Fourth Wave Woman

An interesting post on Alternet calls out a hypocrisy on the left that I’ve often noted: it’s ok to slander conservative women.

From the Playboy article this summer to the recent comments made by Alan Grayson, to the left it’s ok to use profanity when righ-of-center females are in question. Between all of the feminist blogs, books and articles that I read, I get the picture that the most hate group in the country are women who refuse to be liberal. Tana Ganeva writes:

When Alan Grayson called a female corporate lobbyist a “K-Street whore” — and was attacked as crude and sexist at the same time that he was lauded as gutsy and honest — he played a role in a familiar script: hero of the left (MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher) attacks female villain (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin) using sexist language. Progressive feminists soul-search about liberal misogyny. Mainstream media talk about sexism for 5 seconds. Then the media move on, and no one learns a thing. Repeat.

To a certain extent, I get it. The 24/7 news cycle makes ad hominem attacks necessary. When all you have is a :30 second sound bite, do you go for the attack or make a rationale point? The right is just as guilty (albeit without the profanity) as the left. We don’t have time for a lengthy scholarly debate. Civility has never existed in politics, we’re just more aware of it now due to our media-saturated society.

Then there’s PT Barnum’s old expression. When Grayson used the slur “whore,” he drew media attention. When you go for the extremes, the media notices you (i.e. Olbermann, Garafalo, Coulter and Beck). Dog bites man isn’t interesting. Man bites dog is.

However, what I don’t understand is the deep, guttural hatred that feminists feel for women like me. It’s not imagined. The more I read in the “women’s studies” genre, the more I understand how savagely we are despised. It’s almost as if they feel betrayed. They’re shocked, hurt and angered that we don’t applaud the actions they took in the 60s and 70s. We’re disobedient children who are misguided by those evil men in our lives and victims of the sexist society in which we were born. This is ok for the masses of women who are victims of oppression, but those evil women — the Michelle Malkins, Phyllis Schaflys, Ann Coulters and Sarah Palins — they should be vilified. Advocating a differing point of view is the greatest sin you can committ in modern America.

Feminists can’t seem to grasp that women on the right have such a differing fundamental philosophy that we will always disagree. What frustrates me is the lack of respect. I may disagree with you, but you do have a right to those beliefs. Is it too much for me to expect the same attitude in you?

We’re not unenlightened or a tool of the male patriarchy. We simply view the world from a different perspective. Why can’t that be respected?