Double Agent??

I recommend the following article on Men's News Daily:

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/01/04/male-bashing-is-unacceptable/

Teri Stoddard is no mere propaganda/ideology wonk like yours truly. Au contraire, she is active on the true "Russian Front" of the gender equity movement, which is: All things pertaining to the state of the family. That's a fairly broad umbrella, but it covers what is by far the epicenter in this vast struggle. Marriage and family is where it's at, they're the brick and mortar and structural steel of civilization, and if those things gurgle down the toilet spiral, it is safe to predict that much else will follow, and the outcome will not be pretty. Oh hell, it's already not pretty!

The fact that Teri Stoddard is a woman makes quite a few feminists rip-snorting mad, as you would logically expect! That helps, since it might cause some of them to explode and splatter their brains all over the wall in the Jackson Pollock manner! You see, I'm a great supporter of the arts...

Now, the title of the article is perfection itself: Male-bashing is Unacceptable. Yes, a superlative propaganda sound-bite. The choice of words couldn't be better, and indeed it sounds exactly like something I myself might have said. What's nice about it is, that it speaks to the bedrock sense of moral absolutes that so many people yearn for.

Who, in open debate, could possibly defend the proposition that male-bashing is acceptable? They can try, and I wish them luck because they'll need it!

Oddly enough, certain people think that Teri Stoddard is a spy; a feminist double-agent! Look into the reader comments on MND, for example.

What a notion!

Personally, I remain agnostic upon that subject. What I mean is that I cannot say for certain, because I am skeptical by nature and there are precious few things in heaven or earth which have the power to command my unwavering faith. Damn near everything, in my considered opinion, is a case of gambler's odds. Accordingly....

Let us weigh the odds that Teri Stoddard is working for the other side. I would say those odds are mighty slim. Teri has spoken loudly and clearly upon the issues, and often! If she's a double agent she's a deuced clever one, to have done so much injury to her own side in order to gain the trust of ours! Of course I realize that's what double agents do, yet by any plausible cost-benefit analysis has the benefit to the other side outweighed the injury? Honestly, if I were Teri's "employer", I'd have given her a passport by now - she's a money loser!

Still uncertain? Very well, fine! Keep your Rolodex locked up when Teri Stoddard is in the vicinity. Don't let her near your computer. Above all, keep her away from your inner circle, and never discuss classified secrets in her presence. But give her every possible incentive to carry on with her writings and activisms - by stringing her along in the vain belief that one day she'll be initiated into the higher degrees if only she proves herself worthy! Use her, cynically and cold-bloodedly! I'm sure she'll take the bait all right, yup! And I make no doubt she'd take her place in the ranks of the abjurers, too. Anything to gain our trust and gain "access"...

So yes - bring on the double-agents! The more the merrier! Make them work brutally hard for our side, but then cruelly dash their hopes of sending any good stuff back to headquarters, heh heh heh! That's what counter-feminism is about; making the other side work for US!

Moving right along, I'd like to say a bit about the three-paneled comic strip that Teri included with her article, and which I have posted directly above.

This was cited as an example of male-bashing, but is it really? Oh sure, I know that a male gets bashed, but what was the actual gender-political POV of the comic artist here? That point is far from clear. The presentation is balanced so finely upon the razor's edge of ambiguity that you might even say the artist is taking a stab at those snotty, trashy grrrls in order to make a statement about snotty, trashy contemporary social mores. It's really, really hard to tell.

For me, context is lacking since I know nothing at all about this particular artist or what its politics are. (I say "its" because I don't if it is a he or a she.) If I had such information I might, perhaps, speak from a place of knowledge. As it is, I can only speculate.

So it appears to me that this comic art indeed belongs in the category of male-bashing if for no other reason than its failure to make itself clear. Maybe the artist just wants to be fashionably blasé and "cute" about it, without taking any stand at all. I mean, a tiny adjustment to the line work could have made the girls look unmistakably villainous - yet the cartoonist has steered clear of this.

So I am not impressed. No vote of confidence from the present writer! I find the cartoonist guilty of male-bashing: Gavel down!

However, I am vastly pleased by the existence of such cultural artifacts - and I believe that their further propagation ought to be vigorously encouraged. So widely and pervasively in fact, that it will eventually trigger a massive psychic nausea in millions of people, which will provoke a general discussion and a general backlash!

So, bring on the male-bashing! The more the merrier! Never enough!