Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Something Women on the Left and Right Can Agree On

As I posted previously, Amanda at Pandagon has posted some of the disgusting e-mails she has received.

Echidne of the Snakes has a post on Amanda's e-mail, as well. The part of her post that interested me was this:

I get told fairly often that my problem is inadequate sex and that this inadequacy is caused by my ugliness/fatness/hairiness. The real reason is of course the snake tail. Would you like to f*** someone who has cold scales for a butt? But I digress.

What I wanted to say that a very common cure for feminism seems to be to get f*****...

But perhaps I shouldn't say "f*****". Such an unladylike word to say! Women can't say it but they can get "f*****". A lot.

Amanda points out that these nasty e-mails she gets are attacking her as a woman, as an uppity woman, a woman who isn't totally calmed down by a little vigorous sexual activity.

I find this analysis interesting because--gasp!--I've been told that, too! In fact, Amanda said similar things to me.
Seriously, sharon, if you don’t like sex, just be out with it. That’s great. You don’t have to be angry with the rest of us who do like it. I know you doubt it, the way you carry on, but women do have sex because we want to.

Perhaps this is part of the reason that Amanda's outrage is so hypocritical. She's now complaining about receiving e-mails that attack her as a woman, and yet she constantly attacked women the same way.

I do agree, by the way, that it is demeaning and misogynistic to attack a person's sexuality because they point out disagreeable facts...like people who really don't want children should avoid sex.

UPDATE: I sent an e-mail to Echidne pointing out that it seems that women on the right as well as the left get hit with this same rhetoric. Her response was that she "knows" it isn't just a rightwing problem but that "the extreme fringe of the Republican party does offer more legitimization to misogyny." I guess love is never having to say you're sorry?

I guess Echidne isn't concerned about the hate mail Michelle Malkin receives.