(The above image of of the Duggar family was posted to a blog of a woman who seems to be, in general, a decent person.)
Found on various blogs via a quick Google search on “Duggar Family”:
The mother has a mullet. Please, someone from TLC, give the poor Duggar woman a makeover. That would be a huge money making show. I am sure millions would tune in. Get her looking less matronly. She looked normal and attractive when they started out, now it’s Little House on the Prairie with a hint of Nascar. Yet a makeover may cause more Diggley Duggars, Jim Bob might just go crazy with his willy. Bang, bang, bang. I digress.
She looks brainwashed. It takes about two years for your internal organs to get back into their cozy natural state after pregnancy. The article below sites that she has been pregnant ten years of her life. Right now her spleen is probably floating near her armpit and her liver on her knee
***
The Duggar family of Hicksville Arkansas welcomed their 17Th child! And this beastly woman will likely get knocked up again! It gets easier as it goes, as now the 3rd eldest child has a newborn to take care of, as he gets home schooled in the art of child rearing.
…Birth control - just do it, or don’t do IT, get it? I feel bad for the husband, but it can’t be that great after child 17 just popped out, no problems.
***
I think it might be a worthwhile exercise to do some thinking on why it is that Michelle Duggar seems to be fair game for pretty much everyone, including for feminists. It’s open season on the woman– mock her, make fun of her hair, her appearance, her clothes, her body, her reproductive organs, other of her internal organs, her vagina, attack her, depict her as a pig, call her brainwashed. (If you haven’t seen this, then look here for the latest, also here, here, here, and sadly, here and be sure to read the comments.)
Consider these photos:
This is a Hindu family which recently converted to Roman Catholicism.
This is a Muslim family.
This is a Rastafarian family.
An Amish family
A Conservative Mennonite family. I corresponded with the mother in this picture when I published my magazine, and she occasionally wrote articles which I published. She’s an amazing, wonderful woman, brilliant, warm, funny and a great writer. I miss her.
Somebody — anybody — tell me with a straight face that feminists would do to any of the women in the above photos what they have done and continue to do to Michelle Duggar — even if instead of having six or eight or 12 children, as the women above do, they had 16 or 17 children, as Duggar does.
This would not happen and it will not happen, but if it did, it would be sharply, quickly, immediately — and correctly in my opinion — called out, challenged, and denounced.
Why is this not so for Michelle Duggar? Is the reasoning that Duggar’s religious beliefs or faith are not as central to her life, or as valid, or as worthy of respect as the religious beliefs of Muslim women, Hindu women, Amish women or other devout women? (And men.) How so? Why are the beliefs which undergird the choices of other women of faith which result in their bearing many children understood to be valid or respect-worthy in ways Michelle Duggar’s are not? But if none of the belief systems which support the bearing of many children is valid or respect-worthy, then why is it that Duggar is singled out in such a hateful manner whereas the other women above would not be and have not been?
And why does it seem to be the consensus amongst feminists that Duggar must be brainwashed, stupid, a mindless shill forced to breed, whereas the women in the other photos are likely to be viewed as devout, their beliefs and intelligence respected, their decisions understood to occur in the context of a particular culture or religion? If the view is that it’s somehow acceptable to target Duggar because her husband is a conservative Republican and hence is anti-choice, lesbo- and homophobic, and so on, well, does it occur to anyone that the women in the other photos likely hold similar anti-choice, lesbophobic/homophobic views?
Most importantly, does anybody stop to consider how the ongoing public trashing of a woman like Michelle Duggar by feminists might read to women in groups like those represented above? Does anybody think trashing Duggar makes feminism appealing or an attractive option or a possible refuge to women like those in the above pictures, or their daughters, who in fact someday might want out?
Michelle Duggar, as is, in my experience, true of many, many women in conservative and fundamentalist groups, probably enjoys pregnancy and bearing and raising children. Some women do, hard as that is for other women to understand. I know that I did. I had 11 children, one at a time, the first when I was 19, the last when I was 46. I was in abusive marriages and abusive fundamentalist churches throughout most of my childbearing years. That didn’t mean that I didn’t love having children, love being pregnant, love giving birth, love breastfeeding, love raising, homeschooling, and spending time with my children. I loved it, even when I was scared, overwhelmed, exhausted, weary. Even when I felt trapped. Even when the burdens and work were so great I was not sure how I could continue. That never kept me from loving or enjoying my children or being a mother. I think one hallmark of intelligence and maturity is the recognition that truths which at first appear to be in conflict with one another can nevertheless exist alongside each other. As parents most of us know this. As human beings we know this. We can love our children, love our partners, love our friends, and yet at times feel overwhelmed in various ways by our relationships with them. Is it so hard to fathom that there are women in the world who love bearing and raising children despite the hardness of their lives in fundamentalist or other sexist communities? Or that women inside of these communities enjoy their lives as mothers for other reasons, for example, because they find ways to make community with other women like them, and that these relationships make their lives rich and nourishing in ways it is hard to replicate apart from community in a world which is hostile to women?
I was not brainwashed, and neither is Michelle Duggar, and neither are the women in the photos above. Speaking for myself only, in entering into fundamentalist religion I cut the best deal I believed I could cut at the time, given all of the circumstances of my life*. I believe this holds true for many to most women in conservative and fundamentalist religion throughout the world, particularly mothers or women who want to be mothers. They are cutting the best deal they can. There is one place, and one place alone, where women who want to be mothers can go when they don’t have support, don’t have supportive community, and especially, when they don’t have money, and that is into fundamentalist religious cultures. There they will be accepted, honored, protected, defended and supported in every conceivable way, and in ways they will never find support outside of fundamentalist community. Do they exchange their freedom and their personal autonomy and their right to pursue both for what they will receive in fundamentalist community? Yes, they do. Does that make them dull, stupid, or brainwashed? Hell no. It makes them shrewd, resourceful realists who at the very most might be unable, for many reasons, to see beyond a certain set of life choices**. Do they pay for what they choose? Yes, they do. Sometimes with their lives, always with their bodies, their hearts and their souls. Does every woman exchange something in this male supremacist world in order to survive in it? Yes, we all do. Do we pay for what we choose? Hell yes. Sometimes also with our lives, bodies, hearts and souls. Of all people, as feminists, we know this.
So why do some of us treat Michelle Duggar as though she isn’t a woman, just like us?
Instead of scapegoating this one woman and targeting her as though she is the enemy, why not make it our business to critique the real enemy– systems and institutions of male heterosupremacy which make the choices Duggar and women like her have made the best deal they feel they can cut?
Heart
__________
Notes:
I have blogged about the quiverfull/patriarchy movements here, here and here.
* For a detailed, eloquent, brilliant discussion of the choices of right-wing women, read Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women.
**Janja Lalich, an expert on women in fundamentalist religion, has done good work on what she calls the “bounded choices” of fundamentalist women. She has published articles and books which you can find if you do a search on her name.
Hear, hear.
And this Heart, is why I love your blog.
Thank you for bringing this subject up, it had completely escaped my awareness. It is this kind of woman against woman ridicule that sabotages the dignity of us all.
I’d like to also mention Mothering is a wonderful blessing. Those of us who can do it, do it well and prolifically are heaven sent.
Thanks for that too Heart.
Hazel.
You have made such a good point! It is important to remember why feminism began. It was to provide choices for women. In order for it to be meaningful, all choices have to be valid ~ even ones that may be distasteful to the majority.
As it harm none, do as ye will.
Peace,
~Chani
http://thailandgal.blogspot.com
Thank you! By espousing hatred for some women’s choices we become the misogynists we are trying to overcome.
I know I used to be one, and I still fight those tendencies. The Patriarchy runs deep.
Love and peace,
~nakedthoughts
Fair game. . . hmmm, well, personally if you have a website detailing your family, a television show, you are in the public eye and put yourself out there to have opinions made of you. I am sure there are many large families out there that are functional and well adjusted, but don’t make a huge presentation over the fact that they have so many children.
My comments which you quoted from my blog, without permission, I may add, (there is a disclaimer), are my opinion.
My issue with the Duggars is not so much about the choice to have numerous children (although we are significantly overpopulated all over the world … and the photos posted here are ample demonstration of that) … but with the fact that it’s quite obvious that the women in the family *are* being held back. Jim Bob Duggar has said in public fora that his sons will attend college and his daughters will not. Reviewing the Duggar website (which, as Lisa S. points out, is available to anyone) reveals that the women of the Duggar family bear the lion’s share of the housework and responsibilities.
It is inconceivable to me (no pun intended) that a woman in this situation is free of abuse.
I agree w/Lisa B about the adult Duggars publicising themselves and their children. If you make yourself a public figure,you set yourself up for public criticism.
The Learning Channel had a show about the Duggars last night-they were taking a trip to Disneyworld-traveling in a large camper. I watched for 20 minutes or so and literally could not watch any more. I was repulsed/offended/disgusted??? (I don’t know the exact word). If an animal-dog/cat/cow/horse,was made to breed so rapidly and continuously-it would be considered abuse.
That’s how Mrs Duggar seemed to me-as if her only value was in her child-bearing ability. She seemed to me abased,
her dignity violated. I’m not saying that this is the case-just how it seemed to me.
She is an adult and can have as many children as she wants,but setting yourself up publically as an icon does leave you open to criticism.
Hi, Lisa B. I think the Duggars expect that people will have an opinion. It’s the unrestrained trashing of Michelle Duggar that bothers me. It’s as though she had 17 babies all by herself. I also don’t see anybody criticizing her husband’s hair, clothes, internal organs, or much else.
As to quoting without permission, since when do we not quote one another’s blogs without permission? I think we do that day in, day out. I think as a courtesy we ought to link to what we’ve quoted (I did link to you), of course.
Heart
Because she’s seen as trash. They’re not (now, I don’t know about before) poor, but they are treated as though they are poor and uneducated people from the American South who want (as Lisa mentioned) to be in the public eye. So Michelle Duggar is neither a person nor an insight into a subculture, but a 2-d potential Springer guest and a conservative, meaning it’s okay for the liberals to mock her as a stupid cow, and crass to boot.
Liberals who wouldn’t make fun of those other families you mentioned believe that some poverty is exotic and some “reduced means” are simple living or (bizarrely) an ethnic right. These are white Americans who are choosing to behave in an embarrassing manner, however, and their class will not be forgiven them.
That’s why. Oh, and because she’s a woman, but you said that part. :p
It’s really a shame and wrong that a woman has to go into fundiedom in order to have enough support for her motherhood. Feminists should definitely support women in that choice also. But once she gets into fundiedom she loses a lot of control over her life. Women are believed to exist for the sole purpose of bringing others into the world and serving children and men, they are supposed to “submit” any time their husbands want sex, birth control and abortion are sins, never mind lesbianism. So even if a woman wants to STOP after a certain number of children, she probably can’t and ends up having many more children than she would have had had all of the choices been hers. If a woman is a realist, she needs to look at the *entire* reality of fundiedom. I thought of becoming a mother once but mad horses couldn’t have driven me into fundiedom, so the choice remains a mystery to me.
In general, I avoid stories about this family, though, because that picture turns my stomach…not at Ms. Dugger, but because I looked exactly like one of Michelle Duggar’s daughters. Haircut, dress, you name it, that was my (enforced) style and I thought it was humiliating.
You know, I might have said “Little House on the Prairie meets NASCAR” about my own look, but it really hurts my feelings to read Lisa’s comments about this family. I don’t think it’s funny and I don’t think it’s called for, and I sure as hell don’t think this mullets-and-makeover shit in the face of a real gender apartheid issues is feminist.
I’ve written a lot in the links I’ve posted about the abuses in quiverfull families and in that whole world, just in general. No question, there are plenty of abuses. Then again, as women, no matter what deal we cut, there’s a good chance we’ll be abused, whether it’s on the job, as unpartnered women, as lesbians, or just in the course of living our lives. I think it’s hard for most of us to relate to the deals other women cut if we couldn’t imagine making those choices ourselves. I briefly entertained the notion, as a very young woman, of prostituting myself (when I was very, very poor and a single mom), but I could not have actually brought myself to do it. Just couldn’t. So it’s hard for me to relate to women who actually *do* cut this particular deal. Women who have grown up around fundamentalists/Christians — perversely, or maybe not — especially if their families weren’t Christian, i.e., they are “first generation Christians,” are often drawn to full immersion in fundiedom. From their relative outsider position as young girls and young women looking in, they saw the best face of fundamentalism often times. People were nice to them and smiling and they were all about the love and the healing and so forth. If their whole families didn’t go to church, their parents didn’t go (as was true with me), they might have thought if their parents or families had gone to church, they’d have been spared some kinds of things as children or teenagers. Iow, they have a romanticized idea of what fundamentalism is because they haven’t been immersed in it deeply enough to see its dark side. Sometimes young girls have a mentor or an older friend or just a friend who is a fundamentalist and they admire her and eventually follow her into the church. Some girls are deeply spiritual and long for a connection with God and go searching for it in what appears to be these very committed, total-immersion expressions of spirituality.
If a woman is a realist, she needs to look at the *entire* reality of fundiedom
Well, but this isn’t possible. You don’t see the entire reality until it’s too late. With these groups, it’s always carrot-on-a-stick, put-the-best-face forward, bait-and-switch.
When I say women are being “realists” when they make this choice, I mean they are weighing things as realistically as they can, based on the information they have. When it comes to religion, you never know the truth of things until you’re already deeply immersed in the community. You might suspect, but it’s hard to imagine how hard it can be, what can really happen to women, and if you’re in a fix and struggling, desperate, vulnerable, especially, you try to look on the bright side (if you’re strung together that way in the first place, which many women who enter fundie religion are.)
Not all fundamentalist men are harsh and unyielding tyrants who rape their wives and insist on no birth control (although plenty are). It’s like any other group, there are decent people, there are well meaning people, there are really awful people. What’s bad about quiverfull types is, abusers are drawn to this movement, and once their families are in, the men can get worse and worse, because of the value this movement places on men ruling, controlling their families. Men who might not have abused had they been in other settings can end up abusing when the respect of their brethren rests on how well they are “ruling” their households.
Heart
Lisa B, Sharon, B. Harper, in particular: would you have said the same things you’ve said about Michelle Duggar/the Duggars in general about the other women and families in the photos I’ve published up there? If not, why not?
Heart
Because she is a woman.
funnie: Liberals who wouldn’t make fun of those other families you mentioned believe that some poverty is exotic and some “reduced means” are simple living or (bizarrely) an ethnic right. These are white Americans who are choosing to behave in an embarrassing manner, however, and their class will not be forgiven them.
This is great.
I don’t believe in the trashing of Michelle Duggar and I have protested it on at least two sites. The vagina-as-clown-car statement is the ultimate in woman-hating.
That said, I believe that a lot of the anger with her is due to her fundamentalist beliefs. The number of kids she and her husband has would be less of an issue if they didn’t espouse beliefs that would keep other people from adopting or fostering or having rights to children of their own.
Also, if the Duggars were a Black or Hispanic family, I doubt there would be any television shows about them or that they would receive support from mainstream society. The attitude embodies White privilege. Since the Duggars are White, all those children are encouraged, and she is encouraged to stay at home.
No, because I wasn’t privy to watching their personal lives laid out on television.
Personally, I don’t really care one has a large family, but why televise it like it is a sideshow?
There are so many needy children in the world, why not adopt if you desire a large family?
I agree that the fundamentalist beliefs cause a lot of anger, but why don’t the fundamentalist beliefs of the Amish or Conservative Mennonites, or conservative Muslims cause similar anger? The differences between the beliefs of these groups so far as reproductive rights, lesbian and gay rights, etc., are slim to none.
It’s interesting– on the one hand I think you’re right that white privilege figures in with certain groups: the fundies who sing the Duggars’ praises; people who romanticize the large (white) families of the past and the past just in general, and people like Stormfront (neonazis), who LOVE the Duggars. At the same time, I think funnie’s right that there’s a certain white trashness which this family embodies which makes them eligible for trashing and attacks by a certain kind of Leftist. This latter group would not tolerate this kind of attack on any of the women in the photos I’ve posted.
Heart
Would I have said the same thing about any of those other families?
Are those families essentially pimping themselves out for attention about their choice to have so many children? If not, then they are highly unlikely to come to my attention in the manner that the Duggars have done.
However, I *absolutely* think it is absurd to have more than two children, and I have never waivered from this opinion. Our planet cannot take the stress on its resources.
Heart, I know you come from a Quiverfull background and I try to be sensitive to that in your space. However, I think the entire movement is abusive. I think *any* religion that says the woman’s whole purpose is to be a life support system for a womb is abusive.
I do believe that if more women were *educated* about their choices that they would be far less likely to fall into this trap. Primarily, I have immense *pity* for women in Quiverfull and similar situations because they do not appear to understand that they have greater value than just having a ridiculously large family. Unfortunately, the girls growing up in such religious environments do not *get* the education, because they *are* brainwashed … by their parents … to believe that they have no other worth.
Miranda wrote:
The number of kids she and her husband has would be less of an issue if they didn’t espouse beliefs that would keep other people from adopting or fostering or having rights to children of their own.
Also, if the Duggars were a Black or Hispanic family, I doubt there would be any television shows about them or that they would receive support from mainstream society. The attitude embodies White privilege. Since the Duggars are White, all those children are encouraged, and she is encouraged to stay at home.
—-
You know, I hadn’t even thought behind my personal Malthusian beliefs until you wrote this … but I think you are dead-on here.
Yeah, but neither you, Sharon, nor you, Lisa B, has really answered my question.
Please, let’s leave aside all of this, the quiverfull movement abuses women. Hello. My name is Heart, Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff. Why do you think I sued the asses off of prominent members of that movement? Preaching to the choir — especially in such (ironically!) holier than thou, condescending terms — is annoying. And unneccessary. And everybody here who reads or checks the links I posted there knows what I think about this movement.
What I want to know is (1) why the unrestrained attacks on Michelle Duggar? Why so little about her husband since we all know it is women who are subordinated in this group? (2) If the women above WERE to publicly advocate for their views (and some of them do; you just have to be in the right circles to know that), would your criticisms be the same?
Neither of you addressed, either, the hatefulness in the attacks on Michelle Duggar. Criticism is one thing. That imagery posted up there, those blog posts? No. That isn’t criticism. That is misogyny– woman hating.
Heart
I don’t think it’s necessarily that the “fair game” principal applies. (If there ever is such a thing?) The criticism that offends me is the cruel attack on Michelle’s integrity, female body parts and even her hair style. Why should it be “fair game” for a woman to be ridiculed for having 17 babies? Where is her husband in all of this? Where is the criticism of his *untrendy* hairstyle and maybe the picture should have been named “Penis“? Fucks sake, I cannot believe that women have wrote this shit about another woman!
I wonder if one sense or the impulse is, since the Duggar’s in a certain way embody white privilege, it would be wrong to attack families in other ethnicities who espouse the same views because they are just engaging in something which white people engage in with impunity (and get rewarded for it).
That doesn’t explain the immunity Amish or Conservative Mennonite people enjoy though. They are almost always white and European.
Heart
Right on, Heart. That clown car poster screamed misogyny at me the first time I saw it.
People who are attacking Michelle Duggan are tapping into a deep disgust they feel about women and women’s bodies.
Yeah, sparklematrix. And not a few people express (sarcastic) concern for the husband’s sexual pleasure, based on their disgusting assessments of his wife’s body.
Yeah, re that poster. How about the subtitle: “PENIS: Tie a knot in it!”
I won’t hold my breath.
And you’re right, there’s no “fair game” about it, sparkle. But to read what’s written, you’d think there was, which is my whole point.
Heart
You know what, you are absolutely correct. Although my intent was sarcasm, I realize in retrospect, that it does come off as anti-female (although, I was not writing as a feminist, because that was not my intent). But you are quite right.
Why so little about Jim Bob, the emphasis on what I watched was on, in my view, Michelle and her laundry, and day to day chores etc.
So, my apologies to all that I have offended. I will take down those posts, because, they were hurtful, and it was one of my many knee jerk reactions against something that rubs me the wrong way.
I have my views that are seeded in the experience of the death of someone close to me, who was in one of those fundamentalist religions. At her funeral, all she was dubbed was “a good wife”, nothing personal, just “a good wife”. Because she under duress converted to her husband’s new found religion, he felt guilty about a life choice. He told her it was either convert, or leave. She chose, unfortunately to stay.
I still don’t agree with it, as I have said there is adoption.
Heart asked:
What I want to know is (1) why the unrestrained attacks on Michelle Duggar? Why so little about her husband since we all know it is women who are subordinated in this group? (2) If the women above WERE to publicly advocate for their views (and some of them do; you just have to be in the right circles to know that), would your criticisms be the same?
Well, this brings me right back to what I already said: I think it is absurd to have more than two children, period … and that lack of education is at the bottom of it. I do not care what the religious persuasion is.
I have never attacked Michelle Duggar … I hold both of the Duggars responsible for the decision to have this many children. It is a decision that I personally find irresponsible. The fact that the two of them want to tell other people that *their* choices are invalid is just icing on the cake.
I feel tremendous *pity* for Michelle Duggar and her ilk … and I don’t quite see how that makes me misogynistic.
That’s something I loved about my grandmother, Elizabeth. She was one member of my family who was never a fundie, she was a life long Democrat, all about the unions and union organizing, she’d been a hairdresser and came of age in the 20s and sang in bars, chain smoked, drank too much, always the bad girl (and forever beloved by me). Whenever I’d have another baby when I was in that world, my grandma Liz would coo over the new baby, hug and kiss the baby and “Look at all that hair,” or that dimple, or those big eyes, or whatever. And then she’d pull my ex aside and say, sort of with a twinkle, but she was dead serious the way she could be — you’d have to have known her — and she’d say to him, “Now you leave her alone,” gesturing towards me. “Come on,” she’d say, “That’s enough.”
The reaction of the blogosphere is something like that Michelle Duggar had those babies by act of will or something, parthenogenesis, who knows.
Heart
Would I have said the same things about the other families?
Probably not. The Hindu,Muslim,Rastsfarian families are simply large families. The Amish and Mennonite families look like extended families-2/3 generations.
The Duggars bring alot of attention to themselves and by this,invite comments/opinions regarding their lifestyle. They seem eeriely pleasant & bland. They seem unreal/plastic.
I guess I see continuous childbearing as a debasement of a woman. When it’s coupled w/fundamentalist Christianity,it seems like outright oppression. My grandmother had 15 children,of whom only 5 reached adulthood (this was lack of contraception,not a religious statement). My brother & his wife got pregnant on the honeymoon & had a second child less than a year later.
My father remarked “like a damn barnyard”. He thought that my brother was showing a lack of respect & consideration for his wife. My own upbringing is influencing my opinions on this matter.
I don’t see the value of having children just because you can. The religious justification for this seems to me-to be just another way of keeping a woman “in her place”.
My remarks are not completely logical,but my reaction to the Duggars was visceral.
Lisa: I have my views that are seeded in the experience of the death of someone close to me, who was in one of those fundamentalist religions. At her funeral, all she was dubbed was “a good wife”, nothing personal, just “a good wife”. Because she under duress converted to her husband’s new found religion, he felt guilty about a life choice. He told her it was either convert, or leave. She chose, unfortunately to stay.
Yeah.
I’ve also seen lots of women eulogized when they died for basically being servants to males, and sometimes they had no other choice, and it also made me ill because they had their lives stolen from them by control freaks and haters. 
This is kind of what I was wanting to get to, though, the intensity of the reactions to Michelle Duggar. These reactions indicate that there is so much more going on than what is readily apparent.
Sharon, re this “pity.” Sometimes when you unpack feelings of “pity” towards other women, you find some other things there that are worth taking a look at — like internalized misogyny, like misogyny, period. Duggar reminds us, above all, of what we are expected under patriarchy to be, as females. She represents what so many men hold up as virtuous and wonderful. And she’s going with it. She’s going there. So I think sometimes there are feelings of betrayal, of anger, that we attempt to deal with by thinking of them in terms of “pity”, saying we feel sorry for the women. This allows us to distance ourselves from them enough to blame them for the standards to which, as women, we are all held.
I do not feel pity for Michelle Duggar. I have an idea she might be happy with her life as it is, as women are when they have cut a deal which garners them a certain amount of respect or other benefits, money, whatever. In the same way, I don’t feel pity for prostituted women, call girls, strippers, who claim to have chosen what they do and who get enough support for it that they can feel satisfied with their lives. What I feel is something like sadness that this is what it comes to, for women, and anger at all of the men, and all of their institutions, who are the real beneficiaries when women make these choices.
Heart
“why don’t the fundamentalist beliefs of the Amish or Conservative Mennonites, or conservative Muslims cause similar anger?”
I think it’s because those groups aren’t aggressively trying to take over and run things, politically and socially, the way fundamentalists are in the U.S.
Greetings from the Aloha State!
Cheryl, my best to you, you have been on my mind and heart now for a long time, since I began reading Gentle Spirit in 1993 when I had given birth to my third child when I was in North Carolina. Have been divorced now 13 years and moved back to Hawaii, where I grew up. Missed you and am happy that you have found peace amidst all you have gone through.
Regarding all this hype about Michelle Duggar. It is true that men can be abusive, cruel, evil. But women are the ones with the PhD’s in cattiness, pettiness, snootiness. When I was having my third child, people thought I was crazy. If we claim to support women and women’s causes, it begins with the simple act of being kind. I would love to have another child, but realize that being a single mom, would not be in the best interest of the child or myself. At 44, my eggs are probably Grade D for duds anyway.
When I lived in N.C., the pastor and his wife of the church I was attending had six children. She was honestly one of the dearest and happiest women I have ever met.
It’s when we are unhappy with ourselves and our own situations that we resort to the judging and the meowing at each other. Enough.
Heart wrote:
What I feel is something like sadness that this is what it comes to, for women, and anger at all of the men, and all of their institutions, who are the real beneficiaries when women make these choices.
Okay, as I examined what you wrote, I think what you describe here is much closer to what I am calling “pity” than how you described it.
Again, I think it is dreadful that some women don’t seem to grok that they *have* other choices. Sure, Michelle Duggar may be happy with her lot. Jim Bob sure as heck is happy with his, from everything I’ve seen.
What about the kids, though? The two pre-teen girls who are doing all of the cooking and cleaning for this family?
I don’t know. Is it okay to feel pity (or sadness) for *them*? They didn’t get to make the choice.
It’s interesting, I was reading the other day the blog posts of a prostituted woman whose specialty is “gonzo” and some really down and dirty kinds of sex which involve brutalities of various kinds, SM. She was defending what she did, trying to explain why she enjoyed it, and what it boiled down to was, she might be as down and dirty as the men were, she might even get physically hurt (as she often did), but damnit, she’d walk away with the money, and she gave as good as she got. Something like, you’re not the boss of me. Something like that. Reading what she said, I felt such hatred towards the men who prostitute her.
Why so little about Jim Bob, the emphasis on what I watched was on, in my view, Michelle and her laundry, and day to day chores etc.
Yeah– here again, Michelle is held up as the apex of womanly achievement, 17 kids and she gets the chores and the laundry done, too! She reminds us of what is forced on us as women, and we are tempted to hate her because she doesn’t resist, she complies.
Heart
I said: and what it boiled down to was, she might be as down and dirty as the men were, she might even get physically hurt (as she often did), but damnit, she’d walk away with the money, and she gave as good as she got. Something like, you’re not the boss of me. Something like that. Reading what she said, I felt such hatred towards the men who prostitute her.
I think this happens in fundamentalist homes, too. Women seem to go along with the program, but in certain ways, they do resist, even if their resistance is inside of their apparent compliance. Something like, “I’m not doing this because you are forcing me, I’m doing this because I WANT to, so don’t get the idea you’re in charge here.” Even though in fact, he is in charge in every way that matters.
Heart
Hey, Melissa.
I have my own ideas about women’s “cattiness” and snootiness and so on, but I agree completely with this:
If we claim to support women and women’s causes, it begins with the simple act of being kind.
I hope you are well–
Heart
I showed the “vagina, it’s not a clown car” picture to my mom and she said in disgust, “Why don’t they make one called ‘penis, it’s not a clown shooter?’”
I agree with Miranda, that it is the ultimate misogyny to make fun of other women’s bodies. I feel the same way about the “iron hymen” page - it’s possible to poke fun at the abstinence-only crowd (which is run by misogynist men) without making fun of female body parts.
(I think wordpress deleted my first comment, but you can delete this one if the original shows up)
I showed the “vagina, it’s not a clown car” picture to my mom and she said in disgust, “Why don’t they make one called ‘penis, it’s not a clown shooter?’”
I agree with Miranda, that it is the ultimate misogyny to make fun of other women’s bodies. I feel the same way about the “iron hymen” page - it’s possible to poke fun at the abstinence-only crowd (which is run by misogynist men) without making fun of female body parts.
wanting to get to, though, the intensity of the reactions to Michelle Duggar. These reactions indicate that there is so much more going on than what is readily apparent.
Duggar does not embody the ideal liberal woman, who fucks and is sexy for the pleasure of males. Her appearance and the appearance of her daughters is not geared toward pleasing the general male populace. She’s opted out of what a woman ’should’ be on multiple levels.
Women in burquas can be pitied, with the thought that they need ‘rescuing’ from their plight. A knightly white male can ride in and carry them away to the joys of mini-skirts and freed hair! Duggar doesn’t appear to have any need of a hot guy to save her.
Which brings me to the point that while I hate the general trashing of her body, Duggar is no ally of mine. She is complicit in her oppression, even reveling in it, and that’s fine. I don’t get any benefit from her being miserable. She’s probably quite happy with her choices, and individually that’s fine, but she actively works to support a system that oppresses many women.
“why don’t the fundamentalist beliefs of the Amish or Conservative Mennonites, or conservative Muslims cause similar anger?”
I think it’s because those groups aren’t aggressively trying to take over and run things, politically and socially, the way fundamentalists are in the U.S.”
I think “goldfish” nailed it, I agree. It’s the hype and mania also associated with the fundamentalist religions that partially inspired my blog posts.
Anyway, I appreciate the “wake up call” that you gave me Melissa & other posters, and even though I still don’t stomach the Duggars well, I have a new views to pontificate.
Thanks
Lisa
Yeah, I think goldfish is right that it is the way fundamentalists are trying to take over that at least in part inspires the reaction to the Duggars. Having said that, not all Mennonites/Amish people are the same; the Conservative Mennonite family (the one where the wife was my friend) is evangelical and does actively promote a quiverfull lifestyle (although Amish/Conservative Mennonite people do not vote or participate in secular politics).
Although at the moment Michelle Duggar is complicit, and is in fact benefitting from her complicity, ultimately, men benefit in ways that neither she nor any woman does. It’s the same with prostitution and all the deals women cut. Prostituted women make money and get some other perks, but they pay for what they get, they pay dearly, as do women like Michelle Duggar, while men — all men — benefit, even if not directly.
If Michelle Duggar should ever leave this world, though, I hope feminists won’t be at the ready to remind her of her complicity, and of how she benefitted, and of how she “enjoyed” her privilege. Because all women benefit from the deals we all cut, and all women suffer from them, too, and Michelle Duggar is no different. I hope eventually she envisions more for herself and for her daughters, and that more than that, more is possible, for all of them, and that if she or some of her daughters should decide to live differently, their past will not be held against them, as though it was something they could freely “choose,” anymore than any of us, as women, chooses much of anything freely.
Heart
I feel like a lot of the hatred towards Michelle Duggar is gender-based, obviously. People don’t talk about her husband because it’s easier for them to direct their hatred at her as a woman.
I don’t feel that a base comparison of Michelle Duggar to another woman with a large family is appropriate, though. The Duggars are actively promoting their lifestyle via their television show and website. This is not something she should be vilified for, but it does demonstrate that she’s different: she’s not just living her life. Her behavior is politically motivated and, as a political figure, she is examined in a way that other women with similar lifestyles are not. That doesn’t make the despicable things people say about her or her family acceptable, but it does make her distinctively different from the other women you’ve depicted.
This quote from their website demonstrates that:
“At that point they talked with a Christian medical doctor and read the fine print in the contraceptives package. They found that while taking the pill you can get pregnant and then miscarry. They were grieved! They were Christians! They were pro-life! They realized that their selfish actions had taken the life of their child. They prayed and asked God to forgive them, and to teach them to love children like He loves children.”
I think one reason people focus more on a quiverfull family like the Duggars as opposed to families from other groups is that the quiverfull families are close to home. They’re not off in another country, they’re right here and they’re part of the major religion. And unlike, say, the Amish, they’re recruiting. The number of children does have something to do with it, because the higher the number, the less likely it seems that the woman really wanted to have that many children. For me, being forced to produce one child from my body is a nightmare scenario that I do worry about (especially with all the restrictions being put on abortion) - being forced to have 16+ would be worse than hell. I really hope that she does enjoy having/raising children, because the alternative is horrifying.
As for why people insult Michelle and not her husband, and focus on her hair and clothes, compare her to a pig, etc, well, that’s just plain misogyny. I don’t like it. If those people are so concerned that the situation is abusive, then why are they picking on one of the victims?
Well said.
Personally, if I was stuck with Jim Bob (really? that’s his name?) I’d have as many kids as possible so he’d leave me alone the majority of my life when I’m pregnant cause men like that never want sex with euuuu babies in there! and then I’d just have to hum Rule Britannica for a few bars 17 times. I mean, if my choices were what she’s doing or servicing 7,392 Jim Bobs and calling it choice.
Well I disagree in this - I do believe she is brainwashed, and that the majority of all women in religions which enforce or encourage motherhood and ridicule birth control are brainwashed, or else helpless (or perceive themselves as being helpless, which amounts to the same thing) to change their lot.
I do not believe that makes them stupid or nasty.
Well, first, a hearty and resounding Nail, Hammer, Bang to Sis! (And yes, his name really is Jim Bob). A fair number of women in this world *do* like being pregnant for the reason you state– fewer sexual demands, and after the birth, a nice long hiatus, or a ready justification for one. A fair number of women in this world also dissociate when they have sex with their husbands, which is what you’re describing in words women understand and relate to.
I’m not sure which commenter mentioned fearing pregnancy, or that women in this world must be forced to have this many babies, but honestly, that really, really isn’t how it is for a large number of these women. Even if their husbands are jerks, even if they dissociate during sex, even if they are abused or battered in various ways, as most are, most of these women look forward to the next baby and the next and the next. Sometimes they become really anxious if their fertility is delayed for a long, long time (as it is when they breastfeed responsively, something Michelle Duggar does not do, which is part of the reason she has had children so close together). Sometimes if their fertility returns and they don’t conceive right away, they also become anxious. Usually this is their own anxiety, it isn’t something that comes because their husband is expecting them to conceive. Again, there are some women who really, really love to be pregnant and to have children. I was such a woman and I can attest to the fact that it is true. It isn’t that there is no fear or difficulty with the pregnancy, there is, and there is always fear as the woman’s time nears, but that doesn’t change the fact of her enjoying her pregnancy. I know there are women who can’t begin to imagine how this can be so, but it is. Women are so, so diverse, so different.
Where a man is, in fact, cracking the whip over a woman’s head and wanting to compete with his brethren for numbers of children and pregnancies, a lot of the time — in my experience — his wife will become sick and unavailable to him. Women in abusive situations find ways to survive, you know?
I wish everyone would go back up to the top of this post and read what has actually been written about Michelle Duggar. My sense is that now what is actually being done to her, said of her, is being glossed over in a way that seems to triviliazie and minimize how hateful and misogynist it actually is. I don’t care WHAT a woman does, says or believes, no woman EVER deserves to have that kind of thing said of her. EVER. I know all here have agreed that this treatment is misogynist, but I still get this kind of, “Well, I don’t agree with THAT, BUT…” Heavy on the BUT. And I wrote this post, not because I don’t think people should criticize the Duggars, but because of the misogyny and hatred directed towards Michelle Duggar.
So far as Michelle Duggar “putting herself out there…” Let’s look at that. Could she put herself out there, get herself on television, get all of this publicity, all by herself, because she decided to? Who, in fact, is putting her out there? Who is paying for all of the advertising to see to it that she’s out there? Above all, who benefits from proselytizing for this particular politics and lifestyle? Who’s watching? I think it makes a lot more sense to look at WHY she’s out there, who stands to gain, than to say she put herself out there so she should expect criticism.
I’ve said it before but will again, I’m sure she does expect criticism and I think that criticism of her politics and values is correct, important and necessary– I do it all the time! I think the hatred directed towards her, though, is misogynist and indefensible, I don’t care what she believes or does, and I wrote this post to focus on that.
My intention wasn’t to compare Michelle Duggar and her family to the other families, but to ask whether anybody thinks that if those other families were in Michelle Duggar’s situation, anybody thinks the other women up there would get the treatment she is getting.
I do not think they would. Amish women sometimes write regular newspaper columns about their lives with their 11, 12, 14 kids– Amish families are huge — and this calls forth only appreciative and admiring responses from one and all. I cannot envision anyone responding to an Amish mother of 12, writing a newspaper column about her life, as people have responded to Michelle Duggar.
And the same with any of the other women in those pictures. If the Rasta woman or the Hindu woman or the Muslim woman should write about her life, I believe racists would be racists and would attack in racist ways, but I do not believe the women in those families would be targeted in the way Duggar has been, for reasons we’ve touched on and for more reasons we may touch on. I don’t think anyone would put a photo of the Muslim or Hindu woman in a poster and write, “VAGINA,” and all the rest. I don’t think these women would be compared with a sow.
Although these other women are not front and center the way Duggar is, their views are every bit as political as hers are, and their lifestyles are as well. I don’t think I agree that these women are distinctively different. They bear many children for, in general, the same reasons the Duggars do. They espouse traditional mariage, monogamy, heteronormativity, traditionally gendered behaviors as ordained by the Divine and as a mandate, they oppose divorce, abortion and many kinds of reproductive choice, homosexuality, and so on. Their lifestyles, beliefs, practices are entirely political. And yet there is not this intense hatred towards them for the way they dress, the way they wear their hair, their numbers of children, the way the children dress. Mostly, there is admiration, sometimes romanticism, respect. Why would television producers put Michelle Duggar in the spotlight instead of one of these women? I wonder what the reaction of the public would be if television producers had.
L.M. so true that it’s possible to poke fun at oppressive beliefs and belief systems without degrading women in them! And so true what someone else said– if this is an abusive movement and women are victimized in it (as they are), why heap more abuse on the women?
Heart
Amananta, I don’t think the women in these groups are helpless or perceive themselves that way. My experience is, women in these groups are some of the hands down strongest women I’ve ever known. And they know themselves to be strong. But they are not strong enough to stand down male supremacy as it is embodied in these groups.
If Michelle Duggar was to decide she couldn’t do this anymore — as I did, 13 years ago — she would likely (1) be excommunicated; (2) shunned by all of her friends; (3) most of her children, possibly all of them, would turn their backs on her; (4) she would have lived her whole life without having worked outside the home, no marketable job skills to support herself; (5) she would have no job references because every adult she has known and loved will have rejected her; (6) she will be lied about; (7) her reputation will be destroyed.
In the face of this kind of control of women, it doesn’t matter how strong a woman is, she might be unable to leave. That doesn’t make her helpless, a victim of learned helplessness, and it doesn’t mean she perceives that she’s helpless. She’s one woman. She can easily be destroyed, and she knows it. I almost was. I was excommunicated, my business was destroyed, my car burned to the ground, all of my peers and colleagues shunned me, and I was left to run a destroyed business alone with nine kids. I survived it… barely. I had Rick, who stood by me and whom I married when my divorce was final, I had a couple of woman friends online who didn’t turn their backs on me, and a feminist woman befriended me and helped me in every conceivable way for three years.
Most women don’t nearly have what I have. I have walked alongside women leaving this world, or kicked out of it, who have 11, 12, 6, 7 children. It is hell. To know yourself to be unable to get out is not to be brainwashed or helpless, is not learned or perceived helplessness. It is a realistic assessment of the power and forces arrayed against you.
I believe most of these women suffer from Stockholm syndrome to varying degrees, and understandably so. But I don’t think that means they are “brainwashed.”
One reason I view it as wrongheaded to think of these women as brainwashed or as victims of “learned helplessness” is that that’s how we other them, and it is the othering that makes the hatred towards them possible.
In other words, if I say that those women over there are brainwashed, they are helpless, or they think they are, that makes them *not like me*. Not like most women. I am the not-brainwashed one, the strong one, I’m not helpless like they are. The consequences of that kind of thinking might be that we disrespect these women who are not like us, we attempt to rescue them in ways which violate them or are disrespectful. It’s a short step from there, for some, to hate these women who are “other”, to mock them, trivialize their realities, dismiss them in various ways, as has happened with Michelle Duggar.
One more thing I wanted to say. In some ways, these women are and have been very much allies to feminists. They have championed, for decades, the birthing rights of women, the right to birth with midwives, the right to birth at home, breastfeeding rights, the right to breastfeed in public, the importance of making space for breastfeeding women and their children, the importance of fertility awareness. Many of these women garden organically, recycle, compost, and take their responsibilities to the land they care for very seriously. To the degree that Michelle Duggar takes these stands and defends them, to that degree I do view her as my ally. She is certainly as much my ally as a whole lot of self-identified feminists are, because we all know what’s out there so far as feminist views are concerned.
I don’t think anyone would put a photo of the Muslim or Hindu woman in a poster and write, “VAGINA,” and all the rest. I don’t think these women would be compared with a sow.
Hold up– haters during wartime would.
Heart
I’m curious and confused as to why you don’t think these other women, if placed in Michelle Duggar’s situation, would be ridiculed in the same way. We’re saying if these families were in the same social/political situation - meaning they also have seventeen children and their own television show about their lives - that this kind of gender-based hatred would not be directed at the women in question?
I agree that this is part of what’s happening in this case. It’s a fear based reaction. I think many women are horrified by the idea that they could fall prey to this kind of mentality.
What I don’t understand in situations like this is that when there are already so many valid things that we could be criticizing about a family like this, namely their political/gender views, why is it even necessary to focus on Duggar’s looks and body? You could spend volumes dissecting all the things that are messed up about their religion, yet all people can criticize is, let’s face it, the fact that Duggar has a vagina?!? Seriously, it makes those bloggers look like they simply can’t come up with any real reasons why the Duggars’ religion is bad news, so instead they focus on her looks and bodily functions. Kind of like the trolls who come to feminist blogs and can’t refute our arguments so they just go, “You’re all feminists because you’re UGLY!” It does nothing to advance any sort of point or get us any closer to figuring out why women join these religions and how we can offer them better choices, choices where they can have as many or few children as they damn well please without having to answer to some sanctimonious bloggers who will never know what it’s like to be in their situation. (And how is it any different to criticize a woman for her choice to have children than it is to criticize a woman for her choice not to have children, anyhow?!?)
On second thought, I guess I shouldn’t say I don’t understand why people choose to criticize the Duggars this way. Of course I understand. Because it’s easier to say, “Eeewww, she has a VAGINA, and all sorts of other nasty female parts!” Because the women who write these sorts of things secretly think their own bodies are disgusting and deflect it onto a woman who’s an easy target. Because too many women, including feminists, have internalized patriarchy’s view of our bodies and look for acceptable targets onto whom they can unleash their self-loathing.
I went back to the original post after reading these last responses, and I wanted to highlight this comment because it really confuses, appalls, and stuns me:
Gingermiss, I don’t think the other women would receive that kind of reaction in part because that’s not been my experience? I have actually been responded to (sorry for rotten construction!) along the lines of what has happened to Duggar, for example, without a television show and so on. I did publish a magazine, I did speak at conferences, I did occasionally go on television, and there was one time when a reporter stayed at our home for several days, filmed us, etc., for a program in the Southwest. But I was in no way in the limelight the way Michelle Duggar is. Still I have tasted the kinds of reaction Duggar gets myself, though not the extremes of hatred and certainly not to this degree. I have not seen this type of reaction directed towards other women with large families who were devoutly religious and so on. (Like the Amish women, for example, who write for the newspaper.) It’s also just my hunch, based on watching Americans’ reactions over many years to women with large families, wondering why Amish women (who at one time were my role models) were respected and sometimes admired, while women similarly situated with me were so despised by those outside their own circles (and sometimes in their own circles).
I don’t think the notoriety accounts for this treatment because I’ve seen this kind of thing on a small scale for years.
Mekhit, great point about trashing Duggar’s body and hair as though *books* couldn’t be written about how destructive what she believes is to women (to everybody, but especially to women)!
Heart
Heart said:
***Speaking for myself only, in entering into fundamentalist religion I cut the best deal I believed I could cut at the time, given all of the circumstances of my life*. I believe this holds true for many to most women in conservative and fundamentalist religion throughout the world, particularly mothers or women who want to be mothers.***
I don’t know about that holding true for most women in conservative and fundamentalist religion throughout the world. In many regions of the world the ONLY acceptable lifestyle for women is marriage and children. In the Islamic Republic of Iran a woman would be arrested and beaten for appearing in public without a full length chador or even if so much as a hair showed. In some parts of Africa, a woman will not be supported by her tribe if she does not have a male child and so her survival is at stake. Often education is not available for girls, much less jobs or any means of survival for women outside of marriage. This may work to a slight degree for women who want to be mothers, but many women do *not* want to be mothers and their culture makes not the slightest allowance for that. In these cultures, many women who would otherwise have *no* interest in men, marriage and children are married to men their whole lives and have children.
No, it’s really not about agenda. It’s about what’s cool.
Amish and Mennonites are seen as exotic. Fundamentalists are seen as dumb hicks. Mormons (BTW) are somewhere in between “dumb-hick,” “dominator” and “intriguingly weird.”
It’s all wrong, but telling CLASS-BASED JOKES is not the fault of fundamentalism’s march toward world DOMINANCE. That makes no sense at all. “Oh, they’re running everything, that’s why I’ll get at them by saying they look like impoverished yokel morons.”
You kind of have to pick a direction to go.
You make such important points Heart, especially on the pervading notion that all women in trouble, are in some way weak. Little realistic assessment is made of the forces arrayed against them, or what brave women they often are. Its an, its not going to happen to me delusion.
Alley was a great fighter, but if you put enough poor fighters in against him, eventually he would come down.
Sometimes I think that’s what the Patriarchy is, a giant alliance of failures and its the alliance part that makes them strong.
Sorry, Ali.
Just saw this, and haven’t had the time to read through all the comments so forgive me if this sentiment has already been expressed, but:
I am regularly and discouragingly amazed at how feminists, FEMINISTS of all people, will uphold their “right” to hate women, to make fun of women, to abuse women. I find it in all corners of feminism, though much less so amongst radical feminists. It goes way beyond the indoctrinated misogyny that we all grow up with and have to consciously fight against - it’s almost like many feminists see hating women (though they qualify by just hating “some” women) as a path towards - what? their individual “equality”? a leg up? I don’t know, but cripes.
I remember when Twisty of all people posted that Vagina/Clown Car image a while back. I was so disappointed, because there’s a radfem who seems to get it on so many levels, yet she just puts that stupid image up without any comment and sure enough, the majority of IBTP commenters took off making fun of Michelle Duggar. What does hating on women get us in the end? Meanness and pettyness have no place in any feminism I want to be a part of.
I’ve decided recently to stop reading things (blogs, magazines, message boards, etc.) that make fun of marginalized people. My faith in humanity depends on it. It’s amazing what all that leaves out though.
Yes Heart, the context you’ve given my comment.
And why do so-called feminists do this? Because they haven’t a clue what it means to be a feminist. It’s just the latest in trendy girl labels. They’re so empowered–power that has to be earned, a propos her post and ‘given’, but will be taken away whenever. Posts like the one we’re responding to? This feminist is ‘uncle tomming’. All the ridicule for Michelle, all the pity for poor Jim Bob having to have his kinda sex with a vagina that’s brought 17 children into the world. Which by the way, would only be a problem if her children were delivered with any or all of the tortuous women hating baby delivering methods propagated by a patriarchy medical system rather than birthed.
Branjor, I think what you say is true, but I also think that women, even in the rigidly regulated, fundamentalist cultures you are describing, make a choice when they marry, have children and so on. If you ask them, they will say that they have made a choice. Their choice is, I believe, what Lalich calls a “bounded” choice — in their case, severely bounded — but it is still a choice. As opposed to something they do because they are brainwashed or dragged screaming and kicking into it at the point of a gun. Within even the cultures you are describing, there are usually some options for women which do not involve marriage and childbearing but where the women are still accepted in their communities. I think it’s important to make this point in order to honor what women say about their own lives and choices, first of all, and also to acknowledge that most women do their best to make the best choice they can for their lives. If we don’t acknowledge this, I think it’s too easy to see too many women as, as helzeph says, weak, and ourselves as superior in various ways, and this is particularly true as concerns women our culture fetishizes/romanticizes/objectifies as “exotic”, the ethnic “other.”
It’s all wrong, but telling CLASS-BASED JOKES is not the fault of fundamentalism’s march toward world DOMINANCE. That makes no sense at all. “Oh, they’re running everything, that’s why I’ll get at them by saying they look like impoverished yokel morons.”
funnie, exactly.
helzeph, yes. As women we sometimes have a lot of stake in this idea that we would NEVER [fill in the blank with the deal the other woman has cut]. That woman over THERE– she’s shameful. Just look at her.
If you (rhetorical “you”) tell yourself (delusionally, as you say) that you would NEVER do enough kinds of things that other women do to survive, you will end up othering and despising the majority of the world’s women and — often enough — identifying with men and aligning yourself with men in their hatred of women. Your friends will be men, you’ll choose men’s company over women’s company, you’ll be the best critic, so far as women go, there ever was. You’ll be one of those feminists who says, “I don’t know, I just don’t really get along with women and never did.” “I always had male friends.” “I just prefer the company of men.”
Of course, the men you’re identifying with whose company you prefer sure aren’t your friends, any more than they’re friends to the women you are joining them in criticizing, mocking and hating, or standing silently by while the men do it. Ultimately, that will become evident.
Amber, you’re so right about the misogyny so many feminists display.
For the record — and I need to say this — I didn’t realize Twisty had that poster up at the top up at IBTP. I never saw it there, or don’t remember if I did. I found it at one of the other sites I linked to up there. I have always felt so disappointed and discouraged, though, by the willingness of feminists to pile on in mocking and making fun of women. As though the same thing couldn’t be done to them, and might not be done to them. It reveals, again, an incomplete identification with women, a feminism that doesn’t really include all women.
Heart
All the ridicule for Michelle, all the pity for poor Jim Bob having to have his kinda sex with a vagina that’s brought 17 children into the world. Which by the way, would only be a problem if her children were delivered with any or all of the tortuous women hating baby delivering methods propagated by a patriarchy medical system rather than birthed.
Which the same feminists often support!
Arggghghghghghghghghhhhhhhhhhhh!
Of *course* if you are pumped full of oxytocin and getting it by drip in your induced labor, if you are strapped down to a bed, lying on your back, and dead below the waist with your uterus violently expelling its contents because of said drip and you unable to even FEEL the contractions, much less work with your attendants to go along with what your body is doing, you are going to be INJURED.
Which is what a lot of these fundie women know. They’d better know, if they are going to be having all of these babies and don’t want to end up with 17 episiotomies criss-crossing their nether regions, prolapsed uteruses, ruptured uteruses, cystoceles, rectoceles and you name it. Argh. Which is why they were kickass pioneers of the natural birth/home birthing movement. Which is why for the most part, their bodies withstand the stresses of pregnancy, labor and birth quite well.
Heart
Heart’s just described FGM western style. Women who birth babies rather than deliver will likely never have to undergo the varying pelvic organ repair surgeries for these conditions either, and/or be told a hysterectomy is the solution to (all the list above) and while we’re in there, we’ll take out your ovaries. AKA ….castration. But no worry; not like we’re talking about castrating Jim Bob.
Slightly tanget but not really.
Thanks, Sis!
Brilliant.
Mary
I laughed at the “clown car” poster when I first saw it at another blog. I realize now that I was wrong for doing so, that it’s not okay to make fun of another woman’s body parts even if her way of life seems strange or even insane to me. I won’t be laughing about Mrs Duggar again.
Thanks for writing about this, Heart. I appreciate that you pointed out that anti-woman behavior of mine to me. That’s how we grow as feminists and as human beings.
Thank you, Heart, for the powerful truths about mothering, and the need to put responsibility for the mullet (Michelle’s hair-do), the misogyny, the misplaced anger back on the male supremacy where it belongs.
The Brittany Spears media brouhaha (she’s “out of shape” on MTV) is another example of misplaced anger. Just when Brittany seems to be starting her melt-down out of patriarchy (eating normal meals, and acting “crazy” as she’s beginning to realize, perhaps, the tokenized trap she occupies, and the risks all women face from woman-hating), other women go on the ready to criticize Brittany. Female voices join the men who no longer find Brittany so “fuckable” after she’s got a little bit of a mother’s tummy.
In forging sisterhood, in leaving the door open to male-identified women who might one day shift, in caring about the survival of conscious intelligence on mother earth, these words of Heart guide us in extending woman-to-woman compassion:
“Does every woman exchange something in this male supremacist world in order to survive it? Yes, we all do.” Mullet to Malibu.
Not much I can really add here that hasn’t been said, but I do think it’s important to raise one point that’s been overlooked.
The “clowncar” image comes from somewhere. No, I don’t know exactly where it comes from, but I know what genre it comes from and who is at the helm of that genre.
I suppose the pedigree of the clowncar image is something akin to:
-those corporate aphorisms posters that line office walls
-mocking renditions of said posters
-even more mocking and patently obscene renditions
-the clowncar image
The clowncar image only “works” because we know what the frame signifies since we’ve seen it so often before. If we hadn’t, we still might be able to “get it,” but we’d be confused as to what it was — it’s inconceivably far from its source inspiration.
Yet, instead of mocking the corporate image (as the first in the genre did), it borrows power and authority from it. It makes the misogyny stronger: the officious symbolism of the frame makes its criticism, although “funny,” serious in nature. In other words, we’re strictly better than the subject delineated in the box, and the glossy black frame underscores our right to criticise.
These genres are not owned and operated by feminists to say the least. Indeed, 4chan takes credit (probably unwarranted but it’s there for them to take) for inventing “lolcats.” For every cute montage that makes it into general circulation (and into the domain of women), there’s something hideous, sexist, racist, homophobic, and able-ist in their arsenal of images that they have all the time in the world to hone.
As such, I’d urge people to be wary of ever reposting a “found” image without careful consideration of who it really belongs to — and by “who,” I don’t mean the individual author or copyright holder, but the social class that it serves.
It’s not hard to tell for the clowncar image, I’d say.
To me, men and the patriarchy represent the devil, and the women who sell out to the men/patriarchy in order to achieve some carnal/material desires represent the people who sell their souls to the devil.
I guess we all sell out a little bit in order to survive, but when the selling out goes beyond a certain point (in our own view), it is felt viscerally as disgusting, and that is where these comments are coming from.
I agree that the disgust and hatred should be directed at the men and their institutions which enforce this selling out, not their victims who are only trying to survive as best they can.
BTW, I am Indian, and my (negative) reaction to that hindu family is the same as to the Duggars. I want to slap that stupid beatific smile right off that hindu man’s face. This may be because we tend to care more about what is happening around us than in some (conceptually or geographically) far away land.
Yeah, probably it’s about localism, Kali. And as someone who was a part of (and negatively affected by) the Duggars’ girls-don’t-go-to-college world, I have no kind thoughts for that man, either - I thought the question someone posted earlier about control/abuse is a great one.
I also do think part of the difference between the way you and the hypothetical generic white western (as I was picturing them, though I never specified) liberals I mentioned who have no problem with the other photos is racism. Some people just deserve to be poor, some people just “overbreed,” some people just don’t know any better, bless them, etc.
So though I think the attacks on Michelle Duggar are both classist and sexist, I think there is also racism involved - not “against” white people - against minorities! - but exhibited in that “you’re white and we Don’t Behave That Way, like Those People” sense.
More and more, I think “white trash” is a racist term as well as classist. Not racist against white people (which, again, is impossible) but racist because people who do THAT can’t REALLY be white, so we need to use some sort of race-based epithet on them, like we do with the _____ and the _______ and the _______, which this “white trash” is behaving like.
Yes funnie. Something few feminists get.
CoolAunt said: “it’s not okay to make fun of another woman’s body parts even if her way of life seems strange or even insane to me.”
That made me ask myself, if a vagina’s not supposed to be a “clown car” (i.e. used to have 17 children), then what’s it supposed to be?
Also, the idea of defining what a vagina is/is not based on what it does ignores the possibility of women’s wants and free will.
Almost everything that I could say about the Duggars has been said, but I would like to discuss the College aspect a bit.
The only way wymyn well ever free themselves of Patriarchy is to educate themselves. Ideally, wymyn would not go to college, but instead find a feminist “guide” or “guru” (similar to a Witch and her Apprentice long ago) but I understand that (sadly) this is not always possible. The next best solution is to find a college with a high number of Feminist professors and only take classes from them. Again, this is not always possible, because the Patriarchal education system is designed to keep wymyn out. For my part, my daughters know that they can count on me to help them any way I can to get then through school. My sons know that they have all the advantages that being white and male and don’t need my help.
I’m greatly appreciating you women’s overall brilliance, great thoughts all over the place. LM, that’s a good point, i.e., what is a vagina? We all decide what we will do with our own. A diversion, but related, children aren’t clowns, and especially, those particular, individual children, some of whom are girls and young women and therefore people with whom feminism is primarily concerned (though it’s concerned with the boys and young men, too) are not clowns. Beyond that, when you allude to a mother’s children — not imaginary children, not invisible children, but the children actually standing at her bedside as “clowns,” it’s hurtful, to her and to her children, and to all mothers and their children. The whole thing is offensive on so many different levels, this imagery of clowns emerging from a vagina. It’s like the flip side of the way conservative misogynists reduced women to vaginas, incubators for children, except that at least conservatives pretend to value the children, whereas in this case, both mother and children are devalued.
Heart
Hecate, no. College is not going to educate women out of the patriarchy. I think it does just the opposite with all but the most astute women, who really didn’t need college in the first place. What we need to do is start honouring and respecting women’s talents and what women do. Although I’m not going along with the 17 babies; let’s pause for a minute and think about what this woman has achieved teaching and raising these children. She’s never going to get a PhD for it, or even in most colleges life-credits except to the lowest paid degree programs for ex the ones women are expected to do all their lives for nothing. Some of the most staunch partriarchy card-carrying women I know, and the locked into Stockholm syndrome are lawyers, doctors and professors. Totin’ it.