Giant sucking backlash from hell
My little feminist pirate ship of the mind is encountering some rough swells this week. The Backlash is strong upon us, and every time I turn around I get another whopper in the face and up my damn nose. I can’t even read my Google news feed.
We got Michelle Obama doing her best impression of a Stepford Wife, while media twits frantically assure us that this is what real feminist empowerfulment looks like. (Ooh, she’s so brave! So empowerfulled and courageous to devote herself to her children, stand behind her man, and show off her naked arms! Gosh golly gee, no woman in the past 10,000 years has ever been expected to do that! What bravery!) We got Miss California having her head shaved in public for collaborating with the Germans, only to be “saved” at the last minute by a billionaire troll doll who is, himself, a serial misogynist. We got Star Trek re-imagined as an atavistic sexist future in which women have even less power than they do now, thus turning the whole spirit of the franchise upside down. (Yes, I know the original Star Trek was sexist, but it wasn’t trying to be. It was trying to be enlightened, albeit failing miserably by modern standards. But the trying is what matters. The new Star Trek movie is the first time in the history of the franchise that the Star Trek world is depicted as less enlightened than the present-day world.)
And now my friend Sheryl sends me an email with a link to Slate’s new anti-feminist magazine, Double XX. Now, the hilarious backlashy part of this is that Double XX is supposed to be “feminist.” Note the scare quotes, kids; they’re there for a reason. If you go to Double XX right now, you will learn the following things just from cruising the front page:
Feminists are racist
Feminists are racist (yes, twice, plus a helpful cartoon illustration)
Feminists are classist
Feminists are irrelevant
Feminists are screechy harridans
Feminists are nutjobs
The only good thing about this is that it means the new feminist tidal wave of wonderfulness Sheryl and I (and several collaborators) are planning will have no competition. None. In a world where even Bitch and Bust magazines are teaming up with Larry Fucking Flynt to sponsor a pole-dancing contest, there is a distinct dearth, shall we say, of feminist media.
We are going to fix that, kids. We’re going to fix it good.
39 Responses to “Giant sucking backlash from hell”
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Sheryl Robinson says:
Well, this might cheer you up (uncrap from a dude):
I’ll repeat, slowly:
I think the gushing over Michelle Obama’s arm or any other body part is inordinately stupid, but it pales in comparison to Urq’s boner-headed response. It’s incredibly obtuse to keep insisting that I am trying to rationalize the personality cult surrounding the Obamas.
I hadn’t read the link, just Urq’s selected quote. Having read it, the point still stands. The whole thrust is that Michelle is admirable for displaying qualities traditionally considered masculine – confidence, security, professional achievement, directness, etc. Hence the choice of an imagery usually considered attractive in men. Of course it’s not babelicious, the point being Michelle is no ordinary babe.
Why is the hype stupid, though? Because the prominence of a First Lady is inherently founded on reflected glory, so to uphold her as an icon for the new independent woman is an exercise fraught with contradiction. It’s a position well suited for an ad of supportive roles (‘behind every successful man is a woman’), but rather awkward to use for feminist purposes (far better choices abound). It explains the article’s peculiar contortions, and the underlying motive of hero worship (gender choice deliberate) rather than any serious celebration of breaking down gender roles.
So the bottomline: yes, you have a juicy target for political satire. But instead of attacking where it’s truly vulnerable, you come at it with your frat-boy reflexes and poke at it with your dicks rather than your brains. The effect is certainly comical, but in primarily unintended ways.
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For context, he’s responding to the discussion arising from this post: http://fray.slate.com/discuss/.....65128.aspx
May 13th, 2009 at 7:51 pm EST -
Violet says:
Speak of the Sheryl!
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Sheryl Robinson says:
It’s me! The queen of the non sequitur. It’s my coping strategy. You have your alpacas, I have my digressions.
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octogalore says:
Very much looking forward to the tidal wave. I clicked on the XX link and nearly floated away, it was so airy and lite.
What galls me is that most of us on the left (or a blue dog like me) can acknowledge the flaws of our society — sexism, racism, classism, ableism, ageism, etc. Any body of individuals, even a progressive group like environmentalists, antiracists, antiwar activists, animals rights activists, etc., are going to reflect the societal backdrop to some degree. This is not because animal rights or environmentalism or antiracism is particularly tainted, just that they emerge from a flawed society.
Yet somehow, when individual feminists exhibit such flaws, the verdict isn’t: wow, these individuals over here are flawed, just like those ones over there, and so anything they are going to talk about, whether it’s art history or math or feminism, will reflect that. It’s: feminism is racist or classist or fill in the blank. If a movement is about women, then that movement must rise above the flaws of society, otherwise the movement itself — something that’s about equal rights for women, period end of story — is indicted and convicted.
I have to wonder why that is. Or, actually, not.
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Adrienne in CA says:
Disappointing about the new Star Trek. Guess I won’t go see it after all. Gene Roddenberry must be rolling in his grave.
It helps me to remember that none of this assault on women is accidental or unplanned (and we’re not crazy for noticing). All the dependable hatreds — minorities, gays, even fat people — have fallen out of fashion. The only scapegoat left to divide and confound the people is that favorite since Eve: women. Either we’ll survive the storm and come through stronger, or Margaret Atwood will turn out to be the prophet we feared she might be.
*****A
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Sandra S. says:
Wow. That website is a load of bullshit. I like that they have articles by both Katha Pollitt and Katie Roiphe.
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orlando says:
I’m breathless with anticipation.
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Keri says:
I can add another thing to the garbage pile- Rolling Stone magazine- who got in on the ground floor of misogynist trashing of Hillary (along with Keith Olbermann) back in November 2007. Rolling Stone magazine made some weak efforts to become more feminist aware in the late 1970′s, that lasted until a few years ago. But since 2007 they’ve become outright misogynist fauxgressive Obots. They plunged into the slime even more with the article in the latest issue where a 21 year old “actress” from hardcore porn is held up as what all females should aspire to, and a Hulk Hogan interview where he talks about the woman he was married to like she was his property and said he “understood how OJ felt now” This vile statement was even put in a highlighted quote box in the article.
The level of violent misogyny that spews out from the fauxgressive world puts them on the same level as right wing misogynist hatemongers like Pat Robertson. The mindset is actually the same.
They don’t actually like sex with women, they want to be able to rape women at will. They see sex as dirty and perverse acts of domination just like the most extreme right wingers.
About 10 years ago I knew a young woman with that mindset- she would now be 30 years old. She sneered at my viewpoint that sex should and can be a beautiful joining of two people not just physical but emotional. That it can be the most beautifully intimate expression of love two people can share. This young woman had been exposed to hardcore pornography by her stepfather since she was a young child. She saw nothing wrong with what her stepfather had done to her and became extremely angry when I said her stepfather had sexually abused her by doing that. That conversation ended our friendship.
The young twenty-something fauxgressives grew up in a world where girls and women were shown all over the media being objects of sexual exploitation. The girls were brainwashed to believe this was “empowering”. The boys knew that was bull, and soaked in the message that women are things to be used and discarded. No female is a human being, only guys are human beings. This is the mindset of so called progressives.
It hacks me off that the big name second waver feminists are saying nothing about this. Nor are the upper class so called third wave feminists.
It’s us, the feminists who grew up lower middle class and poor that have made up the core of women fighting against this. From all colors of feminism and political persuasions.
The majority of us being from our later 30′s to later 40′s. I can tell you why that age group makes up the largest chunk of the activists too- We are the first Title IX generation, our childhood were colored by Second Wave feminist activism. A few of us, like me, were even lucky enough to have one of those thousands of rank and file Second Wave feminists as our mothers. In our childhoods- before the backlash hit back hard when Reagan was elected, we actually saw some positive (if shallow, and still subtly sexist) portrayals of feminism causes in the media and on TV shows. School House rock even devoted one segment to the 19th Admendment that women fought for the right to vote, so we could have a say in our country’s laws.
Schoolhouse Rock played down the point that the right to vote was only the beginning of the struggle not the end. But compared to the absolute absence of any education about women’s history that those in their younger thirties and younger received from both schools and the media, it was enough. (especially for those of us that grew up poor or lower middle class)
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Violet says:
The majority of us being from our later 30’s to later 40’s. I can tell you why that age group makes up the largest chunk of the activists too- We are the first Title IX generation, our childhood were colored by Second Wave feminist activism. A few of us, like me, were even lucky enough to have one of those thousands of rank and file Second Wave feminists as our mothers.
I think there’s some real truth in that. I’m 46, which surprises people sometimes because they think I really am of the Second Wave generation. But it’s just that I grew up with the Second Wave: my childhood and youth were saturated with feminism. And I’ve never lost that. I’m not a Third Waver because I was a feminist for 20 years before the phrase “Third Wave” was ever used.
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Keri says:
Yeah, I’m 42 and was a feminist since I was 7 years old. My younger sister (38 years old) is also a feminist, although less outspoken than me, she knows what’s going on.
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murphy says:
me too. I’m 40. I think you make a LOT of sense Keri.
Excellent post and comments — I love when Violet has a new post up!
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Kali says:
Keri, what you said is very true. And this was a worldwide phenomenon, not just in the west or USA. I remember quite a few overtly feminist movies from the 70s and early 80s in India – movies advocating women’s equality both inside and outside the house. But since the late 80s, and to the present day, freedom and equality for women is associated with the willingness to show skin, even in India.
I am 41 years old now and was a young child in the 70s and in my early teens in the early 80s. Those were definitely the most impressionable years. I must have absorbed some feminism in those days because I remember my dad would call me a “women’s libber” even before I knew what that was. My sister is 48 and she has a strong feminist consciousness too. The younger women I know rarely have any kind of feminist consciousness. There’s my roommate who offered to buy me a book called “Some Men Are Nice” when she saw me reading Susan Brownmiller. There’s my colleague who got very upset when I refused to agree with her that the Duke Lacrosse team men were treated badly and “had their reputations ruined” (right after she had shrugged of Anne Sebold’s experience recounted in the book “Lucky” as unfortunate but not representative of our society). There’s my friend who believes that Islam oppresses gays but not women. And, of course, the Obots.
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Kali says:
The more I think about what Keri wrote, the more I agree with her. One of the most popular women’s magazines in the 70s and 80s in India was Femina. It had the usual recipes and decorating stuff, but they also had profiles of successful businesswomen, politics and sports sections focusing on women achievers, fiction that often had very strong feminist themes, and puzzles and jokes. Since the 90s it has been full of celebrity gossip and advice for pleasing men.
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Emily says:
Michelle Obama’s decision to be a mother and to be supportive of her husband IS a feminist decision because feminism is about choice. That is not to say that our choices aren’t structred by society — they are. I think it makes more sense to focus on the media’s COVERAGE of Michelle Obama — their obsession with her fashion choices, her arms, and their INCORRECT assumption that Michelle Obama’s choice is THE ONLY choice to make, feminist or otherwise.
Next, I agree with you that Double X reeks of so-called “post-feminist” rhetoric. I am disappointed. STILL, I agree with the following (amended) statements:
SOME Feminists are racist.
I’ll say it again: Feminists without an understanding of intersectionality are SOMETIMES racist
Feminists are SOMETIMES classist.One of the best lessons of my adult life was learning that just because I am female and have experienced one form of oppression, does not mean that I do not help to perpetuate other forms of oppression.
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Sis says:
I vehemently disagree with you Emily. MO’s decision is a political decision made by her husband and his handlers.
As for the magazines of the ’70s. Well, showing women role models is one idea of feminism, but it doesn’t deal at all with the idea of why women are the underclass, in every culture. Even women with law degrees.
We hear that choice bs everytime some woman decides to do what the patriarchy demands of her. Exactly what are her choices, that this *one* is the one she chose? Sure she was going to say, nah, I’ll just continue with where I was before last year. See ya? You might want to know “choice” is the battle shriek of the pornographers too. “It’s her *choice* to work for BangBros.” Funny though, the left never tries to pull that choice shit about the women picking pesticide laden strawberries or flowers just across the California/Mexican border. Or the woman working in your local Wal Mart.
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Unree says:
@Emily–I can agree, if we throw in a few more iterations and say ‘em just as loud & often:
SOME racial-justice activists are sexist and misogynous.
SOME environmentalists are sexist and misogynous.
SOME economic-justice advocates are sexist and misogynous.
SOME of those who are fighting for single-payer health care are sexist and misogynous. -
samanthasmom says:
Why are feminists the only people who have to be totally bigotry-free in all the other “ism” categories before we’re allowed to advocate for ourselves?
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anne says:
Feminism is about liberation of women from male oppression, Emily. Free market capitalism is about individual choice without paying attention to the wider social and political context that those choices are made in. You’re getting the two mixed up.
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Violet says:
SOME Feminists are racist.
Some ____ are racist, insert anything in the blank. Anything. And it would be true.
The strong implication, however, is that feminism as a movement has a particular problem with racism. And this is false. It’s a lie, and it’s lie propagated by the sexist male Civil Rights establishment and propagated by Third Wavers who don’t know their own history but believe whatever lies are told about feminists.
Here are some true, accurate statements:
“Some, in fact most, black civil rights leaders are sexist.”
“The black civil rights establishment has a serious problem with sexism.”
“The Civil Rights movement was notoriously sexist, and the black male patriarchy in the 70s was virulently anti-feminist.”
“The claim that feminism is racist was propaganda by black male sexists who adamantly opposed feminism and saw it as a threat to their own patriarchal hegemony.”
Also true:
“Of all the social justice movements that emerged in the latter half of the 20th century, feminism by far was and is the most free of all forms of prejudice, striving consciously to be non-sexist, non-racist, non-classist, non-homophobic, and consistently attempting to confront and overcome any residual prejudices in an ongoing process. The black male Civil Rights movement, by contrast, is and has always been notoriously sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, even anti-Semitic. Hence the claim that feminism is the problematic movement, and particularly the claim by black anti-feminists that feminism has a problem with racism, should be readily identifiable by any informed person as pure anti-feminist propaganda, which is what it is.”
Feminists without an understanding of intersectionality are SOMETIMES racist.
Anybody can be “sometimes” racist. But this is more to the point:
“Feminists without a genuine understanding of the intellectual antecedents of “intersectionality” are typically ignorant of the real history of the Second Wave, and accept uncritically the black patriarchal lie that feminism is racist. This makes them effectively anti-feminist.”
And before anyone mentions “womanism,” understand this:
Womanism was not a response to feminist racism. It was a response to black male sexism. Alice Walker, for example, was welcomed and embraced by the feminist community, published in Ms., etc. Meanwhile, black men called her a race traitor, a whore, a man-hater, etc. Massive hatred. Accusations that she was in a plot with white women to destroy black men, etc., etc. So what does she do? Invents “womanism,” stops talking about black patriarchy, starts saying that black women need to bond with black men, starts emphasizing racism, gradually reinvents a past in which white feminists snubbed her while black men were her brothers, and on and on. It’s appeasement.
Given that black women live with black men, not white women, it is entirely understandable that the psychological pressure to conform to and appease black patriarchy is overwhelming.
Of course some white feminists are racist, but the tiny drops of racism in the feminist movement are as nothing to the vast ocean of sexism in the black male civil rights movement. The disparity is enormous. Yet which movement gets attacked?
This is not to say that black American women don’t need a form of feminism that addresses the double burden they face as women and blacks: they do. I completely understand that. But the attacks on feminism as a whole as racist are completely unfounded. They’re not based on reality; they’re based on a psycho-social need to align with the black male patriarchy, which is structured around the valorization of The Black Man’s Struggle and the supposedly central place of racism in human experience.
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Reader says:
To me there isn’t a lot of utility in making quantitative comparisons of racism v. sexism. But, it is certainly my impression that accusations of racism are used to derail feminism quite frequently and, often, effectively.
Violet writes: The strong implication, however, is that feminism as a movement has a particular problem with racism. And this is false. It’s a lie, and it’s lie propagated by the sexist male Civil Rights establishment and propagated by Third Wavers who don’t know their own history but believe whatever lies are told about feminists.
I think she gives Third Waves too much credit. I don’t think they propagate lies about other feminists out of ignorance. I think they do it intentionally, to advance themselves by tarnishing people they stupidly feel in greedy competition with. -
Toonces says:
I love this site :)
I’m 26 and grew up with the idea that feminism was good as long as you weren’t too mouthy, loud, annoying, mean, grumpy, shreiky, demanding, etc. etc. etc. about it. Spoiling everyone’s good time wasn’t the way to get heard and being militant and angry was too ….non-moderate?? I don’t know.
I always identified as a feminist but that’s probably rare for my generation. I had some liberal influences in teachers and my mom was a feminist in her own way (imperfect, of course) I’ve always had a very strong attachment to fairness and that helps, too. So, despite not really having an education in feminism, I was more inclined to listen when someone said that Hillary didn’t seem to be acting any worse than any male politicians. That was kind of the first crack in the OVERLYAMBITIOUSBITCHFROMHELLWHOMUSTBEDESTROYED
ORSHEWILLKILLUSALL image for me. And that’s kind of how I got to where I can (I think) see the truth of what happened in 2008. The media/pop culture has been in charge of deciding that feminism is obsolete and only whiney women who are out to destroy fun make a big deal out of stuff that affects women, and also! look how feminism only cares about upper-middle class white women who are just entitled! Who cares about those stupid OLD! rich white bitchez! I definitely grew up with that message.I somehow didn’t get the message that being pornalicious was feministic and empowering, however. Maybe that’s kind of regional.
I’m just rambling but this is something I’ve been curious about. For me, feminism started making a lot more sense the more run-ins I had with pornsick, predatory, abusive, self-aggrandizing, social darwinist, insanely misogynistic young men. I’m not sure if it’s worse for my generation (or thereabouts) but I sometimes think it would be nice if guys were pretending to be feminists to get into my pants instead of scheming with their buddies about how to get girls drunk/high enough that they won’t notice they are being filmed with a camera phone (or maybe the camera’s hidden) in the midst of sexual acts (or rape) so they can then share with friends or even sell the videos, etc.
Anyway, I don’t really have a point but I’m just baffled that more women haven’t been shocked awake by our current reality yet.
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slythwolf says:
Feminists are racist and classist.
Everyone is.
We live in a racist and classist (and, for that matter, sexist, disablist, fat-hating, homophobic, transphobic, ageist, and I’m sure there are some I’m missing) society, and we’re all steeped in those prejudices from the time we’re born. Look at your own post, Violet, from a few days ago, where you called that woman a bitch however many times; no matter how hard we try, when we get really, really angry, it’s still the bigoted slurs we reach for, because deep down, it’s still the oppressed classes that are the worst thing to call someone, the worst thing you can be. It’s in all of us. We have to own that in order to fix it.
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Alwaysthinking says:
The current reality seems to be riding a steamroller, trying to knock all women down. I don’t think it is an accident that Michelle Obama is playing like a Stepford wife (which she was not previously). I think she, like he, made a deal with their corporate masters.
Yesterday, I was walking through the TV room when I became alert to a disgusting Jack in the Box ad — featuring menopause! I couldn’t digest it at first but then I realized they were extending the usual stereotype about menopausal women going bonkers. My, oh, my, I worked with so many women undergoing this natural event and never even knew when they were “suffering,” and they certainly weren’t going bonkers. Anyway, I remember the 50s well and I didn’t like the oppression then and I particularly hate it now. And I know how to boycott commercials and businesses — so forget you, Jack! (I still boycott Cheer soap because in the late 50s they had a really ninny commercial belittling women, and I vowed never to use their soap.)
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Violet says:
Look at your own post, Violet, from a few days ago, where you called that woman a bitch however many times; no matter how hard we try, when we get really, really angry, it’s still the bigoted slurs we reach for, because deep down, it’s still the oppressed classes that are the worst thing to call someone, the worst thing you can be.
Not to get off on a linguistic tangent here, but that isn’t quite right. Swear words, in order to be effective, must have the weight of use behind them. A sexist society will have sexist swear words. Thus, a feminist in that society, speaking that language, will only have sexist swear words to call on, no matter what her personal beliefs. We can invent new swear words — and there are many feminist experiments in doing just that — but these inventions suffer from the fact that they’re artificial inventions and have no weight of use behind them.
When I called that woman a “bitch,” I wasn’t revealing that deep down I really believe women are bitches. I just needed a swear word. And as an English speaker, there are virtually no non-patriarchal swear words to use.
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laterose says:
I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the Star Trek comment. My friends are all gushing over it, and all I can think is that it’s sexist. They’re all confused because I actually rather like the original series. but I wouldn’t like it if it was made today. It only works in the context of the time it was made.
So yeah I’ve been feeling a bit like I was going crazy and seeing things that weren’t there or something…
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Violet says:
They’re all confused because I actually rather like the original series. but I wouldn’t like it if it was made today. It only works in the context of the time it was made.
Exactly. TOS was quite advanced for its time, though it looks positively antediluvian today. But in the 60s, miniskirts signaled sexual liberation, and the women in the series were officers, doctors, leaders, etc. To a 1960s audience, the Star Trek world looked radically liberated.
The Next Generation continued that development, depicting a world that was more egalitarian than the real world of 1980s America. Same thing with Voyager.
But the filmmakers of the new movie have created a future where there are no women in charge, where the only females are mothers or girlfriends, where the one female officer’s purpose is to take off her top and have sex with Spock.
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sam says:
I remember quite a few overtly feminist movies from the 70s and early 80s in India – movies advocating women’s equality both inside and outside the house. But since the late 80s, and to the present day, freedom and equality for women is associated with the willingness to show skin, even in India.
The biggest lesson I got from reading “The Feminine Mystique” as a 22-year-old woman was that progress is not always linear, there are backslides. I couldn’t relate to the chapters about how stifling motherhood was back then, but it was a definite click moment when Friedan showed how the liberties women had achieved by the 1920s were almost entirely reversed by the 1950s.
Working with the anti-war movement I’ve met a lot of elderly women peace activists and they unanimously told me they have never seen sexism as openly accepted and rewarded as it is now.
Life for women isn’t always getting better and sometimes the successes of former generations are erased in the next generation. It was a bitter lesson. Thank you, Betty.
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sam says:
Whoops, the first paragraph should be quoting Kali.
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Violet says:
I fixed it.
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soopermouse says:
Violet- re: womanism
I believe the resurgescence in “womanism” that happened last year happened because some WoC who had previously identified as feminists needed a good excuse to vote for Barack Obama without feeling like traitors.
Appeasement yes, but also self rationalization. The Black community has always viewed itself in the communal terms and as such it is a lot easier for the people at the bottom of that particular set of stairs- teeh black women- to attribute their oppression and target their anger to the outside factor- the white women (feminists) than to face the fact that a great deal of the same oppression came from within their own community – their own brothers, fathers, husbands, sons. Rationalization is a powerful and fairly useful tool… and that is how someone like Angry Black Bitch ended up not only supporting Obama, but completely oblivious to the sexism he had used in his campaign.Remember Michelle Obama’s speech at the DNC? I never understood why the hell was she supposed to give on, but nevermind. She sopent a lot of time talkign about her brother and I believe that was a dogwhistle, used and aimed at the Black community- to vote for their alleged brother Barack.
Yes, as a not quite white woman, I know that it is hard and can be virtually impossible to draw a line between which part of the oppression I face is racist and which is sexist. It took me a long time to accept that it is racism in the people who feel free to ask me where I am from – the implication being that I am obviously not from there and do not belong. I face this every day, yet although I have black hair and olive skin, I am technically caucasian. I cannot begin to imagine what it must feel like to be black. -
octogalore says:
This post inspired some additional thoughts on XX:
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Val says:
Excellent points about ST-09 movie, Violet – I know I was OUTRAGED to see Uhura pimped out as a cheap prop… & when she started making out w/Spock I sunk lower & lower in my seat – if I hadn’t been w/my son I probably would have walked out!
I know, I know, the entire course of history was altered – the time warp & permutations thereof is the only thought-provoking element that made it through THAT black hole…
[sorry I maintain radio silence re: anything political; I'm just waiting the current administration out!] -
anne says:
With regards to Alice Walker and womanism, she still calls herself a feminist. She doesn’t see them in opposition to one another.
Some of the white third wavers who have tried to set up an argument between Walker and second wave feminists and want to pretend that womanism somehow discredits feminism are doing it because of their own anti-feminism, and because of their racism which makes them think it is OK to use Alice Walker in that manner for their agenda. They also did the same kind of thing with Mary Daly and Audre Lorde. Lorde had criticisms of Daly, but equally importantly she agreed with a great deal that Daly had to say. White Third Wavers keep that latter fact very quiet indeed when they are talking about the dispute between the two women.
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Nina M. says:
@ Toonces
“Maybe that’s kind of regional.” — LOL! Your whole post was awesome.
@ Val
“…& when she started making out w/Spock …”
Dammit! I was going to go see that movie!
(Not. Thanks for being the final word in warning me off.)
@ anne
“Feminism is about liberation of women from male oppression, Emily. Free market capitalism is about individual choice without paying attention to the wider social and political context that those choices are made in. You’re getting the two mixed up.”
You rock.
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Ann Bartow says:
At least one of the DoubleX writers appears to be kind of unethical, too:
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Kiuku says:
And I’m sure the whole idea of XX has nothing to do with our Feminist e mail campaign against Slate for their Palin article and the men’s need to attack Feminism, bad evil making-the-men-feel-bad feminism. First objective ladies: attack feminism!
Alas..
It is as I suspected. Slate took their prominent female writers and moved them into the kitchen. This is the oldest trick in the book and they fell for it. This probably causing them anxiety over their now failing careers. Or maybe it’s those pesky “options”. Someone get these ladies a burka.
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Sheryl Robinson says:
Kiuku – exactly.
Now, when you look at Slate’s front page, it’s about ten men to one woman, down from the ten men to three women that it was last time I checked. The pink ghetto just never seems to lose its appeal, and guess which writers will lose their jobs first in this economy.
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Sis says:
To perk up the sad list of “we gots”. We got this.
Prom Tunes: Arcadia High students petition against degrading lyrics
By Caroline An, Staff Writer
Pasadena Star-News, Pasadena, CaliforniaTwenty songs that refer to women as “hos” and other derogatory names won’t be played at the Arcadia High prom Saturday night. That’s because senior Madeline Conrique and fellow members of the Women’s Health and Issues Club brokered a deal with school administrators limiting songs with misogynistic themes and lyrics.
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gayle says:
From Sis’ link:
“For them, Lil’ Wayne is out, Beyonce is in. “We are not trying to push for abstinence,” senior Lani Luo,said. “We are just trying to advocate for respect.”"
Good for them! Hope it catches on!
