come on, my sisters, we can do better than this
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 02:01AM by MRS. G 
Many years ago, author Anna Quindlen wrote a controversial essay discussing what she sees as the superiority of women over men. She believed that “if men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”. Quindlen asserted that it is not true that she does not like men, as some of her best friends are. She has been married to the same man for twenty plus years and two of her three children are boys. She loves men and she has had to repeat it over and over in almost every interview for the last several years. Quindlen claimed in her essay that “Women are the glue that holds our day-to-day world together”. She argued that today, women assume the same duties as men, fulfill their household tasks, and are still often unappreciated by men. Never one to sugar coat her opinion, Quindlen made the following unapologetic (heartfelt, yet slightly tongue in cheek) declaration:
Women are just better.
And Mrs. G. agreed enthusiastically. It made her feel stronger as a young mother and more capable in general. You have to have been living under a rock to not know how much Mrs. G. adores her husband, adores nearly all the men in her life, but, Reader, women fill a role in her life that no man can. It's a different breed of love. They listen as she rambles on for the eighth time about how she has no idea how she's going to find a job that pays more than $5 an hour, they bring her coffee and cupcakes just because they were in her neighborhood, they take one look at her face and notice (when others don't) that she is in a bad place and needs to go out to happy hour or see a chick flick. They leave novels on her doorstep that she must read.
So, call her a sexist or chastise her for favoring the ladies, but Mrs. G, like Anna Quindlen, will not apologize or justify her position. Women are just better.
But, sadly, the gap is closing.
This is Maria Guzman Hernandez, a 32-year-old instructor at the private Our Lady of Charity school in Hialeah who allegedly had sex with her fifteen-year-old student and is one of the subjects in Time Magazine's current article:
Florida Epidemic: Teachers Sleeping with Students
But she (Maria Guzman) just as well could have been the 34-year-old Jacksonville public-school science teacher arrested last month for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old student, once in her SUV; the 32-year-old St. Petersburg teacher collared in March for allegedly "sexting" nude pictures of herself to an eighth-grade boy; or the 45-year-old teacher at a private Christian academy in South Daytona who was arrested days before for allegedly having sex with a boy from her class in various Daytona Beach hotels.
And while male teachers still considerably outnumber their female coworkers in the sexual misconduct with minors arena, really...so what? The whole scene is heartbreaking, deplorable, and repulsive. Mrs. G. just expects more from her gender. Do you know what she means? She expects more, though, lately, she has been getting less.
Proud college moments.
Heartening news: there are still very few of these.
Ha Ha Ha...we are so evolved...let's publicly fight over your, her, my future husband.
But, believe it or not, Mrs. G. is less concerned about female serial killers than she is with what comprises New School Feminism or Third Wave Feminism espoused by many young women and the hugely popular online 'zine Jezebel. One of its more popular writers, Tracie Egan, writes about sex and pop culture for Jezebel under the name Slut Machine. Tracie has her own blog and insists there is no such thing as a bad feminist unless you are an old bitter/out of touch broad who happens to have personal boundaries, doesn't wax her hoo ha or act blase about herpes and genital warts.
Mrs. G. spends a fair amount of time on feminist blogs and there are some good ones. She tries to stay up on the issues affecting women around the world and often learns a good deal from the young'uns. They fire her up with their passion and pluck. But not Tracie Egan and the Jezebel crew. Mrs. G. was cruising Egan's personal blog a few weeks back and came across Tracie's post (and favorite video clips) about how funny it is to watch "retarded" (developmentally disabled) people have sex on porn sites. Because, after all, feminists are known for guffawing at degradation and getting off on cruel mockery of what is more than likely (or should be) a private, intimate moment. Mrs. G. got off on writing her very first rude, insulting and bitchy blog comment. Has Mrs. G. mentioned that her entire family will publically humiliate insensitive bullies and if Mrs. G's lower back is in working order, she has been known to nudge an asshole or place herself between an underdog and a dickweed. Ask her friends and family who tend to back off if they sense a verbal throw down is eminent. She knows it has sometimes embarrassed her kids, but she and Mr. G. have a history (when truly forced) of actively confronting degrading bullies and presumptuous assholes.
Speaking of degradation and assholes:
Tracie Egan is in the middle. Moe Tkacik, on the left, also writes about sex and politics on Jezebel. It's a real brain trust over there. Here's some lamentable news: they have approximately 900,000 readers a day.
Here's a transcript from the first clip of the trainwreck interview, but I am not going to waste any more of your time...
Tracie: "I live in Williamsburg, there aren't very assertive men there"
Moe: "The thing about the rapists of our generation, is that they all use drugs, they all have some sort of drug they use on you, so it's good to feel, and I don't know if this has happed to me or if I just drink too much...Moe: "It's really hard to prosecute them (rapists), so you should try to avoid them at all costs."
Tracie: "I once paid someone to rape me once."
Tracie: "Well, I didn't pay for it, I had a magazine pay for it
Tracie: "I moved here when I was 18 and you think you would encounter more rapists in a big city like this, but, I don't know, I just haven't."
What do you say. Let's love the men in our lives, but continue to work toward our intrinsic first-rate, first-class potential. Let's be better to our family, let's be better to our friends, let's be better to strangers, lets be better to ourselves. Let's just be better. Surely we can do this, because holy hell on wheels, the bar has been significantly lowered.
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Reader Comments (43)
I have to say, there are days when I am positively daunted by trying to raise two self-aware, self-realized, strong , kind, compassionate, intelligent girls in this world. For the most part, we limit the mass media in our house, we try to temper the Barbies with stories of female astronauts and scientists and athletes and musicians. But it's just amazing to me how low the standards have gotten for heroes from both genders. Must we glorify those who actually harm not just the essence of women but all of humanity? Must we lower ourselves to the vulgarity and crassness of hookers in order to sell advertising? Ack. Where is it exactly that I can raise my kids without a constant assault on their self image as budding women?
Here, here!
Oh Mrs G. I had never seen any of that before...and a good thing, because viewing such soul sucking idiocy might have caused me to cast myself off a cliff this past winter. I agree....let us all BE BETTER.
"I once paid someone to rape me once." ??????!!!! I'm sickened by this.
Um, I very rarely say it but AMEN!
My husband has a quote very much like Anna Quindlen's “Women are the glue that holds our day-to-day world together”. He says, "Middle age women are the very center of civilized society. They hold it all together. Without them, we would all be barbarians."
The hand that rocks the cradle....
I choose to focus on the good. Because the bad out there? It's BAD. After reading about it above? I need a brownie. (I'm not sticking my head in the sand. It's just so...UGH... awful.)
And then I'm going to go hang my laundry on the line and glory in being a middle age woman who loves her husband, while I think on ways I can continue to raise my sons to love and respect women and girls.
Sign me up for the old chic with personal boundaries category (and what's going on with my hoo-ha is no ones business, thank you very much). This post reminds me of a clip I saw on GMA the other day about the documentary "The New Goodnight Kiss." I used to think I was pretty open-minded. I nearly fell to the floor and had a moment, thanking the heavens that we homeschool our daughter. I can't imagine her surviving in that kind of an environment.
In what universe do these women feel they represent feminism? Their quotes sound like what male writers would come up with for an episode of Sex and the City. Misguided and titillating yet not at all accurate.
This is so sickening. The early feminists may have had their hearts in the right place, but what has come out of the whole movement is truly sad. Instead of seeking out equality through opportunities once denied us (education and careers), too many women have simplified it down to thinking they should be "just like a man." Unfortunately, they have chosen to emulate the lowliest examples of the male gender. This is not "feminism" at all. It is stupidity.
Disgusting.
I do think women are the glue. Or they always have been. Or they should be.
But some of those headlines and blogs make you wonder if women have decided that they want to just be cut some slack and not have to uphold that "perfect" status anymore. I mean, hello? The pressure and all. So we are going to, like, totally sit around an WALLOW in our "right" to be gross, ignorant slobs who say shallow and offending things. And giggle at how, like, totally cool we are for just being ourselves. And then we are going to say "We're all feminist, that's why we can do this! We have the right!"
Well, just because you can, Jezebel, doesn't mean you should. Or that it look good on you.
Never heard of these people - I expect that's something to be thankful for. You can add me to the old chic with personal boundaries category as Tara said above.
Darla
These women make me sick. And they are unapologetic about pissing all over the shoulders of those who've brought women this far thus far. I'm a little overanxious for the divine retribution that will surely befall them.
Ick. I used to visit the Jezebel site fairly often, but stopped doing so a few months ago because there seemed to be quite a bit of mean-spirited bitchiness going on over there. From the regular writers as well as the commenters. And my favorite writer there left a while ago anyway.
Please share your favorite feminist blog sites, Mrs. G!
I love what you said about the glue---I'm WAY past middle age, and have been gluing and holding on and fingernail-clutching for quite some time, seeing the second-generation-after-mine well on its way to grand things. It's wonderful to hear that we are better, we can be better still, and our best is brought out in the seeking and trying.
And that Tracie person---one paragraph and I'm ready for the brain Clorox---but her bloviance and her grammar certainly take a back seat to her ego, cause she's like, so smart, and shit.
Just one glimpse of her writing, and I agree---why, she and her STD's must have a cumulative IQ of at least twelve.
good grief - thank you Mrs G for highlighting this, it is an issue that is very easy to brush under the carpet and ignore - but sometimes it needs highlighting and you have done it very well and bravely. I can't even bring myself to watch the video clips, it is totally repulsive.
Ack! I just learned about something I really wish I hadn't!
No, I realize I am in denial because I don't have a daughter, but a son, and the young women he is friends with that I've met are nice, self-respecting intelligent human beings.
But please don't make me think otherwise. Please.
Even though I spent some of my early years as a train-wreck, I couldn't even have begun to aspire to the train-wreckishness of what you've barely revealed to me here. Please forgive me if I don't want to learn more.
Women may well have been the glue at different times through history but I find being termed "glue" highly unsatisfactory. I want to relate to people, be they men or women, without any feeling of inferiority or superiority due to gender. For me, a person has to be emancipated and fight for equality – and equality in the home and in the workplace and in society in general. A good relationship should mean a fair division of the labour according to the abilities of both without the need for gender stereotyping. Equality in the workplace is a long way from being achieved : in the country where I live (France), the gap between women’s and men’s salaries is, if part-time work is taken into account, nearly 40% (2008 figures). Because working hours do not coincide with child-care or school hours, the highest earner of the couple is the one who stays in full-time employment and the other takes a part-time job and, since men are usually paid more, it is most often the woman who has a part-time job. So it is getting even harder to change society into one in which men and women are equal. The current worldwide crisis is only going to exacerbate this.
There may no longer be a need to burn bras but there’s certainly still a strong need for women and men to keep fighting the feminist fight!
Everything you said I agree with. Higher! Higher!
Ugh..............
As a man I find those women tiring...
i really think these women need a good bitch slap
I love Becky's comment! I would just like to say "thank you" to those that have been involved in trying to improve the social equality of women. These women are clearly not helping.
I find those poeple so despressing ( I include the men who also espouse those disturbing ideas and images.) I must say, however, that I have young adult children who are not like this - they are smart, cool people who see that behaviour as degrading and stupid.
I have been thinking about the term "lowest common denominator" a lot lately. It was what critics used to say about media - that it had gone from being smart and informative to trying to appeal to the lowest level of humanity. I guess no one talks about it anymore because we have pretty much gotten there.
I didn't watch the clip. I am so pregnant that it would probably send me into labor from anger and disgust. I am 26, and many of the females in my generation are an embarrassment. Many people often ask my why I have so few friends my age, and the answer is simple... I have a hard time identifying with most people my own age. (Of course there are exceptions...) I believe that after all the hard work that the generations of women before me have done, mine is undoing so much of it, and it saddens me... I work very hard to bring up my daughter in a way that does not "undo" any more of that very hard work.
the longer I live the more i realize some things just do not change.
As long as somone watches there is always someone to make a fool of themselves.
we just need to stop watching the train wrecks and be strong, step away.
Someone needs to say stop.
Just stop-
I hate to pick another fight here, but you just waved a red flag at me. Anna Quindlen is dead wrong. If men were having babies, none of them would ever be aborted. That we women have brainwashed ourselves into aborting our babies in the name of equality is the saddest thing I have ever witnessed. If only frontline feminists had demanded universal prenatal care and year-long maternity leave at the same time they were crusading for equal pay for equal work! I understand the first generation's having to prove itself, as it were, in a man's world; but the second generation (that would be us) should have moved the fight forward to protect a woman's right to bear her babies without fear of economic discrimination or loss of income. So far, we have failed. But we can raise our daughters to believe that they should never have to choose between their babies and their livelihood. Or between their unborn babies and the children they already have. And we can spend our later years making sure there are social supports in place for mothers of newborns, so that a pregnant woman need not fear bringing her baby into this world.
We can be equal and still be women.
Otherwise? I totally agree with what you said.
I love coming across great feminist posts :) Keep it up!
Interestingly, I just read from Anna Quindlen to one of my classes today. And no boys were harmed in the process.
The Jezebel women bring out the filthy sailor language in me; their stance is unfortunately so damaging to our girls. Stay strong, Mrs. G, and we'll stand behind you.
Every one else has pointed out that the substance of what they're saying is appalling. Let me just say that I will never listen, for more than 10 seconds, to a person that peppers each sentence with 4 or 5 "likes." Grow up.
See, the way I sees it there are fine, intelligent, loving, generous people of grace in the world, and there aren't. Some are men, some are women. I'm a woman myself, but not a "women are better" woman: more of a some-people-are-better-people-to-have-in-this-world-than-others kind of woman.
I know there are people who think that if women ran the world, we'd have no wars. These people have obviously never seen girls and women go to war with each other about the stupidest shit, and these wars drag on for generations. It's not because they are women; it's because they are shallow, insecure, petty, power-hungry people. They come in all genders.
The search for equality doesn't mean that we're supposed to seek out opportunities to behave like the lowest common denominator of society. Remember when women thought it was a BAD thing for a man to victimize young girls? Why is it suddenly and act of empowerment to screw your adolescent male students? Why is it classy to assemble like a herd of young cattle before one bull carrying a red rose and hope for a chance to get "mounted" on national tv? Do they really think wearing a little black dress makes it less like an agricultural experiement and more like feminism? Why is it okay to talk about any kind of rape as though there are mitigating factors that sometimes make it tolerable or desirable? Sexually active is one thing, but having no boundaries for yourself (and disrespecting those of others) isn't why we're still trying to get the ERA ratified. There's one well known blog where the writer is a married woman (with a child) who also conducts an open relationship with her "boyfriend" on the side. Did it feel good when women were the victims in this scenario? What makes it okay for us to behave like the worse example of a male in the known world? Those idiots at Jezebel make me physically ill.
It's like those children's books that try to undo the damage of the Cinderella story by reversing the roles and having Cinderella save the prince - or worse - the books where Cinderella turns into a mean bitchy girl and tells the prince that he's a piece of crap.
Bullying is not nice. Girl bullying - even if you think it's tit-for-tat because the boys have been doing it to us - is still not nice.
A different fable needs to be told. Not one where we sink to some muddy level and justify it because "boys do it, too." Because, in fact, a whole lot of boys don't.
My comments are so boring--but I heart you, Mrs G.
If this is third wave, I'll stick with the first wave. Feminism in my mind includes the right to be feminine, softer, different than a man and not have to BE a man.
I happen to think there is something "better" about both men and women and they complement each other in outstanding irreplaceable ways when they rise above their baser selves. The selves the women in the transcript (I couldn't bring myself to watch the video) apparently decided were adequate.
How sad.
By the way, I forgot to say - excellent post, Mrs. G. Maybe my favorite ever of yours. I can just picture you when you speak of letting loose on a bully. :o)
Yuck yuck and yuck to some of these "women." You are, as always, dead on Mrs. G. Here's to being better Women. (Do I have to love my Ex? Can I just love my Dad,my brothers and my son? oh and the Captain, of course....)
I'm stunned. I listened to that clip, and wow. Speechless...
You've given me a lot to think about.
Oh, yes, the bar has been lowered. And we've been clubbed on the head by our sisters. Although, I can't think of these women from Jezebel as my sisters. Oh, it is heartbreaking. And mind blowing.
OMIGOD. Who knew these women existed? Please, Mrs. G. Give me back my feminist blinders. Good God help us.
They call themselves feminist? I can call them barely lucid!
At their ages, I had been reading/influenced by Dworkin, McKinnon, Steinem. You know, people who really think and write.
I'm so glad (& relieved) that you left a nasty comment. You represent more of us than they can imagine!
I love Jezebel. And while I don't always agree with the writers, I generally find them to be entertaining, thought provoking and generally smart. So I am beyond horrified to see two of them here embarrassing themselves. I'm embarrassed for them. Moe and Tracie should watch this when they're sober and see exactly how "smart" they are. And no matter how grown-up she claims to be, Egan revealed herself to be little more than a self-important sniveling brat.
I wish I could go join an Amish community and raise my three girls there. Except I would be disrespecting their way of life by cherrypicking their principles for my own purposes....and also of course there would be no access to Mrs. G!