Editorial: The 'pro-woman' propaganda dumped on the feminist movement

Beyonce Knowles shakes her ass.  She pushes her tiny breasts up high and pads them out.  She goes into the recording studio with men, she has men co-writing every one of her 'songs,' she has men producing her albums.

Somehow somewhere some way people got the idea she is a feminist.

And her album this month, on "Drunk In Love," portrays Ike Turner's beating and battering of Tina Turner -- his terrorism of her -- as sexy and about being in love.


And though many feminists have rightly said, "No, you can't promote violence against women and be a feminist," many others wanted to insist that it wasn't that bad and Beyonce's so wonderful and a feminist and . . .


How the hell did we get here?


I love my husband! Feminists are all lesbians, right? 

Jo Ellison is a reporter.  She didn't lie.  She wrote a feature for the May issue of British Vogue entitled "Mrs Carter Uncut."

A lot of people have noted this article.

On Saturday, we pulled the article and learned that none of them had actually read it.

Here's a passage where Beyonce's defending the outfits she wears:

But being Beyoncé doesn't allow for contradiction. She's baffled by the criticism that her on-stage persona, a sexually voracious, semi-clothed glamazon, is in any way antithetical to her message of female empowerment. 
"That's exactly why I can [wear those outfits]!" she insists. "Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I'm just a woman and I love being a woman. If you're attractive then you can't be sexy, and you can't be intelligent? Whatisall of that?"


Get it?

Beyonce's defense of her T&A outfits leads to this:

Is she a feminist? 

"I don't know. That word can be very extreme. But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality, and that we have a ways to go and it's something that's pushed aside and something that we have been conditioned to accept. But I'm happily married. I love my husband."

"But I'm happily married. I love my husband."  Because, you know, them feminists all be lesbians.

That's what's she saying.

And if her response to the question of whether or not she was a feminist had been accurately reported by the rest of the press, Ms. magazine wouldn't have embarrassed themselves putting Beyonce on the cover.


The big liars.

Do you know her?

Elizabeth Plank

Executive Social Editor at PolicyMic. Masters degree from the London School of Economics. Behavioural science consultant by training and feminist crusader by passion.

         

It's Elizabeth Plank, Kim Gandy's bottom bitch apparently.   Or maybe it's vice versa.

Plank, we never knew of until we had to research how a pro-violence against women performer suddenly became a feminist?

Plank's the liar who really distorted Beyonce.

Plank's pimped the lie like so many others.  Here's Plank betraying feminism in April 2013:

Hip hip hurray! Beyonce has finally come out of the proverbial feminist closet! During an interview with Vogue UK, she explained that although she wasn't a fan of labels, she definitely identified as a feminist:
"I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality. Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything? I’m just a woman and I love being a woman."


That's not a quote, that's a construct.

"I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality" are remarks (not in full) when asked if she was a feminist.

"Why do you have to choose what type of woman you are? Why do you have to label yourself anything?  I'm just a woman and I love being a woman" are remarks she made (see above) when asked about her barely-there-stage-and-video-wardrobe.

If you read the passages as they actually appeared in Vogue, no surprise, Beyonce's very comfortable talking about her own wardrobe, defending herself.  She can do that forever in a day.

She's far less talkative when the issue is feminism.

Beyonce's weak claim to be a feminist came as she was under fire for "Bow Down, Bitches" (we only learned of that song yesterday).

The track came out in March.

By April, she was a 'feminist.'

It's not journalism.

Elizabeth Plank spun it.


Her link?

Doesn't go to Vogue.


It goes to Huffington Post, a video with a man telling you what he says Beyonce told the British magazine.

Seriously, Plank?

You're an 'editor' and you can't even go to the source material?

So you're not just a liar, you're also stupid.

Again, here's Jo Ellison's UK Vogue article.  And, yeah, we can credit the woman who authored the report.

How very 'feminist' of Plank to have failed to credit the woman who wrote the report.


What was actually said

So the question Ellison posed to Beyonce was, "Is she a feminist?"

And Ellison reports Beyonce's full response.


I don't know. That word can be very extreme. But I guess I am a modern-day feminist. I do believe in equality, and that we have a ways to go and it's something that's pushed aside and something that we have been conditioned to accept. But I'm happily married. I love my husband.



"I don't know."  "That word can be very extreme."  Propagandist Plank cuts that off, like she cuts off the "But" at the start of the sentence she does quote.

"But I guess I am a modern-day feminist."

With that weak ass statement, in the midst of a homophobic stance, Beynce Knowles was wrongly portrayed as a feminist.


Faux Journalists Don't Do Fact Checks or Corrections

Having gotten the 'quote' wrong in April, Elizabeth Plank not only didn't correct her shoddy journalism, she kept repeating the lie.  This month, she wrote again about 'feminist' Beyonce and, again, used the 'quote' to establish Beyonce's feminist cred.

All she's established is that Elizabeth Plank ("Liz" when she's lying about Beyonce on MSNBC) is a lousy journalist incapable of fact checking, issuing a correction or telling the truth.


Beyonce offered a weak "But I guess I'm a modern-day feminist" but don't call me a lesiban! piece of b.s. that idiots like Elizabeth Plank, Ms. magazine, Janell Hobson, Kim Gandy and so many others pimped as a feminist statement.

Now if they hadn't falsely combined the weak-ass statement with Beyonce's defense of her right to show skin on stage, it wouldn't have worked.

And presumably that's why none of them have had the honesty to self-correct their lies.


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You cannot endorse violence against women and be a feminist.  For those who are stupid enough to fall for Beyonce and Jay-Z's bulls**t that violence against women is sexy and about love, here's some reality from NOW.

Violence Against Women in the United States: Statistics

Despite the fact that advocacy groups like NOW have worked for two decades to halt the epidemic of gender-based violence and sexual assault, the numbers are still shocking. It is time to renew our national pledge, from the President and Congress on down to City Councils all across the nation to END violence against women and men, girls and boys. This effort must also be carried on in workplaces, schools, churches, locker rooms, the military, and in courtrooms, law enforcement, entertainment and the media. NOW pledges to continue our work to end this violence and we hope you will join us in our work.

MURDER

In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner.¹ That's an average of three women every day. Of all the women murdered in the U.S., about one-third were killed by an intimate partner.²

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE (Intimate Partner Violence or Battering)

Domestic violence can be defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner.³ According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year.⁴ Less than 20 percent of battered women sought medical treatment following an injury.⁵

SEXUAL VIOLENCE

According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which includes crimes that were not reported to the police, 232,960 women in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted in 2006. That's more than 600 women every day.⁶ Other estimates, such as those generated by the FBI, are much lower because they rely on data from law enforcement agencies. A significant number of crimes are never even reported for reasons that include the victim's feeling that nothing can/will be done and the personal nature of the incident.⁷

THE TARGETS

Young women, low-income women and some minorities are disproportionately victims of domestic violence and rape. Women ages 20-24 are at greatest risk of nonfatal domestic violence⁸, and women age 24 and under suffer from the highest rates of rape.⁹ The Justice Department estimates that one in five women will experience rape or attempted rape during their college years, and that less than five percent of these rapes will be reported.¹⁰ Income is also a factor: the poorer the household, the higher the rate of domestic violence -- with women in the lowest income category experiencing more than six times the rate of nonfatal intimate partner violence as compared to women in the highest income category.¹¹ When we consider race, we see that African-American women face higher rates of domestic violence than white women, and American-Indian women are victimized at a rate more than double that of women of other races.¹²

IMPACT ON CHILDREN

According to the Family Violence Prevention Fund, "growing up in a violent home may be a terrifying and traumatic experience that can affect every aspect of a child's life, growth and development. . . . children who have been exposed to family violence suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, such as bed-wetting or nightmares, and were at greater risk than their peers of having allergies, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, headaches and flu." In addition, women who experience physcial abuse as children are at a greater risk of victimization as adults, and men have a far greater (more than double) likelihood of perpetrating abuse. ¹³

IMPACT ON HEALTH AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that the cost of domestic violence in 2003 was more than over $8.3 billion. This cost includes medical care, mental health services, and lost productivity. ¹⁴

LEGISLATION

In 1994, the National Organization for Women, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund (now called Legal Momentum), the Feminist Majority and other organizations finally secured passage of the Violence Against Women Act, which provided a record-breaking $1.6 billion to address issues of violence against women.¹⁵ However it took nearly an additional year to force the Newt Gingrich-led Congress to release the funding. An analysis estimated that in the first six years after VAWA was passed, nearly $14.8 billion was saved in net averted social costs.¹⁶ VAWA was reauthorized in 2005, with nearly $4 billion in funding over five years.¹⁷

VIOLENCE BETWEEN SAME-SEX COUPLES

According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, "domestic violence affecting LGBT individuals continues to be grossly underreported . . . there is a lack of awareness and denial about the existence of this type of violence and its impact, both by LGBT people and non-LGBT people alike."¹⁸

Myths regarding gender roles perpetuate the silence surrounding these abusive relationships; for example, the belief that there aren't abusive lesbian relationships because women don't abuse each other. Shelters are often unequipped to handle the needs of lesbians (as a women-only shelter isn't much defense against a female abuser), and transgendered individuals. Statistics regarding domestic violence against LGBT people are unavailable at the national level, but as regional studies demonstrate, domestic violence is as much as a problem within LGBT communities as it is among heterosexual ones.¹⁹