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Tag Archives: Miranda Devine

May 21, 2009 A little shout out to my laptop who tried valiantly to save me

A little shout out to my laptop who attempted to save me from a terrible fate this morning. High in the right hand corner of today’s SMH I noticed the Devinely Bigoted Ms M was issuing a rallying call to all men: it said something like “It’s time for men to come to the defence of violent sport and the men who play it”…or something even similarly testosterone worshipping and bizarre.

I knew it would seriously “damage my calm”, but I held my breath and went to click and…my laptop battery died so the computer shut down and I was prevented from foolishly giving in to my curiousity on impulse and ruining my own day.

Of course, when I got to work and powered up I read the fucking thing.

Apparently Miranda feels that Johns lost his job because the feminists are in control of the media, and they (feminist media controllers) believe in gender as a construct which is obviously a far more dangerous notion than ‘boys will be boys’ and will lead to pissing in public being remarked upon and that is OBVIOUSLY far more dangerous than girls getting gang raped.

It’s an utterly bizarre article in terms of its logic and consistency (I’m sorry computer, you tried valiantly to save me but I have a self destructive streak).

Somehow feminists are to blame for raunch culture and getting girls to value their hotness and appeal to men over their own sexual fulfilment (um…what?), for de-manning the men (cos again, there’s so MUCH evidence that mens power and machoness has disappeared) the medias tendency to a good old fashioned lynching (cos we control it – SEE how feminist mainstream media is??), the decisions of football clubs (cos the feminists control sports and sports clubs too dontcha know?) and Willie Mason’s inability to take a piss in a back alley without condemnation (I’m actually *not kidding*). In the land according to Miranda a feminist STORM erupted over Willie Masons urinary habits and we DEMANDED his career in payment for the greivous insult to feminism his public pissing represented.

In the world according to Miranda, if feminism were truly about equality we’d have let that mother who pinched a beer mat rot in jail in a foreign country, because THAT is the same as 12 grown men taking advantage of a 19 year old girl – and THEY are in jail now so…oh…wait, where was I? Oh yeah, it’s all feminists fault.

Killing off rugby league isn’t going to stop men being aggressive and sexually motivated.

Well it’s lucky for the feminists that their main argument is not Stop Football Stop Rape isn’t it?

In fact, such games are the few outlets boys have left for excess physical energy.

Ah yes, the old pop-psych ‘boys are more physical and need to run around more and damned feminised society asks that they not rape and murder when they’re not allowed a quick jog in the office or star jumps in the classroom’ chestnut.

In sanctioned team violence on the football field, young men can test their courage and express what it feels to be male, to have testosterone surging through young bodies, building huge muscles and attack instincts for which society has little use any more.

Does anyone else have an urge to vomit heartily at this drippingly romanticised idealisation of maleness? PLEASE! A question for the science folk. Does testosterone build muscles? And now you’re telling us it DOES produce attack instincts thus making an argument that sport *is* potentially a problem in producing instincts for aggression and violence? Immediately before you tell us that sport DOESN’T make boys violent but teaches them to control that violence:

It is teaching them, not to be violent but how to control their violent urges.

Ah, but then, see we have that pesky FACTUAL problem of a serious and ongoing culture of aggression and violence and disrespect of women that has led to rape and glassings and other forms of violence.

That makes your bar mat stealing comparison seem a wee bit fucking silly doesn’t it?

She’s then on to the whole ‘ADD is not real, kids just need to kick the shit out each other’ lies.

Feminism is also responsible for popular culture, which is wierd when you think about it, since feminists spend so much time examining popular culture and discussing all the problems with it, all the ways in which it is anti feminist. You’d think we’d set it up more to our liking wouldn’t you? But in the deranged conspiracy theorist’s mind I guess it just makes sense – after all feminists like to be miserable!

Popular culture today presents a narrative in which the liberalisation of sex has travelled on an inevitable continuum from the 1960s to some Brave New World free-for-all where Huxleyan teens engage in clinical couplings in which the only things to be negotiated are safety and consent.

What? And I…wait, WHAT??? Clearly safety and consent is NOT being negotiated, and we weren’t talking about mutual teen activity there we were talking a large group of fully grown MEN who FAILED UTTERLY to engage with safety and consent (safety and consent being from the feminist perspective a bare fucking MINIMUM for sex – for good sex we require more, and if you think that needs to be clinical to happen then that’s your own lack of imagination).

Where once girls were told that sex without emotional attachment would leave them feeling hurt and used, now such ideas are regarded as judgmental and moralistic. Instead girls are taught the most anti-woman thing of all – to judge their worth and the worth of others by “hotness” – that is, how sexually desirable they are, even if they are only 12.

You cannot be even remotely SERIOUS in trying to pin that shit on feminists for fuck’s sake. The fetishisation of young women’s bodies? Yeah masculine culture has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT! It appears from the stats that men, and not feminists, are the ones having difficulty accepting that adults fucking twelve year olds is rape and that their porn appetites for pre teen porn is an indulgence of THEIR obsession with young girls bodies rather than women’s.

Feminism doesn’t teach girls that they are moralistic and judgmental if they want an emotional connection as part of sex at all and you know it. It teaches them to be aware of their own bodies and pleasures, to have sex when and how they want to – to not feel like ‘sluts’ if they *want* sex which is motivated from lust, boredom, desire, curiosity or many other factors even if it is not seen as ‘aprropriate nice girl within-hetero-monogamous-relationship sex’. There’s a radical difference between the two.

The ensuing chaos in the mating world stems from this disconnect between what popular culture tells girls and boys they should want and how it really makes them feel.

Watch yourself Miranda, you’re almost making feminist arguments there. And again I take the time to point out – popular culture and its messages? Feminists aren’t controlling it or profiting from it are they?

In the end, men’s drives aren’t all violent and predatory [that‘s right – again, lucky that is not a tenet of feminism nincompoop]. Most have a deep, possibly hard-wired, desire to be noble and chivalrous [oh…ok – from whence to you produce this assumption? And what do noble and chivalrous mean?]. That’s why in situations such as the Port Arthur massacre, so many men died shielding their wives or women around them [really? Or is it love? The same love that makes women shield their lovers/children/friends?].

Chivalry was once the province of the fighting man – the knight in shining armour who behaved with gallantry, honour and courtesy on the battlefield and off [except all that pesky raping] and was always proud to help the weak and defenceless [again the urge to vomit – are you basing your arguments here on history or Mills and Boon novels]. But decades of androgynous feminism have stamped on chivalry, deriding men who opened doors or stood back for women as being sexist and patronising [way to have a nuanced and sophisticated analysis].

It would have been better for women if feminism had appealed to men’s better natures.

You mean like treating them as fully human? As capable of great decency as well as depravity? Of urging them to be well rounded humans because we know they can be? Or expecting them not to rape and beat because we *don’t* think men are all the same and biologically driven but can make choices? You mean like what feminism ACTUALLY does rather than your sick caricature of a straw feminist?

Dude. When Peter Fitzsimons can both love competitive football and clearly state that the culture in Australia is rife with misogyny and violence and you can only blame feminists for the unfairness of it all, you really know the problem is well and truly YOURS.

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April 2, 2009 What’s good for the gander…

Ok, here I am at work, and I’ve stumbled across Miranda Devines salivating revival of last months’ news – Chicks Should Put Out More.

Despite the fact this shit has been said incessantly for hundreds of years in millions of contexts, right wing neo conservatives seem to think it’s a fucking revolution.

What gets to me right, is that the same fucking suspects are the ones claiming that chicks should just DEAL WITH REALITY, that after a dude has boned them he has little to no interest in them anymore and is busy fantasising about his next wank over a preteen tennis star now that he’s rooted you and you’re spoiled goods. (Sam in the City)

Seriously, how OFTEN have we heard that men’s desire is to ‘kill the elephant’. Once it’s dead, you don’t need to hunt it anymore. Seriously. I hear this shit all the time. Chicks need to deal. Men want to pursue you, but once they’ve rooted you, you’re a dead elephant. NEXT!!

Right. So. There we have it. Men don’t want marriage! Right? They want to bone a succession of hot chicks, and once you’ve had the dick, they have no interest in you. Got that message? NOW: GET ON YOUR KNEES AND LIKE IT BITCH.

So when I hear THIS:

“What makes women think that halfway through the game they can change the rules to suit themselves and expect the male to take it?”

I. JUST. WONDER: You want chicks to put out like when you first met them and if they don’t they changed the rules and NO FAIR.

Well then, let me just ask DO YOU TREAT HER like you did when you were trying to woo her? Ten years into your marriage do you get giddy when you’re going to see her? Do you think of ways to amuse her? Little stories to tell? Do you daydream about how when you’ll get home you’ll slide your hands down her waist and kiss that spot behind her ear that always makes her melt? Do you spend weeks planning her next birthday celebrations? Do you send sexy emails full of promises?

Is she a focal point of your life? Do you find ways to constantly let her know how much she means to you? That she can still make you nervous? That she’s beautiful and desirable? That you think she rocks pretty hard? Do you ensure you come up with ways for you to spend mutually fulfilling time together? To plan dates?

Cos honestly? You’re expecting HER to not change the rules. But you did, didn’t you? When you decided that you and her were ‘done’  dating, that now you’d really rather she shut her yapping face while you cracked a tinny and watched the footie with the blokes?

So Devine thinks she’s *got us* when she says “HA! Men and women spend equal time working when you take into account paid work and housework, so CHICKS HAVE NO EXCUSE”.

Well I’d say it was always about more than the fucking housework. Look around. Women are pretty seriously disrespected in this country (nay, this universe, but when it comes to sexist crap Aussies Do It Better), wives in particular. (And even if it *was* about housework shit, well the dude gets MONEY and RESPECT and ADULT SOCIALISATION and ACHIEVEMENT from paid work whereas when you bust your arse to do the homework and the dude comes home and barely acknowledges it and treats you like an unkempt pet with the sexual attractiveness of a used toilet brush? Not the same) So really, let’s level the playing field here a little.

Before you whinge that chicks ‘changed the rules’ let’s just ask if you’re still playing by the same rules. Cos chaces are she wanted to shag you then because you were charming and paid attention and flirted and joked and gave her time and energy and never talked shit about other hot chicks or how sexless wives are. So if you’re not treating her the same way you did then FUCK OFF with your ‘I’m owed hot sex’  or else she’s changed the fucking rules shit.

Devine’s addtion to the ‘wisdom’ is ‘desire is a choice’. Yeah? So if I gave up on men cos I thought I’d get more love and attention from footwear I could ‘choose’ to get lusty over an old Volley? Desire has to be activated you toolbag. It’s activated by the play between people. (Unless your attitude is the chick should be a preteen porn star for desire to be activated and desire is for the dudes to induce them to lower themselves to root something before rolling over and there again I think we’ve hit on a problem in that this is unlikely to whip up a fervour of enthusiastic lovemaking from the wife).

So in the spirit of what’s good for the goose…let me anticipate that the objection to the above scenario will be ‘Oh but why should men HAVE to act like they still desire her like they used to’ – well DESIRE IS  A CHOICE REMEMBER so get choosy with it! If you wanna argue that we have to then you fucking have to too.

So let’s just ask this: do these men still pursue their women as if they were dating? Cos that’s when the chicks decided to shag them. Otherwise…is not that false advertising?? Did not THEY change the rules? Oh, this logic can go both ways dudes!

See the thing is, I reckon if you’re going into a long term relationship it should really be cos you’re well into the other person. If it’s not, please for the love of fuck, break up with them and move the fuck on. Because if you ARE really into them, if you think they’re pretty fucking awesome, if you remember to REMEMBER that, if you invest in making them feel like the sexiest being to walk the earth, if you invest time in making sure you get the time you need together, then really that pays off. If it doesn’t and things aren’t working – LEAVE.

Let’s just stop and take a moment here. Marriage (with the occassional long term monogamous live in relationship) seems to be the thing that unites these complaints.

Apparently outside of this type of relationship women can go ‘WOOOHOOO’  again over sex. So…did anyone stop to ask whether maybe (since apparently men abhor marriage and chicks just *do* stop having sex) marriage or monogamy was the problem?

Marriage the institution that has treated women as chattel? Marriage the institution designed to provide men with meals, a housekeeper, sproggins that he just has to bounce a ball with to be considered a superhero while Mum’s just a worn out old nag? Marriage that provides men with a substitute to their hand to keep them warm at nights and just like their hand they don’t have to spend any time at all ensuring the woman feels desired and appreciated in order to claim their dues?

Marriage which says it’s A-o-fucking-k to deride women, to rank and compare the hotness of All Those Chicks I am NOT Married To in front of wife/kids/family/friends…whenever and wherever, marriage where you joke about sexless shrew nagging bitch wives? Marriage the institution that men LOVE to whine about, LOVE to act like it’s a prison sentence? Marrige the institution compared unfavourably with slow and painful death?

Cos I’ve got to tell you that if I fell head over heels for someone who lit up when they saw me, then we got married or shacked up and somewhere along the line they just stopped. Just stopped, stopped seeing me, stopped respecting me, stopped caring how I felt? If I spent years with that someone and heard him making tired and shitty jokes about going back home to the prison warden, if I heard him talk as if it really didn’t matter if I was there or not, if I heard him think it was ok to talk about how fucking hot some teenage kid was in front of me, and saw reflected that he saw me as sexless, frumpy, nothing to him and just a convenience or a habit and then he expected me to roll over and let him ‘give it to me’? I’d not only NOT want to shag him, I think I’d want to scream in his face that he was a self absorbed bastard with his head up his arse and that staying was killing me – and potentially would daydream about a cartoon-style smack to the face with a shovel replete with ‘boiioiioiing’ noise and face imprint.

I’d like to think I’d be OUT OF THERE if I’d tried to address it and the Other had refused to engage or work on it. But I can see how stuck people get. And women’s financial dependance is STILL a very real issue. As is women’s upbringing that says they should stay, they should care for everyone, they shouldn’t expect more, what do they think they’re some kind of princess?

Again, let me anticipate the objection: OH but MEN have this experience too! Should they leave? Well, ideally what I’d like is to see both parties making an effort. If it’s still not working for one, then yes, I’d advise that ending a relationship is better than staying and despising them. The point is that if people made and maintained an effort from the beginning this may not happen. And the other point is that even when we’re told men HATE marriage, it destroys them, it sends them broke, it’s hell, it’s prison and women change the rules then WHY does no one say ‘Down With Marriage!’? No no, easier to blame the chicks.

Argh. I’ve run out of steam here and am just sad again.

Anyway, so if we’re going to be banging on about Evil Chicks Who Change the Rules, well what’s good for the gander is good for the goose right? If you want to whinge about women changing the rules, well pony up boys, are YOU still playing by the same rules? If not maybe we need a different kind of conversation whereby A LOT needs to change, not just chicks putting out more.

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December 4, 2008 Whoa, it’s a Devine bullshit tsunami

OMG SHOES! Miranda Devine is beside herself, wailing and weeping and gnashing her teeth over the daming and far reaching effects of the intellectual monoculture. No, it’s not about an increased risk of glandular fever amongst uni students, it’s one of her pet soapbox issues: THE LEFTIES ARE BRAINWASHING OUR CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The lefties are apparently totally in control of the content of Australia’s education system, even though the Howard government was in power for the last eleven years and set in place measures to force their own special brand of nationalism and ideology down the necks of schools and universities across the country.

Not content with exerting undue influence over schools the Howard government’s culture wars extended to the sacking of Dawn Casey from her curatorship at the National Museum for telling a version of Australian history factually true, but considered unseemly and unpalateable.The Howard government, far from allowing the diversity of views it purported to allow hunted down dissident voices, new approaches to history in line with museumology and, well, fucking exterminating them. Not before decrying them as traitorous, treachorous and unpatriotic though.

Think it stopped there? What of the closure of the peace institute? The absorption of the Office for the Status of Women into the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs? The ‘special dispensation’ granted to the Catholic church to appeal the rights of single women to access IVF. The government funded “think tanks” that spouted their politically situated, ideologically driven crap presented as neutral ? Yeah, you fucking forgot to mention that shit Miranda, that and the fact that you and your right wing, neo conservative, bigotry apologist twerps have laid claim to NEUTRALITY with all the power that holds.

Political correctness gone mad? Um, excuse me??? Firstly, what exactly does she mean by political correctness? I’m guessing she’s referring to the pesky notion that we should treat women, ‘coloured folk’ and ‘the gays’ with respect? Yeah, that shit’s taken off hasn’t it? We’re all tyrannised, ruled by the Mighty Iron Fist of The All Powerful P.C! That’s why Frank Sartor was able to tell Mick Mundine to get off his arse and get his black arse down to his office? Why the SMH published Rolf Harris’s fucking self indulgent racist vitriol? That’s why the SMH published this cartoon in response to bush rats being released in Mosman to rid the area of the common problem of black rats:

470bushrat0

That’s why Zoo thinks it’s A-O-fucking-K to run wanktastic spreads on Getcha Hawt Murdered Babes Free Here, that’s why commenter APublicBlogging pointed out that really, the nine year old kid who wrote his article on how to score chicks has more discursive power than online feminist bloggers combined, that’s why every mother-fucking day everywhere I go I hear the jokes about women, that’s why the White Ribbon Organisation’s Report on gendered violence gets slammed, ridiculed and reviled as worthless, pointless propaganda.

In schools, Australia day is celebrated uncritically, no one gives any thought to the fact that a gazillion kids come from sole parent families when they have their father’s day barbeques and their mother’s day stalls, single mothers still get letters to Mrs So and So despite repeated corrections, kids who don’t ‘do’ the religion class get lumped with more classwork, that’s why The Day for the Elimination of Racial Discimination got rebranded and repackaged as Harmony Day.

Andrew Fraser got to defend his racism (sorry, growing tired and short of patience hunting this crap down) by recourse to academic freedom, and the Macquarie University Law Society IMMEDIATELY jumped to his defence with some of the lamest analogies in history (sorry, I’ll dig out the pics of the idiot posters in defence as soon as possible). Fuck this shit, I’m tired. Part two to come soon.

With thanks to Dredgirl from Fuckthepostpolitical for ranting with me and sharing her thoughts with me over this.

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October 17, 2008 Devine bullshit flows like a river

[This post follows my More Devine Bullshit post]

Miranda Devine is at it again, in her one man band that plays in a never ending cycle on automatic repeat such hits as “The Loonie Lefties”, “Policitical Correctness Gone Mad Mad Mad” and “Feminists Should Be Shot I Hate Those Rabid Communist Babyeating Bitches With A Passion Even Though I Don’t Seem To Have Ever Met One”.

Again it’s about feminists not liking Sarah Palin. This time we’re VIOLENT, UNSAFE, DERANGED, PSYCHOPATHIC…why? Well cos always-a-little-odd attention seeking celebrities have spoken out against Palin.

Sandra Bernhardt (a comedian, I have no idea of her status as a card carrying member of DA FEMINISM or otherwise) is alleged to have made a gang rape comment. Ok, holy shit. Bernhardt says “did not”, Devine says “did so”. I say “Huh???”. Since when did Bernhardt speak for feminists?

Even if she calls herself a feminist, even if she’s spent years acting out feminist principles, while feminists are not of one mind, I can safely say that Feminism Does Not Find Gang Rape Funny. Ever. So maybe she said it maybe she didn’t. But a/ does SHE say she’s a feminist, b/ does she perhaps have some problems as the quote in Devine’s piece indicates, c/ if she said it does that reflect on feminism in any way since feminists continually remind people that no joke/analogy around rape is ok. Um…next?

Oh, right Pamela Anderson. I could see why you’d hit us hard with that one, she’s been SUCH a champion of women’s rights, such a model to our daughters of the power of women and a thorn in the side of patriarchy. She may be a lovely and intelligent human being for all I know, but seriously? On WHAT grounds can you with a straight face say PAMELA ANDERSON, star of Baywatch, owner of spectacularly and unselfconsciously FAKE FAKE FAKE breasts, constant seeker of the patriarchal spotlight and approval, returning to her deadbeat violent prick of a husband, making strange, unpredictable and vapid remarks to anyone who will listen and who has found her high horse in regards to vegetarianism and losing her shit when encountering a random chicken eater is someone whose views feminists should be held accountable for? NEXT.

Lindsay Lohan? Sporadically talented teenage actress battling the pressures of fame and substance abuse, erratic behaviour, completely unpredictable, and yes, I hear she has a blog with a vague (if somewhat *eclectic* and confused approach to being political and left wing) political bent…but really? Miranda? You’re using HER as an example because she’s got a girlfriend now, let’s be honest. Is that not a little…presumptive? She enjoys sex with a woman, therefore all feminists everywhere back her every viewpoint, her entire world view?

Madonna, of the Used To Be Transgressive, Now Mostly Just Rich and Religious fame…

Cathy Lette, who has her moments, but is fond of recycling her own tortured puns…I think if Devine did the slightest homework she’d find that Lette has used the “Kept her bra and burnt her brain” trope about a billion times before. And it’s hardly the sexual violence she accuses feminists of is it?

Naomi Wolf…whatever. She’s written some stuff. I haven’t bothered reading much of it. Although she’s a published author who identifies as a feminist, you’ll find there are many – she’s still not Our Leader.And where’s the example of this alleged sexual violence as coming from Wolf anyway?

OK, I had not heard of VPILP (VP I’d like to Punch) before, which, though in poor taste is a piss-take of VPILF (VP I’d like to Fuck) which men had up within hours of Palin’s nomination.Apparently “these women” (feminists) think nothing of calling Palin VPILP. No citation there Miranda…not sure WHO SAID IT, WHO SUPPORTED it, but you just can’t tar us all with that when you don’t so much as attribute that quote to anyone.

Miranda really loses her shit in the last couple of paras on the first page, and the first couple on the second. They’re totally not worth engaging in.

But this:

There is much more than high school angst to Palin hatred. Her ideology is 180 degrees wrong – evangelical Christian, hunting, oil-drilling and, most important of all, anti-abortion.

My GOOD GOD. Devine wrote a sentence where she got the fucking point. Well she wrote a sentence that reflected reality anyway, while still *wildly missing the point since she seems to think that feminists having a problem with her ideology is damning condemnation*. Many feminists have a problem with an evangelical Christian woman who is vehemently anti-abortion. I have a problem with anti-abortion evangelical Christians wanting to run the world according to their religious beleifs, and denying women and girls the right to choose when they will reproduce. YES MIRANDA, it IS more than high school angst. It is EXACTLY that her ideology is 180 degrees wrong. That’s why I don’t support her just cause we both have mammary glands.

My GOD how DO I live with myself?

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September 4, 2008 More Devine Bullshit

Oh lookout! Miranda Devine, hard hitting investigative journalist is on the trail of the nasty feminists.

OH NO!!! Feminists do not blindly and uncritically support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for Vice Presidency. And she is a WOMAN! How DARE they be such utter hyprocrites!

She attributes the “excoriation” of Palin over this last week to feminists: this despite the fact that feminists have been keeping a strict eye on the instances of sexism directed against Palin, objecting strenuously and articulately to her being reduced to a VPILF, to her being ripped apart and assessed over her family choices/sex life/vicious personal rumours, in fact to anything directed against her that is not a fair discussion of the issues she supports/issues relevant to her potential role as VP:

Feminists stand up for Palin’s rights to be treated as a real life, actual candidate to be taken seriously (and boy is she taken seriously, her politics are disturbing):

Here, here and here at the Australian feminist blog Hoyden About Town

Here, here, here, here,here, and here at Shakesville. That’s right six times on this blog, three on Hoyden’s. (Wait, more sexism watches at Shakesville here, and here).

This is from just two feminist sites, in what – a week? 

In my readings of feminist sites (I think I’ve linked to about six or seven sites in all in this post) I have not come across one ‘excoriating’ Palin, or having a go at her on the basis of her personal life.

Disagreeing with her and finding her stance on important issues repellent and cause for grave concern does not equal excoriation. The other issues facing Palin that Devine raises (and accuses feminists of perpetrating) – the rumours over the pregnancies, the affairs, claims she *breaths fire*  are not, generally speaking coming from feminists but from mainstream, gossip peddling ‘news’ publications, like Miranda’s own SMH which has been steadily running front page gossip articles about Palin over the last few days.

Devine argues that Palin’s reaction to baby Trig being perfect in her eyes should be cause for applause, that her management of her family and professional roles should be admired, that she is personally fascinating being a moose-hunting mamma, that she’s about to break the glass ceiliing. She manages to imply that it is feminists who want to deny her her choices in life, the feminists who ask if a mommy really should be allowed such a time consuming job, the feminists leading the attacks over her personal life, the feminists starting rumours. Devine says feminists assert without evidence that Palin is a homophobic anti-choicer, but the one bit of ‘evidence’  she uses to ground these claims that it is feminists doing all this is a quote. From the New York Times…I’d link you to that article, but Devine didn’t bother so I can’t. I don’t know what the article was, but a quick headsup Miranda: one NYT quote (even *if* written by an actual feminist) does not sum up feminists positions on and problems with Palin. Please see the links above and below. (Oddly enough these both manage to defend her right to be treated as a candidate, and not to be disrespected and annihilated by rumour, and simultaneously to point out issues with her politics! Feminists managing to not be one dimensional! Who’d a thunk it?)

Basically it’s the usual codswallop from Miranda, but you know, for real! It’s the mainstream media in fact going to town on Palin’s personal life, it’s the mainstream media asking if a mommy should be allowed a big job like this, the mainstream media who disrespect her choices – as to the feminists, I’d argue the position is: It’s great for Palin to have so many choices – it’s a shame she wants to deny life choices to others. And *that’s* what it’s all about Miranda.

So for feminist/left wing discussions of the *actual* opposition to/issues with Palin (AND for more writing about the frustration over the rumours/discussions of Palin’s personal life/love life/family life) coming from feminists/the left more generally, see posts and comment threads here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here*, a great collection of links here, here, here (that one’s a Times article)…ok, you get the point right? Cos I’m going crosseyed. The point is there are many many feminist/left wing posts on the valid concerns over Sarah Palin’s politics, and the prospect of her being the Vice President. So far not *one* of them has been about “I’m just not sure a *mommy* should be VP” or based on the rumours.

[Edited to note that I will add more links as I come across them…the thing is they’re multiplying extremely quickly, so if you follow the links, you’re likely to come across links on those links, and so on…enjoy. ALSO!! It has been noted over at Hoyden that while the feminists are still saying “OFF LIMITS” to bagging Palin out over personal life stuff, that there are quite a number of ‘progressive male’ bloggers doing so. So I need to add that caveat to my proclamation that the feminists and the left more generally have steered clear of this shit.]

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