal with unpleasant tasks. (Yesterday, I babysat my infant grandson for several hours and had to change two poopy diapers.) Yet there are more than 6 billion people on the planet, a fact that suggests the vast majority of humans are capable of coping normally with the ordinary duties of parenthood.

So why does Amanda Marcotte have this homicidal impulse, this horrifying hatred of the mere thought of having babies? Even if we could dismiss Marcotte as an extreme example of feminist psychosis, why is it that the feminist movement has such a reverential attitude toward abortion as the ultimate expression of “women’s rights”?

Answers to such questions are possible, and we may speculate why a political movement of women would focus its energies so zealously on the destruction of life in the womb — i.e., despising motherhood as the natural consequence of women’s sexuality. Foregoing speculation about the psychiatric motives behind feminism’s Death Cult, however, we can say simply that women who have such a bizarre revulsion toward their own maternal capacity are emotionally disturbed.

And so . . . trigger warning: The mentally ill feminist writer must warn her mentally ill feminist readers that she is discussing topics that could cause these emotional trauma cases to go spiraling off into the vortex of craziness that swirls around them.

Trigger warning: “You are a victim, permanently damaged by whatever awful things you experienced in your wretched childhood, your unhappy adolescence and your dysfunctional adult relationships.”

Trigger warning: “Embrace victimhood as your identity, and blame all your problems on patriarchy, Christianity, capitalism and the Republican Party, which are all more or less the same thing.”

Trigger warning: “Take another Prozac and vote Democrat!”

So there they go, the Feminist Lunatic Parade, marching toward their delusional utopia of Equality, inviting other women to join them: Kill your babies, become a lesbian and you can be a feminist, too!

And they wonder why normal women won’t sign up for that trip.




 

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Category: Abortion, Feminism

In The Mailbox, 05.23.14

Posted on | May 23, 2014 | 14 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


OVER THE TRANSOM
Dead Republican Party: The Role Of Clergy In Conflict
First Street Journal: Economics 101 – The Left Loves Them Some Failed Policies
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Jennifer Lawrence Targeted By Left Wing Speech Warriors
Michelle Malkin: How America Treats Illegal Aliens Vs. Veterans
Twitchy: Pressure Mounts To Free Andrew Tahmooressi, US #MarineHeldIn Mexico


RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Everybody Beat Up On Ezra Klein Day
American Thinker: How Conservatives Can Defeat The Media
BLACKFIVE: Tom Kratman Strikes Again
Conservatives4Palin: AGUGrizzlies – The Many Hats Of Kevin Scholla!
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, May 22
Jammie Wearing Fools: Not Unexpected – Restaurant With “No Concealed Weapons” Sign Robbed At Gunpoint
Joe For America: FBI Chief – Fort Hood Shooting Was An Act Of Terrorism
JustOneMinute: Compare And Contrast
Pat Dollard: “I Don’t Think Kerry Gives A Damn” – Obama Regime Hammered For Silence On Marine Held In Mexico
Protein Wisdom: Rand Paul Drops Me A Note
Shot In The Dark: Trulbert! Part I – State Of Affairs
The Jawa Report: 31 Killed, 90+ Wounded As Lutherans Massacre Civilians In China
The Lonely Conservative: Senate Dems Kick Off Memorial Day Weekend By Blocking VA Accountability Bill
This Ain’t Hell: Shinseki Won’t Leave, Democrats Won’t Vote
Weasel Zippers: Al-Shabaab Leader Vows To Bring “Holy War” To America, Says Islam’s Flag Will Fly Over Washington
Megan McArdle: “Flash Deals” Won’t Save Retail


Deadline to submit links for the FMJRA is noon tomorrow.
DO IT.
Deadline to submit links for Rule 5 Sunday is midnight tomorrow.
DO THAT TOO.


Category: Linkagery

Obama: Dream and Reality

Posted on | May 23, 2014 | 28 Comments

“Obama: Anatomy of a World Leader,” by Alex Gray (detail)

The aspirational presidency and its predictable failure:

When they found him, he was a rare breed: a genuine African American (his father was Kenyan) who thought and talked like the academics on both sides of his family, a product of the faculty lounge who dabbled in urban/race politics, a man who could speak to both ends of the liberals’ up-and-down coalition, and a would-be transformer of our public life whose quiet voice and low-key demeanor conveyed “moderation” in all that he spoke and did. Best of all, he was the person whom the two branches of the liberal kingdom — the academics and journalists — wanted to be, a man who shared their sensibilities and their views of the good and the beautiful. This was the chance of a lifetime to shape the world to their measure. He and they were the ones they were waiting for, and with him, they longed for transcendent achievements. But in the event they were undone by . . . their signature weaknesses: They had too much belief in the brilliance of experts, they were completely dismissive of public opinion, and they had a contempt for the great middle class.
From the beginning, they made it clear that the Obama regime would be different from all others that had come before. The damaged economy was the critical issue, but the creation of jobs took a back seat to boutique left-wing causes. The stimulus, costing more than a trillion dollars, came and went leaving nothing behind it, unlike the spending of FDR’s era, which at least for a while gave jobs to real people, and left behind things like bridges and dams and parks. “Climate change” had become an obsession, symbolized by the refusal to act on the Keystone pipeline proposal, which would have created jobs in Middle America, but which Obama’s Hollywood backers denounced as unclean. . . .

Read the whole thing at The Weekly Standard. Has the Earth begun to heal? Have the oceans begun to recede? I think not.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Intellectuals

More Arrests in Mississippi Scandal

Posted on | May 23, 2014 | 25 Comments

The weirdest political scandal ever:

Authorities say the vice chairman of the Mississippi Tea Party and two other men conspired with Clayton Kelly to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran’s bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.
Mark Mayfield of Ridgeland, an attorney and state and local tea party leader, was arrested Thursday along with Richard Sager, a Laurel elementary school P.E. teacher and high school soccer coach. Police said they also charged John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg, but he was not taken into custody because of “extensive medical conditions.” All face felony conspiracy charges. Sager also was charged with felony tampering with evidence, and Mary faces two conspiracy counts.
The arrest of Mayfield, well-known in political, business and legal circles, caused shock in Mississippi, in a criminal case and election that already had Mississippi in the national spotlight. . . .
Cochran’s opponent in a bitter GOP primary race, tea party-backed state Sen. Chris McDaniel of Ellisville, continued to deny any involvement with Kelly or the video and to accuse Cochran of gaming the incident for political points.
Authorities said they have no evidence at this point linking the alleged conspiracy to a campaign. But Cochran’s camp has continued to question when and how McDaniel and his staff knew of it, and point to inconsistent answers McDaniel and others on the campaign have given since Kelly’s arrest Friday night.
McDaniel in a statement Tuesday called on Cochran to take down a new ad. It says a “Chris McDaniel supporter has been charged with a felony for photographing his wife in a nursing home. Had enough? … Rise up against dirty politics.”
McDaniel said, “It is shameful for a sitting U.S. senator to engage in such desperate slander and lies.”

(Via Memeorandum.)

 

Category: Election, Mississippi, Scandal

Adm. McRaven: Mandatory Palate Cleanser

Posted on | May 22, 2014 | 37 Comments

by Smitty

Savor all ~20 minutes of this:

McRaven is the antithesis of Obama’s fatuousness. I’m just posting this here for ready reference after the next installment of Barack’s Caillou-esque blather.

In fact, the GOP should just play excerpts of McRaven between now and November, just to ensure a full-on tsunami of red-meat eating Americans arrive at the polls.

Alternately, I’m just a squid, and this speech is tantamount to porn. And no, I never qualified even to apply to go to BUDS, being far too blind. Seriously, though: watch this speech if you have trouble remembering pre-Obama America.

Remember: this is the Admiral whom #OccupyResoluteDesk referred to as a General.

via HotAir, and God bless whoever posted it.

Category: Bacon

Feminists Outraged After Young Actress Shailene Woodley Says, ‘I Like Men’

Posted on | May 22, 2014 | 74 Comments

She refused to join the Angry Marxist Lesbian Man-Haters Club:

In a recent interview with Time magazine, the actress Shailene Woodley was asked if she considered herself a feminist.
“No,” said Ms. Woodley, 22. “Because I love men, and I think the idea of ‘raise women to power, take the men away from the power’ is never going to work out because you need balance.”

This was such an outrage that it required a 1,600-word article in the New York Times to tell Ms. Woodley how wrong she is, even after she was denounced by every Angry Marxist Lesbian Man-Hater with a blog or Twitter account. Evidently, every woman who has ever held a job earning more than minimum wage owes her achievements to the feminist movement, so that for any professional woman to say “I am not a feminist” — well, this cannot be permitted.

Hat-tip: Donald Douglas at American Power.

 

Category: Celebrities, Feminism

Hillary Lied, Americans Died

Posted on | May 22, 2014 | 36 Comments

“This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing do to with. It’s hard for the American people to make sense of that, because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.”
— Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sept. 14, 2012, while standing over the caskets of the four Americans killed at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya

We cannot forget how Hillary Clinton deliberately lied about the Benghazi attack, blaming it on “an awful internet video,” and spreading that lie everywhere in an attempt to conceal from American people the truth: This was an Islamic terrorist attack, there was advance warning of the danger, warnings which the State Department and the Obama administration failed to take seriously, so that when the attack came — on the 11th anniversary of 9/11 — they were unprepared to protect the lives of the Americans who died there.

We know this, and the American people deserve to know the truth, but Team Hillary doesn’t want them to learn the whole truth:

Hillary Clinton’s world was so worried about a Republican investigation of the Benghazi attacks, they sent a message to House Democrats: We need backup.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) publicly considered boycotting the panel, an idea that Clinton supporters feared would leave the potential 2016 candidate exposed to the enemy fire of House Republicans.
So Clinton emissaries launched a back channel campaign, contacting several House Democratic lawmakers and aides to say they’d prefer Democrats participate, according to sources familiar with the conversations. Pelosi’s staff said they have not heard from Clinton’s camp.
On Wednesday, Pelosi appointed five Democrats to the committee, giving Democrats another crucial mission in the months ahead of what was already a tough election year: act as Clinton’s first line of defense.

“What difference, at this point, does it make?”

It makes a lot of difference, and we should not let Democrats — or Hillary’s hired liars in the media — convince us otherwise.

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Category: Hillary Clinton, Libya

You Had Me at ‘Mariel Hemingway’

Posted on | May 22, 2014 | 56 Comments

When I learned that Mariel Hemingway was among the celebrities caught in James O’Keefe’s latest video sting, politics briefly disappeared into a sort of fog of nostalgic imagination: Mariel Hemingway!

Oh, that was a name to conjure with, back in the day!

It wasn’t just her striking beauty, although Mariel’s face seemed as if it had been sculpted by an artist — such cheekbones! More than her mere beauty, there was a frisson of the taboo about Mariel Hemingway in the era of my youth. My senior year in high school, she made her film debut at age 15 (with her older sister Margaux) in the twisted psycho-thriller Lipstick. Then in 1979 — I was a sophomore in college — she played Woody Allen’s teenage lover in Manhattan (which, as weird as it seemed at the time, seems much creepier in retrospect). Then in 1982, at a time when lesbianism was still very much an exotic idea, she played a bisexual track star in Personal Best.

All of this is to explain why the name “Mariel Hemingway” pings a certain mental resonance, so to speak, even now that I’m middle-aged and she is, too. It’s strange how memory freezes an image, an idea, in the mind this way. When I was young, grown-ups would talk about Elizabeth Taylor as a famous beauty, and I just didn’t see it. Not until many years later, when I saw her in A Place in the Sun (1951) did I realize what all the fuss was about: Wow! Legendary hotness!

(The same factor operates with women’s memories of teen idols, by the way. My high-school Latin teacher, Miss Dismer, had a lifelong crush on Michael Landon, who had been starring in her dreams since she was a young girl watching “Little Joe” on Bonanza.)

Anyway, now you know why Mariel Hemingway’s name caught my attention when I learned about the latest Project Veritas video:

The video features an undercover journalist from Project Veritas posing as “Muhammad,” a member of a Middle Eastern oil family, offering $9 million in funding to American filmmakers to fund an anti-fracking movie. He was joined by a second undercover activist posing as an ad executive.
O’Keefe entraps actor Ed Begley Jr., actress Mariel Hemingway, and director Josh Tickell, who agree to the film while promising to hide the source of the funds.
The undercover activist tells the group that “if Washington, D.C., continues fracking, America will be energy-efficient, and then they won’t need my oil anymore.”
In a phone call to Tickell, the “ad executive” states, “My client’s interest is to end American energy independence; your interest is to end fracking. And you guys understand that?”
Tickell’s response: “Correct. Yes, super clear.”
The environmental team even submitted a video of Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo offering his unwavering support for the fictitious anti-fracking film project.

More at Powerline: James O’Keefe Punks Hollywood Greens.

It’s sad that Mariel Hemingway grew up to be an America-hating Commie environmentalist wacko, but we’ll always have Star 80, eh?

 

Category: Celebrities, Environmentalism, James O'Keefe
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