The Horrible Misogynists On The Left
Read Time:4 Minute, 38 Second
One of my favorite political Facebook pages happens to be run by a few good friends of mine: I Love It When I Wake Up And Barack Obama Is President (ILIW) is a great page, filled with witty, intelligent commentary, and as most political pages do, ILIW often posts photos.
A few days ago, they posted a photo that I loved and shared. It’s a photo of six women, three conservatives in the top row and three liberals on the bottom. The top text reads “The Crazies,” and underneath are Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Ann Coulter, looking, well, crazy. The bottom three women are Jennifer Aniston, Eva Longoria and Charlize Theron, and underneath, the text reads “The Sane.”
The photo on ILIW’s page garnered humorous responses and was shared quite a few times. But, as always, a few people took it way too seriously and showed themselves to be just as crazy as Palin, Bachmann and Coulter. The whole point of the photo was to respond to HUNDREDS of photos created by the wrong wing, showing crazy liberal women, and calling liberal women crazy. Much like my recent article here at Mad Mike’s entitled Gorgeous liberals, we’re sick of this shit, and are fighting back with our own stunningly beautiful (inside and out) liberal celebrities.
Liberals like to pretend we’re better than the other side, just because we’re liberal. We don’t dirty our hands with shallow diatribe, we don’t lie, we refuse to sink to “their” level. Yes, and by doing that we lost Anthony Weiner. We lost in November of 2010. Because we don’t understand the other side at all. I am not saying we should become Lee Atwater or Karl Rove. However, when a Facebook page posts a cute photo in direct response to the wrong wing disrespecting, insulting and labeling liberal women as crazy, stupid and ugly, liberals really shouldn’t respond like this:
“ I’m liberal in an area where I’m vastly outnumbered by the opposite and I felt the need to comment on the misogyny in this post. After having read the other posts here, the only thing I’m convinced of is that some people seem to think that immature behavior is worth emulating. Even my 3 year old gets taught better than that. Liberals should be raising the level of debate, not stooping to the non sequitur arguments of conservatives who think physicality is related to clarity of political thought.”
For God’s sake. But this is exactly what liberals do. We use intellectual phrases like “non sequitur” when commenting on a PHOTOGRAPH, and while we put out this teeny, tiny little campfire, we ignore the raging inferno that is Congress. Then we have:
“I actually have to stop liking this page now. This is an insult to the president. He would never say or promote such sexist bull.”
Sexist bull. Posting a photo of three conservative women who have said the most horrible things about President Obama, the LGBT community and encouraged violence against their fellow Americans, and comparing them to three liberal women who are bright, funny, talented, passionate and oh yes happen to look fabulous is sexist bull. And since President and Mrs. Obama are both considered gorgeous and liberal, how is this insulting to either one of them?
One outraged woman wrote she doesn’t “think it counts as “progressive” to reduce women to their fuckability in determining their worth as human beings. That’s exactly the kind of thinking at the root of conservative anti-choice legislation, and not calling it out wherever it occurs is, I think, a big part of what makes it possible for shit like that to get passed. The image strikes me as fighting fire with fire.”
See? Liberals are not supposed to fight back, we’re the passive, peaceful doormats of political parties. And the photo had nothing to do with “fuckability” anymore than my article highlighting a few gorgeous liberals had anything to do with “fuckability.” It was a photo, and in true Herbal Tea Bagger form, some “progressive” women could not see the lovely forest for the trees. And as someone who is intimately familiar with the root of anti-choice legislation, I can promise this “liberal” woman, fighting back, in a lighthearted way, against the misogyny on the wrong wing with our own lovely people has nothing to do with any of that legislation. Now, if ILIW posted half naked pictures of porn stars, without any explanation or justification, then, yes, that would be weird. But I guarantee that none of these women would have had one negative thing to say if the photo had been of Johnny Depp, George Clooney, Robert Redford or any other MALE, gorgeous liberal.
I know liberals love to play holier-than-thou, heck, I’ve done it. But this? A photo? Stupid fight, stupid argument and a distraction from the actual issues. Liberals get distracted by shiny things a lot, and that’s when we lose and lose big. I know liberals who are bitching about the ACA, because it doesn’t go far enough, and they are using that as another excuse not to vote. THAT’S a battle worth fighting, gang, not some photo of pretty liberal women. Let the little fires die out on their own, we don’t have time for them. Fight the big fires, and maybe we’ll get something done.
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This article didn’t do liberal women any favors, nor the liberal cause. Is this an example of fighting back? I don’t think so.
No, I fight back by volunteering and donating time and money to liberal candidates. I pester people until they register to vote. I champion marriage equality. I focus on LARGE fires, not silly little ones like a photo. Jason-the use of the word misogynist was in response to the progressive women who accused the admins of the Facebook page of being misogynists for posting this photo.
As to the rest of the comments on this “little fire,” thank you for proving my point. It’s a photograph. And I stand by my belief that if this was Rush Limbaugh, Eric Cantor and John Boehner on the top row, and George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Redford on the bottom, not one of you would have said a word. Who’s sexist again?
My point is that liberals tend to be too pc and get all butt-hurt when one of us calls someone a bitch or crazy or dumb, because we are not allowed to do that or we are misogynists for doing that to a woman. I do not think Bill Maher or Keith Olbermann are misogynists, but Ann Coulter and Elizabeth Hasselback would love you to think that because these men talk shit about how dumb and bat-shit crazy the two of them are, keith and bill are the evil guys who hate women, when they are calling out two wackos for moronic behavior. It seemed to me that we had such a liberal commenting about how we have to be above the mud, but our being above the mud is why we got beat in 2010 and could hurt us this time. Being above the mud doesn’t mean we should be afraid to confront the bullshit of the riech wing. Calling them out on their bullshit and being real about it will send a clear message. Liberals have a spin and are not putting up with evil riech wing shit.
Misogyny is not a “little fire.” It harms a solid half of the population (and I would argue it harms men as well, so there’s the rest of us), making it decidedly in the “big fire” column. Calling women “crazy” is one of the most common tactics used to silence them. Valuing women’s attractiveness before all else is another. This image does both of these things. “The other guy did it first!” is not a good reason to do a terrible thing, as we all learned in kindergarten, and liberals especially should be concerned about alienating women, who make up a formidable voting force. Stop making excuses for why you did something that made the world a little worse and start trying to make the world a little better.
I agree with you on many points, however, just because one calls a woman crazy doesn’t mean they are guilty of misogyny. Ann Coulter is fucking crazy as shit. She should be locked in a paded room. Does this mean I am guilty of misogyny? I am not. I made a comment about a person, not about all women. If I call all women bitches, it is misogyny, if I say Sarah Palin is a bitch, then I am speaking towards how I see her behavior.
The problem is ILIW IS a biased and Misogynistic site. I am a woman, and just one of many that has strong liberal leaning views yet I do not follow goosestepping in row the “I Love Obama no matter what” mentality. I and many women who are like minded have been silenced by this group.
Until they stop silencing strong minded liberal women, then I will stand by this assertion.
[…] when I read things like, “I know liberals who are bitching about the ACA, because it doesn’t go far enough, and […]
I didn’t really find anything offensive about the photo, but a couple of points have been made, that are worth noting. As Ben wrote – why NOT Rachel Maddow? How about Jennifer Granholm – a wonderful spokesperson for the Democrats. For that matter, why not Debbie Wasserman-Schultz? I totally agree that we tend to give WAY too much credibility to actors and actresses, simply because they’re well known. I also agree that it’s past time for liberals to fight back. The conservatives have demonstrated, consistently, that they will stop at NOTHING to achieve their repressive agenda. If we sit back, titter at clever cartoons, and simply make intellectual comments, we’re going to lose the political battles.
Look, I’m not going to argue that liberals are really good at being doormats, and I’d love for liberals to be better at fighting fire with fire. This picture is stupid though. You see it as satire, I don’t see a damn thing about it that indicates that. All I see is three bad pictures of conservative women and three lad-mag worthy photos of three vaguely liberal women.
It’s also worth noting that the three conservative women consist of two elected officials and someone who has made a career of writing, and the three liberal women consist of actresses. Like, really? The best we’ve got are a bunch of actresses? Why not Rachel Maddow? Or Michelle Obama? Instead, we’re making a comparison in which, somehow, conservatives come out on top in terms of being progressive (i.e. women in non-traditionally female roles like law and politics) and liberals look like a bunch of hormone-addled fifteen year-old boys.
In what world does this contribute to progressive politics? What swing voter sees this and goes “Yup, I’m down with single-payer”? What conservative sees this and slinks away sadly? What liberal is motivated by Eva Longoria’s hotness to go to the fucking polls? This might satisfy your craving for smugness in the way that Bill Maher or Ed Schultz might, but that shit doesn’t pass laws. So unless you can prove to me that this picture does anything to fight anything except hundreds of years of women trying to be recognized for more than their looks, I’m not sure it’s worth whatever cost you think is so small.
Good points.
The photo fails because “The crazy” look crazy. “The Sane” images 2 and 3 don’t scream ‘sanity’.
Ditto on the elected officials.
Why aren’t our amazing and admired liberal women in office depicted?
Re : The complainers & whiners ….
There will always be someone that just doesn’t get it. There will always be that certain someone who would complain that the gold brick they found was too damn heavy to carry home ! Hardly worth wasting time with that crowd.
“some “progressive” women could not see the lovely forest for the trees.” Unfortunately this happens to too many people. I know a couple women like that. I know a couple men like that. It’s shitty to think that some people can rationalize their argument no matter how off base they are.
I’ve often wondered why liberals DON’T fight back. Republicans will fight at the mere suggestion of a fight.
They bring a gun, we bring a spork.