Harvey Mansfield is at it again, but this time he's got Sarah Palin to project all of his confused rhetoric and unexamined generalizations on. In a piece at Forbes today he argues that Sarah Palin is the shero of what feminism should have been all along--a woman cozy in sex role differences, happy to mythologize masculinity, and still ready to serve (notice the language here) in office herself (cause, gosh darn it, women are pretty clever after all). An excerpt:
All Sarah Palin did was to claim her equal opportunity to a job once held exclusively by men. This sort of equality--the opportunity to take on public careers outside the home--is something liberals and conservatives agree on. That conservatives accept it is proven by the rapturous reception she received from Republicans, who greeted her as a political savior.This she may or may not be, but she seems to have had the effect of enthusing the base, in part because of her sex.
Now, why could the women's movement not have taken advantage of this bipartisan agreement from the beginning? What impelled it to adopt a radical feminism hostile to both liberals and conservatives? Was this feminism necessary to attack male domination and to stir up the status quo?
Harvey, #1, the definition of feminism is political, social, and economic equality. #2, equality confers that no one group of people can lord domination over another. #3, the status quo wasn't equality. WTF is so hard to understand about this equation?
As if his faulty logic and infuriating language weren't enough, he continuously pushes the tired notion that feminists are no fun, unattractive, and asexual to boot, writing that Sarah Palin is "one who knows what it is to be a woman and enjoys it," and "You may be sure that I am not the first one to notice that feminist women are unerotic."
Huh? What? I mean is this old man serious? Someone needs to send Harvey Manfield a big ass care package from Toys in Babeland, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Jane Campion, or teach him how to use a computer so he can type in a URL: www.feministing.com. His email, just in case you'd like to tell him what you think of his piece is hmansfield@gov.harvard.edu.
Related Posts: Summers' position as #1 Harvard Asshole challenged
Thanks to Dawn for the heads up.
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See, the thing is, these guys think that if a woman can do any job a man can, that's equality. Because they don't recognise their own privilege. Feminism, as they see it, should be about getting the same jobs. Nothing more. Anything more is feminazism.
And, slightly OT, OMG, if the people on my own side don't stop with the words "pearl-clutching" every time I complain about them using the word "cunt", I'm going to fucking lose it.
Good god the ugly, castrating feminist line is just so, so old. Well, Harvey, perhaps you find feminist "unerotic" because they know better than to get within ten feet of you.
Just because Sarah Palin is a woman, does not mean she is a feminist! I don't understand why all these pundits find it so hard to understand that feminists aren't supporting Palin. Her politics are antithetical to pretty much everything feminists stand for.
Oh wait, she has a vagina! And I have one too! So, she'll get my vote!
Jeebus.
Like Gloria Steinem said, it's not about getting one job for one woman.
Has anyone seen the Tina Fey/ Amy Poehler clip from SNL season opener? It's like our good friend Harvey watched it and just didn't get the irony...
Not the hijack the thread, but I've been seeing a lot of commentary that claims "feminists" were knocking Palin for going for the veep job with 5 kids. Does anyone know where this is coming from?
I have no idea, but you know it's not coming from actually existing feminists!!
Apart from the fact that Mansfield is crazy, which he definitely is, I thought it was pretty apparent that Palin wasn't mobilizing the female base (which is a misnomer, as women don't vote as one voting block), she mobilized the Crazy Christians and hardline conservatives.
Oh, and the stupid people. It's hard to ignore how she mobilized the stupid people.
Just caught this on Forbes and immediately ran over here to see if you'd picked it up yet. You never disappoint me, Feministing!
I fear the time between now and November is going to feel excruciatingly long with all this crap flying around.
"An obvious difference between the women's movement and the civil rights movement is the ease with which the former triumphed. Of course there was male chauvinism at the start, but it was complacent, passive and ineffective. No man could look a woman in the eye and say "you are not equal to me" once the issue was put."
Head to desk, head to desk, head to desk!
In my younger years, I was surprised when major mainstream magazines put out crap like this. Now, alas, I take it as a given.
What the hell does this sentence from his op-ed even mean??
"She did these things unapologetically, quite unafraid of seeming to be a normal, healthy sexist female: one who knows what it is to be a woman and enjoys it."
what? just....what????????
THE FUCK.
Ugh. This is infuriating. As Courtney and Luna have mentioned, he completely misses the point of feminism. If it was just about getting jobs, then I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have to deal with this crap. When will these people realize it's about a lot more, including not being told how to act based solely on our gender (male or female)? What if I want to be vice-president, but don't want to wear a sexy skirt and have lots of babies? Am I less of a woman? Am I less of a feminist? According to this dope, I guess I am.
Unerotic? Forward him the post about feminist sex shops. I think what he means is he's just intimidated by women who want to change things for the better.
If this were any kind of substantive criticism of feminism, it would be one thing.
In addition to being patently offensive, this isn't even good scholarship. This is pseudo-intellectualism at best.
I sent Harvey a lovely little email. Since he doesn't get very much about feminist I thought I'd keep it simple. Gee was it patronizing? Oh yeah that's right. I don't care.
Hey Harvey,
I just thought I'd drop you a line to ask you if you could please stop deciding for feminist what it should or shouldn't mean to be a feminist.
I'd really appreciate it!
You really do just prove our case by assuming that your male opinion is more valid on any subject even if your truely don't have a clue what it is like to be a feminist.
"A Woman candidate is not the same as a Woman's candidate."
Thanks again!
I hope all of us who are angry enough to blog are angry enough to flood his email too! :D
Anyone care to count strawfeminists?
I stopped counting at nine and didn't bother to read further.
You know when guys him and Rick Santorum start criticizing feminists for not embracing a candidate, she's not our kinda gal.
Unfortunately, while I can take this guy as a joke, I think Palin is doing serious damage to real sexism in the media, politics, etc. Every time I hear her say that "gender was never an issue" for me, I cringe. Of course these sexist men love her, she doesn't challenge their sexism. She embraces it!
Mansfield is a massive moron, but I have to take issue with your taking issue on the "serve" language.
An elected official is a public/civil servant. Contrary to recent administrations, they are elected to serve the public.
Male candidates Obama and McCain have both made "service" a central focus of their campaigns, and male officials are frequently described as "serving" in office.
I have no problem at all with the use of that word to describe the duty of our public officials, no matter their sex. I think it's a good reminder of what they are actually supposed to be doing in office.
Started an email to this charming man, but it's going to take awhile before I can hone it down from infuriated spluttering to intelligent criticism. (Not that I can say honestly I feel he deserves it, but.)
Not about Mansfield, but certainly about Palin and feminism, has anyone seen Sarah Haskins' "Target Women" episodes "Suffrage" and "Sarah Palin"? They hit the spot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fs368AF16o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJf8sQ2qbCo
(My apologies if these have been posted before, I'm new, hi, and I haven't been through the archives yet. Nice to meet everyone!)
I need to come back to this and read it later, in a more calm state of mind. I can't really put words to my gut reaction to this, but I do want to tell you all that I have seen first-hand what his followers are like, I have been in an academic situation where Mansfield was held up as a real academic (the thinking was a sort of slippery slope from Mansfield's work on Machiavelli being good to Mansfield being right about everything) -- and it's just sad. The whole thing is a damn shame. There are so many smart and interesting people out there who fall prey to this sort of thing because they've simply always been in a position of privelege, and we rarely think to question things or even notice things that have simply always been. It just makes me so sad -- all these people posturing at living the "life of the mind," and yet clinging to these outdated notions, these EXTREMELY HARMFUL outdated notions that don't have a place anywhere in the "rational" world. And, of course, because it's not actually based in a rational argument, you can't argue with it rationally. The best you can ever hope for with these people is to make them uncomfortable, to be the "torpedo fish," to bring them to an encounter with their own paradoxical views by manifestly being a clear counterexample.
But because it is fulfilling to vent sometimes, I will say this: Mr. Mansfield, you are an asshole. You and everyone like you are pseudo-scholars of the worst kind, and anything good you could've possibly contributed to the discourse has been far overshadowed by your repugnant opinions. Moreover, you're not just an asshole, but an incredibly harmful one -- YOU prevent people, people with so much energy and passion (eros if you like!) for it, from living your coveted "life of the mind." You close the door to free discourse. You are a stumbling block to human intellectual progress, and you use nothing but empty charisma to convince others to join you there. You are a mockery of everything you profess to value, and everything that I (a woman!) do value, whether you personally believe me able or not.
Therefore, Fuck You. Q. E. D.
Sorry for how sort of OT (from the original Palin-inclusive post) my response above is. I guess I just think that Mansfield's stuff is basically that terrible "new feminist ideal" video we saw dressed up in pseudoscholarly language, which might be even more disgusting.
So this guy believes that the 'acceptable' feminist is one that radiates with luscious sexuality--even though conservatives such as himself are also against comprehensive sex ed. This speaks for itself!