Posts Tagged ‘Linda Hirshman’
Misogynist of the Week
I’m debuting a new feature on The Sexist today—the Misogynist of the Week. Who truly hates women and who’s merely phoning it in? Let’s take a spin on the Internet misogyny whirl-a-gig and crown ourselves a winner!
CANDIDATE: Roissy in D.C., “Keys to a Healthy Relationship“—manages to make “whey protein” even fucking lamer than it already is!
After you’ve shot your whey protein-boosted load across her chest, admire your handiwork for a bit, get up, grab a towel, and throw it in her face while saying ‘You’d better clean yourself off, babe.’ This is catnip to chicks. I don’t know why. Just run with it.
CANDIDATE: Tucker Max: “The Celebrity Tipping Point“—manages to offend both women and the disabled!
“shit man, I’ve fucked a midget, and amputee and a set of twins, raise your hand if you’ve ever done that!”
CANDIDATE: Linda Hirshman, “How Jezebel Hurts Feminism“—manages to incoherently label real, live rape victims as “symptoms,” and also accuse these symptoms of being incoherent—incoherent symptoms of weakness, these women are.
Women can pretend they’re female chauvinist pigs, but it’s still women who are more sexually vulnerable to stronger men, due to the possibilities of physical abuse and pregnancy. These Jezebel writers are a symptom of the weaknesses in the model of perfect egalitarian sexual freedom; in fact, it’s the supposed concern with feminism that makes the site so problematic. How can Tracie, who posted this picture, criticize the men who go to Hooters? How can writers who justify not reporting rape criticize the military for not controlling…rape? It’s incoherent.
Do I have to choose? The winner, after the jump.
Linda Hirshman Is Your Ex-Boyfriend
I’ve been trying to figure out Linda Hirshman—women-at-work advocate, DoubleX contributor, Jezebel player-hater—since she came out swinging with the victim-blaming in her “review” of Leslie Morgan Steiner’s abuse memoir Crazy Love. Since then, I’ve endured some more of Hirshman’s irresponsible-rape-victims-are-killing-feminism mojo, and still, I’m left wondering: Why does Hirshman’s personal brand of blame-game seem so goddamned familiar?
Tiger Beatdown, of course, has hit the nail on the head. As part of her informal “Anti-Feminists Say the Darnedest Things Week,” Tiger Sady explains the Hirshman phenomenon:
That’s how these conversations go, and I have been through them one million times (in e-mails, in blog comment sections, in real life):
1. Somebody makes a dick move.
2. You say, “wow, that was a dick move.”
3. They say, “OH MY GOD TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS STOP PLAYING THE VICTIM.”
This allows the maker of dick moves to avoid owning up to his or her own dickishness, or the fact that s/he is the aggressor in the situation, and to pretend that the real problem is that you object to the situation s/he has created. Now, there is something that a person who employs such a tactic is, very obviously, not taking – it begins with the letter R, and rhymes with “phlesponsibility for one’s actions.”
Ahh yes. THANK YOU. Linda Hirshman is every ex-boyfriend ever. I knew I recognized her somewhere!
Sexist Beatdown: DoubleX Is Killing Feminist Blogs Which Are Killing Feminism Edition
Feminism: Oooooooooover it.
In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and myself of the Sexist talk of DoubleX, Slate’s new online magazine for women—it’s just like us, except we’re the problem! Also, people who don’t report their own rapes. It is mostly them (and not, saaaay, rapists) who are the problem.
Oh, problems. They create so many pageviews, which, in turn, solve our main problem ($$$). I think it’s about time for Sady and I to CASH IN: What’s the problem with DoubleX, anyway?
SADY: hello! are you ready to speak? or are you too busy KILLING FEMINISM?
AMANDA: i actually just thew up a blog post, which, as you shall see, is what i actually think is “killing” “feminism.” let me start with the Bust quote on DoubleX’s dead feminism obsession, though: “We don’t know about you, but we’re disappointed. (And we also need to figure out the best way to fight off this new undead feminism before it eats our brains.)”
Read More “Sexist Beatdown: DoubleX Is Killing Feminist Blogs Which Are Killing Feminism Edition” »
Why Do Women Stay in Abusive Relationships?
Why do women stay in abusive relationships? That’s the question Slate’s Linda Hirshman poses in her review of the new abuse memoir Crazy Love. Hirshman thinks the question is a “terribly important one” to ask women, and that it is a “mark of respect” to do so.
And yet, Hirshman’s question remains a rhetorical in her review of Leslie Morgan Steiner’s book—because Hirshman never attempts to answer it. She writes:
