I thought we weren't supposed to talk about how female political figures dress anyway? Not true? Or maybe it's just that, you know, we aren't supposed to talk about it.
They gonna walk the whole way? Or run up their carbon footprint with the convenience of flying and driving?
Actually, I think they're just jealous because Mrs Trump looks so good in that dress (she looks so good in most anything), and Mrs Clinton looks so frumpy in her pants suits (as she does in most anything).
I appreciate that there is a genuine difficulty for women in politics here. I noticed, for example, that Donald Trump elected to wear the red tie to his inauguration instead of the blue one. All the other men who walked out with him wore the blue tie instead of the red one, except one guy who wore a red-and-blue striped tie.
So there's a uniform. Women have a lot more freedom, but that being the case, people are going to think -- and talk -- about what they were doing with that freedom. The one thing that they're less free to do is to opt out of the business by putting on the uniform. That creates problems and complications. I get it, and I kind of support the idea of not commenting on what they do with their fashion choices.
What I don't get is how you say 'white symbolizes suffragettes!' when Mrs. Clinton does it, and 'white symbolizes white power!' when Mrs. Trump does it. It's a white outfit. Maybe it doesn't symbolize anything.
In a related development, I heard that the Women's March is going to the Clinton Library in Little Rock next, by way of JFK's grave in Arlington.
Ironic that a Women's march would pick the two most infamous Presidential adulterers to honor in this way. If there was one issue I'd have thought women would line up on in solidarity, in spite of differences in race or class or other interest, it would have been a consensus that cheating men are bad.
This is disorienting. I thought I was among the most hypersensitive people in America when it comes to feminist issues, but honestly, I have no idea what all these people are marching about. My sister's Facebook feed is full of snapshots of her and her buddies marching, wearing vulva costumes, and so on. Is it really all about federal funding for abortion, or about the "grab 'em by the p____" remark, or what? I must be so out of it these days. Is it nothing more than that a man and woman competed for the office and the man won?
I think the 'woman' part may be an accident they've decided to adopt for rhetorical purposes. The largest contingent of Clinton's supporters were white women: she won only 47% of them, but they are (you are) the largest single voting demographic in America. If only 1 in 10 of her supporters from that group came out yesterday, that's around four million people. But it was probably more like 1 in 15 or 1 in 20, with the remainder being made up of supporters from other demographics.
The clarifying moment was the exclusion of pro-life women's groups from the march. It's not about being a woman, or women being in leadership roles. It's about a particular ideological view that has suddenly gone from controlling the levers of power to being almost completely excluded from them. The majority of their largest contingent, white women, didn't vote for their candidate and didn't join their march. But because they are mostly white women, and Clinton was a woman, they can claim to be speaking for "women"; and because Trump often said sexist things, they can claim to be the movement opposing sexism.
That said, it's enough people out there protesting that it can't be dismissed as unimportant. What Trump is likely to do as President is going to have a large, committed opposition.
...honestly, I have no idea what all these people are marching about. My sister's Facebook feed is full of snapshots of her and her buddies marching, wearing vulva costumes, and so on. Is it really all about federal funding for abortion, or about the "grab 'em by the p____" remark, or what? I must be so out of it these days. Is it nothing more than that a man and woman competed for the office and the man won?
I am also mystified, and trying to understand why they are marching. And I don't agree with Grim about ideology driving this particular bus at all. I think it's very much the opposite of ideological (that's why there's no coherent message or issue) - it's more about feelings than anything else.
I think it's about several things:
1. Taking part in a movement of like minded people, and doing something to address their fears instead of feeling helpless.
2. Genuine (if, IMO, misplaced) fear that access to birth control/abortion will be rolled back.
3. Genuine (if, IMO, absurdly selective) outrage at that 15 year old remark of Trump's, and the mind set it exemplifies.
4. A general feeling of women being dissed or ignored for most of history, combined with fear that women are about to be relegated to the kitchens and broom closets of history again.
That's what I see, when I read about this march. I don't really understand it at all, because understanding a feeling you don't share is a challenge.
Texan, the best I could sort out was that the march was for pro-choice women who don't like Something Government. You could pick whichever Something offended/enraged/disappointed you, make a pink kitty-cat hat and show up to be Empowered. (Some of the cats were rather clever, especially the ones where people added eyes, whiskers and other details. I appreciate effort and craftsmanship, even if I don't care for the message[s].)
By the way, there's an interesting riff between 2 and 3 that I'll openly admit has bothered me about righty stances for a very long time.
I really do believe that the right often sounds weirdly over concerned about regulating/limiting female sexuality, and weirdly under concerned with regulating/limiting male sexuality.
As a conservative, my position is this: sex is an inherently risky activity. Therefore, BOTH sexes should comport themselves accordingly. And if they don't (and suffer the obvious negative consequences of their own fecklessness), I don't wish to hear them whine about it, or expect me to get them out of a jam they got themselves into.
The rhetoric I often hear from conservatives makes no sense to me: basically, that women should treat sex as a risky activity, but men were designed by God almighty to desire sex with lots of women they are not married to, and any attempt to get them to take precautions or control themselves is basically controlling behavior/nagging. Men are not to blame for doing what comes naturally, but women need to exhibit enough self control for both sexes.
The idiotic corollary to this on the left is feminists who seem to view all men as incipient rapists, but vehemently reject suggestions that women might need to exercise some caution around men. We should be able to dress and act any way we please, without incurring additional risk. Basically, women should be allowed to behave in all the ways the Left excoriates men for behaving and men need to exercise enough control for both sexes.
Neither one of those formulations make the slightest sense to me.
I don't agree with Grim about ideology driving this particular bus at all. I think it's very much the opposite of ideological... I think it's about several things: 1. Taking part in a movement of like minded people...
For someone who just needled me about being philosophical, you're here making an interesting distinction between "ideology" and "like-mindedness." :)
I suspect a big part of the marches is reflected in a common reaction today, which is that a lot of participants say, "I feel better about humanity today." The Trump win was a huge shock; a lot of people were knocked way off balance on finding that their worldview was not as ascendant as they thought. I know the feeling well. Marching in big crowds reassured them they weren't crazy, much as seeing Tea Party demonstrations once reassured me.
I think the picture gets obscured by a big helping of what some might characterize as a peculiarly feminine approach, which is to emphasize solidarity over rational argument. I can understand this to a degree, because I also often feel alienated by a common strain of conservative thought that is, to my eyes, frankly bizarre on the subject of women. I agree with so many other aspects of conservative thought that I overlook this part, but it's true that I often am reduced to rolling my eyes and thinking "There really isn't the least point trying to explain this to you any more. So, whatever, let's make common cause whenever we can." But also, I'm perhaps not a very girly girl, so I don't usually feel a strong need for estrogen-soaked communal rituals, and much prefer public demonstrations of self-control, moxie, and responsible assumption of the duties inherent in power. Give me marching bands over vulva costumes any day.
And if leftist feminists think that means I'm letting the female side down, they can blow me, just as men can blow me if they think I'm not behaving consistently with their view of my role as a woman.
I think the picture gets obscured by a big helping of what some might characterize as a peculiarly feminine approach, which is to emphasize solidarity over rational argument.
As usual, Tex, you're doing a better job of articulating what I meant than I did :p
I can understand this to a degree, because I also often feel alienated by a common strain of conservative thought that is, to my eyes, frankly bizarre on the subject of women. I agree with so many other aspects of conservative thought that I overlook this part, but it's true that I often am reduced to rolling my eyes and thinking "There really isn't the least point trying to explain this to you any more. So, whatever, let's make common cause whenever we can." But also, I'm perhaps not a very girly girl, so I don't usually feel a strong need for estrogen-soaked communal rituals, and much prefer public demonstrations of self-control, moxie, and responsible assumption of the duties inherent in power. Give me marching bands over vulva costumes any day.
I cannot imagine marching in a vulva costume. Gay Patriot has a great line in the description on his Twitter feed (one of the few I actually look at). It says,
..."people who feel the same way (for different reasons)".
That makes more sense, and I did understand that you intended to divide ideology as a system of ideas from 'feeling a certain way.'
On an anecdotal level, I do know two people who went to the DC rally; two more who went to the one in Philly; one in Fargo; three in Atlanta; one in New Orleans; and a couple others. It happens to be the case that they all share an ideology: that version of feminism that considers abortion a sacrament; privilege arguments highly convincing; and the history of humanity as properly expressed as a conflict (or set of conflicts: capitalist/worker, male/female, heterosexual/other, white/nonwhite, European-American/colonial victims) in roughly Marxist terms.
So at least for the ones I know, which is a tiny subset of the whole but one well-distributed among the different events, there is a systematic ideology at work. That may not hold for everyone else, of course.
My sister went. She wouldn't consider abortion a sacrament, but the slightest attempt to interfere in a prospective mother's decision about abortion would strike her as the most intolerable sort of invasion of autonomy and privacy that only a fascist would dream of attempting. She doesn't consider early fetuses to be human, and that's that. She's very Marxist and tends to see all political and social conflict in terms of the powerful behaving unfairly to the powerless. Men are of course very unfair to women. Freedom primarily means a powerful government to protect us from bullies. Voter i.d. and that sort of thing are heartless attempts to keep the poor voter down. Unions are the only force that can keep greedy and ignorant management in check. Society should be forced to pay the true value of work she values. Oddly enough, I think she may be a trifle skeptical about global warming and some of the nuttier anti-industry environmental positions. Most of all, she identifies entirely with what she sees as the sophisticated intellectual class. I suspect that, beyond hating Trump's avowed conservative and nationalist positions, she also just gets a raging case of the willies over his boorishness. She'd have hated Scott Walker just as much on policy grounds, but there might not have been this overpowering personal reaction.
Oh, and she would sum up my entire philosophy with "She's selfish and doesn't care about others." I've never detected in her the slightest ability to understand a conservative position on any subject. I quit trying to discuss it with her a while back. Until recently, she worked for a union, and my horror of forcing people to join and financially support a union is so profound that it was hard for me to set that aside and join sympathetically in her discussions of relations between union, management, and employees. Her hatred of management was visceral. They were stupid, venal people who negotiated in bad faith to achieve incomprehensible ends, and inexplicably could not see the good sense in her proposals.
Knowing literally dozens of people that went, I can tell you it's not about anything other than emoting with a group who felt as scared as you and making each other feel better.
Tex, why you're starting to almost sound like Madonna! (ducks)
I know, right? That's what's so funny to me: normally I'm very much in synch with the "nasty woman" vibe. If they were protesting someone who was punching my feminist buttons in any serious way, I might be right out there with them wearing inappropriate costumes designed to grieve and shock and dropping "F" bombs with the best of them.
But what in the world is the big issue on our plates this year? Planned Parenthood funding? An anti-Roe v. Wade S. Ct. justice, maybe. But I don't think so. I think it's Trump's personal style more than anything. He has orange hair, a series of trophy wives, and he said "grab 'em by the p____." I suppose it's high time I got over my pearl-clutching shock at the notion that large groups of people can be swept onto the streets by anything but relatively incoherent emotion. Like they were going to be out there waving white papers with bullet points.
And I shouldn't complain. The last thing I want is for these people to coalesce around an effective message that will scare legislators into some particular vote that I won't like. So let it be "What do we want? UNFAIR! When do we want it? CHANGE!"
In the meantime, I go out on comments boards and Facebook and make one simple point as often as I can: don't threaten me with the loss of health insurance if the ACA is repealed. The ACA has already destroyed my health insurance. I'm back (shades of 2-3 years ago) to encountering people who've never heard about what happened in the individual market, who try to tell me it wasn't the law, it was my mean greedy insurer that dropped me by coincidence on the effective date of the law, and finally that I was too stupid to understand what was terrible about my coverage and I'm better off without it. Which points I counter, one by one, over and over. Maybe I'll reach a few people who want to see the ACA repealed but are spooked by the constant message "The Republicans are tearing insurance policies out of the hands of helpless puppies!" You want to get upset about confiscating people's coverage? Empathize with me first, then we'll talk.
You know what I find bizarre? All this talk of how we shouldn't "normalize" DJT's supposedly crass words/actions, and I'm watching outlandish behavior by the press and protesters being "normalized" (encouraged/excused/glossed over) every.single.day.
I am firmly in the "Jeez, can we all just make our points without acting out?" camp, mostly because things really do race to the bottom really quickly once people get the idea that it's OK to act out in public.
I think we are in real danger of forgetting that civilization is an eggshell thin veneer over a human nature that is prone to violence, hysteria, and "eye for an eye" tactics (actually, we're lucky if it's not "major organ for an eye", a la the - IMO - extremely naive belief that punching back twice as hard discourages rather than encourages escalating retaliation).
Obama would say things like "punch back twice as hard" to one audience, but preach civility to another. It was hypocritical, but in a 'tribute vice pays to virtue' sort of way.
This use of gross biological language or imagery to trivialize the arguments of opponents is not new. For a long time, though, it was one-sided. One side could traduce the norms of the other -- holding performances of "the Vagina Monologues" or extremely explicit hip-hop performances or whatever -- because the rule went this way:
1) Freedom of conscience means that you live by your values, but don't try to impose them on others.
2) This value of 'modesty' about biological functions is your value, conservative, not mine.
3) Therefore, you must speak courteously and politely or we'll excoriate you; but we are merely being authentic when we do the opposite.
Trump, meanwhile, never claimed to value these traditional moral norms around modesty and courtesy. He's being perfectly authentic. The worry about this becoming 'normal' is a worry about it becoming normal for the right; it's long been normal for the left.
Your worry, as a conservative, is, "What if this civilizational norm really ceases to be valued by anyone?" What if there's no longer a reason for vice to pay tribute to virtue?
That does seem to be a risk. On the other hand, there is an opportunity here as well. Insofar as the other side now admits that it sees value in these norms, well, these norms are now part of their values. It's fair to demand that they live up to their values, according to points (1) and (2) above.
I was attempting humor. They are never going to protest anything about Bill Clinton of Jack Kennedy.
Cassandra, I think you are essentially right about the dichotomous treatment of men and women in some conservative sectors. I would put in a little different angle that might give some clarity. Most conservatives I know would not say that it is okay for men to be sexually driven and irresponsible, even if they would say that men are wired that way. I think the attitude is more that society is going to have a hard time stopping it without more side effects than envisioned. Of course, most of my conservative friends are evangelicals and may not be representative. They are not very tolerant of sexual misbehavior by males.
I don't think you hang out on sites as raw as the ones I frequent. There's a strong, wide channel of conservative popular culture that's very, very focused on subjects disturbingly close to the PUA ethos. A huge focus on demeaning any female opponent by concentrating on how slutty and/or ugly she is and how little interest they have in bestowing their male attention and money on her, knowing that's all she really wants, etc. These same guys agree so thoroughly with me on all kinds of issues of policy, but when they get on that subject there's no talking to them. They'll go straight from legitimate criticisms of Hillary Clinton to a bizarre obsession with her ugly ankles. It's like people with Trump's hair, very tiresome. It takes me back to early childhood and friends chanting "Gold-water, Gold-water, that's like pee!"
There's a strong, wide channel of conservative popular culture that's very, very focused on subjects disturbingly close to the PUA ethos. A huge focus on demeaning any female opponent by concentrating on how slutty and/or ugly she is and how little interest they have in bestowing their male attention and money on her, knowing that's all she really wants, etc. These same guys agree so thoroughly with me on all kinds of issues of policy, but when they get on that subject there's no talking to them. They'll go straight from legitimate criticisms of Hillary Clinton to a bizarre obsession with her ugly ankles.
I saw this too, back when I actually visited more conservative blogs regularly. But I gave that up years ago - don't need the aggro.
A lot of fairly mainstream conservative sites have a real image problem with women - even women like me, who are anything but shrinking violets, and who don't hesitate to wade into contentious verbal debates. Reading several very popular conservative blogs, frankly, gave me my first real understanding of why so many liberal women think all conservatives are misogynists/sexists.
I think the thing that bothered me most wasn't that some guys express themselves in a way leaves boorishness in the dust - it was that other men that I respect read those sites daily and were mostly blind to the way they came across to women like me - women who like and respect men.
My husband helped me understand a bit of it - he said he just ignores people like that. But he also doesn't want to be around them. He's just as put off by it as I am, and he said he immediately loses respect for people like that and has no desire to waste his time on them or their opinions. He used to ask me, "Why would you even bother with people like that?"
I think to some extent there's a bit of what goes on at Breitbart (i.e., people are so disgusted with PC that they condone actions and words that violate their values for the sake of hearing other opinions that would never be voiced elsewhere). Alternatively, their actual and professed values may not match up.
But man, listening to that stuff is too high price to pay for me. It's not that I can't handle it - more that I don't wish to.
Okay. This whole conversation makes sense now. I am on the side of Cass's husband here: I detest those sites and do not frequent them unless I have a strong urge to walk around raging mad for a while. Which is approximately never.
They are not healthy for me, and I really can't imagine how they impact women.
I honestly have a hard time considering them conservative. They may have some political views that line up that way, but being a conservative is more than your politics, I think. Maybe I'm wrong.
They're not conservative, looking at conservative in certain way, in this particular arena, but they're clearly conservative in many other ways. I know better than to think that people who agree with me in one area will agree with me in another, but this problem goes beyond that: I'm actually sometimes driven to disassociate myself from the broader movement with which they're associated, as if I found that a club I liked to hang out with was filling up with Aryan whatevers. But normally I shut up if it's minor, or say "here's where we part company" if I think it's important enough that I ought to stand up for a principle. And I put up with the embarrassment of being associated with them in the eyes of old friends and family, because I judge that the areas where we agree are more important. Which is how I ended up voting for a guy who bragged about grabbing women, etc., and how if you're rich it's all good. Man, did the D party have to screw up bad to bring me to that extremity.
And that's, of course, what old friends and family will get an earful of if they push me too hard in the "how could you" vein. They risk getting an explanation that I find those aspects of Trump at least as offensive as they do, possibly ten times more if they're guys or women with decidedly weak feminist principles in comparison with mine, which is usual--but Clinton in particular and the D party in general really are exactly that unacceptable to me, and here's why. Someone would just about literally have had to drag Hitler out of his unlovely grave and reanimated him and put him on the R ticket in order to get me to pull that lever for Hilary Clinton, or to support 99% of what I take to be the D party platform.
27 comments:
Tribes. What my tribe wears is powerful, dignified, and attractive. When your tribe wears it, it looks like crap.
In a related development, I heard that the Women's March is going to the Clinton Library in Little Rock next, by way of JFK's grave in Arlington.
They gonna walk the whole way? Or run up their carbon footprint with the convenience of flying and driving?
Actually, I think they're just jealous because Mrs Trump looks so good in that dress (she looks so good in most anything), and Mrs Clinton looks so frumpy in her pants suits (as she does in most anything).
Eric Hines
What a great example of confirmation bias!
I appreciate that there is a genuine difficulty for women in politics here. I noticed, for example, that Donald Trump elected to wear the red tie to his inauguration instead of the blue one. All the other men who walked out with him wore the blue tie instead of the red one, except one guy who wore a red-and-blue striped tie.
So there's a uniform. Women have a lot more freedom, but that being the case, people are going to think -- and talk -- about what they were doing with that freedom. The one thing that they're less free to do is to opt out of the business by putting on the uniform. That creates problems and complications. I get it, and I kind of support the idea of not commenting on what they do with their fashion choices.
What I don't get is how you say 'white symbolizes suffragettes!' when Mrs. Clinton does it, and 'white symbolizes white power!' when Mrs. Trump does it. It's a white outfit. Maybe it doesn't symbolize anything.
In a related development, I heard that the Women's March is going to the Clinton Library in Little Rock next, by way of JFK's grave in Arlington.
Ironic that a Women's march would pick the two most infamous Presidential adulterers to honor in this way. If there was one issue I'd have thought women would line up on in solidarity, in spite of differences in race or class or other interest, it would have been a consensus that cheating men are bad.
This is disorienting. I thought I was among the most hypersensitive people in America when it comes to feminist issues, but honestly, I have no idea what all these people are marching about. My sister's Facebook feed is full of snapshots of her and her buddies marching, wearing vulva costumes, and so on. Is it really all about federal funding for abortion, or about the "grab 'em by the p____" remark, or what? I must be so out of it these days. Is it nothing more than that a man and woman competed for the office and the man won?
I think the 'woman' part may be an accident they've decided to adopt for rhetorical purposes. The largest contingent of Clinton's supporters were white women: she won only 47% of them, but they are (you are) the largest single voting demographic in America. If only 1 in 10 of her supporters from that group came out yesterday, that's around four million people. But it was probably more like 1 in 15 or 1 in 20, with the remainder being made up of supporters from other demographics.
The clarifying moment was the exclusion of pro-life women's groups from the march. It's not about being a woman, or women being in leadership roles. It's about a particular ideological view that has suddenly gone from controlling the levers of power to being almost completely excluded from them. The majority of their largest contingent, white women, didn't vote for their candidate and didn't join their march. But because they are mostly white women, and Clinton was a woman, they can claim to be speaking for "women"; and because Trump often said sexist things, they can claim to be the movement opposing sexism.
That said, it's enough people out there protesting that it can't be dismissed as unimportant. What Trump is likely to do as President is going to have a large, committed opposition.
...honestly, I have no idea what all these people are marching about. My sister's Facebook feed is full of snapshots of her and her buddies marching, wearing vulva costumes, and so on. Is it really all about federal funding for abortion, or about the "grab 'em by the p____" remark, or what? I must be so out of it these days. Is it nothing more than that a man and woman competed for the office and the man won?
I am also mystified, and trying to understand why they are marching. And I don't agree with Grim about ideology driving this particular bus at all. I think it's very much the opposite of ideological (that's why there's no coherent message or issue) - it's more about feelings than anything else.
I think it's about several things:
1. Taking part in a movement of like minded people, and doing something to address their fears instead of feeling helpless.
2. Genuine (if, IMO, misplaced) fear that access to birth control/abortion will be rolled back.
3. Genuine (if, IMO, absurdly selective) outrage at that 15 year old remark of Trump's, and the mind set it exemplifies.
4. A general feeling of women being dissed or ignored for most of history, combined with fear that women are about to be relegated to the kitchens and broom closets of history again.
That's what I see, when I read about this march. I don't really understand it at all, because understanding a feeling you don't share is a challenge.
Texan, the best I could sort out was that the march was for pro-choice women who don't like Something Government. You could pick whichever Something offended/enraged/disappointed you, make a pink kitty-cat hat and show up to be Empowered. (Some of the cats were rather clever, especially the ones where people added eyes, whiskers and other details. I appreciate effort and craftsmanship, even if I don't care for the message[s].)
LittleRed1
By the way, there's an interesting riff between 2 and 3 that I'll openly admit has bothered me about righty stances for a very long time.
I really do believe that the right often sounds weirdly over concerned about regulating/limiting female sexuality, and weirdly under concerned with regulating/limiting male sexuality.
As a conservative, my position is this: sex is an inherently risky activity. Therefore, BOTH sexes should comport themselves accordingly. And if they don't (and suffer the obvious negative consequences of their own fecklessness), I don't wish to hear them whine about it, or expect me to get them out of a jam they got themselves into.
The rhetoric I often hear from conservatives makes no sense to me: basically, that women should treat sex as a risky activity, but men were designed by God almighty to desire sex with lots of women they are not married to, and any attempt to get them to take precautions or control themselves is basically controlling behavior/nagging. Men are not to blame for doing what comes naturally, but women need to exhibit enough self control for both sexes.
The idiotic corollary to this on the left is feminists who seem to view all men as incipient rapists, but vehemently reject suggestions that women might need to exercise some caution around men. We should be able to dress and act any way we please, without incurring additional risk. Basically, women should be allowed to behave in all the ways the Left excoriates men for behaving and men need to exercise enough control for both sexes.
Neither one of those formulations make the slightest sense to me.
Tex, if you haven't seen this, it was great:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4144242/KATIE-HOPKINS-Having-vagina-biology-not-argument.html
I don't agree with Grim about ideology driving this particular bus at all. I think it's very much the opposite of ideological... I think it's about several things: 1. Taking part in a movement of like minded people...
For someone who just needled me about being philosophical, you're here making an interesting distinction between "ideology" and "like-mindedness." :)
I suspect a big part of the marches is reflected in a common reaction today, which is that a lot of participants say, "I feel better about humanity today." The Trump win was a huge shock; a lot of people were knocked way off balance on finding that their worldview was not as ascendant as they thought. I know the feeling well. Marching in big crowds reassured them they weren't crazy, much as seeing Tea Party demonstrations once reassured me.
I think the picture gets obscured by a big helping of what some might characterize as a peculiarly feminine approach, which is to emphasize solidarity over rational argument. I can understand this to a degree, because I also often feel alienated by a common strain of conservative thought that is, to my eyes, frankly bizarre on the subject of women. I agree with so many other aspects of conservative thought that I overlook this part, but it's true that I often am reduced to rolling my eyes and thinking "There really isn't the least point trying to explain this to you any more. So, whatever, let's make common cause whenever we can." But also, I'm perhaps not a very girly girl, so I don't usually feel a strong need for estrogen-soaked communal rituals, and much prefer public demonstrations of self-control, moxie, and responsible assumption of the duties inherent in power. Give me marching bands over vulva costumes any day.
And if leftist feminists think that means I'm letting the female side down, they can blow me, just as men can blow me if they think I'm not behaving consistently with their view of my role as a woman.
For someone who just needled me about being philosophical, you're here making an interesting distinction between "ideology" and "like-mindedness." :)
Touche, my friend! :)
I should have said, "people who feel the same way (for different reasons)". My bad, for being vague!
I think the picture gets obscured by a big helping of what some might characterize as a peculiarly feminine approach, which is to emphasize solidarity over rational argument.
As usual, Tex, you're doing a better job of articulating what I meant than I did :p
I can understand this to a degree, because I also often feel alienated by a common strain of conservative thought that is, to my eyes, frankly bizarre on the subject of women. I agree with so many other aspects of conservative thought that I overlook this part, but it's true that I often am reduced to rolling my eyes and thinking "There really isn't the least point trying to explain this to you any more. So, whatever, let's make common cause whenever we can." But also, I'm perhaps not a very girly girl, so I don't usually feel a strong need for estrogen-soaked communal rituals, and much prefer public demonstrations of self-control, moxie, and responsible assumption of the duties inherent in power. Give me marching bands over vulva costumes any day.
I cannot imagine marching in a vulva costume. Gay Patriot has a great line in the description on his Twitter feed (one of the few I actually look at). It says,
"Don't vote with your body parts. It's gross."
Makes me laugh every single time I see it.
..."people who feel the same way (for different reasons)".
That makes more sense, and I did understand that you intended to divide ideology as a system of ideas from 'feeling a certain way.'
On an anecdotal level, I do know two people who went to the DC rally; two more who went to the one in Philly; one in Fargo; three in Atlanta; one in New Orleans; and a couple others. It happens to be the case that they all share an ideology: that version of feminism that considers abortion a sacrament; privilege arguments highly convincing; and the history of humanity as properly expressed as a conflict (or set of conflicts: capitalist/worker, male/female, heterosexual/other, white/nonwhite, European-American/colonial victims) in roughly Marxist terms.
So at least for the ones I know, which is a tiny subset of the whole but one well-distributed among the different events, there is a systematic ideology at work. That may not hold for everyone else, of course.
My sister went. She wouldn't consider abortion a sacrament, but the slightest attempt to interfere in a prospective mother's decision about abortion would strike her as the most intolerable sort of invasion of autonomy and privacy that only a fascist would dream of attempting. She doesn't consider early fetuses to be human, and that's that. She's very Marxist and tends to see all political and social conflict in terms of the powerful behaving unfairly to the powerless. Men are of course very unfair to women. Freedom primarily means a powerful government to protect us from bullies. Voter i.d. and that sort of thing are heartless attempts to keep the poor voter down. Unions are the only force that can keep greedy and ignorant management in check. Society should be forced to pay the true value of work she values. Oddly enough, I think she may be a trifle skeptical about global warming and some of the nuttier anti-industry environmental positions. Most of all, she identifies entirely with what she sees as the sophisticated intellectual class. I suspect that, beyond hating Trump's avowed conservative and nationalist positions, she also just gets a raging case of the willies over his boorishness. She'd have hated Scott Walker just as much on policy grounds, but there might not have been this overpowering personal reaction.
Oh, and she would sum up my entire philosophy with "She's selfish and doesn't care about others." I've never detected in her the slightest ability to understand a conservative position on any subject. I quit trying to discuss it with her a while back. Until recently, she worked for a union, and my horror of forcing people to join and financially support a union is so profound that it was hard for me to set that aside and join sympathetically in her discussions of relations between union, management, and employees. Her hatred of management was visceral. They were stupid, venal people who negotiated in bad faith to achieve incomprehensible ends, and inexplicably could not see the good sense in her proposals.
Knowing literally dozens of people that went, I can tell you it's not about anything other than emoting with a group who felt as scared as you and making each other feel better.
Tex, why you're starting to almost sound like Madonna!
(ducks)
I know, right? That's what's so funny to me: normally I'm very much in synch with the "nasty woman" vibe. If they were protesting someone who was punching my feminist buttons in any serious way, I might be right out there with them wearing inappropriate costumes designed to grieve and shock and dropping "F" bombs with the best of them.
But what in the world is the big issue on our plates this year? Planned Parenthood funding? An anti-Roe v. Wade S. Ct. justice, maybe. But I don't think so. I think it's Trump's personal style more than anything. He has orange hair, a series of trophy wives, and he said "grab 'em by the p____." I suppose it's high time I got over my pearl-clutching shock at the notion that large groups of people can be swept onto the streets by anything but relatively incoherent emotion. Like they were going to be out there waving white papers with bullet points.
And I shouldn't complain. The last thing I want is for these people to coalesce around an effective message that will scare legislators into some particular vote that I won't like. So let it be "What do we want? UNFAIR! When do we want it? CHANGE!"
In the meantime, I go out on comments boards and Facebook and make one simple point as often as I can: don't threaten me with the loss of health insurance if the ACA is repealed. The ACA has already destroyed my health insurance. I'm back (shades of 2-3 years ago) to encountering people who've never heard about what happened in the individual market, who try to tell me it wasn't the law, it was my mean greedy insurer that dropped me by coincidence on the effective date of the law, and finally that I was too stupid to understand what was terrible about my coverage and I'm better off without it. Which points I counter, one by one, over and over. Maybe I'll reach a few people who want to see the ACA repealed but are spooked by the constant message "The Republicans are tearing insurance policies out of the hands of helpless puppies!" You want to get upset about confiscating people's coverage? Empathize with me first, then we'll talk.
You know what I find bizarre? All this talk of how we shouldn't "normalize" DJT's supposedly crass words/actions, and I'm watching outlandish behavior by the press and protesters being "normalized" (encouraged/excused/glossed over) every.single.day.
I am firmly in the "Jeez, can we all just make our points without acting out?" camp, mostly because things really do race to the bottom really quickly once people get the idea that it's OK to act out in public.
I think we are in real danger of forgetting that civilization is an eggshell thin veneer over a human nature that is prone to violence, hysteria, and "eye for an eye" tactics (actually, we're lucky if it's not "major organ for an eye", a la the - IMO - extremely naive belief that punching back twice as hard discourages rather than encourages escalating retaliation).
Obama would say things like "punch back twice as hard" to one audience, but preach civility to another. It was hypocritical, but in a 'tribute vice pays to virtue' sort of way.
This use of gross biological language or imagery to trivialize the arguments of opponents is not new. For a long time, though, it was one-sided. One side could traduce the norms of the other -- holding performances of "the Vagina Monologues" or extremely explicit hip-hop performances or whatever -- because the rule went this way:
1) Freedom of conscience means that you live by your values, but don't try to impose them on others.
2) This value of 'modesty' about biological functions is your value, conservative, not mine.
3) Therefore, you must speak courteously and politely or we'll excoriate you; but we are merely being authentic when we do the opposite.
Trump, meanwhile, never claimed to value these traditional moral norms around modesty and courtesy. He's being perfectly authentic. The worry about this becoming 'normal' is a worry about it becoming normal for the right; it's long been normal for the left.
Your worry, as a conservative, is, "What if this civilizational norm really ceases to be valued by anyone?" What if there's no longer a reason for vice to pay tribute to virtue?
That does seem to be a risk. On the other hand, there is an opportunity here as well. Insofar as the other side now admits that it sees value in these norms, well, these norms are now part of their values. It's fair to demand that they live up to their values, according to points (1) and (2) above.
I was attempting humor. They are never going to protest anything about Bill Clinton of Jack Kennedy.
Cassandra, I think you are essentially right about the dichotomous treatment of men and women in some conservative sectors. I would put in a little different angle that might give some clarity. Most conservatives I know would not say that it is okay for men to be sexually driven and irresponsible, even if they would say that men are wired that way. I think the attitude is more that society is going to have a hard time stopping it without more side effects than envisioned. Of course, most of my conservative friends are evangelicals and may not be representative. They are not very tolerant of sexual misbehavior by males.
I don't think you hang out on sites as raw as the ones I frequent. There's a strong, wide channel of conservative popular culture that's very, very focused on subjects disturbingly close to the PUA ethos. A huge focus on demeaning any female opponent by concentrating on how slutty and/or ugly she is and how little interest they have in bestowing their male attention and money on her, knowing that's all she really wants, etc. These same guys agree so thoroughly with me on all kinds of issues of policy, but when they get on that subject there's no talking to them. They'll go straight from legitimate criticisms of Hillary Clinton to a bizarre obsession with her ugly ankles. It's like people with Trump's hair, very tiresome. It takes me back to early childhood and friends chanting "Gold-water, Gold-water, that's like pee!"
There's a strong, wide channel of conservative popular culture that's very, very focused on subjects disturbingly close to the PUA ethos. A huge focus on demeaning any female opponent by concentrating on how slutty and/or ugly she is and how little interest they have in bestowing their male attention and money on her, knowing that's all she really wants, etc. These same guys agree so thoroughly with me on all kinds of issues of policy, but when they get on that subject there's no talking to them. They'll go straight from legitimate criticisms of Hillary Clinton to a bizarre obsession with her ugly ankles.
I saw this too, back when I actually visited more conservative blogs regularly. But I gave that up years ago - don't need the aggro.
A lot of fairly mainstream conservative sites have a real image problem with women - even women like me, who are anything but shrinking violets, and who don't hesitate to wade into contentious verbal debates. Reading several very popular conservative blogs, frankly, gave me my first real understanding of why so many liberal women think all conservatives are misogynists/sexists.
I think the thing that bothered me most wasn't that some guys express themselves in a way leaves boorishness in the dust - it was that other men that I respect read those sites daily and were mostly blind to the way they came across to women like me - women who like and respect men.
My husband helped me understand a bit of it - he said he just ignores people like that. But he also doesn't want to be around them. He's just as put off by it as I am, and he said he immediately loses respect for people like that and has no desire to waste his time on them or their opinions. He used to ask me, "Why would you even bother with people like that?"
I think to some extent there's a bit of what goes on at Breitbart (i.e., people are so disgusted with PC that they condone actions and words that violate their values for the sake of hearing other opinions that would never be voiced elsewhere). Alternatively, their actual and professed values may not match up.
But man, listening to that stuff is too high price to pay for me. It's not that I can't handle it - more that I don't wish to.
Okay. This whole conversation makes sense now. I am on the side of Cass's husband here: I detest those sites and do not frequent them unless I have a strong urge to walk around raging mad for a while. Which is approximately never.
They are not healthy for me, and I really can't imagine how they impact women.
I honestly have a hard time considering them conservative. They may have some political views that line up that way, but being a conservative is more than your politics, I think. Maybe I'm wrong.
Gotta run.
They're not conservative, looking at conservative in certain way, in this particular arena, but they're clearly conservative in many other ways. I know better than to think that people who agree with me in one area will agree with me in another, but this problem goes beyond that: I'm actually sometimes driven to disassociate myself from the broader movement with which they're associated, as if I found that a club I liked to hang out with was filling up with Aryan whatevers. But normally I shut up if it's minor, or say "here's where we part company" if I think it's important enough that I ought to stand up for a principle. And I put up with the embarrassment of being associated with them in the eyes of old friends and family, because I judge that the areas where we agree are more important. Which is how I ended up voting for a guy who bragged about grabbing women, etc., and how if you're rich it's all good. Man, did the D party have to screw up bad to bring me to that extremity.
And that's, of course, what old friends and family will get an earful of if they push me too hard in the "how could you" vein. They risk getting an explanation that I find those aspects of Trump at least as offensive as they do, possibly ten times more if they're guys or women with decidedly weak feminist principles in comparison with mine, which is usual--but Clinton in particular and the D party in general really are exactly that unacceptable to me, and here's why. Someone would just about literally have had to drag Hitler out of his unlovely grave and reanimated him and put him on the R ticket in order to get me to pull that lever for Hilary Clinton, or to support 99% of what I take to be the D party platform.
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