Here's a radical notion: If you're a man and you call yourself a Progressive, you can't sling sexist insults at women.
Any women.
Not just Progressive women. Not just women you like. Not just your mom.
If you want me to take you seriously and believe that you are genuinely committed to the Progressive agenda, you may not take sexist swipes at Conservative women, either -- not even the really awful ones.
Not Michele Bachmann.
Not Sarah Palin.
Not New York Daily News columnist SE Cupp, of whom I had never heard until Hustler magazine (a decidedly questionable source of Progressivism, I admit, despite what Larry Flynt might think) photoshopped an image of her with a penis in her mouth, and opined:
S.E. Cupp is a lovely young lady who read too much Ayn Rand in high school and ended up joining the dark side. Cupp, an author and media commentator who often shows up on Fox News programs, is undeniably cute. But her hotness is diminished when she espouses dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the method pictured here is Ms. Cupp’s suggestion for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy.
So yes, the latest example of men on the left who think it's ok to viciously dehumanize Conservative women by reducing them to their sexual organs and/or conventional attractiveness is provided by Hustler -- a publication predicated on dehumanizing women by reducing them to their sexual organs and/or conventional attractiveness. BUT.
But, as can be seen by clicking on the links embedded in the names of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin above, Hustler is far from the first or last example. Need more?
Ed Schultz and Laura Ingram. Keith Olbermann and Ann Coulter. Keith Olbermann and Carrie "opposite marriage" Prejean. Matt Taibi and Michelle Malkin. Bill Maher and Karen Santorum. Bill Maher and Megyn Kelly. Michael Moore and... all women (some of whom are, presumably, Conservative).
And perhaps unsurprisingly (to me, at least) it doesn't stop at the Republican Party door -- it turns out that so-called Progressive men are often happy to say these things about women they don't like on the left, too: Chris Matthews and Hillary Clinton. Keith Olbermann and Hillary Clinton. Matt Taibi and Hillary Clinton. Matt Taibi and Erica Jong.
In some of these cases, the men in question apologized, and did so in a fashion that to me seemed sincere (Olbermann, for instance, and Schultz), and that's to be respected.
But I'm not going to applaud it, because I am just so damn tired of the whole thing, and honest to God: I know I have to expect this from the other side of the aisle -- but from my compatriots, too?
It's everywhere, this treatment of women, everywhere. And it is most certainly not limited to Famous Men. It's in conversations, and on Twitter, and on reddit, and in blogposts, and among comments on blogs, and on Youtube, and at the work place, and at school, and on the street.
It's exhausting. It's demoralizing. It's heartbreaking. And it's fucking everywhere.
If you are a man somewhere on the left side of America's political map and you don't understand these facts well enough to understand that pulling old-school sexism out of your back pocket and wielding it against Conservative women is just plain wrong -- you're betraying me. You're betraying me, and all the Progressive women in your life, and any daughters you may have, and ultimately, the cause of Progressives everywhere.
Just as I support the right of Log Cabin Republicans to get married (despite their party's efforts to prevent it) and the right of African-American Republicans to vote (despite their party's efforts to roll back the Voting Rights Act), I support the right of Conservative women to be treated as human beings (despite their party's efforts to legislate women as something less).
This is not about party affiliation -- this is about the radical notion that women are people. All women.
Even the Conservative ones.
Crossposted at Emily L. Hauser In My Head.
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