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.
Testing.
A female James Bond is the funniest shit ever. Could you envision a male Paris Hilton? Right. We all have our place in the order of things. Men run the world, women shop and tap on their iPhones.
I suppose a black James Bond could work, although I’m not a Social Justice Warrior so I’m not creaming my jeans over the possibility. Idris Elba causes plenty of tingles (as evidenced by this thread), but I’m not sure he could pull off the rugged masculinity that Craig can. He’s a bit too beautiful, almost effete. He raises my staff no question, but I wouldn’t buy him as Bond.
@Dragon Slayer
When you aren’t coming up with ridiculous terminology for gentitalia, you are really boring. You had a great opportunity, but stuck with the boring “tingles.” Either up your game or shut up.
Trying too hard.
Because I never miss an opportunity to post this anywhere, the *ahem* “effete” Idris Elba, kicking alien monster ass this summer in “Pacific Rim”:
@drst – My reaction can be summed up as: “… GLaDOS? … GLaDOS! :D”
How about “People run the world?” Oh wait, that would require you to see women as people. Oops.
Ooo, racist and sexist – well, you might as well go beyond having only one kind of prejudice. The more, the better, I suppose.
I can imagine a male Paris Hilton or a female James Bond. They’re both fictional characters, so why not?
I can also imagine that D/s will never admit the logic fail in using a fictional character as evidence of something.
D/s:A female James Bond is the funniest shit ever. Could you envision a male Paris Hilton? Right. We all have our place in the order of things.
Male Paris Hilton? I.e. someone famous just because? Any number, e.g. Andrea Colognoli, Kip Rhinelander, Scott Disick, Kato Kaelin.
As to women in, “their place” Cleopatra, Theodora, Boudicca, Eleanor of Acquitaine.
What is it you do again?
the rugged masculinity that Craig can. He’s a bit too beautiful, almost effete.
Typical. You’ve not read the books. Bond is mostly a bit delicate, and a bit rugged (compare him Casino Royale to “The Spy Who Loved Me”.
As expected, you are clueless, ignorant and care not a whit that you are leaving your ass hanging in the wind as you show those facts to the world.
It worked for Pierce Brosnan.
I thought he was just going to come out and say “white people run things and black people are slaves.”
WRT Q and Moneypenny: My hopes for a Lisbeth Salander-style hacker chick Q aside, I think the roles were both reasonably well cast, but poorly scripted. Moneypenny is supposed to be unfit for field work, but at the beginning she seems completely competent; it’s Bond who fails all his tests. Meanwhile, it makes sense for Q to be a young technophile, but they don’t really make use of him: They don’t play up the young-upstart aspect, he doesn’t do any technobabble, and hell, he doesn’t even have interesting gadgets.
Dragon Slayers’ “No male Paris Hilton” is even funnier because “shallow rich idiot” isn’t a gendered trope in fiction, much less in real life, where they sometimes get elected as president. I mean, the trope is common enough for men that Batman uses it as cover.
Bertie Wooster.
pecunium–That’s exactly who popped into my head, but I couldn’t remember the name.
Peter Whimsey plays on the trope; because he can.
Notes from your boner are not welcome here DS. No, really, they are not. I realize that for MRAs it is incomprehensible to attempt to frame any observation without including notes from their boner. That is just one of the many things that separate MRAs from decent human beings.
@clairedammit – um, Paris Hilton is an actual person, could we maybe not erase that? I have little respect for her choices in life, but she’s a human being. Unless you were referring to a media “persona” idea?
The Scarlet Pimpernel also uses it as a cover.
drst, seconded.
It says a lot about draggin’ arse that he can’t fathom the difference between “real person” and “fictional character who could be played by different actors”.
This is a female composer who in my opinion rivals the best out there. I could listen to her all day.
Mind you it has scales occasionally. Which may be a cardinal sin according to some MRA’s.
So you’re blind as well as stone cold stupid? Try harder, baby.
Also, no one cares about your staff.
If you want a female Doctor Who, although Dame Judi Dench might once have been a great idea, unfortunately she’s not only a bit old to run down corridors all day long, she’s also going blind, poor lady. He’s also too old now, but I think Geoffrey Palmer would have made a wonderful Doctor.
How about Emma Thompson? Give Lenora Crichlow a few more years and experience and I’d consider her as well.
I’d love to see Tom Hiddleston in the role…but not just yet. I’d like to see a Doctor who isn’t younger than me.
drst, yes I was referring to her media personality, sorry I wasn’t clear. That baby voice she uses, for example, isn’t how she talks all the time. She definitely puts on a persona, and I can imagine a man doing a similar thing – why not?
Idris Elba is easy on the eyes, and a good actor. But effete? Not really seeing that.