The Other McCain

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

The Left’s Mob Rule on Campus

Posted on | May 3, 2014 | 57 Comments

Scarcely a day goes by that we don’t hear some report of the increasing turn toward totalitarianism by the campus Left. Progressive hegemony on university faculties, a humanities curriculum heavily influenced by crypto-Marxist “theory,” and the radicalization of students through an identity-group Culture of Grievance, all contribute to this growing climate of intolerance. Administrators, when not actually in sympathy with the radicals, abdicate authority in the face of intimidation tactics employed by the militant Left at universities and colleges.

We are therefore not surprised that left-wing smears of Condoleezza Rice as a “war criminal” have led the former Secretary of State — arguably the most powerful black woman in American history — to withdraw as commencement speaker at Rutgers University:

In a statement to be released this morning, Rice says,

Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families. Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.
I am honored to have served my country. I have defended America’s belief in free speech and the exchange of ideas. These values are essential to the health of our democracy. But that is not what is at issue here. As a Professor for thirty years at Stanford University and as it’s former Provost and Chief academic officer, I understand and embrace the purpose of the commencement ceremony and I am simply unwilling to detract from it in any way.
Good luck to the graduates and congratulations to the families, friends and loved ones who will gather to honor them.

Opposition to Rice had focused on her support for the Iraq War and Bush policies in the War on Terror. Rutgers faculty at the New Brunswick campus approved a resolution calling for Rice to be disinvited, citing her role in the Bush administration’s alleged “effort to mislead the American people about the presence of weapons of mass destruction.”

Insofar as this is not simply a reflection of raw partisanship — studies have shown university faculties to be dominated by Democrats by at least a 4-to-1 margin over Republicans — it is further proof (as if more proof were needed) of the profound, poisonous and pervasive spirit of anti-Americanism now prevalent in academia.

Via Memeorandum, with further reporting by the Associated Press, and commentary by American Power, Legal Insurrection and Patterico.

 

Category: Education

Feminist Theory Ruins Everything: @AmyGoodloe’s Lesbian Sedative

Posted on | May 3, 2014 | 81 Comments

 

“Allison eased herself carefully across the slippery sheets to the edge of the bed. Her feet dangling off the edge, she groped for the floor. She felt the slick, fur-like material of the rug between her toes. For a moment she played with it, enjoying the sensual tickling sensation on her barefoot. Then she sat up slowly, careful not to wake the girl sleeping on the other side of the bed.”
— first paragraph of Unnatural, by Sloan Britton (1960)

“One of the fundamental tenets of postmodern theory is that all identities are socially constructed, and that, throughout history, dominant groups have had the power not only to construct their own identities, which they disguise as ‘innate’ or ‘natural’ rather than created, but also to construct the identities of groups the dominant group has a vested interest in marginalizing. The appeal of postmodern theory lies in its method of ‘deconstructing’ the power relationships inherent in constructions of identity so that it becomes possible to articulate a counter-ideology which has as its aim the liberation and de-objectification of marginalized groups. The irony in this is that those most often attracted to and who are in a position to utilize postmodern methodology are themselves members of a dominant group, even if only in terms of level of education, and in the attempt to give voice to those who have been historically silenced and oppressed, they frequently run the risk of further marginalizing some members of these groups.”
— first paragraph of “Lesbian Identity and the Politics of Butch-Femme,” by Amy Goodloe (1993)

It is probably unnecessary to say that, given the choice between a lurid pulp novel about lesbianism and an academic treatise about lesbianism, most of us would choose the novel. Academia is overcrowded with bad writers, so it may be unfair to single out the field of Women’s Studies, and even more unfair to pick on the University of Colorado’s Amy Goodloe, simply because hers was one of the first articles that turned up on a Google search: “lesbian + feminist + butch + gender + role.”

(This was utterly random, Ms. Goodloe, and my apologies at your shock to discover your 1993 paper made the subject of online mockery, compared unfavorably to a steamy 1960 pulp novel. After writing about the butch “gender role” thing on Friday, I had in mind to do a follow-up, and you drew the short straw, so to speak.)

Goodloe is clear that her “postmodern” critique is about power. Because “all identities are socially constructed, and . . . dominant groups” possess the power to construct not only their identities but also “those who have been historically silenced and oppressed,” therefore the “method of ‘deconstructing’ the power relationships” aims “to articulate a counter-ideology which has as its aim the liberation and de-objectification of marginalized groups.”

This is less interesting than the plight of Allison, the good-girl-gone-wrong protagonist of Sloan Britton’s 1960 novel Unnatural. Her story — as tacky, vulgar and stereotypical as it may be — is about human emotion. Goodloe’s treatise is about political power:

For the past two decades [i.e., 1973-93 ], the dominant form of feminist discourse has, in attempting to “liberate” lesbian identity from patriarchal control, instead imposed its own identity politics on the lesbian community, with the result that those lesbians whose behaviors or “styles” do not conform to the feminist agenda have been doubly-oppressed — once by the dominant patriarchal culture, and again by the movement that claimed to seek the liberation of all women. This is perhaps most obvious in the feminist critique of role playing among lesbians, which is considered by the dominant feminist discourse to be a barrier to one’s “true” identity as a woman (assuming that there is such a thing). . . .

(Again, this is about who is “dominant” — not in the sexy sense of “dominant,” but in the less interesting political way.)

[I]f theorists make the whole notion of lesbian identity so problematic as to suggest that there can be no such thing, on what grounds then are lesbians to come together in the fight against oppression and homophobia? Deconstructing lesbian identity in such a way perpetuates the “divide and conquer” strategy of the dominant ideology, which has historically been used to deprive oppressed groups of the unity needed for power, by failing to recognize the agency of lesbians in resisting dominant constructions of their identity in favor of ones that more accurately reflect their lived experience.
It is the task of lesbian theory, then, Wolfe and Penelope argue, to both resist a kind of deconstruction that would render lesbians even more invisible, and to work towards the (re)construction of a lesbian identity as it is “experienced through a collective history and culture” . . .

(Checking Goodloe’s curriculum vitae, I don’t see any awards for “Most Boring Thing Ever Written About Lesbianism,” but . . .)

One of the problems with the construction of lesbian identity that is often noted by theorists is that it most often takes place within the terms of the dominant discourse, which has established heterosexuality as the “natural” or normative expression of human sexuality against which all other expressions are considered deviant and deficient. One of the first academics to challenge the naturalization of heterosexuality was Adrienne Rich, in an important and controversial essay entitled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980). Rich’s main argument is that heterosexuality is not only not natural or innate, it is in fact an institution designed to perpetuate male social and economic privilege, which means that the ideology of difference as the natural basis for sexual attraction is, in fact, a construction. . . . Rich goes on to argue that it is the primary bonding between women that is, in fact, natural, but which is disrupted by the imposition of compulsory heterosexuality in all women’s lives — or rather, in all but those few who resist heterosexuality in favor of the more “natural” state of woman-identification, which is the broader definition Rich gives to lesbianism. . . .

(We hashed out Rich’s “Compulsory Heterosexuality” argument at great length here last weekend.)

The critique most often leveled against role-playing in the lesbian community comes, as we have just seen, from the feminist belief that all role-playing replicates the very (hetero)sexual structure from which lesbians are supposedly free. The idea that one’s sexual identity might depend on or evolve from such role-playing is considered “unenlightened,” and a sign of one’s successful socialization into the dominant ideology. But there is also a growing body of lesbian-feminist scholarship that attempts to shed new light on our understanding of the function of role-playing within the lesbian community, arguing that lesbian roles not only challenge the constructed nature of heterosexual roles but are, in fact, subversive of the sex/gender system as a whole. . . .

(Here we are getting to the core of why feminism ultimately requires lesbianism. Feminist theory holds that it is “the sex/gender system” which is the source of women’s oppression under patriarchy. If, as Goodloe says in summarizing Rich, “heterosexuality is not only not natural or innate, it is in fact an institution designed to perpetuate male social and economic privilege,” then this “dominant ideology” of heterosexuality is key to women’s oppression. That which is “subversive” of the system — i.e., lesbianism — is therefore liberating.)

According to [feminist Esther] Newton, in “The Mythic Mannish Lesbian: Radclyffe Hall and the New Woman” (1984), the figure of Stephen Gordon [in Hall’s novel, The Well of Loneliness] “was and remains an important symbol of rebellion against male hegemony” . . . because of the way she challenges the “natural” relationship between sex and gender. . . . According to Newton . . . the character of Stephen Gordon is not “mannish” because she wants to be a man, but for the more complicated reasons of resistance to the dominant construction of “femaleness,” and decision to publicly announce and act on her desire for other women — which, in a phallocentric culture, means appropriating the male role.
The claim Newton is making for Hall’s character is that, rather than capitulating to the dominant construction of lesbian identity as a defect of nature, she instead destabilizes gender categories by exposing them as roles that can be assumed by either sex. Masculinity then becomes nothing but a social role, albeit one accorded power and dominance in the culture, and therefore women who reject the prohibitive and dehumanizing role of “femininity” symbolize this rejection by “cross-dressing,” appropriating the codes and symbols of masculinity while remaining fully female. Role-playing then becomes, at least for the “butch” woman, a challenge to heterosexuality rather than a replication of it. . . .

OK, enough with the italic interpolations. You can go read the whole thing. Where you see Goodloe’s article going — and the destination was clear from the start — is toward justifying butch-femme roles among lesbians as an attack on male “power and dominance.” Women who exercise “power and dominance” in their relationships with other women, however, are OK because they’re women, and if femininity is “prohibitive and dehumanizing” for heterosexual women, somehow being submissive toward a butch lesbian is also OK, because it “destabilizes gender categories.” Amid the academic jargon, Goodloe makes this pretty clear:

Because it is butch women who visibly disrupt the dominant ideology of gender roles with their seeming appropriation of masculinity, scholarly attention tends to focus on “butchness” when addressing issues of lesbian identity. The equally important role of femme women in the construction of lesbian identity is ignored, often because of the misconception that femme women are attempting to disguise their homosexuality by “passing” as straight — which is to say, by buying into rather than rejecting the dominant culture’s construct of “femininity.” What [feminist Joan] Nestle suggests, however, is that the femme role is just as threatening to the institution of heterosexuality because of the way it co-opts the conventional female role in order to signal desire for other women, which of course runs counter the very purpose behind the social construction of femininity. What the femme role makes perhaps even clearer than the butch is the performative nature of all roles, which makes it possible for a biological female to “play at” being a woman by exaggerating what the culture has defined as “womaness.”

Does this involve a strap-on dildo by any chance, Ms. Goodloe? Because we’re all tired of theory about butch-femme roles, which we are certain must be less interesting than the reality. But the same is true, actually, when feminists write about heterosexuals — all they see is male patriarchal hegemony and the presumed victimhood inherent in “the conventional female role.”

Has no feminist ever considered the possibility that not all heterosexual women are clueless? Are there no happily heterosexual women who are as aware as any feminist of “the performative nature of all roles,” and who take an unembarrassed pleasure in performing “the conventional female role” with conventionally masculine men?

Once you discard the power-obsessed collectivist ideology of feminism, what purpose is served by this demonization of men and this contemptuous disdain for “conventional” women?

Feminism’s critique of gender roles (“all identities are socially constructed”) is fundamentally an ideology of selfishness, embraced by perpetually disgruntled women whose inability to find happiness in traditional relationships is turned into a “sour-grapes” rationalization — the argument that traditional relationships are inherently bad. And to hell with Goodloe’s claim that “the dominant discourse” is what “has established heterosexuality as the ‘natural’ or normative expression of human sexuality.” If heterosexuality is not natural, why are there more than 6 billion people on the planet? Maybe Ms. Goodloe wasn’t paying attention in biology class when mammalian reproduction was explained, but her ignorance of the procreative process is not our fault.

Meanwhile, back in Sloan Britton’s 1960 world . . .

She had often thought of leaving. There were too many times when Lydia made life hell for her. Nothing was worth those hours and days of anguish and despair. Lydia was a sadistic bitch who delighted in tormenting Allison.
But Allison would never leave her.
Allison loved Lydia.
She loved her so much that sometimes she thought it was wrong. Human beings weren’t supposed to love each other so much. There must be something sinful about a love so strong it blotted out everything else, including decency and self-respect.

Yeah, that’s hot — and I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet!

Oh: Sixth annual National Offend a Feminist Week begins Monday and continues through May 11 — Mother’s Day, because where would the heteronormative patriarchy be without dear old Mom?

 

Category: Feminism, National Offend a Feminist Week

It’s Completely Out of Control Now

Posted on | May 2, 2014 | 74 Comments

Having previously noted a guy who got fired — fired! — for a Tweet — a Tweet! — now we can report that a black Christian minister may lose his day job in California because of his sermons:

Pasadena city officials placed Public Health Director Eric Walsh on temporary paid administrative leave Thursday after they learned of controversial statements he had made about homosexuality and evolution in online videos and audio clips.
In sermons uploaded to various websites, Walsh, a Seventh-day Adventist preacher, calls evolution “a religion created by Satan,” compares Disney to a “dark empire” of superstition and witchcraft, and criticizes homosexuality.
Walsh’s comments came to the city’s attention after he replaced Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black as Pasadena City College’s commencement speaker, said city spokesman William Boyer.
College officials said they replaced Black because they found stolen photographs of him and an ex-boyfriend engaged in sexual acts on Internet gossip sites, according to the school newspaper, the PCC Courier.
“With the porno professor and the sex scandals we’ve had on campus this last year, it just didn’t seem like the right time for Mr. Black to be the speaker,” PCC Board of Trustees President Anthony Fellow told the Courier.
Fellow was referring to former professor Hugo Schwyzer, who invited adult film stars to speak in a class on pornography and admitted to affairs with his students.
In a letter to the school newspaper, Black accused college administrators of attempting to shame him for his sexuality. He urged students to speak out, and soon a member of the group Students for Social Justice found some of Walsh’s videos online.
“We very quickly realized that there were a lot of communities that would be offended by Dr. Walsh,” said Sarah Belknap, a fourth-year student and member of Students for Social Justice.
The group compiled a list of Walsh’s controversial public statements, then published excerpts on Facebook and emailed them to media outlets.
“We were just so shocked that he was saying these things,” said Kelly Camacho, another student in the group. “This was even worse, to have this person as [Black’s] replacement, of all people.”

“Of all people”! In case you don’t know, Dustin Lance Black’s name has been mentioned in connection with the Hollywood pedophile scandal swirling around X-Men director Bryan Singer. Just “mentioned,” I say, and any suspicion of criminal activity is only a matter of allegations at this point. However, a notorious fondness for gay sex with teenage boys is less controversial in California now than, say, being a Christian who believes that homosexuality is a sin.

Obviously, “Students for Social Justice” prefers the boy-banging Hollywood guy to the black Christian preacher and, in raising a ruckus about it, managed to get the black guy suspended from his job — yeah, that’s a big win for “Social Justice” there.

(Hat-tip: Evil Blogger Lady.)

 

Category: Culture, Gays, Racism, Religion

It’s Come to This

Posted on | May 2, 2014 | 37 Comments

Ace saw this and could scarcely believe it, but it’s true: Some guy with an online gaming site got fired — fired! — for a Tweet — a Tweet! — about L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling:

Josh Olin, the community and eSports manager at Evolve developer Turtle Rock Studios, is no longer with the company in the wake of a series of remarks related to vilified Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling.
Olin, a former community manager at Treyarch Studios (Call of Duty: Black Ops) and Riot Games (League of Legends), said on Twitter on Wednesday, “Here’s an unpopular opinion: Donald Sterling has the right as an American to be an old bigot in the security of his own home. He’s a victim.”
The tweet was in reference to Donald Sterling’s private racist remarks being made public, the ensuing media attention and punishment meted out by NBA league commissioner Adam Silver. The commissioner announced on Tuesday that Sterling was banned for life from NBA events and would pay a fine of $2.5 million. Silver is also attempting to force a sale of the Clippers.
After Olin’s remarks hit Twitter, some of his followers — he has some 142,000 — challenged the original tweet. “When you were raised in an era where segregation was perceived as ‘right’, that will stick with some people,” Olin later said. “Doesn’t make him a monster.”
Olin later clarified that he believed Sterling was a victim because of “illegal wiretapping resulting in a MASSIVE, life altering breach in privacy.” Today, Olin tweeted he was “expressly not defending [Sterling’s] remarks or actions.”

This is insane: Person X says foul and offensive things in private conversation, which is recorded by Person Y. When the recording is made public, vehement condemnation descends on Person X. Everyone agrees his comments were offensive, but when Person Z says merely that Person X has a right to privacy and the right to his own opinion, unlimited personal destruction must be unleashed against Person Z because . . . ? Well, why, exactly?

It’s insane, like I said, but don’t start me talking. I could talk all night.

 

 

Category: Ace of Spades, Racism

Gay Baby Merchant Boasts: ‘My Vast Wealth and Contacts Will Crush Anyone’

Posted on | May 2, 2014 | 114 Comments

British couple Barrie and Tony Drewitt-Barlow with two of their surrogate babies.

A British millionaire who stars in a Sky TV reality show about his surrogate baby business responded to an e-mail from a critic by boasting about his £18 million London mansion and threatening to use his influence to “crush anyone” who opposed him.

Barrie Drewitt-Barlow is CEO of the British Surrogacy Centre and, along with his gay partner Tony, stars in the series The Parent Makers that began airing last month on the Sky 192 satellite channel. Publicity for the show drew a hostile online reaction from Luke McKee, an Australian exile living in Asia. McKee posted a message full of anti-gay slurs (“queers,” “faggots,” etc.) at a right-wing online forum, suggesting that Drewitt-Barlow’s surrogate business may be violating British and U.S. laws. After a lengthy e-mail exchange with McKee, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow sent a message Friday morning calling McKee a “stalker” and “trailer trash,” and bragged that his wealth would protect him from investigation or adverse publicity. An excerpt of that e-mail:

From: Barrie Drewitt-Barlow <[email protected]>
To: Luke McKee
. . .
Sent: Friday, May 2, 2014 9:26 AM
Subject: RE: i always have the last word

. . . This time, you have met someone who is not only wealthier than you who can fight your pathetic attempt to blacken their name, but someone who is far more intelligent then you and someone who actually, does not give a shit about what anyone else in the world thinks of him! . . .
Do yourself a big favour and move on, you cannot win a fight against me, I’m far too well respected for some little idiot like you to do anything to. And as far as using other people to do the job for you as you say, hahahhahahaha I laugh in your face, and say to you, BRING IT ON, my vast wealth and contacts will crush anyone you bring onto your team! . . .
[T]onight, I will sit in my 16 bedroomed, £18 million pound London mansion, sipping champagne and eating the finest foods available to me, cooked by the house keeper and served by one of our three live in maids, before tucking my stunningly good looking 5 children up in their amazing bedrooms! After which, I will go for a swim in my swimming pool with my husband and talk about how much money we have made over the past 48 hours whilst YOU, sit in the poverty of your own making! Now do something worthy with your miserable life and get a job!

You prick! lolol

Drewitt-Barlow has often been controversial. Last year, he and his partner sued the Church of England demanding religious recognition of same-sex marriage. That lawsuit provoked criticism of Prime Minister David Cameron from conservatives like Colin Hart of the Coalition for Marriage, who told the London Daily Mail: “The ink’s not even dry on the [new marriage law] and churches are already facing litigation. We warned Mr. Cameron this would happen, we told him he was making promises that he couldn’t possibly keep. He didn’t listen. He didn’t care. He’s the one who has created this mess. Mr. Cameron’s chickens are coming home to roost and it will be ordinary people with a religious belief who yet again fall victim to the totalitarian forces of political correctness.”

The commercial surrogacy business is a growing international trade that has been criticized as  a form of “human trafficking,” especially by women’s rights advocates who say the lucrative practice — which is outlawed in many countries — enables wealthy people to exploit poor women as “breeders.” Reuters reported last year:

India opened up to commercial surrogacy in 2002. It is among just a handful of countries – including Georgia, Russia, Thailand and Ukraine – and a few U.S. states where women can be paid to carry another’s genetic child through a process of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) and embryo transfer.
The low-cost technology, skilled doctors, scant bureaucracy and a plentiful supply of surrogates have made India a preferred destination for fertility tourism, attracting nationals from Britain, the United States, Australia and Japan, to name a few. . . .
A U.N.-backed study in July 2012 estimated the surrogacy business at more than $400 million a year, with over 3,000 fertility clinics across India. . . .
India’s surrogacy industry is vilified by women’s rights groups who say fertility clinics are nothing more than “baby factories” for the rich. In the absence of regulation, they say many poor and uneducated women are lured by agents, hired by clinics, into signing contracts they do not fully understand.
In May [2012], surrogate mother Premila Vaghela, 30, died days after delivering a child for an American couple at a clinic in Gujarat. It was recorded as an “accidental death” by police.

Negative attention was also focused on surrogate parenthood last year by the highly-publicized case of a gay couple whose son — which they said was produced by a Russian surrogate impregnated by one of the men’s sperm — was exploited by an “international syndicate” of pedophiles known as the “Boy Lovers Network”:

Mark Newton, 42, was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison last week by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker. Authorities say Newton and his partner, Peter Truong, 36, paid a Russian woman $8,000 to give birth to a boy they said was conceived using artificial insemination with Newton’s sperm. The men began sexually abusing the boy before he was two weeks old, recording the acts on video they shared online with other pedophiles.
“What can be said? What can be done to erase some of the horror of this?” Judge Barker said Friday in giving the maximum sentence to Newton, an American who had become an Australian citizen. Prosecutors said the case was tried in Judge Barker’s U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana because images of the boy were found on the computer of an Indiana man who was arrested as part of a larger child-pornography investigation.
Records in the case had previously been sealed, the Indianapolis Star reported. Newton and Truong made the boy available for molestation by other men in France, Germany and the United States, according to prosecutors. “For more than one year and across three continents, these men submitted this young child to some of the most heinous acts of exploitation that this office has ever seen,” said U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett.

Barrie Drewitt Barlow is @Gaydads on Twitter. The Sky TV show has its own Twitter account, @TheParentMakers. Luke McKee is  @gaysabovethelaw on Twitter.

 

Category: Gays, Great Britain

Lesbian Is Now a Fashion Statement, Also: Gender, Identity, Roles and Feminism

Posted on | May 2, 2014 | 69 Comments

The cover of the latest issue of Flare, a Canadian women’s fashion magazine, adds new meaning to the phrase “lesbian chic.” Apparently, “loving ladies and living proud” a la celebrity lesbian Ellen Page is what stylish Canadian women are now expected to do.

Stephanie Verge’s feature interview with Page is rather tedious:

With a quiver in her voice and wearing a T-shirt proclaiming “All Love Is Equal,” [Page] stood in front of a crowded Las Vegas room at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s inaugural Time to Thrive conference and uttered the words every adolescent lesbian who’s ever watched (and rewatched) the roller derby flick Whip It dreams of hearing: “I am here today because I’m gay.” She went on to say that she was “tired of lying by omission.”

(Point One: Gay people do not actually believe that “All Love Is Equal”; they disdain heterosexuality, otherwise they wouldn’t be gay. Point Two: How does Stephanie Verge know “the words every adolescent lesbian . . . . dreams of hearing” unless . . .?)

It was the eight-minute speech pinged around the blogosphere, and one that Page and her manager planned meticulously in collaboration with the HRC Foundation. Page wanted her announcement to be aligned with a cause, ideally one having to do with LGBTQ youth (promoting the safety, inclusion and well-being of queer teens is an HRC Foundation priority). . . .

(Translation: It was was a political publicity stunt.)

“I was very nervous. I was very nervous, yes. Yes. Very, very nervous. Yes. I was emotional, deeply, deeply emotional.” Though she told her parents she liked-liked girls when she was 19, she was still coming out to herself eight years on. “You think you’re in a place where you’re all I’m thrilled to be gay, I have no issues about being gay anymore, I don’t feel shame about being gay, but you actually do. You’re just not fully aware of it. I think I still felt scared about people knowing. I felt awkward around gay people; I felt guilty for not being myself.”

(She was a heterosexual impersonator?)

One of the perks of being an out lesbian: being able to wear whatever you want. Less than three weeks after her big speech, Page attended theVanity Fair Oscar party wearing a leather-accented Saint Laurent tux by Hedi Slimane. “I felt happy and confident and the difference was huge,” says Page. . . . For years, she endured pressure to conform to industry standards, i.e., dresses, but those days are over.

OK, you can read the whole thing if you care. But what kind of simplistic reduction is this? Being a presumably straight girl means “pressure” to wear dresses, and once you come out as a lesbian, you get the “perk” of “being able to wear whatever you want”? As though there are no heterosexual women who wear pants and no lesbians who wear dresses? What is this, 1957 or something?

When I was tweeting about this Thursday night, a conversation ensued with someone who doesn’t seem familiar with feminist theory:

Maybe I’ve become too familiar with feminist theory, that I expect other people to understand the difference between sex and gender, between sexual preference and gender roles. Feminism is about the abolition of gender — that is, eradicating all “socially constructed” differences between the sexes. According to feminism, it is the oppressive male patriarchy that imposes the “feminine” role — a humiliating condition of submissive inferiority — on women. To be “feminine,” according to this theory, is for a woman to be passive and yielding toward men, to shape her appearance and behavior in ways that are acceptable and attractive to men. By contrast, feminists view the “masculine” role as typified by domination and aggression which ultimately is about reducing women to the role of “fuckholes, breeders and slaves.”

This is why lesbianism is the goal of feminism. Only by escaping male domination can women escape the prison of “gender” and the inherently violent act of male sexuality: PIV (penis-in-vagina) intercourse, which is both the means and motive of women’s oppression: “All PIV is rape, OK?” and “No woman is heterosexual”:

What men call heterosexuality is an institution where men make women captive for PIV, to control our reproductive functions and steal our labour. . . .
It’s part of the global male infrastructure that ensures men a constant supply of ready-tamed and pre-possessed women to effortlessly stick their dicks in, impregnate and abuse. The more it grows, the easier it is for each individual man to break any woman’s will and trick her into PIV and being owned by him — and maintain submission level with the help of men’s institutions.

If you don’t understand and believe this — if you recognize this as complete lunacy — then obviously, you are not a feminist.

Now, some of you familiar with lesbian culture may be asking yourself, “What about butch dykes? Aren’t they acting out a ‘masculine’ role? If feminists reject gender roles, what about women who emulate stereotypically masculine behavior and appearance?” Oh, but see, butch dykes are subverting the patriarchy by demonstrating that females can perform the “masculine” role. However, because of the transgender vogue, many butch lesbians are now undergoing hormone treatments and surgery to become “transmen,” a trend that one older feminist laments:

Why are all the butches becoming men? Why can’t they understand that gender is a social construct, and that women don’t have to conform to a feminine ideal? Isn’t that what we were fighting for — a world in which women could wear tool belts and neckties and do anything we damn well please, without the constraints of gender?
At its very core, this was the vision of the feminist movement, and lesbians more than anyone understood how transformative this could be.
Years ago, I asked the same questions, but today, this conversation makes me uncomfortable. Because I am of this older generation, I have seen things change — and not change — for a long time.
I have, in my life, loved many butches. My relationships and affairs have almost always been with masculine women and, more recently, with trans men as well.
In my experience, for as long as I have found myself in intimate circumstances with butches/studs/masculine-identified women — from way back when I was too young to be in the bars where I was meeting and going home with them — a curious thing happens. Once there is enough trust established, I become witness to a moment of confession. The confession goes something like this: “I don’t know how to explain this, but I don’t exactly feel like a woman. I mean, I’m butch, and that’s close, but honestly, I’m not sure what I am.”
Don’t get me wrong, there are many, many proud butch women who are exactly that: women. In today’s terminology, their gender expression is masculine, and their gender identity is female. They wear their tool belts proudly, and I am happy to admire the show. For them, a butch identity resolves the issue — if people have a problem with it, it’s their sexism or homophobia rearing its head.
But that experience is not everyone’s, and it never has been.

If you did not previously believe all feminists are crazy, perhaps now you’re beginning to change your mind. Feminism requires women to be fanatically certain about theory, while being perpetually confused about reality. Everything is whatever they say it is. Feelings triumph over facts. So if some women say they “don’t exactly feel like a woman,” a gynecological examination — proving that they have the biological equipment — cannot refute their feeling.

And if you are such an intolerable smart-ass as to point out that this emphasis on subjective feeling is typically feminine . . .

OK, I denounce myself.

 

 

Category: Celebrities, Culture, Feminism, Gays

LIVE AT FIVE: 05.02.14

Posted on | May 2, 2014 | 4 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Broadcaster Under Fire For Airing Edited Interview With Narendra Modi

BJP candidate Narendra Modi

BJP takes revenge by releasing unedited copy of interview


NAACP’s LA Chapter President Resigns Amid Sterling Flap
Chapter had honored Clippers owner previously, planned to do so again

Pro-Russian Mob Clashes With Police In Donetsk
Confrontation in prosecutor’s compound ends in violence; 26 injured



POLITICS
Big Jump In Military Sexual Assault Reports

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel

Outrage or sign of progress?


Phoenix VA Officials Put On Leave Over Patient Wait List

Florida Senate Approves In-State Tuition For Illegals

Chris Stewart (R-UT) Wants To Cut Funding For Federal Paramilitary Units After Bundy Dispute

Internal Memos Show EPA Worked Behind Scenes To Kill Alaskan Mine

Retired General Criticizes Lack Of Military Response To Benghazi

Officials Struggling To Fix State Obamacare Exchanges

Reid In A Bind Over Bipartisan Calls For Keystone Vote



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Oil Down Slightly On Increased Supply Ahead Of US Jobs Data: NYMEX $99.47, Brent $107.77
US Stocks Slip Ahead Of Jobs Data
Weekly Jobless Claims Jump To 344K Ahead Of Jobs Report
Yellen’s Fed Resigned To Diminished Growth Expectations
Consumer Spending “Surges” 0.9% In March
Box, Zendesk Among IPOs Stuck Watching The Market
Microsoft Releases Fix For Internet Explorer
Foursquare App Split Strengthens Challenge To Yelp
Google Deals Made Phones More Expensive, Lawsuit Claims
BASIC Celebrates 50th Birthday
NYC To Reinvent The Pay Phone



SPORTS
OKC’s Durant Brings It, Scores 36 To Force Game Seven Against Memphis

“Mr. Unreliable”? Apparently not

“I’m not going to give [the Daily Oklahoman] credit for nothing.”

Subban Lifts Habs Past Bruins In Double OT

West, Pacers Rally Late To Force Game 7

Blue Jackets Aiming Higher After Playoff Season

Royals Fall To Jays 7-3

Sterling Could Use Divorce To Avoid Clippers Sale

Cano, Elias Lead M’s Past Yankees

Sharks Hit New Low In Collapse Against Kings

Dodgers Outlast Twins In Extras To Sweep Doubleheader

O’s Sweep Pirates In Doubleheader At Camden Yards

Marlins Hang On To Sweep Braves

Rays Sweep Doubleheader From Red Sox

Bryce Harper Has Thumb Surgery, Out Indefinitely



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Why Elizabeth Olsen Is Hollywood’s New Sweetheart

Coming soon to the latest Godzilla remake

From cult hits to blockbuster glitz, the twins’ little sister is turning heads

Jason Priestley Dishes On Tori Spelling, Brad Pitt In New Memoir

Samuel L. Jackson Angers Porn Stars


Columbia Records Drops Naya Rivera

Miley Cyrus Delays Europe Tour Due To Illness (Again)

Josh Hartnett Opens Up About His Hiatus From Hollywood

Floyd Mayweather Broke Up With Fiance After She Got An Abortion

Mike Fisher: I Stay Out Of Carrie’s Way When She’s Focused On Work

Demi Lovato Discusses Her Bipolar Disorder: “It’s A Daily Thing”



FOREIGNERS
Boston College Again Immersed In Ireland’s Troubles
Car Bomb In Nigeria’s Capital Kills 15
Kerry Calls For Regional Force To End Bloodshed In South Sudan
Ukraine Reinstates Conscription As Situation In Donets Basin Deteriorates
Illegal Gold Mine Collapses In Colombia; 3 Dead, 15 Missing
Russia Revives May Day Tradition
Norks Replace Top Army Official Amidst Nuke Warnings
Riot Police Clash With Defiant May Day Protesters In Istanbul



BLOGS & STUFF
Doug Powers: Benghazi Amnesia – Would The IRS Accept “Dude, That Was Two Years Ago” As A Response During A Tax Audit?
Twitchy: “LIAR” – This Is Why Jay Carney Was Trending On Twitter
Captain Capitalism: Why Dennis Prager Is Dangerous To Young Conservatives
Max Boot: The Iraqi Military’s Downward Spiral
American Power: Victims Of Communism Day
American Thinker: Roe And Gay Marriage
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Joining The New Elite – A How-to Guide (Part 3)
Conservatives4Palin: Sen. Patty Murray – We’re Flat Broke, So Let’s Add Another Massive Entitlement Program
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, May 1
Jammie Wearing Fools: Actual Media/Obama Spin – Only Obamacare Saved Moribund Economy From Contracting
Joe For America: Government Web Bots To Scour Internet For Hate Speech
JustOneMinute: Not A Coverup, A Strategy
Pat Dollard: Terry McAuliffe Tells Harry Reid To STFU About “Washington Redskins”
Protein Wisdom: Now That We Know The Benghazi Coverup Was Planned…
Shot In The Dark: Take It Off My “Personal Time”
The Jawa Report: DC “Congresswoman” Declares Invasion Of Iraq “Most Catastrophic War Of 20th Century”
The Lonely Conservative: Who Will The Thought Police Come After Next?
This Ain’t Hell: DIA Chief Forced Out
Megan McArdle: Watch Obamacare Make Health Costs Soar


I’m positive that we have plenty of material for Rule 5 Sunday left over from last week, but if you have linkagery from this week’s post, the deadline to submit them is noon tomorrow.
DO IT.


Category: Live at Five

Tommy Vietor: Van Driver, NSC Spokesman, Hipster At Large

Posted on | May 1, 2014 | 38 Comments

by Smitty

Listen, Tommy, you smarmy little creep.

His first job for Obama was as the driver of a press van, and he rose up the ranks through the 2008 campaign, and then the White House press office, to become the National Security Council spokesman.

You went to some little liberal arts school in Ohio, where you may or may not have been introduced to a few key points before getting hired by #OccupyResoluteDesk:

  1. You do not leave men to die in combat.
  2. If you, or your pathetic boss, is such a worm as to fail to grasp Rule 1, you need to come clean immediately and beg forgiveness from your betters, whose sacrifices over the years keep craven worms in nice suits and ties.
  3. Your best bet is to find a nice liberal think tank to swim in once the rodeo clown is out of office. With good fortune, I’ll avoid ever encountering you in person and sharing unfiltered views with you.


via HotAir

Update: linked by the excellent Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club

Category: Uncategorized
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