What’s the newest trend in feminism today? SlutWalks are all the rage, where women dress like sluts and proudly embrace their sluthood. This will apparently have the double effect of fighting back against blaming the victim for being raped, as well as being empowering for women — because being a slut in modern feminism is supposedly empowering. Of course, all that these SlutWalks are really doing is proving that the death knell for femisogynists is continuing to ring.

Pseudo-feminists advocating for sluthood is nothing new. Instead of being looked down upon, sleeping around is considered to be embracing sexuality. It’s healthy, empowering, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a misogynistic anti-feminist prude (and probably a right-winger to boot!) So the comment made by a Toronto policeman that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” naturally meant that femisogynists should revel in sluthood! And while the Toronto cop’s comment may have been what kicked the event off, fighting back against victim-blaming is nowhere near the only goal of these SlutWalks. Unsurprisingly, organizers want women to be proud of their sexuality and to reclaim the word slut.

Historically, the term ‘slut’ has carried a predominantly negative connotation. Aimed at those who are sexually promiscuous, be it for work or pleasure, it has primarily been women who have suffered under the burden of this label. And whether dished out as a serious indictment of one’s character or merely as a flippant insult, the intent behind the word is always to wound, so we’re taking it back. “Slut” is being re-appropriated.

We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result.

Ah, yes, the ever-present threat of slut-shaming. Why can’t more people be supportive of sleeping around with a different random guy every night? Clearly, if more people were supportive of being a slut, there would be less rape. Or something.

So far, there have been SlutWalks in Toronto, Dallas, London, Ottawa, and Boston. There are many, many more planned, all around the world, in cities like Montreal, Orlando, Tucson, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Philadelphia. This is all to the liking of many noted femisogynist leaders. Jaclyn Friedman appeared at the Boston SlutWalk as a featured speaker. Feministing has multiple posts glowing with approval of the SlutWalk. Jill Filipovic said she was with the walkers in spirit. And Amanda Marcotte offers up the most common defense of the SlutWalks: it’s, like, supposed to be funny, you humorless prudes:

I’ve been broadly supportive of this, because it brings together two of my favorite things in the world, feminism and humor.

… Of course, since Slutwalk is built around humor, it baffles the humorless. And so defenders of Slutwalk have entered into this maddening space that is the equivalent of trying to explain a joke to the humorless, and if you’ve ever tried to do that, believe me, it may be the biggest waste of time on the planet.

Oh, I get it! Debasement of women as humor! Hilarious! And it’s progress, too. It’s just what the original feminist leaders envisioned when they were fighting for equality: the right for women to be called sluts and be proud.

In reality, there is nothing feminist about being a slut. While fighting back against the vile act of blaming the victim for being raped is certainly admirable, acting as if sluthood is something to be proud of is ludicrous. There’s nothing empowering about sleeping around or being called a slut, any more than an African-American being called the n-word could be called empowering.

And while the emotional consequences of sluthood could be debated — many women end up feeling used and depressed while others don’t — the potential for physical harm can’t be debated. Consider the facts. 1 in 5 women have herpes, and the rates of most STDs have climbed since 1997. For young girls, it’s even worse — 1 in 4 teenage girls currently have an STD. Teenage girls who have sex are also more likely to be suicidal or depressed. Clearly, being a slut is not something to be encouraged — if for no other reason than to safeguard one’s own health. But that matters not to the femisogynists — in their minds, men sleep around freely, so women should, too.

Holding SlutWalks is not empowering, and there’s nothing feminist about being a slut or being proud to be called one. The modern feminist movement keeps getting more and more out of touch. The goal now is to take a term used to dehumanize and debase women and turn it into a badge of pride, so that women can embrace their sluthood? This isn’t empowerment or liberating or feminist. It’s ridiculous and an embarrassment. If femisogynists want to know why they are becoming more and more irrelevant, these SlutWalks are a shining example.

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The world of leftist feminist extremists was rocked to its very core this week. Seven years after founding Feministing, Jessica Valenti (one of the most well-known femisogynists) announced that she was leaving the blog she created. Besides being busy with other projects, she’s 32 now, which is like, totally old, and Feministing is only for young femisogynists. And everyone knows that 32 is practically grandma territory. And while Valenti said she would still be involved in an advisory capacity, her departure caused much sadness and sorrow among lefty feminists in the blogosphere. Here at NewsReal, though, we thought: what better time than to honor Jessica Valenti’s femisogynist legacy at Feministing?

Like most blogs being written by femisogynists, you can find the typical subjects at Feministing. They write about the glories of abortion, bash conservative women, reinforce feminist myths, and defend sluthood culture. But this post isn’t about the typical Feministing posts. This is about the ones that went above and beyond, the ones that took ridiculousness and idiocy to a whole new level.

Runner-up: Taylor Swift is a sexist anti-feminist

Most people applaud Taylor Swift. She’s a young woman who has built a career on her talent alone as a singer and a songwriter. While she’s attractive, she hasn’t used her looks or her sexuality to advance her career. Her music isn’t filled with sexual themes, she doesn’t parade around on stage half-dressed like most other pop stars, and she doesn’t carry on in public sleeping around, getting drunk, and doing drugs. In short, Taylor Swift has proven herself to be a classy, talented woman. She sings, plays guitar, writes her own songs, and produces her own music. She’s become a self-made superstar, selling over 10 million albums. You’d think feminists would cheer her, right? Well, there are different rules when you’re talking about femisogynists. And in feminazi-land, Taylor Swift is sexist. What makes her so unfeminist? Well, she writes about love, and stuff. Heterosexual love. And duh, that’s sexist!

The song is typical Taylor: true love (heterosexual, monogamous and blonde love, I should say) is tested and ultimately prevails. Despite the hardships, Taylor and her One True Love make it work and make it last and have two adorable blonde babies because their love is, like, so strong. Some observers have noted that instead of daydreaming about a prom date, Swift is now singing about a husband and father to her children, a sign that she might be attempting to grow up in the public eye without taking the “sex it up” route that aging teen starlets are so prone to. All the same, this song doesn’t deviate from her tried, tested and very popular formula.

… It can be so difficult to switch of the voice in your head that says, “this is really sexist!” long enough to watch a so-bad-it’s-good reality TV show or grind to reggaeton. There are lots of critiques to be made of Taylor Swift’s message and branding and yeah, Beyonce really did have the best music video of all time.

If Taylor Swift was more “empowered” by her sexuality or something, a la Britney Spears perhaps, would that make her less sexist? Heaven forbid she write about the things she wants to write about — they might not be Feminist Approved! After all, doesn’t she know that all things female must be approved by the fascist feminists first? What’s worse is that other girls like Taylor Swift. Young girls might be attracted to the idea of true love, a husband, and a family. How horrible! All of this because a few so-called feminists said so. Traditional love, romance, marriage? Anti-feminist! Building your own career on your terms with music based on your own thoughts and feelings? Eh, that doesn’t matter. Femisogynists demand that women pass an ideological litmus test in order to be welcomed into the club, and Swift fails — by virtue of being too traditional. It’s not about women making their own choices anymore. Their choices must be approved first.

10. Hating photo models.

Meet Daniella Sarahyba, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. A few years back, she committed the unthinkable sin of partnering with Taco Bell for a promotion allowing customers to direct her in an online interactive photo shoot. Feministing was, predictably, outrageously outraged!

One of our readers sent us an email recently, rightfully confused as to why Taco Bell’s hot sauce packets are now printed with a website that leads you to perhaps the creepiest ad campaign ever. “Direct Daniella” has the user follow around a swimsuit model, taking pictures of her in a weird stalkerish webcam way.

Reader Karlen wrote, “What this has to do with lousy ‘Mexican’ fast food is beyond me.” Indeed. So I did a little digging. Turns out, Taco Bell has joined up with Sports Illustrated to promote the magazine’s swimsuit issue.

Exotic, huh? It’s like a big ole chalupa of sexism and grossness wrapped in some fetishization of women of color. De-licious.

Right. A supermodel willingly participating in a promotion where men get to — gasp!! — photograph her is disgusting and sexist. Of course, one could argue that the entire point of modeling is to be photographed. So what is causing the outrage here? That your average Taco Bell customer gets to be the photographer instead of a “professional”? That a woman might be seen in a skimpy outfit? That men might enjoy seeing her in said skimpy outfit?

It’s a good thing that women have been cured of all their ills. Clearly, there are no issues troubling women around the world if this is what feminists need to focus on. Oppression in the Middle East, sharia law, stonings, honor killings… nah, that stuff is no big deal. Not when you compare it to a supermodel getting photographed on a beach. Sports Illustrated, now that’s real sexism.

9. Dress codes are meant to oppress women.

In most grown-up offices, there are things called “dress codes”. For men, this usually requires dress slacks, a button-down shirt, and depending on the formality of the job, a tie and suit jacket. For women, it’s of course more complicated. Some offices, for example, want women to wear pantyhose; others don’t. For women, the rules can be much more varied — we have more fashion choices than men do, after all. Regardless of how lenient or strict the dress code is, though, the point is the same. There’s a dress code to follow, and that dictates what is and is not acceptable to wear to work.

Typically, baring cleavage in the workplace is considered a major no-no. Not in Feministing’s world, though. For them, women should be able to dress however they damn well please, dress codes be damned!

Apparently this woman’s supervisor sent this charming note because someone had been complaining (!) about her showing a bit of cleavage. According to the sender, “as I’m currently 7 months pregnant, i could be wearing a turtleneck and still be showing ‘too much’ cleavage.”

Ugh.

Here is the note being referenced:

So, this woman was apparently showing enough cleavage that it was being complained about. Her boss sends her a friendly e-mail asking her to please make sure to cover up more. And the mature, professional response from the women who claim to be all about equality is… no. Because office rules shouldn’t apply to women, especially pregnant women. This woman’s (male) boss clearly is sexist. And in typical femisogynist fashion, this makes the woman in question, who found it impossible to keep the girls under wraps, some kind of “victim.” Obviously, when a woman is pregnant there is not enough cloth on the planet to cover up her breasts, so clearly she’s being victimized by the patriarchy. Right?

Despite the demands for rules to not apply to them, women are supposed to be taken seriously in the workplace. Call me crazy, but it doesn’t seem possible to demand special treatment and equality at the same time — and yet somehow still expect to be treated as a professional. But then, it’s a pretty fair representation of the women at Feministing. Is it really about equality? No, not so much. What it is about is whining, keeping women as perpetual victims, and demanding special treatment.

Ah, femisogynists. Keeping women empowered by making them victims who throw hissy fits when asked to follow the same rules the rest of the world has to follow. Now there’s some real progress, right?

8. Consequences are sexist.

Last year, Rima Fakih of Michigan won the Miss USA pageant. She’s a stunningly beautiful woman, who also happens to be Muslim. This caused a small measure of controversy, but it wasn’t nearly the biggest scandal surrounding Fakih’s crowning. Shortly after winning the 2010 Miss USA title, a radio station released photos of Fakih participating in a contest… a Stripper 101 contest, that is. Some people were shocked, others shrugged their shoulders. Fakih was ultimately allowed to keep her crown and went on to compete in the Miss Universe pageant. End of story.

In Femisogynist Land, though, this was an act of terrorism — gender terrorism, to be specific.

Groggy and tired, I tossed the phone back on my nightstand and returned to my nightmare, knowing full well that unlike Ms. USA and the millions of other women in America, I get to wake up from my nightmare, whereas each day, they collectively continue to live the nightmare of not having ownership of their own bodies and sexuality, and ultimately, live in fear that at anytime, anything they do, as women, is subjected to public debate simply because their bodies are seen as public property.

Although the stories of “fallen” women – women who, society sees, acted outside of their gender roles for simply embracing their sexuality, are often treated as breaking news, they are far too common and until as Americans, we reject the notion that society is the owner of women’s bodies, more women will continue to live in fear, more young lives will be ruined, and more girls and women will be sexually assaulted and not get the justice they deserve. Until we avert our eyes from the telivision, voice our opinions and give women’s bodies back to their rightful owners, the gender terrorism that takes place through the fear thrusted upon women, will continue to take place.

… It’s a familiar world – it’s a world Sarah Palin and Elana Kagan live in. It’s a world Carrie Prejean and Rema Fakih live in. It’s a world that far too many of your friends and mine, our sisters and classmates, lovers and neighbors, continue to live in – and it’s a world we each have a responsibility to change, because for too long, too many of them have been denied the rights to simply be, the rights to dress as they wish without fear, to embrace their sexuality, get justice should they be raped, and to be respected as human beings and adults, making conscious decisions about their lives.

So the new brand of gender terrorism isn’t what rational people would call it. Women being buried alive, stoned to death, killed for family honor, female genital mutilation? Nah, that’s not terrorism. Being held responsible for participating in a stripper contest? TERRORISM!

The most ridiculous part of this story, of course, is that while this was a media feeding frenzy for a while, Fakih ultimately didn’t suffer anything. She didn’t lose her Miss USA crown. She was allowed to compete in the Miss Universe pageant. Life went on as usual for her. But even if she had faced some kind of punishment for these photos, would that classify as some kind of terrorism? Um, yeah! We live in a country where women don’t have to worry about being stoned to death, or having their genitals mutilated, or honor killings. But before you go feeling all patriotic and proud, remember that women are expected to be held accountable for their actions — actions like taking place in a stripper contest — and women should have no repercussions for their actions, ever. Right?

Rima Fakih willingly participated in this radio station contest. She chose to let herself be photographed stripping, and to an extent, it came back to haunt her. For most women, this could be considered something to learn from: think before you act, especially if you plan on a career in the public eye. Participating in stripper contests where photos will be posted on the internet of you stripping is generally considered poor judgment. Women, like everyone else, need to learn that life is simply not fair, and that there are consequences to your actions. Rima Fakih got off easy. How many bosses in an office setting would fire an employee after seeing those photos on the internet? It also should be noted that in many Middle Eastern countries, Fakih would face much worse than being fired for photos like these. But again, this is America, land of gender terrorism. Islamic extremism is just a different culture, and we shouldn’t judge.

American women live in a country where there is endless opportunity. Opportunity comes with responsibility though, and having to be responsible for one’s actions is not terrorism.

7. Female soldiers’ duty is to do whatever they please.

A little over a year ago, an Army general came under fire for banning pregnancy while deployed. Feministing partnered with the ACLU to express their outrage that soldiers would actually have to be held accountable for getting pregnant while deployed.

The pregnant servicewoman is really the canary in the mine here: Inevitably her pregnancy will be revealed and she will be punished. However, the man who impregnated her will only be punished if she turns him in. Already, according to news reports, one woman who has been punished and sent home under the policy has refused to reveal who her partner was. It is reasonable to think that many more servicewomen will refuse to turn in their fellow soldiers, thereby making this an equal opportunity policy in name only.

Moreover, this policy will eviscerate existing Department of Defense policy that protects the anonymity of sexual assault victims while ensuring that they can get the services they need. Of course, Maj. Gen. Cucolo has stated he won’t punish anyone who becomes pregnant as a result of an assault, but under his policy pregnant assault victims will have to publicly come forward in order to avoid punishment.

If we really want to help servicewomen avoid unplanned pregnancies and maintain military readiness, why don’t we ensure that birth control and emergency contraception are readily available to all servicewomen, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan? Currently, Department of Defense policy does not require that emergency contraception be available (it’s optional); and a recent report by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America suggests that, “due to space,” other common forms of birth control are not always available either.

It does a dishonor to the more than 200,000 servicewomen who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan to suggest that they do not take deployment seriously. To guarantee that they can continue to serve on par with men, Maj. Gen. Cucolo should make sure that his servicewomen can access the reproductive health care they need, including contraception and emergency contraception, rather than punishing them for getting pregnant.

The answer, as per usual with femisogynists, is more access to birth control and abortion. Because, you know, abstaining from sex and exercising some self-control is just way too much to ask of women. And there’s also that little nugget of truth that feminazis like to ignore so often: birth control is not foolproof. It’s not a magical get-out-of-pregnancy free card. Sometimes it fails. What then? There’s also the simple issue of fraternization — soldiers are not supposed to be sleeping together, and especially not when deployed, but you bet your buns that it happens, thus requiring this pregnancy ban to come into effect.

At the time of Feministing’s original posting on the issue, there were seven soldiers punished for pregnancy while deployed. Three were men. The one facing the harshest punishment? Male, because he was married and outranked the soldier he got pregnant. With the exception of that one soldier, the soldiers were charged with fraternization and given a letter of reprimand.

Not exactly the career-ending, anti-woman crisis they were making it out to be, huh? (But we can’t let facts get in the way of an agenda.)

This whole issue boils down to responsibility, again. Even women have to be held responsible for their actions. Considering pregnancy is not a freak accident that strikes down women at random, this would be filed under “think before you act” and “accept the consequences of your actions”.

But we already determined that responsibility is just, like, so sexist and all. Why empower women when you can keep them as perpetual victims who demand special treatment?

6. Rapists are victims of the patriarchy. Just like women.

You might wonder what kind of person would think that we’re too tough on rapists. Most people see the act of rape as an act of supreme evil — and this is one of the rare things that femisogynists and normal people can agree on. But not so fast! Rape is horrible, but at Feministing, they also have a rather… unusual… point of view: we’re just too hard on rapists these days.

I think a big part of that problem is that we demonize rapists too much.

Everyone pictures rapists as psychopaths, hiding in the bushes with knives. As feminists we’ve worked really hard to dispel that myth, explaining over and over that most rapists assault someone they know – friends, acquaintances, dates, and partners.

A big part of the reason that people aren’t catching on to what that really means is that they are still picturing men who commit sexual assault as evil or morally corrupt. If their friend isn’t evil or morally corrupt, he couldn’t possibly commit sexual assault.

Some rapists are just master manipulators, and hide the fact that they are vicious predators, as evil as any real human could be. I don’t really believe in evil, and I’ve known men personally who were certainly not anywhere near it, yet still committed the horrible crime of rape. A lot of guys who commit sexual assault actually do have a conscience, and actually don’t want to be sexually assaulting women.

We need to become more effective at separating the act from a good vs. evil judgment of a person. We can’t be naive and think that having a polite chat with a rapist will necessarily stop him, but we have to acknowledge the complexities of individuals. There are a lot of men who need a lot of education, but we need to find a way to talk about rape that places the responsibility for rape squarely on the perpetrator’s shoulders without *necessarily* condemning him forever.

We need to show people that they can reconcile their belief that their friend has a good heart with the reality that he has committed rape. Rape is a terrible crime with terrible consequences, I know this personally. But when so many men think that the whole sexual assault discussion doesn’t apply to them or their friends because they aren’t knowingly, intentionally, maliciously committing sex crimes, we’re losing an audience that might actually want to change.

Just as we need a performance model of sex (as articulated brilliantly by Thomas Macaulay Millar in Yes Means Yes), we need a performance model of sexual assault. The crime is about the actions of an individual, not the goodness or evil in his or her heart.

Awwww. Rapists have hearts! AND, sometimes they don’t want to assault anyone. They just, um, do it anyways. Because they can’t help themselves. We should go easy on these poor little guys!

Of course, out here in the real world, it’s understood that someone who is willing to force a woman to have sex with him against her will is not someone with a good heart, that he actually is morally corrupt and evil. Rape is indeed an evil act. Moral relativism is at play here, and it is despicable.

You cannot separate someone from their actions. Is every rapist pure evil? No, but once you commit the act of rape, you have forever lost your ability to call yourself a good person. A good person does not commit evil acts, and rape is indeed an evil act. That someone who claims to be working on behalf of women could ever, for any reason, make excuses for rapists is disturbing indeed.

5. A feminazi-mom is a bit too interested in her daughter’s sex life.

When is a mother-daughter relationship too close? At what point are boundaries crossed?

Most people can probably come up with examples of times that their mother embarrassed them. This post from Feministing puts them all to shame. (Warning: major ickiness alert ahead.)

Darling Daughter,

You have ripened before my eyes, and I marvel at the incandescent changes. Your hormones are in overdrive, and I swear that I can hear them humming as they reshape your body and wreck havoc with your moods.

As your mother, I want your journey into womanhood to be only filed with rich discoveries and free of fear; as a woman, I know that is asking the impossible. But here is what I can offer: some advice and a very practical gift.

Sex with the right partner will be tender and fun, fast and furious, dizzying and daring. But this doesn’t happen overnight. The very important first step is self-knowledge, and that’s why this note comes attached to a vibrator. Women’s bodies are mysterious and mercurial and require unhurried exploration. I want you to fully explore your own body before you share it with someone else. Why? Because I want you to discover the wonderful point of orgasm when your mind ceases to function and the growing ripples rise and erupt into shudders that will transport you. Encode that in your memory, and take notice of how your body and thoughts gradually establish their fragile equilibrium.

Please, sweetheart, don’t settle for anything less.

When you find yourself at the mercy of inexpert fumbling (and you will), I want you to have intimate knowledge of exactly what you like and want. This will be your power. Use it gently.

I’m also giving you this gift because you are kindling, and every touch, every kiss is an incendiary spark. You will not be capable of extinguishing the desire, but a vibrator gives you a highly effective option to quench your sexual thirst. Before you engage in sex, ask yourself two questions. Do I trust this person? Does s/he make me feel good about myself?

Years ago, I was in the throes of an obsessive affair, and a very wise friend sat me down and asked me. “Would you give this man the keys and the Title to your car?” It seemed a ludicrous query. Of course I wouldn’t. I barely knew him. “And yet,” she continued, “you are willing to give him your body and your heart. Aren’t they more precious than a car?”

I have ruminated over this question many times, with many men. If I can’t exclaim “YES!” definitely and unequivocally, I slow things down. I hope you will do the same.

Too many of your friends will take huge emotional and physical risks to explore intense sexual sensations. A vibrator offers you the chance to celebrate your passion, to inject yourself with a boost of adrenaline, and build the scaffolding of your sexuality without risk or fear. Experience your own impulses and appetites first; you will have years to communicate and honor these self-truths with another.

I love you.

2009-05-31

Talking to your kids about sex? Good. Giving them vibrators and gushing about how wonderful you visualize their orgasms will be? Um, gross.

Re-read the letter above, and ask yourself: does this sound like a letter from a mother to her daughter? There’s something disturbing and almost incestuous-sounding about it. This is a woman who is a little too excited about, to use her language, the “ripening” of her daughter and the orgasms she will soon experience.

The other thing I have to wonder about is if this woman ever stopped and actually thought about her daughter. How many teenage girls would read that without feeling disturbed and humiliated? How many teenage girls would be enthusiastic about using a vibrator given to them by their mother? I doubt this ever crossed her mind as the mom lovingly crafted her erotic letter of joy over the ripening of her teenage daughter.

She got two thumbs up from everyone at Feministing, though, so who cares? She can pat herself on the back for being such a good progressive little feminist, and that’s all that matters.

4. Idolizing an an extremist who dreams of gendercide.

Valerie Solanas is a feminist extremist and an attempted murderer. She was an advocate for gendercide and wanted to create an all-female society. At Feministing, this makes her a hero.

I have been a huge fan of Valerie Solarna’s for a few years now, she is as instrumental to my radical feminism and queer theory as Beauvoir or Lorde. I am curious, for most of the people on this website tend to be more of the liberal feminist types, what do you all make of this manifesto? You don’t have to read “the whole thing”, but it’s not very long so I hope I persuade you to do so by simply saying it is WORTH reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts of shock, disgust, dismay, love, laughter, joy, and how this manifesto compares to our awful contemporary postion, as womyn…in this world.

Love, Emma Goldman

Commenters for the most part were right on board with Solanas. Some dismissed the SCUM manifesto as satire; others said it was appropriate and needed to offset “the patriarchy”. But what exactly is the SCUM manifesto? (You can read it here.) Well, SCUM stands for “Society for Cutting Up Men”. She blames all men for war, “niceness, politeness, and ‘dignity’”, and “money, marriage and prostitution, work and prevention of an automated society”, fatherhood and mental illness, prejudice, religion, prevention of conversation and friendship, ugliness, disease and much more. She says that we need to eliminate men from the planet and create an all-female society. She shot Andy Warhol, and all of this earned her the respect and admiration of notable feminist extremists like Ti-Grace Atkinson, Robin Morgan, and Florynce Kennedy.

Over forty years later, she’s still being held up as someone to be admired and looked up to in feminazi land. But somehow, it’s men who are the violent misogynists destroying our society.

3. Men are slightly less valuable than dogs.

What would the femisogynist response be if men said that all wives and mothers were useless hunks of flesh? It’s quite common to see man-bashing on the feminist left, although we’re somehow to believe that they’re after equality and that they don’t actually hate men. That’s hard to believe when you read actual femisogynist blogs, though. Take this entry, where husbands are derided as useless hunks of flesh and women are encouraged to leave not only their husbands, but their children, too.

On my Twitter feed I came across this article, from a woman explaining why she was late for work. Turns out she is, somehow, the only person responsible for rounding up the kids in the morning:

So where the f*ck is her husband, who presumably sired the kids in question?

Women of the world: it’s time to leave those useless hunks of flesh called “husbands” and “fathers” who feed off your labour while you earn 70 per cent of their wages.

And by the way: don’t forget to leave them custody. Leave your guilt at the door. The kids will work out fine. Your husband will have to make sure of that, just like you would if you were the sucker. Don’t be.

After all, men earn more money. They can look after the kids better. Let them.

This post was a Feministing editor’s favorite the week that it was published, by the way. Calling all men useless hunks of flesh is not only A-OK, but in feminazi land, it’s laudable. They shout about the patriarchy and complain about misogyny, yet they have no problem whatsoever with hateful, violent rhetoric against men. It’s just as sexist, if not more so, than the patriarchy they pretend to be fighting.

Today’s feminist extremists aren’t content with equality, they want superiority. They can’t see that they’re the sexist ones now.

2. All men are monsters.

In case you men out there didn’t already know it, you all hate women. Deep down inside, you all dream about beating up and raping women. You may think you’re not a sexist product of the patriarchy, but you really are. In case you aren’t convinced, it’s all spelled out for you at Feministing.

I also know that when I affirmed for myself that I wanted to partner with women, I was taking a risk and AGAIN living in opposition to the patriarchy. How dare I not be sexually available to men! How dare I not become a man’s wife!

I am also fat, and fat-loving. This, again, is not something a man wants me to be. I take up space. I don’t apologize for my size. The diet and fashion industries, largely run by men, want women to disappear (size double zero???). I refuse. I actively resist the push for me to get smaller and be quieter.

I am also masculine, and a woman. I am not transgendered, I use female pronouns and I use my girly first name. This, I think, is the biggest of the unspoken affront to the patriarchy. This is, also, the only aspect of my identity that regularly makes me afraid. I am afraid to use public restrooms-which I have to confront as my daughter is potty-learning right now. I am not afraid to be there, I am afraid of what might happen to me when someone realizes what I am. Just this week, I followed two women into the “ladies” room, and one of them did a double take at me, then went and looked outside at the pictogram on the door. As she did that, I said, “I am a woman and I am in the right bathroom.” She of course got all kinds of embarrassed and apologetic, from which I turned away. I try to tell myself her embarrassment is not my responsibility, but my fear is about what she does with her feelings. Does she go tell her male partner about me and he takes it upon himself to correct what is wrong with me? Sometimes, I think I am being paranoid. But then another transperson is killed, and I get reminded that maybe I am not paranoid. Like I said, I am not transgendered, but my gender is certainly transgressive. And rigid gender ideas are the props of the patriarchy. If we start to push the boundaries of gender, we push at the foundation of patriarchal power. I do that, everyday, with my man panties and my men’s deodorant (as if deodorant or underwear have a gender).

But ultimately, what I do that is in opposition to the patriarchy is live, and breathe and be. Men don’t like women (there I go with that reductionist shit again). In fact, men beat, rape and control women. In some places, women’s presence outside of the home is considered obscene. In other places, the qualities that women are encouraged to have (empathy, for example) are looked at with disdain and even contempt (Michael Steele, I am looking at you!).

I know that my very existence, even if I worked at the zoo, is in opposition to the patriarchy. I might not have to defend using gendered language, but I would still be afraid of what might happen when I use the bathroom. I would still not be a man’s servicer. I’d still get pegged as a humorless, strident man-hater. I’d still get called a bitch, a dyke, a whore and a cunt. I would still fear for my sexual safety. And even so, I would still get up every day, put on my man panties and go out into the world. That audacity is how I live my life in opposition to the patriarchy, just like every woman does.

Right. Every woman has to live in fear because men are EVIL. Men beat and rape and abuse women. Not some men, not a few men. Nope, all men. Men either beat and rape women, or they wish they could.

Now, let’s just imagine that some male blog ran a feature saying something similar about women. Femisogynists would be up in arms — but spouting this kind of hateful rhetoric against men is not only allowed among feminist gender bigots, it’s commonplace. These aren’t a few fringe postings that pop up every now and then. The feminist movement once fought for equality, but thanks to sites like Feministing, it’s filled with nothing more than hypocrisy and hatred nowadays.

1. Even men who treat women well are evil.

Hatred of men is never-ending for feminazis. No matter what you do, you’ll never be good enough. Men will always be rapists and batterers — women never do anything wrong, don’t you know? — and it doesn’t matter if you think that you’re a good man or not. Everything you do is sexist, whether you know it or not.

Am I saying that all men are terrible rapists and batterers? No. Really, I am not. But just like I benefit from my white skin without knowingly doing anything actively racist, men benefit from the rape and battery of women whether they are actually rapists or batterers.

… But, if we look at misogyny as a continuum, where the far end is the extremes of rape and battery, I bet we would be hard pressed to find a man who hadn’t participated at some point on that continuum of the hatred of women. No, he didn’t rape anybody, but he likes to look at “barely legal” porn. No, he hasn’t beaten his girlfriend, but he doesn’t speak up when his buddies tell blond jokes. No, he doesn’t force anyone to watch him masturbate, but he can’t look at a woman’s face when he talks to her. No, he doesn’t demand to be served by his wife, he is even a volunteer at a rape crisis center-where he dominates every conversation and talks more than he listens.

So blond jokes equal assault, pornography equals rape, not looking a woman in the face equals forcing her to watch him masturbate, and talking too much cancels out volunteering at a rape crisis center.

It doesn’t matter if you treat women with respect, if you never rape, beat, or abuse anyone, if you volunteer to help women in crisis. You’re a violent, sexist, cruel man no matter what you do.

These posts, by the way, were not dismissed on Feministing. They were cheered and applauded. Sexist, hateful rhetoric against men is not condemned or dismissed. It’s described as beautiful, courageous, honest, and deep. It’s not only accepted, but it’s honored — because it’s fighting the patriarchy, of course.

Just for argument’s sake, let’s say that there is all of this hateful, violent, anti-woman rhetoric swirling around. The answer to this, for man-hating feminists, is to sink down to that level. Rather than being the better person, women are told to lower their standards and to be just as violent and sexist towards men. The phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right” is apparently not applicable in the battle against the imaginary patriarchy. They are just as sexist, if not more so, than the patriarchy they claim to be fighting, but they’ll never see that. They live in an echo chamber, where the same violent, hateful, anti-male thoughts are just bounced around over and over and over again.

Feministing proves that today’s femisogynists are not feminists at all, but angry, bitter, immature women who wouldn’t know equality if it bit them in the face. They demand special treatment, demonize men, and make women into perpetual victims. Yet they somehow can’t understand why, outside of their own little echo chamber of the femisogynist blogosphere, they have no relevance in the real world whatsoever.

This is Jessica Valenti’s legacy after seven years of Feministing. She created a community where angry, bitter women can indulge themselves in whiny overreactions, violent rhetoric against men, sexism, and constant victimhood. Tell me, how exactly does any of this help women achieve equality?

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One of the biggest news stories this week has been the exposure of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s house of horrors masquerading as an abortion clinic in Philadelphia, PA. Since the grisly reality of what was happening behind those closed doors came to light, there was an immediate firestorm of outrage and controversy surrounding the issue. Pro-life activists have argued that legislators were willing to overlook the massive issues that repeatedly came to light because they are afraid of the backlash from the abortion lobby. Pro-abortion activists among the feminist left, most notably Amanda Marcotte, have given only the tiniest condemnation while excusing the abortion atrocities in the name of choice. But is a murderous butcher posing as an abortionist really the best argument for choice, and how entrenched in an abortion agenda must one be to make excuses for these abuses?

Operation Rescue published heart-wrenching photographs from Gosnell’s butcher shop. Looking at them was immensely difficult for me — these children were barely older than my son is now.

I had a 4D ultrasound this week, and posted some of the videos on my Facebook page. Last night, I got an e-mail from Kate at Blatherings Blog asking if she could post one of them on her blog. I told her yes, and here is the video she chose to post:

That’s my son, Ben, at 29 weeks yawning. I have other videos of him sucking his thumb and moving around. On other ultrasounds I’ve seen him kick his little feet and wave his little arms. I’ve not only heard his heart beating, I’ve seen it. I look at those images and wonder what he’ll look like when he’s born, I wonder if he’ll want to play soccer and hockey like his dad did, if he’ll follow his dad’s footsteps and join the Marine Corps, if he’ll get married, what his children will look like. I look at those images and see an entire future, a lifetime of hope and promise, spread out in front of me. I could never look at those images, hear that heartbeat, and feel him moving inside me, and consider killing him. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could make that choice. I’ve always been pro-life, but I can’t understand how someone who has carried a child can remain pro-abortion.

I caused a firestorm of controversy back in October when I pondered this, daring to ask how pro-abortion extremist Jessica Valenti felt about abortion now that she’s carried and birthed a child of her own.

When Valenti heard her baby’s heart beating, did she think it was just an abortable clump of cells? When she saw her daughter moving in her uterus, was it a fetus or a baby? When she felt her baby kicking, did she have any doubt about what she was carrying? If she had miscarried (and thank goodness she didn’t), would she have thought she lost some fetal tissue or would she have thought she lost her baby? A pregnant woman knows the truth. It’s why so many women feel they need to lie to themselves or avoid an ultrasound before an abortion. If they were to admit the truth to themselves, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.

These are questions she’ll probably never answer. (She blogged about her pregnancy only once.) To answer truthfully would be to undermine what she’s spent years fighting for. After all, when you see the little baby squirming and moving on that ultrasound screen, there’s no doubt about what it is. But to admit that a pregnant woman is carrying a baby, and not a meaningless clump of cells, would be to open Pandora’s Box for pro-abortion radicals like Valenti. If it’s a baby, then to abort it is murder. Quite a sticky situation for a femisogynist to get herself into, isn’t it?

It’s the same situation pro-aborts like Amanda Marcotte, Jill Filipovic, and Vanessa Valenti find themselves in now as they struggle to defend abortion rights in the wake of the Gosnell controversy. To let themselves be as outraged as the rest of decent society is would undermine everything they’ve been fighting for. And who cares if a few infants and one woman died for abortion rights? They’ve got an agenda to push.

Interestingly, NARAL celebrated Blogs for Choice Day yesterday. Is this an example of the choice we’re supposed to fight for as women? To pretend that this is some kind of an aberration is a joke. How many other hospitals, medical departments, health boards, and DAs are looking the other way in the name of protecting abortion rights? Abortion advocates refuse to even address the possibility. This is a one-time problem, one wackjob who has nothing to do with abortion and all other abortion clinics are “safe”. The question is, if this really has anything to do with women’s rights and freedom of choice, then why can’t we ask these questions? Why the lack of regulations for abortion clinics? If this was really a question of choice and women’s rights, abortion extremists like Amanda Marcotte would be outraged and demanding to know the answers to these questions. After all, it is women who are suffering, and it is women who extremists like Marcotte claim to be fighting for.

If you want to know how soulless the abortion movement really is, then just look at their response to Gosnell’s House of Horrors. What kind of person must you be to see the atrocities that took place at this clinic and argue for more abortions? It says a lot about abortion advocates, that they would brush the murder and abuses of women and children under the rug to protect the right to have an abortion. But before we can understand the depths of the pro-abortion feminist left’s depravity in their reaction to the Gosnell case, we need to understand just what went on behind those closed doors.

The grand jury report is ghastly. Dr. Gosnell is charged with eight counts of murder, seven of which were infants. These infants were delivered alive and viable, before Gosnell murdered them by snipping their spinal cords. In addition to letting mothers give birth to their babies and then murdering those babies, the grand jury report shows that Gosnell had no concern for the health of the mothers, either. The introduction of the report shows that this man is a sadistic monster.

This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.

… One woman, for example, was left lying in place for hours after Gosnell tore her cervix and colon while trying, unsuccessfully, to extract the fetus. Relatives who came to pick her up were refused entry into the building; they had to threaten to call the police. They eventually found her inside, bleeding and incoherent, and transported her to the hospital, where doctors had to remove almost half a foot of her intestines.

On another occasion, Gosnell simply sent a patient home, after keeping her mother waiting for hours, without telling either of them that she still had fetal parts inside her. Gosnell insisted she was fine, even after signs of serious infection set in over the next several days. By the time her mother got her to the emergency room, she was unconscious and near death.

A nineteen-year-old girl was held for several hours after Gosnell punctured her uterus. As a result of the delay, she fell into shock from blood loss, and had to undergo a hysterectomy.

One patient went into convulsions during an abortion, fell off the procedure table, and hit her head on the floor. Gosnell wouldn’t call an ambulance, and wouldn’t let the woman’s companion leave the building so that he could call an ambulance.

Why did no one at the hospital report these incidents? As Michelle Malkin pointed out, it likely wouldn’t have mattered if they had reported him. The Pennsylvania Department of Health knew of clinic violations for decades, and did nothing. The Pennsylvania Department of State was repeatedly given evidence of the horrible conditions at Gosnell’s clinic and did nothing. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health inspected Gosnell’s clinic multiple times and did nothing. There was decades worth of oversight on multiple levels where officials willingly closed their eyes to the abuses and violations going on at the Gosnell House of Horrors.

Even an evaluator from The National Abortion Federation visited Gosnell’s clinic and called it “the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected”. Gosnell even told her about the death of Karnamaya Mongar. Was any action taken? No. The goal of NAF is allegedly “to ensure safe, legal, and acceptable abortion care, and to promote health and justice for women”, yet they turned a blind eye to Gosnell’s clinic, just like Pennsylvania authorities. They were more concerned about protecting their agenda than they were concerned with protecting the lives of women.

While pro-lifers have rightfully demanded to know why it is state officials let these atrocities continue on for decades, pro-abortion extremists have somehow decided that this case has nothing to do with abortion — and demands less regulation in the abortion industry. If only pro-lifers didn’t make abortions so difficult to obtain, then none of this would have ever happened, or something.

The lack of outrage from the political left and from pro-abortion activists is disturbing. As The Anchoress noted, the hypocrisy is overwhelming.

While many pro-aborts claim that this has nothing to do with abortion, to truly believe that boggles the mind. After all, how different is partial birth abortion from what Dr. Gosnell was doing? The only difference is that part of the baby remains inside the mother’s body — and that abortion extremists defend the “right” to perform late-term, partial birth abortions on babies that are viable and able to survive outside the womb. It’s also worth pointing out that, if Barack Obama had his way, what Dr. Gosnell did would be considered legal.

Meanwhile, femisogynists (rather than being outraged at the abuses women were forced to endure at Gosnell’s hands) are scurrying to excuse this. They pay lip service to the outrage of the situation, and then quickly go right into abortion-defense mode.

Amanda Marcotte begins by quickly contorting herself into an intellectual pretzel trying to blame the pro-life movement for this madman.

That shady abortion providers get patients at all is something we can safely blame the anti-choice movement for. Most doctors in this country are pro-choice, and many would like to provide abortion, but as Slate’s Emily Bazelon demonstrated in the New York Times, the stigma of doing so makes it that much harder to do. Good medical care costs money, but very few women seeking abortion can get coverage, in no small part because of anti-choice initiatives like the Hyde Amendment. If you’re seeking an abortion but can’t afford it, going to a doctor who provides substandard care on the cheap is certainly going to be an attractive option.

These particular charges involve late-term abortion, and all I could think upon reading the news story was, “I wish these women could have gone to Dr. George Tiller,” because he was renowned for the quality of care provided at his Kansas clinic. But sadly, that wasn’t even an option, even for those who could afford it, as Dr. Tiller’s life was taken by an anti-choice extremist in 2009. When vacuums are created, we shouldn’t be surprised when they suck in a bunch of junk.

Amanda’s premise is flawed on virtually every level. First, Dr. Tiller was murdered in 2009. The violations at Dr. Gosnell’s clinic go back decades, so many of the women violated at his clinic could have gone to Dr. Tiller. Also, this wasn’t a case of women choosing to go to an abortion butcher like Dr. Gosnell because it was cheap, or because better options weren’t available. As Rachael Larimore pointed out in her rebuttal, Philadelphia houses several abortion clinics, one of which offers financial assistance. Pennsylvania offers no-cost birth control and emergency contraception to women who qualify. And while Planned Parenthood charges less than $1,000 for first trimester abortions, Dr. Gosnell was charging his patients $2,500 or more for his late-term abortions.

Jill at Feministe tried to pretend that he was just a murderer and not an abortionist, and therefore this has nothing to do with abortion.

Contrary to what Great Moral Authority On Abortion William Saletan has to say about the matter, I think we’re all pretty well agreed that if the charges against Kermit Gosnell are true, then dude is a criminal and needs to go to jail. Killing a baby after it’s born and has taken breaths? Is not abortion. It should be, and is, a crime punishable by law. And Kermit Gosnell is being criminally prosecuted.

Also, women don’t get late-term abortions for fun. Seriously. No one is like, “I think I will continue this pregnancy for as long as legally possible before I undergo an invasive medical procedure that is rendered longer, more expensive, and more complicated because I waited six months to have it.” No. It’s actually more like, “I really wanted this baby but now it turns out that there’s a fetal abnormality incompatible with life, and if I continue this pregnancy I risk my own health and/or life to give birth to a baby that either will not live or will only live in extreme pain for a very short while.” Fun stuff like that.

That’s a falsehood, of course. Most late-term abortions are actually not done to save the life of the mother or because the baby won’t survive. There have been virtually no studies done on late-term abortions, with the exception of the Guttmacher Institute over 20 years ago. In a survey of 1,900 women who had abortions, 420 had late-term abortions. Of those 420, only 2% had a late-term abortion due to a fetal abnormality. Most women just claimed they didn’t know they were pregnant or misjudged their gestation. And what is Jill’s point? That killing a baby when he is delivered is murder, but doing it moments beforehand when he’s still partially in his mother’s birth canal is A-OK? To someone like her, there’s no difference. And it wasn’t as if Dr. Gosnell was only killing babies in the “bad” way. He performed many, many, many “acceptable” late-term abortions. He’s being charged with 33 illegal late-term abortions, but killed hundreds in this manner.

Vanessa Valenti at Feministing basically regurgitates Jill Filipovic and Amanda Marcotte’s nonsensical arguments. It’s not about abortion, but even if it was, this never would have happened if women had better access to abortion clinics anyways. Nevermind the 33 counts of felony abortion and exorbitant prices patients were charged. Gotta tread carefully here, because if they express too much condemnation, then it could infringe on abortion rights!

The pro-abortion feminist left is going to great lengths to brush this controversy underneath the rug in order to protect abortion rights. They claim to be fighting for women, but are willing to overlook instances where women are abused and injured, and even killed. Yet somehow, we’re supposed to believe that these are today’s champions of women’s rights — women who can barely muster more than a shrug of the shoulders over the murder of one woman, the murders of seven infants, and the butchering of countless other women who were fortunate enough to survive a visit to Gosnell’s clinic. If one ever needed an example of just how far these women who call themselves feminists are willing to go to protect their sacred cow, you would need only look at their reaction to Kermit Gosnell butcher shop.

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When you think of a “sex establishment”, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? If you answered something along the lines of a strip club or an adult novelty store, then congratulations — you’re a normal American. Usually, an establishment needs to actually sell sex-related goods in order to be considered a sex establishment. For the National Organization of Women, that’s just far too narrow a description of a sex store. To them, all that’s needed for an establishment to be accused of selling sex is attractive female employees — and so, of course, they’re targeting Hooters. Apparently, by hiring attractive women to work in the restaurant wearing skimpy clothes, Hooters is not only selling sex, but they’re selling sex to children. Oh, the humanity!

The rabid femisogynist leading this ridiculous charge is Patty Bellasalma, pictured above. (Does the difference in the two pictures explain her hostility towards Hooters?) Patty is the president of NOW’s California chapter, and she is just trying to look out for the children. They aren’t looking out for the womyn this time — nope, it’s for the kids.

The National Organization for Women filed complaints against local Hooters restaurants Thursday, but not for exploiting its scantily clad waitresses by subjecting them to leering and groping customers.

The subject this time was Hooters’ catering to children.

The restaurants in San Francisco, San Bruno, Sacramento and Orange County are classified as “adult entertainment” establishments but also serve minors, NOW’s California chapter said in papers filed with police and prosecutors.

What’s more, the organization said, Hooters provides child menus, high chairs and booster seats, and sells T-shirts in children’s sizes that identify the wearer as a “Future Hooters Girl.”

Patricia Bellasalma, NOW’s California president, asserted that Hooters is violating state and local laws prohibiting sexually oriented “adult” businesses from serving minors. The chain is also violating federal employment standards, she said.

Hooters’ stance on the subject is that they do not cater to children and families, but that they serve everyone who comes into the restaurant. The horror! Don’t they know that they’re selling sex to children?!

Oh, wait… they don’t. Apparently, they’re just too ignorant to understand that skimpy clothes automatically equal sex. So, of course, NOW will be campaigning to keep children away from beaches and swimming pools next, right? After all, women wear far less to the beach than any Hooters girl wears, so naturally that’s a sexual environment as well. And I guess we should also add in television, pop concerts, the mall, fashion billboards … anything else that features scantily-clad women? We can’t have children in a XXX environment, after all, and NOW’s new position is that women in skimpy clothes are obviously sex workers.

Is there really any wonder why femisogynists are so scorned in today’s America?

British feminazis recently tried to block the opening of a Hooters, complaining that Hooters is worse than Playboy. Right — a restaurant whose waitresses wear shorts and tank tops is worse than a magazine that features graphic pictures of nude women. Is the real issue here that man-hating femifascists cannot stand the idea of an establishment that — gasp!! — caters to men? Obviously, if femisogynists don’t like something, no one should be allowed to enjoy it.

And this boils down to the heart of the issue. It’s amazing how anti-choice feminazis are, considering how they claim to be such champions for choice. True equality for women means that women can choose to forge a life for themselves, whether that means being a stay-at-home mom, building a career in corporate America, or working at a place like Hooters. It isn’t something that femisogynists should have any say over, but make a choice that they disagree with and you’ll be shamed right out of the sisterhood. Dress in a skimpy outfit in a restaurant that largely caters to men, and you’ll definitely be out of the club.

What Ms. Bellasalma can’t seem to wrap her puny mind around is that parents have the choice to take their kids with them to Hooters. While no one would ever call Hooters a classy establishment, it’s not nearly as bad as NOW is trying to make it out to be. It’s a sports bar with mediocre food and attractive women wearing shorts and a tank top. Children don’t get exposed to sex at Hooters anymore than they would seeing women wearing bikinis at the beach. And while I would never buy my daughter a shirt that says “Future Hooters Girl,” I would also never try to ban other parents from doing so. Advocating for real choice means that you don’t get to dictate the choices people make, but that goes against everything that today’s modern feminazis stand for.

Nevermind that women willingly work at Hooters. Nevermind that some parents willingly patronize Hooters with their children. It’s not their choice to make — it’s NOW’s choice to make. (And you thought modern feminism was about women being able to make their own choices!)

It’s rather disturbing that femisogynists can, with a straight face, campaign so rabidly for abortion and yet somehow still claim to be fighting for the children. It’s also disturbing that an organization that claims to work on behalf of women would waste their time on something so insignificant, while continually ignoring the abuses and oppression forced onto women in the Middle East, thanks to the barbarism of sharia. Women are forced to endure beatings, oppression, female genital mutilation, and even stoning — yet the National Organization for Women is wasting its time going after an American sports bar.

And they call themselves feminists. It’s a clear example why most parents would rather take their daughters to Hooters wearing a “Future Hooters Girl” shirt than take them to a NOW rally wearing a “Future NOW Member” shirt. At least at Hooters, women can make their own choices. You can’t really say the same for the mindless sheep led by Patty Bellasalma at NOW.

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Feministing founder Jessica Valenti likes to write about just what makes a “real” feminist, and what doesn’t. Obviously, being a conservative is an instant disqualifier in her book, because why on Earth should a movement that seeks equality let women actually have differing points of view? Right at the top of her list of women not allowed in her ultra-exclusive girls club version of feminism is Sarah Palin. Sure, Sarah Palin may be a successful, accomplished woman who took on Alaska’s boys club and won, but who cares? She doesn’t get a tingle up her leg at the thought of killing babies, so she’s not allowed in the clubhouse. This week, when given the chance to debate a real live Valenti-approved anti-feminist, though, Jessica Valenti took the opportunity… to tuck her tail in between her legs and run as fast as her legs could take her.

While Palin is femisogynist Enemy Number One, she’s just at the top of a long list of hated conservative feminist women. Express an opinion that Valenti & Co. don’t agree with, and you’re smeared as anti-feminist and anti-woman. Of course, calling a woman anti-woman makes about as much sense as calling a Jew anti-Semitic, but what do they care about things like common sense, logic, and intellectual diversity? Amanda Marcotte, for example, recently said you can’t be a feminist unless you are a left-leaning liberal who advocates for universal health care, abortion, and other liberal extremist pet causes. Marcotte also recently argued that women are too stupid to tell the difference between the evil fake conservative feminism, and the Amanda Marcotte Approved real feminism. Jessica Valenti wrote a piece filled with rage at the idea that anyone could call Sarah Palin a feminist, because Palin doesn’t pass Valenti’s Official Feminist Litmus Test. Believe something different than what Valenti believes, and you’re out of the club, lady. As I said in response to Valenti’s anti-Palin hit piece, all of this boils down to having the “correct” political beliefs. Equality has absolutely nothing to do with Valenti’s brand of feminism anymore.

Change your name to your husband’s when you get married? You’re a slave to the patriarchy and an anti-feminist. Personally and politically pro-life? Anti-woman! Believe in small government, fiscal responsibility, and the free market? ANTI-FEMINIST! Believe in closing the borders and enforcing our immigration laws? Don’t believe in universal health care? Think global warming is all a fake? These all make you an anti-feminist, too.

And while the femisogynist crowd acts as if conservative women are stealing feminism, you can see that the truth is that we’re reclaiming it — reclaiming it as a movement for equality, reclaiming it from bitter, angry women who hate men and marriage, and reclaiming it as a movement for all women, not just women who pass an ideological purity test.

No, we’re not stealing feminism. We’re putting it back in its rightful place.

But let’s say, just for fun, that Valenti’s version of feminism is the only correct form of feminism, and us conservative women really are evil, anti-woman harpies. Valenti should have no problem debating us on the issues, then right?

Wrong.

Jessica Valenti has no problem whatsoever writing screech-filled missives about conservative feminists, hiding behind her computer screen. When she got the opportunity to actually debate a real live conservative feminist, she ran away as fast as she could — based on her “feminist” principles, of course.

Wednesday of this week, MORE magazine held a panel for young feminists, which Jessica Valenti was invited to be a part of. When Valenti found out that someone who didn’t rigidly follow her extremist orthodoxy to the letter was going to be part of the panel, well, she just wouldn’t be a part of that.

I was originally slated to be a part of this panel, but when I found out that Allison Kasic – who works for the virulently anti-feminist Independent Women’s Forum – was also a panelist, I decided to pull out.

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the faux feminism of the Right – how conservative women who have long fought against feminist ideals and goals are now identifying as feminists in an attempt to woo women’s votes for the GOP. I think it’s an incredibly dangerous trend facing the movement – if those who work actively against women’s interests can claim feminism as their own, the movement will become meaningless.

Given all that, it felt hypocritical for me to be a part of a panel that named Kasic a feminist leader. I didn’t want my presence to lend credibility to the false notion that people who work against women’s rights are feminists.

Yes, I could go on the panel to argue about the definition of feminism and the co-opting of the movement. But when I agree to be on a panel I’m accepting the terms of a debate – and it’s not a debatable point whether people whose policies actively harm women are feminists. I don’t want to validate that this is a question open for reasonable conversation. (Especially given that the success of anti-feminist women and orgs like IWF is largely based on their ability to get on panels and make this an open discussion – it’s part of their strategy.)

Oh no!! Someone who disagrees with Jessica Valenti might be part of a panel discussing feminism! And they’re a — gasp!! — conservative feminist!! Clearly she can’t be a part of that, right? Jessica Valenti’s credibility would be damaged, and that would hurt the feminist movement!

Because, you know, Jessica Valenti is the sole voice of what feminism stands for and its credibility.

Now, every other speaker on this panel is a liberal extremist femisogynist, including Courtney Martin, who blogs at Valenti’s website Feministing. Allison Kasic was the one conservative voice. But this just can’t be allowed, can it? In Valenti’s world, apparently not only should feminists with differing opinions not be allowed a seat at the table, they shouldn’t even be allowed to speak, much less debate their views.

Of course, one might wonder why Valenti would be so worried about debating Kasic. If Valenti’s version of feminism is indeed so intellectually superior, then why would it matter if Kasic was on the panel or not? This would be a perfect opportunity for Valenti to show how wrong conservative feminists are. But oh no, she’s making a principled stand! Or something. Because Kasic’s employer, the Independent Women’s Forum, is (in Valenti’s words) “virulently anti-feminist.” So why not debate her, and show her for the virulent anti-feminist that she really is?

The only reason that femisogynists like Valenti try so hard to shut down conservative feminists like Palin and Kasic is because they’re intimidated by them. Women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann resonate with women more than women like Jessica Valenti and Amanda Marcotte ever have — or will. The average woman doesn’t identify herself as some kind of helpless oppressed victim of the patriarchy. The average woman doesn’t see marriage as a form of institutional slavery. The average woman doesn’t believe in universal health care or abortion on demand, or half the things that radicals like Valenti advocate.

Feminism has turned into a dirty word for most women, who won’t call themselves feminists anymore. And that’s thanks in large part to the work of women like Gloria Steinem and her 60s era radicals, as well as the work continued by women like Valenti and Marcotte today. Sarah Palin has more American women realizing that feminism could actually speak for them than Valenti ever could, and part of the reason is that Palin has never called for an ideological litmus test in order to be a feminist. Feminism didn’t start as a movement that only spoke for certain women. It spoke for all women. The women who fought for feminist and equality for women didn’t fight so that certain women wouldn’t be allowed to express their views or excluded.

But funny, that’s exactly what people like Jessica Valenti, who call themselves feminists, are fighting for. And when conservative women finally stop letting themselves be pushed into the shadows, and reclaim feminism for themselves, it opens a huge crack in the facade of fascist feminism that the femisogynists have created.

It turns out that Valenti is nothing more than a giant intellectual coward. If her credibility on what feminism really means is so strong, then what does she have to lose? If she was the superior one, then she wouldn’t demean feminism by debating Kasic. If her views were correct, then Kasic would be the one who would lose credibility. Kasic would be the one who would be embarrassed. So what is Valenti so afraid of?

This isn’t a principled stand by Jessica Valenti. This is a woman who is afraid she’ll be made a fool of. This is a woman who can’t stand for women with opposing viewpoints to express them because she knows it threatens what she stands for. She even said herself, this is strategy for her, a tactic — a tactic to drown out opposing voices. Jessica Valenti couldn’t make it any more clear: she’s nothing but a coward and a fake who wouldn’t understand what feminism is if it hit her in the face.

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Useless college degrees are nothing new. From degrees in art history and philosophy to women’s studies and queer musicology, academia loves to come up with majors that will be absolutely zero help to graduates in the real world. Given this, it makes sense that colleges across America would get the brilliant idea to glom onto the growing fat acceptance movement. After all, taking Fat Studies might not help you get a single job, ever, but you’ll feel better about yourself, so who cares?

Schools across America are now offering Fat Studies classes. What, exactly, is the point of these classes?

Fat Studies scholars say their mission is to promote weight awareness and acceptance among populations of all types. The sociological study of obesity has been creeping into academia for over a decade, often as a subtopic of Women’s Studies or Health Sciences. But only recently has weight become a subject of study in its own right. “There would be no Fat Studies if there were no obesity epidemic,” says Esther Rothblum, a lesbian studies professor at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the earliest to research the psychology of weight bias.

The Fat Studies Reader, a compendium edited by Rothblum and her colleague, Sondra Solovay, and published to much fanfare in late 2009, is fast becoming a cornerstone of Fat Studies curricula. Its 53 contributors ask the same questions that professors now pose to their students: How is weight perceived in different countries? What do media depictions of larger sizes say about our social priorities? What if there were a “fat gene,” and what if we could test for it prenatally?

Spurred by growing national concerns about obesity, many schools now offer undergraduates a place to discuss these questions. Courses that deal with Fat Studies and body image have been taught at schools, including Oregon State University and Rutgers University. Newer still, however, is the growing interest among students and scholars who aren’t fat themselves.

The fact that the fat acceptance movement has come this far is a sad commentary in and of itself. It’s true that Hollywood promotes an unhealthy body image; it’s true that women are pressured to conform to an unrealistic, unhealthy ideal. The somewhat surprising reaction to this by some has been to promote fat pride, instead of focusing on promoting healthy, normal bodies. Femisogynists in particular have been vocal about this — that obesity can be beautiful and that fat people shouldn’t need to change to fit the narrow ideas of a patriarchal society. The health benefits to losing weight and not remaining obese, of course, is never mentioned. Is it any surprise that Fat Studies sprung out of the women’s studies movement? The most ridiculous aspect of this is that obesity is something that people can control. It isn’t like gender or race. Obesity is a lifestyle choice, for the 99% of overweight Americans who don’t have an endocrine or thyroid disorder and just choose to stuff their faces with junk food without ever being physically active.

Should someone who is obese hate his body? No, of course not. But he also doesn’t need classes telling him that he is perfect just the way he is, he doesn’t need a fat acceptance culture telling him that it’s OK to be obese. If someone wants to eat all day long without ever exercising, then that’s his prerogative. It doesn’t mean that we have to spoon-feed him propaganda about how obesity is acceptable.

We do have an obesity epidemic in the United States; more adults and children are overweight than ever. Femisogynists have been telling women over and over again that they should be fat and proud, that they don’t need to change — and any criticism of overweight people is quickly shouted down as anti-feminist and misogynistic. (Consider this mind-boggling video featured at Feministing.) I would imagine that this boils down to the ridiculous femisogynist premise that you can never criticize women (unless of course they’re conservative women like Sarah Palin). After all, being a so-called feminist means never being subjected to any standards, ever — except those imposed by other self-proclaimed feminists, of course.

More and more, we’re being told that obesity is an acceptable lifestyle choice — and there are even people, like Kate Harding, who claims that being overweight can be healthy. The reality, of course, is somewhat different.

Right now, around 35% of adults are considered obese, and about 17% of children are obese. Obesity is currently the number two cause of preventable death in the United States, behind tobacco. Some of the health consequences for obese adults include increased risks of the following: coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer (endometrial, breast, and colon), hypertension, dyslipidemia, stroke, liver and gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, osteoarthritis, gynecological problems – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s also just obesity in adults. Obesity in children causes even more health problems.

It seems pretty obvious that while overweight people should not be shamed, obesity should likewise not be celebrated or promoted. And that is unfortunately what’s happening. Being against unhealthy beauty standards doesn’t mean promoting obesity, either — just because you are against starvation, it doesn’t mean you have to be for gluttony. People don’t need to be told to lose weight to satisfy some kind of vapid Hollywood beauty standard; they need to lose weight for their own health and well-being. If they choose not to, well, then that’s their decision. But that doesn’t mean that we as a society should coddle the obese or pretend that it’s an acceptable lifestyle choice, because it isn’t. No one thinks that smoking cigarettes is an acceptable lifestyle choice anymore, but that people have the right to smoke if they so choose. We need to have a similar attitude towards fatties who can’t stop eating or get off the couch.

The other issue of contention here is the ever-present need for out-of-touch college professors to constantly find new victim groups. Hey, why not fat people too, right? It’s grievance mongering and social engineering for profit, and it’s outrageous. Consider the amount of money spent on college tuition, books, and fees. It’s typically tens of thousands of dollars. Aside from the grievance mongering, how does Fat Studies benefit students in the real world? When students graduate in Fat Studies, where are they going to find an employer who will be impressed? McDonald’s? Oh, Fat Studies, that’s great — they’ll be perfect with our overweight customers!!

All joking aside, this has to be one of the most useless programs in academia today — aside from queer musicology, of course. It’s a rip-off. Students go to college to learn and prepare themselves for a career, not to feel good about themselves and raise their self-esteem — or to be indoctrinated into ridiculous lefty political correctness. I’m sure that countless parents would be thrilled to find out that they were paying to send their children to what basically is a very, very expensive feel-good support group.

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Sluthood wasn’t always considered a virtue. Most normal, rational people look at sleeping around as something sad and wrong. It’s not healthy, physically or mentally, it can be damaging to a young girl’s reputation, and it can also be incredibly dangerous. Women that sleep around oftentimes end up feeling used and regret their choices when they get older and decide to settle down. Other women end up contracting STDs, which may or may not be treatable. For these reasons and more, being a slut is understandably looked down upon — it can be genuinely harmful. Today’s pseudo-feminists, however, have turned that common sense logic on its head.

Sluthood is now, unbelievably, looked at in their eyes as healthy and empowering. Sleeping with random men every night is not sleeping around, it’s “embracing your sexuality.” This attitude has trickled down into our everyday culture, and it’s had an effect on young girls. Almost two-thirds of teenagers who do have sex end up wishing they hadn’t. Teens who have sex early are more likely to be depressed or suicidal. And while femisogynists act as if birth control and condoms makes sex absolutely risk-free, the truth is not quite as clear. The emotional consequences are clear; physically, the truth is simply that condoms are not foolproof. Consider that 1 in 4 teenage girls now have an STD. And pregnancy can only reliably be prevented through abstinence, something teenage girls need to know, considering that teenage mothers are significantly more likely to live in poverty and rely on welfare.

Does any of this sound empowering? While the slut culture hits young girls the hardest, it’s unhealthy for everyone, regardless of age. See, for example, how rates of most STDs have climbed since 1997, with the exception of gonorrhea. Chlamydia is especially pervasive, being the most transmitted STD in the United States. It’s especially scary when you consider that approximately 1 in 4 men have chlamydia, but no symptoms, and only about 30% of women get any symptoms. Then there’s herpes, which is incurable. Currently, 1 out of 5 women have herpes.

Yes, encouraging people that sluthood is empowering and healthy is surely a great idea. It’s not irresponsible or potentially dangerous at all! You could only… end up depressed, suicidal, pregnant and single, or with a nasty (possibly incurable) STD. Femisogynists claim that all this means is that we need better sex education in our schools, because condoms are clearly foolproof, and as long as you use a condom, you’ll never ever get pregnant or contract an STD. The truth is not so comforting. Condoms are not foolproof, and perpetuating that myth doesn’t do anyone any favors, as the cold hard facts show. But the pseudo-feminists aren’t pointing these facts out to anyone when they encourage sluthood, are they? This part of it, the dark side, is all extremely hushed up, probably because if most people knew these facts and statistics they’d be terrified to sleep around with wild abandon. And that’s exactly why the femisogynists don’t mention this part of it.

When you think about it, and consider the facts, slut culture is not something we should be encouraging. But who are the people who are pushing this sluthood culture so fiercely? We’re about to discover 6 of the strongest advocates of sluthood culture in America.

Jaclyn Friedman

Example #1: My Sluthood, Myself

I had never thought of my self as a Casual Encounters kind of girl. I’d read them on occasion, sure, out of fascination, horror, horniness. I’d even, once in a long while, in lonely desperate moments, posted an ad, not with the intention of actually meeting anyone, but because sometimes knowing you have a bunch of bad options that you’re rejecting feels better than feeling like you have no options at all. And it was that exact state I found myself in one Friday night last fall, after having been blown apart yet again by some minor rejection that felt so huge it sent me to my bed. I hadn’t showered or shaved or left the house in days. And so, glass of wine in hand, wearing a robe and dirty sweatpants, I posted an ad just so I could watch the replies come in and feel like I had some kind of choice in the world. That somebody wanted me, even if they were gross and I’d never want them back.

… I’m telling you this because our policymakers would rather girls get sometimes-fatal diseases than be perceived as condoning sluthood. I’m telling you this because it’s important for everyone to understand: Sluthood isn’t a disease, or a wrong path, or a trend that’s ruining our youth. It isn’t just for detached, unemotional women who “f**k like men,” (as if that actually meant something), consequences be damned. It isn’t ever inevitable that sluthood should inspire violence or shame. Sluthood isn’t just a choice we should let women make because women should be free to make even “bad” choices. It’s a choice we should all have access to because it has the potential to be liberating. Healing. Soul-fulfilling.

And here, in Jaclyn Friedman’s words, we see firsthand that sluthood can be liberating and healing.

Reading her post, though, ends up being incredibly sad. Friedman, who bills herself as a “feminist evangelist,” pushes the myth that sluthood can be empowering, but she seems to be saying something different. She says herself that she wants to be loved, she wants to be wanted, and sleeping around with random men is not going to get her that love. A one-night stand gets you that temporary endorphin rush, but you ultimately end up feeling hollow again. So you look for that rush again, have another one night stand, and still feel empty. It’s a vicious cycle, a quick fix that leaves you wanting in the end.

While Jaclyn tries valiantly to prove that sleeping around is this wonderful, liberating, empowering experience, her words ring hollow because you can see right through them. She comes across as bitter and desperate, someone looking for love and validation in any way that she can get it, no matter how unhealthy it may be.

Yet for some reason, we’re supposed to want to emulate her? Why, so that other women can be as desperate and miserable as she is?

Hey, maybe that’s the whole point.

Tracy Clark-Flory

Example #2: In Defense of Casual Sex

I’m a 24-year-old member of the hookup generation — I’ve had roughly three times as many hookups as relationships — and, like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I’ve found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships. I don’t exactly advocate picking up guys at frat parties and screwing atop the keg as the path to marital bliss. It’s just that hookup culture is not the radical extreme it is so frequently mischaracterized as in the media. There is sloppy stranger sex among people my age, sure, but sometimes hooking up is regular sex with a casual acquaintance; sometimes it’s innocent making out or casually dating or cuddling, and, oftentimes, it involves just one person at a time. In a sense it’s all very old-fashioned — there’s just a lot more unattached sex involved.

Like most 20-somethings, I’ve had online pornography and unregulated chat rooms at my fingertips since I hit puberty. But I also grew up during the Girl/Grrrl Power explosion, which taught me to demand respect, and play handball (and, later, hardball) with the boys. And it taught me that I didn’t need to cake myself in makeup or teeter along in foot-disfiguring heels — unless, of course, I wanted to.

… As far as I can tell, these choices don’t form a pattern, other than a refusal to really choose. I was like a college freshman filling out the Career Center’s job placement questionnaire, making an enthusiastic check mark next to every box; except, in my case, I was checking off men. Most of them were great; others led me on and made me cry. In a few cases, I felt used, but other times I felt like a user. [emphasis mine]

It’s interesting that Salon writer Tracy Clark-Flory speaks of sleeping around as some kind of warped way to gain respect. She later admits that she and other young women are often looking for something more permanent — but that after two or three hook-ups, the men they’ve been having casual sex with run when the idea of a more serious relationship is brought up.

Can she really not connect the dots there?

She admits that she was able to find an “emotionally available” man… after she stopped her wild adventure into sluthood. Gee, I wonder if that was just a coincidence!

Meanwhile, when she was sleeping around, she often “felt used, or like a user.” How does that demand respect? If she is being used, then she clearly isn’t being respected by the men she’s hooking up with; if she feels like a user, then she clearly doesn’t respect the men. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to believe that this somehow will lead to finding respect and empowerment, and eventually, a “healthy” relationship.

Just, you know, ignore her experiences of feeling used/like a user, and only finding a decent man when she found the will to restrain herself. It’ll be better for you.

Heather Corinna

Example #3: Her advice comes from the fact that Heather Corinna is ANNOYED

Heather Corinna, founder of Scarleteen, an “inclusive, healthy, and sex-positive sex ed resource for teens,” writes:

So, am I a slut? Sure, okay. I am untidy. I have had sex with more people than some people consider acceptable, and on the bell curve of what folks report with a lifetime number of partners, I have had more than most. Since I have routinely questioned both my own values and character for myself all my life as a regular practice, and try to keep flexible, I suppose it’s also true to say mine are both questionable and loose. When you tell me or others something that is true about myself, I’m not likely to get my feelings hurt or be offended, particularly when we’re talking about things that have been my choice, like my sex life.

… I have had my work or the credibility of my work impacted by my actual or perceived sexual behaviour. But I also tend to experience a weird kind of privilege in often having little privilege. I figure if it isn’t going to be one thing, it’ll be another, so I may as well just be who I am and put who I am on the table. Like Janis sang, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

Like Jaclyn, I have had times in my life when I have wanted an ongoing, intimate relationship and have not had one, though with me that’s rarely abstract. When I want one of those, it tends to be about wanting one with someone specific (or, let’s be frank: about wanting relationships where I can get some privilege and be spared some of the judgment we get while in other models). It’s fair to say I’ve usually been far more cautious about getting into romantic relationships than I have been about getting into bed with someone.

It’s interesting how in so many of these posts, the sluthood advocates themselves inadvertently end up proving just why sleeping around with wild abandon is not a good thing.

Earlier, I mentioned — and Corinna confirmed — that a girl’s reputation is likely to suffer based on her supposedly empowered sluthood. In Corinna’s case, she admitted herself that it’s affected her work. And this is one odd thing: femisogynists complain often about the “he’s a stud, she’s a slut” double standard. While the double standard is indeed abhorrent, it’s interesting that the “feminist” response is to engage even more in bad behavior like men do. Instead of trying to work to raise men up to a higher level, they seem to want to bring women down to a lower level.

And it doesn’t exactly speak well for your cause when an advocate for sluthood says that they’re more willing to screw a stranger than get into a committed relationship. It just further confirms the notion that sleeping around can be emotionally crippling.

Monica Shores

Example #4: 6 Reasons to Have Casual Sex

When most of us embark on a new relationship, we’re inundated with anxieties. We usually want to please the other person and we want them to think well of us, because we think highly of them and we want to make the connection last. Above all, we definitely don’t want to weird them out with our strange fantasies and turn-ons. We save that type of honesty for much later, when we feel safer. Many couples never share at all: lack of disclosure is the norm for married couples in a variety of ways, whether the issue is finances or hopes and dreams. In a 2001 poll, only 52% of male respondents and 62% of female respondents told their spouses about their sexual history.

There’s less at stake emotionally with a casual partner. This is the very target at which critics aim their arrows—how can women enjoy sex without an emotional connection?!—but this lack of investment can be freeing. It’s the same relative anonymity that causes some people to blurt out their deepest secrets to their hairdresser or a taxi driver. When we’re with someone who isn’t a fixture of our daily life, our egos relax enough to let a little authenticity come through. Rather than worrying about impressing the other person, you can be more assertive about what satisfies them in bed.

… But many men and women have had the sad experience of falling in love with someone who refuses to indulge in playful sex or whose preferences are entirely at odds with their partner’s.

The heart and the libido are by no means guaranteed to be compatible. (The New York Times recently reported that 15% of marriages were sexless, meaning the couple had not had sex in six months to a year. Casual sex bypasses this by concerning itself primarily with the libido, which is typically regarded as a source of shame and fear, but can yield its own profound and revelatory moments.

Shores, a writer for Ms. Magazine, Huffington Post, and Alternet, goes over the same old talking points: the prerequisite empowerment angle, the learning about your sexuality drivel, and claiming it will make you a better lover. What was most interesting to me, though, was the completely absurd claim that somehow, casual sex would be better sex than sex in a committed relationship … because your inhibitions are lowered, or something.

Reality, as usual, is quite different. Take The Case for Marriage, written by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher. They found that not only do married couple have more sex than single men and women, but that they had better sex as well. This wasn’t a one-time anomaly, either. This has been proven time and time again, such as in this study which found similar results — that married couples have more and better sex.

While the sluthood advocates would of course claim that being with someone with no strings attached means your inhibitions will be lowered and there will be less anxiety — leading to better sex — when you think about it logically it makes no sense (like most of the arguments made in the push for sluthood). When you are in a committed, long-term relationship with someone, there’s obviously much less anxiety because you’ve been there and done that already with them. You also know what the other person likes and have a greater connection with that person.

But owning up to this would mean that sluthood advocates would have to admit that even sex is better in a relationship, along with virtually everything else.

Therese Shechter

Example #5: Dear Abby, Ever heard of contraception?

I’ll spare you having to read the whole the letter which is about a young woman who gets pregnant in high school, marries the father, has the baby, gives up an education at a prestigious university, basically feels she threw away her life. This cautionary Afterschool Special tale is, I guess, meant to impress upon TGITGS the utter irresponsibility of having sex with her boyfriend. See what happened to that other girl when she had sex??

OK. There are many reasons not to have sex, especially if it’s because of pressure from someone else. And lots of people have less than magical first times, although it does get a whole lot better. But Abby’s answer is right out of 1950s.

Dear, dear Abby: I hear there are things out there called contraceptives. I’m not exactly sure what they are since our school won’t teach us about them, and advice columns won’t talk about them either. But rumor has it that I can have sex and not get pregnant if I use them properly. Not only that, there are also some pretty good ways to protect me from STDs. Why are you keeping them a secret? When did you join the abstinence lobby?

If TGITGS loves and trusts her boyfriend and wants to see what all the
fuss is about sex-wise, the advice Abby should give is “If you’re going to have sex, protect yourself from pregnancy and STDs, so you don’t end up forced into a life, any life, you didn’t choose.”

This was documentary filmmaker Therese Schecter’s response to a Dear Abby column in which Abby gives a 17-year-old girl some rather sensible advice about wanting to lose her virginity to celebrate prom night : don’t do it! Abby shares a story from one of her readers of what the possible consequences of having sex as a teenager can be. The femisogynist, of course, completely blows it off. (This is the same woman making a documentary entitled How To Lose Your Virginity.)

See, to the pseudo-feminists, having sex is A-OK as long as you don’t get pregnant. STDs are icky, but a baby is even worse. It’s yet another example of the faulty advice that having sex is perfectly safe and healthy as long as you use contraceptives … because condoms and birth control are foolproof and all. If you’re going to have sex, you absolutely should use protection, but giving girls the idea that it makes you absolutely safe is just not true. There’s always the chance that protection will fail, and that’s even if you do everything right. People also make mistakes in using contraceptives, which makes the chances of them failing even greater. But you won’t hear the femisogynists mention that in their rush to promise that sex will be hunky-dory as long as you just slap on a condom.

Then there’s the ridiculous premise that a 17-year-old virgin should give it up to her more experienced boyfriend, just because he wants to and because it’s prom night.

Yeah, I bet she’ll feel really empowered after that.

Jessica Valenti

Example #6: The Purity Myth

Some of you may already know that I’m working on a book about this culture of purity and chastity, and how it’s America’s obsession with virginity, not Girls Gone Wild and hooking up, that’s f***ing young women up.

Considering all we’ve discussed concerning the risks of sluthood — emotional consequences, pregnancy, STDs — I’d imagine we could agree that encouraging girls to sleep around and engage in the “Girls Gone Wild” culture is much more harmful than encouraging them to exercise some restraint when it comes to sex.

Yet Feministing founder Jessica Valenti and her pro-sluthood ilk proclaim the exact opposite, all the while saying that they have the best interests of women at heart.

The idea that we should teach girls, from a young age, that they should just do whatever makes them feel good in the moment is a ridiculous — and harmful — one. Whether a girl has sex before marriage or not isn’t the issue. The issue is that we shouldn’t be telling girls that Samantha from “Sex and the City” is a role model, and that having sex with no restraint whatsoever is no big deal.

And while Valenti argues that sex shouldn’t have any bearing on a girl’s self esteem, it doesn’t mean that it won’t, or that it’s “a culture of abstinence” making her feel bad. How would a 14-year-old girl’s self esteem suffer if she went to the doctor and found out she had herpes, a disease she had to live with for the rest of her life? Or if a 16-year-old lost her virginity to her boyfriend, who then promptly dumped her? Or if a 26-year-old had to explain to her husband that she’s had twice as many sexual partners as her age? I’d imagine in any of these scenarios that she wouldn’t feel all that confident and empowered. It doesn’t help girls or women to act as if these things shouldn’t or don’t matter. It’s misguided and harmful.

But you won’t hear Jessica Valenti, or her fellow advocates of sluthood, ever own up to that.

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Quick: name the most dangerous kind woman in the world to a femisogynist! If you said a beautiful woman who embraces her femininity and sex appeal and enjoys pleasing men, then you win. Women aren’t supposed to enjoy making themselves look beautiful and sexy, and especially not for a man. They’re especially not supposed to enjoy catering to men. Smiling, flirting, joking, all for the entertainment of a man, is akin to blasphemy. Considering that, it’s no surprise that a British woman and so-called feminist would find Hooters to be the most offensive bar in Britain.

Hooters is everything that man-hating femifascists hate. An entire restaurant centered around the pleasing of men? With pretty, sexy girls whose jobs involve serving men, it’s no wonder it makes their heads spin. And while Hooters is not classy by anyone’s definition, is it really fair to call it the most offensive bar in Britain? What is so offensive about Hooters, anyways?

I remember, as a student in the Seventies, interviewing one of the last Playboy bunnies at the club on Park Lane.

I asked the young woman in fishnet tights how it felt to be part of a dying breed.

Peeling off her false eyelashes, she said the world had moved on – women were no longer to be viewed as objects. Fast forward 30 years and, again, I’m talking to a young woman in tights with false eyelashes.

But while there was something tongue-in-cheek and marginally glamorous about the bunny outfit, the clothes the women working in Hooters are wearing look cheap and nasty.

Orange Lycra shorts, low-cut T-shirts with Hooters’s slogan ‘delightfully tacky’, white socks and plimsolls and, of course, a wide smile are all obligatory – it is just so awful.

Right — Playboy is not as bad, because it was “tongue-in-cheek.” Hooters is skankier than Playboy, even though Hooters waitresses don’t bare all in a magazine for millions of men to see. The Playboy comparison makes no sense whatsoever anyways, when you consider that Liz Jones, the author, talks about Playboy as part of a dying breed and refers to it in the past tense. It’s ridiculous when one remembers that, oh yeah, Playboy is still around, and Playboy models get completely naked, whereas Hooters waitresses just wear slightly slutty outfits.

Jones then bemoans that Hooters would have the audacity to open a second location in the UK. After all, if femisogynists don’t like something, it shouldn’t be allowed to exist, right? Who cares about stuff like the free market? One might think that if Hooters was really so offensive, they wouldn’t be such a successful restaurant, but that’s just the patriarchy. Or something.

There are now 455 branches worldwide, including four in China – but only one branch in the UK, here in the Midlands.

A second branch is planned for Bristol, at a site leased to it by Marks & Spencer. The city council has already granted the U.S. chain planning permission, saying it ‘offers something different’, despite local residents and women’s groups mounting a campaign.

Sian Norris, founder of the Say No To Hooters In Bristol protest group, says: ‘People claim it’s a bit fun. But it’s part of a culture where women are only seen as sexual objects, not as full human beings.’

And thus we come to another disturbing aspect of today’s feminist extremism. If a woman dares to let herself be seen as sexy, then she is solely a sex object, and nothing else. And not only is she a sex object, but she’s also either a willing tool of the patriarchy or an idiot who doesn’t know she’s being used. After all, a woman can’t possibly be sexy and beautiful and intelligent at the same time, right?

But wait a second — are the Hooters uniforms really even that scandalous anymore?

That is the Hooters uniform, as most of you probably already know. Here is how Hooters describes their uniform requirements:

The Hooters Girl uniform consists of: White Hooters tank top, orange shorts, suntan hose, white socks, solid white shoes, brown Hooters pouch, name-tag and of course…a smile!

… There is no set requirement in order to be a nearly World Famous Hooters Girl! We look for the All-American Cheerleader / Surfer-Girl-Next-Door image to fill our restaurants. In other words…Very bubbly, outgoing personalities!

So they want friendly, outgoing, smiley women. The uniform, meanwhile, covers up more than most outfits girls wear out to clubs on a Friday night. They wear pantyhose, for chrissakes. It’s meant to be sexy, of course, but let’s not get out of hand here. Hooters is a restaurant that caters mainly to men, which I suspect is the real problem: that the women look sexy for the enjoyment of men. (I wonder if the femisogynists get offended when men look sexy for the enjoyment of women, a la Chippendales dancers.)

And of course, who can be OK with the way that Hooters abducts women off the streets and forces them to work there and look sexy and flirt with men?

Wait, that’s not the way it happens?

Why, then, do women who work at Hooters sign a contract that states ‘I do not find my job duties, uniform requirements or work environment to be offensive, intimidating, hostile or unwelcome’?

Kimberley, 28, has worked here for two years. Is she ever harassed by the punters, leered at or disrespected? She is careful in her reply.

‘There are always men from management who are keeping an eye out,’ she says (I didn’t encounter a bouncer when I arrived, which makes me wonder who will keep out or eject the drunks; there are children in here, too). Is there a strict dress code?

‘I need to look groomed, but not tarty. Hair has to be down [strange, given they are handling food], nails clean. No piercings.’

Does she not feel exposed, knowing all these men are looking at her bottom and cleavage? ‘I feel quite covered up,’ she says. ‘This is no worse than what you see young women wearing here in Nottingham, out shopping or clubbing.’

This is true, but that is their choice. Here, exposing your thighs and cleavage is compulsory.

SEE?? Hooters is forcing these poor women to show off their bodies and be friendly to men! It’s an outrage, I tell you, an outrage!

Wait, you mean women choose to work at a place like Hooters all on their own? It’s apparently a shocking thought, that women might not mind working at a place like Hooters, catering to men and all.

The waitress Jones interviewed, Kimberley, is a marketing graduate who makes minimum wage, plus tips, at Hooters. The British national minimum wage varies depending on your age, but if you are 22 and older (as most Hooters waitresses likely are), it is £5.80 per hour. That converts to roughly $9.16 per hour. Not bad, huh? Then there are the benefits. Hourly Hooters employees are eligible to receive an array of benefits, like health insurance, dental, vision, and even tuition assistance. But who cares about stuff like that? Hooters is an evil, sexist, patriarchal organization that’s even worse than strip clubs!

Again, the fact that no one is ever forced to work at Hooters or patronize the restaurant is completely overlooked. Not that it matters — if fascist feminists are offended by something, it shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Choice, free will, the free market, none of these things matter, because the femisogynists just know better than us! Women choose to be sexy and friendly to men? Blasphemy!

Call me a slave to the patriarchy, but I’d much rather spend an evening at Hooters than in the company of a self-righteous, know-it-all, humorless, holier-than-thou feminist extremist.

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The National Organization for Women is seemingly on a crusade to make themselves as irrelevant and anti-woman as possible. As the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States, one would think the group would be representative of, I don’t know, women. But, like all of today’s femisogynists, they’re committed solely to furthering extreme left politics. A perfect example is their response to the Meg Whitman/Jerry Brown scandal.

For those unfamiliar with the scandal that’s been all over the news, an associate of Jerry Brown’s (possibly his wife) was recorded on an answering machine suggesting that they call Meg Whitman a whore. The audio was recorded after Brown had called the Los Angeles Police Protective League and left a message … and then forgot to hang up the phone. The resulting conversation has since become a media firestorm.

“Do we want to put an ad out? … That I have been warned if I crack down on pensions, I will be – that they’ll go to Whitman, and that’s where they’ll go because they know Whitman will give ‘em, will cut them a deal, but I won’t,” Brown said.

At that point, what appears to be a second voice interjects: “What about saying she’s a whore?”

“Well, I’m going to use that,” Brown responds. “It proves you’ve cut a secret deal to protect the pensions.”

The associate makes the comment, but Brown goes right along with it, saying “Well, I’m going to use that.” The Whitman campaign understandably slammed the Brown campaign for the audio, rightly calling it an appalling and unforgiving smear. The controversy has put Jerry Brown in hot water in California, although whether it’s because a Brown associate called Whitman a whore or because Brown couldn’t figure out how to hang up a telephone remains to be seen.

Of course, in typical femisogynist fashion, the femifascists have come out swinging … for Jerry Brown.

Feministing attacked Meg Whitman while offering only the most meager condemnation of Jerry Brown.

Hanna Rosin called it Meg Whitman’s Whore-Gate, brushing off the actual offensive slur and slamming Whitman and conservative feminists like Michelle Malkin for somehow “overreacting.” But the pièce de résistance is the fact that NOW, less than 24 hours after the slur, endorsed Jerry Brown. Not surprising, considering they also endorsed Alan Grayson after he called Ben Bernanke adviser Linda Robertson a “K Street whore.” Had a conservative called a woman a whore for any reason whatsoever, NOW would be sputtering with outrage. They’ll deny this charge, but luckily, we have an example. Glenn Beck was added to their Hall of Shame for insulting a powerful woman by calling her a prostitute. The powerful woman Beck insulted, however, had a “D” behind her name, and that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

Now why exactly was Jerry Brown endorsed over Meg Whitman? After all, Meg Whitman is pro-choice. And that, of course, is the sacred cow for these so-called crusaders for women. Meg Whitman also proved that women can succeed at the highest level of the private sector, and that they can make outstanding leaders, and can think for themselves on policy issues. Doesn’t matter to femisogynists, though, does it? It’s just more proof that extremists have hijacked feminism and have turned it into some kind of hideous monster intent on furthering far left causes and ignoring any women who don’t fall in line.

With hypocrisy like this — at the expense of women — perhaps NOW should change their name to Then, because they in no way represent today’s American women.

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Pro-abortion radicals will try to use any tool in their arsenal to dehumanize the unborn. They have to, if they want to be able to convince women to keep abortion common. After all, the pro-abortion line has never truly been about choice. There’s only one acceptable choice, and that choice is abortion. But if women continue to think that what they’re growing inside them when they’re pregnant is an actual human being, then pro-abortion fanatics have a problem. Choice USA decided that there was a simple way to fix this problem: show how ridiculous the idea that an unborn baby is an actual person is by pointing out that, erm, unborn babies can’t play tennis … and, um, therefore can’t be a real person. Makes sense, huh?

Of course, it’s not just tennis. In what is supposed to be a “humorous” video, a pregnant woman is told that she must split a bill between two people three ways (because her unborn child is a person), must play doubles tennis instead of singles (because her unborn child is a person), and must buy two tickets to a movie (because her unborn child is a person).

Gee, weren’t you just rolling on the floor laughing? The femisogynists have truly astounded us with their wit and sharp sense of humor. I guess they really proved that whole humorless feminazi stereotype wrong, huh?

All joking aside (literally), this video is utterly ridiculous. Yeah, yeah — the premise is simple. None of the scenarios in the video make sense, and calling a fetus a person doesn’t make sense, either. But a person’s worth is not measured by any of the idiotic things this video lamely tried to joke about. Quadriplegics can’t play tennis. Are they not people? A two-year-old out for a lunch date with Mommy can’t pay for his share of the bill. Does the two-year-old not count, either? The idea that personhood has anything whatsoever to do with the activities a person can take part in is ludicrous, and Choice USA knows it. They also know that most pregnant women instinctively know that what is growing inside of them is a person, and not a clump of cells or a bit of tissue or a fetus. It’s a baby.

A baby can’t play tennis or go to a movie or pay for a bill, but we don’t allow babies to be murdered after they’re born, do we? Of course, what’s really curious is how an actual radical pro-abortion feminist would feel if they were to actually carry a child. What about an abortion extremist like, say, Feministing founder and feminazi extraordinaire Jessica Valenti?

Radical femisogynist Jessica Valenti recently gave birth to a little girl. And while I doubt this subject is one she’ll ever broach, I have to say, I would love to know her thoughts. See, I’m pregnant right now. I’ve heard my baby’s heartbeat. I’ve seen the heart beating on an ultrasound. I’ve seen my baby kick its little legs and suck its thumb. I felt my baby move for the first time just a few days ago. I know exactly what I’m carrying, and yes, it’s a person. I could see the eyes and the smile, I could make out a profile with a forehead, nose, and lips. I could see the little fingers and toes. It isn’t some kind of meaningless bunch of tissue inside of me, it’s a person. A little person, yes, but a person.

When Valenti heard her baby’s heart beating, did she think it was just an abortable clump of cells? When she saw her daughter moving in her uterus, was it a fetus or a baby? When she felt her baby kicking, did she have any doubt about what she was carrying? If she had miscarried (and thank goodness she didn’t), would she have thought she lost some fetal tissue or would she have thought she lost her baby? A pregnant woman knows the truth. It’s why so many women feel they need to lie to themselves or avoid an ultrasound before an abortion. If they were to admit the truth to themselves, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.

These are questions she’ll probably never answer. (She blogged about her pregnancy only once.) To answer truthfully would be to undermine what she’s spent years fighting for. After all, when you see the little baby squirming and moving on that ultrasound screen, there’s no doubt about what it is. But to admit that a pregnant woman is carrying a baby, and not a meaningless clump of cells, would be to open Pandora’s Box for pro-abortion radicals like Valenti. If it’s a baby, then to abort it is murder. Quite a sticky situation for a femisogynist to get herself into, isn’t it?

An unborn baby may not be able to play tennis, but it has a beating heart and a life growing inside its mother’s uterus. That truth is indisputable, no matter how many bad jokey videos pro-abortion radicals make trying to convince you otherwise.

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