Photo by Flickr user Uncle Shoe. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Kind of funny how many of the bitterly anti-male slanders, slurs, and stereotypes commonly attributed to "radical feminism" predate feminism. Sometimes by centuries. Occasionally by millennia!

They were already highly common in American and English male-only dance halls and similar entertainment venues back when "mainstream feminism" meant the possibility of women owning property and "radical feminism" was the crazy idea that women might someday be allowed to vote.

I bring this up in no small part due to allegations that these are feminist in nature. And I bring that up in no small part because those allegedly feminist characterizations of men are nettlesome to men in general and extremely nettlesome to men's rights activists and their allies.

M'kay, and now, confronted with that sort of incontrovertible proof that sexist and/or "reverse sexist" stereotypes about men predate feminism and, indeed, often originate with men themselves, a lot of guys who are still nettled will say things like "yeah, well, some feminists still propagate those stereotypes so feminism is still all about hating men.

Now it might surprise you to hear me say this but... that would actually be a pretty fair point! Some feminists really do perpetuate long, deep, ancient and... male-originated stereotypes about how awful men are.

And to the extent that subset of feminists allow themselves to be informed by patriarchal standards?  Eh, when folks like Twisty Faster talk about the inescapability of "the patriarchy" I'm not positive that's what they're thinking about... but the shoe does fit.  But why would anyone who was even remotely bothered by the dissimilarity between their own lived experience and the cultural stereotypes about how she was <em>supposed</em> to be feel any more confident that the messages cradle-sung, nursery-rhymed, and spoon fed to them about men were any more authentic?

There's certainly an idea in one of the older factions of essentialist feminist that we men are so incredibly ruled by our dicks that women can have a "sex strike," refusing to have sex with us until we accede to their demands. There's also, in a similar strand of feminism, the idea that most men are so horny that we'll willingly have sex with pumpkins, goats, and dead bodies. In terms of a coherent theory of gender these two ideas seem irreconcilable. (Which indeed they are.) But at the end of the day the genesis of the "sex strike" idea originated 2,400 years ago this year in the play Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes, a man, and performed by an all-male cast for an all-male audience in 411 B.C. And the idea that men will have sex with animals or dead bodies (but not, conspicuously absently, with themselves or each other) has been a common accusation in decidedly male military organizations from time out of mind.

And, of course, getting really down to brass tacks, if those feminists who believe it are suckers of the patriarchy what should we make of other men who blame those same feminists, who at least are trying to wrench themselves free, instead of the real fucking man-haters who cooked up nearly every so-called "feminist man-hater" tropes?

My vote would be we think of them the same way we think of the bull who sees the matador's cape as a bigger enemy than them matador himself.

Via a news roundup on Daily Kos, Gail Collins, a columnist at the New York Times attempts to rescue extremist Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell with a subtle but vicious slur against his opponents. Check this out (emphasis mine.)

The country may have moved to the right, but conservatives tend to underestimate the amount of blue that’s still out there. The new Republican governor of Virginia seemed stunned that his state reacted badly to his call for a Confederate History Month that did not mention slavery. But really, the very definition of a purple state is a place where, when you devote an entire month to recalling the glories of the confederacy, you have to give some time to the bondage angle.

She said it here.

Let’s read that last sentence again, this without that middle clause. “But really,the very definition of a purple state is a place where … you have to give some time to the bondage angle.”

If you’ve got access to Nexis or Lexis could you do me a favor and look for historical references to slavery as “the bondage angle?” Because when I Googled the phrase at 8:00 AM Pacific Time it was pretty much wall-to-wall references to BDSM. (Google suggested I instead try “bondage-angel,” for which there are 1,400,000 matches compared to “bondage-angle” for which there are only 84,000!)

There you go. Some four centuries of slavery reduced to an eyeball roll for the offended sensibilities of perverted New York and San Francisco liberals. Talk about the “very definition of a purple state!”

Instead I’m… pretty sure that in addition to insulting men who wear chaps and vote for Barney Frank, Gail Collins may also have insulted oh, say, any number of the 41 million U.S. citizens who’s ancestors were brought to labor as slaves in McDonnell’s beloved Confederacy.

Her column was titled “Running on Empty,” but Collins is so full of it she should wipe her nose with toilet paper.