The Strange Lives Of Political Wives
Monday, June 1st, 2009My friend Stephen Kruiser has a strange case of Tourette’s Syndrome. Every time the news gets too anti-Obama-heavy, he yells, “DELTOIDS!” That’s the press’ mantra to sooth themselves in tough Obama times….a nice, puffy piece about Michelle Obama’s striking physique.
But think about it, this woman is a lawyer and a mother. How lame must it be to be reduced to her muscle definition? How sexist. How racist.
My latest Pajama’s Media column is about the Strange Lives of Political Wives:
Political wives. Can you think of a worse job? Married to type A personalities with more than a little bit of a narcissistic streak, these women — often educated and accomplished in their own right — must present a subservient demeanor and a sunny picture of their spouses or risk their spouses’ success. In addition, they often play a big part in their husbands’ careers by campaigning or crafting strategy. It is a rare politician whose wife operates outside the inner political circle.
For the article, I interviewed a political wife at the very beginning of her journey. After talking to such a nice woman and mother, it made me wonder why anyone would seek politics. What a nasty business it all is.
Ms. Sotomayor: The Compelling Story & Why Must I Be The Only Feminist & Other Rantings–UPDATED
Saturday, May 30th, 2009Already posted this YouTube to Twitter, but thought I’d add it here because the whole thing is still annoying me. So Judge Sotomayor is sorry she revealed her racism and sexism. Yeah, I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry that a woman feels that way and I’m sorry that she’ll glide through to the most important job in the land unopposed for the same reason she was nominated: She’s a woman and she’s a Hispanic Puerto Rican.
You know that thing called feminism? Why must I be the only feminist around here and expect a woman to be able to handle the tough questions? Robert Gibb’s threat just pisses me off. Why had we better go carefully? Because Democrats did with Miguel Estrada or Justice Thomas or Robert Bork? Hmmmm….?? We can’t ask because she has ovaries? We can’t ask questions about her belief system because Hispanics might not understand that this woman is being put into the highest court in the land?
Who is racist again? Who is sexist again?
People should be treated the same no matter their gender, color, ideology. But not so with Democrats and now the willy-nilly D.C. Republicans who’ve drunk the MSM’s Koolaid.
NOTE TO REPUBLICAN SENATORS:
You do realize that every question you ask, no matter how trivial and soft-ball will be portrayed as a tough, penetrating and unfair question? You do get that right? Might as well take that tail between your legs and ….dare I say it, woman up and ask a useful question. Hells bells, if the Republicans had the balls of Nancy Pelosi, they wouldn’t be reviled so. Good grief.
And as to all you hypocritical dumbass Democrats, I don’t want to hear one more word out of your mouth about the mistreatment of women and minorities. Not. One. Woman after woman has cried foul on your side before a punch has been thrown. If you can’t freaking take the fight, Get. Out. Of. The. Ring. If you need a moobed guy like Robert Gibbs to run interference for you, you should be back in the kitchen baking cookies with Hillary Clinton. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Nancy Pelosi fumbles around like a deer in the headlights at a press conference about torture and she’s the toughest politician DC has got. That says something.
And since I’m ranting…you know who I miss? I’m going to miss the bloviating Joe Biden and his pompasity asking stupid questions that guys 10x smarter than him are going to have to answer with seriousness. I’m going to miss old ornery Arlen Specter for the same reason. Wow. The Judicial committee just won’t be the same without these towering intellectual giants explaining things for the judges and the rest of us dummies.
Someone will stand in the self-important, aggrandizing gap. Who will this genius be? I can hardly wait.
In the meantime, watch another American tell his sad American, come-from-nothing compelling story. I’m freaking sick of compelling stories. We’ve all got a compelling story. We’ve all experienced life. Shut. Up. About. The. Compelling. Story. We’re Americans. We all come from somewhere and we all walked uphill both ways. In snowdrifts. Barefoot. Big freaking deal.
We’ve become a nation of self-pitying, identity-politicking jerks where character and accomplishment matter less than genetics, gender and cultural identity. Blech.
UPDATED:
And now, top Republican strategist kvetch to the Huffington Post. Is anyone worried about what this woman actually believes? Her comments about her gender and race make the law about her and not the law about the law.
Does she believe the Constitution should bend to her experiences? Is the Constitution still relevant? Is it a timeless document embodying timeless values? Or, does Ms. Sotomayor believe that the Constitution should be a living, breathing document that expresses her own views? How does she feel about states rights? How would she have decided Kelo? How would she have decided in the LA child rape case? THAT’s what I care about.
And what I am afraid of is that tough questions won’t be asked because she’s a woman and Latina. And any tough questions would be perceived as racist and sexist. And I view the withholding of tough vetting as racist and sexist. The job is too important to get lost in compelling life stories.
That the Democrats are playing this game is utterly predictable. That Republicans play along is tiring and frustrating.
The Happiness Of Men
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009I’m amusing myself with headlines today. On the one hand, old, white Republican males are happy. On the other hand, young, white, blue-collar (read Republican?) males are being hammered by this recession/depression.
So, if the life arc of a white male is pondered, it looks like this: There’s the angry, young man phase. There’s the in-and-out of employment misery phase. And then there’s the happy, old guy phase. Right up until the die-before-woman phase.
Meanwhile, a woman’s misery happiness remains relatively constant.
Would you say that fits?
The Perils Of Being A Beautiful Woman: Feminism’s Ugly Legacy
Wednesday, May 13th, 2009Don’t be a beautiful, smart and successful woman. Men will be intimidated. Women will hate you. And gay men will tear you to shreds consumed with vagina and breast envy.
Its okay to be a stupid, beautiful woman. It’s okay to be a smart, handsome (but not beautiful) woman. It is not okay to be a beautiful, smart woman. And if you’re a liberal and an average looking woman, expect the press to objectify you and spend lots of ink explaining why you’re a beautiful woman.
Please note: If you’re an obviously smart, beautiful, successful, and worst of all, conservative, woman here’s a succinct message, in case you haven’t gotten it via the media yet: Shut The Fuck Up.
Up until today, I haven’t written about Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps or Carrie Prejean’s breast implants and view on gay marriage. I find the left and the press’ need to objectify any (on the right or left) woman abhorrent and disgusting. Jon Stewart, of all people, sums up the convoluted mess that Feminism, yes Feminism, has wrought against women:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| The Pageant of the Christ | ||||
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Media Lizzy writes a must-read piece about beauty and women, and ultimately, truth:
For years, I have watched as the feminist movement pretended to care about women. From Gloria Steinem, Patricia Ireland and Margaret Sanger to Kate Michelman and their pro-abortion advocacy to Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth. They are contempuous of beautiful, feminine, intelligent and successful women. For a time, I read Naomi Wolf with some interest… she is charismatic, has an Ivy League education, was aesthetically beautiful and talked about the oversexualization of girls at too young an age… things I have been interested in all my life. Somewhere along the way, she fell victim to the Leftist ideals of feminism, never realizing how the vaguely masculine Patricia Irelands of the world are all too happy to kill the spirit of a beautiful woman. Modern feminism, with the glaring exception of Camille Paglia, is about hating men and stamping out their seed. It is about hate. They can wrap it up in “anti-Patriarch” ribbons and bows, but that does not make it so.
I too, have read Ms. Wolf, and in fact have her book Misconceptions on my shelf. I had hope for the next wave of feminists, that for once, they’d embrace the feminine, the female. Alas, it was not to be. They too, are consumed with envy. Gay men like Andrew Sullivan and Perez Hilton share with feminists the same trait: desire for what they cannot have. To be taken seriously, a liberal woman must be ugly or make herself ugly. To be accepted by God and/or the culture, a gay man should have been born a woman. These untenable positions make the trapped person very angry. So feminist women hate their ovaries and breasts and so do gay men.
The solution, then, is to shame and silence those who have what the jealous person cannot have. Feminists will participate in the destruction of Sarah Palin right along side Andrew Sullivan. Feminists will discuss a beauty pageant winner’s artificial breasts right along side Perez Hilton. They are consumed with jealous, impotent rage. It makes them hideously ugly.
Media Lizzy gets to another truth. Beauty serves as motivation to higher callings:
MY primary criticism of Ms. Gregory’s work, and many others, is the assertion that Anne was raped by King Henry VIII. Why imply such a thing? For literary enrichment? No. To accomplish two things: paint Anne as deserving of rape. And to paint Henry as a rapist – depicting a powerful, passionate man as an animal. Why again? Because, if Anne loved King Henry – and he loved her… then his break with the Vatican (and the spark that ignited the Reformation) was due in no small part to beauty, love, passion, and intangibles most simply can not grasp. King Henry VIII was not sitting around looking for a way to stick it to Rome.
Beauty can provoke love which can provoke noble action. I would submit that it is impossible to be otherwise. A beautiful person is not necessarily more loving, but a loving person is always more beautiful. Always. And a lifetime of hate and loathing makes one anything but beautiful. It shrivels the soul…and often, the face. Noble action is never sparked by hate. Noble action is ignited by love.
Truth is beauty and beauty is truth? Very often, beauty is love and love is beauty.
BlogHer
Monday, April 20th, 2009Should conservative women go to BlogHer?
Do we need a genderized blog conference?
Don’t Be Hatin’ His Procreation: Meet The Feminist’s Poster Man-Child
Friday, April 17th, 2009Us Michiganders or is it Michiganians are good at lots o’ things. Procreation has got to be at the top of the list. I mean, look at this guy:
Authorities in Michigan say a man fathered 14 children with 13 women and owes more than $530,000 in unpaid child support.
A Michigan newspaper reports 42-year-old Thomas Frazier was jailed Thursday.
Court records say he hasn’t made a support payment in six years.
The newspaper says the unemployed man could be held for 90 days if he doesn’t pay $27,900.
Frazier says he thinks he fathered only three of the children and it’s unrealistic for authorities to expect him to pay child support that was $3,000 a month at one point.
What a fine, upstanding fella.
I’m going to swim upstream a bit on this one, though. What if women couldn’t get child support if she was unmarried? What if a woman knew that she was on her own if she got pregnant–no government support, no spousal support, no government subsidized abortions?
What if she either had to raise the child, her choice, on her own or give the child up for adoption? Do you think she would be more selective about her bed companions?
While this guy is despicable, irresponsible and a slut, he’s been enabled by at least 13 women, probably significantly more, who couldn’t be bothered to use birth control (not that that’s always 100%) or demand that he use it.
There is no way for him to make right by all these kids. He’s like the Octo-Mom. As the parent to one kid he wouldn’t be great, he’ll likely be exponentially worse with more.
The current situation where a guy can be on the hook because he’s on a birth certificate creates these insane situations. And let me be clear: I think he’s an irresponsible jerk.
Still, if women’s lib has gotten women anything, it’s ownership of their reproductive organs. A woman can make sure she doesn’t get pregnant and she pays the price if she’s irresponsible. These women needed to have more sense than have unprotected random sex with this creep. It’s not like irresponsible, slutty men make fantastic providers.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
Drew At Ace
Thursday, April 9th, 2009How To Get Your Boyfriend To Dump You
Now, this, ladies, is some good advice.
When Are Women Going To Own Their Sexuality?
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Women have marched toward equality and besides being deprived of male gonads, mostly have it in modern America.
So a post caught my attention last night about Justin Timberlake. The title of the post was, “How Can Justin Timberlake Still Objectify Black Women And Get Away With It“. Hmmm… The song and music video in question is called, subtly, “Love Sex Magic”. It’s not the best JT song by a long shot and the real star is Ciara. Timberlake is more of a background singer. Ciara’s career has been spotty and this “duet” has put her in the Top 40. She made a very good business decision partnering with the golden boy.
The video, as one might imagine, is, like many these days, soft porn. Watch it here. Ciara is,….limber. Clearly, she enjoys her body and would have a good back-up career as a stripper. Here’s what Ro of Soul Bounce says:
It’s not even his song but in the video he’s in the opening scene, pulling on a chained Ciara. Whenever the two are interacting she is doing all kinds of sexy acrobatics for him–crawling over him, stick out her ass for him to lean on, bumping him with her breasts–but he can barely be bothered to look her in the face half of the time…and he’s on screen a lot. She looks desparate, and he looks like a pimp. As the video progresses and their roles become more evident it gets more disgusting.
Well, I watched the video and what I found disgusting was that teenage girls were watching a woman portray herself that way. She’s free to do it. She’s a grown woman, an “artist”. Like Madonna or Britney Spears or the rest of the slutty pop tarts, she’s liberated to express her sexual nature.
Why don’t the same people who pushed for this liberation own the results? How is it Justin Timberlake’s fault that he enjoys a woman bumping and grinding? And I heard Oprah once give black rappers a hard time for having scantily clad women dancing around in their videos–objectifying women. And then, the same Oprah, had Beyoncé on to teach her how to shake her butt.
Just so I understand the rule: It’s okay for a woman to act like a sexpot but it’s not okay for a man to enjoy it? A woman can climb a pole in her own music video but if it’s a male artist’s music video, the women should be prim and proper?
It’s time for women to own their choices sexually. That’s what this revolution business was about. Blaming men for being objectified when women choose to portray themselves in a provocative way puts women in the one-down position again. Women are now equally skanky as men. Rejoice.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
Lost In “Manslations”
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009I was sent the following article by someone who remembered my April Fools post about what men need to do to keep their relationship hot. That article set off the most bizarre set of circumstances. People believed I was serious. Men sent me adoring letters and thanked me for sharing the truth. It was amusing and disturbing all at once.
So a new book “Manslations” has been released. Here’s a snippet of a review from CNN:
Actions speak louder than words. Sure, not a novel idea, but this “duh” lesson is one that can take years to learn. If it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.
Mac’s Golden Rule? Whenever there is any conflict between what a man says and what he does, always, always ignore what he says.
There is no such thing as a man dumping you because he is afraid of getting hurt, is frightened that his feelings are too strong, or because he finds you intimidating. Mac says to think of the simplest solution — is it that this man sensed you were the perfect woman for him, who touched him so much in deep, important places that he couldn’t handle? Or was he just not feeling it?
It’s OK to call him first — and if you get blown off, it’s not because you called first. This is my favorite piece of advice from Mac, who says the mistaken conclusion women come to when they call first post-date and get blown off is that the call made them look clingy and spooked the guy.
“This is not how it went,” says Mac. “If you called him and he blew you off, it went like this:
1. You had a great date, and he did not.
2. He planned to blow you off.
3. You called him, and nothing changed.”
Good to know about the calling part. Men aren’t all that complicated to me. But women are all unique, I readily admit. Robert Stacy McCain wrote a piece about the differences between men and women and this part was especially insightful:
Words like “thoughtful” and “sensitive” describe the qualities necessary to cooperate effectively with women. One must carefully monitor one’s interactions with them, gauge their reactions and adjust accordingly. For most men, and especially for hyper-rationalizing men like Ziegler, this is a terrifying tightrope walk across an abyss.
Most men are not naturally thoughtful and sensitive in that way, and they resent having to devote effort to “relationship management”—a task at which they suck— when it would be a far more productive use of their time to concentrate on doing the things they do best.
And yet, men want access to women so they make the effort, or sometimes do. Many men give up. The benefits of companionship don’t outweigh the challenges the relationship brings.
This natural mysterious back in forth will continue forever. What does disturb is the impulse by feminists to want to remove the masculine. There has been a concerted attempt to demonize typically masculine behavior. Worst of all, many men seem to have conceded the argument. Says McCain:
All we ever hear from them is bitch, bitch, bitch—especially when a man dares call attention to their faults. Gentlemen, you are guilty of cowardice for not speaking out more strongly in your own defense, and in defense of your fellow men.
What I wonder is if the crisis in American leadership can be traced to the crisis in manhood.
Cross-posted at RightWingNews
