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March 06, 2007
On Macho, Macho Men And Manly, Unshaven Girls
[litbrit speaking]
I really liked Glen Greenwald's take on the (latest) Ann Coulter bit of blather. He discusses a conversation on Fox last night between Kirsten Powers, Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin; Malkin makes the observation that Coulter is "very popular among conservatives", and Greenwald makes the following point:
This is why -- the only reason -- Coulter's remarks are so significant. And the significance lies not just in this specific outburst on Friday but in the whole array of hate-mongering, violence-inciting remarks over all these years. Its significance lies in the critical fact that Malkin expressly acknowledged: "She's very popular among conservatives." The focus of these stories should not be Coulter, but instead, should be the conservative movement in which Ann Coulter -- precisely because of (not "despite") her history of making such comments -- is "very popular." (Note, too, that Malkin urges that Coulter be shunned not because her conduct is so reprehesensible, but because her presence "is not going to be a help" win the 2008 election).
Coulter's use of a gay epithet to try to insult John Edwards was wrongheaded on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that persons who are gay are rightly offended that the state of being who they are--and the language used to describe this state--was, and is, being used to engender slurs with which to attack another person who clearly isn't gay (in this case, Edwards). They object to people using "gay" and "faggot" and worse as slurs because so doing implies that the word, and the state of being, is somehow negative. Surely thoughtful persons of all political persuasions would agree that it's time to denounce, and put a stop to, this nasty habit. Coulter didn't literally mean that Edwards was gay; rather, she used the word to imply that John Edwards was a sissy, a girly-man, a person who isn't macho. And to a large sector of her conservative audience, machismo--or, more pointedly, the appearance or outright illusion of machismo--is the be-all and end-all of electability. Greenwald notes:
As critical as it is to them to feminize Democratic and liberal males (and to masculinize the women), even more important is to create false images of masculine power and strength around their authority figures. The reality of this masculine power is almost always non-existent. The imagery is what counts. [.....] Just as what matters is that their leaders prance around as moral leaders (even while deviating as far as they want from those standards), what matters to them also is that their leaders play-act as strong and masculine figures, even when there is no basis, no reality, to the play-acting.
Ronald Reagan never got anywhere near
the militarywar (claiming eyesight difficulties to avoid deployment in World War II), and he spent his life as a Hollywood actor, not a rancher, yet to this day, conservatives swoon over his masculine role-playing as though he is some sort of super-brave military hero. Meanwhile, Jimmy Carter, who actually graduated the Naval Academy and was assigned to real live nuclear submarines, is mocked as a weak and snivelling coward who should not have a ship named after him.And the ultimate expression of faux, empty, masculine courage and power is, of course, the Commander-in-Chief himself -- the Glorious Leader whom John Podhoretz hailed in the title of his worshippful cult book as The First Great Leader of the 21st Century -- with the ranch hats and brush-clearing pants and flight-suit outfits that would make the Village People seethe with jealousy over his costume choices.
Exactly. As a progressive, feminist woman who writes online, I'm often the target of such comments as "You're just another grubby man-hating liberal chick who should consider shaving her legs and looking in the mirror once in a while, " or worse. And this from people who have never met me, who know nothing about me. Based on my limited experience thus far with this relatively new medium (blogging), I second Greenwald's observation: there are an awful lot of conservatives out there wishing to masculinize progressive women while feminizing progressive men. One has to wonder what sort of confusion they must face every day, going out into a world in which female pilots, male nurses, gay football players, and straight male ballet dancers are now so commonplace as to be unremarkable. To my mind, this persistent need to pigeonhole people according to a narrow set of gender-based attributes signifies a troubling lack of awareness, not to mention a profoundly starved imagination. When all else fails (and all else is failing rather spectacularly, I'd say), call your male opponent a sissy or suggest that your female one is ugly or hairy and "can't get a man". It's beginning to look a bit desperate, don't you think?
And just for the record, this progressive woman--one who not only managed to "get herself a man" but also gestate and birth three smaller versions thereof--does wear makeup. And I do shave my legs. But I also climb trees, swear like a longshoreman, drive really fast, and loathe doing the laundry. Perhaps I'm a centrist after all!
March 6, 2007 in Electoral Politics | Permalink
Comments
Are you now working toward US citizenship?
The reason I ask is I worked with a young Welsh lady (Don't *dare* call her British or English!) that had been in the US with a green card for over a decade. However, her plans were to spend the rest of her life living in the US. I was shocked that anyone could simply stay that long as a resident alien and usurp a job that an American could have filled. She indicated that no one was forcing her hand. Thank you immigration policies (/sarcasm)
So, do you wish to be a citizen? Working toward that goal?
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 6, 2007 10:55:04 AM
Some wingnuts were taking her literally, however. One of the crazy blogs (Atlas Pam, maybe?) speculated that maybe Edwards really is gay, and thank god Ann pointed it out so we can have a national dialog about whether Edwards has been living a lie and deceiving his country, wife, and four (heterosexually conceived) kids. Funny things happen when one wingnut speaks in code and another doesn't get the right message.
Posted by: SP | Mar 6, 2007 10:58:58 AM
Bill Maher said the world would be better off and less people in the world would die if Vice President Cheney was dead. I think that is a little worse than calling someone a faggot.
Maher is respected by liberals and a satirist. Coulter is respected by conservatives and a satirist. She writes a column, he has a TV show.
If you are not up on the news enough to know that a TV star was sent to rehab for calling someone a faggot, maybe you should catch up. It is pretty obvious that is what she was referring to. Edwards with his wife and kids obviously is not gay (although I did know someone who got married, had a kid and later became gay or admitted he was gay all along or whatever), so I don't think her comment was a slam at gays. It was about the sudden retreat to rehab for anyone who says the wrong thing.
What was the context of Maher's joke? Or was it a joke?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 6, 2007 11:07:42 AM
I know I shouldn't, but
Maher is respected by liberals
BWAAAHHHH?!?!?!?!?!
Posted by: Quarterican | Mar 6, 2007 11:13:47 AM
"...machismo--or, more pointedly, the appearance or outright illusion of machismo--is the ...."
So, then...
What shall we, in fact call that creature...
Acting tough, ever-'manly'...
That faux-macho guy who is
Actually profoundly terrified that he just ISN'T -- awfully?
[But ...most especially...that someone will ever find out.]
My guess would be that almost all the neo-con crowd would fit, the Gingriches & Goldbergs,
all of Pandagon's '101st Fighting Keyboardists'..and an all-drummed-up list going on and on...
Posted by: has_te | Mar 6, 2007 11:15:47 AM
Frankly, the reason this approach works is because everybody on the left is "too good" to debase themselves by fighting fire with fire. Instead, we "expose the tactics" and we condemn them...and they keep working. I'm sick and tired of it.
So, yeah, I see that Coulter is doing yeoman's work trying to make Edwards more "faggy" than the Republicans. But I really think this is a risky strategy given the wussiness of the Republican lineup, and we should make the Republicans pay for Ann's big mistake of playing "quien es mas macho" when they don't have any real men in contention for the Presidency.
I mean, Guiliani speaks with a lisp! Every time he says he took on "organithed cwime", it makes me laugh.
I'm also fascinated to see how the fact that Rudy Giuliani is impotent affects the Republicans' ability to turn him into a macho man. Maybe when he loses, he and Bob Dole can do viagra commercials together.
Really, Rudy Guiliani is an impotent, lisping, pudgy and SHORT man. If he gets elected, are we going to require all the wives of foreign heads of state to wear flats to state dinners? If Angela Merkel wore heels, she'd look down on him. I can't wait to see pictures of the next NATO conference with Rudy as President--it'll be like "where's waldo" trying to find the teeny tiny American President in the picture. Maybe they'll put him in the front row--on a box!
Republicans will keep doing this until we make them pay for it. There's the high road, and then there's being swift-boated. I'm sick and tired of being swift-boated by weenies, and I think we have to take a different tack. Instead of saying these things are wrong (which they are) we say they're wrong AND STUPID because the Republicans are huge pussies compared to the Democrats--and then we compare them. They opened the door, let's drive a humvee through it.
Posted by: anonymous | Mar 6, 2007 11:16:51 AM
Captian, it's called the truth. You don't get to cause the death of tens of thousands of people and have everyone pretend you didn't. So stop whinning you pathetic little crybaby. Nobody cares what you have to say, and nobody ever will. Why don't you spend some time working on your real life, hopeless as it may be. That way, maybe you could someday get your kicks doing something other than the internet equivelant to peeing in the kiddie pool.
But actually on topic here- I hate Republicans. They're pathetic little men for the most part, and theres nothing more laughable than being called weak by someone who wouldn't stand a chance in hell against you. That's why they don't fight in wars, they know they'd die. That's why Dick Cheney and George Bush never fought for their country, they never would have lasted ten minutes.
Posted by: soullite | Mar 6, 2007 11:22:29 AM
Sorry...Afterthought.
Ever think of the terribly mane`d
Bolton..big 'stache, lot on top.
A fearsome leonine visage, at least, but...
Fine hands, and for all the tough verbiage,
a pretty delicate voice.
Like that.
Posted by: has_te | Mar 6, 2007 11:27:24 AM
Let us count up the crimes of Cheney, then his benefices, and we can all decide whether his presence is an asset or a debit to the folks in the Middle East. If your quote is correct, Maher is noting a correlation; making an observation. Maher has no control over Cheney's life. Nor is Maher, as far as I can see advocating violence towards Cheney; he is no Henry II. Maher's statement has some nuance and substance to it, Coulter's does not. Maher is a gadfly irreverant, ironic, comic TV host. Coulter, for reasons unknown to me, is considered a political pundit.
To each conservative who likes to promulgate the effete male, hairy female meme, I bequeath them a sound beating by an irate Teamster or longshoreman just to remind them of the Democratic roots. May the ghost of Bob Taft save them.
Posted by: Mudge | Mar 6, 2007 11:27:43 AM
There's the high road, and then there's being swift-boated. I'm sick and tired of being swift-boated by weenies, and I think we have to take a different tack. Instead of saying these things are wrong (which they are) we say they're wrong AND STUPID because the Republicans are huge pussies compared to the Democrats--and then we compare them. They opened the door, let's drive a humvee through it.
Yes. I think I mentioned that I find this whole gender-slurring, pigeonholing thing to be indicative of a lack of awareness and a profoundly starved imagination, but the word stupid sums it up more tidily.
(Can I drive something a bit less inefficient and more stylish through that door, though? Say a hydrogen-powered BMW or something?)
Posted by: litbrit | Mar 6, 2007 11:31:30 AM
Chri*st!...I can't stop.
And I got a picture of Bush waving his 'girl' hand.
That's one with a longer index than ring and is supposed to be gendering marker.
It's mostly a female thing apparently but [caveat] I also collected a picture of Dan Rather who has the same manual configuration.
Not, of course, that any of that actually figures - real world.
Posted by: has_te | Mar 6, 2007 11:39:30 AM
"You don't get to cause the death of tens of thousands of people and have everyone pretend you didn't."
Please cite your evidence.
"Let us count up the crimes of Cheney, then his benefices, and we can all decide whether his presence is an asset or a debit to the folks in the Middle East."
Count em up.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 6, 2007 11:41:21 AM
Bill Maher has nothing to do with this, nor does any discussion about Dick Cheney and anything he has or has not caused. Toke is just bringing it up to have something to rant about.
It's the same thing regarding the location of litbrit's or any other immigrant's citizenship. That Fred apparently casts all immigrants into the mold of "taking" American jobs shows how intellectually impoverished his view of this country really is.
Then again, if it weren't for irrelevancies, most conservatives wouldn't have anything to say.
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 6, 2007 11:45:31 AM
Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the left, stephen. I know you live it, therefore can't see it, but it is blaringly obvious to us on the outside.
How about George Clooney making fun of Charlton Heston's Alzheimer's or Al Gore calling his political opponents the "extra chromosome right wing" making fun of people with Down's Syndrome. Al Gore was vice president.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 6, 2007 12:03:03 PM
Not worth the effort, Toke. You'd simply ignore all charges in a Supreme Court-like wave of your condescending hand. I know what you are, impervious to rational thought, and you know what I am, addicted to the sensible and frustrated by concrete objects.
Pistols at dawn.
Posted by: Mudge | Mar 6, 2007 12:04:32 PM
Just pointing out the hypocrisy of the left, stephen. I know you live it, therefore can't see it, but it is blaringly obvious to us on the outside.
All I did was say you were talking about something irrelevant to litbrit's post. No need to act like an asshole over it.
I tend to not like it when Maher makes statements like that or Clooney making fun of Heston - which I haven't heard but I'll take your word for it. Most importantly, if someone had written a post condemning Bill Maher, I wouldn't jump in the comments with "b-b-b-but Ann Coulter! Michael Savage! Rush Limbaugh!"
At any rate, none of your examples is of a person who has made a career out of spewing nonstop vitriol and garbage to his political opponents.
For Coulter, Savage and Limbaugh, making fun of liberals using nasty language is the basis for their careers. If they stopped that, they would have nothing to say. Just like if you stopped introducing irrelevent topics into comment threads as flame bait.
Posted by: Stephen | Mar 6, 2007 12:29:25 PM
Fascists like Coulter don't care about homosexuality per se, or they'd be trashing Cheney for having a lesbian daughter, or Bush for having had a gay male prostitute in the press room, or Ken Mehlman, etc., etc., etc.
It's power and violence they worship, and the nazis were like this as well--you could be as queer as you liked (Rohm), as long as you were a sadistic queer.
Posted by: RLaing | Mar 6, 2007 1:11:30 PM
That Fred apparently casts all immigrants into the mold of "taking" American jobs shows how intellectually impoverished his view of this country really is.
And just what the fuck do you think non-citizens are doing when they are in the US working?? Hello!!?? You got another more softer term for this reality?
How about George Clooney making fun of Charlton Heston's Alzheimer's or Al Gore calling his political opponents the "extra chromosome right wing" making fun of people with Down's Syndrome. Al Gore was vice president.
Correct. All of this caterwalling about Coulter is just not necessary. Anyone who has been paying attention, icluding my fine brothers on the left, saw this and understand that it's simply a political opportunity.
On subject: Until anyone can show me where the homosexuals have achieved protected and favored group status (which they have not), people like Coulter call anyone a FAGGOT she wants. I just don't care one way or the other. It doesnt' jazz me nor does it bother me.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 6, 2007 1:16:29 PM
stephen,
I believe Savage is endorsing Jerry Brown for AG. I don't think Rush would have the worlds biggest radio talk show audience if his career was based on making fun of liberals.
Who is more prominant in their party? Ann Coulter or Al Gore?
Why is former Democrat VP Al Gore making fun of the retarded acceptable yet Ann Coulter's comments reprehensible?
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 6, 2007 1:18:51 PM
Gore gets a pass.....
Posted by: Fred Jones | Mar 6, 2007 1:22:31 PM
Maybe Gore will buy some carbon credits to make up for his slur against the retarded.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 6, 2007 1:32:25 PM
Anonymous, your suggestion of fighting fire with fire is a good one. That's why I love the way Fred and Captain Toke have been making fun of the Rethug bigots by parodying them. There's even a group now called Faggots for Fred - we love the way he capitalizes Faggot. It is his wink-wink. Much finer satire than Captain Toke, his special friend, a girl who just can't keep in character. As fred has been telling his log cabin Republican buddies, getting Cage aux Folles Giuliani in the White House is all important - then we can work on overturning those nasty no-homo marriage laws - Fred has been keeping verrry close count on those thing, and it really pisses him off. Faggots for Fred is all about upping the ante - Fred learned how to do this, I'm guessing, by his study of Divine Andy Warhol's tactics in Interview magazine -Fred's a huge Andy fan! Provacateur extraordinaire, Andy would just keep agreeing with his rich pig interviewees until they realized how they'd blundered past the point of Political Correctness, and then get their queer panties in a wad, trying to claw back.
I believe Fred is going to be hosting a Faggots for Fred party soon. Ask him for details!
Posted by: roger | Mar 6, 2007 1:46:51 PM
If Gore went to rehab for slurring the retarded, he'd probably do some actual good for the environment by not jetting around the world and using 20 times the electricity and natural gas compared to the average person.
Posted by: Captain Toke | Mar 6, 2007 1:47:55 PM
Fred, you're still hallucinating the connection between special group status and the wrongness of bigoted speech. I've explained this to you fully enough in the "Thank you Ma'am" thread, with no rational response from you, so don't bother pretending your non-point hasn't been answered.
Greenwald gets at something I've pointed out to those who argue that the likes of Coulter make Republicans seem moderate: the opposite is true; she makes them look like extremists.
Anonymous, there's nothing wrong with pointing out that Republican candidates aren't higher on the macho scale than Democrats, depending on how it's done, and there's nothing at all new about pointing it out. Some of the attacks on Bush's military service were just as vicious and fact-free as the swiftboat campaign against Kerry's. Obviously (to me), we don't want to follow the Ann Coulters into the kind of irrational hatred that she caters to. We believe that's evil. We can make our points in equally effective but not equally vile ways.
I hate Republicans. They're pathetic little men for the most part, and theres nothing more laughable than being called weak by someone who wouldn't stand a chance in hell against you. That's why they don't fight in wars, they know they'd die.
Soullite, it's sad and funny that you started your post talking about the truth. You're way off here. It happens that the military skews heavily Republican, and there are of course as many "manly" Republicans as Democrats.
It's interesting to see how some people defend Maher's remark about Cheney dead. I don't have to use much imagination to figure out how such a remark would be received if Coulter made it about Clinton.
RLaing, you get credit for first mention of Nazis in the thread.
Posted by: Sanpete | Mar 6, 2007 1:49:27 PM
Oh dear, I was trying so very hard not to get swept into this derailing, but what Bill Maher said is being taken from the transcript directly, and out of context. Even conservative host Joe Scarborough pointed this out last night, and he was actually a guest on the Real Time show that night:
SCARBOROUGH: All right. Let‘s move on to Bill Maher really quickly here. I wanted to—let‘s take a look at what some of the blogs have said about Bill Maher‘s comments today. The blog Newsbusters ran the headline, “Bill Maher Sorry the Assassination Attempt on Dick Cheney Failed,” and the conservative blog Right Voices has a headline “Bill Maher Sorry Dick Cheney Wasn‘t Assassinated.” That seems to be the buzz over and over again. But I was there, Bob Kohn, and that‘s not what Bill Maher said.
KOHN: You know, it‘s funny, it‘s—again, the medium is the message. If you read the transcript, that‘s exactly what he said. But if you watch the video, that is not what he meant to say. That was taken out of context by the conservative bloggers. There is no doubt about that. Completely out of context.
But remember the question that he asked? It was about someone making the point about that they wished that Cheney was assassinated on The Huffington Post. And Huffington took it off, and he was saying, what is wrong with that? What‘s wrong with saying—this is not China, he should be allowed to say it. He is making a First Amendment.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, he was talking about.
KOHN: Yes. He is making a freedom of speech argument. There is nothing wrong with his saying that, but it sounds like he did not mean to say it, but he wished he could say it, because that‘s what he was saying. He wished that he could say such things in public. He would have defended Ann Coulter on this show.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, the thing is, and I was there sitting next to him, and we had a discussion back and forth. In fact, at one point we played you the clip at the top, Steve, where Bill Maher said actually, no, no, no, I didn‘t say that, these people on The Huffington Post said.
ADUBATO: And I have to tell you, Joe, I was prepared to really blast
Bill Maher because if he became close to implying something like that, he
needs to be lambasted worse than Ann Coulter. The problem is, I watched
the clip before I came in, the whole thing, then I see it again here, then
I am saying to myself, how could those other folks who put those headlines
I am looking at a bunch of headlines that—foxnews.com says “TV Host Bill Maher Suggests Dick Cheney‘s Death Would‘ve Saved Lives,” and a whole bunch of other headlines like that, and I am thinking, do you intentionally put those headlines there when you know he did not mean it? That‘s irresponsible. "
Posted by: litbrit | Mar 6, 2007 2:06:52 PM
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