While denying any intention to square off racism against sexism, the "either/or" feminists nonetheless remind us that the Black (man) got the vote before the (white) woman, that gender barriers are more rigid than racial barriers, that sexism is everywhere and racism is not, that a female Obama wouldn't get nearly as far as a Barack Obama, and that a woman's vote for Clinton is scrutinized while a male vote for Obama is not. Never mind of course that real suffrage for African Americans wasn't realized until the 1960s, that there are any number of advantages that white women have in business, politics and culture that people of color do not; that all around the world women's route to political leadership is through family dynasty which is virtually closed to marginalized groups, and that the double standard of stigmatizing Obama's Black voters as racially motivated while whitewashing Clinton's white voters as "just voters" constitutes the exact same double standard that the "either/or feminists" bemoan.
That's Eve Ensler hiding behind Kimberly Crenshaw (who should damn well know better) in their "Feminist Ultimatums: Not In Our Name" (The Huffington Post, February 5, 2008 -- no link to trash). The two women want to lie -- it takes female liars to destroy women, men have never been able to do it on their own. Crenshaw and Ensler want to claim that unnamed feminists have said that Obama's voters are "racially motivated" -- the claim doesn't hold up. They also dismiss the reality that women's votes for Clinton are scrutinized.
At the online cesspool BuzzFlash, Mark Karlin felt the need to weigh in early on. Not after Iowa, mind you. Barack Obama won Iowa (with the help of backdoors deals such as the one that killed Dennis Kucinich's run for the Democratic nomination). When that happened Little Marky had no need to editorialize. Hillary won New Hampshire. Suddenly it was time to offer up "Did Identity Politics Carry the Day for Hillary in New Hampshire?" (January 10, 2008 -- again, no links to trash) where he needed to have a heart to heart with the ladies who were so 'emotional' and so far from 'rational' that they just voted for one of their own without any thought put into their vote:
Yes, ironies abound, but the choice for the nation is a serious one, all too easily manipulated by television images and moments.
I am personally a Jewish male, but you couldn’t drag me with wild horses and force me to vote for Joe Lieberman.
I value what is good for the nation over making a first for someone who happens to share my religious identity.
We are all in this together.
Let’s make our choice on what is best for the nation, not what is best for us personally.
That wasn't the only Voters Guide For Women offered up after Hillary won New Hampshire. Crenshaw and Ensler ignore it and the rest because they want to TRASH.
Trashing is feminist term for very public attacks on one woman. Trashing what's been going on. Had a set standard been applied to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, that would be one thing. But there was no set standard. There was a standard Hillary was held to and Bambi got to smile that toothy smile and say those pretty words as he batted those long eye lashes while the likes of Ensler and Crenshaw made like Valentino groupies at the funeral procession.
Early in the second wave of feminism, Jo Freeman penned "Trashing" which quickly became a classic piece of feminism literature. In it, she notes:
Trashing is a particularly vicious form of character assassination which amounts to psychological rape. It is manipulative, dishonest, and excessive. It is occassionally disguised by the rhetoric of honest conflict, or covered up by denying that any disapproval exists at all. But it is not done to expose disagreements or to resolve differences. It is done to disparage and destroy.
How does anyone know when they're engaging in trashing? A good indicator is if a pile-on's taking place. If a pile-on of one woman is taking place, you can be pretty sure a trashing is going on and feminists need to step away from it. If they lack the spine to insist that it stop, they can at least be silent and not take part in it.
Ensler and Crenshaw rushed to participate. The pile-on was fully evident by the time they showed up. By the time they decided to publish their nonsense, it was obvious that there was a standard for a woman and no standard for the men. John Edwards and Barack Obama had already done their little tag-team dance on what they hoped was Hillary's grave in a very public debate. Big and Little Media had signaled that pieces on Bambi would be the sort that you could find in 16 or Tiger Beat while it was no holds barred on Hillary. The Hillary "nut cracker" items were already being sold and advertised. The Progressive had already recommended the neocon bible The Weekly Standard ("The Editors Recommend") because it allowed them to link to an article (without calling out the group in question) on a group whose initials were an acronym for a slur against women. Most importantly, Barack Obama had already utilized homophobia in South Carolina, at a public event, by putting known homophobes on stage (over the protests of gay rights groups) and allowing homophobia to be spewed onstage.
For the record, Eve Ensler and Kimberly Crenshaw never penned a joint-column (or a solo one) calling that out. For the record, to this day they have never called it despite the fact that the feminist movement (thanks to the work of people like Gloria Steinem) has refused to practice homophobia. (Had "The Ego Of Us All" had her way, homophobia would be part of the feminist movement and, of course, Gloria Steinem would be dead because The Ego Of Us All trashed Gloria every chance she got.)
Already, Gloria Steinem had been tarred and feathered with the ludicrous charge of racism. And Ensler and Crenshaw didn't rush to defend Steinem from those false charges. As alleged feminists, it was incumbent for them to do that. More incumbent upon them than endorsing any candidate. But those LIES about Gloria needed to stand because, to ensure that Hillary would be trashed, her supporters had to be silenced.
Silencing Gloria is silencing the movement. Now a dabbler in feminism like Eve Ensler who ferries off to this 'cause' and that 'cause' but never sticks with any (March for the women of Juarez! one year and then forget them every year after, eh, Eve?) doesn't appreciate the women's movement. She never appreciated it until she found a way to make a buck off of it.
You had two distinct silences -- a refusal to speak out against homophobia and a refusal to defend women from false charges.
You had vocalization and that's how you know it was trashing: "either/or". Ensler and Crenshaw felt the need to take 'some' feminists to task for "either/or" thinking.
Yeah, you tired and boring gals, we all know the dualism debate about society, we all know the "both and". But there is either/or thinking.
And sometimes it's correct.
The February 15th broadcast of Bill Moyers Journal featured Susan Jacoby as a guest for the second segment. Jacoby, the author most recently of The Age of American Unreason, rightly noted sometimes there are not many sides, sometimes there is just right and wrong. And when it comes to trashing, you are right or you are wrong. Ensler and Crenshaw were wrong. Trashing was already public, trashing was already being commented and the two elected to participate in it. Ensler (who got Hillary to write the foward to one of Ensler's published plays) and Kernshaw elected to participate in it. They elected to trash feminists and they elected to trash Hillary. They also demonstrated how little they know or how willing they are lie repeatedly.
Either you have a consistent standard you hold all to or you don't. The two women didn't have a consistent standard.
They were happy to lie and accuse other women of racism (when we've seen none and they offer no evidence of any). They were happy to lie and accuse other feminists of racism. (We're not sure if "other" should be in that sentence after their column.) They were happy to present themselves as of-the-moment while casting the ones they have a dispute with as retro and passe.
That's trashing. They trashed.
It's cute that Crenshaw elected to wait until after Ms. magazine was promoting her so-so article to co-launch an attack on feminism. That's what it was. Maybe someday she'll find out that either she's published by Ms. or she's not. (Of course that could also mean, either she's published period or she's not because, let's be honest, there are not many outlets that would publish her writing.) It's typical of Eve Ensler -- the Whitest of American playwrights -- to want to falsely point to racism in others.
Trashing also includes pretending to be sympathetic while trashing. That would mean Laura Flanders (who is dealt with in a separate feature by Ava and C.I. this edition) and Joyce Marcel who authored "Hillary Clinton: Bridge Woman" (Common Dreams, Feburary 21, 2008) -- and ought to be embarrassed for it.
Marcel tries to play clever -- "Look at me! I invented a term: bridge woman!" Joyce, we saw Tootsie too. "Breakthrough lady." The term the character based on Gloria Monty uses. We think it says a great deal more than you intended that, to write about Hillary, you rip off a comedy about a cross dressing male. We also think your faux sympathy is as ridiculous as your analysis. Hillary has never admitted she's wrong? On anything, Joyce? Could you also tell us what she had for lunch March 12, 1994?
Joyce explains, "Her tragedy is that she never really rebelled. She never really changed." Can we get some backing proof on that because that's a huge claim and doesn't appear backed by the public record.
But if you want to trash Hillary, as Joyce does, there's no better place to go than Common Dreams which can only offer up these "we're sad for Hillary" pieces because they damn well know they crossed a big line with their non-stop hatred of women posts. They've treated Hillary like a pinata and you only have to visit their archives if you aren't already aware. Last week, we pointed out reality, that a lot of women who try to pass for feminists better be ready to live with the fallout that will never go away from their actions. Apparently thinking they can get in just under the wire, a number of posers and fakes (like Joyce) show up to say they're saddened.
Joyce was so saddened, she had to repeat an insult involving Chelsea Clinton -- an insult well over a decade old. It's as convincing as Maureen Dowd pretending she didn't really want to quote the joke calling Hillary a bitch in her column. There was no reason for that. There was no reason to hold Hillary to a standard that doesn't apply to Barack but Joyce did that throughout. She took Hillary to task for her advisers but seems unaware that -- so concerned about the illegal war -- Barack Obama has the counter-insurgency manual pusher on his team or that he has the man who turned Afghanistan into a killing field that allowed the Taliban to rise. That would be the same Taliban that stripped women of their rights. Somehow that's not an issue to 'feminists' like Joyce or Katha Pollitt. Joyce is trashing, she's trying to pose as saddened, but she's trashing.
If they're not aware of how pervasive the trashing is, they should have caught Law and Disorder on WBAI during the pledge drive two Mondays ago. Heidi Boghosian and Michael Ratner kicked it off with Michael Smith joining them late. He made up for being tardy rather quickly as he quickly brought up Hillary Clinton for no reason other than to slam her. And to chuckle as he did so.
By contrast, last week Margaret Kimberly shared that she was a bit saddened for Hillary. Kimberly has held Clinton up to standards. But she is genuinely sad and that's because, unlike Flanders and Marcel, she held both Clinton and Obama up to the same standards.
Trashing, as a group action, isn't criticism. Trashing isn't about tone. Trashing is a pile on. And that is what's taken place with Hillary as a stand-in for all women who want to strive for something. It really boils down to, "Who the hell does she think she is?"
Believe it or not, in 1992, she excited a lot of people in the Democratic Party. Truth is, she still does. Truth is, the trashing is coming from a lot of non-Democrats who really shouldn't have a say in what happens in the Democratic Party since they are Republicans, Socialist, Communists, Greens or registered independents. But were it not for them, the trashing wouldn't have had the fuel it needed to turn into non-stop rounds of Bash The Bitch.
Here's another truth for you, one we pointed out last week, a lot of the women engaging in Bash The Bitch think they'll get off scott-free but they won't. Their real-time actions will not be forgotten by history. Accountability lies in the very near future. Like Rock & Roll, feminism never forgets.
