Aja Romano at Vox published a piece last week that traced how sexism serves as a gateway drug to overt white nationalism among the pallid froggy set that resides in the underbelly of the internet. Could be true, though it’s a bit of a chicken-or-egg question, I guess. I don’t know anyone who’s identifiably female online who hasn’t been harassed by sexist assholes, but the same holds true for non-whites. Here’s an excerpt from the Vox piece:
But one foundational aspect of the alt-right’s various belief systems has been significantly downplayed following the election — even though it may be the key to understanding the movement’s racist, white nationalist agenda. While it’s true that the movement is most frequently described in terms of the self-stated, explicit white supremacy that defines many of its corners, for many of its members, the gateway drug that led them to join the alt-right in the first place wasn’t racist rhetoric but rather sexism: extreme misogyny evolving from male bonding gone haywire…
In many alt-right communities, men are encouraged to view women as sexual and/or political targets that men must dominate. The men in these communities don’t see themselves as sexist; they see themselves as fighting against their own emasculation and sexual repression at the hands of strident feminists… All of these individual communities advocate a distrust of feminism and an insistence that female empowerment necessarily disempowers men.
It’s easy to see why these nasty folks would gravitate toward Trump, a leering predator who brags about assaulting women and treated beauty pageants he controlled like his own personal meat markets. Since the election, Trump has rewarded white power pukes by ensconcing Steve Bannon and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III in positions of power. Now he may be preparing to reward the MRA crowd. From WaPo:
The Trump transition team instructed the State Department to turn over all information Wednesday about “gender-related staffing, programming, and funding,” setting off alarm bells among those who fear that the new administration is going to purge programs that promote women’s equality along with the people who work on them.
Only a week after being embroiled in a controversy over collecting information on Energy Department climate change officials, the Trump team seems to be at it again. On Wednesday morning, the State Department leadership sent out what’s called a “Flash Transition Tasker” to a long list of offices and bureaus. This official request mandated that all State Department offices provide to the Trump team by 5 p.m. Wednesday full reports on the positions and programs at the State Department dedicated to promoting a range of women’s and gender issues around the world.
That these are programs the woman who whupped Trump’s ass in the popular vote advocated is icing on the cake for him, I imagine.
A while back, someone in comments — probably Kay — mentioned how revealing (and infuriating) it is that Trump hands off “women’s issues” to his unelected, unqualified daughter. Yeah, it is. It’s as if he’s bestowing a ceremonial role, like the pardoning of the turkeys, when we’re half the fucking population!
Anyhoo, like the turkeys that didn’t get pardoned, it looks like women’s rights are on the menu.
Maybe They’re Just Collecting that State Department Info for Ivanka…Post + Comments (174)