I am simultaneously surprised and not surprised. Michael Shermer tweeted this:
When I think of feminists I think of Inez Milholland, led 1913 march on DC, not today's fainting couchers @CHSommers https://t.co/FXwYh90SJj pic.twitter.com/tPjJgM1yYg
— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) December 5, 2016
Inez Milholland was a prominent suffragist, so it’s good to acknowledge her. But…
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He’s using her to promote an article by Christina Hoff Sommers, who is about as much of a feminist as I am a Republican.
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This article is about how it is inappropriate and weak for feminists to be dismayed about the election of Donald Trump. Don’t worry, girls, the patriarchy doesn’t exist!
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The article ends by accusing modern feminists of being
hyperbolic and harping
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You know what’s just not right? To use one feminist to berate a different feminist. We can see right through you guys: your beef is with feminism, period.
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Insulting modern feminists with slurs like
fainting couchers
is directly analogous to the insults given to the suffragettes of Milholland’s time. -
Somehow the only good feminists in some people’s minds are the feminists who died a hundred years ago.
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It’s telling that the “good feminist” is the beautiful white woman on a white horse wearing white robes. Dead symbols are so much easier to deal with than fractious, real, complicated people.
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The 1913 march is also known for it’s blatant segregation of black women who wanted to join in — they were sent to the back of the line. Unlike the old feminists he likes, “fainting couchers” now are intersectional.
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Over 100 women in that march were hospitalized for injuries they received from harassing men. But Shermer accepts Sommers’ claim that there is no patriarchy, women aren’t in any way oppressed?
Just to add arsenic icing to his poison cupcake, his next tweet praises Ben Shapiro. He later declares that he disagrees with Shapiro that transgender men and women are mentally ill, but never walks back the fact that this Shapiro fellow he’s praising is also homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-Muslim, anti-abortion, and doesn’t accept global climate change. But he’s sharp! Just the kind of guy a skeptic would like!