Dickerson's post is titled "Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30," and I have lived (thus far) to the ripe old age of 31 a state in which I can apparently be trusted to be sufficiently committed to the cause, respectful to my elders and disinclined to pole dance, post drunken pictures of myself on Facebook or blog about my sex life.

Ms. Dickerson feels that all the criticism of her piece stems from the fact that young feminists are insufficiently humble and do too little to honor their elders. She knows this, of course, because when she was younger, she spent her time mocking one of her older, slightly-disabled co-workers.

He'd recently been forced off active duty due to a weird heart glitch unlikely to flare up, and he was miserable about being forced out of uniform. I, on the other hand, was a total gym rat and fashion plate with an unlimited military future. I worked out so, I had to have my uniform sleeves tailored for my sculpted, Michelle-kiss-my-heinie arms. I monitored everything that went into my body and everything that went into anybody's body around me. I subscribed to magazines like Muscle and Fitness and would have competed in bodybuilding competitions had I not been too busy going to school at night to get ahead. Jim, with his Homer Simpson gut and comb over, got winded just using the copier. One day, he came in wincing and limping. He'd actually hurt himself stretching before one of his infrequent attempts to exercise. I laughed and laughed. Thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and only realized in retrospect that he was not sharing the joke.

According to Ms. Dickerson, any critique of her piece, in which she painted all young feminists with the broad brush of uninformed skankhood, is exactly like mocking a middle-aged man with a heart condition. She wishes she could apologize to Jim - since deceased - the way that those who dared critique her will someday apologize for having the hubris to be offended at the suggestion that all young feminists are doing is "pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives." Yes, we'll be apologizing.

All of that to say this to the young feminists so offended by this elder's critique: One day, you'll have your own Jim story to tell. One day, when you've lived through more of this bitch called life, but without all that youth and vigor, you'll hear yourself saying something like, "These young women today just don't get it. Not like we did." When you've made hideous mistakes you know were because you talked the feminist talk but didn't walk the feminist walk. When that day comes, if I haven't keeled over at my desk, please have the grace to call me up so we can laugh together at youth's callow overconfidence and refusal to listen with respect, if not agreement.

To translate: she still doesn't believe that today's young feminists are doing anything worthwhile.

And she's got some other advice, too:

But wait! I started it, right? I was disrespectful first, no? Grow up, girlies.

I find it more than a little annoying that Dickerson is demanding our utter respect and adherence, but has no intention of addressing us mythical pole-dancing, sex-blogging, hard-drinking young feminists with even a modicum of it.

Ms. Dickerson then launches into a list of all the famous African-American writers she read before writing her book The End of Blackness as a way of justifying her position:

I've earned my bitchiness and I've earned the right to be taken seriously.

You don't "earn" bitchiness of this sort, and you don't "earn" the right to be taken seriously by being bitchy. Dickerson certainly has the right to criticize young feminists, but if her goal is to be taken seriously by them, shoving herself into a conversation, insulting everyone else participating in it, and belittling everyone as "girlies" and "chicks" isn't the way to earn or maintain anyone's respect. The writers on this site — as well as many of the other blogs out there — aren't exactly running around defending virginity-auctions or Girls Gone Wild, as she suggests.

Your generation just seems so complacent, la la la there are no abortion providers in most of the country but I'll just go auction off my virginity and flash my thong with pride. I'll excel from kindergarten through Harvard Law, then mommy track myself for a man who is not my equal. Then I'll breastfeed for eight years, not because I want to but because I'm a bad mommy if I don't.

Dickerson complains that critiques of her smack of "ageism" even as she belittles an entire generation of women — many of whom don't identify as feminist — and their choices to get educated and yet try to find a work-life balance that involves time spent with their children. (God forbid some women choose to take advantage of the choices feminism and flex time have offered them.) And, for a piece entitled "Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30," it is bizarre, to say the least, to accuse young feminists of breastfeeding their hypothetical children for 8 years out of mommy-guilt, which would seem to me to be more of an affliction of women of my advanced age that Dickerson's hypothetical virginity-auctioning, thong-flashing, pole-dancing, hard-drinking under-30 sex bloggers.

Dickerson says she's simply scared that we'll make all the mistakes of her generation; that we'll live with too much hubris and too little humility, criticizing people with something to say without ever taking the time to research them or their positions on issues. (She really does live in an irony-free zone!)

Unfair, but from love. You don't hear me criticizing the Jews or our missile defense policy. I care about the groups I belong (or belonged) to: the working class, blacks, women, and the military.

So, you know, have a little respect and a hell of a lot more humility.

For my part, I find it difficult to love without knowledge. And by painting young feminists with one small brush as over-sexed, over-exposed, unintellectual feminist charlatans, Ms. Dickerson has proved that she lacks some basic knowledge — so I'm hard pressed to buy her argument of love.

Don't Trust Any Feminists Under 30 [MotherJones]

Earlier: Blogger Annoyed By Drunk, Pole-Dancing, Workaholic Women Writers

Two of those people are Feministing's Jessica Valenti and Andrew Golis. Valenti got engaged, announced it and opted to answer some probing questions about feminism, marriage and weddings from her commenters. As Salon's Tracy Clark-Flory said,

I finished the post and thought rather cheerily (to the tune of that Billy Idol song): It's a nice plan for a non-white feminist wedding, yeah!

Well, frankly, being kind of uninterested in marriage or weddings, I was more like, eh, good for her, where's my coffee? But same basic idea.

Conservatives, however, seem nearly as horrified at two feminists getting married as they do at two men or two women. Take K-Lo, whose original post has "mysteriously" disappeared from her blog but can be found cached here. K-Lo called Valenti a "Bridezilla" because... Valenti isn't changing her name? Is incorporating her political views on marriage equality into the ceremony? Bought a dress from an organization that gives the proceeds to charity? But if it's not that, it must be just that Jessica Valenti is a feminist and thus she is by definition an overbearing, demanding harpy of epic proportions and her wedding planning is, naturally, no different. I do love a good gendered insult in the morning.

Anonymous douchebag Ace of Spades goes above and beyond in his quest to define marriage as not just for one man and one woman, but for one man and one woman of the same "moral" and political values as his.

Everyone who believes that she was seriously considering delaying marriage until "everyone could," and believes she's looking at her wedding as a "pro-active way to talk about same sex marriage among our friends and family," rather than as Princess' Special Day, please raise your hand.

Your "hand," by the way, morons, is that paddle-like thingee at the end of your arm. You might know it better as your "finger-hoof."

It must be positively exhausting to have to pretend about caring so passionately about so much all the time.

His commenters then go on to throw around insults about Valenti's potential husband's masculinity.

Plenty has been written in defense of Valenti and her decision to get married and to talk about entering into a legal contract with deep roots in patriarchal society — from Jill at Feministe to Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon to the aforementioned Tracy Clark-Flory, all thoughtfully summarizing the hilarity and irony of the right-wingers rejecting two heterosexual applicants to their institution in such a sexist manner. So I could talk about the sexism promoted by K-Lo and AoS, the idea that marriage is only for two heterosexual people who accept traditional gender roles and religious beliefs in the strictest sense, or the idea that feminists are all man-hating harpies who eschew traditional social institutions is a fundamental misunderstanding of the gender equality that feminists are actually trying to bring to the world. But I've been beaten there by some smart women.

Instead, having read enough crap about marriage and what the institution should reflect, I'd like to present you with the conservative's marriage license application.

THE ALL NEW WEDDING APPLICATION

1. Name of the husband-to-be:
2. Name of the subservient wife-to-be:
3. Please affirm that you are both biologically different genders. __ Yes __ No
4. Please affirm that you practice a monotheistic religion regularly. __ Yes __ No
5. Please affirm that you are marrying for the sake of reproduction. __ Yes __ No
6. Please affirm your registration in the Republican, Conservative or Libertarian parties. __ Yes __ No
7. Please affirm that you reject Satan, Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi and all their works. __ Yes __ No
8. Please state for the record that men and women are not and can never be equal. __ Yes __ No
9. Please state for the record that the man will "wear the pants" in your family. __ Yes __ No
10. Please state that you have never had, nor caused to be had, an abortion. __ Yes __ No
11. a. Please state that you are both virgins (if this is your first marriage). __ Yes __ No
b. If this is not a first marriage, please state that you haven't had sex with one another. __ Yes __ No
12. Please affirm your commitment to avoid oral sex of any variety. __ Yes __ No
13. Please affirm your commitment to stop having anal sex. __ Yes __ No
14. Please affirm your commitment to avoid the following sexual positions: female superior; doggie style; reverse cowgirl; from the side; anywhere but a bed; anything involving bondage (of the man); anything involving vibrators; and mutual orgasm. __ Yes __ No
15. Please state the date of your eventual divorce.

You've Never Met a Bridezilla Like a Feminist Bridezilla [NRO originally, now cached]
Jessica Valenti Getting Hitched [Ace of Spades]

Related: Does The Personal Always Have To Be Political? (And Can't It Ever Be Private?) [Feministing]
Adventures in Feminist Wedding Planning [Feministing]
Attack Of The Feminist Bridezilla! [Salon]
"Bridezilla"? Really? [Feministe]
The Bitterness Of Wingnuttery Distilled [Pandagon]

[Photo via "Bridezillas" on WEtv]

In part 1 of 3, historian Bettany Hughes interviews guests journalist Ann Leslie, American academic Elaine Showalter, activist and historian Sally Alexander, and co-founder of the US National Organisation of Women, Sonia Fuentes. They talk about the general perception of feminism (including the bad press many feminists have received) and the gains feminism has made in the past 40 years. While this show offers an interesting (and serious) overview of feminist history, some of the best parts are about "speculum parties," feminist humor, and bra burning. Of rejecting her bras, second wave feminist Ann Leslie said "I certainly thought I don't have to wear bras that look like bomb casings, I don't have to strap myself into Playtex...I know people say it's trivial to pick up on the women's liberation movement influence on clothing, but clothing has always to a certain extent, through history, been a way of corralling women...Clothing is more than just fashion, it actually expresses something about society." [BBC]

• According to a new report, single moms on welfare are more likely to suffer from untreated psychiatric disorders than women in the general population. • A survey conducted by a popular Chinese website found that many men would be willing to wear heels in order to feel the pain of their significant others. • Whiskey-drinkers rejoice (?): Jim Beam is releasing a black cherry version of its bourbon. • A recent poll in Britain found that one in five people approve of men slapping their wives or girlfriends for wearing revealing clothing in public. In response to the abysmal attitude on domestic violence, the government has launched a new campaign that aims to reduce rates of intimate-partner assault. • Although the Oxford English Dictionary has not yet embraced moobs, plastic surgeons certainly have. • A series of love letters by George Orwell will be auctioned off by the Bonhams auction service. They are expected to sell for more than $50,000. • Fanchon O'Donoghue, beloved "cookie lady," has died at the age of 77. O'Donoghue got her nickname from her annual Christmas cookie bake-a-thon. • A new documentary Addicted to Surrogacy aims to "sidestep prejudice and present surrogates as regular women who have chosen an exceptional way to help other people." • Scientists from Tel Aviv University have discovered that the uterus performs a "welcome dance" for sperm. • This March, New York City will see its first season of competitive double-dutch in public high schools, as part of an initiative to involve more girls in organized sports. • While interracial marriages have increased overall, rates of Hispanic and Asian Americans marrying outside their race has declined. • Colleen Howe, one of the first female sports agents, has passed away. She was 76. •  This article from the Times details the relationship between a high school boy and Traci Tapp, his predatory gym teacher. • Despite reform laws from 2004, Moroccan woman still face legal discrimination from judges, who can override laws and allow marriage to minors. • Sociological Images critiques a subway ad from NYC that advises victims to speak out about sexual harassment, but says nothing to possible assailants. • Women in India are receiving much-needed economic support from the Self-Employed Women's Association, or Sewa, which offers loans, retirement accounts, and health insurance to enterprising women. • A recent study indicates that college-aged women overestimate the number of drinks men would like to see them imbibe. Researchers believe that this disconnect may be causing young women to binge drink in a misguided attempt to impress boys. • We may be approaching our Barbie saturation point, but apparently we're the only ones: Mattel has announced that it plans to launch a Barbie Bridal collection in Japan this June. On the bright side, it can't be any worse than the Hello Kitty gowns! • 

"I've never had to even think like a feminist because no one around me even thinks one [sex] is higher than the other." Yes, that's right. You are from Texas, and in the music industry, yet no one around you acts like women are inferior? Well: earlier in the interview, Kelly was faced with this question: "You once said that you sold more than 15 million records worldwide, and still nobody listens to what you have to say because 'I'm 25 and I'm a woman.' Do you consider the record industry to be a boys' club?" Ms. Clarkson answered thusly:

I just know for a fact ... why I said that was because I was actually on a phone call with two people who did not know I was on the phone, and I literally heard somebody I used to work with say, "Well, you know what, he can get away with it because it's a guy. She's a girl, so let's just face it, it's different." And I was like, "Is this the 1950s?" I hung up and didn't listen to the rest. I'm like,"I don't get it." No one thinks that ... and I'm from a frickin' Republican state. It's just sad. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the industry that do think like that. I absolutely know that for a truth because I heard it from their mouths. It's a blow to the stomach. It kind of hurts when you work so hard and take the high road so much ... it's lonely.

Confused? So is Kelly Clarkson, it seems. But not about her sexuality! She says: "People are like, 'Are you secretly a lesbian? Because I'd really love it.'" Alas: "I could never be a lesbian. I would never want to date [someone like] myself, ever. I'm a crazy person. I need some kind of stable, quiet man." Does that mean she'd date women, except they only come in one flavor, and that's batshitinsane? Oh, what about the fact that she's never been in love? "I don't think its very odd. I'm 26 years old," Kelly claims. "I just think I'd rather have quality than quantity."

Kelly Clarkson: "Not at all" a feminist [Feministing]
Kelly Clarkson says she "could never be a lesbian" [Reuters]
Kelly Clarkson Gets What She Wants [PopEater]

Via Wonkette's Jim Newell, this is H-Dub this past Monday, talking about being accosted by an ugly pro-choice activist with a scary sign.





This whole thing went down, I shit you not, at a National Automobile Dealers Association conference, where the ugliness of feminists is obviously an important topic. Those guys laughing in the background? Those are the dudes that want to sell you your next car, con you into the undercoat you don't need and generally treat you as an inferior being because you're a female who, naturally, knows nothing about big, complex machines.

And Bill Clinton, who follows up Bush's joke with his own about how he could never get away with telling that joke? Yeah, Bill, you just shouldn't try. Please. Leave the sexism and misogyny to the Republicans and the car dealers, please.

Pig Of The Day: George Bush Senior [Wonkette]

A Very Feminist Thanksgiving Feast from Megan Carpentier on Vimeo.

For the record, it is really, really difficult to peel balls, as you've basically got to slice the connective tissue, work your fingers in around one end and separate it. It is impossible to do if you're going to be remotely squeamish about it — and the video that Spencer and I watched does not do justice to the sound, feel or odor that comes with peeling balls. If Spencer's reaction to the video when we watched it doesn't scare you off, you can see the original below.

The Testicle Cookbook: Cooking With Balls [Yudu]
The Testicle Cookbook — Peeling Testicles [YouTube]

Earlier: Schweddy Balls

Untitled from Pot Psychology on Vimeo.

“If you just compare him, to, say, Patrick Dempsey on Grey’s Anatomy, Dr. McDreamy comes off as a whiny little sensitive bitch,” says one Draper fan to the Observer. Adds another of her perfect house husband, “It works as a social system, but it’s not terribly erotic.”

The Observer piece chronicles a bunch of these enlightened yuppie marriages. The working women described are unsurprisingly proud — or defensive — about their partners. “It takes a certain kind of guy to be confident enough to stay home and still have a sense of identity...(my husband) can easily choose to be in the corporate world and make a lot of money, but he chose to stay at home,” says one. Adds a stay-at-home dad, "There just aren’t those issues of masculinity.” Here's one dad's day:

Every morning, Mr. Ryan wakes up between 4:30 and 5 and cleans the house; gets the laundry cycle through; makes a to-do list and plans the meals; gets the children up; and goes for a run with the dog. He makes an errand run: dry cleaning, hardware store, socks for his son, pay off a parking ticket, pick up a new coffee carafe, the tennis club, make doctor’s appointments for the kids, then grocery store. Shower, shave, then lunch with other SAHDs and SAHMs. Back at the house, he replies to e-mails, mows the lawn, organizes the basement, sands down some wood and makes house repairs, then nap. Kids get home, he makes lunch; then homework, extracurricular activities, and finally, cooks dinner, for which his wife may or may not be present. “There was a word for guys like me back then,' said Mr. Ryan of the 1960s. 'Losers.'”

More to the point, there was a word for women like him: normal housewives.

And yet, these same wives admit to idolizing the remote philanderer who'd never dream of lifting a finger in the kitchen. Says one "anonymous Brooklyn mom", "You appreciate a stay-at-home dad — as feminists, this is what we wanted! — but marriage now is all about equal partnership," and that's apparently not hot. Another wife complains about having to listen to her husband drone on about preschool. "And I just completely glazed over, went a million miles away in my head. I thought, 'Jesus, fellas, get a life!’”

These women protest that it's not just Don Draper's smoldering looks and emotional unavailability that gets their motors running. It's that he's secretly sensitive: "With his taste for strong women living outside the very rules he feels boxed in by, Don Draper seems as though he just might understand all angles of the domestic equation." It's not that they want Draper; these women are him.
“His sense of yearning, his sense of being confined by the home yet also craving that confinement and comfort, I identify with it,” says one Brooklyn dame with a house hubby. But to others the connection seems more basic: “When our world is so chaotic, we tend to romanticize a time when men were men and women were women. Certainly, Don Draper is not making his wife very happy, but there is a strength to him. A stability.”

You could certainly argue that in painting Don Draper as so complex, so tortured, so stealth-enlightened, so handsome, the Mad Men writers are doing women and men a disservice. They've endowed a definition of pre-feminist masculinity — a composite of all traditional manly virtues — with hints of modernity that make him appealing to women who can fancy he would have swept them off their feet while secretly supporting their dreams of equality. There's a sense on the show that his wife can't keep his interest purely because she's so docile and subservient; we could, we think. Who can compete with that?

But what no one interviewed seems to consider is that the situations described in this piece aren't so much "equality" as a pretty direct flip of the old gender divide. When anyone's career takes total precedence over another's, doesn't that automatically create a, well, 1950s dynamic? If all these women are identifying so powerfully with a philandering 1960s businessman whose work life feels unconnected to home, might they consider that their dynamic is just as binary? Not merely that a man is "not being a man" but that they are with a person who has voluntarily put himself second which is, ironically, not erotic?

The Career Woman/Understanding Husband dynamic illustrated here is way more like the Betty-Don marriage than those relationships in Mad Men that people find so appealing — Draper's flings with tough, smart women with their own careers. The erotic charge in these scenarios comes from the clash of wills and intellects; in short, from a certain basic equality. Obviously the lives these couples have developed seem to work for them and these women have opportunities and careers Betty Draper could only have dreamed of. But whereas chaos may breed a desire for the defined roles described, ironically what they seem to be fantasizing about is ambiguity.

Mad About The Man [New York Observer]

To these young women, the embrace of old-school femininity is ironic and, more to the point, fun. But, asks the author, "can domesticity ever really be subversive?" Plenty of more traditional feminists say no. Hold onto your aprons: It's the old argument, kids.

To those who wish to defend the 'movement' on philosophical grounds (as opposed to, you know, just liking cupcakes), something like baking "has unwittingly become a provocative act." Says blogger Jane Brocket: "Anything which is very personal and behind closed doors and pleasurable for women is subversive these days." And, of course, as is often the case with women of this generation, it comes down to choice. Says one, "It's a choice and an aesthetic: it links into environmental concerns and is a sort of a rebellion against consumerism. I see it as a very empowering thing to do as a woman." These sorts of traditionally feminine arts can act as a means of feminine bonding — for women/by women, as opposed to centering around men — and act as an antidote to the fast food/clothes ethos of the culture. And in the case of this particular sphere, it's also a question of rebellion: Says Holly, '"My parents were punks" — her father was Joe Strummer of the Clash — "so I had a chaotic childhood. You try to be subversive by not doing what your parents did. It was not rebellious for me to go out drinking and taking drugs because that was what my parents did. I've always been fascinated by knowing how to knit but I had to learn it from my great-grandmother because my mother did not do anything like that and my grandmother was part of the whole 1960s women's lib thing."'

The counter-arguments are just as predictable: fetishizing stereotypes makes it easy to forget "the reality of this period: that many women felt forced to stay at home, and performed these chores, not with delight, but in a fit of frustration that would later be skewered by Betty Friedan in her classic book, The Feminine Mystique." And as such, there's a childish perversity to rejecting the gains other generations fought for, especially when so many pervasive inequalities still exist. Says feminist author Natasha Walter, "I never want to judge another woman for the choices she makes and what gives her pleasure. But there is something more serious going on here. There are problems associated with domesticity because, in the past, there was the assumption that it was just 'what women did'...Young women don't understand how hard it can be doing this real work if you don't have equality at home. A lot of the freedoms and equalities women have won are quite fragile and at the moment we are in danger of moving backwards. We have to continue to encourage men to join us, and not exclude them."

Look, we've heard it all before. If people want to dress up and make cupcakes, this is their prerogative, and one could certainly argue that I have a batch of cinnamon rolls in the oven right now. I seriously doubt that anyone reasonable of any generation seriously wants to prevent young women from baking, or wants to deny that the real existence of a 50's housewife was all cupcakes and glamor. As ever, what's more striking and depressing than any particulars of the individual skirmish is the stark perceptive divide of "frivolous ungrateful 20-something"/"Debbie Downer old-school feminist." And perhaps what begs this conflict is the aggressive insistence on "irony" — which, paradoxically, serves to heighten the insult for a more earnest generation of strivers and, also paradoxically, undermine these activities as yet another unloaded choice for the rest of us. It's this literal coopting — an almost willful reinvention of historical realities to suit ourselves — that can lead to the perception of young women as bratty. But the truth is, brattiness is also a choice — and one we're very lucky to have. And however loaded their reemergence, I think we can all agree that the frosting/cake ratio that is a cupcake is objectively delicious. Why can't we all just accept that, sit down together, and eat them (unironically.)

Do Good Feminists Bake Cupcakes? [The Guardian]

Earlier: Time-Warp Wives Opt To Re-Enact Depression, War

Unicorns, Easy-Bake Ovens, And Vibrators, Or: I Believe In The Radical Possibilities Of Pleasure

MEGAN: Hey, how is Austin?
SPENCER: It's filled with liberals, positive reinforcement, beef products, Johnny Dash-themed dive bars, extremely cheap beer, and bloggers with pulverizing hangovers.
MEGAN: HuffPo has been Twittering it.
SPENCER: I have met a lot of FDL commenters, who rule; Brandon Friedman of VetVoice gave Wesley Clark a terrorist fist jab at the keynote; I was told to pipe down because I was telling off-color stories during Howard Dean's keynote.
MEGAN: I get told that a lot, too, but really? Howard Dean is that important to listen to?
SPENCER: yeah, Nico asked me if I'd be on the HuffPo twitter feed, but that would require unlocking my Twitter and inviting people I don't know to see it, and there's a lot of stuff that I really don't want to make public on there.
MEGAN: I know, because you never accepted even me as one of your Twitter friends. I'm trying not to be mad about it.
SPENCER: I didn't? I'll put you on. Anyway we should probably talk about the news and shit.
MEGAN: Yeah, probably. So, at an ad conference, someone asked Arianna to play Karl Rove and run plays against Obama. Arianna's not that creative, but hearing her say aloud what we all know is going on at RNC HQ is sort of freaky.

Barack Obama may be Muslim, we're not sure, but he is definitely a Muslim sympathizer. He is the candidate of Hamas. He wants to negotiate with terrorists. He does, basically, not really care for America.

Also, she said "Hawai'i barely counts" as growing up in America and Michelle is "angry and bitter."
SPENCER: The first piece of Obama literature I saw when I got here was a doorknob flyer that read COMMITTED CHRISTIAN.
MEGAN: Which is part of the current messaging that this committed agnostic (no, it's not an oxymoron) doesn't really love, but whatevs.
SPENCER: Arianna's probably right that the sotto voce campaign will move away from the statement "Obama is a Muslim" to "We can't be sure that Obama isn't a Muslim". At this point, it's a safer play to make that sort of epistemic claim — there's absolutely no way Obama could disprove it, it's not the sort of statement that admits of the facts, as they taught me in epistemology class.
MEGAN: Hasn't it already?
SPENCER: It has? My prediction has come true already? See, that's why I'm an A-list blogger.
MEGAN: Indeed! I mean, it's (not to bring up old wounds here) but totally where Clinton went, "I have no reason to doubt it" and "not that I know" and such.
SPENCER: Let's. Not. Talk. About. That.
SPENCER: There is sooooooo much relief-slash-jubilation that the primary is over here — at our FDL caucus yesterday, a review of the last year on the blog tread delicately on the subject of the Great Interfamilial Unpleasantness.
MEGAN: I'm glad at least some bitches are hugging it out after the whole Ricki Lieberman thing that left a bad taste in my mouth. So, moving on to something everyone can be pissed about, there's a new anti-Michelle ad.
SPENCER: YES LET'S. It actually ends with these women pledging allegiance, and what's up with that Reagan quote at the end? "Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction?" is that like, a threat?
MEGAN: Yes, the Pledge of Allegiance, the vaguely martial music and the use of all women in the add is rather pointed. All in all, still shit but far better done than the North Carolina ad.
SPENCER: Did you see the NYT/CBS poll about Michelle Obama? Her negatives are stunning, or, rather, the racial discrepancy in views of Michelle is stunning

There was even racial dissension over Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle: She was viewed favorably by 58 percent of black voters, compared with 24 percent of white voters.

MEGAN: Yeah, that would be what freaks me out a little more, that and the whole "where are the feminists that are so opposed to sexism in the media" doing right now?
SPENCER: What accounts for this, Megan?
MEGAN: Oh, God, where to start? I mean, mean girls, the legitimacy of female anger, fear of strong women, envy... Did I ever tell you I have actually met people that have never met a black person until they were an adult. And I'm not talking until they were 18 and went off to college, I'm talking as a legitimate adult. They still exist. They aren't few in number. I mean, I think we've seen this reflected in Crappy Hour comments before:

Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

I think this is also horrifying and telling:

Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.)

Seventy percent of blacks have encountered at least one incident of racial discrimination. And I'm one of the 26 percent, as once when I broke up a party as an RA in college, I was called a "racist Jewish bitch." And I still know that's nothing by comparison.
SPENCER: Can I tell a story here? I once had this girlfriend who grew up in a mostly-white area, and I took her to my mom's house in Flatbush for the first time. Flatbush is majority-black but rather internally diverse — lots of immigrants from West Africa, the Caribbean (Haiti esp) as well as African-American; and it also contains Russians and Jews. As we were driving down Foster Ave, my GF took a look at the people on the street and said, "So, does your mom's house have a blackyard?". True story
MEGAN: Whoa. Um, how long until you broke up with her?
SPENCER: You were called a Jew?
MEGAN: Yes. A racist Jew because as an RA, I was breaking up a loud frat party 4 doors down from my apartment during finals week and it happened to be the one African-American fraternity on campus. And, obviously, I was just doing it because I hated them and not because I had a 17 page paper to finish and a 25 page paper to finish by the next day and it was finals week and because they were heard by the head of housing. But, yes, Jewish.
SPENCER: So, seriously, where's the organized defense of Michelle Obama? She's an extremely accomplished woman and while she may not have been the professional powerhouse that HRC was by 1992, I don't understand why organized feminism doesn't evidently identify with her. that was badly expressed — I'm hungover — but you get what i'm saying i hope.
MEGAN: No, I think it was said pretty well, it's close to how I've said it. Where's Geraldine Ferraro decrying the attacks by the media on her working status? Where's Gloria Steinem's impassioned defense of righteous anger and women? Did we all just admit that sexism triumphed and go home? Is it only sexism if it's Hillary?
SPENCER: A couple months ago, my friend Ann Friedman of TAP and Feministing wrote a really prescient piece called "Solidarity Politics" about this sort of thing

Let's make this election about the issues, everyone says — and rightfully so. Our presidential nominee should be chosen primarily on the issues. But most of us don't separate issues from identity as cleanly as we'd like to believe. When it comes down to it, everyone is an "identity politics" voter. The problem is that phrase, as commonly used by right-wingers and some on the left who are tone-deaf on issues of race and gender, has the effect of cutting down the political choices and involvement of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians.

MEGAN: I have to say, please introduce me to Ann sometime and I promise not to fan girl out. I almost always really love her stuff — thoughtful, well-written, etc.
SPENCER: and Ann is right about this, but the character assassination of Michelle Obama demonstrates that the argument needs to be taken a step further — recognizing that cross-cutting identities within the context of identity politics is fucking up people's expectations too
MEGAN: I took the best class ever in college in Microsociology (mind-blowing topic) and one of the things that stuck with me was the professor's assertion that we are a collection of equally accurate but not equally relevant identities and roles.
SPENCER: You were saying in the car yesterday that there's a cohort within the feminist movement that's increasingly indistinguishable from an HRC machine and how bad that is for the movement as a whole — it was a really good point that you should tease out for the benefit of CH readers.
MEGAN: Like, because you're white, you'd never call me your white friend, or because we know a zillion bloggers, you'd never call me your blogger friend. I'd never introduce myself to your friends as Pam's sister or Butch's daughter or Greg's ex-girlfriend.
SPENCER: Or George Costanza's father's lawyer.
MEGAN: Yes, exactly. And so I feel like, for many people and sadly probably too many women, the identity that more people associate with Michelle Obama right now is that she's black. Not that she's a woman, or a lawyer, a wife, a mother or anything else. And that's why the Obama campaign is trying to play up the prominence of those roles.
SPENCER: It's depressing that a core mission of the Obama campaign is to teach white America that black people are, like, people.
MEGAN: Or like people, commas deliberately excluded.

[LAX, April 29. Image via Bauer-Griffin]