Mary Grabar has a great column discussing that vapid, estrogen-laden talk show The View.
I say great only because I agree with her, of course. But after reading it, I couldn't help but wonder what on earth the Pandagonistas would say about statements like this:
This was the danger of giving women the vote. The danger to conservatives (and the survival of this country) is the voting bloc of single women, i.e., those who lack the guidance of a man in the form of a husband or intellectual mentor.
These are women who pride themselves on being independent and empowered when they dress like prostitutes (look at the view of cleavage on the View!). These are the women who watch the View. These are the women who support Hillary Rodham Clinton. These are the women on the show who ask Senator Clinton questions like "Do you think being a mom will help you in the White House?" as they did on December 20. These are the women who think it matters that a potential presidential candidate waxes on about the same themes in her re-released book, It Takes a Village: that preschool programs need to be expanded, that working parents should have time off to take care of their kids. This is the potential presidential candidate who was applauded on the show for allowing one of her staff members to bring in her baby’s playpen.
This is a woman who started off with a discussion about how much she likes to do crafts at Christmas time.
Yes, I can imagine: we’ll have playpens and parenting classes and crafts classes in the new Clinton White House, maybe even a special prayer room for the Muslims and breaks five times a day for them. This will bring peace to the world by setting an example, for all the terrorists will supposedly drop their weapons in awe of this "village." Hillary’s answer to the Iraq question was that she wanted the country to have a "conversation" again. What—like the one they have on The View?
News flash: there are fanatics who want to annihilate us and Hillary Rodham Clinton is talking about crafts and "conversations."
I suppose this is the warm-and-fuzzy Hillary on display, the baking-cookies-and-standing-by-my-man Hillary that will get the estrogen vote. I prefer when Hillary doesn't do the touchy-feely stuff, not just because I think it's fake but because I don't care about it. I want to know exactly what she wants to do about Iraq and the environment and taxes and business regulations and the United Nations. I want to know what sort of judges she thinks should be on the Supreme Court: the kind that make shit up from international law when it suits 'em or the kind that stick with our Constitution?
Of course, I think most of us know what Hillary is really like. We've been watching her for at least a dozen years and I don't think she's gonna change now. But the trouble with the inanity of The View and other gaggles of women is that they reduce all of us to the stereotypes I thought feminists had fought against all those years ago. Did they do that so that Hillary Clinton could discuss how she likes to do crafts at Christmas time in an interview? And are these the same questions we would expect Rosie O'Donnell to ask, say, Mitt Romney were he to actually make it onto their show?
I doubt the giggling henfest on The View would ask Romney what his favorite Skittle was or how being a dad has affected his political philosophy. Everybody knows that Republicans are Nazis. After all, Joy Behar compared Donald Rumsfeld to Adolph Hitler. And we all know how perceptive she is.
UPDATE: Amanda covers Grabar's column at this post on Pandagon and the post and comments are predictable.
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