Wonkette, Phooey

Okay, what’s the deal here? I thought Ana Marie Cox was supposed to be so clever, or witty or interesting or something – ? Isn’t she? I thought she was. I’ve never read or even glanced at Wonkette, because life is short and time is scarce and blogs are many and the subject matter – beltway gossip? Urrgghh – is so very unappealing; but I’ve gathered (how? I don’t know – as one does) that she’s good in some way. But clearly there has been some mistake. That “book review” is a piece of crap; it’s stupid and smug and truly staggeringly predictable. So if that’s Wonkette, I’m glad I’ve never wasted so much as a nanosecond on it.

Strident feminism can seem out of place – even tacky – in a world where women have come so demonstrably far. With Katie Couric at the anchor desk, Condoleezza Rice leading the State Department and Hillary Clinton aiming for the top of the ticket, many of the young, educated and otherwise liberal women who might, in another era, have found themselves burning bras and raising their consciousness would rather be fitted for the right bra (like on “Oprah”) and raising their credit limit.

Oh right. Of course. How stupid of us not to think of it. Because Hillary Clinton married the right guy and there’s – gasp! – one woman reading the news on tv, therefore feminism has nothing further to say, and if it says it it’s (oh christalmighty) “strident”. That’s the kind of thing that makes grizzled old feminists like me (and Pollitt, I daresay) want to send smug smirking young postfeminists off to – where, exactly? Let’s see. How about northern Nigeria. Or southern Afghanistan. Or Iran. Or Egypt. Or rural India, or China, or Congo. Sound good, Wonkette? Sound like a fun way to find out how far women have come? Hmmm?

Her new collection of essays, “Virginity or Death!,” culled from her columns for The Nation over the past five years, shows her to be stubbornly unapologetic in championing access to abortion and fixated on the depressingly slow evolution of women’s rights in the Middle East. In the midst of our celebration of Katie’s last day, Pollitt is the one who would drown out the clinking of cosmo glasses with a loud condemnation of the surgery available to those women who would sacrifice their little toes the better to fit their Jimmy Choos.

Fuck. I can’t even read any more. That’s only the first paragraph, and it’s some of the stupidest shit I’ve seen in a long time. And it’s in the New York Times, which still keeps insisting it’s a good newspaper! What is their problem? Why do they publish insulting garbage like that? Are they trying to show that they’re “hip” or not some bunch of latte-swigging elitists or what?

Okay, sorry, beg pardon. It’s the feminist in me – do excuse me, I mean the “strident” feminist – again. I’m sure I’ve told you, probably more than once, about seeing a panel of feminists – Pollitt was one – at the Los Angeles Book Fair a few years ago, on C-Span, and seeing a glam young French woman stand up and ask the panel why they were all so angry. They were all, to a woman, absolutely dumbfounded, and I was scarred for life. Seriously – Wonkette needs to learn about something beyond D.C. gossip. She also needs to learn to write better. A lot better.

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