Kathleen Parker’s latest is so awful I hardly know where to start.
If Bill Clinton was our first black president, as Toni Morrison once proclaimed, then Barack Obama may be our first woman president.
If Parker had written a piece like Ellie Smeal of Ms. did back in the day extolling the virtues of our “feminist president” (absent any evidence except his say-so, may I add), I would have been gagging, but no, it’s even worse. According to Parker, Obama acts too much like a woman. That’s why he’s an FAIL as a leader. Because he doesn’t live up to “cultural expectations.”
Nevertheless, we still do have certain cultural expectations, especially related to leadership. [bluelyon translation: they're supposed to act like men, except when they are women] When we ask questions about a politician’s beliefs, family or hobbies, we’re looking for familiarity, what we can cite as “normal” and therefore reassuring.
Generally speaking, men and women communicate differently. Women tend to be coalition builders rather than mavericks (with the occasional rogue exception). While men seek ways to measure themselves against others, for reasons requiring no elaboration, women form circles and talk it out.
Got that? Men play “my dick’s bigger than yours” and we wimminz, well we wimminz just talk. And talk. And talk.
Obama is a chatterbox who makes Alan Alda look like Genghis Khan.
Furthermore, men take action!
No one expected him to don his wetsuit and dive into the gulf, but he did have the authority to intervene immediately and he didn’t. Instead, he deferred to BP, weighing, considering, even delivering jokes to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner when he should have been on Air Force One to the Louisiana coast.
[...]
The masculine-coded context of the Oval Office poses special challenges, further exacerbated by a crisis that demands decisive action. It would appear that Obama tests Campbell’s argument that “nothing prevents” men from appropriating women’s style without negative consequences.Indeed, negative reaction to Obama’s speech suggests the opposite. Obama may prove to be our first male president who pays a political price for acting too much like a woman.
Honestly, I’m stuck. I have no idea what Parker is actually saying. So, acting like a woman is BAD when you are President, according to Parker. So, why the hell does she end her piece with this?
And, perhaps, next time will be a real woman’s turn.
Huh?
Bwahahahahaha! Kathleen Parker. As I said on Facebook, what stories I could tell, which were lovingly passed down in the hate-filled Orlando Sentinel newsroom where she used to work.
Here’s one.
Two female reporters made a bet with each other. I don’t even remember what the bet was about anymore. I just remember that the loser had a choice of punishment:
1) Read the latest Kathleen Parker column.
2) Crawl on the floor from the Communications desk all the way into the Newsroom and to her desk, singing “I Am Woman” the entire way. Loudly.
Guess which option the loser chose, easily?
I wasn’t in the newsroom that day, but I hear it was quite loud and quite funny.
I’ve always wanted to sneak up behind Parker, shout “Feminist!” and watch her jump 9 ft. into the air in fright. With any luck she’d break both arms as she fell so she couldn’t type her column for a while. Better make that her jaw, too, so she can’t dictate.
Great story, nimperiale!
How about a small contest on “things to do with a Kathleen Parker column?” A start:
1. Wrap garbage
2. Fireplace kindling
3. Papier mache, as long as you paint over it
4. Make a pterodactyl (hat tip to Airplane!)
Geez, you’re right! It is pretty disgusting! Some kind of weird example of sexist circular newsspeak.