Mark Morford: Conservative Women Are “Pseudo-Women” and “Bitches”

Originally published on June 28, 2010 at David Horowitz’s NewsReal
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mark-morford

Mark Morford, misogynist Obama worshipper

Mark Morford’s San Francisco Chronicle column is what a leftist’s diary might look like — if that leftist was a horny 14-year-old with a man-sized crush on Obama and a predilection for verbally abusing conservative women. Hmm. Scratch that. Morford’s column is exactly what a leftist’s diary would look like.

You might recognize Morford as the drooling Obama fetishist who proclaimed candidate Obama a “rare kind of attuned being” and a “Lightworker.” Or perhaps you remember his enlightened progressive description of “docile doormat” Laura Bush as “the ideal Republican wife: Prim, sexless, nearly useless, lets the men do the real thinkin.”

So really, who better to appoint himself this week’s Grand Arbiter of True Feminism?

Finding few reasons to gush about the Obama presidency, Morford’s current mission is to expose the “perverted kind of new womanhood” of Sarah Palin, Meg Whitman, and Nikki Haley. Ladies of the Left beware! warns Morford. The success of these “largely insufferable” conservative women comes packaged with a “s–bag of downsides, drawbacks, jackals and bitches.”

You kiss your mama with that mouth, Mark?

After a handful of slobbering sentences about progressive men with “perfectly sculpted genitalia” (no, I’m not kidding) and several more about their fat and sweaty Republican counterparts, Morford uses his column to explain that conservative women aren’t allowed to be feminists and don’t actually qualify as women anyway:

Witness, won’t you, the zeitgeist’s nightmare trifecta of largely insufferable women, the Sarah Palin/Carly Fiorina/Michele Bachmann hydra-headed hellbeast of pseudo-women, one part huge cash reserves, one part evil grammar-abusing ditzball psychopath, one part sassy misinformed moxie, overlaid with wonky ideas of motherhood, love of guns and ignorance of sex and reproductive rights.

These, along with Meg “I’m a Billionaire!” Whitman and Nikki “Sarah Palin hugged me!” Haley, et al, are the apparent “champions” of a perverted kind of new womanhood, some sort of mutant breed who claim it’s entirely possible, even desirable to be “pro-life and pro-feminist,” which is a bit like saying you’re “pro-oil spill and pro-environment.”

In other words: Sorry, no. No f–ing way. This is the rule: You do not ever get to say you’re any kind of feminist or champion of women and mothers everywhere, and in the same breath add that you also believe no woman should have control over her reproductive powers and, by the way, poor immigrant women should be sent back to Mexico and guns should be legal for all.

Another day, another tiresome attempt to dehumanize conservative women and belittle their accomplishments with absurd caricatures, vicious insults, and largely insufferable prose.

But at least Morford’s portrayal of successful conservative women as “some sort of mutant breed” of “pseudo-women” was condemned by the feminist Left, wasn’t it? No, as usual a man who calls himself progressive gets a free pass on misogyny as leftist women lap up puddles of his hateful venom.

A Jezebel writer calls his piece “a thoughtful column.” “Love this thoughtful and insightful rant,” writes Caitlin Kelly at True/Slant. British journalist Alison Clarke thinks Morford is “just plain wrong,” but only because he fails to acknowledge that enlightened feminists like her already know that conservative women are “a whole delightful s–bag of downsides.”

Men on the Left have had it affirmed for them time and again that misogyny is perfectly acceptableeven desirable – as long as women on the Right are the targets. Even public rape fantasies about conservative women are excused. As long as these men are good little lefty foot soldiers, they’re welcome to direct all manner of misogyny toward women who fail to toe the line on abortion, gun control, and illegal immigration.

So, Mark. As long as we’re making up rules, here’s one for you: You do not ever get to create feminist litmus tests, and in the same breath call Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley, and others pseudo-women and bitches.

I think it’s clear who the real anti-feminist is.

Update: Sister Toldjah also has a few choice words for Mark Morford.

Object to Prostitot Culture? You’re Probably a Racist Prude

Originally published at David Horowitz’s NewsReal
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Decked out in flashy burlesque costumes, five dancers mouth sexually suggestive lyrics as they writhe and shimmy across the stage.   The audience hoots and hollers as they gyrate to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).”

If you’ve seen the viral video then you already know: these YouTube sensations are just eight and nine years old.

The sight of a talented youth troupe thrusting their hips in shiny red hot pants prompted many commentators to condemn the parents and teachers involved.  But not everyone was on board.  In a Salon column last week, an infuriated Ada Calhoun ripped into critics for their “hysteria” and “moral panic” over the YouTube clip.  And the icing on her lily white cake of predictability?  If you criticize the video, you’re a racist.

But let’s start with Calhoun’s first beef with those of us who find the video disturbing. “Can we stop yelling at young women to put their clothes back on?” she asks.

These aren’t “young women.” They’re little girls who need to have their talent nurtured by responsible adults willing to set boundaries.  Instead, they’re being exploited by people catering to some Mohammedan fantasy.

No serious commentator yelled at the kids “to put their clothes back on.” The criticisms were directed at parents, choreographers, and anyone else who pretends that young talent can’t be nourished without rummaging through Dita von Teese’s wardrobe.

Calhoun’s next argument is that you should shut your hysterical neo-Victorian trap if all you can do is whine about kids today boppin’ to their doggone rock and roll records. “In every era, there are moral panics about girls; they all project the same tone of hysteria and the same cultural amnesia,” she writes.

Hysteria? This isn’t some town fight between the Squares and the Drapes or a moral panic about the “sinful gyrations” of Elvis Presley.  The outrage is that parents and teachers are coaching eight-year-olds to mimic sex acts for an audience of cheering adults.   In an era when thong panties come in tween sizes and condoms are handed out at school, there’s nothing prudish or panicky about encouraging kids to be kids.

But even that’s a problem for Calhoun who complains that “almost every article” included the line “Can’t we just let little girls be little girls?”  Is it really beyond the pale to suggest that parents shouldn’t rush their kids through childhood? Isn’t that Good Parenting 101?

Not in Calhoun’s eyes. She wrote an entire book on her parenting philosophy called Instinctive Parenting: Trusting Ourselves to Raise Good Kids. One Amazon reviewer called it “an entire book of excuses for being a bad parent.”

Now let’s return to Calhoun’s delightful charges of racism, quoted at length on the next page because laughter is good for the soul:

Why are there no Op-Eds when black girls dress or dance this way? If the problem is really with girls wearing these outfits, or dancing in this manner, why is it that the hundreds of YouTube videos of black 8- and 9-year-old girls doing their best “Single Ladies” (I just watched a bunch, some from dance competitions and some to the very same song) aren’t cause for alarm? Why aren’t their parents called to the carpet on morning television? Are they not relevant to the discussion for some reason I don’t understand?

And I’m no cultural studies expert, but the indignation over how (white) kids today like to dance (too much gyrating!) sounds an awful lot like the outrage over the effect “black music” had on white America in the 1950s. There is a lot of fear in the discussion of these dance competition girls: fear of sexuality, sure, but also, I think, fear of how diverse pop culture has become.

This could easily be a parody of Greg Gutfeld’s “Gregalogue” commentaries on “Red Eye”: “If you disagree with me, you’re probably a racist homophobe who eats unicorns.”  Incidentally, you know who else cries racism when you object to the exploitation of children? Pedophile activists. Is that who Ada Calhoun really wants to ally herself with?

After smearing everyone who objects to the early sexualization of children as racist, Calhoun demands to know why no one appreciates the girls’ for their talent.  I wonder how she reconciles that with her earlier observation that most writing on this issue includes the “grudging admission that ‘the girls were spectacular dancers.'”

Calhoun finishes her piece by reminding us that we’re all hysterical prudish scolds.

Of course, when these girls are parents themselves, they will be just as horrified by something their daughters are doing — hyper-driving their space-cars in foil miniskirts, say.

It’s just how we are, how we’ve always been, and probably always will be with girls: judgmental, scolding and afraid.

And that, not five young girls’ choreography, is the real shame.

But it isn’t just the choreography, it’s the entire performance.  It’s the skimpy costumes designed to give the illusion of curves where children have none. It’s the sight of children undulating in distinctly un-childlike ways while mouthing lyrics about what men need to do to get laid. What kind of lesson is it to girls that the skimpiest, thrustiest routine wins?

If Ada Calhoun can’t understand the problem, it’s time for her to turn in her feminist card.

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Feminist Left Uses Child’s DIY Abortion by Pencil to Score Political Points

Originally published at David Horowitz’s NewsReal
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30-year-old Michael Lisk told police he had sex with his 13-year-old neighbor “too many times to count.”  He said the rapes, which began when the girl was just 12, were “like a marriage where you have sex all the time.”

Twelve months of sexual abuse culminated in a horrific incident last week when the pregnant child jammed a lead pencil through her cervix to trigger an abortion.  After three days of increasing pain, Lisk “advised her to ‘push hard’ when she got a strong contraction.” She delivered a stillborn baby boy into the toilet, and on Lisk’s advice, placed the body in a plastic bag and threw it into the backyard.  He took the bag and buried it in the woods by his home.

The following day the girl’s mother took her to the hospital where medical staff discovered evidence of a recent pregnancy and notified police.  Days later, the girl was violated yet again when the feminist Left turned her into the latest poster child for the abortion rights movement.

With absolutely no knowledge of this child’s situation, Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky insists parental consent laws are to blame for the gruesome home abortion.

One of the intentions behind these laws seems to be to let an adult know that their teenager is sexually active, presumably so they can intervene, or that their teenager has been raped, presumably so they can help them. In this case, those idealistic goals catastrophically failed.

It’s not hard to see how the fact that this 13-year-old girl needed parental consent for an abortion — which likely would have tipped them off to her 30-year-old friend/rapist — could have led her to do it herself.

Not that there’s any reason to believe this kid sought a medically-supervised abortion.  And if she did? Any clinic near her home (and there are more than half a dozen within 30 miles) would have gleefully helped her stick it to the “anti-choicers” with a judicial bypass.

And heaven forfend a sexually active teen be forced to talk to her parents! Newsflash: most pregnant teens are afraid to tell their parents. That doesn’t mean parents don’t have a right to know.

Jill Filipovic at Feministe sees this child’s suffering as an opportunity to score points against pro-life groups:

[T]his girl obviously needed access to safe abortion care; if she had such access, she wouldn’t have had to self-induce abortion with a lead pencil. Abortion access would have lessened this tragedy by a significant degree. It’s shameful that, under the guise of caring about children and babies, anti-choice groups seek to limit abortion access for women and girls.

In Jill’s teen abortion fantasy, this child desperately wanted to terminate her pregnancy at the local Planned Parenthood, but the vast patriarchal conspiracy forced her to drive a sharpened piece of lead into her uterus instead.  Cue the dream sequence sound effects. If only 13-year-olds could hit up the junior high vending machine for a dose of Mifepristone.  Press 1 for Reese’s Pieces, press 2 for extra large cherry-flavored condoms, press 3 for abortifacient drugs. Why, abortion access like that would totally “have lessened this tragedy by a significant degree.”

There really are no words to fully address the depravity of this mindset.

The tragedy is that this child was betrayed, abused, or neglected by every single adult in her life.  A child molester raped her more than a hundred times, impregnated her, and coached her through a do-it-yourself abortion by pencil.  Reports suggest the fetus may have been “past 20 weeks gestation” but no one noticed or cared enough to help. And for three days after the self-induced abortion, no one realized she was ill.

A medically-supervised abortion might have lessened the trauma to the girl’s body, but to what “significant degree” would it diminish the tragedy? The life of a fetus that may have been past the point of viability was snuffed out in utero. A child who needed protection, guidance, and love got none of these things.

We may never know exactly why this kid risked her life to terminate her pregnancy. We may never know how many teachers, family members, and friends failed to keep her safe.

What we do know is that her decisions were influenced by a predator who wanted to destroy the evidence of his crime and ensure continued access to his vulnerable victim. Unrestricted access to abortion wouldn’t do a thing to change that, and neither will turning a child rape victim into a political football.

Please visit NewsReal to read more of my work or follow me on Twitter.

Out: Female Genital Mutilation, In: Female Genital “Nicking,” Says American Academy of Pediatrics

female genital mutilation fgm

From my May 8, 2010 piece at NewsReal Blog:

There is no limit to the depravity of the cultists who worship at the altar of multiculturalism.

100 to 140 million girls and women around the world have been subjected to genital mutilation. And now, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is embracing this barbaric expression of misogyny in the name of cultural sensitivity and immigrant outreach.

Equality Now is stunned by a new policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which essentially promotes female genital mutilation (FGM) and advocates for “federal and state laws [to] enable pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick’,” such as pricking or minor incisions of girls’ clitorises.

Surely pediatricians sworn to do no harm wouldn’t advocate a medically unnecessary practice rooted firmly in hatred of women. Equality Now must have misread the AAP’s statement on FGM, right?

Wrong. According to the AAP:

Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints. However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.

Hey, let’s compromise!  We can also reach out to the Muslim community and ask men to commit honor “nicking” instead of honor murder.  It’s a win-win. They get to continue violently victimizing women under the guise of preserving “honor,” and we get to hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.” What’s a little broken skin as long as we’re avoiding “greater harm”?

The AAP statement also compares physician-assisted ritual puncturing of girls’ genitals to ear piercing.  Ear piercing.

And apparently the AAP is concerned about the unintended consequences of continuing to prosecute people for “female genital cutting” (Newspeak for FGM):

Some physicians, including pediatricians who work closely with immigrant populations in which FGC is the norm, have voiced concern about the adverse effects of criminalization of the practice on educational efforts.

Go ahead and scream or puke or tear your hair out. I’ll wait.

Promoting a less extreme version of genital mutilation as a replacement for the horrors of clitoridectomy, excision, and infibulation is door we must never open in America.  This is ground we cannot cede.

And by “we” I refer to authentic feminists, not the Left’s faux-feminist misogyny apologists like Amanda Marcotte (h/t The Other McCain):

I don’t really see the problem with the American Academy of Pediatrics advising doctors to offer a “ritual nick” in lieu of the more serious forms of female circumcision that are often on offer in some other parts of the world. The practice is something that is done in modern places that want to have a link to tradition without actually doing any real harm to little girls, from what I understand. All they do is prick your genitals, or make a small cut that heals over, but nothing is removed. You’re basically scratching the girl. It’s not awesome . . . but comparing it to more severe forms of female circumcision troubles me.

. . . .

And it’s not like Western culture is so free of blatantly misogynist traditions, either.  Part of me wishes that we had a two minute nicking at the doctor instead of the entire painfully misogynist wedding tradition that persists in the name of tradition.

Ritual laceration of the genitals doesn’t do “any real harm to little girls”?  Really?  Perpetuating the idea that women’s sexuality is an evil that needs to be suppressed or destroyed doesn’t do “any real harm”?

No, Amanda.  Misogyny masquerading as a minor out-patient procedure is still misogyny.  This medically supervised clitoral “nicking” still invites the continued importation of toxic, dangerous practices; it sends the unthinkable message that fear of cultural insensitivity makes it desirable to betray young girls.

It’s unacceptable.

Monica Conyers and Hipsters on Food Stamps

Monica Conyers

This piece first appeared at NewsReal earlier this month.

Former Detroit Councilwoman Monica Conyers clutched a $1,000 Louis Vuitton handbag as she emerged from a chauffeured Lincoln Town Car to attend her sentencing for a bribery conviction.

Just days later, a federal judge declared her indigent and appointed a public defender to represent her. Now taxpayers will foot the bill for the “destitute” Mrs. Conyers’ to appeal her plea-bargained 37 month sentence.  Never mind that her husband, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich), pulls down $174,000 a year.

Why should an elected official help his wife with her legal bills if they can get the government to pick up the tab? After all, John Conyers is part of the “most ethical Congress in history,” so it must be okay.

And don’t concern yourself with pesky details, like the fact that Mrs. Conyers earned an $80,000 annual salary until she resigned from the Detroit City Council last July.  She’s no freeloader, she’s indigent!

Gerry Mak, hipster douchebagAcross the country in Baltimore, some of Mrs. Conyers’ younger progressive kindred might not have her brazen sense of entitlement yet, but they’re working on it. “They’re young, they’re broke, and they pay for organic salmon with government subsidies.” They’re hipsters on food stamps.

One of them is Gerry Mak, a 31-year-old artist who “grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else.”  Like Monica Conyers, Mak was thrilled when he discovered how to turn the government into his personal Pez dispenser.

Please head over to NewsReal to read the rest, including details on how this hipster parasite refuses to do the “living off ramen thing.”

The Moral Superiority of Chicks with Chicks

Respect Chicks

If carnivores eat meat, what exactly do femivores eat?

Fortunately, it’s not what you think.  Forget any mental images of Don Juan meets Leatherface and let me translate from New York Timesese to English. Femivores are highly educated, feminist stay-at-home moms who embrace outdoorsy domesticity like growing organic vegetables and raising chickens.

Basically, they’re chicks with chicks.

But a rural housewife who builds her own chicken coop and cans vegetables from her garden wouldn’t capture the attention of the New York Times, and she certainly wouldn’t qualify as a femivore.  According to writer Peggy Orenstein, the femivore’s natural habitat is Berkeley.  And she isn’t a housewife out of necessity, but by choice.

One of the reasons femivores keep chickens is to distinguish themselves from other housewives.  They legitimize their desire to be homemakers by politicizing the act. Every freshly hatched egg is a political and environmental statement.

Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?

For these women, it isn’t enough to make choices that suit your family and reflect your values; you have to agonize over the eco-feminist implications (and have the backyard chicken coop to prove it.) This movement, if it can even be called that, isn’t about true self-sufficiency. It’s about “progressive” women going just a little bit regressive to create the illusion of self-reliance.

[Continued at NewsReal – please click here to read the whole thing.]

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