Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Who Do I Have to Blow?

If you have nothing better to do with your time you can track the progress of contemporary feminism in its mantras. Or, should I say, its marketing slogans.

You might not be old enough to recall one of the first and foremost: “You’ve come a long way, baby.” If memory serves, it was the tag line on a cigarette advertisement, but, still it served the purposes of feminism well.

And then there was Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem: “I am woman; hear me roar.” Those of you who imagined that women were weak, ineffectual pussycats could console yourself with the notion that feminism could turn women into veritable lions. How much more empowered can you get?

Surely, it’s better to be a lion than it is to be a tuna or a bass or a flounder. Because that is what Gloria Steinem called women in her famous declaration of feminist independence: “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”  Of course, Steinem was demeaning women by comparing them to fish out of water. Feminists cheered from the rooftops.

While we are with the great GS, we must recall her other famous mantra: “Become the man you want to marry.” As advice goes this one leaves a great deal to be desired. How many women followed the feminist Pied Piper, only to discover that the man they wanted to marry did not want to marry himself? Minor difficulty that. They might not have found husbands but they did learn how to blame men.

Now, however, a group called American Women, a liberal activist group associated with Emily’s List, has coined a new mantra, a new slogan, a new piece of advice that is guaranteed to endear women with the opposite sex—assuming that today’s liberated woman will even admit to such a sexist concept.



Carrie Lukas deserves credit for discovering the video that contains this wondrous piece of advice. Recall the second-wave feminists insisted that women should be respected for their minds and not for their bodies, and that they should reject being treated as sexual objects.

Well, American Women has a new ad in which the punch line is:

“Who do I have to blow?”

The ad half bleeps out the word relating to fellatio, but it contains head shots—get it, head shots—of women declaring that they are willing to blow any number Republican politicians if only said politicians will vote for something called paid family leave.

One or two women suggest that they are willing to blow them all… if only they will give up some paid family leave. It’s a heck of a piece of self-branding. And it provokes certain images that are difficult to chase out of your mind. You would think that they were selling knee pads.

I suppose it’s better than giving it away for free.

Now, all women will be rushing into the workplace tomorrow morning, declaring: Who do I have to blow to get a raise? Who do I have to blow to get a promotion?

This is beginning to make Leaning In sound like good advice.

In any event the celebrities who are proclaiming their willingness to trade blow jobs for paid family leave are frankly suggesting that they do not want to be respected for their minds but for their osculatory skills.  Now these feminist martyrs will be cheered on by a chorus of feminists, encouraging them, if the task becomes too onerous, to suck it up.

Of course, it’s tongue in cheek, so to speak, but why would anyone find the concept to be amusing? Are these feminists trying to prove that Christopher Hitchens was right when he suggested that for the most part women are just not funny?

Yes, I have seen an occasional clip of one Amy Schumer trying to tell some jokes. If that is what passes as raucous female joke telling, Hitchens was more right than even he imagined.

For her part Carrie Lukas offers some serious thought on the topic. As you know the feminists want the government to force all companies to pay women when they take time off to nurture their newborns. In other words, they want companies to pay new mothers for not working.

In her words:

The video ignores the fact that, in spite of the lack of a government mandate or program, most full-time workers already do have access to paid leave. Rather than upending the entire compensation system, policymakers could focus on providing targeted financial aid to those with low-incomes who lack benefits, without making them less-attractive potential hires for employers.

Lukas adds that while the line was pronounced in gest, if any man ever made a joke of this kind around a woman in the workplace he would be brought up on charges of sexual harassment. Unless, of course, his last name was Clinton.

Obviously, Lukas points out, a paid family leave policy, mandated by Washington, will make employers less willing to hire young women of childbearing age. Why hire someone whose salary you are going to have to pay while she is not working? And what do you think it will do to company morale when part of the bonus pool will be given to people who have not been contributing to the bottom line?

Considering that we know that women cannot have it all, why is it a gross injustice, and not a personal choice when a new mother decides that she wants to spend less time at work and more time with her baby?

Free to choose… another great feminist mantra… but only as long as someone else is paying for it.

And, one final point, isn’t this another example of feminists wanting government to do what they refuse to allow men to do. Feminists consider women to be independent and autonomous, not needing to be protected by men. When said women suffer sexual assault, they want colleges to do what brothers and fathers have always done: to punish the perpetrators, without regard for due process of law.

Feminists reject the notion of the male breadwinner. The feminists in the video never considered that there was a reason why men were charged with providing for their wives and families, especially considering the realities of childbearing. Since we cannot have any male breadwinners, feminists will blow Congressional Republicans so they will force companies to pay new mothers for not working.

You've come a long way, baby.

10 comments:

sestamibi said...

I recall an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal back in 1987 in which then (and later House majority leader) Rep. Dick Armey made this exact point. The issue then was the proposed Family and Medical Leave Act, ultimately passed in Bill Clinton's first year as president. Armey very accurately concluded his piece by asserting that the law's proponents would ultimately be back to ask for paid leave as well.

Eventually they will get it, with consequences as you described them. There's absolutely no idea too loony today to gain acceptance in the name of "enlightenment" and "compassion".

Dennis said...

Sadly, gives new meaning to the phrase "We know what you are. We are just negotiating the price." If one does not respect one's self one cannot expect to receive respect. The damage that feminism has done to women is, in many ways, wrapped up in the degradation that women are supposed to be subjected to in order to get what they want. Though it may be tried, this is not how men want to see the women in their lives.
Some what akin to the "knee pads" that were a part of the Clinton regime. Again women, according to their feminist betters, seem to lack the wherewithal to accomplishing their goals without the use of sexual politics. This would have surprise the women and men who, in 14 states, had women voting and running for office, before the ratification of the 19th Amendment. Except of one state this was all done in western states.
One might wonder why this came to fruition in the west. I suspect that in the west women and men faced the challenges of the frontier together and in order to survive needed each other and learned to respect the hard work that each was capable and added. They were men and women who were not afraid to be men and women and recognized the synergy gained.
Interesting that feminism has done their best to destroy the respect between men and women to the point that they degrade themselves in the final analysis. Men and women who do not recognize that they need each other are destined to die at the hands of others who will use that lack of understanding agains't them. We make a very accomplished survival union with our strengths.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Well, Bill Clinton said it wasn't sex. So if that's what it's come to, then blow away. Oral sex for benefits. There's a word for that, whether tongue in cheek or... you know. Cash for pleasure, cash for security. This is the free market and social democracy all at once. Sounds like everyone is getting what they want at the most base level. Which the Glowing Box tells us is exactly what we want. This is the state as the husband, the provider of last resort. The great emasculator. If power is an aphrodisiac, then it's directly connected to the politician who will deliver what these women want. You connect with my desires, and I'll connect with yours. Literally. "Knee pads" are just the beginning. I wonder how Nancy Pelosi or Hillary feels about this campaign. They should be asked. Their response would be quite telling. "Oh yes, I believe it is empowering for women to offer fellatio in order to earn certain benefits." This is progressive thinking? Where is the progress? Yes, I know it's a joke... but behind all humor is a hint of truth. You don't have to be prudish to see this is not a desirable way of life.

Ares Olympus said...

p.s. For amateur historians, the quote "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle" apparently comes from Irina Dunn, apparently stolen from the Atheists disdain for God.

On the other hand, they say divorced women who never remarry seem to do much better than divorced men who never remarry, suggesting women are more capable of keeping up on their social networks, while manly men keep their guns ready to end their lives when their social isolation becomes unbearable.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/414150.html
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A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle

Meaning: A feminist slogan, suggesting that men are superfluous to women's needs.

Origin
This slogan is often attributed to Gloria Steinem. Other claims for origination point to Flo (Florynce) Kennedy, or to an anonymous author who painted the slogan on a wall at University of Wisconsin in 1969.

Gloria Steinem had this to say in a letter she wrote to Time magazine in autumn 2000:
"In your note on my new and happy marital partnership with David Bale, you credit me with the witticism 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.' In fact, Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician, coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney.

She paraphrased the philosopher who said, 'Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle.' Dunn deserves credit for creating such a popular and durable spoof of the old idea that women need men more than vice versa."

Irina Dunn later confirmed Steinem's version of events, in January 2002:

"Yes, indeed, I am the one Gloria referred to. I was paraphrasing from a phrase I read in a philosophical text I was reading for my Honours year in English Literature and Language in 1970. It was 'A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle'. My inspiration arose from being involved in the renascent women's movement at the time, and from being a bit of a smart-arse. I scribbled the phrase on the backs of two toilet doors, would you believe, one at Sydney University where I was a student, and the other at Soren's Wine Bar at Woolloomooloo, a seedy suburb in south Sydney. The doors, I have to add, were already favoured graffiti sites."

Dunn's modesty is appropriate, as 'A needs a B like a C needs a D' was a well-established format in the USA many years before 1970; for example, this usage in the Connecticut newspaper The Hartford Courant, December, 1898:

The place [Aragon, Spain] didn't need an American consul any more than a cow needs a bicycle; for it had no trade with America, and no American tourist ever dreamed of stopping there.
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Sam L. said...

Who do they have to blow? I would suggest the entire HR department. I keep reading HR departments are mostly women.

Ares Olympus said...

Oh, I listened to the 2 minute video, and it is rather horrid, even ignoring the sexual references. It links to a website AmericanWomen.org, and this reference page.
http://www.americanwomen.org/news/celebrities-demand-paid-family-leave

I suppose when you have no real argument, pretending you're willing to humiliate yourself giving sexual favors to men in positions of power creates a fantasy victimhood. So the logic is "this is THAT important to us, but you're a pig if you dare actually say we have to do what we're offering to get what we want." So much for dignity.

For reference, this is what we have now - 12 weeks unpaid leave.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_leave_in_the_United_States
--------
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, signed into law during President Bill Clinton's first term, guaranteed maternity leave to many new mothers across the nation. It mandated a minimum of 12 weeks unpaid leave to mothers for the purpose of attending to a newborn or newly adopted child.
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But the logic that employers should not only shoulder the burden of replacing a worker with a temp worker, someone who has to be trained and who has the exact opposite of job security, but also pay a full salary for not working seems a preposterous entitlement.

And there's no equality - why should a CEO expect to get 12 weeks paid leave on a $200k salary, while a janitor get 12 weeks paid leave on a $20k salary? If its about the children, why do CEO children deserve a disproportionately larger entitlement while probably needing it less?

Jury duty offers a parallel issue, assuming parenthood is a "civil duty". If you're called for jury duty, your employer also must give you unpaid leave, and the government gives you a fixed compensation, not proportional to your salary. Like Minnesota:
http://www.mnd.uscourts.gov/JuryInfo/juryfaq.shtml
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Everyone who reports for jury duty will be paid, regardless of whether or not you are selected to serve on a trial. Jurors are paid $40 per day plus 56.5 cents per mile. Your employer may or not pay you for time spent on jury service. If you are paid by your employer you may be required to turn over your pay to them. Please check with your management on your company's policies.
-----

$40/day is minimal compensation, barely minimum wage for an 8 hour day. (When I was on a jury a decade ago, only 4 days, I did turn over my compensation to my employer, and continued getting my salary.)

But it does suggest that it should be the responsibility of a government, whether state or federal, to provide "parental benefits", and those benefits ought to be independent of your employment status. So a CEO or janitor or "housewife" and all occupations ought to offer identical compensation. At least that would be a "progressive" compensation as a fraction of income.

You'd think "progressives" would think about these things!

A harder question is to ask how or whether the government can encourage maternal leave. That is, if a new mother gets a $5000 stipend for giving birth (or if adopted out, given to adoptive parents). But should a new mother be required to not work for 6 or 12 or more weeks, or can she keep the money, even if she decides to pay a baby sitter after 3 weeks and goes back to work.

I'm glad I'm not an economist, but if I was I'd like things simple with my monopoly money, and otherwise let people be adults and make their own bad decisions. I might suggest a law for EVERY ADULT over 25 (or 25 years as a US citizen) can take money out of a $10k federal benefit "account" any time they want (or appreciated value with CPI inflation), whether they have ever kids or not, and then a prudent husband and wife can have $20k to play with for their family planning, and again, no worries on employers back.

But its a pretty tiny entitlement.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/18/pf/child-cost/

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Taxable commodities, combat soldiers, female chauvinist pawns, womb banks for transgender/homosexual males and dysfunctional couples, and abortionists for the clinical cannibal market.

Money is the source of all progress in the world.

Make war, not love.

Who do you have to suck?

The content of your uterus.

And, last, but not least, make death, not life.

Yeah, you've come along way, baby. Progressive morality has consequences.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Ares Olympus @January 12, 2016 at 5:37 PM:

"I suppose when you have no real argument..."

Oh, but they DO have an argument, Ares. They want more free stuff! They want someone to take care of them. That's their argument. They're just asking for it because they want it. Nothing more. Protect me, fund me, etc. It's implicit. You can watch this sort of thing with primates on Animal Kingdom... baboons, lemurs, chimpanzees. You protect and provide, you get sex. It's good that Progressives are so enamored with the theory of evolution, because they demonstrate they haven't evolved their thinking at all. That's progress, whether "pretending" or not. That's today's Democrat Party... it's just about sex. Move on.

What is curious about President Clinton and President Obama is they would sacrifice almost any Democrat Party interest except single women. Feminists, abortionists, equal pay-ists, etc. Neither president would ever tread on them. Ever.

Telling.

Anonymous said...

Well, you can always move to Germany. We have free university education for our kids and eight weeks paid vacation after the birth. Of course we pay 48% in income tax, so it's not exactly free.