Dear Steve – Get a Life

Coming home from work is always so entertaining, being I get to listen to the ultimate amateur in talk radio, and a premier conservative misogynist, Steve Malzberg. I may not agree with Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh, but at the very least they’re “good” at what they do.

Today (August 25th) Steve was harping on Gwen Ifill and Michelle Obama. Basically, half his show consists of tearing apart any woman with an independent thought in her head. He didn’t like Gwen Ifill’s assessment of the American people’s reaction to Michelle Obama… his first response? “Get a life.” Oh so articulate!

I’d love a count of how many times he calls Andrea Mitchell, one of the premier news correspondents, MRS. GREENSPAN on his show – it really pisses him off that Andrea Mitchell is “too feminist” to take her husband’s name. Because goddess forbid she or any woman actually have an identity apart from their husband… Dear Steve: the adoption of a man’s name upon marriage is not a woman’s biological imperative. Fuck off.

Today he was trying to drive home the point to misogynists everywhere that Michelle Obama is NOT your “average mother” or your “average housewife.” Because apparently these “average” women would never dare to criticize America, nor would they dare, especially if they are BLACK women to have an opinion on race. Seriously… I want to know, WTF is he implying when he says this shit? What is your “average mother” or your “average housewife”?

I’m never quite sure what these people think we’re supposed to do in terms of change. She criticized America, therefore she’s NOT A PATRIOT!!! It matters little to me whether she is or not. What matters to me is someone who sees the issues and resolves to face them, to change them. The idea that we’re supposed to shut up and sit down isn’t patriotism. I suppose this is the problem. They are so out of touch that they don’t feel there’s ANY need for change. There’s no racism, there’s no sexism. There’s no need to alleviate poverty. Things are just fine. Now give me my SUV!

Anyway… Listening to good old Steve reminded me of a recent post of Twisty’s over at I Blame the Patriarchy about NPR’s coverage of the ever so pressing topic of the fashion of the First Ladies. I shall quote it here:

Is it sexist to analyze firstladyal fashion? Not at all, says Jackie Kennedy’s stylist. Their husbands are men of action in blue-suit-red-tie uniforms, but first ladies are symbols.

Of what? Of male dominance. Of the nuclear family, of the dutiful wife, of the absolute necessity of womanly beauty practices, of the unquestionable heterosexuality of the president. First ladies must exude, in perfect balance, femininity, self-sacrifice, motherhood, a gentle, quiet respectability, and the notion that they are fairly intelligent, but not more intelligent than the president. They do this, not just by looking the other way when their husbands can’t keep it in their pants, but by selecting their fashion designers and plucking their eyebrows with utmost care. For presidential spouses, dressing symbolically is both a science and an art. It’s “walking the fashion tightrope,” says NPR.

What the NPR non-story neglected to mention is that, while first ladies get more news coverage, the fashion tightrope is not their exclusive purview. All women are symbols who are expected to prop up patriarchal myths by exuding perfect balances of impossible, degrading, bogus constructs.

Meanwhile, men are free to roam the countryside, without shaving their legs or contemplating the social implications of the plunge of their necklines, doing stuff.

Hate to break it to you people, but Jackie did a lot more interesting things than look pretty.

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Tags: andrea mitchell, Feminism, first ladies, michelle obama, Misogyny, steve malzberg, twisty