Okay, so I got bashed here at Slate’s XX Factor for having my “knickers in a twist” over the current Ms. magazine cover (see this, this and this). Choice quote: “Feminism lies like a beached octopus, tentacles thrashing in all directions, looking for anything upon which it may find purchase, desperately seeking to be relevant again.” Jeepers. I thought the Ms. cover was ill advised, I said so on this blog, and by doing so I single-handly ruined feminism. And that was before breakfast! The author of the post is Susannah Breslin. Let’s look at a couple of her other recent posts at XX Factor to see what TRULY IMPORTANT FEMINIST ISSUES AS IDENTIFIED BY SUSANNAH BRESLIN look like:
1. The brand and model of the shoes that were hurled at Bush.
2. A “22-year-old women’s studies major, is selling her virginity to the highest bidder.”
3. A post entitled “All Writers Are Whores” in which Susannah Breslin writes: “… oh, what I wouldn’t do for a sugar daddy. Freelancing is a tough, lonely business. The idea of a man lining my pockets with enough cash to not have to worry about the rest and focus on the writing sounds like a small slice of writerly heaven to me.” The post closes with these words: “I’d venture if the stigma was lesser, there’d be more male writers out there riding the sugar-mommy train. Too bad feminist rhetoric doesn’t pay my bills.” [Emphasis added.]
Welp, I’m glad she clued readers to the fact that her posts were “feminist rhetoric” because otherwise I doubt anyone would have realized that is what she has been writing.
–Ann Bartow
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Poor grammar aside, Breslin’s writing is anti-woman and anti-man. I don’t remember any feminist lessons that included “how to use” others.
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C’mon, Ann: feminism is so dead, now that the Progressive Messiah is going to be President! The role of feminists is just to kneel down before our male feminists and thank them for all that they’re doing for us. How irrelevant for women feminists to write or say anything at all! We should just tape our mouths shut or cut out our tongues like the Ellen Jamesians to signify our obedience to our male feminist masters.
Don’t you have your new plastic boobies yet? I think you’d feel much better about yourself if you got giant plastic implants, like all of these young women who don’t need feminism any more. Big plastic boobs are SO much more relevant now!
I can’t afford big plastic boobies. Maybe I’ll have to resort to stuffing wadded up tissues in a bra to look well endowed. Always nice to have a stash of tissues available during cold and flu season!
Reading Breslin’s words brings the voice of Emily Litella chirping in my ear.
Thanks for your courage in challenging the Ms cover. The critics of feminism, such as Breslin, are sounding terribly “same”. You, however, are not.
Thanks. I can hardly believe how angry some folks got. I hope Ms. got what it wanted out of all this. Nobody else is any better off, I don’t think.
Slate set up XX Factor because men who bashed Senator Clinton that hard would have appeared sexist. Harder to figure out Ms.’s motive. “Controversy” to inflate its lousy circulation numbers? I understand its editors are directing irked people to read the prose (not available online) and then make up their own mind. Same noise from Mel Gibson’s people when his “Passion” opened a few years ago: that it’s unfair, or at least premature, to protest if you haven’t bought and consumed the offending item.
I did link to the Ms. explanation for the cover in this post:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=4565
(see ETA2) but I take your point. Still, I was questioning a magazine cover I actually saw, rather than a movie that I haven’t. Partial credit, Professor Bernstein? :>)
Sorry, I wasn’t clear.
1. Not criticizing you–quite the contrary: I don’t think anyone has to buy the mag to comment on this decision.
2. The editors’ stated explanation is one thing and their real motive, perhaps, another.
Wish I could enjoy or respect the most venerable feminist magazine in the USA. Every time over the last twenty years that I’ve thumbed through a copy of Ms. I’ve felt ungrateful and slightly guilty. Hard to remember that it once gave its readers pleasure.