Nancy Drew Feminism
I woke up a few mornings ago to the utter perplexing news that Red State founder Erick Erickson was in trouble for calling the speeches at the Democratic National Convention the “Vagina Monologues.”
Apparently, the truth is no defense anymore. I can’t offer a line-by-line fact check because I have successfully avoided the Broadway version of vagina dentata for the whole of its 11 years. But anyone with even passing knowledge of the dreaded Monologues knew it when they saw it, as it were, unfurling in speech after speech at the DNC.
For one brief, shining moment in the mid-1980s, feminism meant that you could actually do something about the Stop & Shop promoting a pot-smoking teen boy over a dozen older, more competent women with decades on the job.
Feminism now means that a 31-year-old woman with a Georgetown Law degree gets five minutes on the stage at a national political convention to whine about having to work six minutes a month to pay for her own contraceptives (which could be reduced to three if she asked her boyfriend to pay for half).
Which, she should. If feminism means anything.
I can imagine the cries of protest that Ms. Fluke was speaking for women who earn considerably less than a Georgetown Law grad, or that Fluke herself will not earn as much as Georgetown Law grads of the past because the economy is tanking (future Sandra Flukes may have to work upwards of seven or eight minutes a month to pay for the pill). But the Democrats did not put Sandra Fluke on the stage to talk about the economic crisis, or any other complex issue.
They put her on the stage to mutely embody government-funded contraception.
Feminism also now means that all those Teamsters and drill press operators who allegedly forge the backbone of the Democrats can no longer attend their own convention without hearing far more than they’d like about the endometrial travails and contraceptive minutiae of women who might be 25 or 35 or 45 but seem frozen at the age of “college girl.”
The funniest moment of the convention, for me, happened when yet another attractive young embodiment, Elizabeth Ann “Libby” Bruce, unleashed a gynecologically detailed yet otherwise vague anecdote about nameless doctors who allegedly failed to diagnose her health problem until she found solace and vindication in the arms of her local Planned Parenthood empaths. As Libby proceeded to vastly over-share, a cameraman zoomed in on one guy in the audience who looked as panicked as a raccoon caught in a trap.
Buddy, this ain’t your father’s DNC.
<"The so-called feminists who allowed themselves to be used as the warm-up act for Bill Clinton painted a picture of women that could not be further from “empowerment,” be it sexual, intellectual, moral, or economic."
That was funny. Women being executed in third world holes who breach sharia law and never a word from the western priveledged white women? Feminists = lesbians. No body cares what they believe and any man who has contact with them will shortly become the biggest misogynist to walk the earth.
The world burns and the dems really think Americans care what a 30 year old woman-child is crowing about? Their so f*cked.
“…what they demonstrated at their convention was about as “empowering” for women as a drag queen’s portrayal of late-stage Liza Minnelli.”
Great post but this is my favorite line. Superb.
Thank you for the excellent article. You really articulated what drives me nuts about Sandra Fluke. As a male how can I take women seriously or even view them as fully functional adults when the actions of Sandra Fluke are portrayed as courageous and even heroic? What is the difference between feminism and paternalism when women need the government to give them special subsidies for health care?
Ms Trent:
As a man I usually hold myself afar, far away from evaluations of today’s “modern” woman (or the DNC vision thereof) that you have so insightfully described. Distance is safer. I do not want to be accused of an inability to understand the other sex. Nevertheless, I will brave a commment.
I could not agree more. Fluke & Co want unlimited contraception, both pregnancy preventive and pregancy eliminative, viz. abortion. If the “womb” carries a child, it gets in the way of the “vagina”, i.e., it becomes, HHS-wise, a “health” problem and should be medically “cured”–on demand. I could go on, but you have said it all. No, not quite all. I can add something, which you may already know, but I feel from within and sense the same in other men. And that would be?
I suggest that the most ardent supporters of abortion are MEN! Many, too many men, do, indeed, view women as a vagina which, thank goodness, posseses a body, or the v-thing does not function. Alas, that body contains a womb which can spoil innate male promiscuity. So, males need protection from the “failures” of their girl-friend’s, viz., sex-partner’s damn contraceptive means. So abort it. Not to abort could strain the pocket-book. That is one reason, but not all. A deeper dimension, however, is: What man wants a child from a mere sex-partner for the night or even with one from a passing “relationship”. I suspect that males are not only protecting their pocket-books, but in a perverse way their very “honor”. The womb endangers not only male sexual lust, not only male solvency, but also threatens him with siring a child with THAT, ughh, woman. He is wasting his seed on a mere vagina whose womb devaluates his self-honor. As long as a woman can exert sexual attraction, her vagina will be used. He’ll STICK around! Down with the womb! But, in us men there is, at least I hope, a “honorable” desire to create together with a woman a child giving fruit to a family. For such a creation more is necessary than a vagina, rather a “worthy” womb. Sexually consumming feminity generates male promiscuity whereby he also dishonors himself.
Hear well, ye woe-men! Once males have their own birthcontrol pills or whatever, you will become open season for male lust which no longer needs to give a damn about your wombs and their possible fruit, i.e., as long as they keep your vaginas working. What else is there? I may be failing to comprehend the male population’s participation in the sex revolution. But I sense from conversations that there is a male sense of loss of honor in sex, reducing the vagina to a mastubatory insturment. Cynically expressed, a woman’s vigina is just a female doll turned real. This attitude is, I think, the malenes that the Fluke’s of this world are generating.
Well, I expressed myself, exposing myself to the wrath of the female readers of the article. So, tear me apart for my misunderstandings.
Not sure a reaction of “wrath” is appropriate here but I do wonder why more men don’t exercise more restraint with regard to “one-night stands.” I chalk it up to the case of being a mere facet of human nature.
It is human nature. With men, sexuality can easily become a highly physical matter. That is the nature of the beast! The “one-night-standers” have no sense of feminity beyond the vagina. Alas, woman’s lib has liberated (sic) many men from respect entailed in viewing the womb as an integral feature of womanness. Let the v-experience become detached from the womb and augmented to the “high point” of a male/female encounter, and you will find indifference to female needs. The one-night-stand becomes automatically the ideal “relationship”. Penis to vagina and–time to go, babe! The central anti-masculinity that women-on-their-own-ism drives men into a desparate condition. It is an adult equivalent to a male child’s rejection or demeanment by the mother. The results are disasterous. One grabs sex where one can least expose one’s self to demeanment. Women viewed basically as sex objects covers over women as rejectors, a bearers of negation. But this entails too much wild psychological theory about us men!
Translation: Earth girls are easy.
Leonard, thank you so much for “braving it”. Your comment combined with this excellent article has expressed exactly what it is that we as a country and culture are experiencing today.
God bless you sir!
this one comment is itself worthy of an article. well done.
I’ve faced much ridicule over my early life for not being a stud.
maybe its because I ended up being the support system for the lives damaged by my friends being the studs.
Thank you for the excellent summary of how sick the democrat party has become along with their “feminist” lackeys, but I’m confused about the following:
“For one brief, shining moment in the mid-1980s, feminism meant that you could actually do something about the Stop & Shop promoting a pot-smoking teen boy over a dozen older, more competent women with decades on the job”
Did such a case actually happen, or is the author for some strange reason using the same type of ridiculous “feminist” hyperbole -or even pure fantasy- that people like Sandra Flunky regularly use? If it’s the latter, then the author’s true beliefs and motives become confused, at least in my mind.
Percyn — funny name — yes, that did happen. I was there. And it outraged me because I have a bourgeois work ethic. We’re not actually that far from the time when men and women had different help wanted sections in the newspaper, and it’s not the only time I’ve seen an insubstantial man promoted over competent women.
Let me be clear. I’m not defending the ludicrous artifice of affirmative action. But basic fairness isn’t a bad thing, and I know a lot of older feminists who are more pissed off that you are about the pathetic demise of their movement into sexualized toddlerdom.
Great article. One correction, however: Fluke did not actually testify before Congress. The Dems staged a press conference to make it look like she was testifying. She was never under oath nor was she subject to questioning by Republican committee members.
You’re right, Walt. Good catch. The Dems went through a lot to make that false impression. We would certainly not want to honor their request to forget.
You’re right Walt. Sorry.
“Julia” ironically is the name of the love interest of the main character Winston in Orwell’s 1984.
Good catch! Chilling overtones.
Ended up in the Anti-Sex League, didn’t she?
My favorite line was “We’ve reduced our entire existence to exhibitionist behavior referencing our sex organs: will you please start taking us as seriously as the gays now?” I think this says it all about the Democrats and liberal women.
“Nancies”, indeed! Diddy bints.
Sandra Fluke is the poster child for free contraceptives, a mistake her parents could have avoided.
Nice article. Families with a mom AND a dad are seen as unnecessary anachronism these days by the Democrats. The hubris in this attitude is amazing, especially when so much evidence of broken homes and millions of children raised (mostly) by single moms is beginning to emerge. It always reminds me of that line from a Pink Floyd song, “so you think you can tell, Heaven from Hell.” Well, this is a 70s feminist’s version of Heaven.
“Families with a mom AND a dad are seen as unnecessary anachronism these days by the Democrats. The hubris in this attitude is amazing, especially when so much evidence of broken homes and millions of children raised (mostly) by single moms is beginning to emerge.”
It’s beyond the case of an “unnecessary anachronism” to the demented minds of the Democrats. They want a country chock-full of little bastards who grow up to vote their sorry asses into office election after election. So delicious it is to them to be able to wield so much power over the mindless masses of people raised by one parent. A veritable small c’s dream it is.
fyi – the holy grail of feminism, the original ‘vagina monologues’, contained a scene where a very young girl was raped by an older woman. maybe this explains why society has had such a hard time prosecuting women for violence, and especially sexual violence against young children. like the pretty blond child rapist in fla., they have been getting a slap on the wrist since… forever. probation and maybe some therapy are considered remedies for a plethora of their crimes. they weren’t even prosecuted at all until the mid-90′s(?) for sexual crimes. donahue had a show on it back then where he actually had to lecture the audience about their support for these women rapists.
for comparison, there has never been a more pampered group of people in the history of the world as the average American woman. rights like nowhere else, ever – special rights. they control (by far) the wealth/spending of the u.s. as well. government programs out the wazoo. free this, preference that, and always wanting more, like they showed us all at the convention. they have access to modern conveniences (almost entirely created by men) that would make old world womens’ life seem like living in he!!.
a war on women? kinda like calling donuts a war on sugar.
In order to resist the hoary conspiracy of being “reduced to wombs,” today’s feminists have preemptively reduced themselves to wombs, or even just vaginas…It’s as if these women were pleading with the DNC: “We’ve reduced our entire existence to exhibitionist behavior referencing our sex organs: will you please start taking us as seriously as the gays now?”
It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
For the record, Sandy Fluke consistently lies about the cost of contraception, inflating it something like 30x what it actually is.
…with little more than a fake Indian law professor tottering between them…
Elizabeth Warren’s breathless diatribe was one of the most squirm-worthy speeches I have ever heard.
If Massachusetts elects this woman, the state should be struck from the national rolls.
I saw MsFluke’s argument for “free” contraceptives, not as a personal quest, but as support for the Obamacare’s mandate that religious groups must violate their beliefs, their pro-life stances, and get with the program.
This mandate isn’t about a woman’s reproductive health, “free” birth control, but a direct hit on the FirstAmendment’s protection.
We’ve allowed comedians and political pundits use her as a basis of jokes or for political fodder, but it’s not HER that we’re arguing, it’s the FirstAmendment and what it means to religious groups and individuals.
Remember the Equal Rights Amendment? At first it sailed through Congress and the state legislatures, then stalled, and finally died for lack of ratification even after given an extension of the deadline. Why the eventual failure of an initially popular Constitutional amendment? Because the voters, having seen how a federal bureaucracy decided for itself what racial equality means regardless of what the law says, feared that another federal bureaucracy would decide for itself what sex equality means regardless of what the law says. Imagine entrusting the immense power of federal bureaucracy, with its ability to ensure that you don’t beat the ride even if you beat the rap, to lawyers like Sandra Fluke. That’s what the voters feared about the Equal Rights Amendment and the feminists have been lying to each other about it ever since.
Excellent point, Jack.
Since then, of course, they’ve tried through courts and outright unconstitutional procedures to get much the same thing, achieving way too much success creating grievance industries wholesale.
Equality was never what they were after, it was ascendancy over us.
Everybody out to have a slave or two, I always say.
I would say you nailed it…
Sandra Fluke is, apart from her other failings, an ignoramus. If she wanted to avoid becoming pregnant, all she had to do was to abstain from sexual relations, guaranteed to prevent pregnancy.
Those days are over.
Today’s young single women want what young single men have always had: The ability to have casual sex and then walk away.
Don’t think anyone’s actually said it yet in so many words: this article is beautifully constructed, and a pleasure to read.
It says a lot about the party that Fluke belongs to that the wit displayed here would go completely over their heads. Tina is a welcome addition and I hope to see more of her articles here.
What a fabulous article. One of the best I’ve read on PJMedia of many good ones.
As a father of two daughters, it is my opinion that Sandra Fluke is anything but an empowered woman; more like foolish, naive, insecure, and a tool. If I were Fluke’s father, I would consider myself a complete and utter failure, just as I once thought of Monica Lewinsky and her weak kneed dunce of a father.
With a father like Lewinsky’s, is it any wonder she was such an easy target for a predator who moonlighted as President?
At least Billy showed up for his moonlight job once in a while.
Wikipedia reveals that Sa-Flu’s major at Cornell University was Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies.
We joke about these stupid “Studies” majors, but they send 1000′s and 1000′s of toxic leftists into teaching, law, and the occupy movement.
The biggest consumer of the “studies” majors is government. “A Degree” will enable you to meet the minimum quals for upper-level technical, lower-level supervisory jobs, giving these mind-numbed lefty robots about a ten year head start over the people who actually understand the work.
Can we please leave Nancy Drew out of it? I remember reading her as a little girl, and that those books were stepping stones to a larger appreciation of the magic of reading. This summer I had an enchanting conversation with a voluable little girl at a social gathering, and as we exchanged favorite reading, she brought up Nancy Drew. And she *liked* Nancy Drew. I recommended Harry Potter, but since it was about a “boy” – said with an “ick yuck” face and tone — she thought she’d stick with Nancy Drew for a while. She also had tried the Hardy Boys, but didn’t like them either — because they’re “boys — ick yuck”.
We both agreed we liked Nancy Drew partially for her relationship with her father … who was more than “just a boy — ick”. I sort of think La Fluke, et al, may have never read Nancy Drew when she was a baby lady, which is why she turned out like she has.
BTW, the little girl had parental units who were Latino who spoke with Spanish accents. The mother looked concerned that her daughter was reading so much and maybe taking herself out of the marriage market already, but the father alternated between being stunned at her young erudition and beamingly proud of it. I think Pappa will back her up as she reads her way to success … and it will have started with Nancy Drew
I’m sorry. You’re right. Nancy Drew has some adult ideological problems. But the point of children’s literature is children. I take your point. After all, I was drawn to the heroine’s wit and skill when I was a child. Good on you.
I also highly recommend the Five Little Peppers series and the Alcott books following Little Women: Jo’s Boys and Little Men.
And then there is the Wrinkle in Time series, and for adults, L’Engle for adults, and almost anything by Connie Willis.
Books are everything that matters. Poor Nancy Drew. She’s the female James Bond of fetishism, but she does try to be a role model. Bless her heart.
The author gets to the nub of what really bugs me about Sandra Fluke. It’s not her policy preferences, it’s that she’s disingenuous and exploits real victims.
The rape story that she tells had caught my attention as well, and I had a similar reaction. It’s not a believable story and she shouldn’t promote the lie that the police are going to charge women money to press rape charges. Though it’s telling that she expects women to believe that.
“Feminism now means that a 31-year-old woman with a Georgetown Law degree gets five minutes on the stage at a national political convention to whine about having to work six minutes a month to pay for her own contraceptives”
Really, did you even watch the speech? I did, and that’s not what Sandra Fluke said. By all means though, succumb to the rethug practice of putting words in people’s mouths and just plain LYING THROUGH YOUR TEETH.
Ans how telling that so many here find Sandra Fluke so threatening that they feel the need to tear her apart. Pathetic.