French WomenTrading Feminine Allure For Mere Sexuality?

A new study out of France confirms some of the recent postings here about the changing nature of rape (here and here), raising the question: If women are just as promiscuous and forward about sex as men, is it time to rethink our fundamental thoughts about how we define and prosecute rape?

(Obvious disclaimer for the thick-headed: This article is not about the violent, power-driven, violent rape -- the crime as we all have traditionally understood it. That remains unquestionably the place for fierce prosecution and long sentences. It is about "gray rape," when a woman who is sexually provocative not just by her dress, but by her words and actions, later charges her partner with rape.)

The study, as reported in The Telegraph, shows a dramatic transformation of the French female:

Women now have more than twice as many partners as they did in the 1970s, according to the study by the French Aids research agency, which is backed by the government.

"Are women just like men?" asked Le Nouvel Observateur yesterday, which released extracts of the Study on Sexuality in France, a 600-page tome that brings together 12,000 in-depth interviews with people of all ages conducted during 2005-06.

One of the biggest changes in recent years, according to the report, was that male and female sexual behaviour had become increasingly similar.

The proportion of French women who claim to have had only one partner has dropped from 68 per cent in 1970, to 43 per cent in 1992 and 34 per cent in 2006. A woman's average number of partners has risen from under two in 1970 to over five today, while a man's has remained the same for four decades, almost 13.

French women's first experience of sex is now almost as early as that of the opposite sex: in 1950 there was a two-year difference, but the gap has narrowed to four months, to around 17 and a half. Meanwhile, more women remain sexually active for longer than previously: nine-out-of-10 women over 50 are sexually active today, compared to just 50 per cent of that age group in 1970.

And here's the zinger:

"The good old dichotomy (male predators, females patiently awaiting the warrior's return in front of the cave entrance) is in big trouble", said Le Nouvel Observateur.

What we are seeing is the exchanging by women of feminism (not "feminist-ism!") for sexism or sexual parity. Feminism has taught women that they are the same as man, which means of course that women must be sexual in the same way as men are. Once that transformation occurs, especially if it's encouraged by alcohol and drugs, you get women as willing to be provocative as men are eager to be provoked, as evidenced by the increasing number of partners French women are bedding.

The old norm did not allow for breast-flashing, dry-humping on the dance floor, or the actually initiation of the sex act as normal feminine behavior; rather, it was seen as the actions of a woman who had made up her mind to go all the way.

The old norm had to do with the allure, the promise of something special and rare. If it were not so, why is does lingerie exist? The fact that in the old days, women slipped away to "slip into something more comfortable" shows that there were stages to seduction, and decisions made along the way. The lingerie was in dresser drawer, not the dance floor.

Feminism has done all it can to destroy the feminine. Left without their whiles, it's not surprising that some women decide part way through a sex act, or wake up the next morning, realizing that they've made a mistake. When that occurs, they would be more justified in charging Gloria Steinem with rape than the hapless man they led, or misled, into bed.

The man was just being normal, but Steinem and her sisters and acolytes were striving to turn normality on its head, attacking biology, physiology, morality and tradition. It's no surprise that the liquor companies, bar operators, fashion designers and frat houses have all been quick to seek their self-interests by aiding and abetting the transformation.

Lost in the process was innocence. Will society come to miss it one day? Will Pandora's box close once again?

More Questions On The Meaning Of Rape

In her recent excellent post, Rape, Bookworm gives us this quote from a Harvard female student who told this story of being raped -- or at least "raped" in today's warped sense of the word:

What can I tell you about being raped? Very little. I remember drinking with some girlfriends and then heading to a party in the house that some seniors were throwing. I’m told that I walked in and within 5 minutes was making out with one of the guys who lived there, who I’d talked to some in the dining hall but never really hung out with. I may have initiated it. I don’t remember arriving at the party; I dimly remember waking up at some point in the early morning in this guy’s room. I remember him walking me back to my room. I couldn’t have made it alone; I still had too much alcohol in my system to even stand up straight. I made myself vulnerable and even now it’s hard to think that someone here who I have talked and laughed with could be cold-hearted enough to take advantage of that vulnerability. I’d rather, sometimes, take half the blame than believe that a profound evil can exist in mankind. But it’s easy for me to say, that, of the two of us, I’m the only one who still has nightmares, found myself panicking and detaching during sex for many months afterwards, and spent more time looking into the abyss than any one person should.

The inequalities of the consequences of the night, the actions taken unintentionally or not, have changed the course of only one of our lives, irrevocably and profoundly.

She didn't even remember the party. She was making out with a guy she hardly knew. They slept together. Is it rape? Or as I said in my post on the same topic, The Rape of Rape on America's Campuses, was the guy guilty of no more than saying "OK" to her "Lesh do it?"

Before you answer, consider this email I got from a friend regarding the post:

Your past few blogs have been really excellent! I’ve OFTEN fumed about the feminist agenda when it comes to rape statistics. While at UCSB, the TAKE BACK THE NIGHT parade always had me miffed. They always quoted the 25% number. As the only “sober sister” at my sorority, I witnessed first hand the drinking, promiscuity and tears that followed over and over and over again.

When I asked why the girls would get so hammered knowing that they would probably make a choices that night that they would later regret, they all, without fail, said that they were “in college and just wanted to have fun without stressing about it.” Sleazy, cheap, drunken sex never sounded that great to me. It also doesn’t sound like RAPE. If the boys are just as drunk as the girls, how are they expected to be more accountable?

They shouldn't be. When a woman opens herself to a man and encourages him, the resulting act can be many things, but it can't be rape. But apparently some prosecutors don't get the difference. With a hat-tip to Bookworm, here's a case from England, told by The Daily Mail:

The sex trial nightmare of a Cambridge graduate ended yesterday leaving a huge question mark over the decision to charge him.

Jack Gillett was accused of assault by a fellow student after a drunken night of passion. He has spent nine months under a cloud of suspicion and facing the threat of up to ten years in jail.

But after a three-day trial this week, a jury took just two and a half hours to throw out the £50,000 case. Afterwards, Judge Gareth Hawkesworth questioned why it had ever been brought by the Crown Prosecution Service.

"It is a very sad thing that a case like this should come before the court involving two young people struggling to come to terms with the complexities of life and about to start on their careers," he said.

Indeed it is sad. Gillet, 23, was accused by a 22-year-old, whose charges included that she had begged Gillet many times to stop. Her anonymity is protected by the law despite the fact that the jury discounted her tale, and despite the fact that Gillet is anything but anonymous.

The girl's charges appear to be not unlike her Harvard sister's:

The jury had heard that Mr Gillett's accuser, the daughter of a well-known personality, had twice left the room on the night of the incident, but returned.

That effectively neuters her claim that she told him to stop early on, but he kept going. He counter-claims that he did stop, but she came back for more -- twice, apparently.

As for her cries for help:

Two students in a nearby room testified that they had not heard her calling for help, even though their door and Mr Gillett's were left ajar throughout the alleged ordeal.

This case has a fair amount of "she said/he said," but the circumstances obviously weighed in Gillett's favor -- especially testimony of one of the "victim's" friends:

A friend of the accuser said last night that she had not wanted Mr Gillett convicted, but just wanted to "give him a scare so he wouldn't do it again".

This is the even more unseemly flip side of the promiscuousness that permeates our society. It's all about morals: There's really not much difference between a girl having no compunction about going to a man's room and having sex with the door open, and a girl not being able to think proportionately about any other of her actions. Subjecting a person to a lengthy, public court process to "give him a scare?"

"My son's reputation has suffered, while she remains anonymous," [Gillett's mother] said. "If she could have been named maybe she would have held back."

Maybe if she had been taught logic, civics and morality, she would have held back as well.

Clinton's Defense Chief Speaks

Maybe she's lobbying for a gig as head of Hillary's Pentagon. Whatever the reasons, feminist Gloria Steinem had a lot to say to The NY Observer, including:

• “From George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people.”
  
  
• “Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight [sic] years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’ ... I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”
  
  
• “I am so grateful that she [Clinton] hasn’t been trained to kill anybody. And she probably didn’t even play war games as a kid. It’s a great relief from Bush in his jump suit and from Kerry saluting.”

Thank you, Gloria, for reminding us of just how anti-military the Cintons are. From their first day in office, they attacked military institutions, budgets and weapons systems. To these two Vietnam anti-war protesters, the military became nothing more than a PR tool to fire up when scandal hit.

Remember Bill Clinton's notorious letter to his draft board, in which he laid out his opposition to the Vietnam war?

I have written and spoken and marched against the war. One of the national organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium is a close friend of mine. After I left Arkansas last summer, I went to Washington to work in the national headquarters of the Moratorium, then to England to organize the Americans here for demonstrations Oct. 15 and Nov. 16. ...

Because of my opposition to the draft and the war, I am in great sympathy with those who are not willing to fight, kill and maybe die for their country (i.e. the particular policy of a particular government) right or wrong. Two of my friends at Oxford are conscientious objectors. I wrote a letter of recommendation for one of them to his Mississippi draft board, a letter which I am more proud of than anything else I wrote at Oxford last year. ...

The decision not to be a resister and the related subsequent decisions were the most difficult of my life. I decided to accept the draft in spite of my beliefs for one reason: to maintain my political viability within the system.

A lot of folks from my generation, myself included, were against the Vietnam war. Many of us, myself included, now realize that was youthful folly and wish we could take back what we said and thought at the time. But to my knowledge, Clinton and his life partner are not among us in that regard.

So during this campaign, as Hillary Clinton campaigns as the more adept of the Dem candidates at military issues, the more capable of handling the challenges of radical Islam's war on us, I've had to ask, "Where are the challenging questions? Who in the MSM is going to stand up to this?"

Now Steinem has opened the door pretty wide open. The Clinton campaign, having benefitted from Steinem's gallant effort to rally radical feminists and anti-war activists to the campaign, will distance themselves from the remarks, glad that they've been said.

They'll go for the best of both worlds now: Rallying the radicals and pandering to everyone else by apologizing for the criticism of McCain, calling him a hero. They will not address the other statements regarding Clinton's anti-war past, of course.

Ta-da; here's the statement, tacked onto the bottom of the NYObserver piece:

"Senator Clinton has repeatedly praised Senator McCain's courage and service to our country. These comments certainly do not represent her thinking in any way. Senator Clinton intends to have a respectful debate with Senator McCain on the issues."

Exactly.

hat-tip: memeorandum

The Rape Of Rape On American Campuses

Listen to this very short clip and be prepared to be attacked in a whole new way for your conservative beliefs:



And you probably weren't even aware that as a conservative, you were promoting the gray rape myth! I certainly wasn't. In fact, because of my Incredible Wife's Voice of the Victims work, I'm very concerned about the very real problem of drug-induced rape -- although I admit that "gray rape" is a phrase I would have defined incorrectly, if asked.

Heather Mac Donald, whose LA Times piece so triggered Tracy Clark-Flory's clip above, defines gray rape thusly:

In all these drunken couplings, there may be some deplorable instances of forced and truly non-consensual sex. But most campus "rape" cases exist in the gray area of seeming cooperation and tacit consent, which is why they are almost never prosecuted criminally.

Because of my wife's work, I've been introduced to women who have been drugged in bars, then raped, so this is a topic that interests me. That and Clark-Flory's accusation that conservatives are causing all this, caused me to immediately read Clark-Flory's story at Salon, Girls, Stop Rape through "Sexual Restraint"! and the story that set her off, Heather Mac Donald's LAT op/ed, What Campus Rape Crisis? Promiscuity and hype have created a phony epidemic at colleges.

Mac Donald's piece starts with a simple enough premise: The reported number of campus rapes is so high as to raise legitimate questions regarding the source and quality of the data:

It is a central claim of these [campus sexual assault] organizations that between a fifth and a quarter of all college women will be raped or will be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years. Harvard's Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response uses the 20% to 25% statistic. Websites at New York University, Syracuse University, Penn State and the University of Virginia, among many other places, use the figures as well. ...

If the one-in-four statistic is correct, campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No felony, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20% or 25%, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in the U.S., was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants -- a rate of 2.4%.

Such a crime wave -- in which millions of young women would graduate having suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience -- would require nothing less than a state of emergency. Admissions policies, which if the numbers are true are allowing in tens of thousands of vicious criminals, would require a complete revision, perhaps banning male students entirely. The nation's nearly 10 million female undergraduates would need to take the most stringent safety precautions.

It is a healthy reaction in a Free Press society to question statistics that seem unreasonable, so Mac Donald is absolutely legitimate in posing here question -- especially given that NationMaster tells us the rape rate per capita in the US is 0.3 incidents per thousand population. Even so, that Mac Donald even raised the question set Ms. Hyphenated off:

There is the stereotype of the feminist blogger foaming at the mouth while banging on a keyboard covered in spittle. Let me tell you, though, writing week after week about feminist issues inevitably causes you to become a bit jaded; things that once would have sent the spittle flying only inspire a curl of the lip, a roll of the eyes. But today, thanks to an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times about "the rape hype" on college campuses, my blood is boiling and I am fully embodying that stereotype.

Having vented, Clark-Flory does actually rebut Mac Donald, but she does it by quoting another study instead of addressing the perceptive demographic challenge raised by Mac Donald.

Let's dispense with the "science" behind this argument first. It all goes back to a 1980's study commissioned by Ms Magazine (red flags, anyone?), in which the author, Mary Koss, didn't use the word "rape" in her survey designed to identify the rate of rapes on campus.

That may seem odd, but she had her reasons. Her question didn't use "rape" because she thought sensitive females would not answer such a direct question honestly. Instead, she asked,

"Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?"

Not surprisingly, she got HUGE results -- the same 20 to 25 percent figure the colleges want us to believe. Mac Donald says, and I believe, that many women who answered "yes" simply had on "beer goggles" at a bar and put out, then regretted it. As Mac Donald put it:

College women -- as well as men -- reportedly drink heavily before and during parties. For the women, that drinking is often goal-oriented, suggests Karin Agness, a recent University of Virginia graduate and founder of NeW, a club for conservative university women: It frees the drinker from responsibility and "provides an excuse for engaging in behavior that she ordinarily wouldn't." Nights can include a meaningless sexual encounter with a guy whom the girl may not even know.

These women are not the victims of rape, even though they would answer "yes" to the survey question. Rape is a violent, ugly crime, not a Saturday night moment of ill-advised (or even self-directed) promiscuity.

The study with which Clark-Flory fights back attempted to fix this problem, not by asking about rape straight-up, but by rephrasing the question,

Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to but were so intoxicated under the influence of alcohol or drugs that you could not stop it or object?

The results were identical to Koss', thereby "proving" a phenomenal amount of drug or alcohol-facilitated rapes on campus.

But here's the problem: Neither question addressed the man's intent, the woman's actions against the man, or any of the circumstances of the act. Rape is -- or has been up until now -- described legally by a particular set of circumstances that feminists are now trying to redefine. Just as anti-war factions are trying to redefine "torture" in order to create a cause where where wasn't one before, the feminists want to broaden the meaning of rape so more women become victims, thus increasing the relevance of their cause.

In one sense I agree with them: More attention has to be given to women who are victimized by drug-assisted rape, when a man slips GHB or a roofie slipped into their drink so they become immobilized, then hustles them out of the bar and carries out upon them an act that is, indeed, rape.

Drug-facilitated rape is very real crime that should not be minimized. Incredible Wife posted on her blog the story of Annette, the drug-facilitated rape victim you see here, that illustrates that the crime is, indeed, rape, with long-term damage that can be even worse that when the rape victim is sober.

Victims like Annette have trouble convincing police and prosecutors they've been raped. They have no memory of what happened and there's frequently no physical evidence because memories of what happened to them start to become real well after the crime. And, most damaging to the victims, law enforcement officials too readily dismiss these victims as bar sluts, not rape victims. That's particularly damaging to them because they were drugged, and were not drunk and promiscuous prior to being drugged.

To the extent that creating a false crisis out of campus and bar rapes will help the thousands of Annettes who are struggling to be heard, and who are psychologically damaged because society is calling them bar sluts instead of rape victims, more power to the false statistics.

But the studies cited by Clark-Flory do just the opposite. They group true date-rape victims with the girls who just got drunk and got laid. That minimizes the crime, and worse, it minimizes the perpetrator. One perp is a premeditating criminal who uses dangerous drugs just as effectively as other rapists use weapons and threats of violence; the other is some guy who just happened to be at a bar when a drunk girl said, "Lesh do it."

The other danger of the Clark-Flory approach is that it places justice in the hands of collegiate bureaucrats. As you can imagine, the colleges have set up protocols for dealing with the crisis created by foolishly broadening the definition of rape. Girls can ask committees of muddle-headed academics to rule on the fate of boys whose crime may have been no more than to say "Sure" to the girl's "Lesh do it."

Muddle-headed? You bet. This is from Mac Donald's piece:

"If one partner puts a condom on the other, does that signify that they are consenting to intercourse?" asks Alan D. Berkowitz, a campus rape consultant. Short of guiding the thus-sheathed instrumentality to port, it's hard to imagine a clearer signal of consent, although Berkowitz apparently finds it "inherently ambiguous."

Woe be to the American university.

Boiled down to its core, Clark-Flory puts her faith in academic research and Mac Donald puts hers in human intelligence and reason -- all of which makes Mac Donald a quaint anachronism in a world that is set at full speed towards confusion and victimization.

She is demonized because she has the gall to suggest that dressing with your boobs and butt-cheeks hanging out, dancing the bump and grind with whatever male approaches you while swilling booze straight from the bottle may have consequences.

No matter if she's fighting against the minimization of rape -- a position feminists should laud -- she has argued against freedom without consequences and victimization without a crime.

Lost in all this is education, which once was the reason for going to college. That we are even having this debate is evidence that another institution that was foundational to the creation of America's greatness is slipping into mediocrity.

The Most Ridiculous Story Of 2008?

Updated

We're off to an early start with the 2008 edition of "Most Ridiculous Story of the Year," with honors for being the first contender going to Gloria Steinem for her NYT op/ed today, Women are never front-runners.

She would probably call it sexist that I nominated a woman first. That's the tone of her tome.

Update: Of course, just a dozen or so hours after Steinem's op/ed appeared, Hillary's win in New Hampshire made the entire exercise moot. So as you read on, note how the ubber-feminist's entire piece takes on a tone of emotional hysteria not born out by facts. A female trait? I dare you to ask Steinem for an answer. (End of update)

(The rules for the competition are this: Entries must be work that serious writers present in all seriousness that goes far, far beyond the sublime and settle heavily into the imbecilic.)

This piece certainly qualifies, starting with the title. Women are never front-runners? Really? How long was Hillary the front-runner in poll after poll from coast to coast? And wasn't she the front-runner when she ran for senate? What about our women governors -- weren't they front-runners?

The first step in a feminist screed op/ed is to flip the "always/never" button. It's been so effectively tried and tested true in domestic disputes since the dawn of time -- "You always leave the toilet seat up. You never help around the house." -- that Steinem is comfortable using it in her title.

She begins her narrative with a portrait of someone who shares Barack Obama's bio but happens to be a woman -- lawyer, former community organizer, married to a lawyer, mother of two, state legislator, black and "an inspirational voice for national unity" -- and asks the question, "Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate?"

Of course not, and it doesn't matter whether the person described is a man or a woman. Obama is even less qualified to be president than the global disaster that was Jimmy Carter and it's stunning that he's the front-runner for the Dem nomination. But that's not how Steinem sees it:

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House. This country is way down the list of countries electing women and, according to one study, it polarizes gender roles more than the average democracy.

One study?! Oh please. Since when was one study conclusive of anything? Gloria, Honey, was the study done by feminazis female academicians?

Besides, I would argue that lack of intelligence, not gender, is the most most restricting force in American life. After all, the more intelligent George Bush beat the less intelligent John Kerry. Discrimination by race or gender -- and I would argue particularly by gender -- is a thing of the past in America ... unless you're running in Steinem's circle:

That’s why the Iowa primary was following our historical pattern of making change. Black men were given the vote a half-century before women of any race were allowed to mark a ballot, and generally have ascended to positions of power, from the military to the boardroom, before any women (with the possible exception of obedient family members in the latter).

I see, Obama won in Iowa because black men got the vote before women did. Illuminating. And disgraceful in how she diminishes the powerful role of women in our society from its beginnings onwards. The vote is not the only measure of a woman's power; ask Abigail Adams. But Steinem's not listening; instead, she's laying out the holy grail of sexism:

So why is the sex barrier not taken as seriously as the racial one? The reasons are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; ...

In other words, those of us who look at the world around us and easily deduce that their are natural differences between men and women are sexists, which is why Hillary lost in Iowa.

... because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects “only” the female half of the human race; ...

Name me something beyond prostate cancer that only affects males? Not football, not war, not despotism, not politics. Of course, we all know that breast cancer funding far outstrips prostate cancer funding.

... because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; ...

And women being the primary raisers of children is a bad thing? It is, if you hold to the mistaken belief that there are no real differences between men and women, but anyone who has noted that female breasts produce milk and men's don't will see the fallacy of the feminist point of view here.

Her latter point, that men regress into childhood when they see a strong woman, is very interesting; something I'd like to ask Dr. Sanity. My mother was a strong woman and my wife is a strong woman -- in fact, I know precious few weak women -- and I don't find myself reverting to childhood too often. Of course, Steinem probably thinks that getting excited about a football game is reverting to childhood (and crying while watching the latest Lifetime movie isn't).

... because racism stereotyped black men as more “masculine” for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren’t too many of them); ...

Steinem falls to long-dong racism. What the heck is "masculinity-affirming" anyway? Is getting a paycheck masculinity-affirming? Satisfying your wife? Chopping a cord of wood? Tuning a car? Opening a door for a feminist? What a ridiculous idea, and to think that I feel more like a man when the more than a little soft around the edges Barack Obama is around is ridiculousness squared. Hillary is much more masculinity-affirming.

... and because there is still no “right” way to be a woman in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

Finally, a point I can nod along with ... except for Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto and a host of others who seem to have figured this out quite well.

Steinem then says Obama and Clinton can't argue during debates because:

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.

So what are they supposed to do? Dainty minuets while the other candidates trounce them? Solidarity fist-thrusting while the other candidates actually discuss issues? The point is ridiculous, anyway. Abolition and sufferage happened to move forward in roughly the same century with many players in common -- but saying they were interdependent is historical revisionism and out of place even in this ridiculous column.

Lest you think that Steinem is supporting Clinton for no other reason than she's a woman, she provides the full list:

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule.

Check, check, check, what?! "No masculinity to prove?" I just don't get these feminists. Out of one side of their mouths, they say women and men are the same, out of the other, they say women should not show masculine trends, and out of the other (they do have three sides to their mouths), they ridicule women who act like women, i.e., feminine.

And she apparently feels women are too dumb and disengaged to apply their talent unless a woman is in office. Of course, Hillary's election would be an inspiration for women, but whether it would have a measurable impact would be questionable, since women are already thoroughly integrated into our society.

And is that what she did yesterday -- break the no tears rule? I don't think Steinem understands the rule. Muskee lost it because he was crying a "Woe is me!" cry, as Hillary was yesterday, as the realization that she just might lose hit her. Bush, on the other hand, wells up regularly and isn't hurt by it, because he cries for others, not himself: The wounded, the killed, the hurting. That, Gloria, is the no-tears rule; it has nothing to do with male or female.

She then launches into five "what worries me" statements:

But what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.

If he's so unifying, why aren't blacks quick to rally around him? And to view Hillary as divisive by her sex is to ignore the Clinton legacy, the debacle that was her First Ladyhood (from health care to moms baking cookies), and her unique and divisive personality. Blame it all on sexism; it's easier.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

I just don't know who's making or not making these accusations. If there's any rap on the Obama campaign, it's that he's not addressing the black agenda.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

Who saw it this way? I heard cries that men couldn't support Hillary because they weren't ready for a woman president and I didn't hear any criticisms of women who supported candidates other than Hillary. They were perceived as individuals with brains, not feminists who blindly follow.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo.

What Democratic presidential hopeful has not raised John F. Kennedy, and what commentator on Democratic candidates has not done so as well. I've heard no comparisons of Hillary to Jackie, for what it's worth.

What worries me is that some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system; thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.

Or grow more conservative, if you buy the whole Washington insider rap against Hillary. But I do agree with Steinem in a general way. My mother has leaned more left as she's aged.

Done being a worrywart, she concludes:

This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers. We have to be able to say: “I’m supporting her because she’ll be a great president and because she’s a woman.”

Well, duh. And what's your point, then, Steinem? This is the year that both a woman and a black have run serious races for the first time so your sex and race points are already moot. It is becoming evident that two things are ringing Steinem's clock: That a black man is ahead of a white woman, and that George Bush (money, powerful fathers and paper degrees [as if there were any other kind!]).

So in the end, we see where it all begins: Strident feminism and strident liberalism in one package, one blinding the right side of the brain, the other blinding the left. We couldn't ask for a better example of why radical feminism is nearly dead, and deserves to die.

Of course the NYT ran it, since it is a repository of the ridiculous.

Sunday Scan

Birds (Vultures?) Of A Feather

Why are we not surprised by this bit of news from Fars, the Iranian news propaganda-wire?

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Sunday voiced Tehran's support for Zimbabwe's independence and progress, and called for the utilization of all the ample potentials existing for the expansion of Tehran-Harare cooperation.

According to a report released by the Presidential Press Office, the president made the remarks in a meeting with Zimbabwe's new ambassador to Tehran, where he underscored that Tehran perceives no limit to the expansion of ties with Harare. ...

Ahmadinejad praised resistance of the Iranian and Zimbabwean nations against bullying powers, and reiterated, "Iran strongly supports the rights, independence and progress of the Zimbabwean nation."

For his part, the envoy appreciated Iran's support for the Zimbabwean nation against the bullying powers' aggressions, and underlined Harare's resolve to develop all-out ties with Iran and use Tehran's valuable experiences in the various grounds.

Proof here that you can tell a person's character by the company he keeps. The two nations may wish to pause to ask the all-important question: "Why are they bullying us?"

The Betty Windsor Channel

Queen Elizabeth has gone digital, with her own page on YouTube. Until they post her new Christmas message, you can view her first televised message, from 1957, in which she looks up from her written notes and says,

Happy Christmas.

She then looks down at her notes to refresh her memory, and adds,

Twenty-five years ago, my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages. Today is another landmark because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas day.

In 2007, thanks to The Royal Channel, the Official Channel of the British Monarchy, you'll be able to catch Queen Betty on your Iphone at "approximately 3 pm. GMT on Christmas day.'' In the meantime, you can stay pumped viewing such videos as The Prince of Wales Visits the Robert Clack School, Part 1, on the frivolous side and The Queen and Her Prime Minister on the really rather interesting side. It's not every day, after all, you get to hear John Majors talking about the ambiance in these private meetings, "with Corgies scattered about."

But don't expect to find clips of Betty in her bedroom like you'd expect elsewhere on YouTube. This is the Royal Channel, after all, and the real Queen Elizabeth, whomever she may be, is nowhere to be found.

God ... By The Numbers

You can tell a person's perspective on faith by whether they use the words "expressions of faith" or "religiosity" in a sentence like this one:

Our analysis of thousands of public communications across eight decades shows that American politics today is defined by a calculated, demonstrably public _______ unlike anything in modern history.

Kevin Coe and David Domke used "religiosity," so we can suspect how they feel about the rising tide of expressions of faith in campaigning today. But that doesn't take anything away from their article on History News Network, Think Religion Plays a Bigger Role in Politics Today? Y ou're Right. Statistics Prove it.

Coe and Domke point to Reagan's acceptance speech in 1980, when he requested a moment of silent prayer, as the starting point for an era they describe statistically as follows:

If one looks at nearly 360 major speeches that presidents from Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush have given, the increase in religiosity is astounding. The average president from FDR to Carter mentioned God in a minority of his speeches, doing so about 47% of the time. Reagan, in contrast, mentioned God in 96% of his speeches. George H. W. Bush did so 91% of the time, Clinton 93%, and the current Bush (through year six) was at 94%. Further, the total number of references to God in the average presidential speech since 1981 is 120% higher than the average speech from 1933-1980. References to broader religious terms, such as faith, pray, sacred, worship, crusade, and dozens of others increased by 60%.

Presidential requests for divine favor also show a profound shift. The phrase “God Bless America,” now the signature tagline of American politics, gained ubiquity in the 1980s. Prior to 1981, the phrase had only once passed a modern president’s lips in a major address: Richard Nixon’s, as he concluded an April 30, 1973, speech about the Watergate scandal. Since Reagan, presidents have rarely concluded a major address without “God Bless America” or a close variant.

What impresses me most in this statement is that those who would have us believe that America is not a Christian nation must deal with the fact that presidents from Roosevelt to Carter, who apparently did not espouse "religiosity," mentioned God in 47 percent of their speeches.

How do you account for that, other than by agreeing that America is, in fact, a Christian nation?

Another Floating Cross

clipped from www.youtube.com

In this clip (which really isn't worth your time viewing) from California's premier conservative political news blog, Flash Report, we see a surprised Cal. Senate Republican leader Dick Ackerman wishing us a Christmas greeting as Flash Report publisher Jon Fleishman drops by for an unexpected visit.

As Fleishman leaves, there is a cross by the inside of the front door, above Ackerman's right shoulder. It seems the "floating cross" introduced by Mike Huckabee is taking the nation by a storm ....

You Must Follow Proper Channels!

Over at the leftist blog Media Matters, we are supposed to be upset because Fox News sourced a story to a ... a ... a ... blog!

On December 21, the front page of FoxNews.com contained a headline under the "LATEST NEWS" tab that read "Report: Over 400 Scientists Dispute Man-Made Warming." However, the purported "LATEST NEWS" item did not link to a news report but, rather, to a post on "The Inhofe EPW Press Blog," the blog of Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), ranking minority member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

The horror! Unable to say anything to defend the Doctrine of Warmism Infallibility from this nailing of the Thesis of 400 to the digital door of the Church of Warmism, Media Matters can only attack the media, not the message.

Which is why Media Matters doesn't.

hat-tip: Greenie Watch

The Unicyclists And The Feminists

Think a unicycle can teach you nothing about radical feminism? Think again.

A study by a unicycling British professor seeks to trace the causes of humor (to male aggressiveness, it turns out), but along the way trounces the feminist dogma that differences between men and women are environmental, not genetic.

Here's a bit of Science Daily's write-up of the research paper:

Professor Sam Shuster conducted a year long study observing how people reacted to him as he unicycled through the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne. What began as a hobby turned into an observational study after he realized that the huge number of stereotypical and predictable responses he received must be indicative of an underlying biological phenomenon.

The study was an observation of people's reactions to a sudden unexpected exposure to a new phenomenon - in this case unicycling, which at the time few had seen. He documented the responses of over 400 individuals, and observed the responses of many others.

Over 90% of people responded physically, for example with an exaggerated stare or a wave. Almost half responded verbally -- more men than women. Here, says Professor Shuster, the sex difference was striking. 95% of adult women were praising, encouraging or showed concern. There were very few comic or snide remarks. In contrast, only 25% of adult men responded as did the women, for example, by praise or encouragement; instead 75% attempted comedy, often snide or combative as an intended put-down.

Shuster concluded, correctly I think, that the intense aggressiveness of young males, many of whom would try to knock him off his unicycle, was masked with age by biting humor. Caustic, sarcastic, aggressive humor remains the domain of men ... and Rosie.

But why would women react nurturingly to a unicycle, something none of us are exposed to much as we grow? Could it be that women are ... nurturing? And that men are aggressive?

If you are a radical feminist, you can try to discount this via the old toy guns vs. toy dolls arguments, but really, unicycles? Unicycles don't carry a societal perception that is either aggressive or passive; they are merely different, and therefore draw out a purer reaction, a reaction that shows very clearly how different men and women are.

Ron Paul's Biggest Applause Line

Tucker Carlson must be on the outs at MSNBC (and that's the outs of the outs, if ever there was such a thing) because he was recently tasked not just to follow Ron Paul around for a couple days, but to follow him around in Nevada.

He reports that in Pahrump "the crowd went wild, or as wild as a group of sober Republicans can on a Monday night. They hooted and yelled and stomped their feet," when Paul stated that there is no constitutional authority for a federal bank. Later, a Paul staffer confirmed to Tucker that "It's our biggest applause line."

Wow. Carlson has an explanation:

There are two ways to interpret a fact like that: Either the Ron Paul movement is more sophisticated than most journalists understand, or a lot of Paul supporters are eccentric bordering on bonkers.

I'll go with the latter.

The Feminists' Never-Ending Fear

I heard the founder of Code Pink, Medea Benjaminon (shown here with her mouth in its normal position), the radio yesterday, controlling herself, working hard to sound normal. She even said at one point that she encouraged alternative points of view and would invite questioners at rallies to come on up, take the mike and state their views.

What a liar. She is a shrill feminist, and as a feminist, she is really more akin to this:

After a group of UC Davis women faculty began circulating a petition, UC regents rescinded an invitation to Larry Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner Wednesday night in Sacramento. The dinner comes during the regents' meeting at UCD next week.

Summers gained notoriety for saying that innate differences between men and women could be a reason for under-representation of women in science, math and engineering. ...

UCD professor Maureen Stanton, one of the petition organizers, was delighted by news of the change this morning, saying it's “a move in the right direction.”

“UC has an enormous historical commitment to diversity within its faculty ranks, but still has a long way to go before our faculty adequately represent the diversity of our constituency, the people of California,” said Stanton, professor and chairwoman of the section of evolution and ecology. (source)

Diversity? The Left has redefined diversity in their clouded minds, so it now means full acceptance of those who they feel good about and unity in rejecting they don't' feel good about. That is not diversity, not by a long shot.

Stanon, by the way, is a professor of evolution and biology. She should understand the evolutionary (God-given) differences between men and women better than most and should have no patience with people who don't accept what Summers said as truth. But truth hasn't got in the way of feminism yet, and it appears unlikely to start any time soon.

hat-tip: memeorandum

Feminist Angst Over Obama

Pity the poor feminist. She's got so much to worry about; the decisions of other women, for example.

Deborah Dickerson, writing in Salon, is gnawing on her feminist nails, fretting over the fate of Michelle Obama:

Damn it all, Michelle Obama has quit her $215,000 dream job and demoted herself to queen. Though the party line is that she's only "scaled back" to a 20 percent workload, I doubt her former co-workers will bother alerting her to many staff meetings. She's traded in her solid gold résumé, high-octane talent and role as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Hospitals to be a professional wife and hostess.

Now, the energy and drive that had her up jogging before dawn and a gratifying day of work and family will mainly be spent smiling for the cameras.

As if trying to get your partner elected president is a crummy job. Dickerson doesn't see any feminist glamor in it, though:

Any day now, Michelle Obama's handlers will have her glued into one of those Sunday-go-to-meeting Baptist grandma crown hats while smiling vapidly for hours at a time. When, of course, she's not staring moonstruck, à la Nancy Reagan, at her moon doggie god-husband who's not one bit smarter than she is.

My heart breaks for her just thinking about it. Being president will be hard. So will being first lady for the brilliant Michelle -- imagine, having to begin all your sentences with "My husband and I..."

She has a point, of course. We haven't seen Bill Clinton announce that he's leaving whatever it is he does for full-time employment so he can stare moonstruck, a la Nancy Reagan, at his wife. Perhaps because Bill's been well trained not to stare moonstruck at any females in public.

She has another point in noting that Michelle Obama's been stressing about the effect of work on her child-rearing responsibilities, but Barak apparently can go on being a Senator and presidential candidate without sharing that particular parenting angst.

But it's not the system that's unfair; it's feminism.

Feminism's core denial that there is a difference between men and women snags them every time. Barak simply isn't the sensitive child-rearer Michelle is, and Michelle simply doesn't have the ability to put bread-winning at a priority level that would allow her to leave her kids in the dust as she does meaningful work -- which is how Dickerson sees Michelle's work for a hospital.

More meaningful than raising the next generation?

I loved this wrap-up:

I'm still sad for Michelle. As the Times reports, "She expresses no regret about scaling down her job ... where colleagues say she excels at tackling thorny problems. But this winter, after spotting a book on the Obamas' coffee table celebrating Mr. Obama's Senate victory, her staff created a matching volume of her accomplishments. Mrs. Obama wept when she saw it."

I'm sorry; doing public affairs for a hospital does not generate accomplishments worthy of a book. This is all so phony. One member of this power-couple really has the power; the other one sees that for what it is, and is doing what needs to be done for the couple's self-interest.

Falling for that cheap emotional tug ... why it's so ... so ... so feminine!

hat-tip: Real Clear Politics

NOW's War Against Mommies

In the post below on the continuing plight of child brides in arranged marriages, I chided NOW for being more concerned about trivial perceived slights on their womanhoodness than on true threats to women around the globe.

Turns out a chiding is not enough. A swift kick in their collective butts is more in order.

As you can well imagine, the issues NOW trumpets on its home page include "reproductive freedom," including their disgust that the Supreme Court would say it's no longer OK to cut the almost-born apart in the birth canal, their support for Hillary, their fight against "hate crimes" against women and their effort to eliminate wage disparity.

Digging deeper, I found out something that really, really P.O.'s the broads at NOW: Women who opt out of the feminist ideal to be come moms.

They have an entire issues page devoted to what they refer to as the "opt out myth." You may have read the "opt out" story in the NYT a while back, or heard the buzz it generated. It covered women from Ivy League schools who took their fine educations home, instead of into the workplace, raising kids instead of feminist issues.

NOW refers to the phenomenon as a "myth" -- you know, something you hear about but really isn't true. Like minotaurs and feminists who don't screech.

Articles about the so-called "opt-out revolution" have recently become a staple of such news outlets as The New York Times, claiming that a surge of women are trading high-powered careers for stay-at-home motherhood.

NOW has long known this to be a myth ...

"The stories imply that these women took the 'off-ramp' for a few years, but really they were run off the road," said NOW President Kim Gandy. ...

Join NOW's "Dismantle the Mom Myth" campaign and demand that your local media outlets tell the truth about the challenges women face when trying to balance work and family.

Women who want to stay home are "run off the road?" Which road exactly was it they were run off? The Feminist Rutway?

How odd that feminists are being urged to "demand that your local media outlets tell the truth" about women who choose to stay home full-time instead of "trying to balance work and family." What truth? That they feel their children deserve a full-time mom? That being a full-time mom is a very difficult job? Or the NOW "truth," that full-time moms are inferior?

Where is all this outrage going? Obviously, it's all about socialism. NOW urges its minions to write papers and not just complain, but propose a "solution:"

"This child care crisis will not solve itself one person at a time or one workplace at a time. We have tried that for over 30 years. We need paid family leave, paid sick days for all employees, and accessible, affordable child care so parents can make real choices on whether to stay at home or work outside the home.["]

Oh, I see. It takes a nation to raise a child. There's no reason why anyone should have to sacrifice or work hard if we can get the taxpayers to simply socialize child-rearing. After all, what's a kid anyway? Only a child who somehow got missed by the abortion mills.

Attack On Traditional Marriage!

Dr. Dobson and the Family Research Council, take note: America's marriage tradition, while certainly in the cross-hairs of the gay activists, stands proud and strong compared to what's going on elsewhere.

I'm not talking about Europe, where people find marriage boring. That's a social trend that may soon turn around. I'm talking about marriage foundations gone wild, as in what happens in societies where marriage means an arranged hitching of a child bride:

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Villagers at a wedding in eastern India decided the groom had arrived too drunk to get married, and so the bride married the groom's more sober brother instead, police said Monday.

"The groom was drunk and had reportedly misbehaved with guests when the bride's family and local villagers chased him away," Madho Singh, a senior police officer told Reuters after Sunday's marriage in a village in Bihar state's Arwal district.

The younger brother readily agreed to take the groom's place beside the teenage bride at her family's invitation, witnesses said.

"The groom apologized for his behavior, but has been crying that word will spread and he will never get a bride again," Singh said by phone.

Who this poor child married was unimportant; all that mattered is that she got taken in by the other family.

And is the groom upset that he wasn't able to marry the love of his life? No, of course not, although he's deeply concerned about himself and his future chances of marriage. The girl? Don't bother to ask; no one seems to asked her what she thought of the whole mess.

Not that it matters; she's just a girl. Come to think of it NOW should be more interested in this story than the conservative Christians.

But I was wrong. The feminists' issues page does deal with international affairs -- peace in Iraq (natch!) -- but not a peep about the crushing exploitation of women in societies where women have much more to worry about than the liberal shriekbabies of NOW.