Sex Trouble: Feminism, Mental Illness and the Pathetic Daughters of Misfortune
“The idea that acts of violence can be excused due to a victim’s dress, state of intoxication, location and sexual history is absolutely ridiculous and feeds into a cultural view of sexual assault as not a real crime.” — Liz Sheridan, SlutWalk Chicago organizer, 2014 “Yesterday’s mental illness is today’s social policy.” — Kathy Shaidle, […]
Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace’
“The supersensitivity of the [Women’s Liberation] movement to the lesbian issue, and the existence of a few militant lesbians within the movement, once prompted [NOW founder Betty] Friedan herself to grouse about ‘the lavender menace’ that was threatening to warp the image of women’s rights.” — Susan Brownmiller, New York Times, March 15, 1970 (quoted […]
The Proverbial Broken Clock
Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is one of the worst newspaper columnists in America, or perhaps the world, and I usually try to avoid reading him, which only makes me angry. But the damned thing about Cohen is, about twice a year, he writes something sensible, and then I hate myself for agreeing with […]
To Expand on What Smitty Said
Finding political symbolism in the latest headlines can be a silly game. It may be that the Costa Concordia should teach no lesson other than to remind us why the phrase “Italian navy” never struck terror in anyone’s heart. Nevertheless, Vox Day ventured the opinion that feminism was somehow implicated in the disaster, an opinion which […]
Bitter Fruits of a Bitter Seed: Envy, Feminism, Maureen and Meghan
HOLLIS, N.H. Time constraints have improved my ability to ignore Maureen Dowd. Many months now often elapse between my ever bothering to notice anything she’s written. Today, however, Pete Da Tech Guy called my attention to Ms. Dowd’s unseemly assault on Rick Santorum’s family. And then Pete sat down and wrote a rather stunning contrast […]
The Dark Night of Fascism
“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of […]
Re-Reading Susan Brownmiller
Confronting the Radical Facts of Feminism
“God help us if she ever gets raped — we will be buried under an avalanche of rhetoric.” — James Wolcott, letter to the Village Voice, 1971 Little Miss Attila vowed Monday that she owes me an essay in response to a post I wrote, and she can write a damned book for all I […]
The Feminist Omerta
Permit me to offer a simple analogy: Feminism is to women as Mafia is to Sicilians. Students of organized crime know that what we call “mafia” was, during its heyday, actually known to its members as La Cosa Nostra — roughly translated, “this thing of ours.” That wild thought occurred to me as I contemplated […]
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