DEAR JOHN MCCAIN & FEEBLE-MINDED MEDIA:
I am a WOMAN. A SINGLE woman. And I am NOT referring to my lack of marital status. I am referring to the fact that I am an INDIVIDUAL woman. I am UNIQUE. I do NOT necessarily think like other women I may encounter in the course of a day. And they do NOT necessarily think like me.
I am SICK TO DEATH of us all being lumped together into some sort of collective. It is insulting. It is condescending.
None of you would ever DREAM of saying things like - "Joe Biden is a role model for men." You would be hooted at if you did. You would NEVER do news stories with opening lines such as "American men say they are still not hearing what they need to from the presidential candidates."
You wouldn't - would you?
Well then STOP doing it to us women!!! We are not mindless sheep all bleating in the same direction. I personally have heard what I need to hear from the candidates & made my mind up long ago so, what your idiotic, derivative news story was REALLY about was that SOME women had not made their minds up yet! SOME! not ALL! You are continuing the nonsense you began months ago with your mindless news stories about Hilary's women voters being so mad that they were refusing to vote for Obama. Maybe that was true of SOME, but not ALL of us reacted that way. Do your jobs! Tell the whole story. Dig deeper. And you, Campbell Brown - now known for calling the McCain campaign on its sexism towards SP - are guilty of perpetuating this sexist drivel just like the rest of the media. The "American women are still not hearing what they want" story was on YOUR program!
And as for you, Mr. McCain - how dare you imply that your running mate is a role model to women! The fact that a woman is on a presidential ticket - in & of itself - is a positive for women. Yes. HOWEVER - the actual woman herself is NOT a role model to women - at least I -an individual woman with an individual brain - do not think so.
SEE! I have an INDIVIDUAL opinion! Just like all of the INDIVIDUAL opinions that you all readily assume men to have.
Get with it folks! Your sexism is shamelessly on display!
A sincerely ANGRY,
Squid
I am a WOMAN. A SINGLE woman. And I am NOT referring to my lack of marital status. I am referring to the fact that I am an INDIVIDUAL woman. I am UNIQUE. I do NOT necessarily think like other women I may encounter in the course of a day. And they do NOT necessarily think like me.
I am SICK TO DEATH of us all being lumped together into some sort of collective. It is insulting. It is condescending.
None of you would ever DREAM of saying things like - "Joe Biden is a role model for men." You would be hooted at if you did. You would NEVER do news stories with opening lines such as "American men say they are still not hearing what they need to from the presidential candidates."
You wouldn't - would you?
Well then STOP doing it to us women!!! We are not mindless sheep all bleating in the same direction. I personally have heard what I need to hear from the candidates & made my mind up long ago so, what your idiotic, derivative news story was REALLY about was that SOME women had not made their minds up yet! SOME! not ALL! You are continuing the nonsense you began months ago with your mindless news stories about Hilary's women voters being so mad that they were refusing to vote for Obama. Maybe that was true of SOME, but not ALL of us reacted that way. Do your jobs! Tell the whole story. Dig deeper. And you, Campbell Brown - now known for calling the McCain campaign on its sexism towards SP - are guilty of perpetuating this sexist drivel just like the rest of the media. The "American women are still not hearing what they want" story was on YOUR program!
And as for you, Mr. McCain - how dare you imply that your running mate is a role model to women! The fact that a woman is on a presidential ticket - in & of itself - is a positive for women. Yes. HOWEVER - the actual woman herself is NOT a role model to women - at least I -an individual woman with an individual brain - do not think so.
SEE! I have an INDIVIDUAL opinion! Just like all of the INDIVIDUAL opinions that you all readily assume men to have.
Get with it folks! Your sexism is shamelessly on display!
A sincerely ANGRY,
Squid
Remember the backhanded comment you used to hear way back when McCain was young: he's a credit to his race?
ReplyDeleteIf she is a role model for anyone, it's a role defined by a fundamentalist, patriarchal society that hates liberty and particularly when it has to do with women.
It's an uncle Tom's role. It's a role in a passion play the moral of which is submission, obedience and a kind of economic and ethical feudalism.
Yes, the dismissal of a woman's right to survive something like the delivery of a hydrocephalic fetus as a privilege too easily abused, had me thinking those old revolutionary thoughts again.
It's part of their large objective though. It's the same with McCain's dismissal of universal health care by creating some fantasy about free hair transplants or Bush's excuse for limiting bankruptcy because some hypothetical person might abuse it.
McCain is not George Bush, but he's the same kind of bastard selling the same kind of antique tyranny; the same kind of oligarchy of small minds.
Yes indeed, "all women in the solar system" had better include themselves in the stories you describe. All of 'em! As I say my own feeble-minded lizard debate analysis, I thought McCain's comments about exceptions for a woman's health being a flimsy excuse for celebratory abortions was about the most insulting thing anyone could say. So far only HuffPo (those damn librals!) have picked up on this in a serious way, but I'll betcha millions of individual women out there noticed it and will carry that little swipe in memory all the way to the polling station. Fogg describes well the mindset of those who make such comments: if there's one person who might "abuse" an otherwise enormously helpful policy or program, why then, we mustn't have the policy or program. These people's worst hatred is reserved for government programs that actually WORK. Such programs undermine their ugly, pessimistic world view. If they had their way, we would be living in some Orwellian nightmare world--one in which nothing works, everything reeks of desperation and terror, and the only place to turn is "Big Brother." Michael Radford's film of 1984 captures that kind of world perfectly: the ultimate reductionism combined with utter moral imbecility.
ReplyDeleteWith over 300 species of squid classified into 29 families, I do concur with Squid on the subject of squid stereotyping. Among squid, indeed among all cephalopods, there is a wide diversity of opinion that defies lumping. At CephBase alone, one will find over 6,000 articles on squidness, but none of these treat Squid as an individual. So I too fault mainstream media for such lapses in judgment.
ReplyDeleteNot only do our individual opinions matter, we have been known to change our minds several times on any given day.
Speaking as a 52 year old American woman, I don't NEED a role model and if I WANTED a role model, I would NOT choose a twangy, Stalin-like despot who is a legend in her own mind!
ReplyDeleteI have a relative in Alaska (you can choose your friends but not your relatives) who tried to tell me how wonderful Palin is and how much she's done for Alaskans. She closed with, "We'll miss her if she wins."
I did send back a reply telling her not to worry, we of the lower 48 would send her back Palin as fast as we could.
Fogg - am I a credit to my sex? (feel free to NOT answer that)
ReplyDeleteB-Dino - yes, but may every woman in the solar system include themselves INDIVIDUALLY.
Octopus - what do you mean "we?" Aren't only female cephalopods known for changing their minds endlessly? (haha -grrrr)
Rockync - I gladly will help you to pay for SP's postage back to Alaska.
Octopus - what do you mean "we?" Aren't only female cephalopods known for changing their minds endlessly? (haha -grrrr)
ReplyDeleteDear Squid,
Please, no gender stereotyping! I am perfectly capable of changing my mind without any help from you ... (as he fades into sand).
(O)CT(O)PUS