Feminists At "Shakesville" Hedge Avoid Answering The Charge That They Are Not Supporting Palin Against Misogyny As They Indicated they Would

I posted on Shakesville recently, in response to their indication that even they, as "social justice feminists" had had enough of the blatant attacks on Palin with the Vanity Fair hit piece being the straw that broke the camels back.


I sent to them a further example of gross misogyny in reporting,this time from a female journalist of note. Sadly,the comment was that they did not consider the article, whilst admittedly not the best, was anti-feminist enough.

Fair enough, and matters of opinion are just that. However, I would challenge anyone to disagree with my premise that the article by  Julie Farby which I have just sent to Shakesville asking for them to live up to their stated commitment is anything but grossly misogynist as well as, frankly, disgusting-no equivocation is possible.


instead of arguing on the merits of the article (if there are any) or my point that the very worst of these screeds come from women in my opinion ,which fact I would consider needs examining from a feminist point of view their correspondent Maud avoided all the matters  to hand and instead lectured me on form, rules, categorization, gender politics (mine) and decided to insult me too boot.


Her comments (in the comments section) are on the Shakesville site front page but  since she chose not to address any of the Palin/misogynist issues lets deal with her attack on me.


1.".Drive by commenter's are not welcome" Maud may categorize me as such but I believe I was/am trying to make a genuine conversation on feminist issues as relating to someone who may well be the first female president-if that is drive-by then I can't imagine what depths of discussion would be required at their site to engender a forum.


2."Melissa (the blog person in chief as I understand it) blogs full time...She does not produce content on demand".  Nowhere have I asked for content on demand, an immediate response or any time frame response-I simply posed a number of questions and observations.


3."The content of your post does violate commenting policy." I used the word "bitchy" which Maud considers a gendered insult. I find the word commonplace and used by women publicly and privately, it is a valid description and is not a gendered word in the context .I note that "fucking" is perfectly acceptable on her site, which I find objectionable, but I have different standards apparently.


4.""The fact that you believe most of the attacks on Palin have come from women only demonstrates that you have overlooked the enormous number of gender-based attacks on Palin which men have written." Excuse me???  I most certainly have not overlooked the attacks from men, what I said was that the most virulent attacks have come from women (using the latest from Ms. Farby as an example. It does feminists no good to bolster their arguments by distortion. I made it clear that I was not attacking the anti-Palin  writers who are female because they are female just as I do not attack the men who write rubbish about her because they are men.


I raised serious questions about feminists attitude to Palin, why women write the most venomous attacks on her using examples (I am not of course referring to idiots who curse and scream in the most disgusting sexists comments to posts on e.g. Wonkette to which feminists seem to have no objection btw that I have seen) from female journalists of repute. that Shakesville chooses to attack me and ignore the points raised shows, once again, that feminists are still not able to cast aside the shackles of liberal elitism.