Tuesday, September 10, 2013

On Pax Dickinson. And A Little on James Taranto.


Here's where I go wrong.  Dickinson was, until today, working for the Business Insider.  He is pretty well known as an eager anti-feminism tweeter.

After reading his tweet yesterday (having to do with the titstare presentation), I got all excited about discussing what, if any, the difference might be between misogyny and the things he finds not misogyny:







In other words, I have been doing this wading-in-the-nuclear-acid-waters for so long that my emotions are no longer triggered on, that I directly focus on the logical questions and dwell among them, instead of saying something uplifting out of clear-burning anger and such.

What saved me from that error (if error it is) were two things:  First I read, in one place, the long list of tweets Dickinson* has sent over the recent months, here (do read the list!), and if he doesn't have a serious problem with women I am a pink mouse goddess.

Second, Dickinson got fired, apparently because of his  sexist and racist tweets and the responses they created.  That, sadly, means that lots of the foam-and-fury now will be about a truth-speaking man getting fired by evil feminazis.  So let me plead my case and note that I was asleep during those events. 

Still, that list of Dickinson's tweets sounds like something from one of the worst MRA sites.  And that makes me wonder how many people like him have powerful posts in this world and how they use those posts.

Which brings me to James Taranto, of the Wall Street Journal,  who has done his fair bit from an Evo-Psycho angle on us wimminfolk.  His latest tweet:


Hard to interpret that cryptic tweet, of course.  The headline he refers to is this:


Shellie Zimmerman Won’t Press Charges Against Her Husband. Alleged Domestic Violence Victims Often Don't.

So a kind explanation of Taranto's outburst is that nothing can make Zimmerman innocent, not even the charges being withdrawn.  But that kindness would be superficial, because the fact remains that many alleged domestic violence victims don't press charges, even when they truly are victims and not just alleged victims.  Then there's the wider context to this, what with Zimmerman shooting a black teenager.

A different explanation would be to put that comment in the framework of Taranto's other opinions on gender.
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*I kept mistyping his last name as  "Packinson!"  Get it?