I rarely read Steve Gilliard’s blog, but last night I saw that Buzzflash, a news portal I respect, favorably linked to his newest entry. Says Buzzflash, “The inimitable Steve Gilliard analyzes Maureen Dowd’s withering takedown of Bushevik groupie Judy Miller — in which she’s essentially told not to bother returning to the NYT.” I read MoDo’s satiric paean to Judith Miller and enjoyed it very much. I thought the column pretty much spoke for itself, so I wondered what impressive insight had garnered Gilliard such high praise. I ask you, gentle reader, to please take a look at this, and tell me what his “analysis” brings to the table other than blatant misogyny.
Perhaps I view Mr. Gilliard through a very specific prism, because I only really became aware of him in a diary called Hating Women on this website. There I learned that he had been taken to task by another blogger for implying that everyone was responsible for the crime of rape except the rapist. The comment in the Gilliard piece in question that I found most offensive was that Natalee Holloway, who had recently gone missing in Aruba, must have been trying to “pull a train,” when she left that bar with 3 men. But, there is much in the blog entry entitled Girls Gone Wild to offend.
Once again, Gilliard has opened up a window into his psyche, and the view isn’t pretty. In his entry MoDo Comes Out Swinging, we learn that he may have progeny unaccounted for:
Let me put it this way, if anyone liked me like MoDo says she likes Miller, well, I’d have to check to see if I owed them child support.
While this strikes me as a pathetic attempt at demonstrating his virility, a later passage shows us, once again, his incredible contempt for women who dare to be sexual. After contorting the definition of the word “tropism” (to be oriented towards) into special Dowd code for “slutty,” he really takes the gloves off.
Ok, after calling her a drama queen and a whore, tropism being a fancy word for women who likes powerful men and fucks them, she then goes after her bosses for not supervising her and letting her hurt the paper.
While there is little indication — certainly in Dowd’s column — that Judith Miller slept her way to horrifically bad gouge on WMD, such sexual exploits would have been the least of her crimes. Only in Gilliard’s twisted imagination does Miller become a femme fatale, rather than simply a “media whore.”
Not only does his analysis not bring any real insight to Dowd’s piece, it reduces it to some type of petty “girl fight.” He is not alone in this. I’ve read allusions to mud wrestling and such, with regards to Dowd’s shot across Miller’s bow. I have to wonder if we were talking about two male journalists battling over the soul of the New York Times, if such condescending portrayals would abound, and bizarre rants like Gilliard’s be venerated throughout the blogosphere.
Well, we can expect no better from Steve Gilliard, Recordkeeper.
However, what is truly gobsmacking is the praise that has rung throughout the blogosphere for Gilliard.
Buzzflash, a site I visit at least once a day, put Gilliard’s analysis as its centrepiece story and trumpeted it as trenchant analysis.
Kos (no surprise there, as he’s a big Gilliard fan) praised Gilliard’s “analysis” in a front page diary.
Gilliard’s analysis also got favourable mention on another prominent “leftie” blog, The Smirking Chimp.
One thing unites all of these sites: the fact that nobody seemed to question Gilliard’s leap of logic that Judy Miller must have been a literal, rather than a figurative, whore–although at least a few folk pointed out that Maureen Dowd also has a “tropism” for the powerful.
I read Dowd’s piece in its entirety–and Dowd has a good deal to answer for, herself, in the category of “sucking up to the power players”–and what I took from it was that Judith Miller wanted to make a name for herself, and sold her journalistic soul to get “access”…and ended up being a stenographer for powerful men who dazzled her with the notion that she was so very, very important to fighting “threats” against America by helping to peddle their propaganda. If I learned that Miller had slept with, say, Scooter Libby, I’d say that would be the least grievous of her sins–and quite frankly, my dear, I don’t know nor care who Miller has invited into her bed. Miller’s sin is betrayal of the principles of honesty and decency–Miller pretended to be an objective journalist when actually she was a propaganda agent for whomever happened to be in power in the executive branch from the 1980s on. The wound of her betrayal is long, deep, and was nearly fatal. In fact, Miller is one of the key players in the Fourth Estate in “selling” the Iraq invasion, so she’s not any different than, say, Tokyo Rose–a war crimes collaborator if ever I saw one. Of course what gives me chills about Miller is that she is absolutely convinced she’s on the side of the angels–the worst monsters are always those who think they are doing good.
With folks like Kos, Gilliard, et al, on my side, may I please switch to a third side? These chaps give me the chills, really and truly.
no you’re correct about gilliard. he’s sexist. i used to read him but swore off on his “train” post. i urge everyone else cocerned with women’s equality to swear off him too.
of course he never really wrote about anything well, except for food. he was pretty good on that subject, which is how i came to him.
wasn’t worth it for me though. best way to deal with a blogger like that is to swear off his site.
and not because I have anything against him…I just don’t read him. I have heard complaints about his alleged sexism before, but I have never bothered to find examples. And I haven’t read his latest that is in dispute here. So, I am offering no defense of Gilliard.
Judy Miller, however, is widely rumored to have slept with sources. And I don’t know if that is true or not. I do know that rumors are current within the NYT itself. Most of this is rumored to have happened 20 years ago. In any case, it is part of her legend.
There is, admittedly, a double standard where men are allowed, even praised, for sleeping around, and women are insulted for the same behavior.
But, sleeping with sources is still a dubious practice, no matter who does it. Especially if it constitutes a pattern of behavior.
I think Dowd was taking a subtle dig at Miller on this score. I think it is possible Gilliard was merely picking up on that. But I have no idea. Maybe he was just acting the frat-boy.
BooMan, “widely rumored”?
Please, you’re better than that.
Gilliard read something into Dowd’s column that she did not intend. Gilliard’s comment is boorish and indefensible.
Not only that, but as I have already pointed out, Miller’s sexual behaviour is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Whether or not she slept with any of her sources is the LEAST of our worries. Miller’s obviously a tool, a very willing one, for the powers that be–and Dowd is, too, she’s just much more clever about it. The corruption of the American media means that the Fourth Estate is ceasing to be an independent voice and to fulfill its function as a sentinel of government. That, not speculation on Miller’s sexual liasons, should be our focus.
Why is sexual misbehaviour the very worst sin in America? Must be the Puritanical heritage of the nation once again rearing its ugly head.
I don’t think that Dowd was being misquoted. I think that she did broadly hint that that this broad, Judith Miller, starting from the beginning of her career, got on the fast track towards power by stroking the male ego. And white males still aren’t able to give up power lightly.
Miller’s behavior IS the point, because she wanted to use any means necessary in order to become THE point woman for the powers-that-be; in this case, for the Busheviki in their run-up to Iraq War II. Every lie, smear and obfuscation she supported, even to the point where she, an embedded reporter, was alleged to be calling the shots in the unit to which she was assigned and to be an onlooker to torture.
That’s not what a dedicated reporter is supposed to do, imho.
See, I don’t have a problem with women who are sexual beings or successful among men, whether black/white/Asian/Latino. I do have a problem with women who are sexual beings who mis/use that assumption to power for the wrong reasons–hence the situation she is in right now. Connie Chung didn’t last that long as anchorwoman at CBS mainly because she was ill-equipped to be an anchor. The biggies who had earned their way refused to work with her. And there were rumors that she did sleep or suck up her way to the top. It would be a different story if Connie or Judy were good at what they did. Instead, they turned out to be hacks, and Miller worst of all, a hack to a lie that’s cost the lives of many.
What Judith Miller did did not benefit women at the NYT or women across the country. She did it for Judith Miller, period. She’s not a feminist she/ro.
It’s not about making Miller a feminist hero. She’s no more that than she is a First Amendment hero. However, Gilliard put her sexuality on trial in his column, and that says far more about him than it does Miller. She may have slept her way to the top. She wouldn’t be the first. Unfortunately, that is still one of the only ways to pierce the glass ceiling in a lot of corporations. I’ve seen that close up. But if Dowd alluded to her sexual shenanigans, it was awfully subtle and ambiguous, and it would need to be. For her to openly assert such thing in a column would be libelous. Her broader point was based in firm reality and opinion, and it was a great column. Shadowthief is right. We’re very pre-occupied with people’s sex lives in this country, and I really take umbrage when a woman is pilloried for her intimate encounters. There is plenty of grist for the mill in Miller’s public behavior and paper trail, without rooting through her underwear drawer.
descriptions is this:
Dowd used the stories about Miller’s reported exploits as allusions to the REAL prostitution of journalistic ethics in which she indulged.
Gilliard made the connection literal.
But if Dowd alluded to her sexual shenanigans, it was awfully subtle and ambiguous, and it would need to be. For her to openly assert such thing in a column would be libelous. Her broader point was based in firm reality and opinion, and it was a great column.
The point, among many on the NYT staff, is that they no longer support Judith Miller, her careerism, or the means by which she supposedly got the story. Dowd didn’t hafta, because all she needed to do was hint or imply, and the broad brush was already in action across the readership.
Shadowthief is right. We’re very pre-occupied with people’s sex lives in this country, and I really take umbrage when a woman is pilloried for her intimate encounters.
I acknowledge how poking into people’s lives, and Puritanical blame and telling a story that has a ‘moral’ has taken the place of reasoned discourse in our country’s media. I’ve read those books. However, I’m not like you. I draw a line between the behavior of women like Natalee Holloway and the Runaway Bride, for example.
I also tend to be more on the side of black women these days who are also damned if they do and damned if they don’t. That black women were raped during the aftermath of Katrina isn’t being pursued with as much legal vigor because supposedly,black women aren’t capable of being raped.
If I am pillorying Judith Miller for her intimate encounters, it is because she went after power for power’s sake using every means, including her body, in the pursuit of that power.
I also find it interesting that Miller’s name is Judith, because the Biblical Judith seduced Holofernes in order to save her people from slaughter. I’ve also read some disturbing stuff about Miller’s Israeli connections, too, particularly from Juan Cole.
What is Miller concerned with? Saving her amoral ass. Not women. Not Americans. Not any one else’s.
I share your disdain for Miller, obviously. And I have had one or two encounters, in my life, with women who use sex to manipulate. I’ve also met many, many men who use sex to control and dominate. But it is the women who are dragged into the public square for their sexual indiscretions, not the men, who are usually simply called boys being boys. I’m, frankly, sick of it. There is a massive double standard at work where abuses of sexual prowess are concerned. The Dowd column did not read that way to me. It read as a portrait of an audacious woman who manipulated in many ways, which sounds about right to me. What I object to is Gilliard’s full frontal assault on something he clearly finds distasteful, female sexuality. There is a broader pattern in his work that demonstrates this. He accused poor Natalee Holloway of wanting to “pull a train.” There is no indication of this, but what if there was? What if she wanted to have a wild orgy with 3 men? So what. That makes her murder less objectionable? Why with Miller’s laundry list of ills, does Gilliard need to extract a dribble of questionable innuendo and turn it into a central point? I’m a bit more concerned that she used the New York Times to cheerlead us into one of the worst military blunders in US History than who she diddled.
What I object to is Gilliard’s full frontal assault on something he clearly finds distasteful, female sexuality. There is a broader pattern in his work that demonstrates this. He accused poor Natalee Holloway of wanting to “pull a train.” There is no indication of this, but what if there was? What if she wanted to have a wild orgy with 3 men? So what. That makes her murder less objectionable?
Point taken, and I agree with you here.
Why with Miller’s laundry list of ills, does Gilliard need to extract a dribble of questionable innuendo and turn it into a central point?
See, I don’t think that this point on Miller’s list was questionable. Else why would MoDo use words like “Becky Sharp” to describe Miller’s modus operandi? I told you, there is a difference I recognize here between a woman having an orgy with some men for pleasure, and a woman having sex in exchange for something else–a job, an assignment, or a promotion or power.
In my view, Judith Miller was whoring, not Natalee Holloway.
I’m a bit more concerned that she used the New York Times to cheerlead us into one of the worst military blunders in US History than who she diddled.
Yes, but it’s those same guys that she may/not have diddled who may not last too much longer either, mainly Keller and ‘Pinch’ Sulzberger. They whored for BushCo, too. If they think that they are going to push out Miller as the sacrificial lamb, thinking that this will placate the staff or the readership, they’ve got another thing coming. All heads will roll once Fitzgerald starts handing out indictments.
Becky Sharp worked her feminine wiles, but that was not the sum of her character, nor, I suspect is it all there is to Miller. There are many motivations for sexual behavior, and sadly, women use sex for many things other than sexual pleasure. I think that has more to do with the the fact that one in three of us have been sexually assaulted, and that we live under a kind of daily sexual assault in words, images, and behavior. I know very few women who are in full possession of their sexual selves. We live in a world that views female sexuality as a commodity, and then bashes women for trading on it. I just don’t think it is my business what Judith Miller did in her more intimate moments. We all know she got too enmeshed with her sources and provided the world with tainted information. That fact stands on its own, without the sexual innuendo.
Widely rumored indeed.
Who cares?! When I heard rumors that the publisher I worked for had slept her way to the top, I thought it was egregious and unnecessary information. The fact that she was a vicious verbal abuser, a fact which could verified, was far more germane, in my opinion. When rumors swirled around Bill Clinton’s sexual indiscretions, I thought it was off-sides. When they nailed him in a perjury trap, I thought, “It were a natural lie to tell.” (The Crucible by Arthur Miller)
Rumors and gossip are just that. I hate to tell you this, but whether or not Miller slept around, there would be rumors that she did. Whenever a woman rises quickly through the ranks, she is painted as having done so on her back. As it says in the article you linked to:
It could very well be that Miller sweated up a few sheets in her rise to heady heights of abject failure. It may very well be that my former publisher did as well. And Clinton… well, we know. My point is, why is this what matters? They did it to Clinton because he was a political threat, not because anyone really cared about Hillary or his fidelity to her. They said it about my publisher because they hated her, and for far better justification than her sexual history. There have been pot shots taken at Miller because she’s a diva who pissed people off, and now that first blood has been drawn, they can move in for the kill. I just wish people would stick to the known facts about how she degraded the profession of journalism, rather than rumors and innuendo about her private affairs.
I don’t have a problem with your view at all, and I have absolutely no desire to defend Gilliard after seeing what appears to be some very offensive material of his own making.
But this was a piece about whether Dowd was insinuating something about Miller’s sexlife. And, in my opinion, she was. I base that on Miller’s reputation at the NYT and Dowd’s choice of words.
So, IMO, you should be taking Dowd on as well as Gilliard.
I don’t like, Dowd, either.
Never have.
Dowd wants to be on the side that’s winning. She had enough information to sink Judith Miller YEARS ago–but is only doing it now that she’s sure that Miller is already sunk.
Dowd, in her own way, makes me as queasy as Judith Miller. Dowd wants to be an insider and has her own “tropism” for power, which means that she faithfully transcribes what she’s told.
In this case, powerful people at the New York Times have decided to get rid of Judith Miller and they are using Dowd as one of their instruments. And Dowd is letting them use her, just as Miller let Bush and Cheney and the rest use her.
A plague on the lot o’ ’em.
As I said, her column did not read that way to me. There may be some very subtle allusions, but they are in a much broader context, about the woman’s overall character. I guess it comes down to this. If one reads Vanity Fair — or watches the wretched film with Reese Witherspoon, to which I was subjected during a long flight — and walks away saying, that Becky Sharp sure was slutty, that says far more about one’s psychology than the book or the character. It becomes about the sex, rather than the whole person. As women, we are rarely viewed as whole people. These subtle allusions to sex, if they are that, in Dowd’s column are one tiny component of an overall portrait. In the end, it’s about the woman’s journalism, which is exactly what it should be about.
Scarlett O’Hara was definitely a sexual being, and used her feminine wiles when necessary to get what she wanted–but anyone who reduces her to a one-dimensional creature is selling that character short, too.
Here’s what I take from Judith Miller:
Judith Miller, breathlessly impressed by men in positions of power, is willing to print whatever they want to see in the New York Times.
Miller’s editors are mightily impressed by the ease with which she gains access to “insider” sources.
Career boost follows.
Trading sexual favours never enters into it. Perhaps Dowd was being coy with the word “tropism” but sexual favours are not necessary to paint Miller as the unprincipled manipulator (and, ultimately, willing pawn) that she is and was (and always will be).
In short, I see a bright future for Judith Miller. But not in journalism. She’ll be on Fox News.
I confess to being very aware of the rumors about Miller’s sexlife and her alleged affairs with some of her sources, so when a NYT reporter, who is also well aware of those rumors (perhaps even the source for some of them) gets snarky about Miller’s weakness for powerful men, well…I read something into it.
But it isn’t because I am predisposed to think female reporters are slutty. It’s because I know the backstory.
Problem is, these accusations always seem to be made against women and not men.
Is this because we have a society in which women can trade sexual favours for positions of power? And what does it say about men who would give confidential information, or a responsible job, to a woman just because she gave them sex?
But the men who participate in the liasons that allow women to “sleep their way to the top” rarely, if ever, come under scrutiny or criticism–it’s always the women who are seen to have done wrong.
That’s the point. In order for a woman to gain favour, she has to be given favour–by men (almost always, although I’m sure lesbian liasons happen as well).
And if that’s what Dowd was saying with her “tropism towards powerful men” remark, then she was totally wrong to say it. There are so many legitimate criticisms of Miller that are important and which make that one criticism (even if true) insignificant by comparison.
If I could give this comment a 10, I would.
when I noticed that the womanizer “Brad” had two girls, one under each arm. He had one’s breast in one hand and a hand full of the other one’s butt. I was sitting on a bench people watching and I quipped that it was nice to see that Brad was the same old slut he had always been and I spent the rest of the evening fighting with the guy sitting next to me on the bench. “Guys can’t be sluts, only women can be sluts!” “Guys most definately can be sluts and better sluts than most of the sluts I know.” “Can not!” “Can too!” “Can not!” “Can too!”
Can too!
When I usually think about Judith Miller, I don’t think about her sexual conquests first and foremost. I think about how she whored for the neo-cons and BushCo along with Keller and Sulzberger. That’s the way I will always see her; the tip of the proverbial iceberg of lying, deceit, putdown, illegal war and torture.
The sexual shenanigans attributed to her…they are like the cherry atop the sundae. And I’ll say this: the cherry wouldn’t be there if the sundae wasn’t so big.
I don’t get it, BooMan.
Why do you care? Why does anyone care?
Let’s say that, oh, Woodward and Bernstein had slept with Deep Throat to get the Watergate story.
I wouldn’t care HOW they got the information they got, I would care WHAT they did with it (used it to help expose Nixon’s crimes and ultimately drive him out of office–hoorah!).
I don’t care whom Judy Miller slept with, or did not sleep with. What I care about is the fact that she helped out a CIA undercover agent (Valerie Plame). What I care about is the fact that she helped peddle the lies of the Bush-Cheney administration and pushed America into a misbegotten war that is bad for the US, bad for Iraq, bad for the Middle East, bad for the world. Thousands of people in Iraq have died and thousands more are going to die–nearly two thousand American soldiers have been killed.
And Judith Miller’s lies, her willful spreading of propaganda, have helped make all that possible.
And if she could, she’d do it all again. And like a murderer, she’d cover it all up again.
Let me make one thing very clear: I don’t care if the woman had an orgy with satyrs and centaurs. I don’t care if she seduces the paperboy.
I DO care that she is the handmaiden to the most evil, corrupt administration the American nation has EVER known–and yes, that includes Nixon.
If JFM slept with her sources, I agree that it was a dubious practice. But far less dubious than what we already know about her practices. This person was a liar, in the tank for a political cabal, a loose cannon, the worst kind of social climber, and a thoroughly nasty person. The latter is far more important to me than the former (if true).
What I think a lot of men probably don’t realize is how often the accusation of sleeping your way to the top is leveled against women who achieve any kind of success. It makes many of us very suspicious of the motives of the person leveling it. Because, even if true, so what? Is it worse than nonsexual sucking up to power? Is it worse than kiss-up kick-down behavior?
And how does a woman ever prove that she didn’t sleep with her boss/client/source? She can’t. She doesn’t even know who is saying it, because it’s a whisper campaign, and if she could confront the whisperers, what is she going to do, submit a report from her doctor that she is a virgin?
In trials, the tendency of testimony to prejudice the jury against the defendant is weighed against the value of the testimony as evidence. I submit that testimony about a woman sleeping her way to the top is almost always highly prejudicial and very low in evidenciary value. So without a good reason, I say throw it out and consider the evidence we actually have about the defendant.
Before blogs, there was usenet.
Click here
that’s very lame. Are you sure that is the same person?
African-American, nyc-based (at the time), hosted a ‘news’ column, went on to comment at NetSlaves.
alt.showbiz.gossip was hardly a news collumn, but if this is the same Gilliard, I can see why some might not approve of his “efforts”… lol
An excerpt from a different set of posts there:
(Giiliard words in Italics)
Does the BOLD part sound like a familiar argument? lol
Not that this proves that it is the same “Gilliard”. By that logic recordkeeper could arguably be “Kurt Knopp”, the troll arguing with Gilliard. Though, I doubt recordkeeper would be amused like “troll” is.
Yep. Sounds like our Gilliard. I can’t believe he dragged that man’s mother into his defamatory rant. I guess he feels pretty safe hiding behind his keyboard.
Kudos to DoubleHelix for dragging that out of the memory hole. Now can you please make it go away? Gilliard gives me the creeps.
I say again, “Ugh…”
The news column in question I take it was the now dead link to something called the Gilliard News I guess. I’m sure it was a doozy. The dude’s a tasteless boor who’s main redeeming quality – at least as far as his blog goes – has been his passionate writing on anti-black racism. When it comes to women he does go beyond the pale on a regular basis.
True.
I am going to confess that I read Gilliard and comment there, including the scandalizing piece about Miller. I made a comment about the propensity of some women, like former CBS reporter Connie Chung, for example, to sleep their way to power in the same thread. Judith Miller probably did sleep her way to power, or sucked up mightily to the powers that be to become powerful. Everybody knew it at the Times. Which is why MoDo was unleashed on her ass. And why I make a distinction between women who are sexual as well as moral beings and women who sleep around to have access to male power and prerogative.
Who has benefited the most from Judith Miller’s Becky Sharp-like shenanigans at the NYT? Certainly not women.
Gilliard is sexist. No doubt about it. He doesn’t know a damn thing about feminism or even black feminism either, <u>nor does he even try</u>. I’ve said so on his blog. His girlfriend is a white Jewish non-feminist woman. He’s got ISSUES about feminism as well as his health. He’s a former alcoholic who weighs almost 300 lbs, I believe. There is only so far that I will support his right to speak.
If anything, he’s like the left’s version of another fuckhead-type about women, Stanley Crouch. He’s (sometimes)good talking about jazz or black cultural history but he doesn’t know shit about recent movements like feminism. It’s always an extension of ‘how dare black or white women diss me for my behavior towards/about them’? Who knows what these guys toilet training was like or why he and Gilliard continually genuflect at the altar of black woman hatred. Apparently, though, IT ALWAYS PAYS. So long as there is no payback, they’ll keep on saying it.
Just my two cents.
For a former alcoholic — which don’t exist, btw — he sure does wax rhapsodic about beer a lot. That doesn’t speak well of his recovery. the man’s on dialysis for God’s sake. He seems like a broken man, reeking of self-loathing. That Aruba diary made me uncomfortable, not only for the sexism, but for the revelations of his animosity towards slutty foreign girls who wouldn’t fuck him. He repeatedly casts women who are sexually aggressive as evil manipulators. Some of them may be, but it’s not a foregone conclusion. That his girlfriend — and mother of his children (?) — is Jewish is a stunning bit of info, considering the tasteless “joke” up thread. These are very damaged people, and the window provided into their souls, is one I try not to look into too often. It makes me sad.
Yeah, the Aruba diary made me uncomfortable, too, which is why I peruse his other diaries.
What can I say? When he talks race, I more or less agree. When he doesn’t, he’s on my last nerve. Then I ignore him or say a few words when I cannot take any more.
Yes. He does have ISSUES. Some bloggers definitely need to be put on the couch.
One more thing: I don’t know nada/zip/zilch about his relationships with women or any children–only what he puts out about Jen or himself. He also refuses to be photographed. I think that we lived quite close to each other when I lived in Harlem, but I never met him.
There are photos of the whole family, but they have the faces smudged out.
Point of clarification:
The photos Mr. Gilliard posted of himself, Jen, and the two children in the July archives of his website (with faces smudged out–a wise move for privacy’s sake) are of Mr. Gilliard’s niece and nephew. So far as I can discern, he and Jen do not have any children together. Mr. Gilliard may have children through another relationship, but if so I am not aware of their existence.
Who knows, Mr. Gilliard may be a father and a pretty good one. It’s his statements and behavior as a blogger that concern me–anti-Semitism and misogyny and perhaps even misanthropy itself are what I gain from reading his blog. I try not to inflict Gilliard upon myself, but recently there was no way to escape it, as he was put front and centre on Buzzflash.
Thank you for the clarification. Is it wrong of me to be relieved?
Well, he and Jen did take the niece and nephew to MOMA. How many aunts and uncles help expose their relatives to art?
And the hubby does so without being a talentless hack misogynist with issues. It can be done. :<)
If anything, he’s like the left’s version of another fuckhead-type about women, Stanley Crouch.
That certainly explains it. I had never heard of him until the his “train” comment.
Oh Lord, not another enlistee for the Reed/Crouch “dudes with issues” fraternity. Has he uttered the requisite slurs toward bell hooks and Toni Morrison yet? Just checkin’…
Terry MacMillan and her soon-to-be divorced gay boy toy.
He couldn’t stop bitching about her supposed ‘hate black men’ screeds.
I admit, Terry has issues. I think that she wants to be with black men, but this girl has been HURT bad in the past. Plus coke can mess up your mind, too.
‘Waiting to Exhale’ certainly found adherents among a lot of women, not just black women. Women waking up to the fact of loser men in their lives…no wonder this book flew off the stands and made her big bucks.
I didn’t read “Waiting to Exhale,” but I saw the movie in the theater. I have to tell you, when the central character slept with a married man, I lost all sympathy and interest. She had me when she set her philandering husband’s stuff on fire, and everything else. But, after having her own ripped out by infidelity, she goes and sleeps with some other woman’s husband! Where’s the sisterhood? It ruined the movie for me.
That’s why I didn’t understand all the whining about the movie: All the women were perfect, all the men evil. The characters did some dumb things, as we all do.
IMO, I think the character was still trying to get back at her husband (and cheating men everywhere) by saying that “men have been doing it for years.”
Of course, karma was quick because it “was like watching paint dry.”
Wow, I still can’t believe I remember so many parts of the movie. It’s been years since I’ve watched it.
those girls were LOSERS.
Else why were they still hooked up to assholes? From the rich one to the poor one?
Oh, without a doubt–but that’s the way some of the loser critics went on and on about the book. I think they behaved stupidly and I think McMillian wanted to show that stupidity.
BTW, everybody except the Gloria character (Loretta Devine in the movie) which for reasons unknown, had her dressed so poorly! I guess that was indicative of her always putting herself last, but damn.
At least Angela Bassett got the chance to portray Ms. Rosa Parks, too. Have mercy.
Yep. I thought Loretta Devine was the “conscience” of the piece. She was the only one who wasn’t completely self-absorbed. Her expression of dismay, was the only comment in the film that showed some inkling of how wrong Angela Bassett was. Other than that, her blatant hypocrisy wasn’t even addressed.
You didn’t get it.
Bernadine and the married guy (Wesley ‘I have issues with black women’ Snipes) did not have sex. They slept with each other without having sex for comfort. And then he wrote her that wonderful letter.
You forget that when she woke up, she was in her room where the bedsheets had not been slept in.
No, but don’t forget that Bernadine slept with some random married guy. In the movie, she was at the ball game with Gloria telling her about how it was like watching paint dry, and Gloria telling her point-blank, “Yeah, but Bernie, you know you’re wrong” or something to that effect.
Of course, the scene w/ Snipes was the sweetest one of them all, which is ironic, given the issues Snipes has in real life. Maybe we should call the particular psychosis of Gilliard and his ilk the Snipes Syndrome.
What Aunt Peachy said — the random married guy who was “like watching paint dry.” I lost all respect for her character. I would have regained it if she’d ever shown some sense of recognition that she was a hypocrite, but she didn’t… in the movie, anyway.
Oh, that divorce is now final. She had to pay him $50K and his legal fees (I believe a/b $27K) which is a bargain since dude was trying to invalidate the pre-nup. While I didn’t believe that “he didn’t know” he was gay at 20ish y.o. (that works for kids, not grownups) I felt sorry for him b/c I know he’d get his ass kicked being a gay man in Jamaica. But that all went out the window when he tried to take all her money. You can’t deceive someone and STILL try to take their money…unless you’re the Bush Admin.
Anyway…I can’t believe I forgot to add Terry McMillian to the list, as well as Alice Walker and damn near every other Black woman author save for Sharazad Ali. I should also add Oprah…oh, ESPECIALLY Oprah. These types really hate her.
Oh, the nerve of these uppity black women…how dare we say no to being berated or abuse or mistreatment or infidelity! How can we ever be a credit to the race if we don’t silently acquiesce to taking an open hand smack to the mouth?
/snark, dammit!
While I didn’t believe that “he didn’t know” he was gay at 20ish y.o. (that works for kids, not grownups)…
Oh, no. That happens. Some people don’t get clarity on their sexual orientation until late in life. And sexuality is a fluid thing. Some people change throughout their lives. Also some young people may feel drawn to the same sex, but also to the opposite sex, and think they can commit to a marriage and relegate the same sex attraction to background noise, and then find that they can’t. I don’t know anything about this situation, because I haven’t followed it — I’m rarely interested in the lifestyles of the rich and famous — but in a general sense, I think it’s very plausible that a 20 year old guy would not really have a handle on his sexuality.
OK, that’s fair enough. I can’t know what someone else is feeling. It’s my conjecture only that a young man may have found his ticket out of a stifling community, but I can’t know … it’s impossible to know … what he was really feeling at the time.
Where I lose any sympathy for him is when he challenged the pre-nup. That just makes it seem that he stuck around long enough to try to get all the money out of her as possible. This happens–when you finally are true to yourself about who you are–but you don’t have to be a punk about it either.
whatta guy.
What I noticed way back, when he wrote on the war (many good pieces) as a guest blogger at Legacy Kos, is that he is very thin skinned. I assume he has not changed… tho I don’t read him the past two years.
Poorly socialised is my assessment…
Tropism or not, Maureen Dowd calls Judy Miller the “Fourth Estate’s Becky Sharp” which implies that Judy got to the top quickly by sleeping with only the uppermost men.
I definitely think the Aruba thing was sexist but not this time.
And, remind me. What does “tropism” mean? First of all, if that’s all you take from the character of Becky Sharp, you are selling a remarkable character short, and so would Dowd be. The broader context is that Miller is an audacious climber, and used many tools at her disposal. The thing her column did not say is that Miller slept her way to wherever the hell she went. Because if it had, she would have been opening herself up to a libel suit, unless she had damned good evidence of where Judy parked her slippers, and how it advanced her career. As I said in my diary, I don’t give a damn about who Judy hopped into bed with. Her abandonment of journalistic principles is the issue. But Gilliard makes her sexuality a central focus and tortures the English language to do it.
well there isn’t anything short about Vanity Fair
but while Steve may have been crude I don’t think he completely misinterpreted Dowd’s column…though it’s possible she may have meant it metaphorically
now as for whether Dowd misinterpreted Thackeray…that’s a whole other argument
but after reading the above 1996 “joke” allegedly by Steve on usenet I think I’ll remove myself from the defense team.
“May have been crude”?
You “may” want to take out the word “may”.
Seems that Dowd’s column is a bit of a Rohrshach blot for people–some see Judith Miller the literal whore, others Judith Miller the figurative whore.
It’s the figurative whore, the one who abandoned every journalistic principle in her quest to become “important”, who is the most frightening and damaging.
a sane voice in an insane world.
if you weren’t a married straight man i’d ask you to coffee and then call the airlines 🙂
I’ll keep that in mind. Always good to have a Plan B.
Always good to have a Plan B.
sounds better than our President who has Plan A and then more Plan A!
Is it just me, or does it seem strangely coincidental that when women are called into question about their actions or behaviors it always seems to go immediately to something sexual? Since I am not a man, and can’t often actually fully understand how the male thought process works, I find this interesting and totally without merit.
The rap on women , for longer than I care to think about, has been that they are not “rational” or “logical” thinkers. . .yet it seems where it comes to a male assesment of a woman’s actions it is loudly proclaimed that there is something “sexual” involved.
Isn’t it a bit strange that in the year 2005, women are still sluts, whores, trolips, home wreckers, et al, and men are just manly studs? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, what a guy.
I continue to wonder when Americans are going to grow up about things of a sexual nature. Why does anyone care who another person has sex with? How could it possibly be anyone’s business besides those directly involved? I am begining to become convinced I will not live to see any such maturity in my life time.
Such utter silliness.
In 2005 a woman’s worst sin is still, apparently, to enjoy sex and to be in control of your sex life.
Sex is supposed to be something that is imposed upon us, and we simply suffer through it for a man’s pleasure or for procreation.
In 2005 a woman’s worst sin is still, apparently, to enjoy sex and to be in control of your sex life.
Yeah, but as those from the Caribbean sometimes say, just what is this in aid of?
I enjoy sex and I enjoy men, period. Yet for some other black women, sexual activity for them is not seduction but coercion.
I enjoy sex and I enjoy men, period.
Shush, shush! That might make him jealous.
Yet for some other black women, sexual activity for them is not seduction but coercion.
All the while being portrayed as always ready, hot-in-the-ass breeders waiting on a welfare check on one side and filthy rich lesbians from the other. Little wonder why, then–but that’s a whole ‘nother diary!
PS: Did you see William Raspberry’s column today? Very interesting that somebody finally got around to stating the obvious…that you can do bad by yourself.
See, now this is my point. Why do her sexual antics enter into it? Are the “powerful men” she is rumored to have slept with being called on the carpet for their indiscretions? Where is the Gilliard piece on the low-life men who threw Judith Miller a shot?
It’s because it always comes down to sex where women are concerned. We’re not sexy enough (Janet Reno). We’re too sexually aggressive. (Judith Miller) We’re probably lesbians, because we don’t live for male approval. (Hillary Clinton) It never ends. All I’m saying is, when can we let women be evaluated by the deeds they do when they’re off their backs?
You’re not going to like it, I’m just calling it as I see it, all right?
Women are seen as keepers of sexuality–without their consent it would never happen.
The scarcer a thing is, the more valuable it becomes. Also, females with many partners violate the still strong social norm to having few partners or monogamy. Many have said these last two elements have strong biological heritage–they benefit the female and the raising of children.
So females who give it up are instantly known–and often censured. Please excuse me, much of the strongest censure comes from other females. Miller is married.
Having sex with a source not only brings in the lash of promiscuous judgment but an extremely strong professional censure too–sources are meant to convey data and can be terribly compromised, along with of course the integrity of the writer, by having sex with them.
So how many sources Judith Miller has had sex with is a very big deal and will be endlessly commented on. Very powerful human forces are at work here that won’t be allowed to be left un-noticed and un-said.
I think I know.
Oh please. This might have some slight bearing IF men were equally compromised and held up to ridicule and scorn by their sexual acts and deeds and for God sake men have sex for as many manipulative, controlling reasons as women do.
AND just WHO is the moral Arbiter here?
Going back to my planet now. . .you guys are just too juvenile to even discuss with. (snark, snark, snark)
Oh, don’t make me start my rap on “women as gatekeepers.” I don’t think it’s good for my blood pressure. I am so aware that this is the underlying belief; that women control the access and have the moral obligation to say no. And men are atavistic morons who have no real control over their dicks. Don’t get me started, because I’ll never stop.
And men are atavistic morons who have no real control over their dicks.
Ever since I learned that there was a double standard, I could never wrap my head around this: If you say that the Bible gives you control over everything, how come you can’t control your penis??? Did God leave that off the list??
I had all kinds of inconvenient questions when I was younger.
I wouldn’t get the whole concept of hypocrisy until later.
:<)
Yes, men must try and women must deny. The hunter and the hunted. And it’s all rooted in biology.
You’ve been reading your Social Darwinism tracts again, haven’t you, Paradox? I thought we took those away from you and hid them in the cupboard.
So promiscuous women are “censured” by men and other women, are they? And promiscuous men are not? And that’s just the way it is–biology!
You do realise, I hope, that only in America does this cry of “biology is destiny” or “biology shapes society” hold any weight. It’s laughable elsewhere in the civilised world. But then again, we decadent Europeans have universal health care and no death penalty, so I suppose we have odd ideas about how to run a society.
How many sources Judy Miller had sex with is most definitely NOT a “big deal”–what is a big deal is that she pretended to be an objective journalist but was, in fact, a propaganda agent for the Bush-Cheney administration in particular and for the neocon agenda for the past two decades.
Paradox, I know you don’t realise this but…your post about women as the “gatekeepers” reveals a LOT more about your attitudes towards sexuality than you want revealed. Sex only happens when WOMEN say so? Oh, please. Consensual sex only happens when both men AND women want it. Sometimes men are the seducers; sometimes women are; sometimes it’s mutual seduction. Every adult with at least some romantic and sexual experience knows that, and I feel a bit embarrassed that I should have to explain it to you.
I said I think I know. I know very little with certainty.
The poster asked a question. There’s no need to shout at me–DON’T GET ME STARTED–when there was no way I could know their frame of reference.
I never said all was biology or that social Darwinism was correct. I just said what I percieved. I will say, though, that to ignore the research on 1.5 million years of evolutionary biology is something I would never do.
I said women are seen as gatekeepers. I do not see them that way. I got hit on enough times to wipe out the notion a long, long time ago, all right?
The hostility in these replies is remarkable. I’ll leave it at that.
I try, all right? I cook, clean, shop, do laundry and help raise the daughter. I never publicly objectify women to anyone. I have one partner, I always treat women with respect and manners. I always try to learn, and if I’m wrong I say so. My boss is a woman–I live the live of equality as much as I can every day.
I’m not your problem. This post says so much about you, paradox…
Wow. I wish I had the power to comprehend souls from a few lines of text. It’s frightening to be judged so quickly and so angrily from just saying a few words. It makes me never want to broach the subject again with any woman–I try hard, I am honest, I am good to women with what I know–yet now I am sneered upon, spat upon and spit out.
Not what you’re trying to do? I would suggest a different approach to the tone of your arguements.
I am extremely sympathetic to the hostility here. Y’all are not the only ones to have escaped from vicious patriarchal dysfunction–others have been persecuted and abused. I’ve paid some dues, you might be surprised.
Rading further down the thread I see the error. Sorry for the assumption, sir.
I’m extremely sorry I said anything at all. Now I’m going to get the shit beat out of me just for being myself.
[sigh] I try to understand and be a good person. I can assure you the hostility and condescension so bitterly flung out to my post utterly failed–it makes me never want to read it, let alone comprehend it and try to change.
I’m not your problem. I’ll let you figure it out.
FWIW, I understand what you’re trying to say.
People still cling desperately to this gatekeeper tripe and will rationalize it by claiming this is “basic biology” — which of course, is odd from people who dismiss biology b/c they can’t find it in the Bible.
It’s not right, but what “is”–which is why some people will obsess over who she slept with instead of her turn for being at best a useful idiot and worst a covert propagandist for the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal. People have died and continue to die because of their actions.
No hostility intended. I didn’t think you were serious about that. You don’t actually think that “women as gatekeepers” belief has any merit do you? I assumed you were simply identifying the construct.
The “biology as destiny” thing is given a lot of weight here in the states. Men love to pull that out to excuse their indiscretions. “What could I do? She threw herself at me!” I say, you have a neocortex. Use it!
to reload and be able to post a comment. Recordkeeper, have you pissed somebody off and they are attempting to sabotage your diary? It was kind of freaky, I had to try three times to post a comment. I’m sad to find out that Kos is a fan of Gilliard. I would really like to recover fully from the pie fights but I guess I never will, so, so what! I’m not familiar with Gilliard’s blog but read Buzzflash frequently. How does a liberal boy continue to make attempts at appearing virile or even justifiably angry by attacking women? Misogyny isn’t good to use as an adjective for anything other than Misogyny therefore I can’t help but draw the conclusion that he is a Misogynist or just too stupid to know how to express himself well or understandably. I read the whole piece and I came away with nothing to file in my gray stacks, just slams and cut downs and I did better than that in high school so I would rather read my old “notes” from high school than that shit………I guess he’s OUR ANN COULTER, and so sad that in the frustration that is felt out there that so many thought the piece was worth noting. I thought it was odd that he would call Miller a drama queen because he (Steve Gulliard) kind of sounds like a drama queen to me.
mostly lying, dangerous lies that ended up promoting the invasion of Iraq. She has also been accused of being manipulative, ego-centric, and dramatic but I’ve never heard that she used her sexuality to gain access to power. For one thing, why would she need to? when she had the pulpit of The New York Times. Why would that even come into the scope of the focus on her involvement in the Plame scandal? Gillard is the first to bring it into focus and he then tries to blame it on MoDo. He’s a jerk!
According to MoDo and other staffers and observers, this is how she got to her lofty pulpit at the NYT. Gilliard is merely parroting the line in his own (ick!) distinctive fashion. There have been a number of articles leaking out about the turmoil at the Grey Lady, including an article by the NYT’s public editor (the person who is supposed to support its readership). People are talking big time. They don’t want her ass to return. MoDo’s Sunday slam was the latest and was evidently co-signed by rank and file at the NYT.
Which means in order to get places at the NYT, you don’t use excellence and talent. Move over, Jayson Blair, you’re getting company on the bench of ill-reputed suck-up artists cum reporters.
and Judith Miller’s replies. It was quite entertaining.
Except the thought of the bloody debacle in Iraq, getting worse by the minute, is sobering. AND Judith Miller had a large part in the propganda that led to the invasion of Iraq. It seems like JM is getting delayed pay back. She hitched her career onto Iraq and she is stuck with that now.
Now how she got to her ‘lofty pulpit at the NYT’ was not part of MoDo’s article. “Excellence and talent” is not showing up in her email responses to the public editor and
Kelly.
Lots of bloggers who are presumed to be liberal, or state they are progressive.. are scarcely liberal and not progressive either.
One after the other, they out themselves as the party rounds on group after group. Bloggers get to indulge their dirty ugly secrets. More to come I am sure.
I mean, take a look at Reid Schumer Clinton and so on… weak knees all around.
Freaks on line, is what is happening. Faking liberalism to draw the crowds.
–Franklin Foer
Actually, reporters didn’t wear uniforms so they wouldn’t be mistaken for US troops. For her to toss on some BDU’s is well, weird. I’d like to know if she carried a weapon as well.
What civilians missed about the promotion ceremony is this: only close relatives or friends pin your new rank on you. Which is why the unit’s members were flabergasted by it. He might as well have bought her a friendship ring. People were pissed because they would have to lie for him. That’s why they ran to Howie Kurtz. They weren’t gonna fuck up their marriages because he banged her.
Man, Miller was really obvious about this guy.
No wonder her husband went to Spain without her.
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/
Again, more leaps of logic. Miller pinned a medal on some chap and Gilliard assumes the man must have been “banging” (ah, what a lovely term to describe the act of sexual congress) her?
In addition to having his mind totally in the gutter, he’s dead wrong about the uniform issue. This came up a while ago about a pic of Miller in cammies, so I asked my husband. The reporters attached to his unit wore cammies as well. The reason is really pretty obvious, given the purpose of camouflage uniforms. I can’t fault reporters for not wanting to be moving targets. Would it have been better for Miller to wear Chanel as she moved through a combat zone?
I’ve read Steve Gilliard since he was a front pager at Daily Kos and find his take on things very interesting. I actually met him at the Tank in New York during the RNC. By the way, I’ve never heard him say that he was an alcoholic. He was seriously overweight, but lost about 100 pounds when he nearly died a couple of years ago.
To all the feminists here — and I consider myself to be one — we have done a terrible job of educating our young women. Look at the way they behave, dress, and think in this country. I don’t remember reading Steve’s “train” post, but gee, I wonder what would give someone the idea that an 18-year-old drunk girl who leaves a bar with three drunk boys might find herself in a train? Have you ever watched MTV Spring Break shows? They’re appalling. Why would any young girl behave the way they do? Why would their friends let them behave in such a manner? Why do their parents allow them take these trips? Yes, there is a double standard in this country. Get over it and learn to deal with it. Until we figure out how to give women a sense of worth that is based on character rather than how big their boobs are, this is what’s going to happen. We have let these girls down and women like Judy Miller (assuming the rumors about her are true) are a prime example of how this has happened.
As to why there are no stories about men sleeping their way to the top, it’s simple, they don’t have to.
So, we should just accept the double standard as status quo, and all the responsibility for social morality falls on female shoulders. No thanks. Some of us think that men bear some responsibility for rape, even when they’re drunk, and that male promiscuity is no more excusable than female promiscuity. The idea that they are not is as disrespectful to men as it is to women. It’s basically saying that they are less evolved and should be granted exceptional rights — a bizarre notion that be examined, not endlessly tolerated.
I have no idea how to deal with it. All I know is that we’ve got to stop whining about men not getting it, and we’ve got to start doing something about it ourselves. We’ve done a shitty job of raising our daughters AND our sons.
I can’t change Steve Gilliard’s attitudes about anything, but I can certainly take a look at myself and see what I can do differently.
I agree that our only real power is over the self. However, we have no greater capacity to change the attitudes of girls than boys. We have some influence in our own children’s development, one hopes. But, as for girls defining themselves by their boobs, that’s part of systemic problem, much bigger than one girl’s opinion, and it’s fostered by both sexes. Part of my problem with this whole line of attack on Miller is that we’re back to judging women by their sexuality, not their work, and that does nothing to further the cause of teaching women to value themselves as something other than sex objects. How in the hell can we teach our daughters that they are more than body parts, if we’re simultaneously bashing a New York Times reporter for her sex life? When we reduce one woman to that stereotype, we reduce them all, and that is not the message I want to give my daughter.
Assuming the rumors that have been going around for years are true, then Judy Miller is the one that chose to use her sexuality to further her career. That makes it fair game in my book.
So what are your solutions? Like I said before, I really have no idea how to solve these systemic problems.
Assuming the rumors that have been going around for years are true, then Judy Miller is the one that chose to use her sexuality to further her career. That makes it fair game in my book.
I disagree. I think making that a major focus says more about our societal attitudes on women and sex, than it does about Judith Miller, but this has been thoroughly discussed throughout the thread. I don’t have magic bullet solutions. We can change attitudes by opening a dialog. I refuse to be defeatist about it. Imagine if the gay community had sat on their hands and said, well we’re never going to change the fact that society thinks we’re a bunch of perverts who don’t deserve basic human rights, so we might as well just get used to it. Accepting a sick status quo is not an option in my opinion. So I don’t really care how many times I am metaphorically kicked in the teeth for pointing out sexism when I see it. I’m going to keep on doing it. I don’t expect to single-handedly change the world, but I can be part of the solution, instead of tolerating or reinforcing the problem.
If women are using their sexuality to get ahead, it diminishes all of us and we need to point it out.
How do you open a dialogue if you’re not engaging with Steve over at his site? Sounds to me like you’re whining and not taking your arguments to the source of your complaints.
I’m addressing the problem, not the person. And, if you’d take time to read the diary and the comments, you would notice that I’m actually following up on another diary that appeared on this site. Gilliard has made himself a public personality with his blog, and like anyone else who publishes to the web, or anywhere else, his ideas are now open for scrutiny, or do you also think that all criticism of the New York Times reporters should be directed to them. In that case, why don’t you take your rumor based accusations of Judith Miller, and address them to her.
Why so hostile?
You’re the one that wants to open a dialogue, so go do it. I never hesitate to tell Steve when I disagree with him.
As to Judy Miller, why bother? She’s being exposed as an incompetent shill for the Bush administration, so I see no need to waste my time. It’s just a shame that she had such a loud and influential voice at the New York Times in the lead up to the war. If she got that platform because of sex, it’s sad for all of us.
Susan. I think it’s a little disingenuous of you to call me “hostile” when you have just accused me of “whining” behind somebody’s back. I notice that you are a new member, here at BMT, and the only posts to your credit are in response to this diary. I’m not surprised that you have an open dialog with Gilliard, as you clearly think highly enough of him to go trolling on other sites to defend him. I will not be logging onto his site to pick a fight with him because I am not a troll. I also consider it a fruitless endeavor to debate feminist ideology with misogynists, so I will be ending my dialog with you as well. If you have any real interest in the subject at hand, you can read the diary and the thread, which contain a good deal of information and debate with intelligent people who were arguing in good faith. But, I will not be wasting my time repeating my positions to a troll. So, from here on out, you can talk to the hand.
We don’t have to continue this conversation. For your information, I’ve never been called a troll or a misogynist before, so that’s new. I’ve visited Booman in the past and was treated rather rudely for defending Markos and Daily Kos, so I think this will be it for me. Your thin-skinned response to my last comment is one of the reasons I don’t spend much time here. The better diaries from this website are cross-posted elsewhere and can be discussed with those who aren’t too sensitive for disagreement.
and thin skinned? Okay, go play with someone else. As a feminist I can be one half of any equation I make up with any man at any given time. That is all I can be and they are the other half. If Judith used her ass to get ahead someone had to give that said ass some kind of exchange value in order for the transaction to have taken place successfully. I could care less though and I’m not sure how anybody could or would know such a thing accept for tapping into the guys thoughts and hearing him say himself, “Gee, for screwing me I’m going to give Judith……..” and saying something like that to Judith and then having Judith agree to the exchange. I am not about to carry all the weight on my shoulders for the misogyny that runs rampant in my culture! My own female lineage did enough of that and suffered for it thank you very much. If you are going to be a man and be a dumbass one and put ignorant stuff out into the world, expect people to say to your face and to other people they care about while you aren’t present how distasteful and ugly your stuff is. P.S. obviously you haven’t met my daughter so please keep your observations about how we are failing our daughters to yourself. I haven’t failed mine thanks……and mine is all I have say so over!
Not only are you whiny, but you’re a baby.