Category Archives: Feminism

Katherine Fenton’s Typical Whining Womanhood

Aesthetics, Economy, Elections, English, Feminism, Gender, Labor, Republicans

Ridiculous is the imprecision with which conservatives have lashed out at the repulsive Katherine Fenton. She is the “young woman” who questioned the president and his rival, during the second presidential debate, about a non-existent construct: Pay “inequalities in the workplace.” “Specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn.”

Attack her as the specimen of whining womanhood she is, will you? Don’t call her vague names (“”Feminazi,” “Tool”).

Also, go for the execution: Without exception, the clones that keep stepping into the limelight stud their conversation with the same mind-numbing commonplaces and humbugs, delivered in grating, staccato, tart tones of speech and a truncated vocabulary.

“I feel like” is how these women—endearingly called “young women”—preface every utterance; for they feel a lot, but don’t think much.

Yuk.

Is any conservative going to point out how off-putting America’s “young women” sound, irrespective of how pretty they look?

No, because The Thing I’ve described fits most young conservative commentators too. Remember how Laura Ingraham was forced to grovel for lampooning the dense Meghan McCain’s unmistakable moronity and Valley-Girl inflection?

In any event, implicit in Fenton’s question is that the wage discrepancy reported speaks to a widely accepted conspiracy to suppress women’s wages; and that the length of time a woman has been in the work force, her age, experience, education; whether she has put her career on hold to marry and mother—do not factor into the wage equation.

Incapable as these women are of analytical thinking, they cannot comprehend how certain realities factor into the wage equation. To wit, women are more likely than men to have had an interrupted career trajectory and to opt for part-time and lower-paying professions—education instead of engineering, for example.

If your average Republican galvanized economic logic to dispel distaff America’s claims of disadvantage, this is what he’d have said:

“If women with the same skills as men were getting only 72 cents for every dollar a man earns, men as a group would have long-since priced themselves out of the market. The fact that entrepreneurs don’t ditch men for women suggests that different abilities and experience are at work, rather than a conspiracy to suppress women.” (From “Guys Do Double Duty For Feminist Delusions.”)

Nagging Begot The Nanny State On Steroids

Affirmative Action, Feminism, Free Speech, Gender, Labor, Welfare

At the not-so-new news that “more men in this country are opting out of the workforce and signing onto government entitlements,” Gerri Willis (whom I like) asks: “Where are all the good men?”

Let me attempt to reply.

For the sake of argument, let’s presume that all things are equal between men and women in our state-commanded labor force—also the faulty premise shared by those who comment on the lackluster performance of men in this economy. (“You Go Girl” gloat the pundits, left and right.)

Let us pretend along with the rest that women have not benefited from decades of fem affirmative action in government and big-business bureaucracies.

Notwithstanding legislation that privileges women, the wholesale feminization of American society comes at a price, especially to men.

Ours is a soft society. The women folk have molded men in their image. And what an awful image it is. Too many American men, like their women, don’t shut about their (invariably shallow) feelings, worship Oprah and watch chick flicks with equal zeal, deify and mollycoddle their solipsistic, badly behaved kids, become parasitical social activists (rather than mountaineers or entrepreneurs), cry on cue, and broadcast their (usually barren) inner-lives to the world.

For the purpose of a purchase I was making for him, I described my husband to a more traditional American woman. And she asked: “Where did you find this guy?” Although we were not discussing men qua men, I realized that what I had described was normal to me, but not to her.

“Oh,” I explained, “he isn’t North American. He’s an old-school WASP from South Africa.”

This type was raised (by like-minded parents) to keep a stiffer upper lip, dutifully assume his role as a man (in other words, get things done), and be both individualistic and self-sufficient to a fault. I joke that my husband doesn’t believe in the division of labor; he thinks he should do everyone else’s job. (A nerd’s joke, because to free marketeers like us, the division of labor is sacred.)

Men, however feminized, need moral instruction and manly role models. This a hierarchical, traditional society provides. The collapse of the work ethic among so many of America’s men is no doubt related to the progressive, matriarchal society rising.

American women didn’t like their WASPs (they’re not getting mine), so they molded the men into women, albeit with a preponderance of testosterone.

Nagging begot the Nanny State on Steroids.

Fem Affirmative Action

Affirmative Action, Business, Feminism, Gender, Labor

Everyone is shocked—shocked—that “[a]mong the most distressing” information buried in the “jobs report for August” was the following, as reported by Economix’s Catherine Rampell:

The share of men actively participating in the labor force — that is, working or looking for work — was at an all-time low. Just 69.8 percent of all men over age 16 were in the labor force in August, compared to a long-term average of 78.3 percent since the Labor Department began tracking these data in 1948. The share has been falling pretty steadily over the last six decades but has declined sharply in the last few years.

All manner of explanation is floated for the increasing marginalization of men in the US labor force. Nary a mention is made of the gender-centric policies that govern both state and big-business bureaucracies.

Every one of us knows men who slog under these conditions. All too well do we know too that the ladies are getting a leg-up.

In certain fields—say, electrical engineering—women are so rare that no matter how mediocre an engineer the woman is; the men around will be expected, if implicitly, to valiantly compensate for her intellectual deficiencies. Their reward? She-devils that not only get credit for work they have not done, but begin to believe their own hype.

Understand, this is not to say that there are no outstanding females in the applied sciences; of course there are. But many more are the outstanding men who’re being sidelined to showcase what are, on average, mediocre women.

Speaking of a performative contradiction, Catherine Rampell, the reporter, should look to her left, on the perch at the Economix blog. What is the ratio of men to women among the “Featured Contributors”? Two to three.

See if you can spot the trend wherever you go. I do.

The ‘Vagina Monologues’ Revival

Democrats, Feminism, Gender, Reason, War, Welfare

The current column, “The ‘Vagina Monologues’ Revival,” is now on WND.COM (with a different title):

“Remember the ‘Vagina Monologues,’ a stage performance that premiered in 1996, in which an orifice took center stage?

The playwright responsible for these soliloquies from down under was Eve Ensler. Ms. Ensler had insisted that the survival of womanhood hung on encouraging a vulgar dialogue with and about “this much mumbled-about body part.”

The 2012 Democratic National Convention underway has the feel of a “Vagina Monologues” revival.

With exceptions.

The weepy women dominating the event prove that Democratic distaff has come a long way since Ensler’s troupe took to the stage to pan priapus. No longer content to converse with an orifice in the confines of the theatre, these women want to force the conversation on the entire country, in dissembling, devious ways. …

… Speaking of a sovereign disregard for the truth, Bill Clinton—the only white man at the Charlotte Convention Center—wowed the women (Y chromosome comment above obtains here too), in an address that sent chills up Chris Matthews’ rutting leg. …

… For pudding, there was Sandra Fluke (which explains why NBC chose to end the second day of the convention with NFL football). The vagina-centric activist is regarded as another arrow in the Democratic quiver.

Sandra demands that Sugar Daddy Sam compel Americans who toil in the insurance industry to provide her with contraceptives.

It would appear that Georgetown Law School had not read the lady her constitutional, natural rights. Fluke has every right to work to purchase her own Trojans (or is it Trivora?) She has no right to rope other Americans into supplying her with these prophylactics. …”

The complete column is “The ‘Vagina Monologues’ Revival,” now on WND (with a different title).

Also available from WND or from Amazon is the prophetic “Into The Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid.”

Read the editorial reviews.

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