Stacy Explains that He Agrees with Me, Conceptually, and So Does a Reader/Colleague of His.

by Little Miss Attila on March 11, 2011

And somehow, that proves that they are right, and I am wrong.

Because if one wants to promote freedom, the first thing to do, by gosh, is to go out and police the language of one’s cohorts.

Unbelievable. Well, at least I know what my putative allies think is important.

UPDATE: Perhaps, then, we simply need a new term to substitute for “equity feminism” that we can use around the Right Wing Politically Correct Thought Police. Like, oh . . . Stacyism.

I believe, like all good Stacyists do, that there is no contradiction between having a (fairly incredible) female body and having a (frankly amazing) mind. In this, I am simply outfollowing in the footsteps of great Stacyists through the ages, such as Elizabeth R, who presided over an age of prosperity in Britain–while possessing a vagina. And Harriet Tubman, who freed slaves, carried a gun, and didn’t take shit from anyone. And Susan B. Anthony, who spoke out about the sanctity of life and made them give us the vote, if only to shut her up. And Virginia Woolf, who made clear the connection between material comfort/privacy and creativity.

I am a Stacyist. Hear me roar.

UPDATE 2: Well, that’s going to leave a mark.

Previously, on The Fight Against Right-Wing Political Correctness and Conservative Nannyism:

Stacy Would Like Me to Kick Him When He’s Down
[Goldstein: Weighing in Without Weighing in]
[Stace: The Feminist Omerta]
Big Argument with Stacy Over the Phone Today
Stacy McCain Is Still Not a Racist
CRITICAL READING: “The Day Sarah Palin Kneecapped Feminism”

CRITICAL READING: On Sex
[Stacy’s reax thereto]

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Remember: Saturday Morning, Attila on the Radio with Robert Stacy McCain
April 2, 2011 at 12:13 pm

{ 39 comments… read them below or add one }

ponce March 11, 2011 at 6:24 pm

He certainly seems adept at constructing straw…woman arguments.

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ScratcherMMBI March 11, 2011 at 8:15 pm

“Well, that’s going to leave a mark.”

Not at all.

I never thought that quote was anyone’s but Stacy’s. The bolding and repetition wasn’t outrage but snark.

You ladies missed the sarcasm, and got all righteously indignant for nothing.

And you owe me an apology. I didn’t misrepresent you or your views in any way.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 5:58 am

And you owe me an apology. I didn’t misrepresent you or your views in any way.

ROFLMAO. Oh, that’s precious.

You implied that LMA and Cassandra were playing the victim-card when they got upset at you and Stacy putting words in my mouth… and now you want apologies for having your words distorted? My dear lady, enough with the feminist-victim card.

Let me know how life is with the shoe on the other foot.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 9:09 am

Attila actually did misrepresent my words. The bulk of what I wrote was a criticism of leftist feminism. You ladies misread, and assumed I was talking about you. (Why would I say that you – and by extension Sarah Palin, since you all subscribe to a mindset I don’t consider feminism – have a problem with motherhood? That’s patently ridiculous. I may not agree with everything SP says, but I admire her and so do my daughters.)

Can you not entertain the notion that you’ve taken my post completely wrong? Because that’s the situation.

I don’t play the victim card. I’ve been accused of misrepresentation when I was talking about the the left.

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 11:31 am

“The bulk of what I wrote was a criticism of leftist feminism.”

Then you ought to have specified that, rather than spraying bullets wildly around on full-auto, and then acting surprised that anyone got hit in the “friendly fire.”

(The use of quotation marks above are meant to signify that the phrasing is not one I’d normally use, rather than an attribution of those words to you. I point this out because you’ve seeemed to be unable to grasp this concept in the past.)

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 11:41 am

I did specify that. I wrote that feminism, to my mind, is the leftist movement. And then I wrote my thoughts about it.

You’re right that I didn’t “grasp this concept”. Quotation marks are used to distinguish when you are quoting someone else’s words as well. You wrote (about my reference to Palin) “You said____”, and then added a phrase in quotation marks. Which, according to my memories of basic grammar instruction, meant you were attributing those words to me.

Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 11:56 am

The quotation marks were used to show you the fallacy in what you were saying–to illustrate the contradiction between “I’m not insulting Mrs. Palin” and “I’m not willing to accept her own evaluation of herself.” [Note the to the reading-impaired: I did not attribute those words to Mrs. Vaginal Itch in any kind of a literal way. It was simply an illustration of her itchy illogic.]

You did say that you thought feminism was part of the left. And then you wrote this:

But I do generally agree with McCain when he takes on feminists. And it was with great interest that I read his opinion on female conservative writers who’ve wanted to argue that their feminism is different, and that he does a disservice by not recognizing that fact. He quotes a comment by Roxanne De Luca as he defines the case against him:

“…I am doing a “disservice to the conservative movement”? Because my “line of reasoning” is allegedly offensive to “left-brained, educated women”? (Implied: Any woman who defends him is a right-brained ignoramus!)

Well… enter right-brained ignoramus.

That’s right.

I. Am. A. Girl.

Rather, a woman. Whatever… I am the proud owner of my very own vagina.

Oh. And I also have a brain.

That’s my problem with feminism. I have a mind of my own, and I don’t need to be told I’m a victim. Or that society must change utterly for my convenience. Or that I need advocates in order to be just as good as any man.

And went on ranting from there. So your rant about “feminists” didn’t immediately follow your assertion that feminists were leftists (which isn’t as unprovocative as you suggest, given that it was the genesis of the entire controversy); it followed your smirking little slam against Roxeanne.

I fully expect that this will be followed by yet another passive-aggressive suggestion that you didn’t want to create conflict, and didn’t want to insult anyone, and were only joking.

ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 1:05 pm

So, by the act of disagreeing with Sarah Palin’s assessment, I’ve insulted her? So be it. I insulted her.

“I fully expect that this will be followed by yet another passive-aggressive suggestion that you didn’t want to create conflict, and didn’t want to insult anyone, and were only joking.”

I don’t care if it created conflict. Your victimhood mentality led you to believe that a post against feminism was a personal dig at you and your friends. And I wasn’t joking about anything except the right-brained ignoramus title.

I will say, I notice only one side of this disagreement has devolved into personal attacks and smarmy ain’t-I-cute word play with a screen name. Is that how the “big girls” play, as you put it? Make gross references to yeast infections rather than stay on the subject? I bow before your superior debating skills. /sarc

Little Miss Attila March 11, 2011 at 8:22 pm

I am sorry that you got yourself involved in an online dispute that you weren’t ready for, and didn’t fully understand.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 9:13 am

And I’m sorry that you misunderstood something and continue to argue against a point I wasn’t trying to make.

Once more, I wasn’t getting in your dispute. I’ve linked RSM in most of my posts about feminism. You weren’t even on my radar.

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 9:44 am

Even though you linked my most in your post. Okay.

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Cassandra March 12, 2011 at 2:21 am

Ohhhh…. I get it now!

You wrote a whole post in reaction to Stacy’s subjective interpretation of what Roxanne actually said and how when someone disagrees with him and says so, that makes him feels like he’s not “allowed” to voice his opinion simply because he has a penis!

Yeah, I would totally have made fun of that, too.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 9:19 am

No.

I read some interesting posts about feminism. I had some thoughts of my own. In truth, I thought his remark about a random, ranting ignoramus calling feminists names might have referred in part to me. I’ve linked him about feminism before, and I tend to call feminists names – and I’d never been clear in writing that I am a woman.

You clearly don’t read my blog, which is fine. But if you did, you’d see that calling myself a right-brained ignoramus is right in line with my sense of humor. How does sarcastic self-deprecation harm you or Roxanne?

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 9:47 am

Because the phrase was used in the context of mischaracterizing Roxeanne, and implying that she said women who don’t agree with her were “right-brained ignoramuses,” which she never said.
Roxeanne fights fair. You were either fighting dirty, or being unbelievably clumsy.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 10:57 am

And there’s the crux. I didn’t intend a fight, dirty or otherwise.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 11:16 am

Thank you, LMA.

I also would have thought it axiomatic that the conservative movement and the GOP have an image and marketing problem with women (and minorities), which is why fighting feminism in every incarnation seems foolhardy to me. Pyrrhic at best, even.

Especially when the women who are doing the most to show that conservatism is good for everyone are the ones who are most likely to act like (old-school) feminists. Gov. Palin? Lila Rose? Abby Johnson? Michelle Bachmann? Nikki Haley? Kelly Ayotte? Pam Bondi? Renee Ellmers? Up here in Massachusetts, professor and CPA Mary Connaughton? Even Phyllis Schlafly, who doesn’t identify as a feminist, tested machine guns to pay her way through college and then became a lawyer. To some extent, even if those women don’t say they are feminists, a lot of normal, non-super-political women look at them and think that feminism helped those women to exist. So you can either come off as if you’re biting the hand that feeds you (bad), alienate the 88% of the female population that likes feminism (mindless), throw those women under the bus (just wrong), or accept that “feminism” has a wide variety of definitions and let the Leftists fall on their own swords over it. Let them explain why the movement that is for every woman fails to represent every woman if we take their strained, stilted definition of the word. Let them explain why feminists must be pro-taxpayer-funded abortion on demand through the seventh month of pregnancy when half of women are pro-life and even more are in the squishy “necessary evil” middle.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 6:02 am

By the way, thank you to Cassandra and LMA!

I didn’t bother replying to that part of Stacy’s post – it was so patently absurd that it was like trying to explain why an argument predicated on the sun rising in the west is wrong. Definitely a straw-woman thing.

I’m always willing to acknowledge that my legal training makes me speak a language other than English; lawyers tend to make rather narrow points and build on them in succession. If we say “A” but not “B” “C” or “D”, it’s pretty much a certainty that we meant only A. But Stacy jumped straight from my “A” to the Hebrew alphabet….

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 9:48 am

He really did.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 6:19 am

Substantively: as I’ve said before, Stacy’s logic fails when he insists on equating “equal” with “interchangeable”. I find it patently ridiculous; surely, no Founding Father who signed the Declaration of Independence thought that all men were interchangeable, and that you could have had any old schlepp fighting the Brits (rather than being lead by George Washington), or that you could have tossed James Madison out of the Constitutional Convention and replaced him with a half-wit. They also went on to create the greatest country on earth, founded upon capitalism – one ideal of which is that people are most definitely not interchangeable and therefore can and should earn different amount of money for producing different goods at different rates.

Yet “all men are created equal” is what their ideals rested upon. “Equality implies interchangeability”, my tush.

Second, Stacy errs when he says things like this:

If being “just a mom” is a task beneath the dignity of intelligent women, doesn’t this ensure that a majority of future generations will be the offspring of idiots?

Conservative feminism is about choices. Women should have the choice of whether to have one kid, no kids, five kids, or ten kids. (I don’t think this implies abortion: that the ends are legitimate and some means are not does not preclude all means.) It used to be that working women had the Tin Lizzy “choice” of what to do, and those jobs did not require a lot of brainpower. Stacy takes opposition to that and commits a logical error: those who say “A -> B” don’t mean that “Not A -> Not B”. We think that women ought to have a choice to go into high-powered professions (if their talents lead them there) – that doesn’t mean that we want to preclude them from non-high powered careers.* “Should not have to do A” does not mean “A is bad” – it just means that other things are just as valid. Unless, of course, you see life as a zero-sum game, but that’s not me.

*This is when I can’t help but note that Stacy can’t even turn to femisogynists Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte to prove his point: women have long been writers on women’s issues; it’s not like those chicks are breaking new ground in the Air Force or in nuclear physics.

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CGHill March 12, 2011 at 12:48 pm

Where have I been, that I missed this handy term “femisogynist”?

[Note to self: add to vocabulary module, simmer, drop into conversation when convenient.]

RSM has one saving grace: he seems to be immune to the “Watch what you say around the girls, or you’ll be sleeping on the couch the rest of your life” syndrome that afflicts rather a lot of guys. On t’other hand, that fact does nothing to improve his accuracy.

And as long as I have the window open, regarding LMA’s statement that “most bright men actually prefer smart women”: well, yeah, although I sometimes wonder if I’m smart enough for them

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Beth Donovan March 12, 2011 at 6:27 am

I read Scratcher’s post, and I wondered what world she lives in.

“In nearly forty years walking around on this planet, I have never felt oppressed. I have never felt as though I couldn’t do anything a man might (with the exception of my inability to “write my name in the snow”, which is kind of a bummer).”

Because, that has certainly not been my experience in life. Perhaps, she just never tried to do anything that was considered a ‘man’s job’. I don’t know. And not even a man’s job, but a job where she could work without being hassled for being a woman.

Now, I realize, I’m 58 years old. A lot of things have changed. But … 26 years ago, I worked at a chain jewelry store, and every time my manager walked behind me, he swatted my ass. I dared to complain to the company, and I was basically demoted to a smaller store that did about 1/4th the business, virtually cutting my straight commissioned pay by 50%.

Before that, I worked for a furniture retailer – I was the only saleswoman – the other 15 sales people were men. I worked really hard, was one of the top salespeople and was promoted to store manager. Then I was demoted quickly because the men didn’t want a female boss, and the company didn’t want to upset the men.

After I had my son and became a stay at home mom, I ended up divorced. I got a job at Sprint. I did very well, until one day, I was called into the director’s office and told that I needed to stop working so hard because this was a ‘woman’s job’, and I was making the other women feel bad about themselves because they could not come close to producing what I produced each day.

When I was doing high- tech consulting work, just a few years back, I was repeatedly told that I needed to act like a man, not a woman.

Sometimes, you just can’t win.

I could go on and on, but I won’t. It’s my birthday, and I’m going to have a relaxing day plowing my garden plot with my tractor.

And yet, I’m a conservative.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 9:28 am

Perhaps you’ve felt oppressed because you’ve been told that’s the case.

My mom raised us alone, for the most part. And my mom could (can) do ANYTHING. I watched her run her own business, drive a semi, do construction, bake cookies, manage every kid in the neighborhood being in our living room and still be an awesome mother. From infancy, I was exposed to a strong, sweet woman who told me that – just like her – I could do anything at all that I worked hard at.

I’ve worked much of my life, although I don’t now. And I’ve never felt oppressed because of my gender. In fact, in my experience, the most problems I’ve had at work have come from other women.

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 9:50 am

“[M]ost problems I’ve had at work have come from other women.”

I cannot imagine why that might be.

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 11:35 am

“My mom was so much better than Beth! A better woman! More conservative! More successful! If Beth encountered obstacles along the way, it must be because of her bad attitude.

By the way . . . why is everyone around here MAD at me?”

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 11:45 am

[snicker, snicker] So true, LMA.

The other thing is that I know plenty of babycake women – sweetie pies (not genuinely kind women) who have cute hair, cute nails, are smart-but-not-as-smart, and otherwise entirely non-threatening. They pretend that their brand of “ambition” and brains is the best that can be expected of women. Then they can’t figure out why ambitious women condescend to them.

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Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 12:07 pm

The fascinating thing about that is that most bright men actually prefer smart women.

Although sometimes it’s because of the . . . you know. The effects of the yeast infection. You’d think a girl would get that taken care of, rather than scratching away.

Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 12:21 pm

“This is an honor I’ll remember as long as I can.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rNfZxgkH7k&feature=fvwrel

ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 12:51 pm

“My mom was so much better than Beth!”

Are you deranged? Beth wondered what world I live in, that I’ve never felt oppressed as a woman. I think it has something to do with my primary female role model, and I was trying to describe how my worldview developed. Why does my mother being admirable mean that I find Beth less so? I know nothing at all about her, but was trying to give a frank answer to her question, since she filled in a little of her own background. Her experiences have formed her views, and she shared them. I was doing the same. I made no value judgment either way.

“why is everyone around here MAD at me?”

I don’t wonder or care whether you’re mad at me and why. This isn’t a popularity contest.

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Beth Donovan March 12, 2011 at 1:00 pm

Sigh. Scratcher, I’m a very strong woman. No one ever told me I was oppressed -but what do you call it when you have a boss who slaps you on the ass all the time? Is that someone you believe a woman should just put up with?

I don’t think you have ever really worked in mostly male environment, and the fact is, I’m a lot older than you are, and my life experience’s are obviously a whole lot more diverse than yours have been.

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Beth Donovan March 12, 2011 at 1:06 pm

And sorry about the bad spelling above – obviously, I mean my life’s experiences.

It’s time for my birthday Argghharita.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 1:12 pm

“what do you call it when you have a boss who slaps you on the ass all the time?”

Piggish. I have experienced such a thing. I didn’t feel it was because I’m a woman, but because the man in question was a dirtbag. I let my boss know that such actions would lead to a broken wrist. It ended. That’s not systematic oppression.

“I don’t think you have ever really worked in mostly male environment”

Then you would be wrong.

“I’m a lot older than you are, and my life experience’s are obviously a whole lot more diverse than yours have been.”

With all due respect, that’s fallacious logic. Years aren’t what give you experience. You may indeed have more diverse experience than me… but without actually knowing each other and what we’ve lived through, you can’t assume that – and I can’t assume you’re wrong.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 1:17 pm

“No one ever told me I was oppressed”

Fair enough. The reason I offered it up as “perhaps…” is that I’ve seen such a thing happen. Have you ever heard a college age girl say (or see that she’s written) that she had NO IDEA she was oppressed until it was pointed out in her wymyn’s studies?

If that’s not your situation, I believe you and apologize. But I believe there are a fair number of (especially young) women out there who never felt subjugated until they were told they are… and that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I was theorizing that maybe my own view came from never having had such an idea proposed to me, and instead growing up under the exact opposite.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 7:56 pm

If that’s not your situation, I believe you and apologize. But I believe there are a fair number of (especially young) women out there who never felt subjugated until they were told they are… and that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The existence of some dumb women totally negates the existence of sexism – who knew! Send those ladies over to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, and things will get cleared up in no time.

Oh, wait, the fact that some women exaggerate or don’t understand does not negate the existence of sexism. Next time, try presuming good faith – or at least an open mind. Presuming bad faith or idiocy where none exists just makes you look like quite the Itch.

Little Miss Attila March 12, 2011 at 8:13 pm

But the important thing in that exchange is the Itchy Girl just apologized to Beth, which appears unprecedented. Beth has tamed the beast!

ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 12:54 pm

“The effects of the yeast infection. You’d think a girl would get that taken care of, rather than scratching away.”

Oh, aren’t you witty?

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Beth Donovan March 12, 2011 at 2:26 pm

Scratcher, I have no desire to pick fights with anyone. I just really wish I could express myself well enough so that other women, conservative or not, might understand that in many places, there is discrimination against women.
I was also a stay at home mom – kudos to you for staying home with your kids. That’s wonderful. I fully support you.
However, if something horrible happens, and you find that you have to get back out into the workforce to support your family, you might find that you cannot keep a job if you threaten to break some guy’s arm because he is groping you. So, as I did, your only option is to either find another job, or go to the proper people and place a complaint. If you did complain, and then find that you were demoted – just how do you think you would feel?

And I know that you don’t think that I necessarily have a more diverse occupational history than anyone else, but most of my friends and my husband agree that I’m a bit unusual.

I was the first woman to work at anything other than a secretarial level at 3 different companies. I am a military veteran. I have been in retail management, retail sales, social work, enterprise system management, consulting and now, happily, I am self-employed. I have traveled to 46 states and 3 countries.

There is still plenty of gender-based discrimination and even more age-based discrimination (just wait 20 years, you will agree with me on the later).

And yet, and yet, I am pro-life, pro-small government, a lifetime NRA member, and a devout Catholic. I am conservative. I am a woman. I still see sex discrimination in many places.

I am not anti-men in any way. I don’t understand why so many conservative women just bow to the acclimations of men like Stacy. Our voices are just as worthwhile as any man’s voice.
I also do not understand why some conservative women think that Susan B. Anthony was not a feminist.

Women like Betty Friedan and MS Magazine stole the word, “Feminism”, from those of us who simply wanted equal treatment under the law. Apparently, you support them in this, because you don’t seem to want to even admit that there are many, many circumstances where women are treated badly in comparison to men.

We should be working together for equal treatment of people. And no, I don’t mean equal outcomes, but equal treatment.

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ScratcherMMBI March 12, 2011 at 3:09 pm

Beth,

I haven’t always been at at-home mom either. I have two grown children from an early marriage. I’ve been a single mom. I’ve been a working mom. We sat down some years ago and decided what we could live without materially if I stayed home with the younger kids. So now I’m an at-home mom. But you see, I do have some knowledge of situations other than the one I’m in now..

Most of my white-collar experience is in sales and sales management. I have a good bit of blue-collar manual labor in my history, too. One of my first work experiences was labor in an upholstery place where the only other woman was my mother. That’s where I met my first butt-grabbing boss. When I went to my mother wanting to quit, she said she’d had the same problems. Her advice was to let him know his actions were assault, and I would respond accordingly. It worked beautifully, and neither of us had trouble with him or anyone else.

“I don’t understand why so many conservative women just bow to the acclimations of men like Stacy.”

I’m not bowing to him. I disagree with him on a great many topics. I’m actually amused that I agree with him on the topic of feminism. Maybe that’s why I was surprised at all this drama.

“Women like Betty Friedan and MS Magazine stole the word, “Feminism””

I understand how you see it. I consider it two separate animals, but I get what you mean. But if that’s the case, isn’t that word contaminated beyond the point where you’d want it?

” you don’t seem to want to even admit that there are many, many circumstances where women are treated badly in comparison to men.”

That’s not accurate. I’m not blind. But I see individual situations, not systemic oppression. I don’t believe it’s still the norm or acceptable. Which is why I don’t see the need for a “movement”.

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alwaysfiredup March 12, 2011 at 8:01 pm

“But I see individual situations, not systemic oppression.”

Something similar happened to you, and to Beth, and to your mother, and to a statistically-significant number of other working women. This rises to the level of “systematic”.

However, it’s not intentionally widespread; there is no conspiracy of men to keep women down. They just act as they believe is appropriate and permissible. They need to be taught they are wrong, and it is the movement that provides such education.

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Roxeanne de Luca March 12, 2011 at 8:01 pm

I just really wish I could express myself well enough so that other women, conservative or not,

You articulate beautifully, Beth.

In law, the touchstone is never an absolute; it’s reasonableness. It’s never every person, but a reasonably prudent person. Take a cue from those standards: don’t try to twist yourself so that you cannot be misunderstood, so that even people of bad faith will grasp your meaning and accept your words. It can’t be done, and it’s a losing battle.

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