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An earlier forum post by Lady Godiva made me want to post this article to get some feedback from the female writers at the site:

The rise of hugely insufferable women
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

SFGate June 23, 2010 04:00 AM Copyright SFGate. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Not all grown men are suave, sexy, progressive George Clooney/Viggo Mortensen/Colin Farrell lookalikes with sharp blue eyes, stubbly outgrowths and abs like World Cup forwards, all hearts of gold, full heads of hair and perfectly sculpted genitalia custom designed to satisfy a small harem, make birds sing and goddesses purr.

Not all adult men are strong and dependable, loyal and true, able to make you laugh, sigh, moan, buy you a drink, jump start your Mini in the rain, smell good all over, build a deck, parallel park a tractor-trailer, and feel sufficiently secure in their masculinity and humanity to champion gay rights and women's rights and pelican rights.

Conversely, not all men are of the other ilk either, the sweaty, overweight, woman-hating Republican homophobes in titanic SUVs, bad marriages and sad comb-overs, twitchy fearmongers who hate all foreigners and wear their baseball hats and grubby hoodies in fancy restaurants, men who spit on the sidewalk and blow their noses like open trumpets into the street, immature adulterers as eager for a war and a beatdown as they are for 20 minutes with a meth dealing gay hooker.

Did you already know all this about men? Does it seem forehead-slappingly obvious to suggest, despite all the clichés, lousy track records and Tiger Woods, that men come in such a huge array of shapes, styles and configurations?

Well of course it is. After all, the male creature has been dissected and bisected and demonized since time immemorial, from hero to Great Oppressor, father to magnate, hunk to egomaniac and back again in the time it took you to read this sentence.

But oh, is it ever worth remembering in light of what is right now being dubbed, with various degrees of pleasure and concern, confusion and delight, "the rise of the woman," "the new conservative feminism," "the end of men," and on and on, all sorts of amazing, disorienting pro-female bellwethers and signs, indicators and shifts.

It is something to behold. Right now I'm vainly attempting to cross-reference Hanna Rosin's fascinating mixed-bag article from the Atlantic that ran under the delightfully obnoxious headline "The End of Men: How Women are Taking Control of Everything," and mixing it with all the feverish stories about California's landmark political races, Carly and Meg and Pelosi, too, influenced by everyone's favorite winkin' ditzball from hell, Sarah Palin.

And I'm tossing in a dash of pop culture, all the MIAs and Lady Gagas and Miley Cyruses, the Kathryn Bigelows and the ditzbombs of "Sex and the City," trying to parse and understand and see some sort of through-line.

I am not having much success. Most women -- and many of us men -- are cheering madly at all the newfound roles, powers, titles, successes and attentions, from Hillary's stunning presidential run to Bigelow's Oscar to (even) Meg Whitman's pile of billions that could very well buy her the election.

But holy hell with the lost gospels of Mary Magdalene, many are also booing, hissing, screaming their frustration, entirely furious that many of third-wave feminism's cornerstone values -- abortion rights, humanitarianism, anti-racism, don't kill stuff -- are being violently, stupidly co-opted, inverted, perverted, repackaged, skinned like a moose and shot from a helicopter like a wolf skittering across the Alaskan tundra.

In short, most progressive women are right now discovering a brutally painful truth, one that men have known for millennia: With power, glory and long overdue cultural advancement, comes a whole delightful s--bag of downsides, drawbacks, jackals and bitches to poison the party. Fun!

See, long was it believed, via some utopian/naive vision held by "enlightened" men and women alike, that if and when the feminist movement -- all three waves of it, really, from Virginia Woolf to Betty Freidan, bell hooks to riot grrls -- finally started to get everything it desired, there would surely be some wonderful sea change in the culture, a new paradigm to replace all the ugly, outdated structures of power and ego erected by old white men, something far more fluid and interesting, liberal and heartfelt and, well, nonmasculine.

A funny thing happened on the way to the cultural revolution.

Turns out that original vision is only about half right. Maybe a third. For as much as we now have cause to celebrate the new female empowerment, there appears to be more than enough reason to cringe and sigh and scream into the Void: "No no no, oh hell no, this is not what we meant at all."

Examples are, sadly, legion. Witness, won't you, the zeitgeist's nightmare trifecta of largely insufferable women, the Sarah Palin/Carly Fiorina/Michele Bachmann hydra-headed hellbeast of pseudo-women, one part huge cash reserves, one part evil grammar-abusing ditzball psychopath, one part sassy misinformed moxie, overlaid with wonky ideas of motherhood, love of guns and ignorance of sex and reproductive rights.

These, along with Meg "I'm a Billionaire!" Whitman and Nikki "Sarah Palin hugged me!" Haley, et al, are the apparent "champions" of a perverted kind of new womanhood, some sort of mutant breed who claim it's entirely possible, even desirable to be "pro-life and pro-feminist," which is a bit like saying you're "pro-oil spill and pro-environment."

In other words: Sorry, no. No f--ing way. This is the rule: You do not ever get to say you're any kind of feminist or champion of women and mothers everywhere, and in the same breath add that you also believe no woman should have control over her reproductive powers and, by the way, poor immigrant women should be sent back to Mexico and guns should be legal for all.

Of course, such rhetoric matters not at all. This is the bad news: "Feminism" is right now dying a death of a thousand tiny wounds at the greasy hands (and tiny minds) of the Tea Party and the sneeringly misogynist Republican party, a new strain of semi-educated right-wing nutcase claiming all the revolutionary power of feminism, but none of that icky stuff known as "actual meaning."

What do you make of it? As I say, men have endured similar lopsidedness, unfairness, egomania for ages. I personally wince a thousand times a day at all the lugnuts, NASCAR thugs, frat boys, wife-beaters, spitters, abusers, beer-bongers, sack tappers, popes, pastors, Glenn Becks, Adam Sandlers and Dick Cheneys I see slither across the newswires, men who work like demonslugs to make my entire gender look bad. And I'm sad to report, they're often hugely successful.

Now it's women's turn. Most women I know -- powerful, independent, wondrously self-defined creatures of talent and intellect, sex and love, insight and intuition -- are fully helping co-create the new female empowerment. But then they read about Sarah Palin endorsing Carly Fiorina with a wink and a rifle shot and a claim of "new" feminism, and they cringe straight down to their ovaries.

Welcome to the great ideological power struggle, ladies. Welcome to being fully empowered, misunderstood, demonized, celebrated, vilified, adored, loathed, loved, championed, deified, and ruined to the core. You're gonna love it. You're gonna hate it.

Thoughts, ladies?

Interesting article. Thanks for posting. The author wins points from me just for characterizing Sarah Palin as a "winkin' ditzball from hell."

It seems to me we're learning the essential conflict isn't so much between the sexes as it is between the smart and the stupid. Smart people of both sexes are starting to realize that our grand social ideals come crashing to bits on the reality that most people are too damned stupid to actually make those ideals manifest in 3D flesh and blood daily life.

Then again, I deal with the public, and get pretty cynical on the subject of human stupidity. Maybe it's not really as bad as it seems.

Then again, Michelle Bachmann is just one Congressional district away from mine... gack.

Sarah Palin/Carly Fiorina/Michele Bachmann

Like Thatcher, QEII, Mother Theresa etc - these are all tragi/comic females and archetypal Spoof material.

Patriarchy is the problem, not the risible wannabes strutting their ugly stuff.

I just wish women would stop telling us off for leaving the bog seat up.

You want profundity?

Don't look for it here. My wife scares me. Still love her to bits though.

I am Skoob.

One of those newfangled high tech Jap jobs, Skoob. The kind that automatically lowers itself after flushing. That should do it.

But not as a birthday/wedding anniv/Xmas prezzie.

Just a thought.

Much appreciated and duly noted QM.

Into room 101 alongside foot-spas and bowling balls.

Cheers

Skoob.