That political correctness is vile and invidious is a foregone conclusion for conservatives. Hopefully, recent events will illustrate to the rest of the population that PC has nothing to do with “sensitivity” and everything to do with our elites trying to modify our thoughts and behavior. The Rahm Emanuel incident elucidated that we have a new “R word” to skirt around in daily conversation, while the Harry Reid kerfuffle showcased that there are now two verboten “N words” to avoid uttering as opposed to merely one.
Along with a menagerie of syllables is a reflexive stance men must adopt concerning women. Put simply, it can be summarized as follows: women are always right. The fairer sex are infallible and suggesting otherwise makes a man a misogynist. Should men notice their mistakes or foibles it is best practice not to mention them. In 2010, sacred cows seemingly outnumber regular citizens and at the very top of that list are women. Criticism of them has become an act of hate.
Despite being a known Democrat, sports columnist and pundit Tony Kornheiser discovered that no man is safe when it comes to making fun of women.
Recently, the goofy and garish reporter dared to lampoon an outfit worn by fellow ESPN correspondent Hannah Storm. During a radio broadcast he said:
Hannah Storm in a horrifying, horrifying outfit today. She’s got on red go-go boots and a catholic school plaid skirt … way too short for somebody in her 40s or maybe early 50s by now. … She’s got on her typically very, very tight shirt. She looks like she has sausage casing wrapping around her upper body. … Hannah Storm … come on now! Stop! What are you doing? … She’s what I would call a Holden Caulfield fantasy at this point.
His assessment was weird, metrosexual-esque, and immaterial, but offensive? That it was not.
The brass at ESPN thought differently, however. They responded in predictable PC fashion by suspending Kornheiser from his Pardon the Interruption television show for two weeks.
One of their vice presidents then adopted a sanctimonious tone. He defended their decision by announcing:
Hurtful and personal comments such as these are not acceptable and have significant consequences.
This is absurd on many levels. Kornheiser’s entire career has been spent providing off-kilter commentary. The guy is a known cheeseball and schlep. He and his co-host Michael Wilbon poke fun of absolutely everything and everybody.
Kornheiser made the mistake of regarding Ms. Storm as a coworker. He showered upon her the same disdain that he sprays upon other sports world figures on a daily basis.
At another level, Kornheiser seeks to entertain. Unlike the practitioners of cultural Marxism, he is lively and fun. This alone makes him a serious enemy to PC’s defenders.
When one directly examines Kornheiser’s quip, one finds many sub-areas that undoubtedly gave our elites a bad case of Tourette’s. Just teasing a woman is a major sin, but daring to suggest that a woman should dress her age violates sacred dogma. Every sensible person has been taught that older females are every bit as attractive as their younger peers. The mainstream media is ardently dedicated to this belief. Only shallow males care about traits like youth and beauty. The fabricated phenomenon known as “The Cougar” attests to this, and proves that women have no expiration date.
Hannah Storm may be approaching her fifties, but no longer is that akin to walking the plank. After all, 50 is the new 34! For the sake of social justice, males must purge themselves of their actual preferences and conform to society’s dictates about what men should find attractive about women. By dressing like a slinky girl in her twenties, Ms. Storm empowered not only herself but every woman within a four-thousand mile radius. Tony Kornheiser had to be shamed for his attempt at oppressing her.
Yes, as PJMedia.com readers can already intuit, I’m being facetious. All of these cultural dictates are total nonsense and aberrations in the combined history of our species.
Many of Kornheiser’s fellow sports journalists approved of ESPN’s cowardice. One even observed: “That stuff might play on the red carpet, but not at the Worldwide Leader.” Well, it would play if freeform discussion revolving around sports — which is precisely what the program Pardon the Interruption is predicated upon — was their top priority. Instead, political correctness is the top priority and ESPN has illustrated this truth time and again over the years.
Sports should be a sanctuary of freedom and immune to political control, but ESPN kowtows to pseudo-liberal orthodoxy at every opportunity. This is perplexing on its face given that the network’s demographic support is 94 percent male. If any media outlet should have the right to ignore PC it is ESPN, but they eagerly embrace its every tenet.
To them, Ms. Storm is not Mr. Kornheiser’s equal. She is his superior and deference is to be expected. This exemplifies what most of us already know. Women are not held to the same standard as are men in our society. The old saying, “if you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen,” is completely passé. Nowadays, if women cannot take the heat we close the kitchen for them.
Obviously, no one believes that ESPN would have suspended Kornheiser had he derided a fellow male’s clothing or said anything negative about Mr. Wilbon. This is irrelevant though. In the public arena, sensitivity trumps truth. Nowhere is this more evident than in our treatment of women. It has become a national pastime to laud them whether they are deserving of accolades or not.
Much like racism — or all the other “-isms” for that matter — sexism has been so thoroughly dispelled from our land that grievance artists have made a caricature from charges of discrimination.
If a man doesn’t like what a woman wears (or anything else) he should be free to tell her even if he is a host on ESPN.
The Kornheiser incident proves that women are the equals of men … except for when they’d rather not be or if privilege is involved. The rest of us should learn a lesson from this which is that chivalry and women’s empowerment are mutually exclusive concepts. As a society, we must collectively decide whether women are deserving of special advantage or whether they are regular folks who possess the same virtues and vices as do men.
This commentator would advocate for the latter interpretation. Let’s start treating everyone the same and apply the Golden Rule — treat others as you wish to be treated — to our interactions. Women are just as intelligent, able, and hardy as men, so there is no reason to continue legal preferences like affirmative action or pretend that they are dainty mimosas who must be sheltered from some oddball’s random speech. Equality means … well, equality, and the first step in becoming equal is renouncing privilege.
Rather than accept condescension from politically corrupt organizations like ESPN, American women would do well to internalize a piece of advice. Always remember, you’re special, just like everyone else.
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