Recently in Anti-Feminism Category

Via Media Matters, I see that CNN contributor and RedState editor Erick Erickson was tweeting douchtastic last night.

I'm not going to link to his account, but it seems that the Twitter-feminist bashing has continued into today - complete with hackneyed comments about Birkenstocks, hairiness and having no sense of humor. I'm betting a tweet about castration is well on its way.

Via Feministe.

After all the controversy surrounding Focus on the Family's ad featuring Tim and Pam Tebow - this commercial seems somewhat...well, meh.

Transcript after the jump

Outside of the inexplicable tackling (ha!), this ad doesn't really say much of anything. In fact, it seems like it really just serves to promote Focus on the Family's website - where, of course, you'll find all sorts of anti-choice rhetoric including an interview where Tebow's father speaks about "weeping over the loss of millions of babies in America that were never given a chance."

But really, I have the same question that Jesse does: "[I]f the anti-choice position is so true, so mainstream and so critical to the future of our nation, why did Focus on the Family spend $2.5 million to avoid saying anything whatsoever about it?"

Ah, Rush Limbaugh. Always so charming.

Transcript after the jump.

Thanks to Think Progress, who also point out that Limbaugh held a "Female Summit" to find out how he could "own women."

I'm sure you're well aware of the controversy over CBS' decision to run an anti-choice during the Superbowl. After all, blogs are writing about it non-stop and women's organizations from NOW to the Women's Media Center are organizing against it. 

What you may not know, however, is that CBS has been working with Focus on the Family for months on creating the ad.

Dana Goldstein at The Daily Beast has the story:

"There were discussions about the specific wording of the spot," said Gary Schneeberger, spokesperson for Focus on the Family. "And we came to a compromise. To an agreement." Schneeberger declined to comment on exactly how CBS changed the ad's message.

..."We've worked with [CBS] almost since the beginning," Schneeberger added. "Our senior vice presidents talked to CBS executives throughout the process. It was a very cordial, very professional, fruitful relationship."

CBS declined to comment on the details of its work with Focus on the Family on the Tebow ad, but said such cooperation is not unusual. Abortion rights advocates see it differently. If CBS did vet scripts for the ad, the cooperation is "appalling," said Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women.

So not only is CBS running the ad, they're helping anti-choicers refine their message and vet scripts?!  I wonder how many other of their advertisers get such personal attention.

Johanna Kruppa thinks feminists are too uptight in their denouncement of "nudey pics" in Playboy.

"I think they suffer from lack of knowledge and tunnel vision. How many of those self-important, so-called 'feminists' have been on the set when a celebrity shot a Playboy spread? There you go. What is feminist about discriminating a photo shoot just because it involves female (partial) nudity that happens to give men pleasure? Pathetic," Krupa told Tarts in an exclusive interview.

Well, let me unbunch my panties so I can effectively debunk this idea that feminists are too uptight to see how empowering posing for magazines like, Playboy and Maxim are for women.

Feminists have opposing view points on pornography and other forms of erotic art, that is not a new story, but suggesting that feminists don't get how "empowering" it is to fit into society's standards of able-bodied, white, cis-gendered, thinness, well let's just say we totally get that. I am not saying the act isn't empowering for her, like she said, I wasn't there, but the process that empowers her is embedded in a really specific idea of what a woman should look like and the kind of woman that "turns men on." It is not the function of turning men on that is the sexist part to me, but the unrealistic expectation put on women through the production and proliferation of images like Kruppa's and the corresponding value put on women's bodies through this very same process. And the corresponding sexist vitriol spread in magazines like Maxim. Put a big girl on the cover of Playboy. Just once. Prove me wrong.

What is interesting is that Kruppa combines her criticism of feminists with America's inability to embrace sexuality over violence. She has a point there, it is true that in many ways violence is more acceptable in popular culture than sexuality, but that is not a problem of feminism, that is a function of sexism. Feminism can only make that better.

Related:
Sex and the Simpsons: Marge's Playboy cover

Congratulations Professor Foxy!

As of this morning, Professor Foxy holds an elite, exclusive, and hard-earned membership to the club "Lifesite news targets." I, too, am a member, so I can tell you- she's in for a real treat!

This special membership offers guaranteed access to: having your name misspelled and/or your title incorrectly described; having your words taken out of context; being blatantly misrepresented; having your views on an issue warped and manipulated for the anti-choice agenda; experiencing infuriating condescension from a number of sources; and, my personal favorite, having anti-choice news sites show up at the top of the page when your name is googled. Fun!

:-/

I joke, but for real, I am proud of our very own Professor. My mantra is and continues to be, that you know you're doing something right when you're pissing anti-choicers off.

This is just, wow. I have no words. Ok, that's a lie. I have one word: Bullsh*t. Make that two words: Hilarious bullsh*t.

This website aims to "expose choice as the killer it is".

How, you ask?

Why, by selling T-shirts and bumper stickers with pictures of babies being stabbed by machetes, of course!

But don't worry, that's not the only technique this campaign is using to convince the world of how wrong it is to give women autonomy over their own bodies. They've also created a mascot- That's right folks. Meet Judy, the talking embryo. All she wants is to "get out of here alive." Unfortunately, a machete (the abortionist's tool of choice, don't ya know) enters and puts an end to that dream. The fate of the woman whose cartoon stomach has apparently just been stabbed with a machete is left unclear.

There are a billion things wrong with this picture- the absence of recognition of a woman's personhood being one of them- but the most egregious in my mind is the cheesiness. I mean, as Chloe points out, can we at least have a little creativity? Some alliteration or something? Can I get an Emilia the Embryo?

Additionally, the "testimonies" from the models are hilariously fake, as evidenced by the tiny disclaimer after the fake comments and pics:

"*typical comments from typical young women but not necessarily these models"

Vomit. Next time you're going to launch a campaign against women's autonomy, maybe you should consult some real women first.

Big ups to Audacia Ray for the link.

This is what Barbara Ehrenreich titles her recent opinion piece, addressing the recent study that's given many folks the opportunity to declare that feminism has made women miserable:

This, anyway, seems to be the most popular take-away from "The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness," a recent study by Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers that purports to show that women have become steadily unhappier since 1972. Maureen Dowd and Ariana Huffington greeted the news with somber perplexity, but the more common response has been a triumphant "I told you so!"

On Slate's Double X website, a columnist concluded from the study that "the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s gave us a steady stream of women's complaints disguised as manifestos ... and a brand of female sexual power so promiscuous that it celebrates everything from prostitution to nipple piercing as a feminist act -- in other words, whine, womyn, and thongs." Or as Phyllis Schlafly put it: "The feminist movement taught women to see themselves as victims of an oppressive patriarchy. ... Self-imposed victimhood is not a recipe for happiness."

But it's a little too soon to blame Gloria Steinem for our dependence on antidepressants. Three things need to be pointed out about the Stevenson and Wolfers study: (1) that there are some issues with happiness studies in general; (2) that there are some reasons to doubt this study in particular; and (3) that even if you take this study at face value, it has nothing at all to say about the impact of feminism on anyone's mood.

Read the entire thing.

I've noticed a trend in recent years, for stores like Gap and Old Navy to introduce baggier style jeans for women and call them "Boyfriend" jeans. You know, like you just slipped on a pair of your male lover's pants and look how great they look on you? But let's be clear, you don't actually want to wear men's pants. Since wearing men's clothing might make people think you're a lesbian (which you're obviously not), let's make sure everyone knows you are just trying your boyfriend's jeans on.

Ugh.

I have much more to say about gendered clothing and the difficulties of finding clothes that don't stick strictly to norms about gender, but I have a different issue to take on here.

Apparently boyfriend jeans are not just for adult women anymore. Gap now has "boyfriend" jeans for young girls, all the way down to age 4.

The must-have boyfriend jean with the comfy-cool style you're little fashionista loves, made just for her. Add ballet flats and a soft T for a sweet look, you'll both adore.

Not only do four year olds not need boyfriends, they don't need weird labeling so they can wear baggy jeans, or whatever else Gap thinks these jeans need to labeled for.

I just love it when conservatives get all riled up 'bout little ole us.

Our girl Phyllis Schlafly contended at the conservative conference, "How To Take Back America," this weekend:

I submit to you that the feminist movement is the most dangerous, destructive force in our society today. [...] My analysis is that the gays are about 5% of the attack on marriage in this country, and the feminists are about 95%. [...] I'm talking about drugs, sex, illegitimacy, drop outs, poor grades, run away, suicide, you name it, every social ill comes out of the fatherless home.

She was later presented with the "American Hero of the Century" award, in which Mike Huckabee stood up and said "God bless you - and God bless Phyllis Schlafly most of all."

Via Think Progress.

Cause this email freaked all of us out:

Hi,

My name is Chrissy and I'm a high school guidance counselor. We had some issues in the school last year with a lot of the female students becoming pregnant. That problem, so far, seems to have carried over to this school year. I was doing some research for different ideas and I came across your site: http://feministing.com/archives/006141.html and I noticed you're currently linking to http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/mifepristone/default.htm which doesn't appear to be working. I found some really good info at another site and I thought maybe you'd be interested in linking to that site instead of the broken one. The address is: [redacted anti-choice site with dating url] which is a bit different but has really good information. Thanks again for the info and help I received from your site. I hope you'll also find my suggestion informative and helpful.

Sincerely,

Chrissy Compton

Cree-py.

I was going to write the second part to this post today, but then something else Miriam Grossman-related - something glorious - happened. I found this site.

Sense & Sexuality is a new website (launched today!) by the anti-feminist organization Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute - you may remember them from when they tried to shut down The Vagina Monologues and bring back the hope chest. They also were in our top ten anti-feminists videos!

The site says its a project of the organization's "Center for Women's Health and Sexuality" - though as far as I can tell, no such center exists outside of the website, and all of the content is based on Grossman's work. Specifically, its a spin-off of the booklet Grossman wrote for the organization last year. Remember? It's the one that told us in pink cursive that "the rectum is an exit, not an entrance." (In fact, they already have a blog post dedicated to the topic!)

I think I can safely say this is the biggest piece of crap website on sex I've ever seen. And that's saying a lot. Between the straight up lies and scare tactics (you can get STDs from mutual masturbation, apparently), the sexism, and the hearts making up the DNA strand on the homepage (cause women are just made for love, not sex) - I don't even know where to start.

Well, maybe I do. From the site's "facts" section...

Why girls feel used after hooking up (seriously): "Girls expect emotional involvement almost twice as often as guys; 34% hope "a relationship might evolve." Guys, more than girls, are in part motivated by hopes of improving their social reputation, or of bragging about their exploits to friends the next day."

Why dudes you sleep with won't remember your name: "When it comes to sex, oxytocin, like alcohol, turns red lights green. It plays a major role in what's called "the biochemistry of attachment." Because of it, you could develop feelings for a guy whose last intention is to bond with you. You might think of him all day, but he can't remember your name."

Why young women should put off education and get knocked up as soon as possible: "[T]ypically a student who always put career first, and is finally getting a Ph.D. at 38 or 40. She's thrilled to reach that milestone, but aches for another: to feel a new life inside her, to give birth."

There's even a section on beer goggles. (How scientific!) Oh and if you're looking for resources, you're in for a treat of Grossman's books, articles, and videos. Activism? Have Grossman speak on your campus! Or you can visit their blog, where all you need to know is indicated in the first blog entry's tags: hookup, regret.

Why not just call it Shame & Sexuality and get it over with?

I have to say, nothing gets me writing faster than anti-feminist blogs. Caroline from the Network of Enlightened Women (more on them here) thinks that couple living together is a tremendous destructive force:

I remember when I was in kindergarten and the big tease was "Johnny and Annie sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage!" That is how I always thought it went, love, marriage, baby carriage. Easy as pie. As a college student preparing for the real world, I realize that there are some new steps in the process. Now, the song could be sung , "hookup, move in together, maybe get married when we are 30, baby." Cohabitation, or the Trial Marriage, is causing the disintegration of not only courtship and dating, but also marriage, and ultimately the family.

Actually, Caroline's song perfectly encapsulates my relationship! We met, hooked up, moved in together, and in less than two weeks - at the oh-so-ancient age of 30 - I'm getting married. I guess I have a lifetime of family-destruction to look forward to!

Caroline, who conveniently forgets that a good portion of the couples in America have no choice but to cohabitate, also writes that "there are very few redeeming qualities of the cohabitation movement." (Who knew I was part of a movement?!)

This leads me to question, why would we want to train for divorce? Why would we want to bring children into a home that is unstable and designed for failure? And, why would be want to engage in something that causes us to have a poisoned view of the opposite sex?

I have one more question to add: Seriously?

But perhaps even better is the original article that sparked NeW's blog post, Michael Gerson's "The Relationship Wasteland." Gerson's piece, which bemoans all the slutty kids living together, hits all the right moral panic notes. (Take a drink when you see these words: spring break, fragile hearts, courtship, cold showers) While you check it out, I'm going to go count the number of STDs I've supposedly transmitted from keeping my ring finger bare through my twenties.

Feminist backlash: Better than spinach!

Via Wendy Norris at RH Reality Check, we find out that the Christian conservative think tank Family Research Council wants dudes to be more manly. Apparently, the way men become more manly is by fighting back against feminism.

According to the seminar description on "The New Masculinity," Pat Fagan, senior fellow and director of FRC's Center for Family and Religion, will discuss how "feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new 'masculinism' right."

What always strikes me as odd about conservative discussions of masculinity is how closely they're tied with feminism and a fear of all things 'woman'. As if the only way to be a "man" is to not be a woman. This oppositional definition of masculinity not only seems to give men a pretty short shrift, but also just furthers misogyny. (It reminds me a lot of Stephen Ducat's great book, The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity and its discussion of femiphobia.)

Seriously, why is it that conservative masculinity is completely dependent on misogyny and keeping women in their supposed place? How many purity balls, dates with Dad and anti-feminism diatribes does one need before you feel like a "man"?

NPR and the Associated Press are reporting that Operation Rescue may be completely out of funds and in danger of closing.

Don't remember Operation Rescue? They are the scary anti-choice organization, who've been linked to a number of violent anti-choicers, including the man who killed Dr. Tiller. From NPR:

Roeder, who is charged with shooting Tiller during a Sunday morning church service, had the name and number of an Operation Rescue adviser in his car.

Operation Rescue also has had the gall to offer to buy Dr. Tiller's clinic after it was closed. Obviously that isn't going to happen with their current financial situation.

Randall Terry, the founder of the organization, also is responsible for a few scary and violence provoking stunts, including the "Defeat Sotomayor Tour."

The current head of the organization, Troy Newman, who told the AP he hasn't been paid in two months, was at the Tea Party Protests this weekend in DC, according to the organization's website.

While admitting that donations are down 30-40%, Newman didn't offer reasons as to why the organization has lost support. I would hope that links to something as horrific as the murder of Dr. Tiller would encourage those who are pro-life but do not support violence to take their dollars elsewhere. The group also lost their non-profit status in 2004, which may be impacting their fundraising.

This latest email is from an admirer who has all the answers as to why I'm a feminist. He also has some interesting questions. (A question of my own: Why is it that I have yet to meet a misogynist who can write an understandable sentence?)

To Jessica, I think your into feminism because your boyfriend dumped you when you least expected it. Maybe you thought that you were his gift from heaven ? Between you and me the girls today are far more maturer than they were 15-20 years ago at the height of feminism. Anyway your wrong, this feminism you preach is all about the same old thing and thats hatred towards men, which works well if your a lesbian. But as in all things what comes around goes around. But will you want what you will get ?

Deep questions indeed: Will I want what I'll get? Am I gift from heaven? (The answer to that one is obvious - yes, naturally.) All I know is that I'm so incredibly grateful that random dudes care enough to take the time to email me with these existential conundrums. Nothing but love for you, guys!

This is too good. Robert McDonnell, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia, wrote a Master's thesis calling working women and feminists "detrimental" to the family. Wait, it gets better.

He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators." He described as "illogical" a 1972 Supreme Court decision legalizing the use of contraception by unmarried couples.

Via TPM.

So true....ladies.

You know an article is going to be blogging gold when it starts off like this:

As our society abandons the conservative values that make women into ladies, women with grace and dignity have become an endangered species--especially on today's college campuses. The kind of woman who inspired Tom Jones' song "She's a Lady" has become an antiquated figure from America's past.

Oh yes, Eva Lorraine Molina at Townhall wants us to know that she's no liberal whorebag - and she wishes conservative women would stop acting like us sex-crazed feminists, too!

The feminist movement's war on conservatism in America has killed chivalry and trained too many women to think and act like men. As a result, many young conservative women do not know what it means to be a lady.

But don't worry, Molina is here to tell us exactly what being a "lady" entails.

A lady does not tell dirty jokes along with men and she does not tolerate men telling dirty jokes in her presence. She does not swear, and she is not considered "one of the guys." In spite of new fashion trends, a lady always dresses appropriately, leaving a lot to the imagination. When at a social gathering, a lady does not do things she will regret the next day. Above all, a lady is well-mannered, dignified, gracious, and kind.

Sounds fun. But what's particularly telling about Molina's idealized notion of being a "lady" is that it's directly related to whether or not men will find you marriageable - since getting hitched is the ultimate goal of all ladies, of course.

I have heard many of my male peers place women into three categories: "the ones to mess around with, the ones to date, and the ones to marry." Though this is a rather crude way of categorizing women, it shows that men do recognize and value the qualities that make a woman a lady.

No, it shows that your guy friends are assholes. Big ones.

Ladies are the kind of women that men can take home to Mom and Dad and that most men want to marry. Being considered "marriage material" is an indicator that a woman is to be respected; most men who deem a woman as such treat her with the utmost respect. For men, ladies are at the top of the female totem pole, and conservative women need to take pride in the fact that they are worthy of time, love, and commitment.

Article-skewering aside, this just made me sad. Too many women think that their worth is completely based on what guys feel about them - whether or not they're considered fuckable, dateable, marriageable, etc, makes a lot of women feel valuable. It's all bullshit. And while I feel compassion for Molina - because it can't be fun to think of yourself that way - it irritates me to no end when women perpetuate this crap. Though I suppose I shouldn't be shocked, considering Molina is an intern with the anti-feminist, pro-hope chest, anti-rectum-misuse (seriously) Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

So I think I'll continue to curse, tell dirty jokes, try things that I may regret and keep company with women who do the same. Because at the end of the day, me and my ladies know that all people are deserving of respect - not just the ones who fall in line with antiquated sexist stereotypes.

It's that time again! This particular emailer was a bit late to the hating - he's pissed about a video I made some time ago - one that prompted an Anonymous attack on the site and myself - that calls out online misogynists for hiding behind their anonymity. (Shockingly, this hate-emailer did not provide me with his real name or information.)

Mr. Late-to-the-Party goes off on the usual rant, calling me a hypocrite who is afraid of the "truth being exposed about feminism" because I disabled comments on the video. (He's right, if you all were able to see users talking about hate fucking me and telling me to "make a sammich," the tenets of feminism would come crumbling down around us.)

He also, of course, kindly elaborates on why feminism is losing influence because of brave dudes like himself. It was this little snippet, however, that I really liked:

A woman's youth and beauty is her greatest asset, because it can determine access to wealth, education, employment, etc. So enjoy what you can while you are young because time is the greatest enemy of the female, and the greatest ally of the man. 10 years from now when you are 20 pounds heavier and less attractive in the face, you will wither away like all the rest.

Justice, fairness, and real truth will prevail over feminism in the end!

Frankly, my biggest fear - other than my nemesis "time," of course - is being less attractive in the elbow. Once my sharp gorgeous joints lose their beauty, I know that I'm fucked. (Seriously, I will be laughing over "less attractive in the face" for the rest of the day. I hope you'll join me.)

A very common right-wing anti-feminist argument is that women in the United States need to STFU and be happy we have it as good as we do, because we could be in *insert so-and-so 3rd world barbaric country* where we would really be treated badly. It is the old one two, first asserting that women have nothing to fight for in the States so, "quit yer bitchin" and second, that we are better than other countries, less barbaric, more civilized, etc. It is an old and tired attack, but unfortunately, sometimes it works.

Bob Herbert's Op-Ed from last week rightfully discussed the idea that in the United States we live in a culture of misogyny.

I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women -- not so much of an uproar.

According to police accounts, Sodini walked into a dance-aerobics class of about 30 women who were being led by a pregnant instructor. He turned out the lights and opened fire. The instructor was among the wounded.

We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.

We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation's entertainment.

To much surprise, Double X ran a piece by Anne Applebaum in protest to this idea of a culture of misogyny and I think it speaks to some of the arguments that feminists have been trying to make with regard to cultural appropriation, relativism and clear ignorance to the role of US backed mis-treatment of women, world-wide.

Herbert's thesis echoes the drumbeat of self-pity that has been coming out of paleo-feminist groups and women's studies departments for decades: America, in their view, is a country where "barbaric treatment of women has come to be more accepted," where we are all so inured to the victimization of the female half of the population that we don't even notice it anymore. Presumably because he is unable to prove this ludicrous proposition in any other way, Herbert uses the case of a single, certifiably insane mass-murderer to argue that all of American culture is anti-woman. The implication: All American men are, deep down, in sympathy with this crazed killer, thanks to our mass media that denigrates women, etc.

I realize Applebaum is blinded by her patriotic lust for the United States (after all, that is her wrapped in an American flag isn't it?), but I think it is clear that for her the US is a safe-haven. As in for her and other people like her, that don't live in poverty, are white, haven't been victim of nefarious immigration policy, the prison industrial complex, homophobia or lack of access to health care and/or reproductive rights. Right, for her, the US is a safe-haven and if you keep yapping, she thinks you should go to Iran so you can see what it is really like to not have rights. Perhaps she needs a crash course on what not to say about Muslim women and I wonder if that is what the feminists in Iran are thinking, who have explicitly defined a feminist movement for themselves outside of the purvey of the Western gaze as have many feminist movements around the world, but I digress. (Oh yeah, and doesn't Germany have a female president?)

In academia, there has been a move in studying women around the world from a relativist approach to one that is relational and understands that based on where someone is and what community they are part of, they experience life and therefore misogyny differently. It is a useful exercise and informs activism to the sense that, we can only work within what we know, for when we try and work elsewhere, it is our agenda that is put forth. It is step one in any type of effective coalition building across difference.

So while we may sometimes have the urge to suggest that we have it better here, what I consider better and what you consider better might be two different things. Applebaum and I have seen a different America, and that difference rests in who we are and what communities we have been part of her. As someone who studies the ways that patriarchy functions in the United States and as someone who is a woman of color in the United States born to immigrants that have struggled through sexism, racism and poverty, Herbert's point resonates clearly for me. Frankly, I don't really need to have had this experience to agree with Herbert says, since the evidence is so clear, but I can't deny standpoint.

I suppose, when you are functioning in a frame of fear and don't want to assess the level at which patriarchy afflicts life in the United States, it is much more comforting to suggest that Sodini's act was not informed by his hatred for women, as Jessica put it yesterday. But since so much evidence has come out to the contrary, it is hard to deny, that there is a relationship between misogyny and his deplorable act.

If we are to build any type of feminist movement and/or stop violence against women we have to acknowledge the ways that misogyny produces hatred towards women and the role the media, popular culture and the government have in it. We have to structurally recognize the way that misogyny plays out in day to day life in the United States and what that looks like here, may be different than what it looks like somewhere else, but the implications are relationally unjust.

As you all know, we get tons of charming email - one I got this weekend, for example was just "fuck you" copied and pasted three hundred or so times. (You at least have to give him credit for staying on message!) But it was this recent email that I really enjoyed from ellie8d:

Please don't have children. The world already has too many hate filled people.

My husband always said, "Even the most beautiful woman becomes very ugly when she uses vulgar words." I couldn't agree more.

OMG. Are you calling me 'beautiful'?! Swoon!

Seriously though, I love emails like these even more than our standard "fuck you cunt" messages because their authors seem to believe that they're actually good people just passing on friendly advice. (As if sending a perfect stranger an email telling them not to procreate because they curse too much is a perfectly normal thing to do.)

If you're out there, Ellie, I just want you to know that I'm going to start having unprotected sex - lots of it - just for you. Cheers!

Via Media Matters, I wasn't shocked to find that Rush Limbaugh was happy to mock the White House appointment of Adviser on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal, but felt it necessary to point out his thoughts on what one who occupies the appointment would advise: "Put some ice on it."

It's a domestic violence adviser. What the hell kind of advice are you gonna get? About the only kind of advice - I mean we're talking about democrats here, right? We're talking about the party of Bill Clinton. So I assume If you're going to have a domestic policy adviser, the advice you're gonna get - put some ice on it. Your lip's a little bleeding and swollen - put some ice on it, as you leave the swanky motel room.

Domestic violence, domestic policy, same shit. Read the whole transcript after the jump; his complete inability to make sense shines through.

Note: A reader pointed out that this comment was meant to be a reference to Bill Clinton's allegation of rape against Juanita Broderick, in which in her story, she said Clinton told her to put ice on her swollen lip after the alleged attack.

Back in the good old days when no one - we swear! - had pre-marital sex.

I'm used to seeing moral panic "hook up" stories on Good Morning America (Is Oral Sex the New Goodnight Kiss?!) and Newsweek, but NPR?!

Sex Without Intimacy: No Dating, No Relationships

The hookup -- that meeting and mating ritual that started among high school and college students -- is becoming a trend among young people who have entered the workaday world. For the many who are delaying the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing, hooking up has virtually replaced dating.

Here we go. Shit, there's even the obligatory Sex and the City reference! The radio segment takes a more complex perspective, of course, than your run-of-the-mill sex scare stories. But I was still disappointed to see the myth that young folks only just started having pre-marital funtime perpetuated by NPR.

As I've written before, 95% of Americans have premarital sex, and this has been true for decades. Even for women who were born in the 1940s, nine out of ten had sex before marriage. This is not something new, it doesn't come from the internet or texting (sorry, sexting!). What was also irritating is this thinly-veiled fear that young people are waiting too long to get married (the article is accompanied by marriage rate graphs) - yet another anti-feminist talking point.

But what struck me the most about the article that accompanied the radio segment was the poll they had at the end:

Talk about removing nuance from sexuality! As if "hooking up" was some sort of monolith. I imagine people's sexual experiences run the gamut from "fun" to "degrading" to - gasp! - feelings not easily explained by an online poll.

Related posts: Moral panic visualized
Girls aren't "going wild" after all
Spitting Game: A film about "hook up" culture
What's wrong with casual sex?

You know you're in for a treat when you see this headline! Not that I expect anything less ridiculous from the Daily Mail, but this one was just too good not to post about.

"Reporter" Neil Lyndon regurgitates all of our favorite misogynist standards, from feminism making women miserable to barely concealed rage against women who have the audacity to want equality.

Despite sexual and marital liberation, massively increased career opportunities and earning power, educational privileges and the wholesale demolition of the inhibiting conventions that restricted the lives of women in the past, today's women report themselves as feeling a low sense 'of life satisfaction and well-being'.

Well, men might be entitled to retort, welcome to the real world, sweethearts.

What you are complaining about is the very same life that you promoted and celebrated when you were swanking around chanting 'sisters are doing it for themselves'.

But perhaps what's better than Lyndon's own tripe, is the oh-so-telling accompanying art and content alongside the article.

In the middle of the piece, here are a couple of the related stories:

Why are women so horrible to each other?

Men told secret to a longer life is marrying a younger woman, but wives with toyboy husbands are MORE likely to die early

But my favorite is the picture of a man getting his head smashed in by a woman's high heel with this caption: "The selfish, conceited, man-despising yet predatory 'have-it-all' feminism of the Cosmopolitans was always a recipe for insupportable burdens for women."

The fear practically drips off the page; it's awesome. (I imagine Lyndon waking up every night in a cold sweat because of a reoccurring vagina dentata nightmare.) The thing is, pieces like this don't make me mad any more - they light a fire under my ass. Because they serve as yet another reminder of why the work feminists are doing is just so damn important. So thanks, "sweetheart," for the motivation; it's much appreciated.

Dr. Tiller's clinic in Wichita, Kansas has been shut down according to his family.

"The family of Dr. George Tiller announces that effective immediately, Women's Health Care Services, Inc., will be permanently closed," according to a statement issued on Tuesday morning by the family's lawyers. "Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic."

This is awful. And can someone explain to me why the NYTimes is so concerned about where all these murdering pro-life "activists" will go? I didn't realize that by balanced coverage we were going to highlight terrorist organizations as having a legitimate mission and goals.

Thanks to commenter Jovan1984 for the heads up.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to see this headline: "Sex, drink and fashion. Is this the new face of American feminism?"*

After all, if there's anything the mainstream media loves, it's painting feminists - specifically young feminists - as vapid and sex-crazed. (See here, here, here, here and here.)

While I'm tempted to weigh in on this particular article and the many ways in which it got things wrong - especially since it touches on something I blogged about recently - I think there's a larger issue that's more important to get at. (Though damn it's hard not to say anything about the piece - especially the 6 bullet points at the end. Wow.)

There's a reason that the mainstream media continually covers young feminists in this way. Backlash is part of it, of course: framing feminism as a perpetual catfight or a watered down movement based on drinking and fucking is a great way to dismiss it. But it's also indicative of a media that has no interest in nuance or truthfulness when it comes to covering women.

When I read this latest article, I was reminded of something I wrote in The Purity Myth about the moral panic wackiness surrounding young women's sexuality:

The fact is, focusing on hyped-up problems that sell newspapers and titillate the imagination make it that much easier to ignore actual problems young women are facing, issues that take a lot more than a moral scolding to fix. For a young woman living in poverty, spring break isn't even an option, let alone a concern. For a young woman who has no health insurance, the "moral" debate over STIs won't do anything for her the next time she needs to see a doctor. And for a young single mother, hearing about herself as an unfortunate statistic isn't going to make her life any better or easier.

The same could be said about the media's feminism problem. Salacious headlines about feminists-gone-wild not only sell newspapers - they also make it that much easier for people to ignore actual feminist work that's being done. When was the last time you saw an article about youth organizations like the Pro-Choice Education Project, or feminist media like Shameless? Have you ever seen a mainstream media profile on any of the women here? Of course not. Because focusing on the truth of what feminists activists and media makers are up to would mean portraying women as thoughtful, socially engaged citizens. (Wouldn't that be ridiculous!) It just doesn't jibe with how America wants to see women, especially young women; they'd prefer to think we're all nekkid, drunk and stupid.

Now, I don't fool myself into thinking that this media narrative about feminists (or women) is going anywhere anytime soon. But that doesn't mean we can't do anything about it. When you see an article that relies on bullshit stereotypes about feminism, inundate the reporter with links to profiles of young feminists and youth-led organizations. Show them what feminism really is.

*Full disclosure: The reporter who wrote this piece contacted me via email for an interview, I didn't have the time to respond. (And now I'm really glad that I didn't!)

I really want to like Slate's newly launched "women's"* website Double X. They have some great writers and contributors on board, so I was stoked for the site's launch. And then...not so much.

Why? Well, let's take a look at the headlining pieces that the magazine chose to kick off with:

Whine, Womyn, and Thongs: How feminism has failed.

What's the Problem Now? Feminism's Dilemmas

Yes, Virginia, Feminism Really Is Dead.

and the slightly more optimistic...

How I Got Bored With Feminism: And why it still matters.

Oh, and the quote of the day? "'Feminism' had come to seem, well...just the teeniest bit tiresome." - Terry Castle

It seems my excitement was a bit premature! Here I thought that Double X might be a site for forward-thinking conversation about feminism and women's issues - alas, it's just a sounding board for warmed-over stereotypes and an oh-so-tired "those darn kids" take on younger women.

But what's even stranger to me than a supposedly progressive site for women that relies on hackneyed anti-feminist pieces is the response to criticisms of the site. Susannah Breslin writes:

Apparently, if you launch a website for women in 2009, the most important question is whether or not it's feminist. At least, that's what you'd think, judging by today's launch of the women-oriented website you're reading. Only, the funny thing is, I thought feminism was dead. I mean, didn't we kill it already?

Breslin, who calls feminism "cultural road kill," takes issue with the fact that recent criticisms of Double X assume that "the only way to judge a female-oriented site is by whether or not it's 'feminist.'"

Get over it. Get on with it. I hope the feminist mantle doesn't fit Double X. I hope this site is bigger than that.

Um, okay. But perhaps if you don't want folks to talk about your site using a feminist lens, you shouldn't launch said site with a series of posts asking writers to reflect on Betty-frigging-Friedan. Sorry, you don't get to publish a handful of feminism-is-in-the-crapper articles and then expect the responses and critiques to ignore feminism.

Who's smirkin' now, sucka?

Remember the anti-feminist lawyer who was suing Columbia for offering Women's Studies courses because, according to him, it's discriminatory towards men? His case (not surprisingly) was thrown out last week by a Manhattan judge.

This is not the only case Roy Den Hollander has pursued; he's also filed lawsuits against clubs that offer Ladies Nights (because of course that's feminism's doing?), and is pretty blatant in the acknowledgment that his sole purpose in life is working against the evil feminist machine, saying:

"What I'm trying to do now in my later years is fight everybody who violates my rights... the Feminazis have infiltrated institutions, and there's been a transfer of rights from guys to girls."

Holy eloquence. Is this dude really a lawyer? Also not surprisingly, when the judge dismissed his suit, Hollander "assailed the judge as [insert gasp] a feminist" and claimed that "[w]hen it comes to men's rights, judges act with an arrogance of power, ignorance of the law, and fear of the feminists."

There are too many contradictions there even worth repeating, but regardless you better be careful - that kind of talk may not bode well with The Feminists...

Binary gender systems are constructed. They rely on the repetition of dominant narratives via psychology, music, popular culture, film and of course children's books. This gem comes from a children's book called, "I'm Glad I'm a Boy! I'm Glad I'm a Girl! It is from the 1950's and I almost appreciate how blatantly obvious it is, since there is no question what it is trying to do. Gender-based messaging is much more subtle and nuanced these days.

You can see the whole book here. I am very glad no one read this book to me as a child, I probably would have set it on fire.

Whenever I see vintage sexism now all I can think of is Mad Men.

I was on the Laura Ingraham show yesterday morning to talk about The Purity Myth; it was a trip. One listener even called in to say that I was just pissed about not being a virgin anymore so I wrote the book to spread my sluttitude around. It was awesome.

If you want to listen (and check out my brand spanking new website!), click here.

I mean, I could have told you that. But not because I think that women are what ruined the country, specifically women's right to vote. Peter Thiel a very rich silicon valley libertarian who used to be the CEO of Paypal and is currently one of the main investors at Facebook. He has put forth an essay that suggests that women are in fact who ruined our country. Or at least women's right to speak for themselves and not vote like their husbands tell them to.

In his essay at the Cato Institute blog he writes (excerpted by Valleywag),

The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women - two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians - have rendered the notion of "capitalist democracy" into an oxymoron.

I guess he didn't get the memo. Women and gays are supposed to be friends!

As someone who is often called an aggressive driver, I take personal offense to this stupid piece via Yahoo News Canada in the "car research" section listing 10 inarticulate and sexist reasons women supposedly can't drive. The piece is from Askmen.com, which means it is actually not humor, even if to us that website is hilarious since it is drenched in the cowardly spirit of men that are afraid of vagina.

One of the reasons women can't drive,

No.4 - They have no interest in cars

Another reason women can't drive is a matter of interest -- or rather, a lack thereof. You can't do well at something when your give-a-damn meter reads zero point zero. Women have no interest in cars beyond them serving as appliances of transport. As long as it starts, all is well. So when dash lights flash, components make ugly sounds or smoke appears, it may or may not resonate with the female driver that these are less than ideal operating characteristics.

Right, just like women don't like trains, airplanes, computers and any other modern technological marvel that helps us get somewhere.

Joking aside, I do think there is something to be said about women feeling secure in their driving abilities, since they are told that they are bad drivers and that driving is a manly thing to do. One of the first things you internalize when coming of age as a teenager is that women (along with some ethnic groups) are not good drivers.

Before we start the convo with, "but women really don't have depth perception" I know some really really good female drivers that are aggressive, confident and rarely if ever get lost or in accidents. So, based on my own empirical evidence and recognition of the sexist expectation that women aren't as good of drivers, I call bullshit on the premise of this article. Shame on Yahoo Canada for running such a sexist piece of crap.

This is rich. Mark Regnerus at The Washington Post argues that people shouldn't wait long to get married. And by people, he means women.

Marriage will be there for men when they're ready. And most do get there. Eventually. But according to social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs, women's "market value" declines steadily as they age, while men's tends to rise in step with their growing resources (that is, money and maturation). Countless studies -- and endless anecdotes -- reinforce their conclusion. Meanwhile, women's fertility is more or less fixed, yet they largely suppress it during their 20s -- their most fertile years -- only to have to beg, pray, borrow and pay to reclaim it in their 30s and 40s.

Countless studies? Endless anecdotes? Well color me convinced. *Eye roll*

I guess telling women that they better stop with all that work nonsense and get to the baby-making never gets old for some people.

Regnerus, author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers, is also miffed that the age difference between couples is closing:

The age gap between spouses is narrowing: Marrying men and women were separated by an average of more than four years in 1890 and about 2.5 years in 1960. Now that figure stands at less than two years.

...Most young women are mature enough to handle marriage. According to data from the government's National Survey of Family Growth, women who marry at 18 have a better shot at making a marriage work than men who marry at 21. There is wisdom in having an age gap between spouses. For women, age is (unfortunately) a debit, decreasing fertility. For men, age can be a credit, increasing their access to resources and improving their maturity, thus making them more attractive to women.

I have to say, outside of how problematic the anecdotes and sweeping generalizations are, this article simply skeeves me out.

An AP reporter received an email from an Amazon's director of corporate communications saying that "there was a glitch in our systems and it's being fixed." A glitch that's been there since February?

This is an update from the story that developed over the weekend about Amazon identifying LGBT books and more (for example, feminist books like Jessica's Full Frontal Feminism) as "adult" and therefore deranked on the website. This is not to mention the fact that (hetero)sexually explicit books like Ron Jeremy's autobiography weren't deranked, while Ellen Degeneres' autobiography was.

tehdely has an interesting take on the situation; I agree that it seems hard to believe that the company is simply being run by Christian fundamentalists. But we do know one thing; there is anti-queer, ant-feminist motivation behind this and Amazon has got to step the fuck up. Craig Seymor even pointed out the problem to them in February and it's only now, when folks are up in arms, that they're taking action on this. Not okay.

Deanna has more.

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Dear Professor Foxy
I have seen a lot of feminist commentary that suggests "faking it" in bed is one of the most inherently anti-feminist acts a woman can do. Faking it is wrong, it is selling yourself short, it is depriving you of your right to a real orgasm and giving in to the perception that men shouldn't ever feel emasculated.

I've faked it before, and I'll do it again. And I guess for clarity's sake I'll explain what I mean by faking. I'm talking just about orgasms. Not faking the whole act, not moaning and groaning when secretly I hate or am uninterested in what's going on. I'm only talking about the occasions where both he and I have put in a good long effort trying to get me to cum, and then eventually getting to a point where I realize it's not going to happen, so I throw in a couple orgasmic cries or grunts or whatever so that he thinks I'm "done." With past boyfriends, I've faked it a lot more often than I do now. One of my exes probably thinks I came every time we had sex when in reality I probably only came twice in the year we dated.

And I refuse to be like that anymore. I've learned that communication in sex is more important than lying, or else I just won't want sex. And this current boyfriend is different. Most of the time, for one thing, I do cum when we fool around; we have a very strong sexual chemistry. But sometimes I don't have orgasms, and I know that's just a part of life, it doesn't bother me. And in fact, my boyfriend understands that. He knows sometimes it just ain't gonna happen and that doesn't mean the sex was bad or that he failed me or that I didn't enjoy it. Sex is about the process for me, not the result, and orgasms are just the icing on the cake. I love that my new boyfriend understands that. So most of the time, when I don't cum, I just say "OK, it's not gonna happen," he accepts it. Which, of course, makes it even easier for me to actually cum! I love our no-stress sex life.

But every once in awhile, I still fake it. Usually because I can sense something in him that cares a little more than usual. I just mean that sometimes you just lie a little to make someone else feel good. Is that really so wrong?

I know a lot of feminists generally abhor faking orgasms--I've certainly seen lots of comments that would suggest it on this website alone--but I really don't see how wanting my partner to feel good has anything to do with patriarchy. It has to do with my love for him. It's not about submitting or feeling unworthy of sexual pleasure; if it was about that, I would fake it every time I don't cum, and I really only do it very rarely. I don't think I have to cum or that there's anything wrong with me for not cumming. It's just about the particular moment, the particular feeling, the particular situation that is generally more complicated and invested with emotion than most commentary that says "faking it is bad!" can express. And basically what I want to know, is why others insist on making me feel guilty about it? Should I be?

Sincerely,
Proud Woman

Hi Proud Woman -
One thing that has been confirmed for me since beginning this column is that there is no monolithic feminist thought. It has been quite lovely.

This feminist is ok with the occasional faking. Our partners, regardless of gender, have egos. And many people have the desire to keep their partner's ego intact. However, we cannot divorce this from the fact that women are socialized to please, to make sure that everyone else is comfortable and happy, and that often women will do these things at the expense of their own happiness (and orgasm). Men and women do a lot of things to make their partners feel loved and supported. I think we all need to find our own line between taking care of our partners and losing ourselves in the socialized desire to please.

But there are some pretty large caveats to faking, even occasional faking. You seem like you have moved to a good place with sex, which means, for you, occasionally faking and a lot of honesty. The larger issue is that many, many women fake often and without thought, this is not a good thing. Consistent faking arises from a combination of factors: the aforementioned need to please, a fear of asking for what we want sexually lest we be judged, how regularly women judge and censor themselves, a lack of knowledge of our bodies and a fear of exploring them. I am ok with faking if you have thoroughly dealt with all of these things.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked by women is "why have I never had an orgasm?" My first response is always "do you masturbate?" How can we expect our partners to please us if we do not even know how to please ourselves?

And in these cases as you said "Faking it is wrong, it is selling yourself short, it is depriving you of your right to a real orgasm and giving in to the perception that men shouldn't ever feel emasculated."

The last part I want to address is people trying to make you feel guilty. Only you control your feelings, others can't make you feel things. If you don't feel guilty, no issue. If you do feel guilty, examine it.

As always, if you have a question for me, please send it to professorfoxy@feministing.com. Thanks!

My favorite line: "Do you want a vagina full of AIDS?!" (Also, is it wrong that it totally annoys me that this dude has the same drinking glasses - I'm sorry, vaginas - I do?)

But that video doesn't hold a candle to this: "Why it is okay for sex to hurt the vagina." Yes, that's right.

Earlier this week I posted a video of speaker Karen Shablin and wrote about the anti-feminism that is Feminists for Life. Then I came across this article from Cornell's student newspaper that further demonstrates how out-of-touch and dishonest anti-choicers are.

Shablin seems to have given the same talk that she did in the video, but this quote stuck out to me:

"We all know college students have sex, so there's no reason why there are no children. Where are the children?" she questioned. "College educated and college age women have the highest rates of abortion," she said.

Apparently it didn't occur to Shablin that college students may be using contraception, and that's why there are "no children." Of course, the folks at Feminists for Life (and other anti-choice organizations) tend to think of birth control as abortion, so perhaps Shablin knew exactly what she was saying.

Either way, I'm pretty tired of people who want to limit women's rights appropriating feminist rhetoric. You want to criminalize abortion? Make birth control illegal and put an end to any sex that isn't straight, married and procreative? Fine, but at least be honest about it.

For serious. I know I'm late on this one, but I just had to write something. (And no, it's not because the article is from the same woman who called me a "bridezilla" for daring to question wedding culture.)

Behold the wisdom of Kathryn Lopez:

According to an article in the Boston Globe, an informal poll taken among 200 teenagers has revealed that almost half of them blame the pop star Rihanna for her recent beating, allegedly by her boyfriend, Chris Brown.

It's just one survey. But it's very bad news. And feminists are to blame.

...What has happened -- and what Rihanna and Chris have to do with Gloria [Steinem] and us -- is that by inventing oppression where there is none and remaking woman in man's image, as the sexual and feminist revolutions have done, we've confused everyone. The reaction those kids had was unnatural. It's natural for us to expect men to protect women, and for women to expect some level of physical protection. But in post-modern America, those natural gender roles have been beaten by academics and political rhetoric and the occasional modern woman being offended by having a door opened for her. The result is confusion.

Right, we're just confused by all that equality - it's clouding our ladybrains! Plus, everyone knows that women were never ever blamed for the violence done to them before feminists came around. Sigh.

Seriously? I mean...seriously?

Mother Jones blogger and columnist Debra Dickerson, responding to the NYT piece on the future of abortion providers, writes that young feminists should "blog less and work more." Ya know, because young women don't actually do anything. (Ahem.)

But you young chicks maybe need to go the Northern Exposure route, sending folks to med school in exchange for a few years running an abortion clinic. That feminist fire in the belly? I gotta say: Pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives ain't exactly what we previous generations thought feminism was. We thought it was about taking it to the streets.

Yeah, taking it to the streets is something young feminists never do.

Dickerson seems to have a penchant for calling young feminists "pole dancers" and "chicks", so I'm loathe to take her too seriously...but there is something so infuriating about someone with a progressive platform like Mother Jones promoting the most hackneyed stereotypes of young feminists and young women. (Courtney via email has two questions for Debra: How many abortions have you provided? And do you know any young women?)

Harsh, you say? Uninformed? OK. Tell me exactly what today's feminists are doing for the struggle.

I think maybe we should tell her. Please go comment at MoJo and tell Dickerson what young feminists are really like. (Couldn't find her email address...)

Related: Elisabeth Garber-Paul at RH Reality Check also weighs in.

Check out this fascinating essay from the latest issue of Mother Jones on the Christian patriarchy movement. And excerpt:

...the movement offers a "separate but equal" division of duties and authority. Men, the embodiment of Christ, are the breadwinners and spiritual leaders in worship, decision making, finances, and sex. Women, representing the church, are encouragers, "completers," and helpmeets, bound to transform the culture by example and to sacrifice in God's honor.

Reaching this austere conviction via shared women's study is a process that oddly parallels the protofeminist consciousness-raising groups of the '60s and '70s, in which women recognized their common complaints as part of a larger pattern of oppression. Gloria Steinem called those groups "the primary way women discover that we are not crazy, the system is." But the Titus 2 message is precisely the opposite: The Lord's system is righteous, ungrateful feelings are sins to be surmounted, and feminist rebellion is a cultural scourge to be eradicated. The radical leap taken by Titus 2 women is unconditional surrender--an army of Phyllis Schlaflys, fighting for their own subordination based on the promise that the meek shall inherit the Earth. "It is a revolution that will take place on our knees," writes author and Peace's contemporary Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Whoa. I've already ordered Kathryn Joyce's new book, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement from Beacon Press and plan on reviewing it soon!

If you're in New York, you can see Joyce read from her book at Bluestockings on March 10 and at the Flying Saucer (along with Michelle Goldberg and Jennifer Baumgardner) on March 31. Check out our events calendar for more details.

Earlier this week, I was in Virgina speaking at Emory & Henry College at the school's winter forum - it was a day-long group of discussions on gender and sexuality. This talk was different than others I've done - generally I speak about Feministing and my writing. But the organizers at E&H wanted me to speak about the so-called hook up culture on college campuses, and they wanted me to have a "discussion" (a debate) with this woman, Elizabeth Marquardt. (I actually felt very odd about debating Marquardt because she was so damn nice and friendly - I don't know that I'm cut out for this kind of thing. More on this in an upcoming post...)

In any case, I had a lot of fun with the talk, because a lot of it related back to the work I did for The Purity Myth. So on the chance that anyone gives a shit, I thought I'd repost my speech here...dirty jokes not included.

I am absolutely loving the headlines in conservative news as of late. While one might humorously appreciate Men's News Daily's contention that "women made Obama," feminists have apparently turned him into our money puppet while taking control of the world. That's one thing I'll always be fond of from the MRAs - their habit of giving feminists way too much credit. Only if!

Line of the day: "Barack Obama appears to be one with the feminist privilege machine." Sweet.

Within about five minutes of my appearance on O'Reilly airing last night, my inbox was flooded with all manner of baseless criticism and colorful commentary. I thought I'd share a few of my favorites, in the spirit of our long tradition of anti-feminist mail bag fun. Why would I ever assume that women get attacked for their appearances?:

Trigger Warning

Damn, you people are so full of crap, you don't know the difference between crap and good looks.

You stupid fucking cunt. You're nothing but a shill for leftists and socialists. Feminism as practiced by the likes of you is nothing more than a means to gain access to the mainstream of society for and by ugly, loudmouthed bitches and lesbians that no one wants to be around. One of my jobs as a man is to protect (deserving) women. I would NOT protect you. In fact, I would toss you to the predators. I would trade you to the predators. I would betray you to the predators. I would NOT want you to pass on your weak genetics.

I am flabergasted [sic]. Were you born that retarded or do you take medication to achieve your level of retardation.

you libs are all alike, protect helen thomas and other lefties, shove your lib anti american agenda up our asses, and if you are a republican conservative woman, look out.. get a life, and by the way helen thomas the miserable witch is so off base, maybe she should just go away.
Oh us libs...always firing up those new-fangled computer doohickeys and charging good old boys with sexism.

Kelly: an anti-feminist riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

In a recent interview, singer Kelly Clarkson went off on why she's not a feminist.

Would you call yourself a feminist?

No, not at all. I mean, that was the first time in my life -- which maybe I'm naïve and I've not been put in any situations like that -- but that's the first time in my life I've ever even heard someone use that mentality. I'm like, "Hey, knock-knock, 2008." Most of the men in my life have been very highly supportive. I've never had to even think like a feminist because no one around me even thinks one [sex] is higher than the other.

Really? Well it must be nice to work in an industry that's completely sexism-free! But wait...another question from the same interview.

Do you consider the record industry to be a boys' club?

I just know for a fact ... why I said that was because I was actually on a phone call with two people who did not know I was on the phone, and I literally heard somebody I used to work with say, "Well, you know what, he can get away with it because it's a guy. She's a girl, so let's just face it, it's different." And I was like, "Is this the 1950s?" I hung up and didn't listen to the rest.

Does. Not. Compute.

This is a couple of years old, but just too good to ignore. The Gunn Brothers - a devout duo that produces Christian films - created this masterpiece, The Monstrous Regiment of Women. The title really says it all.

You'll see in the trailer that our favorite female misogynist Phyllis Schlafly kicks things off with her wisdom on feminism, saying the movement tricks women into thinking that they're being victimized. (You know, like women who only think they've been raped by their husbands!)

A couple of other titillating teasers:

• That Hillary Clinton's decision to have one child means she has no sympathy for stay-at-home moms
• Sexual assault in the military means women shouldn't be in the military to begin with
• "Loose"-dressing women shouldn't be surprised they're perceived to be "loose" (my response here)
• The Quiverfull argument that we're children haters for not being willing to offer our uteri to harbor God's army

Can't wait for my copy! By the way, you must see the website banner. Classic.

It seems the American Life League has discovered the Feministing Community site and, shockingly, isn't a fan. (Granted, this post was a controversial one - but hey, that's what community discourse is about!)

Thanks to evilslutopia for the heads up!

I generally can't take these shows. But I couldn't help but watch this episode of Wife Swap that reader Angela emailed us. First of all, one of the women featured was a bad ass doctor/roller derby player. Add in all of the mouth-dropping moments from the husband of a beauty-obsessed pageant mom - like when he says he hopes his daughter will be a man's "accessory" one day - and I was pretty much hooked.

Maybe this can be my unfeminist guilty pleasure...

This is rich.

The contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said Saturday.

The pill "has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature" through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report.

Your pee! It's killing the trees! Not to mention sperm. As if the fear of female sexuality wasn't obvious enough - best to mention that contraception is a total boner killer. Lovely.

At first glance, the True Woman conference doesn't seem anti-feminist. It's main promotional video has a sisterly kind of vibe - it's all about loving God and living a good life. The trailer above about the conference hints at anti-feminism, but it gives a nod to "career women" and is magnanimous enough to show a woman wearing a stethoscope. (Never mind the implicit notion that only some women are "true" women, that's about to be the least of our concern.)

But their post-conference press outreach reveals a more insidious message: If you love God, you have to hate feminism.

A group of conservative Christian women is seeking 100,000 signatures on a "True Woman Manifesto" aimed at sparking a counter-revolution to the feminist movement of the 1960s.

Introduced at a gathering of more than 6,000 women in early October, the document calls not for equal rights, but instead proclaims that men and women are created to reflect God's image in "complementary and distinct ways."

That includes the idea that women are called "to honor and support God-ordained male leadership in the home and in the church."

The press release intrigued me, so I checked out their website and some of the panels. Perhaps the most telling was one talk, "You've Come a Long Way, Baby!", given by Mary Kassian.

The short version: Patriarchy is fabulous, feminism is unnatural.

Kassian is particularly fond of romanticizing the imaginary perfect world of Leave it to Beaver, suggesting that life back in the 1950s (before darned feminism came around) actually was like the show.

Once married, a woman could normally count on her husband to financially support her and the children...

Pornography and rape and homosexuality, sexual perversion, sexual addiction, sexually transmitted diseases were uncommon and rarely encountered.

I don't know about your families, but back in the day my married Nana was working her tail off to support her kids because my grandfather's salary wasn't enough. And rape most certainly existed, though maybe it wasn't called that.

I never thought about drinking until equal rights came along!

Feminists are all too aware that we get blamed for a lot of ridiculous shit; everything from destroying the family and killing chivalry to YouTube "catfights."

And the idea that feminism (and women's equality more generally) is the reason behind ladies boozing it up has certainly been making the rounds lately. This article from New York Magazine, however, which argues that "drinking has become entwined with progressive feminism," takes the feminist-blaming cake. Cue scare tactic subhead:

More women are drinking, and the women who drink are drinking more, in some cases matching their male peers. This is the kind of equality nobody was fighting for.

While I don't doubt the statistics about women drinking more than in years past, the connection that reporter Alex Morris makes to feminism is based largely on nonsense: personal anecdotes, a couple of quotes, and hackneyed ideas about what feminism is. Morris even cites the Jezebel Thinking and Drinking controversy and falls back on the stereotyped notion that Third Wave feminism is "something akin to the type of reasoning that paints Girls Gone Wild participants as sexually liberated." The bullshit, it burns!

The thing that pisses me off most about this article - besides the fact that it perpetuates a well-loved lie about what young feminist are (Girls Gone Wild! I choose my choice!) - is that drinking is a serious problem for young women and men. But instead of serious, nuanced media coverage on what to do about the drinking culture among American youth, we get article after article hawing about the consequences of equality.

And frankly, Morris' argument is the exact same one used when conservatives and anti-feminists talk about "hooking up" or casual sex - that young women now "act like men" sexually. (Equality: the slutmaker!) Seriously - it's tired. Not to mention incredibly sexist : the underlying message is that gender equality is bad for women.

So if folks are actually concerned about young women and drinking, how about we talk about the consumer culture that markets liquor (something Morris touches on before quickly returning back to feminism) or how drinking is being used to blame women who are raped? Because despite the picture that Morris paints of young feminists boozing it up (cause it's empowering and stuff!), we're actually out there working our asses off. Maybe its time others followed suit.

It's that time again - Anti-feminist Mailbag! - when the readers of Feministing get a glimpse of the lovely emails sent our way. This one is really special.

hey feminazi cunt, you deserve to be raped many more times. no1 cares waht you cunts think while you bitch and moan in the kitchen. so in a nut shell you are a worthless cunt with legs and a loud mouth that should only be used for sex or slapping. Praise satan, rape and kill sluts, take drugs, and burn the world

Back off gals, he's mine!

So, I suppose we can start to put together the list of things that the Bush Administration is going to try to pull before they leave office, one of the most nefarious being the "right of conscience" rule.

via LA Times.

Reporting from Washington -- The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

For more than 30 years, federal law has dictated that doctors and nurses may refuse to perform abortions. The new rule would go further by making clear that healthcare workers also may refuse to provide information or advice to patients who might want an abortion.

So, essentially, even if you have the right to obtain an abortion, you may not have access to the information necessary to actually know all your options. I would never deny how smart a doctor is, but I don't really think it is up to a doctor to decide what is morally right for me or for my body. If the law has already decided that I can have access to reproductive technology, then why is a doctor allowed to tell me something different? I would like the advice I get from my doctor to be based on my health needs, not their religious and moral beliefs. I am sorry that is crazy.

According to Raw Story this change could hurt rural and poor women the hardest. Melissa Harris-Lacewell in conversation with Maddow over the subject discusses.

Harris-Lacewell explained that regulations like this "right of conscience" rule have "been the new strategy of those who have been opposed to women's reproductive rights. ... Rather than fight this out in the courts ... what you do is limit access. You limit the education that doctors are getting in medical school. You limit the ability of these doctors to practice in various states and localities. You just keep reducing, reducing, reducing."

"That has a disproportionate effect on poor women, on rural women," Harris-Lacewell stated. "Women who have private health insurance, women who have private physicians, tend to have plenty of access to a variety of reproductive rights options. Poor women and women with less access are the ones hit hardest."

Related:
Bush not done fucking with you yet.
Bush to Issue Midnight HHS Regulation.
Clinton moves to Block HHS Regulation.

Women in playing dead for photography and fashion purposes might be considered high art or cutting edge marketing, but it is usually just a tacky excuse for sexist art and the reason it is considered avant garde is because it is offensive. That type of art annoys me.

**This images are not safe for work and are potentially triggering.**

Exotified images of women of color being tortured and images put together to play to the fantasy of "savage" with sexual overtones is actually just deeply disturbing. I am well aware that you can't curtail someone's fantasies, but I argue you sure as hell can analyze them. Women's bodies placed in native and indigenous seeming contexts where they are being dragged and eluding to torture or essentially comparing their bodies to animals to be hunted is a shocking display of colonial misogyny and woman hate. This calendar should be protested.

Sometimes the hate mail we get comes in the form of long rambling craziness. And sometimes, as is this case here, it's short, sweet, and incredibly stupid.

Marriage can only exist between a couple that can reproduce. Otherwise you might as well marry a farm animal. The people have spoken and you should shut down this site.

I'm sure all the couples having fertility issues will appreciate that one.

Pam lets us know about a new anti-choice organization that's sprouted out of attempts to define fertilized eggs as people.

Apparently the defeat of the Colorado amendment made anti-choicers think it would be a fantastic idea to take their failed state initiative nationwide.

A new pro-life organization, Personhood USA, plans to assist local pro-life groups in different states to put personhood amendments on their states ballot by using the petition process.

The 17 States that allow citizens to place constitutional amendments on ballots will be the target states. Personhood USA will also help with opinion petitions to encourage politicians to run personhood amendments in other states. During the Colorado Personhood campaign, organizers were contacted by individuals in many different states with excitement and the desire to start personhood efforts in their own state.

"Praise Jesus! The pro-life tide is rising in America, now is the time for the entire pro-life movement to turn the focus off from permitting murder but attempting to 'regulate' it, to pushing for the recognition of the God given right to life for all innocent persons. Persons are humans beings from the moment of fertilization." Cal Zastrow, Co-Founder of Personhood USA.

Um...yeah. Good luck with all that. Perhaps a creepy video will help...

PUSA Promo (Web) from Endfallow on Vimeo.

Ladies, did you know that your uterus is shaped like AMERICA? Yeah, I didn't either. I'd write more about the pathetic attempts by anti-choicers to limit women's reproductive freedoms, but my Texas is cramping like a mofo.

P.S. This is what a fertilized egg looks like. Yeah.

Leah, a blogger at the college anti-feminist organization the Network of Enlightened Women, has the following gem of wisdom to share about Obama's win:

This certainly is a historic night and only time will tell if this is to be a historic night for change a new generation has been hoping for or a night of change the founders feared hundreds of years ago.

Um, for serious? That is fucked.

Remember anti-feminist Roy Den Hollander, who is suing Columbia University over its Women's Studies classes? Well the school has struck back, filing a motion to dismiss the suit, saying it "reads like a parody."

Say it with me now, "ANN FRIEDMAN."

Former Ms. magazine editor Elaine Lafferty has been working as a consultant on the McCain campaign (yes, seriously), and has a bone to pick with feminists who dare to criticize Sarah Palin.

For the sin of being a Christian personally opposed to abortion, Palin is being pilloried by the inside-the-Beltway Democrat feminist establishment. (Yes, she is anti-abortion. And yes, instead of buying organic New Zealand lamb at Whole Foods, she joins other Alaskans in hunting for food.[...])

...[L]ike many other Democrats, including Lynn Rothschild, I'm tired of the Democratic Party taking women for granted. I also happen to believe Sarah Palin supports women's rights, deeply and passionately.

M-kay, whatever floats your boat I guess. Never mind that her record indicates quite a different story. But here's the kicker:

Last month a prominent feminist blogger, echoing that sensibility, declared that the media was wrongly buying into the false idea that Palin was a feminist. Why? Well, just because she said she was a feminist, because she supported women's rights and opportunities, equal pay, Title IV--that was just "empty rhetoric," they said. At least the blogger didn't go as far as NOW's Kim Gandy and declare that Palin was not a woman. Bottom line: you are not a feminist until we say you are. (Emphasis mine)

"Empty rhetoric," hmm? That sounds familiar. The anonymous "prominent feminist blogger" is our own Ann Friedman! But it seems that naming Ann is beneath Lafferty - as is bothering to engage with her in-depth look at how Palin's rhetoric does not match her record. Making women invisible: Now that's feminist!

Is it really so hard to name the person whose opinion you're (limply) arguing against? Ann Friedman. Check it out, I can even do it in all sorts of different ways:

Ann Friedman. Feministing. Ann Friedman, Feministing. Ann Friedman of Feministing.

It's like a typing miracle! Say it together, folks: Ann Friedman.

Sarah Palin, who called herself a feminist in the infamous Katie Couric interview, is not so sure anymore...

In an interview on NBC Nightly News that aired yesterday, Brian Williams asked Palin: "Governor, are you a feminist?"

"I'm not gonna label myself anything, Brian," said Palin. "And I think that's what annoys a lot of Americans, especially in a political campaign, is to start trying to label different parts of America different, different backgrounds, different...I'm not going to put a label on myself."

You know, this is a flip flop I can deal with. Don't label yourself, Gov. Palin. Especially not as a feminist.

UPDATE: Video of Palin's change of heart after the jump.

Every time I think I couldn't love Rachel Maddow more, she comes out with something like this. Sigh.

More at Think Progress.

I'm sorry, I know I've already posted about the wacko responses to my book (excuse me, my book cover), but I just came across this and I just couldn't help myself.

Ericka Andersen at LadyBlog has written a post that has brought intellectual dishonesty to a new low. She even starts off lying:

For some thought-provoking reading, check out Jessica Valenti's "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women." Cassy Fiano's post on the book today lead me to check it out for myself.

Thought-provoking reading...really? You checked it out for yourself, did you? May I ask how? Because the book isn't going to be released for another five months. So, Ms. Andersen, if you've somehow stealthily broken into my apartment or hacked into my computer, I'd really like to know.

I grew up in a Christian environment where sex before marriage was frowned upon but never was the act of sex condemned. I was never told women don't like sex as much as men or that we were supposed to use it to get husbands. I doubt Jessica has really been in the midst of this environment but as someone who has, I can tell you women and men were both encouraged to be disciplined in their sexual urges. And...I've never once heard a church leader say you were a slut or a whore if you did choose to have sex. This is an assumption Jessica makes. (Emphasis mine)

Right, I make a whole book full of assumptions. Women are never ever told they're sluts or sullied or or less than or diseased if they have sex. I must be making stuff up!

But here's the part that had me screaming to my poor boyfriend about what fucking liars people are.

The real purity myth is what Jessica is telling women: that sexual consequences be damned as long as you feel good. God forbid you have guilt. Girls Gone Wild is better for young women that purity rings, she claims, but I doubt many people would sign up for that argument.

Sexual consequences be damned? I've spent my entire writing and feminist career advocating for young women to have medically accurate and unbiased information about sex so they can make the decisions that are best for them. I have never, never, said that Girls Gone Wild is anything but a fucked up organization run by a rapist. For people like Fiano and Andersen to warp - and just lie! - about this work that I do, it's just beyond disgusting. I understand that they have no actual argument to make (being that, you know, they haven't read the book), but simply making stuff up to suit their theories is not only dishonest, it's stupid. Because I'm not going to sit quietly and let people lie about me, about feminism, about this blog, or about The Purity Myth. Every time someone publishes some bullshit like this, I'm going to call it out. Welcome to my new post series, Pure Lies.

So bring it, assholes.

Careful, my book may give you VD!

I figured that my new book would get some negative attention from conservative blogs, but I kinda thought that would happen once the book was, you know...published.

But it seems that there's no reason to wait for pesky things like the actual content of the book to start blogging about what The Purity Myth is all about. So apparently, the purpose of my book is to "turn America's teenagers into raging whores." Woo hoo!

Right Wing News: "But, these hardcore liberal feminists? For them, it's not enough to say that, 'I'm not a virgin' or 'I like to sleep with a lot of guys,' they have to come up with some kind of justification for why it's the best way to live."

Say Anything Blog: "The point is that because of feminists, our society is becoming one huge "Girls Gone Wild," with even little girls being sexualized in our culture."

The Network of Enlightened Women (remember them?): "The feminist movement has formed a strong alliance with the sexual liberation movement, although it wasn't necessary. This book represents this alliance."

Dad Reformed: "The cover says it all. I mean...... who is going to read that garbage??? Is it geared toward a mother and father to push their kids to refrain from abstinence???? I can barely type right now I'm so fired up. ...I can only wonder where she comes up with her standards, or lack there of. ALL of her stances are selfish. What is good for me RIGHT now. I am going to puke."

House of Eratosthenes: "Feminism, somehow, has come to be about everyone who can be a slut, being one."

But Cassy Fiano's post was my fave, "Putting out is SO much better for girls than abstinence." (And it's not just because her blog design uses a rose/gun combo that speaks volumes.)

Perusing LifeNews can be great when you need a laugh (or a cry). Or in this case, when you need a good reminder of why anti-feminism is so effin' ridiculous.

The title of Joan Swirsky's article really says it all: Some Feminists Love Abortion on Demand But Hate Governor Sarah Palin

The whole article is priceless, chock full of old anti-feminist standards like calling feminists hysterical, full of rage, and blaming the divorce rate on the women's rights movement. But it's the sub-headers that slayed me.

Swirsky's history of feminism, in sub-headlines: DOMESTICITY BAD, MISS & MRS. BAD, UNEQUAL PAY BAD, VALUING HUMAN LIFE ESPECIALLY BAD, SHRIKES ON PARADE.

Feminist shrikes (?) have been bad, bad, bad! Reading these articles make my head hurt. Seriously.

You know, I realized this morning how happy people like Ann Coulter and Michele Malkin must be that someone like Sarah Palin is running for VP. I mean, what does the media love more than women that manipulate the words of feminism to justify their calculated misrepresentations of important women's issues. And what do anti-feminist faux feminist women love more than seeing all their tall tales of "real" feminism come true? Palin is the perfect encapsulation of their anti-feminist dreams. But I digress.

I am just annoyed right now after reading this piece by Coulter on Townhall.com via Feministe where she blames the mortgage crisis and flailing economy on affirmative action. At a certain point, I realize that she just doesn't read. Or at least not the same news that I am reading.

Here at Feministing we get our fair share of hate mail. And for whatever reason, the last few weeks have brought in a tidal wave of emails and trollish comments (I'm sure you've noticed). So for your anti-feminist mocking pleasure, here's a recent email we got from jcwhite0825@aol.com, who thinks our coverage of Palin is a clear indication that we're just jealous of her superhotness.

Why are you obsessed with Sarah Palin? Are you jealous of her? Are you pissed that she has accomplished things without whining like a little child? Before you get all upset and call me a right-wing nut, I'm not voting for McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden. They all suck. But, you girls on feministing.com are what I would call stereotypical women. You are jealous, angry, and resentful of women who have success. It's probably because she is hotter than any of you girls on feminsting. And that is at age 44. You girls have no chance of being that hot when you are that age. Oh, before you get all upset, it is not sexism to call a woman hot. That is just something that you have made up in your mind. Your site sucks. Samhita is a major league racist. You say you are strong, powerful and independent, yet you are constantly whining about wage gaps (which don't exist), abortion (women have all rights in this arena), and rape (so many false accusations it isn't funny). Do yourself a favor and get a life. You live a pathetic existence.

PS I know you won't reply because you are weak. You are not equal to men because you openly admit this daily on your site by constant whining.

I swear, this actually brought a smile to my face (okay, more like a smirk, but whatevs). It just warms my heart to know that if we're pissing people like this off, we're definitely doing something right.

Check out this amusingly bad argument from one of University of Idaho's budding Harvey Mansfield's:

There is a difference between a good thing and the best thing. For example, a meal served with a delicious dessert is a good thing, but a meal in which every course is delicious is the best thing. Getting an A in one class is better than getting no A's but not as good as getting all A's. I think we can all understand this pretty easily. However, whether we understand it or not, sometimes we treat the good things as though they are actually the best things.

Where am I going with this? I'll tell you. When we talk about women's rights, we should consider whether they are good things or whether they are the best things, because many people treat them as the best things. Of course, I will say it is better to have women's rights than not to have women's rights, but the only way to put women's rights first is if we are willing to say -- which I am not -- that women are better and more important than humanity as a whole.

Wow. Pass the dessert and give this dude an A+ for worst logic and most irrelevant metaphors ever.

Thanks to Anne-Marije for the heads up.

Concerned Women for America, a conservative anti-feminist organization, released a statement recently calling on the media to "stop bullying" Sarah Palin:

"In its continuing game of 'gotcha' journalism and the 'politics of personal destruction,' the mainstream media (MSM) and celebrity reporters are piling on Sarah Palin," said, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, political commentator for CWALAC. "The personal attacks have reached unprecedented pettiness and hypocrisy. Even former journalistic giants (like the Washington Post and New York Times) are engaging in tabloid-like sensationalism and printing vicious distortions about her life, faith, experience and family. Even feminists -- who supposedly promote women's equality and the so-called 'women's rights' agenda -- are questioning a female candidate's ability to get the job done. It's past time for the bullying to stop!" (Emphasis mine)

Wow, Crouse sure is riled up about sexism! She must have been livid about the misogynist attacks against Sen. Hillary Clinton, right? Well...not so much. Check out what Crouse said about Sen. Clinton's DNC speech just last month:

Mrs. Clinton arrived to great fanfare. She had on a flashy orange-gold pants suit. She has been on Weight Watchers' diet program and looked fit. Her less-wrinkled, 60-year-old face prompted speculation that she was botoxed for prime time. The audience was a sea of white placards with the distinctive Hillary signature. Many of her supporters were teary-eyed with what might have been, while the clinched jaws of others revealed their unwillingness to accept defeat.

Stay classy, anti-feminists!

Pretending to be smart and serious is hard stuff. All of that faking knowledge takes a toll on our tiny lady brains. But don't worry, McDonald's is here to let you know that you don't have to wear flats and read books anymore!

I feel vomity.

(Transcript below the jump.)

Via Jezebel.

UPDATE: Write to McDonald's and express your dislike for this commercial here.

Harvey Mansfield is at it again, but this time he's got Sarah Palin to project all of his confused rhetoric and unexamined generalizations on. In a piece at Forbes today he argues that Sarah Palin is the shero of what feminism should have been all along--a woman cozy in sex role differences, happy to mythologize masculinity, and still ready to serve (notice the language here) in office herself (cause, gosh darn it, women are pretty clever after all). An excerpt:

All Sarah Palin did was to claim her equal opportunity to a job once held exclusively by men. This sort of equality--the opportunity to take on public careers outside the home--is something liberals and conservatives agree on. That conservatives accept it is proven by the rapturous reception she received from Republicans, who greeted her as a political savior.

This she may or may not be, but she seems to have had the effect of enthusing the base, in part because of her sex.

Now, why could the women's movement not have taken advantage of this bipartisan agreement from the beginning? What impelled it to adopt a radical feminism hostile to both liberals and conservatives? Was this feminism necessary to attack male domination and to stir up the status quo?

Harvey, #1, the definition of feminism is political, social, and economic equality. #2, equality confers that no one group of people can lord domination over another. #3, the status quo wasn't equality. WTF is so hard to understand about this equation?

As if his faulty logic and infuriating language weren't enough, he continuously pushes the tired notion that feminists are no fun, unattractive, and asexual to boot, writing that Sarah Palin is "one who knows what it is to be a woman and enjoys it," and "You may be sure that I am not the first one to notice that feminist women are unerotic."

Huh? What? I mean is this old man serious? Someone needs to send Harvey Manfield a big ass care package from Toys in Babeland, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Jane Campion, or teach him how to use a computer so he can type in a URL: www.feministing.com. His email, just in case you'd like to tell him what you think of his piece is hmansfield@gov.harvard.edu.

Related Posts: Summers' position as #1 Harvard Asshole challenged

Of Assholeness and Assholes

Macho, Macho Mansfield

Quote of the day

Thanks to Dawn for the heads up.

Rebecca Traister at Salon has a great piece up about the "bastardization of everything feminism has stood for" - the scariness that has been the Sarah Palin/feminism talk.

In this "Handmaid's Tale"-inflected universe, in which femininity is worshipped but females will be denied rights, CNBC pundit Donny Deutsch tells us that we're witnessing "a new creation ... of the feminist ideal," the feminism being so ideal because instead of being voiced by hairy old bats with unattractive ideas about intellect and economy and politics and power, it's now embodied by a woman who, according to Deutsch, does what Hillary Clinton did not: "put a skirt on." "I want her watching my kids," says Deutsch. "I want her laying next to me in bed."

...What Palin so seductively represents, not only to Donny Deutsch but to the general populace, is a form of feminine power that is utterly digestible to those who have no intellectual or political use for actual women. It's like some dystopian future ... feminism without any feminists.

Seriously, the more this goes on the more afraid I get.

Oh, this is rich. The latest in a series of right-wingers to adopt a faux-feminist stance is Rick Santorum:

SANTORUM: Sarah Palin is the Clarence Thomas for feminists. The civil rights community, the African-American community obviously should have rallied behind Clarence Thomas an his achievement, but they hammered him because he was a conservative. And the civil rights establishment was first and foremost liberal and then for the liberal rights of -- as liberals saw it, what blacks should have in this country. And the same thing with the feminist community.

Because if there's anyone who has long been an ally of both the civil-rights and feminist communities, it's Rick Santorum. This is a man who thinks that birth control is harmful to society, that feminists tricked women into working outside the home, and that abortion rights are comparable to slavery.

And on a related note, Dahlia Lithwick has a great retort for conservatives who invoke "feminism" as a reason to support Palin:

The "new feminism" may include uncritical support for women who oppose teen pregnancy programs and for women who force rape victims to pay for their own rape kits. But I just don't see where support for women who persist in fabricating their own records is a feminist principle.

Amen to that.

Thanks to Hope for the pic.

The mainstream media seems confused these days. It appears that because Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is a woman, she is also a feminist. And not just a feminist, but THE feminist - a sign that all is right in the world when it comes to gender equity. But how could that be, you ask? How could anyone paint Palin - whose policies make it all too clear that she's about as anti-feminist as they come - as feminism's second coming? Well, by pithy misleading headlines - that's how!

The Wall Street Journal: Sarah Palin Feminism

Townhall: Sarah Palin: A Liberated Woman

LA Times: Sarah Palin's 'new feminism' is hailed

NPR: Sarah Palin: New Face Of Feminism?

Adweek: Feminism's Next Wave

The New York Post: A Feminist Dream at the GOP

Even more interesting is that the reporters touting this Palin-as-feminist nonsense are people who pretty much know jack shit about feminism.

Take Wall Street Journal reporter Naomi Schaefer Riley, who writes that progressives should rest easy about Palin's candidacy because "most American evangelicals have wholeheartedly embraced the idea of women in the workplace." A radical feminist sentiment if there ever was one! But perhaps one should take Riley with a grain of salt, considering she's the same reporter who wrote that murdered NY college student Imette St. Guillen should have known better than to be out drinking at 3am. Victim-blamers aren't exactly bastions of feminist thought.

Karin Agness, who wrote the piece for Townhall, calls Palin a "success of feminism" and "truly a liberated woman." Agness is also the President of the Network of Enlightened Women, an anti-feminist college organization that lurves Elizabeth Hasselbeck and even (sigh) mocked a NOW conference attendee in a wheelchair on their blog.

Really, most of the "feminism" talk is coming from conservatives appropriating the language of the movement to push a ridiculously anti-feminist candidate. This, of course, is nothing new (cough, IWF, cough) and fairly transparent.

But what I find even more upsetting is the Palin/feminist talk coming from mainstream outlets who are demonstrating absolutely no knowledge of feminism. Take the Adweek article, for example, which says "Palin is a classic third-wave feminist, benefiting from all that came before her in terms of the women's movement..." So by this definition, any woman who has benefited from feminism is a feminist. So, all women are feminists? Uh, yeah.

So, please, esteemed members of the mainstream media - if you want to write about Palin and feminism, how about you get a feminist to do it? Or at least interview one of us for goodness sake - there's plenty of us around and we'll be happy to talk to you about what the movement is about. (Hint: It's a lot more than thinking any woman is a good choice for all women.)

Harbinger of the end of days.

A reader sent in what has to be one of my favorite anti-feminist articles to date. Elroy Riggs of the Central Kentucky News Journal believes he has found the reason for the increased divorce rate, the nasty little secret behind the battle of the sexes: canned biscuits.

Give a man homemade biscuits in the morning and he'll come home to you at night. The Pillsbury Doughboy with his dratted canned biscuits is a lousy homewrecker. There was a time, especially in the south, when the woman arose early enough in the morning to prepare homemade biscuits for her husband and family.

It was a simpler time, before most women joined the workforce. Women in those days served plates of piping hot biscuits, big fluffy biscuits. Cut one open and ladle some sawmill gravy over it or slap a portion of real butter between the halves and then cover that with your choice of preserves or jelly. "A breakfast without biscuits," went a famous saying, "is like a day without sunshine."

I actually find this ode to homemade biscuits more hilarious than offensive. It perfectly epitomizes the whiny sexism of entitlement: Breakfasts are ruined! What are men to eat?! What's next? Butter that hasn't been hand-churned?!

Riggs also says that "any woman who serves her family canned biscuits for breakfast in anything but an extreme emergency is guilty of apathy." (Unlike Riggs, whose impressive social engagement compels him to write op-eds about breakfast food.) But I guess he's right in a way - I am apathetic when it comes to biscuit-making. I'd even venture to say I'm apathetic to making any kind of breakfast food, save for cereal. And yet...the boyfriend stays. It's miraculous, really.

Riggs ends with a call to action that I'm betting will have women laughing their asses off rather than running to the kitchen...

It is time, women of America, to come to your senses. Halt the alarming increase in the divorce rate. Bring the homemade biscuit back to your breakfast table. We can all work together. You make 'em, we'll eat 'em. What could be more fair?

Riggs' next article: How the invention of the washing machine (bring back the scrub board!) is responsible for women's promiscuity.

Today the Washington Post covers a new book with the earth-shattering thesis that, if women want to "keep a man" they should start scrubbing floors in lingerie, learning to cook steaks to order, and giving blowjobs in between.

Is that cover condescending or what? And that's not even getting into the content of the book...

Moore's slim treatise purports to explain how women should go about sex, relationships and marriage -- according to men. Here is his mission as a self-described reeducator: "I want to express my anger and frustration as a man with the women I feel are miseducated, misinformed, and ill-prepared about their responsibilities in getting and maintaining a relationship with a man of quality," he writes in the introduction.

Moore, of course, considers himself just such a man. Read his book, ladies, and you can snag a catch just like him. Your responsibilities include cooking, staying skinny, wearing sexy things around the house and doing whatever your man tells you to do (because, Moore writes, "Here's a little secret, ladies: men never really ask for anything. They command. . . . And believe me, what you won't do, ten broads around the corner will.")

Ugh. The sad part is, he's found this method successful:

Moore's girlfriend, Khanequa Tuitt, who's at the book-signing, recalls that when she first read his manuscript, she only got past the first couple of pages before calling him to curse him out. But now she's come to terms with his views. She's started "trying to stay away from wearing frumpy, flannel stuff," even when she's cleaning, for example.

Moore also keeps it classy with a "no fatties" message:

In his book, size matters -- a lot: "The fatter you get, the more you decrease your potential single-man pool. Let me give you an example. When you go to the grocery store to shop, do you pick out the nastiest-looking, most rotten, smelliest fruit or meat you can find? Oh, you don't? Why not? . . . It's the same with men when they see baby elephant-sized, out-of-shape women."

The interesting thing is that (as you may have noticed from the cover above), the book is "presented by" Zane, a best-selling writer of black erotica. (As M.Dot at Model Minority writes today, "Zane sells because her fiction allows Black women to be sexual in a culture that refuses to acknowledge that we are sexual, a culture that calls us ho's if are so inclined to be sexual, talk about sex, or even look like we are human and have a sexual appetite.") But Zane says her name on the book is not an endorsement -- it's a warning: "There are some men who feel exactly like he does. I feel like women should be forewarned and realize what's out there."

If I didn't know better I would think it was my birthday - because it's not often that an anti-feminist organization gives you a gift like this one.

The Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute* has put out Sense & Sexuality, a handy little anti-feminist guide to sex by none other than Miriam Grossman, author of the slut-shaming book Unprotected (not to be confused with the similarly titled slut-shaming book Unhooked).

Seriously, every page is priceless - so it's hard to know what to highlight. But here are some of my favorite tidbits.

On the biology of why dudes will fuck you and dump you:

When it comes to sex, oxytocin, like alcohol, turns red lights green. It plays a major role in what's called "the biochemistry of attachment." Because of it, you could develop feelings for a guy whose last intention is to bond with you. You might think of him all day, but he can't remember your name.

On the dangers of "hooking up":

As the number of casual sex partners in the past year increased, so did signs of depression in college women.

On why women with HPV are unlovable drop-outs:

Even though these infections are common, and usually disappear with time, learning you have one can be devastating. Natural reactions are shock, anger, and confusion. Who did I get this from, and when? Was he unfaithful? Who should I tell? And hardest of all: Who will want me now? These concerns can affect your mood, concentration, and sleep. They can deal a serious blow to your self esteem. And to your GPA.

On why you should get to the baby-making ASAP:

Remember that motherhood doesn't always happen when the time is right for you; there's a window of opportunity, then the window closes.

On wishing herpes on fictional characters:

It's easy to forget, but the characters on Grey's Anatomy and Sex in the City are not real. In real life, Meredith and Carrie would have warts or herpes. They'd likely be on Prozac or Zoloft.

But really and truly it's page 16, in its entirety, that's my favorite. Check it after the jump. Then laugh yourself to sleep tonight. I know I will.

*The organization that also brought you one of the top 10 anti-feminist videos and the "bring back the hope chest" campaign.

...and, for good measure, criticizes feminists for decrying violence against women.

On his radio show yesterday, Rush Limbaugh said,

Obama's patriotism is not being attacked in an ad. McCain's just out there saying he's putting his own personal political ambition ahead of the country's. It's -- you know, it's just -- it's just we can't hit the girl. I don't care how far feminism's saying, you can't hit the girl, and you can't -- you can't criticize the little black man-child. You just can't do it, 'cause it's just not right. It's not fair. He's such a victim.

Ah yes, those ridiculous feminists trying to convince the American people that domestic violence is a bad thing -- even if she was asking for it. And that ridiculous media, daring to publish anything favorable about a black man.

I can't say I'm surprised, though. It's Limbaugh.

Seems like an appropriate moment to republish Samhita's "fuck you" to Limbaugh:

This is rich. A self described anti-feminist lawyer has decided to sue Columbia University for offering women's studies courses because they are discriminatory towards men.

The NYT's City Room blog reports that Roy Den Hollander (pictured) -- "a Manhattan lawyer and a self-described antifeminist" who in the past year has sued nightclubs for favoring women by offering ladies' night discounts and has sued the federal government over a law that protects women from violence -- is now setting his sights on Columbia University. Today, Den Hollander filed a suit against Columbia in the SDNY for offering women's studies courses, which he sees as discriminatory toward men. His suit accuses Columbia of using government aid to preach a "religionist belief system called feminism." A Columbia spokesman declined to comment to the NYT.

In Den Hollander's suit he calls women's studies "a bastion of bigotry against men" and said its women's studies program "demonizes men and exalts women in order to justify discrimination against men based on collective guilt." He reportedly writes in the complaint: "Federal financial aid, state funds and other assistance help proselytize feminism at Columbia," in violation of equal protection safeguards of the Fifth and 14th Amendments.

If his hatred for women isn't apparent enough by his suing the federal government around VAWA, it is clear because he has sued clubs for ladies night (as Ann has covered before). As Jay Smooth just pointed out, "ladies night is for the benefit of men, you idiot! Stop getting in the way of the patriarchy!" (/sarcasm). Obviously, he has never been to a club.

For a little background on what motivates this guy, the Gothamist has some gems from the piece that Ann links about his assault on "ladies night" in the New Yorker.

Den Hollander guy sure knows how to charm the ladies; you'll recall that last summer the New Yorker spent a night out with the divorcee, who explained his life mission: "What I'm trying to do now in my later years is fight everybody who violates my rights... the Feminazis have infiltrated institutions, and there's been a transfer of rights from guys to girls." Hence the Columbia lawsuit, in which Den Hollander maintains that the university should not be using government aid to preach a "religionist belief system called feminism."

This guy might have to get a Feminist Fuck You.

Kind of hilarious.

Pic from Sweet One.

Sometimes the emails we get are too good not to share.

fuck you femenists. when the network crashes you will be raped and made subject to men. you fear this and that is why you hate us. your greatest fears will be realized. you did nothing to help society but you divided it with your hatred, legalized murder of fetuses, and your selfish squandering while you did not help your people.

When the network crashes? Methinks someone has watched The Matrix one too many times.

Making faces at NeW on 12seconds.tv

I have a lot more to say about this article on this anti-feminist organization, but I thought I'd share my initial reaction.

UPDATE: It was pointed out in comments that NeW's blog reveals them to be truly awful human beings. Did they really mock an old woman with a wheelchair?! Charming.

This email had all of the Feministing editors cracking up:

Why can't I comment on those sucky, factually vacuous blog entries which might appear on feministing from time to time, beneath the article itself? Is it by any chance because you suck so badly and so consistantly, that you don't want the criticism? [...] I am pro-feminist, but your whole vibe makes it increasingly hard to say that, and the anti-feminists on youtube are wiping the floor with you. Distant aloof rhetoric among the feminist elite is wearing thin, and particularly from what should be the radical youth - with some THING to say. Where are you taking on the anti-feminist MRAs head to head, sister? Nowhere. You're running scared and it stinks. Why aren't you wagging your finger in their anti-feminist faces (in debate) like your logo suggests, instead of using it to masturbate amongst yourselves?

Samhita's take: "God I wish I was masturbating instead of reading this fucking email. LOL."

My plan is to totally co-opt that phrase. I'll post on a complex issue, and then ask all of our lovely readers/commenters (in the Mike Myers "Coffee Talk" voice) to "Mastabate amongst yaselves."

This story in the NYTimes definitely brings up some interesting debates in the gender and sports arena. Basically the Olympics has a shady history of trying to verify female athletes gender identity. This ranges from forcing the athletes to strip naked and inspected by judges to other varied tests including chromosomal typing and hormone testing.

At first, women were asked to parade nude before a panel of doctors to verify their sex. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, officials switched to a chromosomal test.

For a period of time these tests were mandatory for female athletes (not male ones). The NYTimes article suggests it was due to fears that male athletes would pose as female athletes and have an unfair advantage over their competitors. It seems this has only actually happened once, however, and it was not discovered with any of these tests. For this years Olympic games, a lab is being set up in Beijing that is prepared to investigate any gender-based claims if they arise, as they no longer require these exams of all female athletes.

Sometimes one sentence speaks a thousand idiocies:

You come across as a man hating group - the only reason nobody does or says anything is because you hide behind your vaginas.

The depth of thought is astounding.

*Scurries back behind labia*

Unfortunately I missed being able to post the video on this one (apparently its been taken off you tube, media conspiracy anyone?), but we still have the quote.

For those of you more in tune with the plethora of "celebreality" shows on VH1, you might know Brooke Hogan. The daughter of Hulk Hogan, former pro-wrestling superstar whose family was featured on the show Hogan Knows Best. Well Brooke now has her own show (and a fledging music career) called Brooke Knows Best. Well apparently she doesn't know best, because this was her response on the show recently to a prospective roomate's questioning about who she was going to vote for:

You know what? I am actually not that much into voting. I think it's kinda crazy that a woman is running, because I think that women deal with a lot of emotions and menopause and PMS and stuff. Like, I'm so moody all the time, I know I couldn't be able to run a country, 'cause I'd be crying one day and yelling at people the next day, ya know?

Sigh. Hopefully most of the viewers found this as absurd as I did.

Thanks to Maria for the link

Pic from Time.

I nearly lost my mind when I read this gushing piece from Time Magazine about purity balls.

What was amazing to me about the reporting of this article was despite hearing all of these creepy anecdotes - and admitting that girls as young as four are participating in a ceremony about their virginity - writer Nancy Gibbs still managed to be smitten over the whole shebang. (One of the subheads actually reads 'A Delicate Dance')

But first...a creepy anecdote.

Kylie Miraldi has come from California to celebrate her 18th birthday tonight. She'll be going to San Jose State on a volleyball scholarship next year. Her father, who looks a little like Superman, is on the dance floor with one of her sisters; he turns out to be Dean Miraldi, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. "We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. "On my wedding day, he'll give it to my husband," she explains. "It's a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I'm supposed to be loved."

Paging Dr. Freud! But Gibbs is loving it.

Leave aside for a moment the critics who recoil at the symbols, the patriarchy, the very use of the term purity, with its shadow of stains and stigma. Whatever guests came looking for, they are likely to come away with something unexpected. The goal seems less about making judgments than about making memories.

And making sure young women think their worth is dependent on whether or not they're sexual. So, no Ms. Gibbs, I think I won't "leave aside" that very real and very dangerous message. Thanks anyway!

Gibbs continues to totally miss the point:

Purity is certainly a loaded word--but is there anyone who thinks it's a good idea for 12-year-olds to have sex? Or a bad idea for fathers to be engaged in the lives of their daughters and promise to practice what they preach? Parents won't necessarily say this out loud, but isn't it better to set the bar high and miss than not even try?

Are families who don't expect their daughters to promise their virginity to their dads promoting sex for 12 year-olds? Can't dads be engaged in the lives of their daughters without worrying about the state of their hymen? And is telling women that their moral compass lays in between their legs really setting the bar high?

Flowery language and valorizing these days doesn't change what purity balls are about: the ownership and fetishizing of young girls' sexuality. Perhaps someone should remind Time of that fact.

Anti-feminism on the internet is widespread, vicious, and fucking hilarious. So we figured why not make a list of the top ten worst anti-feminist videos (or anti-feminism caught on video) out there?

So after the jump, enjoy the list of crazy, funny, and just plain odd anti-feminist videos we've compiled.

(If you have a video you think we're missing - send it to us!)

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day in SF. But this is not as exciting. I am all for fair and balanced coverage, but I have to question the motives of publishing the thoughts of Fred Phelps. "God hates fags" isn't exactly well meaning political discourse. It is hate speech.

Thanks to Greg for the link.

Michelle Bernard, President and CEO of the Independent Women's Forum (the anti-feminist organization we love to hate), is out promoting her book, Women's Progress: How Women Are Wealthier, Healthier, and More Independent Than Ever Before. And boy oh boy is she fun to watch!

In the clip above, Bernard explains that she's a "real" feminist - you know not like those nasty hairy man-hating kinds that want women to excel at the expense of men.

She also notes that women who call IWF anti-feminist just "think it's cute to throw bombs." I'd hardly say that calling IWF anti-feminist - an organization that exists to bash feminism and convince women that sexism is actually fantastic for them - is throwing bombs. It's more like...lobbing marshmallows.

Just take this description of Bernard's book:

Though many influential groups feed on the prevailing myth that women are oppressed, most women are healthier, wealthier, and better educated than ever before. Michelle Bernard, the president of the Independent Women s Forum, lays out the facts in a new book that will make life harder for radical feminism's ideological hucksters.

Oh you caught us! We're such hucksters...trying to peddle the myth of equality! For shame.

Some more undeniable proof that IWF could in no way, never ever, be an anti-feminist organization:

• IWF's campus program is dedicated to shutting down productions of The Vagina Monologues across the country because it "glorifies promiscuity and treats women as sex objects."

• The organization was home to now-notorious Charlotte Allen, who wrote a WaPo piece about how stupid women are.

• The org spoke out against the HPV vaccine, claiming it would make girls slutty.

• In a press release for a report IWF did on young women and sex, it states that by "pouring through women's studies texts, [IWF VP Carrie] Lukas found feminist authorscriticizing the institution of marriage as repressive for women and uncovered essays glorifying promiscuity." (Oh noes!)

• They believe that women making less money than men is actually a good thing.

So yeah, nothing anti-feminist or actively anti-woman about them. Nothing to see here!

Thanks to Bella for the heads up.

Students, that is, not Washington University, which still plans to award an honorary degree to anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly. The students who oppose honoring Schlafly have made a website:

They're raising awareness about some of the reprehensible positions Schlafly has taken with regard to women's place in society. They picketed the chancellor's home. And they're instructing students:

If you are opposed to Washington University’s decision to award Schlafly an honorary doctorate please join us by SILENTLY STANDING and TURNING YOUR BACK when Schlafly is granted her degree.

That was among the actions suggested in comments here! Commencement is in two days, and I hope there's footage of the protest...

AngryBlackBitch has more.

Reader Katherine Chun Eriksen, who is graduating from Washington University in St. Louis this week, wrote us to ask about what action we'd suggest to respond to her school's decision to "honor" Phyllis "Martial Rape Doesn't Exist" Schlafly. Katherine writes,

The "honorary" degree being presented to Phyllis Schlafly has caused quite a stir on campus and we are in the process of trying to decide how to protest the presentation during Commencement. I was wondering if you would be able to help us out by asking your readers to submit ideas for our protest. We would like to maintain the dignity and solemnity of the event while still making our point clear to those in attendance. We are looking for something that cannot be labeled at "juvenile" or "immature".

So we thought we'd take a cue from Feministe Feedback, and pose the question to you, dear readers. Do you have activism suggestions for the feminists at Wash U?

Washington University announced last week that they are giving Phyllis Schlafly, professional anti-feminist, an honorary doctorate degree. The release calls Schlafly "a national leader of the conservative movement." What they fail to mention however, is that she is also an anti-feminist leader who believes married women can't be raped ("By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."), that there should be bans on women working in nontraditional fields (like construction work or firefighting), and - oh yeah - that the ERA is dangerous.

I guess it should come as no surprise then that professional misogynist Chris Matthews is actually set to give the university's commencement address before Schlafly is honored.

Thankfully, the Washington University community is fighting back.

Students have set up a Facebook group, “No honorary doctorate for anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly,� with over 1100 members at last count.

Several postings suggested that students boycott fund raising drives by the university to protest the honor for Schlafly. The group’s information states: “Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U’s graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn’t having someone like her in the midst of Wash U’s female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?�

Mary Ann Dzuback, director of women’s and gender studies at Washington University, and an associate professor of education and history, said that professors were stunned and angered to learn of the planned honor last week. “The university has completely disregarded the concerns about anybody who cares about full and equal rights for women, who cares about the intellectual quality of feminist debate, and who cares about women’s desire to enter the work force,� Dzuback said.

Dzuback went onto say that she wouldn't be against Schlafly being invited to lecture at the school, but that honoring her is something quite different: “This tells the world that this administration thinks so highly of the honoree that they give her the highest degrees the university can give, the highest degree of respect. And that is deeply troubling...This is a woman who has spent her whole career arguing against full rights for women." Nice message to send the female student body, right?

Some students who emailed me (thanks all!) about this, are encouraging folks to email Chancellor Wrighton and Jane Stone, coordinator of the Board of Trustees. If any Washington University students out there want to keep us updated, we'd be grateful!

I have to say, I'm impressed. When I posted an anti-feminist hate email from the (now former) public relations officer of the Southern Illinois University College Republicans, I didn't expect any action to be taken.

On the contrary, not only did officers of the CR - Wess Haubrich and Jermaine Raymer - come into the thread to offer apologies (as did the emailer himself, Alex Kochno, though his apology was not as well-taken by commenters), but SIU also took out an ad in their college paper (4/23, p 14) renouncing the act. Kochno also resigned from his position at CR, I'm assuming under pressure from his peers.

And to top things off, I received an email from the SIU administration informing me how seriously they took the email and that Kochno's email privileges were suspended pending a student conduct code review.

I think major kudos go to the SIU administration and the officers of the CR for their prompt and thorough response.

SIU's response has really heartened me. I think we all know how rampant online misogyny is, and how difficult it is to deal with because of anonymity issues. But I think incidents like these show how we can hold harassers accountable, and how seriously the "real" world will take hate speech - online or off.

So big thanks to SIU administration, the CR, and the many SIU students who emailed us. I have a little more hope today because of your action.

To add to Jessica's earlier post on wingnuts who blame feminists for carbon emissions (you can't make this stuff up), check out this quote from today's Family Research Council email:

Today isn't just another reminder to use recycled paper or drive energy-efficient cars. It's a calculated attack on the sanctity of human life. Population control is inextricably linked to the environmental and abortion movements. [...] The crisis du jour is global warming, but even that is just another excuse to fund "Planet" Parenthood and similar groups.

OMG, they've figured out our sinister feminist-environmentalist agenda! We wreck the earth by driving to our jobs (where we're bitches who demand equal pay), then we have a few abortions to offset all the carbon we've put into the atmosphere. It's genius! Join me, my fellow feminist-environmentalists, in a round of cackling (yes, cackling)! Muhahahaha!

Yes, seriously. Jack Cashill at WorldNetDaily says feminism is bad for the environment. Wait for it...because "equal pay for equal work also means equal commutes." Anti-feminist logic is sometimes too good to be true.

Indeed, stay-at-homes moms save the state's highway infrastructure from meltdown, especially since a "nanny" often drives to the working mom's house, putting three cars on the road where otherwise one would do.

Homeschooling moms further ease the strain on the ecosystem by keeping their kids off the road. The California judged who ruled that "parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children" obviously did not prepare an environmental impact statement before doing so.

Cashill not only thinks that women should stay home (for gas conservation, he swears!) but he also thinks they shouldn't be allowed to get divorced.

As part of its sexual and feminist flowering, California all but invented no-fault divorce in 1969, the same year the Santa Barbara oil spill jumpstarted the environmental movement.

...When not ignoring divorce completely, the media have done their best to trivialize it. PBS' "Sesame Street," for instance, offered a typically perky vignette on the subject, in which a cute little bird describes her home life.

She frolics part of the time in her mother's nest, she tells Kermit the Frog, and the rest of her time in a separate tree where she frolics with her dad. "They both love me," she chirps.

If, however, mom has a nest, and dad has a nest, California needs a whole lot more nests than it otherwise would, not to mention more resources to heat, cool, light and water those nests and more gas to ferry the baby birds between them.

Uh...he knows birds don't drive, right? In any case, I've thought of a solution. Cashill drives America's working women around all day, that way they don't have to. (Also, he stops watching Sesame Street. Just because.)

Thanks to Elizabeth for the link.

Yesterday our fellow blogger Courtney Martin wrote a thoughtful piece for TAP, calling for a more complex conversation of some of the generational feminist tension that's surrounded the election. (This was in response to Linda Hirshman's Slate article, Yo Mamma, that posited young feminists who don't want to vote for Clinton have Mommy issues.)

The media loves a catfight, and over the last six months or so, feminists have provided no shortage of finger-pointing, name-calling, and stereotyping. I don't intend to rehash the firestorms here, but suffice it to say that more than a few bridges have been burned.

When we engage in "either/or" thinking, when we dismiss and reduce one another, it weakens the movement.

The media may not have the future of the feminist movement in mind, but I do. It's time that we declared a ceasefire on the caricatures and explored the shadows -- not just the silhouettes -- of our differences.

But instead of complexity and nuance, the next piece we see on young feminists and the election is little more than a gleeful screed against all young women. Debra Dickerson writes:

I oversimplify, but so do young women who inherited what we mothers fought for and now want us to disappear so our girls can go wild and pole dance without feeling all guilty. Caricatures work both ways, missy.

She goes on to call young feminists "honey," "chicks," "childish," and greedy. All in one post!

We receive a lot of hate email here at Feministing, and this one was too good not to share.

Men are better than women look at the comparison in IQ men are scientifically proven to have a higher IQ by roughly 5 points, or 5% you cannot dispute science sorry and if you want a much better website than your shitty one you might want to go to [redacted]. I think you would gain a lot more knowledge from that website and you might learn about the truth that way you would not be so stupid and ignorant you stupid cunts.

Apparently that extra five percent doesn't help prevent run-on sentences. You would also think that those extra brain power percentage points would stop a dude from sending harassing emails from his school email address. Because then we wouldn't know that our charming admirer is the public relations officer (yes, public relations) of the Southern Illinois University College Republicans, Alex Kochno. I think I'll stick with my stupid cunt lady brain, thanks very much.

Marriage: Do it for the economy!

Well, that's what some groups would like us to think...

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments - notably job creation - would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families.

But who needs jobs when you have a husband, right? The study was sponsored by four organizations that identify as part of a "marriage movement" - Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Families Northwest, and the Georgia Family Council (an ally of Focus on the Family). So yeah, not biased at all.

Studies like these are not just about promoting marriage, of course, they're about promoting traditional marriages. And the idea that women don't need a job (just a man) has hurting women welfare recipients for far too long. So if we're worried about the economy, let's focus on jobs, education, and affordable child care for parents - not weddings.

Thanks to Monica for the link.

The College Republicans at Bowling Green State University - the same group that held a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant Day" last year - held an "Anti-Feminist Bake Sale" yesterday, and ended up getting smacked down my campus feminists.

As part of Conservative Week, the College Republicans held their bake sale on the front steps of the Education Building, selling cookies, brownies and other treats for 50 cents each.

Members of the club also handed out a sheet of quotes, which they labeled "The Radical Feminist Agenda."

Some of the quotes included:

"All men are rapists, and that's all they are," said by author Marilyn French.

It's always amazing to me how anti-feminists find the most obscure, old-school quotes to use in their "activism." But you've got to love this: feminists on campus came out to protest the event, eventually outnumbering the College Republicans.

The protestors came out with signs that said, "Anti-feminist is half-baked sale," and "Feminism is about choice." They handed out free candy to people passing by, saying, "Feminism: it tastes better."

Indeed it does.

Thanks to Emily for the links.

Our lovely editors Jessica and Miriam are on this panel, along with the fantastic Carmen from Racialicious, who is also (in case y'all didn't know) the co-founder and President of New Demographic, and Patti Binder, an amazing leader and advocate of girls' programming in NYC and board chair of Girls Write Now.

Patti discusses her experience within girls' programming, and how people generally make the assumption that there shouldn't be a need for girls' leadership organizations because there's a woman running for president. And all of the girls' organizations that exist aren't recognized nearly enough, not to mention the difficulty in trying to get the same funding (since so little are funded) when they're all on the same side. She also touches on how the "boys' crisis" has effected their ability to get funding on top of that. And amidst all of these forces working against them, the organizations focus on pushing their message through to convince people that girls' and women's issues, well, exist.

Miriam talks about Radical Doula and as someone who is a part of the birthing movement, how she feels that it's important to identify herself not only as a birth activist, but as someone who supports abortion, and tries to bring the conversation into the movement. Hence, "Radical Doula." So for herself and the way she identifies, the push back she deals with is the doulas and midwives who stigmatize or judge her for being a supporter of abortion. Another form of back lash she's experienced, referencing to her work with the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, is a general misconception that Latina women are all blatantly anti-choice. Yet the Latina Institute works with and helps Latina women who support abortion and those who don't necessarily support it but are accepting of the organization regardless and are pro-birth control and support a number of other aspects of reproductive health.

Carmen divulges her experience with Racialicious, where in the beginning there was no moderation for comments but came to a point when moderation was definitely necessary. She talks about the general "rules" that they ask their readers to abide by, which includes to not make generalizations about race or any other group of people or person, which is something that they deal with on a consistent basis. She also discusses how to figure out what's "ban-able," and some strategies that the editors have talked about to handle particular comments that have been problematic for the productivity of the site.

Jessica makes a point that - after listening to the speakers - how different blogs' backlash can be, and how disruptive comments are usually (and obviously) not appropriate in public spaces which is why commenters use anonymity to speak their ignorance. (Because they wouldn't do it in person.)

Somehow the suggestion that chicken and beef's hybrid would be spam also came into the conversation, but that's a whole other conversation. (And no, I'm totally not joking.)

Behold star of The Hills, Heidi Montag, aka Feminist Hero.

Ginia Bellafante writes,

Defying our expectations, Heidi has emerged as a kind of feminist hero this season, climbing her way to a bigger position at the event-planning company where she orchestrates Nascar parties, and refusing to acquiesce to the demands of her fiancé, Spencer, that she get herself home on time. Her career-mindedness sets their relationship off course. Heidi identifies the problem with no name: a boyfriend who sits around an apartment decorated to look like an ’80s video arcade while trying to deny Heidi a real wedding with the glory of registering. Her groundswell of self-assertion begins when he insists on eloping, prompting Heidi to declare, “This isn’t, like, Spencer’s relationship and you decide what we do.�

Yes, a modern day Gloria Steinem. I don't joke to denigrate Montag - frankly I don't watch The Hills so I can't speak to her feminist cred. However, I do find it somewhat hilarious that Montag is being deigned a "feminist hero" by the very reporter who famously declared feminism dead on the cover of Time Magazine.

Ann's brilliant (and sadly probably right-on) reaction: "She's probably compiling material for a 'Is Feminism STILL SUPER DEAD?' cover story."

Bellafante's 1998 article bemoaned today's feminism, saying it has "devolved into the silly...And it has powerful support for this: a popular culture insistent on offering images of grown single women as frazzled, self-absorbed girls." And yet Bellafante looks to The Hills for feminist icons. Baffling, really.

That's right, my all-time-fave misogynist magazine has just stooped to a new low and published an actual guide to stalking your girlfriend (or, I suppose, any woman who you feel entitled to). Check it out:

Click image to enlarge.

Sure, it contains a helpful disclaimer that this is illegal in many states. And it claims to be a guide to "eavesdropping" on "friends and foes." But the feature at the bottom of the page makes clear that these are really tips for keeping your little lady (aka your "target") in check, and making sure she's yours and yours alone. It even suggests (under the sub-head "Step Up the Stalk") using GPS tracking. (For a better-intentioned but still creepy guide for stalkers, see this Guardian piece. I was torn when I read it: Is this information more helpful to women -- because now they're aware that this is possible -- or more helpful to stalkers?)

This was a wake-up call to me about how, in the internet era, the term "stalking" has really been trivialized. I know I've definitely joked about "Google-stalking" people, and there's Katha Pollitt's already-classic "Webstalker" essay. Of course, using this terminology is not the same thing as promoting controlling, abusive behavior. But I do think we need to be careful about how we joke about this sort of online voyeurism, because it can be a fine line between kidding around about combing Facebook for info on your ex and laughing at Wal-Mart's classic "Some call it stalking, I call it love" T-shirt or the hoax site "selling" GPS panties or the above Maxim article. Because real-life stalking is, uh, decidedly not hilarious, to put it mildly, and we need to draw a bright line between a common joke of the personal-is-public-online era and the very real threat posed by stalking.

The Stalking Resource Center at the National Center for Victims of Crime has more info on stalking.

If you feel compelled to write a letter to Maxim, here's the email address.

Yeah, yeah, we've heard it a million times: sex sells. It's often used as an excuse for why advertisers use pictures of half-naked women to sell just about every product imaginable. It shouldn't be surprising, then that anti-sex also sells. (via Jezebel) Conservative Christian don't-have-sex publishing has taken off! Publishers Weekly puts the bestsellers into a few broad categories: Chasing Chastity, AIDS Awareness, and Sexual Integrity for Men. Let's take these one by one, shall we?

Chasing Chastity

The article mentions Lies Women Believe, a book by two women who have both written "purity" guides. It's a perfect example of the near-porniness of some "abstinence" writing. The book begins with a description of what was going on in Eve's head when she ate the forbidden fruit (I'm not kidding):

First, I just listened and looked. In my heart, I pondered, I questioned, I debated. Adam had reminded me many times that God had said we must not eat the fruit from that tree. The creature kept looking into my eyes and talking in a soothing voice. I found myself believing him. It felt so right. Finally, I surrendered. I reached out -- cautiously at first, then more boldly. I took, I ate. I handed it to Adam. He ate. We ate together -- first me, then him.

Those next moment are a blur. Sensations deep down inside that I've never had before. New awareness -- like I know a secret I'm not supposed to know. Elation and depression -- at the same time. Liberation. Prison. Rising. Falling. Confident. Afraid. Ashamed. Dirty. Hiding -- I can't let Him see me like this.

Alone. So very alone. Lost. Deceived.

Ah yes, I go through those same feelings every time I eat an apple. We could have a Freudian field day with that passage. I can see this prose causing guilt-ridden titillation -- a surefire recipe for bestseller success.

AIDS Awareness

The abstinence-only crowd promoting "AIDS awareness"? How hypocritical. Just look at what they want to do to PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). They basically want to strip everything effective from our international AIDS strategy. It's not so much an anti-sex movement as an anti-health movement.

Sexual Integrity for Men

The no-sex-until-hetero-marriage movement has set up "men's integrity" as the flip side to "women's purity." Hence, you have the hilariously titled "Integrity Balls" for boys, which emphasize not "ruining" your girlfriend for her future husband. See, maintaining women's "purity" should be the goal of both men and women. So again, this isn't so much an argument against sex as an argument against women violating their Eve-like innocence and purity by having sex. Also: This "integrity" line of reasoning has always caused me to wonder: Does this mean dudes can maintain their integrity by just sleeping with other dudes? Makes sense to me.

There is nothing funnier than someone who is so offended by feminists and feminism that they resort to middle school style hyperbole to air their criticism of feminist ideology. Or I should say their perception of feminist ideology and activism. I think this guy fears castration. The mere presence of women, makes him feel like less of a man.

For shame on Townhall, really. I would like to think this opinion doesn't count, but unfortunately, it probably votes.

We're a little late on this one, but I think it's still worth noting (if only because Dr. Laura's woman-hate is so glaringly obvious it's almost hilarious).

Dr. Laura Schlessinger has never been one to shrink from controversy, and she leaped headlong into one on Monday when she said that if a husband cheats, his wife may share some of the blame.

“When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs,� the popular psychologist and radio personality said.

The infamous anti-feminist, Dr. Laura made the comments on the Today show in a discussion about Eliot Spitzer's connection with sex workers. (Video available here)

Naturally the show received a shit-ton of appalled emails and letters, which gives me hope. Outside of the obvious grossness of suggesting that women (or men, for that matter) could be responsible for the partner's cheating - you have to love how Dr. Laura says that men who don't get the hero-worship they so deserve are "susceptible to the charm of some other woman" who makes them feel special.

It's scary when I kind of agree with Carrie Lukas -- a woman who has called the wage gap a "bargain" and said careers are "baby-deniers":

Yet I agree with the critiques that she took it too far (and lost me on the humor), particularly with the ending: "Then we could shriek and swoon and gossip and read chick lit to our hearts' content and not mind the fact that way down deep, we are . . . kind of dim."

Women aren't dim, even when we indulge in girly things like fashion, romance novels, and friendly gossip. Equating our propensity to engage in this trivia with a lack of intelligence is a mistake, and, although I'm sure it was inadvertent, undermines attempts to shake the taboo from discussions of innate sex differences.

Yeah, except it wasn't inadvertent, because Allen repeated it throughout the follow-up online chat. And yeah, I obviously disagree with Lukas that boys are preprogrammed to like trucks and girls are preprogrammed to like dolls. But on finding Allen's piece insulting and not funny? I'm with her.

Still, it's shocking that Lukas and I even kind of agree here. I mean, that hasn't happened since I saw her at some awful event on Capitol Hill last year and we both reached for the cheese plate at the same time. Damn.

Katha Pollitt has a must-read piece in The Washington Post today, smacking down Charlotte Allen's notorious women-are-dumb column.

Pollitt points out that Allen isn't so miffed by women's supposed "dimness" as much as she is pissed that women today "reject, with every fiber of their latte-loving beings, the abstinence-only, father-knows-best, slut-shaming crabbed misogyny of the Republican right." Snap!

Don't forget, the Charlotte Allen live question/answer session at WaPo is happening now! Her answers are predictably ugh.

Here are a couple of my questions that got in (click for bigger view):

The Washington Post is running letters (including one from Katha Pollitt) in response to their oh-so-hilarious column about how women are dumb. Besides finding it kind of funny that they started with a positive letter, like others, I'm a bit eye-rolly that the letters are run under the innocuous heading, "Barack Obama and the Female Vote." (What? No more "Women Aren't Very Bright?")

Who says anti-feminists are out of touch? I mean, who wouldn't want to enter a contest where the prize is an old cedar chest filled with linens...or something. Seriously, the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute has a campaign to "Bring Back the Hope Chest." (And all you have to do is convince your friends to sign up for these super fab "Luce Ladies" calendars!)

I was going to write a post about this, but Ann and I had a Skype conversation a couple of days back that I think says it all. Check it after the jump.

Who knew that all it takes to get published in The Washington Post is penning a piece on how stupid women are?

Charlotte Allen - a professional woman-hating hack from the Independent Women's Forum who has also oh-so-bravely attacked transgender rights, said that the answer to women's potential financial woes is marriage, and suggested that Hurricane Katrina might have been "the best thing" to happen to New Orleans which is full of "whiners...chisel[ing] us taxpayers" out of money - has outdone herself in an article that is all about what dumb fucks women are.

I...wonder whether women -- I should say, "we women," of course -- aren't the weaker sex after all. Or even the stupid sex, our brains permanently occluded by random emotions, psychosomatic flailings and distraction by the superficial. Women "are only children of a larger growth," wrote the 18th-century Earl of Chesterfield. Could he have been right?

Lest Allen seem like she's just spouting misogyny for a patriarchal head-pat and a paycheck, she offers super compelling evidence that other women also find women stupid:

I'm not the only woman who's dumbfounded (as it were) by our sex, or rather, as we prefer to put it, by other members of our sex besides us. It's a frequent topic of lunch, phone and water-cooler conversations; even some feminists can't believe that there's this thing called "The Oprah Winfrey Show" or that Celine Dion actually sells CDs. A female friend of mine plans to write a horror novel titled "Office of Women," in which nothing ever gets done and everyone spends the day talking about Botox.

"Some" feminists! "Other" women! Her reporting skills astound. Though it isn't hard to believe that when one works at an organization whose sole purpose is to convince women that sexism is actually fabulous, that water-cooler talk would consist of chatter about how vaginas are really just brain cell black holes.

But of course, Allen includes herself in this dumb-off, presumably to garner even more credibility with misogynists.

I am perfectly willing to admit that I myself am a classic case of female mental deficiencies. I can't add 2 and 2 (well, I can, but then what?). I don't even know how many pairs of shoes I own.

I could go on and on, because Allen certainly does provide ample fodder for fisking, but there's no real point. Professional anti-feminists make too much bank to ever stop writing sexist drivel. The Washington Post, however - who claims to be so concerned about how to appeal to women that it convened a task force on the subject - should know better.

Tell WaPo how you feel about the paper calling half their readership dumb-asses. Write a letter to the editor or complain to the ombudsman.

(On a more personal note, Allen has also written about how much she loves Feministing.org, the Feministing parody site started by men's rights activists who also own an "Ameriskanks suck" page. It seems Allen is willing to align herself with anyone who hates women. Charming.)

This is for folks who have questions about the post title.

I love anti-feminists so much, because the jokes just write themselves.

David Gelernter from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research has a doozy of an article up, "Feminism and the English Language." Basically, Gelernter is pissed that some words are used differently now (i.e. firefighter instead of fireman) as not to be sexist.

How can I teach my students to write decently when the English language has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Academic-Industrial Complex? Our language used to belong to all its speakers and readers and writers. But in the 1970s and '80s, arrogant ideologues began recasting English into heavy artillery to defend the borders of the New Feminist state. In consequence we have all got used to sentences where puffed-up words like "chairperson" and "humankind" strut and preen, where he-or-she's keep bashing into surrounding phrases like bumper cars and related deformities blossom like blisters; they are all markers of an epoch-making victory of propaganda over common sense.

The feminine is pissing all over his English language and he's not going to take it anymore! I love that he thinks words like 'chairperson' are "puffed up" and "strut." He might as well call the word an uppity bitch and get it over with.

Gelernter also calls feminists "language rapists" and writes that what we've done to language "skreak like fingernails on a blackboard." Which, you know, is not at all telling.

I guess is what fellows at right-wing think tanks do with their time. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go castrate some sentences before my day is through.

This is the most hilarious thing I've read all day: Legally, a woman can't be elected president

Just read it, trust me. You can practically hear this guy's head exploding with the thought of a woman in power.

Thanks to Mark for the link.

Well, at least they're not subtle. I guess. Didn't anyone tell them feminists like to cook too?

So after reading Lori "Settle for a Schlub" Gottlieb's essay, and realizing it was timed with the Independent Women's Forum's annual campaign lamenting the prevalence of casual sex, Take Back the Date, I realized that there were the makings for an amazing anti-feminist PR campaign. So, inspired by the classic anti-feminist V-Day poster, I've created a new campaign:

Last night, my boyfriend pointed out this gem of a sidebar in a recent Time magazine. (Click on image for full size.)

Apparently, goatees are part of a backlash to feminism. Or something. I'll never look at Johnny Depp the same away again, that quietly defiant bastard.

As it turns out, settling for a boring guy actually kind of sucks. Damn you, Lori Gottlieb!

I haven't read a lot of back issues of The Atlantic, but I imagine that this tripe has to be in their top three most appalling articles of all time. In what can only be described as anti-feminist porn, writer Lori Gottlieb argues that women who find themselves single at the embarrassingly old age of 30 should stop being so uppity and settle for "Mr. Good Enough."

Seriously...imagine all the bad science scare-tactic articles that Susan Faludi debunked in Backlash and the Independent Women's Forum had a baby. A fucking ugly baby.

And despite growing up in an era when the centuries-old mantra to get married young was finally (and, it seemed, refreshingly) replaced by encouragement to postpone that milestone in pursuit of high ideals (education! career! but also true love!), every woman I know—no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure—feels panic, occasionally coupled with desperation, if she hits 30 and finds herself unmarried.

Oh, I know—I’m guessing there are single 30-year-old women reading this right now who will be writing letters to the editor to say that the women I know aren’t widely representative, that I’ve been co-opted by the cult of the feminist backlash, and basically, that I have no idea what I’m talking about. And all I can say is, if you say you’re not worried, either you’re in denial or you’re lying. In fact, take a good look in the mirror and try to convince yourself that you’re not worried, because you’ll see how silly your face looks when you’re being disingenuous. (Emphasis added)

Really? Because this is how worried my face looks. Perhaps, as someone who is turning 30 this year, I'm some sort of anomaly because I'm not desperately running around looking for the nearest douchebag to propose. But something tells me I'm not alone. (Also, someone may want to clue Gottlieb in about, you know, lesbians.)

In fact, what's particularly hilarious about Gottlieb's article is that the evidence for her "thesis" is largely hackneyed commentary about old sitcoms and romantic comedies. Gottlieb cites The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Friends, Sex and the City, Will and Grace, Say Anything, and Broadcast News in an effort to convince us that single women over 30 will end up as depressed as she is. And I don't say that to be cruel; it really does seem like Gottlieb is using this piece to explore her own unhappiness:

Now, though, I realize that if I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life, I’m at the age where I’ll likely need to settle for someone who is settling for me. What I and many women who hold out for true love forget is that we won’t always have the same appeal that we may have had in our 20s and early 30s. Having turned 40, I now have wrinkles, bags under my eyes, and hair in places I didn’t know hair could grow on women...And even if some men do find us engaging, and they’re ready to have a family, they’ll likely decide to marry someone younger with whom they can have their own biological children.

Ouch. Someone needs a little Stuart Smalley in their life. And if having to read through Gottlieb's personal neuroses wasn't bad enough, we're also subjected to quotes from her (decidedly asshole) friends.

Then there’s my friend Chris, a single 35-year-old marketing consultant who for three years dated someone he calls “the perfect woman�—a kind and beautiful surgeon. She broke off the relationship several times because, she told him with regret, she didn’t think she wanted to spend her life with him. Each time, Chris would persuade her to reconsider, until finally she called it off for good, saying that she just couldn’t marry somebody she wasn’t in love with. Chris was devastated, but now that his ex-girlfriend has reached 35, he’s suddenly hopeful about their future.

“By the time she turns 37,� Chris said confidently, “she’ll come back. And I’ll bet she’ll marry me then. I know she wants to have kids.�

Yeah, I just can't imagine why a woman wouldn't want to be with this charmer. But in all seriousness, we all know that the media likes nothing better than a woman telling other women how miserable they're going to be without a man. And that's what makes nonsense like this so dangerous - its potential reach. Gottlieb has already been on the Today show touting her article and going head to head with (sigh) professional matchmakers. Who knows how much more media attention this piece will get. Shit, she'll probably get a book deal out of it.

But no matter where this article ends up, it doesn't change the fact that it's pure crap, mixed in with a little sour grapes. (I'm betting it makes Gottlieb - who is so clearly dissatisfied with her life - just nuts that there are all these "disingenuously" happy single women out there. Better that they're matched up with losers than pursuing their own lives.)

So, to Gottlieb and all the others who think that us "old" straight gals should go back to the men we once rejected just so we don't end up miserable spinsters: STFU already. That kind of scare tactic nonsense may have worked in the 80s, but we're having none of it.

Thanks to Julie for the link.

Poor Cupid, tethered to the unreasonable feminist demand that women not be raped.

It's that time of year again, folks! Since it's almost Valentine's Day, colleges across the country are gearing up to put on performances of The Vagina Monologues. And as they love to do (since they have shit else to complain about), anti-feminist organizations like the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute are likewise launching their annual campaigns against the award-winning play. (The above image is from IWF's Take Back the Date flyer.)

The latest is a hilarious press release from the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute that one of our readers sent in:

February 14, a day generally recognized for hearts, love and valentines, is now a day that has become increasingly associated with female private parts and the radical feminist agenda.

With shock value as its main tactic, the production has effectively captured the attention of college students around the nation. And with the purported message of ending violence against women, the Monologues' parent movement, V-Day, has earned praise from leftist groups, celebrities, and politicians across America, and even the world. But others-perhaps more than you think-are quietly left wondering how embracing vulgarity is going to make the world a safer place for women.

The organization has even put together a booklet encouraging students to protest the "vulgar" play, "The Vagina Monologues Exposed: A Student's Guide to V-Day."

What's particularly irritating to me - despite the tired notion that feminists are somehow killing romance by raising awareness about violence against women - is that these organizations refuse to talk about the incredible things this play has done for women across the globe. The Luce Policy Institute website even says that "V-Day has no real impact on the violence." I guess raising over 30 million dollars is no biggie for women, huh?

It's amazing that these groups would rather spend their time and money denigrating a play because it has the word "vagina" in it than actually, you know, do something on behalf of women.

Because this letter to the editor is too depressing for words:

Men presidents only

I think that having a woman president would be a bad idea for our country. Women are not meant to rule countries and be in charge. They are meant to make decisions but not confirm them.

Our president deals with some countries that don't respect or allow women in leadership positions. I wonder if the United States would have more terrorist attacks because we would be seen as weak with a woman leader. I agree that women can do many things, but leave the ruling of the countries to the men.

BRITTANY BAYLES, 13, Kennewick

Can I curl into a ball and die now? I honestly needed that pic (h/t) above to make me feel better.

Thanks to Cora for the link.

Some bad news for feminists in Iran. Authorities have shut down the country's top women's magazine, Zanan.

Managing director Shahla Sherkat was once a hardline supporter of the Iranian government but became disillusioned after the Iran-Iraq war. Zanan managed to survive previous crackdowns by cautiously avoiding general politics and focusing on women's issues.

But that didn't work, apparently.

According to preliminary reports it was banned for portraying a negative image of women in Iran, but no official word has emerged yet.

And what were the oh-so-negative issues discussed in the magazine? Everything from domestic violence to cosmetic surgery.

The Commission for Press Authorisation and Surveillance, responsible for shutting down the magazine, also accused Zanan of “publishing information detrimental to society’s psychological tranquility.� Sigh.

More from Inside Iran and Reporters Without Borders.

The Globe and Mail certainly thinks it is (headline above). They even say "it's official."

And what is this "official" evidence that feminism isn't in vogue? Well, the reporter's daughter and niece don't know who Gloria Steinem is and don't read Ms. magazine. Pack up your things, ladies; that's proof enough for me!

You know, I've really had enough of the sentiment that young women don't care about feminism because they don't necessarily relate to the second wave. Young women don't need to be NOW members to be activists, and they don't need to read Ms. or vote for Hillary Clinton to prove their feminist bona fides.

It's folks like reporter Karen Vohn Hahn that are doing feminism a disservice, because they're incapable of looking past what feminism has meant to them to see the feminist work that's happening across the country (and the world) while they sit around opining that no one has consciousness raising groups anymore.

And if we really want to talk about who is abandoning feminist values, let's talk about women who buy into the idea that the pop culture ideal of young women is what actual young women are like. I don't know about you, but I don't know any girls going wild; I don't know any Paris Hiltons or apathetic "giggling" (yes, she calls us giggling) shoppers. I know activists, I know students, I know women who are making a difference in their communities. And they're all pretty damn "stylish" to me.

This one is a doozy. John Bustrak of Michigan Tech writes that "Feminism has gone too far." What is it this time? We've made girls slutty? We're the reason more women are in prison? No, Bustrak thinks feminism has overstepped its bounds because we've made it difficult for women to fulfill their "desire to nurture." Also, we probably shouldn't be allowed in college.

This day and age feminism has gone too far. I have several female friends whose greatest ambition is to be a wife and mother, but feel social and cultural pressure to go to college and get a prestigious job simply because it is expected.

Poor, poor women. Because of feminism, they feel like they have to go to college, instead of following their much more natural urge to pick up Bustrak's dirty socks.

Since Bustrak goes to a Tech college, he's semi-careful in trying not to offend his female colleagues. (He doesn't do a very good job.)

Now, Michigan Tech’s female population is exceptional in many ways. Overall, not many women are drawn to the heavier math and science studies, which is most of Tech’s programs. Thus, most of the generalities of this article do not apply in anywhere near as high a degree to the female population at Tech.

I'm only sexist against my non-classmates, I swear! Bustrak goes on to dig his misogynist grave even deeper, waxing idiotic about how men like to "build and destroy" and women like to "nurture," and even finds time to mention once more how unfortunate it is that women feel the need to go to college.

But it's only towards the end that the true Bustrak's true motives come out:

Now, I have known a number of women who consider themselves not simply equal to men, but superior. Why? Because they are more “sophisticated,� because they are more “rational,� and less prone to violence. Further, I have seen women who have decided that they need to one-up men for aggressiveness and become almost psychotic in their brash confrontationalism...When did feminism stop being about “we are worth just as much as you are,� and start being about “we can do everything you can do, and then some�?

You know, he really could have written this article in five words: Uppity bitches piss me off. Someone is just all irritated because he thinks women fancy themselves better than him. The thing is...they probably do and they're definitely right.

Ladybrains are not to be trusted. Nor is Steve Martin.

Former state Rep. Sue Burmeister from Georgia in a debate about why women who want abortions should have sit through a state-written lecture about how terrible it is and wait 24 hours before obtaining the procedure: "Women are intelligent, but when you're emotional, you're not thinking with the right part of your brain."

It is always fun to come across female writers that are surprised by phenomena such as women picking up hammers. They open their eyes and low and behold, women have jobs and pink tool belts.

There has been an explosion of womantargeted self-help books, videos, radio shows (including one called "A Repair to Remember"), TV spots and home-improvement Web sites. Some sites -- including bejane.com and toolgirl.com -- are specifically for women, while others offer female-friendly links and columns. Home Depot has introduced "Do It Herself" clinics for women interested in learning how to use a stud finder; the classes are evidently a success since, as NPR has reported, in some locales the store is becoming known as a hot singles spot. Even schoolgirls are joining the revolution. The Girl Scouts now offer a Ms. Fix-It badge for members eager to learn how to rewire a lamp or fix a leaky toilet, and an outfit called Vermont Work for Women has introduced a summer program called Rosie's (as in Rosie the Riveter) Girls promising "hands on instruction in the skilled trades."

Well, I agree with her that the explosion of self help literature that capitalizes off women's supposed helplessness and thus need to be told she is dumb and useless, unless she does so and so is huge. But instead of a scathing critique on capitalism and the ways it pigeonholes women into predefined roles, she relies on some tired nostalgia of women hitting the ground running in their new found freedom of building shit around the house.

Please tell me you aren't serious.

Young women benefit from being well-informed, they don’t get knocked up from it. Read the full post at The Nation.

I'm glad Slate is calling on Congress to address the birth-control price hike. But WTF is up with yesterday's homepage teaser for the article? (Left.) As if all Slate readers are straight men, and they're the ones most affected by this issue? Yes, I want men to realize that they too have a stake in affordable, accessible contraception. But this language is just annoying.

And in other birth-control-is-all-about-dudes news, Glenn Sacks has this gem of an op-ed claiming that women love complaining about bearing the burden of contraception -- they love it so much that they're actually opposed to the male birth control pill. Which is funny, because most women I know cannot wait for the advent of the male pill. In fact, we've put up a joyful, hopeful post every time there's news that a male version of the pill may be hitting the market within our lifetime.

So what's the hold up? I recall an interview with a scientist who said they stopped working on developing a male pill because men were resistant to using it.

Like Emily Yoffe, Anne Applebaum needs to learn how to use Google.

But I'll make it easy for her, and link to some "feminist silence" on this issue right here.

One more thing: It's way too easy (as Applebaum acknowledges) -- and completely unfair -- to judge all feminists on the basis of NOW's website. NOW is only a slice -- and often an unrepresentative slice -- of the feminist movement. And especially if Applebaum is doing her "research" online, there is absolutely no excuse for failing to mention that nearly every major feminist blog has a post on its homepage criticizing the Saudi government. Maybe it was ok in the 1980s and earlier to give NOW's take (or lack of a take) on something and use the term "reigning feminist ideology." Not anymore.

Reading the relationship advice column on Askmen is like taking a trip down the dark and windy road inside the head of an emasculated and insecure man. It makes one wonder why men that read this type of advice on how to tame and train women bother dating women. It is clear they hate them, because you wouldn't treat your enemy the way that they are suggesting you treat your girlfriend.

When you first start dating a new girlfriend, you want to be on your best behavior. Sure, you want to make a good impression, but what you're really doing is catering to her to get sex.

The problem is, the power base shifts to her right from the outset and she knows it. She's in charge of access to the zipper and she counts on you bending over backward to gain entry. So she's got you.

OK pinch me if I am dreaming here, but who does that? I have, let's see, NO friends that don't have sex with a guy within the first week of dating him. It is a myth that men are more into sex than women in relationships. If anything, from what I have experienced and heard from my friends is it is quite the opposite. But clearly a magazine like this can only function if we believe certain innate things to be true about men and women, so for them, men are horny, control freak, man beasts and women are virginal prudes that must be conquered. I get the colonization metaphors.

But then it just gets nasty. Listed under "common obedience problems."

Aggression She's out of control and constantly acts up. Brainwashed by a steady diet of Oprah and "feminist" propaganda, she's now "empowered," meaning that her thoughts run somewhere along these lines: "Men have been holding me back, I want mine now, and I don't care what pair of testicles I have to step on to get it." Since a girlfriend's brain is unable to distinguish emotion from logic, this kind of fantasy thinking will prompt her to act in self-destructive patterns and will cause you undue stress around the house.

Perhaps this is a joke, but as I have said before--I have no sense of humor for this kind of crap--so I am not LOLz. But even if it is a joke, I am sure this site is heavily trafficked, so why is it OK to say virulently violent, misogynistic things about women and the rights they may have earned or the power they might have? Would this be funny if they were talking about an ethnic minority? And let me say, I don't think this publication would be above that by any means, but it wouldn't be funny at all. It would be fucked up and racist. It is amazing to me how certain men's magazines tap into the paranoia that men feel from women having power and couch it in tired recycled metaphors of slavery and submission. That to me is much more humorous then the same joke laughed at over and over by insecure, pathetic, grown-ass men.

By the way, we all know it is not just men who support these myths but often both genders complicit in the same cycle, so read comments carefully. They are offensive and may trigger you!

Thanks to Julia for the link.

This one is the best. Perhaps my favorite hate mail ever, in fact--just because it's so telling.

Dear Jessica,

There is absolutely no reason for you to have an opinion or talk, because all women are insignificant pieces of meat. The only thing you femme cunts are good for is cooking dinner and remaining quiet while getting fucked in your tight asses.

If you were my wife, I wouldn’t let you out of your cage to do anything other than cooking, cleaning, and blowing me while I watch porn. Really disgusting porn to - the kind that degrades and objectifies women, because women are only put on this earth to clean and get fucked.

To recap: Women are not as smart as men, are not capable of using logic, and therefore must be treated like dirty little whores. Go back to fucking your smelly vagina with plastic dicks, because you can’t get a guy to fuck your femme cunt ass. You and all your girl power sisters can gargle my balls.

Quite the romantic, yes? To recap: Someone is very, very afraid of women. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go gargle. Have a great, anti-feminist free weekend everyone!

Amex not accepted.

Are vaginas shaped the way they are so you can slide a credit card through them?

You know it took him hours to think of that one. Also, it seems someone needs a closer look at a vagina.

Jessica, I am surprised your husband allowed you to take time away from the stove and your other household duties to start this ridiculous email about the "offensive" panties. By the way, SANTA IS NOT REAL!!! You have set the bar extremely high for the next hypocritical idiot who talks out both sides of their mouth. Did you mention to anyone at Wal*Mart that you have a web site that can be accessed by anyone of any age (such as the young girls who I am sure have now turned to prostitution because of these horrible panties) that advertises VIBRATORS in big colorful ads? You need to get barefoot, naked, pregnant, and back in the kitchen where you best serve a damn good meal.

Santa isn't real?!!!! (Cries into coffee.)

You bunch of whiney ass babies always take the easy shots. The ones you know are sure wins. Go play the Mohamed (sic) game. Chicken. You femmes ain't got the guts...I don't see you raising issues about the magazines that turn our children into little women at age 10 or less. Gee I'm wandering but there are so many things that you need to be more concerned about than hitting the home runs on sure things and I pity you in the coming years when you won't even matter.

Does anyone know what the "Mohamed game" is? Is it like Parcheesi? And can one really "wander" in an email? He's so...deep.

I suppose this is what happens when Fox News links to you on their website and mentions said site on television. But I must admit, it was totally worth it. I've collected a few of my faves and will be posting them throughout the day.

Women constantly use their vagina to make their lives easier. Hell, who wouldn’t? If your a woman it doesn’t matter if you are not talented, skilled, nice, personable, intelligent or even very attractive; men will still pander to whatever you say in the hopes that they might get in your pants. And even if a woman does have some of those qualities it is likely that 90% of people are still just going to be interested in the sex. I mean seriously what can you talk to a woman about? They have to be the most uninteresting creatures in the world because somehow they have been given as status in society that all they need is a vagina to get by, not a personality. Maybe if women quit being so goddamned boring, and in the case of these bloggers, uptight anal bitches, men would be interested in more than whats between their legs.

In fact, we're so boring that crazy misogynists are way too busy and interesting to waste their male energy writing a raving email to us. Oh, wait...

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going off to use my vagina to make my life easier. She's making me coffee.

Not even a month after Iranian feminist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for taking part in a women's rights rally, Jelveh Javaheri was arrested on Saturday for creating the website We4Change, which promotes women's rights in Iran. On the site, Maryam Hosseinkhah, also arrested last month, reports from prison.

All three women are leaders in the One Million Signatures Campaign, which is seeking to gather signatures calling for the change of discriminatory laws in Iran. And at least 30 more have been arrested just in Tehran this year. Javaheri and most other activists are being taken to Evin prison, where at least Ali has been sentenced to lashings. A group of mothers of the activists being held have also created a website, Mothers for Peace.

In the meantime, the capital is setting up women-run police stations to arrest other women who, for example, wear "tight, short coats and skimpy headscarves." That's right, "skimpy headscarves." Sigh.

Take action now to help get these women released.

Consider this gadget the modern-day answer to the leg lamp from "A Christmas Story." Plug this device into a computer's USB port and watch the exotic dancer swivel with each sound.

I hoped that they would stop at a USB powered lava lamp. Guess not.

Via.

Thanks to Anne for the link.

Prepare to seethe.

Amidst the sexual harassment, the rape, the murder, and the the homelessness, feminism, out of all things, has resulted in the demoralization of the military.

According to this gem, sexual harassment charges are used as a "tool of some women to promote their own agendas," women are also apparently getting pregnant left and right (if that were true, that'd change if they had access to EC) so they can become reckless single mothers, or because their primary purpose of joining the military and potentially risking their lives in Iraq is to find a hubby. That one is my favorite.

So does anyone want to enlist with me after work today? My "visceral drive to capture a lifemate" is kicking in.

Forget immigration, reproductive rights, health care or any other issue we feminists are reading up on for the upcoming election. It is all about getting a hot chick in the white house as first lady. Does that not count potential first dude, Bill? Forget you men.style.com, you are totally lame.

No, I don't have a sense of humor.

Jen and I are practically in tears over the fact that this event on Tuesday, a panel discussion called "Modest Proposals," is full up, so we can't go. Because it offers a chance to see -- live and in the modestly-clothed flesh! -- Laura Sessions Stepp, Wendy Shalit, and Dawn Eden. (Plus Dr. Miriam Grossman and the founder of Princeton's chastity group).

Wowza. It's bound to be chock full of slut-shaming, victim-blaming, and pining for the good ol' days when women went to college to earn their MRS.

I so wish I could be there to ask them about this new study debunking the abstinence-only talking-point that people who lose their virginity earlier are more likely to become juvenile delinquents. Or to ask Laura Sessions Stepp whether she finds baking cookies more fulfilling than having orgasms. Or to ask Wendy Shalit why she manufactured quotes from the Abercrombie girlcott crew. Or to ask Dawn Eden to sing.

Has anyone RSVP'd to this event? Let us know in comments. At the very least, I assume why.i.hate.dc will have a full rundown on the appalling quotes of the evening, and I'll have a follow-up post on Wednesday.

Who would have ever possibly thought this headline would come from our feminist-hating darlings, Men's News Daily:

"Feminist Ann Friedman Has a Point"

And that's not sarcasm talking, either. Hilarious!

I knew there had to be a downside of this 'vajayjay' business. And his name is Michael Smerconish. In an article for the Philadelphia Daily News, Smerconish argues that vajayjay is a fabulous word because it makes men more comfortable, but pisses feminists off. (Who knew?)

Pardon my directness, but I refuse to beat around the bush. The feminists, it seems, have a proprietary interest in female genitalia.

No matter what you call it, many feminists don't want guys attracted to it. If it were up to them, there'd be an image at www.dictionary.com with a sign next to "vagina" reading "No men allowed."

Hardy har har. Feminists don't like men--there's a new one. But I do love that Smerconish takes such offense to the idea that women would think they had a "proprietary interest" in their own vaginas. The nerve!

This is why I think they like the status quo. Vagina is a tough word that refuses to roll easily off the tongue. It has such a sense of taboo that nobody feels totally comfortable talking about it - not even women, but especially men. So use of the word remains almost exclusively to the feminists.

Or, you know, doctors. Or anyone else who isn't horrified by the idea of calling something by its proper name.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems that vajayjay is different. Unlike the starkly clinical vagina, I see a vajayjay as a happy and inviting place, with a warm and fuzzy connotation. Vajayjay says "hello . . . welcome" and "open for business." "Vagina" screams textbook. "Vajayjay" says Facebook.

In short, "vajayjay" has got us thinking outside of the box, which makes the feminists nervous. They want to keep "vagina" all to themselves. That is why they are vajayjay naysayers.

I'm not quite sure where Smerconish got the idea that feminists are "vajayjay naysayers," since he fails to mention one feminist who has a problem with the word--but that's beside the point. The fact that this dude thinks that euphemisms for female genitalia should exist in order to make a more man-friendly vag tells me all I need to know.

Shorter Smerconish? Vagina, mine!

For your daily dose of complete and total woman hate.

How the hell did this make a craigslist best of?

Thanks to Elizaveta for the link.

O'Reilly appeared on Good Morning America yesterday to talk about his new book on the youth of today. I am scared that O'Reilly actually was near young people. But I remember teachers like him, the ones that did it to really set these kids straight. They sucked.

But now he has a book out about young people and how to control them and how they act in school. I wouldn't normally pay attention this, but this got me. O'Reilly claims that wearing a burqa/hijab/veil, is an imposition of religion onto OTHER people. Huh?

O'Reilly and host Diane Sawyer are in agreement that today's youth are unacceptably dressed. Indicators of this include the flaunting of low-hanging pants and burqas. Burqas, O'Reilly says, are an imposition of one's religion on others. He alludes to such an expression of religion as a path to "chaos in the classroom" and an acceptable loss at the discretion of school administration.

Oh, I see, low hanging pants AND burqas. So too much exposure, bad-too little exposure, bad. No wonder kids are so confused and angry these days. All they get are mixed messages. And what do these two fashion choices have in common? It is probably young brown kids wearing them, so of course they shouldn't be wearing them to school. My god, how did they even let them IN the school?

And you have to love the hypocrisy. First he chides the school district for firing a teacher to have the students pray and then demands that wearing a burqa in school creates chaos. Obviously for him, it is only an imposition of religion if it is not one that he adheres to.

(Oh and he hates on Colbert, so boo to him. AND, what is up with Diane Sawyer all, "thanks for saying I am pretty?" Barf.)

via Raw Story.

In an interview with The Guardian, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell says that "feminism is bra-burning lesbianism...It's very unglamorous." Unglamorous, my ass. Hmph.

Halliwell went onto say that she thinks feminism should be "rebranded" and that it should celebrate "our femininity and softness." Now, debunking feminist myths is definitely something I can get behind--but when the desire to "rebrand" is because you think there's something inherently wrong with being considered an activist, strong, or "unfeminine," well then we have a problem.

In the Atlanta Journal Constitution's "Woman to Woman" column, Andrea Cornell Sarvady and Shaunti Feldhahn argue whether or not feminism is to blame for the 'happiness gap'. You know, the one that doesn't exist. Sigh.

Yes, women can be misogynist. And who better than Ann Coulter? Here's a recent interview quote of hers, via the Garance:

If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and “We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?’’

A recent piece looks into the increase of men entering more traditionally female careers, such as teaching, nursing, etc. While I'd like to think that we've gotten past the point of seeing teaching as just a woman's profession, it's still an interesting discussion to be had. Until, that is, the author asks the question, "Is there such a thing as a reverse glass ceiling for men?"

A featured "expert" ass-hat psychologist Warren Farrell who has written such captivating anti-feminist books titled Why Men Earn More and The Liberated Man says:

"Women enter into those areas because they are the most fulfilling...Men don't because they feel they need to take on the responsibility of providing for the family, and the way they earn love is to earn money." (Emphasis mine)

You know, because women always have the luxury to choose a low-paying career they enjoy since they constantly have a wealthy man they're wired to love.

Their examples of this apparent "reverse glass ceiling" is of a male nurse turned high-level administrator and travel agent John Clifford, who has been featured in Travel & Leisure's "A-List All Stars" and has clients like Georgio Armani yet "feels" like he doesn't get the recognition and respect he deserves within the female-dominated field. (A-List All Stars is small potatoes, I suppose.) And no mention of discrimination regarding a pay gap or a promotion in his work, just his contention that:

"Just as women in the corporate world may feel it is hard to break into the old boys' club. Whether or not we like to say a 'women's club' exists, it does. It's just as hard for a man to break through that." (Emphasis mine)

Which is just laughable. In fact, it sounds like these men are doing just fine in their endeavors. What kind of "reverse glass ceiling" is this exactly? We could be having much more productive conversations about male gender roles and the difficulties men in traditionally female careers may experience. But putting the blame on us money- and power-hungry women is hardly helpful, especially when you don't even seem to know what the term "glass ceiling" actually means.

Why is it that feminism is always blamed for tacky sexist trends?

College fraternities, long known as bastions of grace and decorum, are these days featuring yet one more accoutrement of scholastic refinement - the stripper pole.

The most important campus development since the keg, the stripper pole shines like a luminous totem festooning the halls of the American academy. It's erected for a single, glorious purpose:

To get drunken chicks to do slutty stuff.

And where does feminism come in?

Post-feminists argue that the pole is empowering. If a young woman chooses to use it, they say, she is telling the world that she is in charge of her sexuality.

Apparently these pole-loving feminists and post-feminists only exist in reporter Alfred Lubrano's imagination--because he fails to quote one woman outside of the publicist for the company that creates the poles. I mean really, who are "they?" Who are the "some" who are arguing that stripper poles "flaunt liberation?" Great reporting, dude.

It's fairly clear that the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter had little interest in researching his piece, but a lot of interest in making snarky sexist comments:

There was a time when feminism was about women being smart and assertive, and building inner strength.

Somewhere along the line, though, it morphed into slut culture. Girls tell themselves they're in charge. But they're still just strutting it for the boys.

Welcome to Skank 101, freshmen. Open your books to Chapter One, "Pole Vixen." Note how the women in the diagram are dangling, half-dressed and off-balance.

Charming. It's nice to know that some reporters can use their position to call women whores.

Seriously, why the fuck is the PI running this tripe? Contact the paper and ask them why they're running biased, un-researched stories.

Or, if you're feeling feisty, contact the reporter himself. (If you're more of a phone person, his number is 215-854-4969.)