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.