Chauvanism is alive and well

[asterroc]

Editor:
Regarding a story that appeared in The Post-Star

on Dec. 6: "Rep. Gillibrand announces she is pregnant."

First of all, I must admit that I am a male chauvinist and that there are, thankfully, differences between men and women. There are many occupations suitable for women and their physical attributes. Carrying a weapon while serving in the Armed Forces and firefighting are not suitable lines of work for women to prove that they are physically equal to men. How many male police officers feel comfortable with a 100 pound female backup?

And now, I have to add serving in the U.S. House and Senate as an occupation that may not be suitable for women.

Ms. Gillibrand's current pregnancy makes a strong case for my opinion. Ms. Gillibrand was elected to serve her constituency, and while she is away from her elected office she cannot perform those duties. The taxpayers who were duped into voting for her will have to pay for her medical benefits. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, Ms. Gillibrand receives excellent health benefits, courtesy of her constituents. We will be without representation in Congress for a time leading up to and following the child's birth. There will be times when she and the new baby will visit doctors. You can add those days to the total that she will not be serving her constituents.

The current base salary (2006) for members of the House and Senate is $165,200 per year. I wonder if Ms. Gillibrand will do the right thing and reimburse the U.S. Treasury in the amount of $452.60, her daily salary, for each day that she is unable to perform her elected duties. For some reason, I doubt it.

RON BLACHUT
Queensbury

As originally sent to the PostStar, reported in Crooks and Liars, and pointed out by friedpineapple in meig's journal.

There is just nothing I can say to this.

Comments

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

No women firefighters? Huh. I guess those female firefighter-paramedics I worked with for a year, who would be dispatched on the heavy rescue calls...they were impostors! It all becomes clear now.

Also, it's very good to know that all our male representatives are on the job, 100%, without fail, for every day of their elected term. I was worried that they might be going on junkets, or visiting their constituents, or falling sick themselves. But Ron Blachut has shown me the light! Praise be.

[ayashi.livejournal.com]

lol, gotta say I have never seen a woman in a police uniform that is only 100 pounds! (unless she is in a movie or... a stripper... in a movie!)

As for the rest of it... wow. As much as it isn't really hard to believe, it is hard to believe that people still think like that.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Can I get my reimbursement for the repeated medical interventions necessary to keep Darth Cheney alive? Oh, and for Bush's record-breaking vacations?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what surprised me was that people are still willing to *say* it, and in a public setting too.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware of his vaccination addiction. Sheds new light on his anti-stem cell research attitude.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Because, clearly, male politicians are not allowed to take their kids to the doctor. Or their wives in labor either.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

It's true. Male politicians have no children or wives; they reproduce asexually (budding) during their term in office. However, they're not allowed to take more than a lunch break to complete the budding process.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Vaccinations? Whatnow?

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

What a fucking asshole. Family and Medical Leave and Act, dipshit! Hello!

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

He apparently would be of the opinion that the FMLA is a travesty of justice.

I have had centrist friends play Devil's Advocate with me and argue that a drawback of having a woman president is the possibility of mood swings associated with their menstrual cycle. I am pretty sure those individuals believe there are a similar number of positives that come with a potential woman president, but ... Well, at least at age 60 Hillary's probably into menopause so that's even less a valid argument against her. :-P

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

Because men /never/ have mood swings. Right. Ow I strained my eyes rolling them.

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

IF I IMAGINE HARD ENOUGH THAT IT DOESN'T EXIST, MAYBE IT WILL GO AWAY

IS IT GONE YET?

damn. it's still here. i tell you, the idiocy is painful!

[sammka.livejournal.com]

My "favorite" part of this is that he's "thankful" for the differences between men and women. "I am so glad that half the population isn't qualified to be a firefighter, congressperson, or a member of the police or armed forces! That makes me feel so good. Especially since I'm not part of that half. Woo hoo!"

[galbinus-caeli.livejournal.com]

What about all the male police officers who are so fat they can't be bothered to get out of their car to respond to a call?

But let's just look at this logically. I am always hearing about this or that politician being in the hospital for heart problems. Therefore politics must increase heart problems. Men have more heart problems than women. If we replaced the male politicians with female ones fewer of them would be out for heart problems. So less absenteeism! Score!


(All logic above is bullshit, but it sounds good, I could be a pundit!)

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

You missed his point. He's thankful because it means he can have sex with that half. He's reminding you that he's a good, red-blooded American heterosexual male.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

Look, even I agree that men and women are different in that women tend to have ultra-hot body parts that may turn on people who are attracted to women. But he's not talking about those. He's talking about differences that make women inferior to men in a number of ways, and the "thankfully" by implication extends to those differences. If he feels the need to be thankful for even THOSE differences in order to be heterosexual this just reinforces the radical feminist theory that normative male heterosexuality eroticizes women's inferiority to men, not just the fact that they are physically women.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

What I'm saying is that "I'm glad there are differences between men and women" is chauvinist code for "I'm straight". You're right that it's somewhat insidious the way chauvinists use the demonstrable sexual differences to somehow prove job performance differences. But I think your inference goes a little too far. Asserting heterosexuality is an important activity for many chauvinists because they are homophobic, not because they get off on putting women down. And why are they homophobic? For the same reason they're chauvinistic- they're small-minded creeps who feel protected by the status quo.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

All right, you caught me; I over-theorize things. I think that homophobia IS a form of misogyny and that to chauvinists, "getting off on putting women down" IS heterosexuality. Anyone who denies that there are "differences" between men and women then get painted as not sufficiently straight. Stupid feminist faggots.

"It's this, not that" isn't a particularly helpful argument to someone who actually thinks that this and that are parts of the same phenomenon. And I think that the inference is justified here because he goes straight from saying "I'm glad that there are differences between men and women" to then going about talking about those differences as ways in which men are superior to women.

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

I'll bite. Tell me how homophobia is misogynistic. You've got me curious here.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

homophobia is a form of misogyny. You can see this through the way that people who are homophobic portray gay people. Because they prefer sex with other men, homosexual men are seen as somehow not sufficiently manly. They are portrayed as "sissies," and bottoms are seen as more feminized than tops (in fact, men who only receive oral sex from other men or are only ever on top are actually often seen as less feminine). The general scheme is "allows/enjoys penetration by men = feminine/weak/frivolous/passive."

This is the same scheme that gets applied to women all the time by misogynists: heterosexual women are portrayed by chauvanists as having nearly all the same traits (except possibly that gay men are portrayed as more universally promiscuous). Women who ARE aggressive, career-oriented, and/or not sufficiently focused on making themselves attractive to men are often labeled as "lesbians" whether they are or not. It's staggering, for instance, how often Hillary Clinton gets lesbian jokes thrown at her, considering the absolute nonexistence of any indication that she's actually attracted to women. All of those jokes come EXCLUSIVELY from her gender presentation. Lesbians, also suffer discrimination, but not because they're seen as feminine, weak, frivolous, or passive, but rather because they're seen as "too aggressive" for their sex. Aggression isn't bad, it's actually great... but women just aren't "allowed" to be too aggressive, that's threatening to men.

Finally, MEN who refuse to treat women like inferior sexual objects are THEMSELVES often referred to by chauvinists as faggots. I mean, what red-blooded American man would focus on attributes of women other than their breasts? Or refuse to cat-call at women or grope them at bars? That's just GAY.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that this's an interesting theory, and I'm going to have to mull it over.

[sammka.livejournal.com]

I should qualify it by saying that there may be forms of homophobia that aren't as obviously caused by misogyny and gender policing. But this is what I think a whole lot of run-of-the-mill homophobia is.