Sometimes I wonder whether it even crosses the mind of most ideologues to even try to make sense.
When feminists talk eulogistically about being “badasses,” did they not ever, once, find it uncomfortable adapting a vulgarism for their ideal? Did they not once consider the literal meaning of “bad ass,” and perhaps wonder whether there was any prudence in anchoring a metaphor on their oft-sexualized posteriors and defining their own gluteal assets to be “bad”? Were they not creative enough to wonder about the likeliest puns possible, and seek to head them off before the pass? (I think of ”bad assessments” right away. Worse can be imagined.)
My repeated refrain for years now has been to highlight feminist culture’s bizarre ambivalence between the idea that women are, in truth, better than men and the somewhat orthogonal notion that everything men have and can do women should have and must do better. The two notions negate each other, as near as I can make out, making the proper response to feminists’ insistent demands not acquiescence but a sort of Senecan “Pumpkinification.”
Michael McCaffrey, on Russia’s public propaganda website, treats us to a nifty little salvo against feminist envy, the basic gist of which is that feminists, in wanting what men have regardless of its merits prove to have set their sights far too low.
The cacophony of feminist voices in the public sphere has effectively challenged some minds about some things, but not the right minds about the right things. The mendacious US establishment and its virulent military industrial complex have co-opted this current feminist moment and are using it to further solidify their deadly stranglehold on the American consciousness and Brie Larson is now an accomplice to that crime.
Is this what the new wave of feminism is all about, putting lipstick on the pig of American empire and militarism and calling it a victory for equality? If so, I’ll pass on that toxic femininity.
Michael McCaffrey, “Toxic femininity: ‘Badass’ US women demand right to torture and kill for Empire… just like men,” RT Question More, January 25, 2019.
I doubt I agree much, politically, with this particular author. But on this issue, I can sign with him on the RT line in defiance of silly rah-rah-femmes feminisms: “I fervently believe,” he concludes, “that men and women should be equal in their rights and opportunities, but I believe just as fervently that regardless of gender, no one has the right to kill, maim and torture for the American empire.”
One hates to side with the propaganda unit of a foreign power, but since I cannot side, on this issue, with my own government, here I go, taking sides. Against idiotic feminism and, more importantly, an incoherent and murderous foreign policy.
twv
Wirkman Comment 