All you have to do is read Echidne's blog for a while, and you'll come to understand why younger women don't want to be associated with the humorless feminists of the previous generation. Take this riff of hers on a Glenn Beck self-deprecating joke (care of Media Matters, of course!)
Here's the Beck joke:
Now, here's a story I found: "Surprising reasons you're not having sex"...
I mean, here are some other reasons. "You're ugly." Hello! I'm not a sex expert but I'm -- you know, I'm thinking, you know, you're ugly and, you know, that's a tough one to overcome especially if you're a woman. If you're a guy, that's not hard to overcome. I'm sorry. That's just the way the world is. Have you -- how many ugly guys have hot wives? Take me, for example. I don't know why she married -- I think it was low self-esteem. I do. No, really I think it was low self-esteem. I got in -- you know, you buy when the market is low. You know what I mean? While everybody else is selling, you buy. And I think I got in there right at the right time. Low self-esteem, low, wait a minute, could go a little lower, she might come down to my price. Hang on, OK, sold! Now her self-esteem is going up. And if my income wasn't going up, she would have ditched me long ago. She would have gone, "Wait a minute, I think I was depressed when I married you." I'm just -- look. I'm not Tania, but I am a thinker. I'm on to you, Tania!
Emphasis Echidne's.
I've come to the conclusion that Echidne and other feminist bloggers don't like humor, especially old-fashioned humor. You know, humor that husbands and wives tell each other when they are teasing. Men talk about the ball and chain and women talk about how incompetent their men are at something or other. Watch reruns of I Love Lucy, Home Improvement, or George Lopez to know what I'm talking about. At the end of the show, the couple always comes back with why they love each other so much. Perhaps that's what Echidne doesn't get.
Here is Echidne's humorless analysis of Beck's self-deprecating remark:
It's a joke but it isn't really a joke. The thinking goes something like this: Women want money and men want sex. So all women are in the market for a rich guy and all men are in the market for a beautiful woman. Then they trade. And that is called love, I guess. Of course, once you lose your looks or your money you also lose the love...
Anyone who has listened to Beck, watched his show, or read his books knows that he isn't saying this at all. Mainly what he says is that guys are shallow and women know this and accept it for reasons beyond the pea-sized brains of most guys. But even in this sweeping generalization, Beck typically points out how lucky he is that his wife loves him regardless of how silly or shallow he is. This has nothing to do with looks and everything to do with what real love is about: caring for someone when they are lovable and when they aren't. It's not about money or power the way feminists constantly declare it is. If it were about money or power, most of us wouldn't marry the people we end up with. Unless you are Hillary Clinton and can then deny that that's why you stayed with a skirt-chaser.
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