NEVER SEND A GIRL…
January 17th, 2006[Update -- 0639 18 January -- Jill at Feministe does another excellent fisking of O'Beirne in Beating The Strawfeminist To Death.]
Rebecca Traister should have just bent over the table and pleaded for Kate O’Beirne to please, please, just spank her harder. O’Beirne’s Women Who Made The World Worse is so wrong in so many ways that it’s hard to know where to begin. Blogger Noumena does an excellent job of fisking the interview but I’d like to focus on just one exchange.
O’Beirne: People say, Oh, feminism is dead. No. What I am telling my audience is they are thriving! Larry Summers. He paid these women an enormous compliment in saying, Let’s talk about these ideas. And the feminist heroine of the episode [Nancy Hopkins] had to run from the room breathless and sick to her stomach. He makes a perfectly legitimate point based on data — disagree with him, but let’s talk about it! — and suddenly, $50 million over the next five years [to improve Harvard's hiring policies for women]. It was a brutal reeducation camp. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.
Traister: But feminists didn’t win against Summers. He didn’t get fired.
O’Beirne: You’re not serious.
Traister: I am serious.
O’Beirne: They got plenty.
Traister: Not what they demanded. He didn’t lose his job.
O’Beirne: They didn’t lose. They totally won. It was abject mea culpa.
Traister: Summers is in charge of an institution that educates women and his comments were about educating women and he is still in charge of the institution that educates women. And that’s a loss for feminists.
O’Beirne: Oh, huge win! Huge! It’s just another example of what damn clout they have! You think it’s a loss because he didn’t get fired? Why did he have to apologize or give them a nickel? Like, wake up and grow up, girls!
Grow up girls? Grow Up Girls?
My Soundtrack: Love And Peace Or Else by U2 on WOXY.
Jeff,
I will read this book but won’t buy it. No doubt it will be embrace by all the men that love Barbie dolls and all the women who want to be one. Iam assuming that Summers comments resulted in more money for women but they should have fired his ass and send him to peddle his notion of gender abilities to the Middle East, I’m sure they would appreciate his bent on education.
I am confused by women who complain about feminists, but at the same time write books, wear business suits and go on talk shows. Shouldn’t they be at home, pregnant and barefoot? Rather then writing a book, shouldn’t she be trying to hide that she knows how to read? If you don’t believe in feminism, fine, but STFU and go make some sandwiches or something.
Shalom Daniella,
I agree.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Shalom Ryan,
For me it’s the equivalent of Justice Clarence Thomas arguing against affirmative action.
B’shalom,
Jeff
I read the links you provided, and this makes me furious. Crap like this is why women have to fight the same battles over and over in each generation. If I might offer your readers an alternative, I’d like to point you to Carnival Of Feminists #7 for some things with real insight into what’s going on with feminism.
Shalom Terry,
Thank you for the link to the Carnival of Feminists No. 7.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Jeff…
there are some big, BIG problems in feminism these days, and while I haven’t read O’Bernie’s book, women have gotta begin to raise those issues or else we’re just going to lock-step follow a philosophy that might not be working quite the way it should.
Case in point: I keep thinking of all those wonderful feminists I grew up with–Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, artist Judy Chicago, etc–who all made choices to be childless, and wonder why the idea to choose not to have a child, and the idea that one might have to make choices in general, is considered such a horrible thing (I am thinking of Chicago’s speech to the Smith class of ’00 where she told these bright young women that, if they wanted to compete in male-dominated fields, that they just might have to make hard choices, like not having children and was resoundily excoriated for her words with a completley unrealistic and emotional argument.)
Sorry for the rant, but, hey, I’m calling it as I see it
Peace,
T.
Shalom Tish,
First, I’ve seen rants. I’ve been ranted at. That was no rant. The people who I admire most in this world are those able to say what they believe.
I think the idea of a feminist lockstep a myth. I know too many women who are all over the spectrum on most issues. The one thing that most can agree on is that the critical piece is that everyone have the opporutnity to make an informed choice as regards their future.
While there are some who would denigrate choices other make — think Hillary and her infamous backing cookies comment — I think that the vast majority of women realize that what works in one case does not work in another.
We all have to make it up as we go.
B’shalom,
Jeff