Scanner : feminists

Rush Limbaugh Cares What Women Think

Colleen Kane — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:47:00 GMT

Have you met Rush Limbaugh? He's the radio personality who popularized the term "Feminazi" and applies it with glee to any woman who sticks up for herself. Now he's wondering why there's a 31-point gender gap in his listenership. To find out just why he is so unpopular with the ladies, he held a Women's Summit on his program this week, where he asked women to phone in and tell him why they don't like him.

Not too surprisingly, women are not painted too well, even on this women's summit.

One caller claimed women don't like to put on a pretty skirts (um, hello? I love pretty skirts!) and "they have been given a line that they have to be unhappy, grumpy, they have to be Hillary, they have to be yelling and screaming."

Riiight. So there's only two options for women: pretty and traditional or angry and screaming. Here's more.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I have three things you can do to close your gender gap by at least 15 points.

RUSH: Thank you. I want to hear what they are.

CALLER: Okay, get your pencil. First one. Make women believe you care more about them than their own husbands do.

RUSH: Hmm.

CALLER: Second one. You need to project an air of vulnerability. You need to let women think they can roll you.

RUSH: Well, wait a minute. Rule me?

CALLER: Roll.

RUSH: Roll or rule?

CALLER: Roll. Well, one and the same. One and the same, very clever! You can do this! It's not beyond you!

RUSH: All right, so I gotta make women believe I care more about them than their own husbands do, and I am vulnerable, I can be hurt.

CALLER: Yes. They can roll you. And you can do that by just marrying an Ivy League women from Chicago, Ivy League educated women from Chicago, that's how most Democrats do it. And the third thing to do is stop saying abortion is the sacrament to liberalism. You can still say that liberalism is a religion because women like to think they're religious, just drop the sacrament of abortion.

OK, so in addition to being pretty and docile things or angry and screaming, women are also easily manipulated saps.

Rush's conclusion? "It appears that women who have hated me have been led to me by other men and then have changed their opinion, which means something I have always known, that women do want to please their men. "

What- evvvs.

For the morbidly curious, the transcription is here.

Sloppy Seconds: Jessica Biel Finally Goes Topless

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Apparently We Were Supposed to Be Upset By This Poster

Emily Farris — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:51:00 GMT

Remember this poster—a recreation of a Joan Baez poster from the 60's—we posted yesterday? Well, we thought it was all in good fun, but apparently it's pissed off quite a few female bloggers, including some of our old friends.

Over at Salon the women of Broadsheet had a heated discussion.

Rebecca Traistor despises the poster, and says that "the idea of any kind of political action is being taken to impress the opposite sex — or that guys would only vote a certain way if a woman promised sex at the end (that's also totally the only way you get them to pay for dinner, incidentally) — sort of makes me want to drown myself."

While we get where Traistor is coming from, we can't imagine anyone would actually vote a certain way just to impress the opposite sex. And if he did, we surely wouldn't have sex with him—we're not attracted to men who aren't passionate about their own politics.

Sarah Hepola, formerly Salon Sarah, seems to be somewhere between us, and Traistor, but still dislikes it:

"It doesn't bother me as much, but it's kind of gross. Are the women in this photo going to say yes to every boy who says Obama? Because if so, they are going to be very, very tired. And sore!

Considering this poster was made, according to Bust, by 'a couple cheeky ladies in Brooklyn" —where I (and Rebecca and Judy! [and Scanner Emily]) proudly live -- I would suggest it should be tweaked to read, 'Girls say yes to boys who say Obama and also wear skinny jeans and have scruffy hair and buy me Stella Artois while I crochet an adorable bong cozy.'"

So, so right, Scanner Sarah. But of all the things to get pissed off in the world, this poster isn't one of them. We don't have the energy (you know, especially since we're only halfway through the Democratic men in Brooklyn).

What do you think? Good fun or highly offensive?

Related:

Yes Girls for Obama

Sloppy Seconds: Barack Obama's Hip Hop Cameo

Trojan Girls Try To Get Republicans To Wear, Learn Uses Of Condoms

Sony Video Game To Feminists: "Let Them Eat Cake" (Literally)

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Sony apparently forgot that there are, surprise, women who play video games. More importantly, they forgot that feminists play video games and can raise a big stink on the interblogs if they they think your game is unfunny, sexist, and more out of touch than George W. Bush...

Fat Princess is a capture-the-flag game with a twist: you can thwart capture attempts by locking the once-thin princess in a dungeon and stuffing her full of cake, thereby increasing her girth and making her harder for your enemies to haul back to home base.

The ladyblogs had trouble deciding what to attack first...

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville writes: "Congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes."

Zing! Wait, what does that mean?

Feminist Gamer's "Mighty Ponygirl" suggests a simple gameplay switcheroo would solve the problem (and change the title). "Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest," she says, adding, "The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry."

That's a great idea! Then again, Sony isn't interested in having their video games make sense or insulting fewer than half the population of the world. Nope, they just say "let those feminists eat cake-- literally." And male gamers are apparently backing them up-- check out the comments on Joystiq:

Fat women would be better served by getting up and exercising and eating less. They would have more energy, better self image and feel more confident. They might find a boyfriend, even perhaps, love. But you know, its like hard to do that stuff, and its easy to complain on the internet!
Women will cry about anything.
They are piss because they lack a penis.
If it were "Fat Prince" and you had to carry an obese dude around nobody would care. Except maybe Prince.

However, a female commenter had a reaction similar to ours:

If anything, I think they're attacking the wrong concept. Who cares if she's fat or gets fed? It's way more offensive that the princess is treated as an object (in replacement of a flag) and helpless (she can't even move on her own) and unable to do anything about her situation (or refuse food). But I know that the designers weren't being pig-headed, they were just trying to be creative, and they succeeded.

There are far too many memorable (but not necessarily intelligent) comments to post here, so check out the original post.

Via Joystiq and Yahoo!