Last week marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, which inspired a flood of commemorative essays everywhere from Slate to the New York Times.
It also inspired what I think is one of the most hilariously dumb sentences I’ve ever read on The Spearhead. In a post talking about Friedan’s “youthful Bolshevik activism” – she spent a number of years as a labor journalist – Spearhead head boy W.F. Price offers this assessment of the book that jumpstarted feminism’s second wave:
Although I haven’t read the book, it apparently stresses the need for women to engage in work outside the home, which is a basic Communist tenet.
Yeah, that’s why most women work. Not to pay the bills, but because they are pawns of the worldwide communist conspiracy.
Weirdly, Price is well aware that he’s full of shit here, and that most women throughout history have worked, not because of Communism but because of economic necessity. Indeed, he even points this out in his post. But he follows this acknowledgement with more thoughts on Friedan’s evil commie ways:
[I]t looks as though Betty Friedan was one of the many dedicated Communists who caused so many problems immediately after WWII. I once looked up a list of known Communist front groups in the US, and noticed that quite a few of them were women’s groups. Combined with accounts I’ve read from former Cheka agents, it makes for pretty convincing evidence that feminism was deliberately fostered in the US by Soviet agents. It makes sense to use women in that manner, because authorities are not as suspicious of women, and they can operate under the radar far more easily than men. Women also make excellent spies.
Although I’m sure resurgent feminism would have emerged in one form or another with or without Betty Friedan, it is interesting to note second wave feminism’s Cold War origins in Marxist infiltration of US society. …
It turns out she was little more than a loyal Bolshevik pawn who suddenly stumbled onto success by writing a thinly-veiled Marxist critique of American capitalist society from a woman’s perspective.
In the comments, TheTruthishere enthusiastically agreed with Price’s feminism-was-a-Soviet-plot thesis:
You are right a read the same thing on another site … feminism was thought up in a russian thinktank to basically destroy the family as the states smallest cell. Basically so communism could be introduced in the western world. Well, it worked, it just took them longer than expected. By the way the Rockafellas are involved in this as well
RockEfellers. Not RockAfellAs. Or even RockAfellERs.
Uncle Elmer gave us this weird socio-sexual fantasy:
Speaking of Freudian, all feminists have a major clit-boner for “1963”, though it was not technically part of the mythic “50s”. Based on their persistent mention of that era, it’s clear they would gladly trade in their Birkenstocks for a chance to be slapped and rogured by Ward Cleaver.
They didn’t call him “The Cleaver” for nothing.
And Towgunner, for some odd reason, used the opportunity to express his disdain for “female” – in quotes – music composers.
I have a lot of classical music as my pandora stations, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, etc. So, guess what gets inter-mixed with the play sets from time to time…yep, the token “female” composer. I’m usually doing something else while listening and this never fails – I always know its a female composer because it, well, is bad music. Also, all of the female composers I’ve heard basically sound the same. All things aside, forget I’m an MRA, it has very little aesthetic value for anyone, except for those who think talent is the same thing as “social justice”. female composers create music that is akin to cold coffee left over from breakfast and now its 2:00 PM. And its not after a few minutes, I can tell a female composer in the first few seconds…that too never fails. Many of them painfully subject their listeners to simple scales and scattered and disagreeable harmonies…kind of like the background music for greys autonomy or any chick flick. Above all, it’s not, even in the slightest, original…frankly female composers are a perfect case study in that you can hear the innate female tendency towards conformity.
By the way, here are some songs by female composers – sorry, “female” composers. I’m not sensing a lot of conformity here.
@Kitteh, nah, they only hear waah waah wahh men waah waah waah evil waah waah 🙂 All the friendly socialization and support and stuff falls into the waah waah.
Yes, it’s great advice – I think we’re so used to following the idea that “baby animal” food is for baby animals that it’s not intuitive to grab that high-nutrient stuff for the elderly. I hope the new diet works well for Fribbie!
@katz, Wait, we can’t have Catherine Tate as the Doctor? Just shuffle continuity a bit and it’ll be fine. It’s a timey-wimey thing. I just can’t figure a way to put John Barrowman in without completely destroying the concept of continuity.
I am also an American who knows few British actors outside Doctor Who 🙂 I do watch other BBC shows, but I’m also really bad at names and faces.
lumi, I was half thinking of Maggie Smith! Or Eileen Atkins. Never forget seeing her in Cold Comfort Farm. Or Geraldine McEwan – her Miss Marple could translate very well into the Doctor, I reckon, and she was awesome as Mrs Proudie in the Barchester Chronicles.
I’m inclined to agree about the silliness. I think it’s been ramped up. The first Doctor was anything but silly, the second more comic, the third witty but not a buffoon, the fourth more eccentric than anything, the fifth sort of … bit of this, bit of that, and I didn’t watch again until the tenth.
I think Catherine Tait would be really interesting both for the acting and for the plot device of the Doctor regenerating to look like Donna!
Oooh I know who I’d like to see, too – Martin Shaw (George Gently, Judge John Deed.)
Or for a younger Doctor, Lawrence Fox (Sgt Hathaway in Inspector Lewis). Him being married to Billie Piper has nothing to do with it, of course. 😉 But both those guys project dry humour very well, and I think they’d be interesting.
Though yeah, I’m sort of pining for the idea of Judi Dench doing it now, too.
Idris Elba as Bond? I’d watch the hell out of that.
cloudiah, I added Artistry for Feminism. And Kittens. to my blog roll last night. 🙂
I find myself really liking the idea of an older woman in the role. Not that the manic young men (10 and 11) haven’t been fun, but if you’re regenerating you should actually be different. Perhaps after all the trauma, the Doctor has spent enough time alone to become more stoic, and got over the obsession with young women. Wouldn’t that be cool – a Doctor who wants to get at the secrets of the universe, picking companions because they are smart and curious? And then getting all schoolmarm when they inevitably screw up? (I am not familiar with 1-8, this was probably done before).
It’d be a nice change just to have the Doctor as a woman so senior in every way to the companions, though. Yeah, the first four were pretty much boss cocky and the companions … well, they varied, of course, but he was Teh Hero and there was no forgetting it. Though I shoudl mention the first two companions were the most mature of any. Barbara and Ian were teachers (they met him because they were teaching his granddaugher Susan and were curious about her). They were in their thirties, mature people who were pretty good at holding their own in the stories. Be nice to see that again instead of the Young Hot Things parade.
Yes, it’s theoretically possible to cast someone who’s already been in the show as the Doctor, but that screams “confusing plot tangle” to me, and besides, there are so many others.
Addendum: Despite her mysterious secret, the new companion seems too much in the Rose and Amy model. I admit to being biased, since Donna was my favorite and I admire Martha for having the strength to walk away. The naive ingenue swept up into the wise Doctor’s orbit is so played out.
@Katz: I think we just get attached to certain people. Whoever they choose, they’ll probably be hated for a minute and then loved.
True indeed.
Thanks, Kittehs’! I keep meaning to add your blog to mine, but I’ve been very lazy about updating it. Blogging is hard. XD
Of course, doctor who and bond both fall into the idea that you have to have a man for men to relate to, and women will go for it too because we don’t expect our own role models. Like Harry potter.
(errors due to writing on phone)
Okay you know it wasn’t actually that hard. Kittehs’ and LBT’s Crack of Sunshine both added.
I know, lol. One of the world’s laziest bloggers here. 😀
Thank ‘ee for adding it!
I would vote for Idris Elba for Bond, though I have to say, Daniel Craig is the best once since Connery. Roger Moore was a big pile of fail, and although I like Timothy Dalton he’s too much of a toff for it not to change the character in weird ways.
I can never see Timothy Dalton without thinking of him in his youthful days as Philip II in The Lion in Winter, or as Prince Rupert in Cromwell. Damn, he was pretty then.
On a less exalted note there was also Flash Gordon.
Actually, on that note, I’m also inDalton. Clearly it’s the fault of my parents.
I was just looking at some shots from Flash Gordon! Never saw it and didn’t know he was in it, but yes, he’s very eye candy there!
Not that I’d call the other films exalted. Cromwell was a DUD saved only by Alec Guiness’s presence, and Lion in Winter … gah. Wordy nonsense, tho’ interesting to see Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton and Nigel Terry in what I think (iirc) were their first major screen roles.
I can never think of Nigel Terry without thinking of Excalibur, which may well be the best piece of pure cheese ever put on film. It was so weird to see Charlie Boorman all grown up and on a motorcycle trip with Ewan McGreggor, and remember him as baby Mordred.
Excalibur was decidedly weird, though fun. Years since I’ve seen it. I’ve seen Terry in a few TV series (think he was in Inspector Lewis once, sporting a beard and a faux-US accent) but I always think of him as Arthur. I thought he was very good in the role, best thing about the film.
Totally OT but I just found a hilarious type (on an online bar/lounge review).
This sheik establishment also serves hors d’oeuvres but this is something that is better saved if you are going to be starting the evening on the early side. The bar gets crowed very quickly after 10:00 P.M and it can be uncomfortable eating with others breathing and hovering over you.
Colin Salmon would have been a perfect Bond, but they hired him for a supporting role to Pierce Brosnan…idiots.
Angelina Jolie is one of the finest current action stars among women or men IMHO. But she is so iconic she might have the same issues playing Bond that Jennifer Garner would.
I think Daniel Craig was a very good choice.
The weird thing is I am not a Bond fan, so how is it that I even know these things?
I wouldn’t expect a sheik establishment to serve alcohol at all.