National Offend a Feminist Week, Day 2: Equal, But Not Identical?

Our announcement of the 2nd annual National Offend a Feminist Week provokes the eloquent Sissy Willis to muse on “why women can’t detatch their emotions from intimate relationships as easily as men.”

Vive la différence, madame!

This is what is misunderstood by feminists. To reject feminism, in their view, is to be a misogynist, to be anti-woman, an accusation so absurd that one resents the minor effort necessary to refute it.

It is precisely my admiration for women — my high regard for their distinctively feminine qualities — which animates my animus toward feminist ideology, a species of egalitarianism. To state the obvious:

Insofar as men and women are different, they are not equal.

Equality implies fungibility — that two things are perfectly interchangeable, so that one thing may be substituted for the other without any difference in value. Only a fool could believe that men and women are equal in that way, and yet this is what feminists would require us to believe. And any man who dares contradict this egalitarian dogma is a sexist, an oppressor, a reactionary representative of the patriarchy.

All the other errors of feminism flow from this one fundamental error, a counterfactual insistence on the equality of the sexes. Men and women are not the same, and therefore are not equal.

This is not to assert any general theory of masculine superiority, except in matters where men are — on average, as a group — demonstrably superior. Human civilization is built upon the abilities and aptitudes of both men and w0men, and I have no argument with those who would say that women’s contributions to civilization have at times been underappreciated.

Feminism, however, involves an egalitarian thesis requiring that society be re-ordered to thrust women into traditionally male occupations because otherwise women would be victims of unfair “discrimination.” It is this nonsensical dogma that resulted in U.S. taxpayers losing a perfectly good F-14 due to Kara Hultgreen’s pilot error.

Larry Summers was drummed out of the presidency of Harvard University merely for suggesting, as a possibility, that a shortage of women at the highest levels of research in the hard sciences could be the result of innate differences between the sexes.  Wherever feminists are empowered, all such discussion is prohibited. And because feminism is nowhere more powerful than on American university campuses, higher education has become hostile to truth.

Because our nation’s most prestigious institutions of learning are held hostage by feminists, those who wish to be thought sophisticated and enlightened must defer to the Big Lie of feminism. This requisite deference among the elite — and those who aspire to elite status — necessarily stigmatizes as “lowbrow” all criticism of the feminist project. To state the blunt truth, that men and women are not equal, is to be automatically excluded from the ranks of the bien-pensants.

This is why National Offend a Feminist Week is necessary. For seven days, open and direct dissent against feminist dogma is encouraged and celebrated, so that it may once again be safe to speak truth in the public square.

Now run along, sweetheart, and get me a cup of coffee.

Divided Democrats Help Hawaii

Republican Charles Dijou now leads by 8 points:

With two Democrats on the ballot in Hawaii’s May 22 mail-in election, a Republican could win with a plurality . . .

Video from Steve Foley of the Minority Report:

Meanwhile, in case you missed it earlier, my Green Room special report on the PA12 special election is now front page at Hot Air.

UPDATE: Dave Weigel notes the role of conservative bloggers in lighting up the Hawaii special:

[W]e’ve seen another very effective grass-roots conservative campaign, another successful push by right-leaning Web gurus to make this race exciting to the party’s national base.
First, activists raised the emotional stakes by calling the district “Obama’s home district.” (He was born in Honolulu.) Just like Scott Brown was able to excite conservatives with the prospect of “taking Ted Kennedy’s seat,” Djou has dangled the possibility of an embarrassment for the president — something that makes the otherwise modest goal of shrinking the Democrats’ majority by one seat sound more enticing. Do a search on Twitter for “obamadistrict” and check out how many conservatives embrace the frame. (A lot of the credit here goes to Republican consultant Patrick Ruffini, who’s also organized blogger conference calls for Djou.)

Could a “murthadistrict” hashtag could help #PA12 get that kind of action?

UPDATE II: Citing a new DCCC internal poll that has PA12 a dead heat, Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey says:

Two wins in May, in traditionally Democratic districts, would send a big message about momentum in the midterms. The GOP would probably be thrilled to get just one of these two seats.

A win in either district would be significant because the NRCC has a losing streak in House special elections that goes back at least to 2007

Silly Governor: ‘Brazil Got Off Oil In The Last 30 Years.’

by Smitty

This country really dodged a bullet when the McCain/Palin ticket lost in 2008. We could have had an ignorant VP who thinks that Brazil completely eliminated hydrocarbon usage over the last three decades, and instead runs on ethanol.

Oh, wait: that’s not Governor Palin, that’s Bill Maher.

Now, one is tempted to tee off on Maher. His position in the overall body of society is somewhere around intestinal parasite. Two years ago he excreted something called Religulous, for which he deserves all the accolades that reasonable people would give Michael Moore, i.e. none.

American society and the Bill of Rights support and defend his natural right to all the idiocy a head can hold before it will ‘splode. And if he left it at that, ignoring him would be straightforward.
He, however, insists on attempting to denigrate people who add value to society. And he holds forth for his audience of fellow morons, pretending to know something.

What a despicable fool. Because he can’t be pure, he’s self-assured.

Others on this one:
Ace of Spades

Maybe Leno Could Hire Some North Korean Writers To Help His Material

by Smitty

HuffPo has it that Jay had all the charm of an oil rig explosion at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Maybe he didn’t want to go down the Colbert of Sykes roads, as the article notes.

Or maybe he needed to water the material down, so as not to upstage President Thin Skin. That’s my guess. In German, it might be called a sichselbstunterdenbuswerfen, a throwing of the self under the bus.

Via Digg, this blog has located some North Korean humor that might help Leno out:

At High School No. 1 in Pyongyang, a girl brags to her teacher about the cat she’s got at home: “Our cat has just given birth to seven kittens. All of them just stick close to their mother, they feel really comfortable, and sleep all the time. They’re all true communists.”

A few days later, the teacher asks the girl: “Are the communist kittens at home growing up nicely?”

The girl says: “Comrade teacher, big trouble! They’ve all opened their eyes, and they’ve all renounced communism!”

Hope that helps, Jay.

National Offend a Feminist Week 2010

Wow, has it really been an entire year since May 2, 2009, when we inaugurated this tradition? To quote the charter:

Hey, sweetheart, when I say “bring me a cup of coffee,” I mean bring me fresh coffee, OK?

Bloggers: It is once again National Offend A Feminist Week. Your expressions of reactionary, oppressive, patriarchal, misogynistic traditionalism are solicited. Search your mind, search the Internet, and come up with a post guaranteed to make Jessica Valenti even angrier than usual.

Please link here for inclusion in a special honor roll listing next weekend. Extra credit for women who find some way to enthusiastically embrace their traditional femininity. Now hurry up with that coffee, sweetheart. And make sure it’s fresh this time . . .

The Longest Comment Thread in the History of This Blog? Go Ahead, Guess.

Over the course of the past two years, for the benefit of some 3.8 million visitors, we have blogged on many subjects — the 2008 presidential election, war, peace, economics, race relations, culture, etc. Never, however, has any post generated as many comments as my April 24 post about the talent-deficient vocalist, Champagne Dream, of whom I wrote:

Certainly I’m not alone in guessing that somebody at Blaze Records got the hots for a 19-year-old stripper and said, “Yeah, baby, I’ll make you a star . . .”

That post is now at 128 comments. It seems to have got rolling at 2:36 a.m. Friday, with Sandy’s comment (#28) and then on Saturday morning, blues musician Jeff Todd jumped in to say that the proprietor of Blaze Records was a sleazeball. (Which makes him different from every other record company executive . . . how?) Then somebody mentioned a singer named Cheyenne West and next thing you know, there’s a catfight in the comments involving none other than Champagne Dream herself, who appears at comment #60. Oh, and somebody posted this photo of Champagne Dream:

For the record, I cannot vouch for the accuracy of any of what people write in the comments. It may be that the proprietors of Blaze Records are perfectly legitimate and ethical. And it may be that Champagne Dream can sing.

So now I’ve got the blogospheric equivalent of a “Jerry Springer Show” episode in the comments of a two-week-old post that I just put up as a bit of weekend snark. But I guess it goes to show the unpredictable nature of online viral phenomena. Speaking of which, I just remembered an anniversary. Heh.