Archive for the ‘Sexism’ Category
Maybe I’ve Had It Wrong All Along: I Shoulda Been A Guy Blogger
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009Is a woman an “Uncle Tom” if she writes under a male pseudonym? What if she gets paid more and seemingly more respect by doing so?
Also, would a woman write differently if she “wrote like a man”. If I didn’t have the cultural pressures, would I write differently? More forceful, more tough, maybe?
Here’s what prompted this post:
A blogger for Copyblogger, who wrote under the name “James Chartrand,” outed herself as a female, explaining that she chose a male name to earn more money and get more respect in her career.
Years ago The Blogger Formerly Known As James Chartrand (who declined to identify her real name) hit a plateau in her career. She couldn’t command a higher rate. She lost gigs she should have gotten. Things were looking grim. So she distanced herself from her existing company by choosing a pen name: “I picked a name that sounded to me like it might convey a good business image. Like it might command respect.”
She chose a male pen name. Ha, more like penis name!
Choosing a male pen name seemed to fix everything for James Chartrand. She put food on the table for her kids and get a mortgage for her house near her mom.
This blogger, a woman, came to this conclusion:
Honestly, there is something rather Uncle Tom-y about Chartrand hiding behind the opposite gender. By assuming the identity of a male writer, she skirted the discrimination against women entirely while doing nothing to change womens’ lot. She just left the glass ceiling standing there, rather than shattering it.
Sure, “passing” was Chartrand’s choice, and as Charlotte York would say, she chose her choice. But it showed no solidarity for other women at all. There’s plenty of female writers out there who confront the marginalization of women head on, pointing out how with factual data how they’ve been shortchanged, asking for raises, taking their brilliant work elsewhere if their bosses refuse to budge. But “James Chartrand” took the easy way out.
Eh. I don’t know. If I wanted to make a lot of money, I’d “sell out” and be a mommy blogger and talk about my kid’s poop or the fact that I forgot part of my kid’s homework or that my jeans are tight or whatever else was personally ailing me at the moment. As far as I can tell, being snarky, female and into fashion, celebrities or some other (what I consider) trivialities can net a gal big bucks.
Or, I could sell out and go anonymous male and people would give me more respect and more money.
Maybe.
How The Left Went Wrong By Not Getting It Right About Sarah Palin–UPDATED
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009Sarah Palin turns out to not be the mindless, soulless creature the left painted her to be during the 2008 election season.
The liberal press, the leftist bloggers, and the activists who hate Sarah Palin succeeded in turning Sarah Palin into a cartoon during the election cycle and many people were inclined to believe them. Sarah Palin interfered, at the time, with what voters wanted at the moment: young, hip, new, black. If she was turned into a moose-killin’, baby-making, no paper-reading, dummie, then people could justify a decision they already wanted to make. And that strategy also worked only as long as the man they elected, Barack Obama stayed young, hip, and new.
Reality hit President Obama who had the misfortune of having to live up to sky-high expectations. But don’t feel too sorry for him. They were his own creation and they came at the expense of women like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. As his star fades, people look around and see what they passed over.
Sarah Palin is looking better.
Her new book Going Rogue has sold 2.7 million books and counting. I have it and continue to read it and the more I read it, the more I like Sarah Palin. And that’s the whole point of the book, really: to get Sarah Palin back to neutral public perception ground; to humanize her. She was a cartoon. Now, in her own words (and after reading it, I don’t know how anyone could capture the cadence of rhythm of her rhetorical and prose style, it’s so unique) she’s saying who she is. And she’s believable. And she’s not stupid.
And she’s normal.
The bar was set so low for Sarah Palin, that she’s surprising everyone, including the press. People are even rethinking the Katie Couric interview and Ms. Palin made a really good point: Why not release all the tape, unedited and uncut? If Sarah Palin comes off as such a complete moron, it should harm Sarah Palin worse, not make her look better. A win-win for the left and the press, but Katie Couric won’t release the tape. Too bad, it makes Katie Couric look more like a partisan hack, if that were possible.
Over the next year, I’m guessing that Ms. Palin will just be not scary. In the mean time, she’s hopefully boning up on foreign policy, philosophy, etc. There are hints in her speeches that she’s doing just that.
The press and left will still call her stupid. They did that with Ronald Reagan (doddering grandpa) and Gerald Ford (fumbling moron) and George W. Bush (blathering idiot). Why? Because anyone who disagrees with leftist conventional wisdom is, by definition, stupid. So, once again, the bar will be set so low, even a McChimpyhaliburtan can leap it.
President Obama (dithering on Afghanistan) and the Climategate folks and the Congressional Dems cutting of grandma’s healthcare, have destroyed any reverence for pseudo-intellectualism. Pointy-headed smart looks ineffectual and maybe even evil.
Americans like a pragmatic, action-oriented politician. Smart enough, but not waffling (Obama), haughty (Kerry), and humorless (Gore). By over-selling intellectualism and reducing enemies to mindless dunces, the press and left are themselves, the caricature.
Sarah Palin is turning into a real, fleshed-out human being. Now that she’s established a bare minimum, she can turn toward policy questions. And she has. She has been a fearless critic or encourager depending on President Obama’s policy choices. And if the President keeps making poor choices, her criticism will look genius.
The Left made a big mistake scorning Sarah Palin. They created a solid core of adoring fans and created an image so cartoonish, that she is bound to exceed expectations.
UPDATED:
Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times Top of the Ticket notes the juxtaposition:
Obama’s new Gallup Poll job approval number is 47%. Last month it was 53%.
Regular Ticket readers will recall how in this space in late November we pointed out that Obama’s closely watched job approval slide was coinciding with Palin’s little-noticed rise in favorability. And it appeared they might cross somewhere in the 40s.
Well, ex-Sen. Obama, meet ex-Gov. Palin.
The new CNN/Opinion Research Poll shows Palin now at 46% favorable, just one point below her fellow basketball fan.
Michelle Goldberg Has A Snit On Bloggingheads, Ann Althouse Calls Her Rhymes-With-Snit
Saturday, November 28th, 2009I got lost in the vortex of Bloggingheads hell and ended up listening to Michelle Goldberg and Ann Althouse yelling at each other. Michelle threatens to bail on the call when Ann pins her down on her inarticulate defense of Barack Obama’s memoir Dreams Of My Fathers. Michelle can’t defend analogizing Obama to Tolstoy and threatens to bail. She smoothed her hair and soldiered on.
The whole conversation was quite illustrative of liberal thought. Or rather, liberal emotionalism. There wasn’t much thought to be had, although Michelle knows her way around 25 cent words. I found myself rolling my eyes. A lot.
So, according to Michelle Goldberg, the Obama-voting Ann Althouse is a conservative. And according to Ann, she’s miffed that Bloggingheads couldn’t find one conservative to defend Palin. That is a valid criticism. Really, Bloggingheads, is there no one who can defend Sarah Palin or is it that you just don’t like conservatives who might defend Sarah Palin?
For what it’s worth, Ms. Goldberg, Ann is a social liberal and libertarian who supported the war effort after 9/11. How, in anyone’s world, does that qualify as a conservative? Mind you, I’m glad to have Ann Althouse’s voice and like her and respect her views. Still, she voted for Barack Obama which to me was a vote for a man weak on foreign policy, indecisive even, and an economy-killing statist. She was not alone in her vote and those from the middle who swung to favor Barack Obama did not win me to the cause of moderation. That vote simply struck me as naive. Still does.
So, whatever, I was watching Bloggingheads and so clicked on Michelle and Ann to see what they talked about. Topic: Sarah Palin. Ann thought Sarah was dumb (I had read her review and thought it harsh). Since Ann finished the book, her review was more charitable. Michelle Goldberg’s feelings of hatred have abated somewhat but she still vehemently dislikes Sarah Palin. She trots out the old trope, “But she’s really good for the Democrat party.”
Between Ann and Michelle, they decide (Ann with a self-aware sparkle in her eye, Michelle utterly beyond self parody) that Sarah Palin is stupid as are those who support her. But don’t say anything about the elites being obnoxious. That characterization is so undeserved. They are people like you and me; they’re just better people.
“She has a reputation for mendacity,” says Michelle Goldberg of Sarah Palin.
“Reality has a liberal bias,” says Michelle regarding why the AP has 11 fact checkers on Sarah Palin’s book, but none of Barack Oama.
“She is a screen onto which conservatives project hopes, just as Barack Obama is a screen onto which liberals project hopes,” says Ann Althouse
“I don’t want to be saved. I want a President to take care of things….preserve us,” says Ann Althouse.
Michelle responds,”And that’s what we’ve got” [in Barack Obama].
You need to watch this interchange if only to get a better understanding of why Barack Obama will always be popular with a certain segment of the population. His actions don’t matter. If he never acts, that’s a bonus because it demonstrates his urbane thoughtfulness. His inaction is a sign of his intelligence. Dithering is nuance because people who take direct action, by definition, act without thinking. Can you see how a liberal would think that Barack Obama is fabulous? One of his greatest weaknesses, the weakness that could land America in the worst position and is doing just that, is actually a strength.
In short, Barack Obama can do no wrong because he is doing nothing.
Sarah Palin And Identity Politics: Using The Left’s Standards Against Them
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009Identity politics grate on most conservatives, or they did until Sarah Palin came along. Most conservatives who loved Sarah Palin, didn’t love her because she was the best looking woman on TV–forget in politics. Most conservatives loved her conservative ideals and her connection to average Americans.
And her ideals, connection, and her beauty, provoked rage on the left. Still does. And so, they attacked her and her family. Nothing was out of bounds. Major news organizations were reduced to screaming like gossip rags. It was disgusting.
It was sexist. It was classist. It was everything the Democrats and leftists claim to be against.
And so, conservatives started fighting back. Every perceived slight, injustice, denigration, and revealing act of hate was highlighted and pushed into the liberal left’s face. It was galling to see feminist women defend the treatment Sarah Palin received. It was embarrassing, as a woman, that this sort of thing still flew–that women would be reduced to their own worst caricature: catty, vicious, and petty toward other women.
Liberals now wonder why conservatives jump to play the sexism card. Are they kidding? After decades of excoriating men for their piggish ways, after whole reeducation programs at work about what is, and what is not, “appropriate” behavior, these clucking, self-righteous people wonder why their own, politically correct rules are being turned on them now?
And yet, they seem incapable of seeing how Sarah Palin has been savaged in the media. There is a concerted lack of empathy and certainly no such thing as fairness.
The liberals have done more to push back the treatment of women than any conservative man. The cliché is that conservative men are backward, sexist cretins, just one step beyond knuckle-dragging missing links while liberals are enlightened, open, tolerant, loving righteous people. So when liberals engage in rank sexism and then defend the obnoxious behavior, it sets things back for all people trying to be judged for the content of their character.
Liberal men and women have been the sexist police for years. They are the knitting circle ladies waiting for an infraction and smacking the hairy knuckles hard for failing to obey the p.c. rules. But when push comes to shove, they’ll use any method, including demeaning and sexist methods, to achieve their political ends.
Conservatives won’t stop calling liberals on their sexist ways. Why should they? Political correctness is used as a cudgel against conservatives. Every conservative is one “macaca” or Strom Thurmond praising speech away from being banished for life while liberals can spew any vile word and not only be not vilified, but praised for their actions–as long as it’s a conservative who’s on the receiving end of the hate.
Identity politics have a pernicious effect on an achievement culture. People are elevated based on color or ovaries or culture or whatever the p.c. police believe lacks. So more qualified people are looked over in favor of superficial characteristics. This is the world the left has wrought.
Their pique at perceiving Sarah Palin as just such a candidate is really too much. They created identity politics. Now, they can live with the rules they created.
Sexy Sarah Palin: Leftist Sexists At It Yet Again–UPDATED, UPDATED AGAIN
Monday, November 16th, 2009How ribald can you be? Newsweek will show you:
The CBN’s David Brody says:
You’ve got to hand it to the folks at Newsweek. They have accomplished being biased and sexist at the same time. Quite a feat. This cover has got to be a new low right? They don’t use a photo of Palin on the campaign trail. No instead they take the sexy Runners World photo. Yes she posed for it but don’t tell me they didn’t purposely use that photo to make a point? I predict this cover will become a bigger story over the next 24-48 hours and let’s face it. This isn’t JUST about media bias. This cover should be insulting to women politicians. Where’s the sexy photo of Mitt Romney? Why not a picture of Tim Pawlenty with an unbuttoned shirt relaxing on a couch in the Twin Cities?
We see Obama with halos hovering over his head. We see Sarah in running shoes. The whole purpose is to diminish, denigrate and destroy a woman who differs politically.
As if fair-minded Americans needed more evidence of press bias.
Updated:
Sarah Palin responds to the cover from Facebook:
The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this “news” magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner’s World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness – a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention – even if out of context.
- Sarah Palin
After this post got fed to Twitter, I got into an argument with a leftist feminist there about this cover. She brought up Hillary Clinton. She believes that Sarah Palin did this to herself by posing for Runners World. What serious politician or man would pose for that sort of cover?
What serious newsweekly would put a degrading picture, say of Obama frolicking in the surf or Bil and Hill dancing in the sand for the camera, on the cover of a magazine? Only conservative politicians need worry about being portrayed as trivial and sexy (Sarah), mean and old (McCain), mean (Cheney), mean and stupid (GWB). A Democrat gets gravitas-portraying treatment.
Always.
And that’s why conservatives view the press as biased. They don’t even attempt, even feebly, to hide it anymore.
UPDATED AGAIN:
Well, I knew this story had legs. Sorry, couldn’t help myself. Anyway the feminists are coming out against Newsweek. It’s about damn time. It is heartening to see them facing this bias. Women should be evaluated on their content, beliefs and actions. When Sarah Palin is reduced to her legs, the men don’t have to evaluate her on her merit.
Julie Millican of Media Matters [!] says:
There are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticize Sarah Palin, her new book, and her policies, but you don’t have to stoop to sexism to do it. Newsweek’s November 23 issue, however, does just that by publishing on its cover a photo of Palin in short running shorts and a fitted top, leaning against the American flag. Making matters worse is the equally offensive headline Newsweek editors chose to run alongside the photo — “How Do You Solve a Problem like Sarah?” — presumably a reference to the Sound of Music song, “Maria,” in which nuns fret about “how” to “solve a problem like Maria,” a “girl” who “climbs trees” and whose “dress has a tear.”
When will the media stop this degrading nonsense? I think it’s when those within the ranks start holding them accountable. That’s happening, thankfully, at long last.
Genocide In India: The Logical Conclusion When Life Is Devalued
Saturday, November 14th, 2009I’ve written about this before [read here] and received this comment today from Rita Banerji:
I lived in the U.S. for many years and I was and am still pro-choice. Yet, when I returned to India as an adult even my pro-choice mind could not comprehend the absolute horror of the fact that in less than a century India has eliminated more than 50 million women from its population. It is targetted elimination and by definition a genocide. That’s when I started the 50 Million Missing Campaign. Our website is www.50millionmissing.in
And you are absolutely right Melissa. There is a big block in the west regarding female genocide in India. It is not an anti-abortion issue. The Soroptimist International just last week took on this cause. And I hope other feminist and human rights groups will.
More so it is not just about female feticide. There is infanticide, dowry murders, under 5 mortality rate and abortion related MMRs (1 woman every 5 minutes in India). I just published an article for the Australian journal Intersections. Here is the link:
http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue22/banerji.htm
At the link [Go read the whole thing]:
The public reservation, however, is with the actual likelihood of such a mass-scale elimination occurring. Occasionally one reads in Indian papers about baby body parts being found in a well in the compound of some clinic, or a young woman dying of burns under suspicious circumstances due to a supposed kitchen accident, but there is nothing in the news that suggests a blood-bath on the scale of a genocide. To drive home the point to my Rotary audience, I put up on the overhead a two columned table relating to the annual rates of female homicide in India. This slide included the means of elimination, and the estimate for the annual rate for each category.
Table 1. Annual Rates of Female Homicide in India
Female foeticide approximately 1 million[5]
Female infanticide approximately 25000 in the State of Kerala alone[6]
Dowry-related murders approximately 25000[7]
Preadolescent mortality 1 in 6 dies before 15 yrs (CRY)[8]
Mortality rate 40% higher for girls under 5 than boys the same age (UNICEF)[9]
Maternal mortality rate (MMR) 136,000
(1 woman dies every 5 minutes due to pregnancy-related causes) (WHO)[10]# The number one means of elimination I pointed out, is female foetal abortions. An estimated 1 million female foetuses are selectively eliminated in India each year, and that number is expected to rise to 2.5 million within the next few years.[11] Method number two is female infanticide, a practice that has a long history in India. So far there has been no national average estimated for female infanticide, largely because it is difficult to track down with there being no administrative compulsion for citizens to register births. Nevertheless, existent data gives an indication of the scale of the practice. In the state of Kerala, one of India’s most progressive states, with a literacy rate of over 90 per cent, it is estimated that about 25,000 new born girls are killed every year.[12] In other states like Bihar, where the issue of gender bias is plainly discernable, one survey reveals that mid-wives interviewed admitted to being paid to kill almost 50 per cent of the baby girls they delivered.[13] As the number three method of elimination I listed dowry murders, also known as ‘dowry deaths.’ Despite the fact that a majority of dowry-related homicides of young married women in India are never even filed with the police, in the late 1990s it was estimated that at least 25,000 young married women were cold-bloodedly murdered by their husbands and in-laws in dowry extortion cases.[14] That number has continued to rise, as the practice of dowry itself spreads to communities, like tribal groups, that traditionally never had the custom of dowry.
What happens when an evil element of a culture meets up with technology? Genocide.
There is a disconnect for Western women. Because of cultural relativism and their own desire to have the power of life and death over another human, they avert their eyes when the same motivation is used on a grand scale to engage in the most misogynistic of ventures: killing women because men are better (and, in India, cheaper).
But the choice to eliminate a life for gender seems like just one reason among many to have an abortion. 90% of mongoloid children are aborted in America. In America, that child is viewed is dysfunctional, less than, and wrong. In India, women babies are viewed that way. It’s just a different culture. All over the world, people want the “useful”. In India, women aren’t very useful. In America, retarded children aren’t very useful.
At some level, mostly unconscious, Western women know they are little different than their Indian counterparts which is why they stay silent in the face of the biggest female genocide in history.
