Zombie Schlafly Arises Through Dark Magic of Google; Is Cranky

It is still totally weird that Obama is President, by the way. We are about a week into it, and I still have these moments where I pause and take a second to realize how weird it is. I think the first of these moments happened when I saw a newspaper refer to "former President George W. Bush," and I was like, shit, former, as in he's gone, as in it's over. I voted for Gore a few months after my eighteenth birthday (and there were people who were mad at me for not voting Nader - in Ohio! - and there were people who were mad at me for voting at all because "the system was broken" - in Ohio!) and I recently read one of my diaries, and it was like, "Gabe says it's too close to call; Florida is still up in the air," and I totally laughed and/or was weirded out because this was written at 7:00 p.m. on Election Night, and also I had never gotten beyond third base when I wrote it, so you can see why I have a hard time believing that the Bush Era, which was the historical context in which I lived basically my entire adult life, is over. It is over, though. I keep looking around and being, like, "this is what America looks like while Obama is President" and then it all looks totally the same and totally different, and then I castigate myself for being a sentimental feeb, and then I go back to feeling like I have slipped into an alternate dimension. Then I wonder: where will I get my rage?

So, good news! There is still a place where Phyllis Schlafly is allowed to publish! I always thought she was "media dead," which is what happens when someone is so irrelevant that when he or she actually dies you are surprised because you thought s/he'd been devoured by sharks or something several decades ago and you just missed it. Nope! Her work is available on a website called HumanEvents.com ("Headquarters of the Conservative Underground!") which is positively swathed in advertisements for Ann Coulter. Did you know that there is a place where you can sign up to "Get Ann's scathing commentary every week?" Well, you do now, suckers. In this week's installment, "Feminists Expect to Cash in With Barack Obama," Phyllis warns that the no-good meddling feminists are asking the President to advance their vile cause!

The groups that elected Barack Obama are poised to cash in on their investment...

... because they, like, BOUGHT HIM. Get it? They BOUGHT HIM? Because he is A BLACK MAN and they are like SLAVE BUYERS who BUY PEOPLE? HUH?

...and the feminists are muscling to be first in line.

... MUSCLING, get it? Because they are MUSCULAR, like MEN? So they are basically NOT REAL WOMEN? Do you SMELL WHAT THE SCHLAFLY IS COOKING, I guess, is what I am asking?

Read on, friends, to discover the terrifying nightmare world we will enter if the feminists get their way! They will:

-- Pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to repeal the statute of limitations and allow women to sue employers for alleged wage discrimination long after bosses are dead and unable to defend their actions.

Suing dead employers for discrimination long after they are unable to come up with stupid rationalizations for said discrimination barring the use of a Ouija board ("T-H-E-Y-M-I-G-H-T-G-E-T-P-R-E-G-S"), and also there is a slight possibility that people will sue discriminatory employers while they are actually alive, and their rationalizations will not matter, because it will be totally illegal! SHRIEK!

-- Direct Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to compare pay scales in job categories held mostly by women or mostly by men, and then enforce wage control to equalize wages according to the feminists' subjective definition of what they call comparable worth.

Eliminating the Pink Collar Ghetto, and making it no longer true that, as more women enter a profession, the wages for said profession tend to get lower, as if by magic! GASP!

-- Appropriate $10 billion annually for daycare, early childhood programs, and grants for infant and toddler care so that mothers can be liberated from caring for their own babies.

Making it possible for women to earn incomes for their families by, for example, publishing columns and books or organizing around the ratification of a constitutional amendment, or even, horror of horrors, becoming attorneys, instead of staying at home taking care of their, oh, let's say, six children! NOOOO!

-- Require insurance companies to cover birth control, require pharmacists to fill contraceptive prescriptions, and remove the age restriction on over-the-counter so-called emergency contraception.

Requiring insurance to cover a recurring health cost for many women, then requiring pharmacists to actually make the medication in question available to people with prescriptions, in spite of the fact that this will totally allow women to avoid getting pregnant and having six children which they would, of course, be morally obliged to stay at home with instead of working! AIEEEEE!

-- Ratify the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment with no time limitation on the process. Ratify the United Nations Treaty on Women (CEDAW), which would make our laws, customs and textbooks subject to supervision and control by a U.N. committee of feminists designated as "experts."

"Ahhhh, my old nemesis, we meet again," you can imagine Schlafly whisper-growling to herself as she types this paragraph. Legislating non-discriminatory treatment of women: it's back, and this time, it's not content with destroying America... it wants THE WORLD.

-- Enact Hate Crimes legislation to cover acts of violence based on the victim's real or perceived gender, sexual orientation or gender identity. Fully fund, expand and aggressively enforce the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and enact the International VAWA (IVAWA).

So, Phyllis Schlafly has a gay son. Did you know that? Es verdad. Don't be expecting any Heathers-style declarations of love for him in the near future, however. Not even when legislation to punish hate crimes against him (and her daughters, and her!) is passed into law, oh my God, LAWS AGAINST GAY BASHING BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA.

-- Appoint feminists to key positions in all the federal departments and strive for gender balance (i.e., 50 percent feminists) throughout the government. Establish a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender liaison position in the White House.

Oh, calm down, Phyllis. They've only got to be feminists. Nobody said they had to be girls.

John DeVore Is Not the Best You Can Do

And the Almighty Gods of Getting Laid Because You're a Sensitive Cool Dude, Right, Ladies looked upon John DeVore of The Frisky, and they saw that he had written upon that blog an essay about gender relations in this modern day and age, and they read what he had presented unto them, and they pronounced upon him: FAAAAAAILLLLLLL.

For John DeVore has written an article in the "Mind of Man" section entitled "I Might Be a Sexist," the point of which is that he is... not? I don't know. With a title like this, however, how could I look away?

I’m not proud of the fact that I might be sexist, but it seems more honest to say so than declaring that I’m a feminist. Which I’m not. I’m having a tough enough time trying to figure out how to be a righteous dude. I suppose the best contribution I can make to the struggle for gender equality is to try and be a better man. I can’t allow myself to politicize my inner-struggles, to become, as Gandhi said, the change I want to see in the world. So, yeah, I’m not a feminist, and I might be a sexist. But better I be aware of that, than ignorant to the prejudices that make me oh-so human. And that’s the best I can do.

Yep. File under: FAAAAAAILLLLLLL, Epic. Also, under: The Best They Can Do, Dudes Claim This Is Because They're Lazy.

He is not the first entrant in this category. There is a long history of dudes half-assing their understanding of gender relations and claiming that the fact they are making an effort at all means they deserve to be rewarded, perhaps with your crotch. This is because the task of dismantling male privilege, which has been upheld historically by men (and also by women - I know there are female misogynists out there, I've heard a Katy Perry song or two in my time) who, depending upon the precise intersection of race, sexuality, class, and cis or trans status they inhabit, may actually tend to have far more institutional power than many or most women and hence an ideal position from which to effect change, is completely and entirely the responsibility of chicks. Or so dudes of this stripe seem to believe.

Yet this does not mean that they support male dominance or privilege or anything, they add! They care, they really do. It's just that they can't change it. They cannnnn't. It is toooo harrrrd, and anyway, why are you blaming them for what certain men, or men in the past, or maybe every man on the planet who is not them because they are unique and special little snowflakes who manage to benefit from their privilege every single day of their lives without in any way meaning to or being complicit with it, have done? Then they proceed to tell you that they really are sensitive to these issues, and are doing their best, which just so happens to be nothing. Hey, they're just being honest! You should thank them! (FACT: If you say something assy, then claim that you only did it because you're "being honest," this not only gets you off the hook for being an ass in the first place, it means the people you've hurt are obliged to congratulate you on your courage and integrity! Try it sometime!) Then you give them cookies since they are such good boys. That, anyway, is how they tend to envision the end of the conversation.

Which means that any attempt to actually confront them on their sexism or change the dynamic goes exactly like this:

So, what has inspired John DeVore of The Frisky to announce his sexism? Well, like everyone else in the whole entire United States of America, he heard about that plane what landed in the Hudson. Did you know that some people shouted "women and children first" on that flight? Did you know that this is totally sexist? John DeVore has the incredibly controversial and sexist (and HONEST, of course) opinion that women and children should be helped when they are in trouble! So, really, his sexism is all for your own good, you know? Because he would totally not trample you to death, if he had the chance. Also, by sheer coincidence, the Line To Give John DeVore a Beej for Saving You From Hypothetical Trampling Death is forming right now outside his bedroom, so you'd better reserve your space!

Let's read more of John DeVore's sensitive dudely prose, shall we?

Not to bring feminism back into it, seeing as the term seems misinterpreted, misunderstood, and wholly divisive,

Ha ha, "misinterpreted" and "misunderstood" by whom? I cannot think of a single person who has done this in recent memory!

but gender equality, if it’s ever to be achieved fully, seems dependent on knowing what the sexes have in common, and what makes us different. Special. Unique.

Like weiners! Or raging senses of entitlement! Or a tendency to patronize one's intended audience because, heck, they're just a bunch of girls!

That might be patriarchal, hetero-normative claptrap, but I’m being honest here.

OF COURSE YOU ARE, John. Bless your little heart.

Life isn’t theory after all, the map isn’t the territory. As a purely speculative, fantastical situation, I want to be a man who ushers those people who need help.

So, for the record, if John DeVore is ever in a plane, and it goes down, and it manages to make a safe water landing, and everyone on board survives - an event which is about as likely as a unicorn galloping through John DeVore's bedroom window on a rainbow, carrying a brand-new XBox 360 around its neck and President Obama on its back, so that John DeVore may commence fulfilling his duties as the new Chairman of Playing Guitar Hero In His Underpants - then, on that day, John DeVore will help women. The chances of John DeVore actually helping women with problems that they face in their day-to-day lives, like, say, sexism? Not so much.