If “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” (see below), is NOW now open to a male president?
January 10, 2009
by The New Agenda
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John Edwards for NOW president
This Spring, the National Organization for Women will choose a replacement for Kim Gandy. Here are The New Agenda’s suggestions for potential candidates. Please weigh in with your own.
John Edwards – a true family man
Chris “Tinglepants” Matthews – he knows how to talk to the girls
Elliot Spitzer – he’s feminist enough to pay for extramarital sex instead of just coercing it from an aide (a girl’s gotta make a living, after all)
Rick Warren – because women need a man’s firm hand to guide them
Bernard Madoff – needs a new job, good with money
Lawrence Summers – girls don’t know anything about math, he can help
Maureen Dowd – a rare example of sisterhood
Only those cutting edge journalists at the Onion saw it coming:
53-year-old management consultant Peter “Buck” McGowan took over as new chief of the worldwide initiative for women’s rights… McGowan claimed that one of the main reasons the movement enjoyed so little success in the past was that the previous management was often too timid and passive and should have been much more results-focused.
“You can’t waste time pussyfooting around with protests and getting all emotional about a bunch of irrelevant details,” McGowan said. “If you want to enjoy equal rights, you have to have a real man-to-man chat with the people in charge until you can hammer out some more equitable custody laws.”
“And don’t get me started on how disorganized and scatterbrained their old fundraising methods were,” McGowan added. “Let’s just say the movement never really had a head for numbers.”
Oooooooooh. Good one. Where’s Chris Tweety Matthews and Olbermann. And so many others, but this is a good start.
But I’m still confused. Is this about women, or is it about media bias and touting Obama under the influence of koolaid. Puzzling, isn’t it?
When does OJ get out?
OJ. Cutting edge.
HIram Montserrate. Another cutting edge guy.
Oooooh! One of my VERY favorite a**holes, Bill Mahr!
how about Peter Griffin from Family Guy? he’s had sensitivity training.
Alec Baldwin – he’s good on the phone.
Tucker Carlson! May he keep his legs crossed so he doesn’t pollute the gene pool!
Favreau, baby! He knows how to make the right overtures to important women.
Howard Dean–he needs a job
NOW has lost all credibility. If you ask me, they are an embarrassment now a days. They should be shut down.
I appreciate the satire in this, but I think we really need to focus on changing NOW and some of these other Feminist organizations. I think bashing them is just dividing women who need each other. The work that needs to be done will require a united front. It doesn’t make sense to through the baby out with the bath water. I hope that we can set up a summit for feminist groups to come together and find common ground. This has been discussed on chewing the phat with Ophelia. I think it’s a good idea.
This Ms. Magazine thing is just a PR disaster. It is a real slap in the face to women who are angry about how Hillary Clinton and even Sarah Palin were treated this campaign season. Obama gained big time as a result of sexism and misogyny toward both of these women. Furthermore, he has not acted like a feminist, so to brand him this way is insulting.. That being said, I am shocked and miffed as to why Ms. Magazine has done this.
Kendall,
Totally agree. We need these organizations. Perhaps under new leadership, NOW will thrive and return to its roots. Hope springs eternal.
TNA continues to attend meetings and work with many organizations…including NOW at a DC coalition meeting this past week.
We just thought tonight that every one could use a little fun to blow off some steam. It has been quite a week.
KendallJ,
One more thought, how will NOW et al. ever change if nobody tells them they need to? Under the current leadership they obviously think they are right on track. Hopefully they will make some changes but we all have to point out what we think they are doing wrong. (if you think they are wrong that is) I like doing it with satire and humor better than being snotty.
I thought we were making fun of Ms. Magazine.
NOW is a diverse organization, with state and city chapters all over the country. I know that National NOW endorsed Obama, but I wouldn’t write an obit for the entire organization just yet.
Sheryl,
Good point about chapters. I keep forgetting they had dissenting opinions in state and local chapters.
how about that rapper—-”I got 99 problems and a bitch ain’t one”—he’s so poetic….
James Carville – knows what the important issues are.
I think that we need to give it to Maureen Dowd.
Imagine the opening line of her acceptance speech:
“Thanks for selecting me. All you women s*ck.”
Thia,
I totally agree with you about letting NOW, etc, know what they are doing something wrong. I can also understand taking a mental break with the satire. I guess I just don’t want to completely ailianate them.
Amy,
I am glad that TNA is communicating and working with NOW. I agree that NOW needs an injection of new blood, but the institution still has a lot of potential and organization. They are diverse and there is talant to be realized in some of the local chapters. I hope that we can help some of this talant make its way into the leadership of the national organization.
I’ve changed my mind. I want the guy who had the sign about Hillary that said something like “If she couldn’t satisfy her husband, she won’t satisfy the country.”
What a waste of meat!
let’s all chip in and get Maureen Dowd a reading from John Edward, so she can contact Dorothy Parker and get some real wit.
KayJL-very clever!
Did anyone notice that Donna Brazile in a columnist for Ms. Magazine. Yes, the women who sat there on CNN and didn’t say a word while several others on the panel she was sitting on discussed why it was OK for “some” women to be called bitches.
Talk about having the fox gaurd the chicken coop!!! MS. MAGAZINE HAS REALLY GONE OFF THE DEEP END..
My feeling is one of betrayal.
Ms. Mag was like a mother to me in the 80’s… and now that she has a shiny new boyfriend…. she is turning her eyes away from the abuse her daughters have endured at his very own hands.
I am just sick. I suppose I’ll spend a few days blogging about it… trying to “get over it.”
http://syd4.blogspot.com/2009/.....aried.html
The Donald…because Mr. Tinglepants needs to be FIRED.
[...] The New Agenda: If “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” (see below), is NOW now open to a male president? [...]
NOW lives in it’s own little world. You can’t alienate them because they never come up for air and they won’t know what anyone else is thinking or saying about them. Their web site is not interactive, you can’t even reach them. If they didn’t have such contempt for housewives they could hire a few to reorganize their fund raising and their priorities so they could get off the race issues, gay issues, transgender issues, hate crime for everything but crimes against women issue, etc, etc, etc and actually focus on WOMEN’S ISSUES. Catholic school mothers are amazing fund raisers. I very much appreciate the jokes and humor. That is one thing that has been sadly missing from the Feminist movement.
Humor is one reason I love PUMA! It was born in humor, at the moment when we most needed it:c.May 31. Anger/frustration/stifled-voices bursting out in the humor of “Party Unity My Ass!” at Riverdaughter’s. A term that quickly spread, a name for feelings that many had but no way to name them.
Puma has been a first-response with humor ever since. When the Favreau groping photo first came out, a few serious people condemned it — but some Puma sites instantly photoshopped the photo and spread the satirical versions.
Here’s a quote that may pre-date the naming of Puma, but it’s the same feeling:
That the women are beginning to have a good time
is an especially bad sign for Barack Obama’s campaign.
— Froma Harrop
fsteele
I remember Ms. Harrop’s comment:
“That the women are beginning to have a good time
is an especially bad sign for Barack Obama’s campaign.”
— Froma Harrop
I loved it and I loved her writing last year.
If only her prediction had proved true……
Why have a NOW organization anyway, barry is solving everything, right?
What purpose does it serve in the advancement of women’s rights to throw an entire group of women under the bus?
The rights currently enjoyed by the women participating in this discussion were secured by the very women you are now bashing. How “feminist” is that?
And if you don’t like how NOW is being run, then organize your supporters and take it over! It is, after all, a grassroots movement.
Anytime we spend time pointing a finger of blame sideways is a distraction from pointing our finger at the true cause of our problems — the patriarchy. (Which at the moment is above us.)
BAC
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