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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Hiring a "campaign blogger" is a nonsensical idea. How the Edwards camp or Marcotte thought that would work out is beyond me. And the idea that the blogger could still run a personal site is naive beyond belief! The first thing anyone worth their salt would do is load that up, find something incriminating and go to town.
Whatever Amanda wrote or didn't write, Donohue is still a slime.
Why does there have to be only one bad guy?
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Pandagon looks like about what you would expect - a somewhat personal blog. The raging feminism there is slightly odd. Let me tell a brief story, that I would love to share with a wide audience someday, about why "feminist" is such a horrible term.
At Cornell I went to a debate between Eleanor Smeal, then head of the "Feminist Majority", and Christina Hoff Sommers. The Feminist Majority, Eleanor Smeal informed us, was called so because most people believe women are equal to men - and that is what it means to be a feminist. If you believe women and men are equal, you are a feminist. Sure ok.
After the debate I was hanging around. Skulking. (Not spying! Skulking!) Eleanor Smeal was packing up and talking to some aide of some sort. As they were about to leave this is what Smeal said. (Roughly paraphrased)
Did you hear what Christina said today? She visited Prof Maas Psych 101 class and told them they should come to the debate tonight because it would be 'a real catfight.' She's not a real feminist! [emphasis not added]
And there you go. Eleanor Smeal is the head of a major organization and two-time NOW president! According to Smeal feminism is not just believing women are equal to men - that is simply the cover story she uses in public.
If you use the word 'catfight' (in an ironic manner!) you aren't a feminist. What other wacky rules does Smeal adhere to? What if you, say, call someone a bitch? What if you say "don't get your panties in a bunch?" What if you buy your daughter a Barbie and your son a Transformer? Do any of those rule you out as well?
That is why, when you ask many people (including many women) if they are a feminist, they will hesitate - then change the subject. Many feel that the term has loaded meaning.
And in fact it does. At least according to Eleanor Smeal. And she would know.
The term has been tarnished and co-opted - from the inside. Not by Rush and his 'feminazis', not by right-wing smear campaigns and re-definition of terms, but by prominent feminists.
This blogger seems to be confused about the nature of the internet versus the nature of our political system.
The internet is not hierarchical.
Our political system is.
This blogger is horrified, horrified that when she crawls into the hierarchy, however naively, she must start defending the labels she so glibly pasted, and the witty crap (and from reading it, typically self-involved, labeled crap) that amused her inculcated network of friends around her particular blogocircle or blogoline or blogopoint.
It was a blogopoint, appropriately and easily sullied by noise.
Amanda is a political dilettante without sufficient education in our political system trying, in a vain and silly way to make a difference by generating a huge amount of repetitive noise, much like the folks that annoy her.
Amanda, you might try talking about yourself less and about people more. Trying to be a better person and not just a harpie.
Just a thought.
Amanda Marcotte is not the victim that she wants us all to think she is, and despite her version of events, she did not serve us well. Her stuff on the blog was intensely offensive to people who are trying to separate politics and religious beliefs. Her caricature of the "Lord ......." is so vile and utterly without redeeming value that she had to go, at least from a national political campaign perspective. What she said is the equivalent to using the "N" word in a rant in a crowded night club or a famous actor getting loaded and spewing anti-semitic venom. The irony is that HAD she attacked one of these priveleged groups, would Salon have given her page one space to do a post-mortem? The obvious answer is that Salon does not consider Catholics as one of their core constituencies nor does Salon feel the urge to pay very close attention to anti-Catholic vitriol in its many forms. In her piece, Marcotte gleefully repeats the offensive blog that started all this fuss and Joan Walsh (nominally Catholic) did not feel compelled to edit it out. Instead, Joan Walsh carries the water for Marcotte by prefacing this sorry affair with a three page "explanation" for why the liberal media is so incompetant in these matters.
Marcotte's stated objective was to bring the blog into the mainstream of political thought and possibly influence events, but I do not think she has the slightest idea what she would do if that were to happen.
get over yourself. What if, "god" forbid, Christians ever had the audacity to disagree with each other? Does that nullify their cause?
She chose to, abandoning the kitchen because she refused to live with the very heat she was a participant in generating.
I'm progressive, but that shouldn't equate to 'naively assuming I can bash without accepting a response will be forthcoming, and not necessarily on my terms."
Marcotte got in a game of hardball without the skills or expectations to deal. I for one think it's a shame she didn't persevere, accept the frustrations and embarrassment (but also the rewards) of learning on a public stage, and persevere.
Sorry, come again?
Do you think I'm saying that because feminists disagree internally it invalidates their cause?
I think women's equality is a great cause! I'm just explaining through inciteful, revealing, gossipy anecdote why the term feminism needs to be retired and why people refuse to identify as feminists.
The term itself makes a lot of people like me uncomfortable, even though I support equality for women 100%. I'm for equal rights, I'm not a feminist - and I'm not alone.
The reason I brought it up is that I saw that definition of feminism on Pandagon - that feminism is just equality of sexes. I don't think that is really what it means, at least in many circles. Look at how many times Amanda called herself a feminist in her article and claimed that she was targeted in part for her feminist views. Don't *most* women her age believe women are equal to men? (Feminist Majority answer - "yes!") Is being a feminist in the simple equality sense really against the norm and something to be singled out for?
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
