Does Dana Loesch think or is she just a Luntzian robotron?

I am not a feminist. I am a woman who has assumed I have the same right as anyone else to choose my own course, make my own future, and do so on equal footing with men. I believe the government exists to serve citizens, not to act as an authoritarian axe or discriminate against one class of citizens over another.  I really don't care if moms stay at home or work. I've done both, both have advantages and disadvantages., and I'm not out to overturn patriarchy. I actually like men.(see note below) I'm married to one. I get along well with them. Those who act like idiots don't get any attention from me.

I respect those liberal women who call themselves feminists but personally resist 'isms' in general as a personal matter.

Now that you know a little about my perspective...

I debated about whether to take on the latest turd Dana Loesch dropped on SFExaminer.com in the form of an op-ed column or ignore her. Other than being the latest Ann Coulter wannabe, she hasn't said much original for the past year or so. (Yes, I snark. It serves as a reminder not to take her too seriously.)

The Sarah Palins, Michele Bachmanns, and other members of the "feminist right" can always be counted on to echo the newest Luntz talking points through the echo chamber. Now that Betsy McCaughey, Pamela Geller and Dr. Laura have been thoroughly discredited, they just pick up some other woman looking for her five minutes of fame and hackery. Dana is the newest candidate. Not the first and she won't be the last.

Do conservative women -- especially intelligent ones (yes, they do exist) -- ever wonder why the party faithful finds the dumbest, most extreme groupies to deliver their message? Republican cynicism at its best -- pay lip service to women's equality but find the ones dumber than a rock to deliver it. Bachmann, Foxx, Palin, Angle....need I say more?

At any rate, this little litany of smashes against "liberal women" is classic Luntz/Rove framing, and deserves a thorough debunking.

Let's begin with her assertions about Avastin, a drug originally developed to treat colon cancer.

This past month, liberal feminists made more hay made over Palin's "mama grizzlies" talk than the matter of the Food and Drug Administration jerking Avastin off the market. Avastin is a drug used to treat late-stage breast cancer and has been shown to extend the life of some breast cancer patients by five months, but was deemed "cost-prohibitive" by the government.

Not so much. This is one of the high dangers of fast-tracking cancer drug approvals before the clinical trials really prove their efficacy. (It's a big word, Dana. Look it up.) The FDA didn't "jerk Avastin off the market" in order to leave late-stage breast cancer patients adrift without a lifeline, even if Dana Loesch says so. The FDA pulled Avastin because it was ineffective against late-stage breast cancer. Out of three clinical trials, it was only reported as effective on one patient. One. single. patient. And that was in the first trial.The second trials, conducted with more controls, yielded no positive results.

As a conservative woman, you'd think Dana Loesch would appreciate this: Avastin costs $50,000/year. Is it really conservative to spend $50,000 for an ineffective treatment? Really?

Moving on to her litany of complaints about "liberal feminists"...

Liberal feminists made more hay about Palin's chest than I saw them make over the nine women who were recently stoned to death in the Middle East. Those same liberal feminists were also silent when Alle Bautsch was beaten in the street for being a conservative woman.

Actually, it was Hollywood rags. I had to go check because I hadn't heard anything much about it, and what I heard was silly. I wouldn't waste a two-sentence blog post on it. Not even a tweet. But now I'll say this: I couldn't care less what Sarah Palin's bra cup size is, and neither should anyone else. It's irrelevant. But then, I'm not a feminist.

The case of Allee Bautsch (psssst! Dana, it's always nice to verify spelling of a person's name) is a sad one. I'm sorry she and her boyfriend were assaulted and beaten by a couple of punks. But having read the police report, it's unclear that they were connected at all to the earlier protestors outside the restaurant, and as sad as it is to say, punks beat up people all the time. It's not national news, but it is indeed sad and sadder still that people are acting out in a criminal fashion, regardless of their motive.

Liberal feminists talk of choice, but refuse to take the liberated, independent responsibility for their choices and instead press Uncle Sam to subsidize their abortions and birth control.

We're just going to disagree on abortion. That's a fundamental issue, a wedge issue at that, and we won't agree. I wonder though, why she isn't similarly outraged at those old men receiving federally subsidized Viagra.

Liberal women complain about unemployment, yet promote policies which stifle the free market, suppress economic growth and shrink their wallets.

That "free market" collapsed before any of the so-called liberal policies kicked in, Dana. That 'free market' is what gave license to fat cats nationwide to loot, pillage and strip the middle class of their homes, jobs, and retirement plans.

When millionaires walk away from their mortgages  and turn the housing market on its head, something is clearly wrong with the 'free markets'. Anyone over 50 -- especially women over 50 -- can attest to the difficulty of finding a job, and if they actually do find one, they're forced to accept less pay for more hours, especially if they fall into the unfortunate group of "99ers". No, we're not complaining. We're living it.

Here's a question for Dana: How does she feel about Glenn Beck's pronouncement that 99ers 'live off their neighbors' wallet', and they 'aren't regular people'?

Liberal feminists are more compassionate than that. For all the demagoguery coming from conservative women about being holy and pure for Jesus, they fall a little short on the "doing of the Word" part. (Note to Dana: It's James 1:22) On the other hand, liberal feminists understand that we are all interconnected, that the least of us is as important as the wealthiest among us, and we promote policies which permit those who are in need not to starve, or be sent to poorhouses.

Liberal women rage about education, but help put a man in the White House who worked to kill educational equality by destroying the school vouchers program.

This is because we believe all children deserve an education, not just the children of white folks who have the means and the money to send their children to overpriced private schools. Vouchers are worthless to people who have no means to transport their children to the suburban pricey schools. Worthless.

Liberal advocacy for equality between the sexes is a myth; through second- and third-wave feminism, equality became about lowering the bar and demanding that everyone sink to meet the expectations. Case in point: Title IX, wherein boys' welfare and achievement was suppressed so that girls could catch and match them.

Without support for these statements, I simply call bullshit and move on. I've raised two boys and have one girl in high school. They have not been treated inequally, nor has my daughter received any particular privileges, nor were my sons' accomplishments underplayed in favor of girls' accomplishments. This is, of course, only my experience.

It isn't much different than my own school experience. I graduated in 1976. My class was the first one where a girl was elected student body president. We had two valedictorians, one male and one female. Before that, valedictorians were male.

Saying something happened doesn't make it so, Dana.

Equality is not met by comparing oppression or mediocrity, but by comparing potential and excellence; nor is it met by tearing down the opposition or suppressing ability.

Yes. I agree. Equality isn't granted. But what Dana refuses to understand is that it is also not assumed. We still live in a time where a man and a woman can do the same job, work the same hours, perform to a standard of excellence, and the woman will earn 78 percent of what the man will earn. This is not equality. It is discrimination. If a man and a woman perform equally, they should be paid equally. That is all.

Is there irony in the "tearing down the opposition" comment, given that Dana's entire op-ed is nothing more than a ripping, renting, tearing-down of her opposition? You be the judge of that.

[Note: I removed that phrase to clarify that I did not intend to suggest that women who are against patriarchy dislike men. I don't believe that. it was a response to Loesch's snark.]

Comments

[Debbie Owensby Moore]

You are not a feminist? You are joking, right? Be proud! Hating men is not a requirement.

[Lawyer Mama]

I'm a feminist and I agree with every word you wrote. I just hope even more women won't flee from the proud label of "feminist" just because Palin and her ilk don't understand what it means.

[Cynematic]

If my kid faces an uncertain future filled with foreboding, it'll be because the demagoguery of this guy, Frank Luntz, succeeded: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-luntz/why-moms-are-mad_b_689754.html. Notice how his concern trolling Moms about their kids being bullied or sexting each other morphs into an advertorial for a for-profit company engaged on just those topics for which he is an advisor. Hmmmm.

He literally wrote the playbook on stopping health care reform in its tracks: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Frank_Luntz --Cynematic

[Jill Miller Zimon]

The financial and business ownership of the Washington Examiner has zero interest in allowing even oped columnists to let their opinions open up a crack of dissent from conservative ideology.

Thus, people who embrace, love and frankly couldn't exist without using code words (let alone often not knowing what they mean or where they come from, for added irritation), are pretty much all that any reader of that outlet is ever going to get. It's an echo chamber unto itself, as is Dana's writing (she still does not allow comments on her blog and she always failed, IMO, at doing comments at BlogHer). It's written in a bullying way and is a total, "I know you are but what I am" provocation. Thank goodness it's some of the absolute least persuasive writing on the face of the earth, given that it is all self-referential, which is very fitting for someone who seeks attention.

And, truly? This is just a stale, stale topic - way beyond ripe and therefore even more obviously an attempt to gain eyeballs rather than the hearts or minds of those who care about eradicating gender bias and sexism from our institutions, and individuals.

[Karoli]

Jill, I agree with you 100% It is an old, stale topic, and it's really a cynical effort to take aim at the moms out there who have been identified as a big, hot market. They're trying to tap into the mom instinct, not because they really care that much about moms, but because they see them as a 'political profit center'.

To all who objected to my framing around patriarchy, please know it was in response to her remarks. It distracted from the focus of the post, so I removed it. I do not believe that women who set a goal to end patriarchy hate men. Dana does, though. It was clumsily framed on my part.

[Karoli]

Also...to Lawyer Mama -- I wouldn't say I'm running from the term, per se. I just tend to resist "isms" as a general rule. It's the contrarian in me.

[charmingbitch]

As infuriating as I find her to be, I can't help but feel sorry for Dana. She is clearly more concerned with being a media figure than she is in representing any party or principles. I mean, honestly. She brags that Michael Savage finds her to be his ''mental match''. Is that something anyone with goals loftier than being the most obnoxious person on Larry King would find flattering? In a word, no.

Most of what she says, along with Beck and Coulter, is for attention and self aggrandizement. Which is fine if you see her for what she is, an uneducated hack with ten minutes of media training spouting whatever will garner an appearance fee. The trouble is less with Dana herself and more with the people who take her seriously.

I mean, come on. She compared the First Lady to the ''baller'' character in a Dave Chapelle sketch that used the N word repeatedly. And congratulated herself for being a big, big fan of Chapelle's. The irony that people exactly like her hiding their -isms behind his comedy being the very reason there is no longer a Chapelle Show will forever escape her. Teaching a cat to bark is easier than teaching self awareness, dignity or integrity to someone determined to sell-out.

[PunditMom/Joanne Bamberger]

Jill is so right about the Washington Examiner. When it first started, I wrote op-eds for the original version and I was really the only "liberal" voice on the op-ed pages, though it wasn't nearly as uber-right wing as it is now. There were thoughtful conservative voices on the pages thanks to the then-editor. However, when he left after a year, that all changed and my gig as the "token liberal" ended. The Examiner has made it clear there is only room for right-wing talking points, Why spoil a good political fight with balanced commentary, right?

[Sarah]

I live in the market that broadcasts her "show". She specializes in name-calling, and her only response to critics is by calling them name-callers. And the fact that this was published by the Washington Examiner (Moonie Kool-Aid!) only proves that she's a wingnut that only the neo con kool-aid crowd takes seriously.