Letters to the Editor
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Rediscovering feminism post-feminism
It's very easy when a woman is on the younger side to confuse the attention she gets from men with actual interest in and respect for her ideas. After 40 it can be a rude awakening when she finds herself marginalized in many conversations.
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Hillary's campaign
has provided a bully pulpit for insecure women who must blame all their failures on misogyny and sexism. And if they think "Obama's men supporters" are misogynistic, just wait for McCain's men. McCain...the candidate for whom they are threatening to vote if The Clintons don't get another turn at the wheel.
Do they ever consider that the reason women haven't made advances (if this is indeed the case) is because we've had 15 years of imperial Republican rule, a woman's place is in the home Republican rule, a woman is for decoration and not to be heard Republican rule, liberated women are feminazis Republican rule?
Is it any wonder these women haven't made progress when they would be willing to vote for a man and a party that are diametrically opposed to feminist values? With that kind of judgment, they don't need outside enemies.
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We would all love war with Iran - if only she wasn't a woman...
"we will let the Iranians know that, yes, an attack on Israel would trigger massive retaliation, but so would an attack on those countries that are willing to go under this security umbrella and forswear their own nuclear ambitions."
Wow, this would be great coming from anyone who wasn't infested with female cooties. I'm pumped.
Hey Iran, you mess with any other countries and we'll do massive retaliation. Hey, maybe we'll try preemptive strikes.
Yeah. Must be because she is a woman that I support a different candidate. Cause war with Iran sounds great to me.
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Sexism, Racism
I think it is interesting that the media and members of the public have managed to hold their racism in check to a greater degree than they have managed to hold their sexism in check. Of course, it could be something else. It could be issues that people have toward their childhood authority figures - the mother, the schoolteacher, the babysitter. Like it or not, we're raised by women. Americans, especially, like to think of themselves as rugged individualists in a wild West with no laws and a six shooter to protect themselves. So, when they are reminded of the kind of personal authority that women held over them as children, they feel put down, infantilized and controlled.
A lot of the negativity sounds like schoolboy taunts - the kind of thing that children say out of earshot of mom, especially the word "cunt". I have not heard non-British men use that word and not its popping up everywhere.
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@AmiBlue
Excellent attempt to hold up the mirror.....let's see if anyone is actually prepared to look into it long enough to make sense of what's revealed.
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Feminists still don't get it.
Holy cow, you guys (gals). Hillary Clinton is horrible! Not because she's a woman. Because she is herself. When feminists make Hillary emblematic of all women, of course they'll be pissed off. Democrats distrust Hillary, they have picked somebody else, so therefore it's because they hate women! Unassailable logic? No, a leap of faith that reinforces the feminist's paranoid world view.
By the way, to answer Amanda Fortini's rhetorical question posed in the excerpt, "who wants to view oneself as a victim?" --answer: feminists. (Remember the early '70s feminist dictum, "Feminist consciousness IS victim consciousness.") Ask the question in the reverse, "who does NOT want to view oneself as a victim," and the answer is: most women. The feminist would patronizingly say, "Those women just need to wake up. Here, let me help you raise your consciousness." The arrogance of the feminists is that they truly feel that they alone speak for women. To a feminist like Fortini, the only possible reason a woman could have for rejecting feminism is that she is asleep, in denial, unenlightened, solipsistic, whatever. Feminists truly are the Nation of Islam of women.
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I sure hope
women's MISANDRY radar is set equally just as high as is their misogyny radar.
otherwise, that whole thing about feminists being for men as well as for women is a load of crock, one everyone else sees through more and more.
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I blame someone
I shake my fist and heaven.
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A classic dilemma
The good news is that women now have an almost equal opportunity in the American workplace -- totally equal in some places, less so in others. (Most of the rest of the world has some catching up to do, even Western Europe.)
The bad news is that the younger women who benefit from this a) aren't aware of how bad it was just a short while ago and b) aren't aware of the predjudicies that linger below the surface.
If they aren't aware, then they won't fight to keep their recent advancements, and thus risk losing them. The same can be said of some minority groups.
And let's be clear -- the battle for women's rights was not won, just as the battle against creationism was not won. The ERA was defeated in the late 1970s by the rise of what is now known as the right wing wurlitzer. There are large groups who would love to see women's rights rolled back, even if that is not an explicit part of their goals.
So, if one outcome of this election is that younger women, by seeing how Hillary is treated, rediscover their feminism, then that is a good thing.
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It's not "a woman", it's the Clintons
Back in 1992, you often heard Bill and Hillary Clinton talk about a two-for-one deal: the two were and are political partners. After the failure of the 1993 health care reform, Hillary retreated from that role considerably, but her extensive claims about her experience are based on her role in her husband's administration (which was substantial in the first year, but much more first-lady-like after that).
So what Hillary is really running for is a third term for the Clintons, with a staff that is heavy with people from her husband's administration. This has its positives and its negatives, but it's ludicrous to pretend that it is sexist to deny the Clintons a third term.
And yes, there have been many misogynist attacks on Hillary Clinton, but if anything these have helped and not harmed her (I think that the misogynist pile-on was the only reason she came back and won New Hampshire).