Pressing


Naturally Christina Hoff Sommers is contemptuous of TIME’s cowardly failure to tell feminists that they are pompous idiots for doing something Christina Hoff Sommers doesn’t approve. Naturally the only True Feminism™ is that approved first by Richard Dawkins and then by Christina Hoff Sommers.

Christina H. Sommers @CHSommers · Nov 16
TIME caved to pressure. Has stopped poll on most cringe-inducing word because “feminist” was winning by a landslide. http://time.com/3576870/worst-words-poll-2014/

How dare TIME cave to pressure? How dare anyone cave to pressure? How dare Little Rock Central High School cave to pressure and allow African-American students to enter the building? How dare the mobs outside Little Rock Central High School cave to pressure and stop screaming at those students? How dare anyone ever pay attention to what an oppressed marginalized group says about how it’s treated?

Pressure is annoying or worse when you disagree with the reasons for it, of course. But that’s what the issue is: the reasons for the pressure, not the pressure itself. Sommers applies pressure herself, constantly, relentlessly, all the time. So do I (but without the clout of the American Enterprise Institute behind me). Pressure we agree with is just persuasion or argument or at most polemics.

Comments

  1. Anthony K says

    In the face of Time’s cowardice, I’m reminded of brave Bill Buckingham, school board trustee for Dover, Pennsylvania:

    Two thousand years ago, someone died on a cross. Can’t someone take a stand for him?

    Of course, he was silenced by political correctness, which means you can’t even mention Jesus in a classroom without being lynched and witch-hunted. Of course, us True™ Secularists have bigger fish to fry than to piss all over people who just want fair representation in the classroom.

  2. Janine the Jackbooted Emotion Queen says

    How dare a shitty mainstream magazine react to the criticisms of it’s deliberately provocative poll.

    It is not just about established words like feminism. It is also about words like bae.

    But, hey, the “Factual Feminist” get to throw her shit fit about how those out of control feminists are bullying everybody.

    What a dishonest person.

  3. screechymonkey says

    Why would Sommers find the word “feminism” cringe-inducing? I thought she claimed to be one, even if only of the “equity feminism” variety.

    (Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. I’m well aware that the “equity feminism” thing is just a pretense.)

  4. Blanche Quizno says

    What, though, is the position that is anti-feminism? “Oh, I’m anti-equality for all people. I *LIKE* seeing at least half of the population categorized as second-class citizens and inherently inferior on the basis of a physical characteristic! I want to see some people have fewer rights and opportunities than other people.”

    Who ARE these people??

  5. allosteric says

    What else should we add to TIME’s banned word/phrase list? Civil Rights? Emancipation? Women’s Suffrage? Human Rights? Atheism? Democracy? Gay? Judaism? I’m guessing at least a few of those would garner a fair number of votes. What would CHS say then? There’s a reason we should avoid putting the rights of minorities or historically oppressed or marginalized groups up for a vote. If CHS can’t understand that, then she is more stupid than I thought. Nah, not stupid, just a well-paid hack who has long since given up any pretensions to integrity or thinking or consistency. (spits)

  6. Crimson Clupeidae says

    What are the words at the right end of the lines indicative of? (AAVE – what does that even mean? and the others…)

  7. Sili says

    African-American Vernacular English, formerly known as Black Vernacular English and before that as “Ebonics”.

  8. John Horstman says

    but without the clout of the American Enterprise Institute behind me

    And thank all the imaginary gods for that; if that’s your clout, you might just be the baddies.

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