Gender-baiting, here and NOW

Gender-baiting, here and NOW

Tuesday, January 29th 2008, 4:00 AM

Marcia Pappas will probably consider me a male chauvinist pig for saying this, but her attack on Sen. Edward Kennedy yesterday was idiotic and suggests she is unfit to lead her organization.

Pappas, president of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women, accused Kennedy of committing the "ultimate betrayal" of women everywhere.

And what was his heinous offense, pray tell? Advocating reversal of Roe vs. Wade? Calling for repeal of women's suffrage? Supporting female circumcision?

No. Endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for President instead of Sen. Hillary Clinton.

"He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman President who is Hillary Clinton," Pappas said in rambling, incoherent statement e-mailed to the media.

After this, her second nutty outburst in three weeks, Pappas should consider stepping aside and letting someone with a cooler head speak on behalf of women's rights.

The fact is that Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat and liberal icon, has spoken up for women's rights throughout his career. He's currently the lead sponsor of the equal rights amendment in the Senate.

"I truly wish we could clone him and keep him around forever," gushed Massachusetts NOW Co-President Melissa Walsh a few years ago.

But a decades-long track record of feminism means nothing to Pappas. Kennedy is pro-Obama; therefore, he's anti-woman.

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Monday, January 28, 2008

Second Wave Pro-Hillary Feminists Again Exhibit Racism

The New York chapter of the National Organization for Women is continuing the unattractive Second Wave practice of deliberately turning the Democratic presidential nomination process into a divisive race v. gender war. Almost immediately after Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama the chapter came out with a press release titled "Senator Ted Kennedy Betrays Women by Not Standing for Hillary Clinton for President." See the press release here: http://readme.readmedia.com/news/show/Senator-Ted-Kennedy-Betrays-Women-by-Not-Standing-for-Hillary-Clinton-for-President/53725

This is one sad press release reflective of the Second Wave mindset discussed earlier this month when put into practice by Hillary Clinton herself as well as Gloria Steinem. The racism reeks. These Second Wavers have elevated the Kennedy endorsement of a Black man to a near-hysterical be-all or end-all "ultimate betrayal" of white privileged women. The implication is that no friend of feminists could make such a choice based on the merits of the candidates but instead on a deliberate attempt to shoot down women. It's that repulsive "us against them" approach rearing its ugly head again. The implication is that only Hillary Clinton has a broader politics that benefits women -- there is not even the hint of a moment's contemplation that perhaps Barack Obama's broader politics are even more inclusive, less divisive, and more beneficial not just to white privileged women but to all women of all colors and men.

It's the classic Second Wave "those who should be our allies are actually are worst enemies to be demonized and destroyed" attack-mode approach. Offer no congratulatulations for winning a prized endorsement that even Hillary Clinton herself sought, acknowledge no primary landslide victory. There is nothing positive here, women! In fact, we've been victimized yet again! That's the only feminist lesson to be learned from this key endorsement. It's a familiar holier-than-thou, we've been done wrong yet again sentiment: this is about gender v. race dammit and you better back the white privileged woman or you betray all women! This, friends, embodies Second Wave sentiment and strategy and tactics -- do you embrace it or find it an embarrassment?

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