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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
...you can't criticize a so-called feminist without being labeled a misogynistic nut. I always wondered why young women were so loath to label themselves as feminists.
I guess now I know why.
All this hand-holding of a grown woman who should have known the consequences of her actions and should have known to take responsibility for her words is sort of sickening. The reason I call myself a feminist is because, in my personal life, I am surrounded by strong, successful, intelligent, humble women, and I have no higher aspirations than to be like them. I'm not talking about 'strong housewives,' either. These women are PhDs, university professors, attorneys, judges, doctors, and mothers.
Marcotte and her ilk don't hold a candle to these women. After the verbal upchuck she's produced, I doubt any young girl will look up to her the way I wish girls would look up to "feminists."
As I just wrote on my own totally inconsequential blog, I'm on the verge of "quitting" Salon altogether over all this nonsense. I can barely stomach it.
A lot of the comments informing Amanda she got what she deserved and that of course she meant to offend people are bewildering. Logically, I mean.
No one is forced to read anyone's blog. If you don't like her language, her satiricism, her anything, don't read her blog. I can understand taking offensee at Edwards, since he voluntarily associated himself with Amanda's very strong opinions while courting people's good opinion. If you want people to like you, you shouldn't do things that make you unlikeable. But by the logic of the 'you deserved what you got' crowd, anyone offended by her blog deserved to be offended by going to her blog and reading it. It's not as if she masqueraded as a bland, mainstream, big-toothed TV newsreader, and trapped the unwary into consuming offensive opinions. Btw, I found her misogyny comment funny.
By the same token, all her comments, were on her own blog for people who enjoy or find interest (either in agreement or disagreement) in her opinions. And this was all before she joined the campaign. If she intended to offend people, she could have trolled the blogosphere and posted her comments to people who she knew would find offense. Or done about a million other things, including taking a page out of Donahue's book, to tick people off. Posting on your own blog is a pretty weak way of offending the masses. Y'all are taking a result (offended) and assuming the cause (intent to offend). In my logic classes, that's called 'circular reasoning.'
And the 'you should have expected the right-wing vitriol' line doesn't cut it either. Just because something is forseeable doesn't make it just. Civil rights activists in the '60s could forsee violence and harassment coming their way, did that mean they 'had it coming'? Cast the first stone, why doncha? (oh wait, that's for he who is without sin. Nevermind).
It's a pretty sad day when people just accept that politics is vitriol and dirty tricks, and excuse the worst iterations with a shrug and an 'well, what did you expect?'
I'm disappointed Edwards didn't step up to the plate on this one -- didn't fire her but didn't defend her -- sounds like more of the bland, waffly same we've come to enjoy from our Democratic candidates, and I'm disappointed she resigned, even though I would have done the same.
...Mike J and Virginia.
As for Molly Ivins:
Molly Ivins was kind of a hack. 3rd-rate verbal ability mixed with boiled over knee-jerk leftisms. People invoke her for three reasons--she's named "Molly," she wrote from Texas, and she wrote critically of the current administration. She was probably a nice enough lady.
But she had far superior contemporaries in the likes of writers such as Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich in wit-filled commentary. (And no, it's nothing nooyorkey-centric.)
And Camille Paglia letters thread is to be believed, it's apparent the woman had never cracked open a Paglia written work, interview, or heard her speak.
(And what is it about women named "Amanda" that they write like tornados?)
By your logic, Valhala: I post something on my personal (but publically accessible) blog calling, for example, "Emily" a whore, and someone finds out about it and spreads it around... Emily finds out and is offended. She reports it to my boss, who is accountable to his public (which includes Emily), who is ticked that I called her a whore, and I am forced to resign.
Sure, I published this stuff on my own personal blog, which people normally have to go out of their way to find. Sure, my intent was not necessarily to insult Emily to her face. But I did it. It's my responsibility, and the fact that other people were exposed to my insults against Emily does not mitigate the fact that I willingly published this insult on a public space, the viewership of which I have little or no control.
This is such a lamely direct allegory to what happened with Marcotte that all you have to do is insert "Christian" for Emily and you've got the real story. Marcotte is responsible for her words, whether or not she had any idea who might come across them. She should grow up and accept that.
If Rush Limbaugh said something on a personal blog about niggers or cunts or something else offensive, would you have the same high-minded standards about protecting their ability to say what they want when not on the job? Would you be telling your black and women friends that they shouldn't have been looking at his personal blog if they didn't want to get offended?
I feel very strongly that your kind tolerance of Marcotte's "personal" verbal diarrhea would not extend to those whose verbal diarrhea you found less appealing.
I did see anything in the alleged threats that proves that all or any of them came from Donohue supporters. Donohue may have shined a light on Marcotte's writing and responded to the ones that he felt were specifically anti-Catholic, but there was plenty of vulgar crap there to offend lots of people, Catholic or otherwise.
As a previous poster pointed out, Marcotte is playing the traditional feminist victim here. On her little immature fairy tale blog she is free to insult anyone with impunity, but when she is criticized she tries to claim that it is only because she's a woman- and that's a bunch of crap.
Why did Salon feel the need to give her a microphone here?
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
