Amanda Marcotte, the famous ex blogger for John Edwards, who is known for curse filled, hateful diatribes against anyone who is not in her small box definition of feminism, recently placed a quote on her blog that I find absolutely hilarious. Hilariosu because the quote describes her and the people like her so well, that the irony is almost gut-wrenching. Here is the quote:
“The most predominant mentality in right-wing discourse finds expression in this form: “I am part of/was born into Group X, and Group X—my group—is better than all others yet treated so very unfairly.” This claim persists—indeed, is often intensified— even when Group X is clearly the strongest, most privileged and most favored group. So intense is their need for self-victimization—so inebriating is their self-absorption and so lacking are they in any capacity for empathy—that, for all the noise and rhetoric, the arguments they make virtually always have this tribalistic self-absorption at its core.”
Obviously, Amanda is not a member of the right wing, but her Group X, women fits the description so well. Women are the dominant performers in school and college, get all the cool scholarships, grants, legislation, and benefits that go with schooling that men are denied. They are the rulers in the home, with the right to the kids and the finances if the marriage goes badly, have all the reproductive health options compared to only one for men. Clearly they are the dominant, most privileged, and most favored group in many ways.
And clear is their need for self victimization. They want the family, but the career too and wonder why the unmarried males who don’t have kids to take care of get the promotions in an industry that requires sacrifice to get ahead and be the leader. They cry foul that its too hard to get a rape conviction when sexually based offenses are already becoming a one sides struggle where all the rights and rules of law for the defendent are thrown out in favor of the woman who is brining the charges.
They have centers, and councils, and research groups dedicated to their health, their causes, their gender, yet they are underrepresented everywhere and in everything. Men live shorter than women, and yet we are told women’s illnesses are not funded enough, that men are simply weaker. Try sayign that about the low black life expectency: “Blacks are just frailer than white people and thats why they die off sooner.” That last quote is total racism, to say it about a male is empowerment.
They have six or seven centers and a major dedicated to them, yet they are victims on college campuses of everythign from bias to discrimination. Yet there are no men’s groups or majors or support systems set up, and it shows. Men are increasingly rare on campuses and if the trend continues the gender gap will have gone further than just reversing itself, men will be less prevalent on campus than when women were discriminated against. Yet its women that are the victims at all times.
So maybe its time feminists take a good long look at themselves. Maybe they be afraid of how they are simply the mirror image of crackpot conservatives, the leftist version of fascists and Bill O’Reilly.
