I've said before that Echidne is a bit overly sensitive to criticism, but her latest temper tantrum on those meanies mocking her anger over Mitt Romney's speech is is a show-stopper. She must be populating a corn field with all her strawmen.
(O)ppression, rape and even being killed for their gender in some countries, are somehow all problems that only the feminists should try to solve. The rest of the society can just sit back and criticize the feminist attempts, almost like those ice-skating judges at the Olympics. Though of course they would applaud should the feminists actually solve all those frighteningly large problems, without much external funding and while being criticized of nitpicking and various forms of lunacy. But are these problems not the responsibility of the rest of the humankind to solve? It appears not. Only the feminists are expected to fix the world for billions of women...
It even matters when a politician gives a speech with references to great statesmen, not to stateswomen, and it matters because of what the images might be that our brains create from that speech, and how those images then become expectations having to do with how a politician should look (masculine)...
But a concise answer to that accusation might be that it is the Rush Limbaughs and their feminazi labels which have made feminism less popular than it really should be, given that people, including women, don't actually love to be hated. Though right now I think that the idea that feminists are to fix the world, without pay, for all women while the rest of humans sit in the audience giving style points and drinking beer is also a very good reason not to come out as a feminist.
Boldface is hers.
Gee, want a little cheese to go with that whine? Where to start?
Well, for one thing, I know of no one who says only feminists should be concerned about the real atrocities committed against women around the world. In fact, quite a few men--and non-feminist women--are concerned about those things, too. The criticism is that crying about the use of male nouns in a speech given by a man is childish, immature, and shallow when there are actual problems that need attention. For example, I could understand (although I didn't agree with) the concerns of atheists with Romney's speech, but worrying about his decision not to use PCisms to pacify feminists truly is, as I told her, a tempest in a teapot. Some people try to use gender neutral language. Some people, particularly of a certain age, still believe that "mankind" and "humanity" include both men and women. Some people still believe in "God the Father" and don't think that excludes women.
Complaining about a politician's use of male nouns is a bit like sitting at a sumptuous speech and complaining there are no green beans present. You can choose to focus on the feast or focus on what's missing; what you focus on says more about you than about the feast itself.
Secondly, Echidne, as most feminists, is extremely hung up on Rush Limbaugh. Perhaps she has a secret crush, given the amount of time she talks about him. The truth is, Rush Limbaugh has made a career out of reading actual news items, then comments (sometimes seriously, sometimes humorously) on them. In other words, the reason Limbaugh even started talking about "feminazis," a term he hasn't used for years, is because feminists have done a lot of silly or nasty things in the name of advancing women. If feminists dislike the portrayal, perhaps they should look at their behavior as opposed to the parody. That might be good advice for Echidne, as well.
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