Ana Marie Cox reviews Kate O'Beirne!

[Cassandra]

And it's fun and witty. Well written and she really sets the perfect tone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/books/review/15cox.html

"While I fantasized about an exhaustive catalog - running, say, from female suicide bombers to Martha Stewart - I would have been pleased if her new book were just another haphazard laundry list on the order of Bernard Goldberg's "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America" or "The Sexiest Man Alive." Whether the inventory springs from Joe McCarthy or People magazine, the fake authority of this sort of hectic litany makes for diverting cocktail conversation, alternate schemes of organization and elaborate conspiracy theories. After all, Americans have been second-guessing official lists since the Bill of Rights.

But O'Beirne does not deliver on expectations for a roll call of Republican enemies. Sure, she tosses invective at some specific (and predictable) targets, but for the most part the women in her book are less a real threat to the contemporary conservative project than a history lesson. Her salvos against such dusty icons as Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda and Catharine MacKinnon do all these women the enormous favor of making them relevant again. And, surely, anytime anyone recalls the deeds of Bella Abzug, an angel gets its wings.
<snip>
Social change is often the product of confrontation between extremes. To depict one extreme as pernicious and all-powerful reduces real debate about equality into a cartoon about underarm hair. Feminism isn't always pretty (see: underarm hair). Without it, however, Kate O'Beirne would have been unlikely to have this book published - and most women would not have their own money to waste on it."

[POAS]

1. I've really gotta read Wonkette more often

So many good blogs, so little time.....sigh.

[applegrove]

5. If Anna Marie Cox is Wonkette - I think she handed over her blog to

someone so she could join MSM.

[POAS]

6. Ana Marie Cox is still

listed as editor of Wonkette as well as writing "The Antic Muse" blog and the author of the novel "Dog Days".

[applegrove]

7. Okay she may not have joined MSM. I heard she was handing daily

duties to someone else. Perhaps she did that to write a book. I cannot remember.

[POAS]

8. I would imagine that daily

duties may be handled by an associate but she is still involved, at least according to the website.

[hopein08]

11. Yes, it is to write a book...

"Dog Days" is a fiction book and Wonkette's (Ana Marie Cox's) letter on her website says that she is now writing a non-fiction book and will have less time to be Wonkette as the book will require research. Wonkette will be taken care of by two men.

[xchrom]

2. hysterical!

''Social change is often the product of confrontation between extremes. To depict one extreme as pernicious and all-powerful reduces real debate about equality into a cartoon about underarm hair. Feminism isn't always pretty (see: underarm hair). Without it, however, Kate O'Beirne would have been unlikely to have this book published - and most women would not have their own money to waste on it."


:rofl:

[Cobalt Violet]

3. Love that last line. n/t

[Cassandra]

4. Me too, but the whole review was good.

Elegantly dismissive; using it to make her own points. She suggests that Kate's purpose in life is to serve as a source of insider gossip.

[DarienComp]

9. that was a nice smackdown.

wonkette makes it look so easy. :-)

[CTyankee]

10. Kate O'Beirne is freaky

Hers is the voice of too much scotch and too many cigarettes. And too much bitter hate. Her face is a mask of hate and rapid aging. She is an ugly person. Wonkette did a nice number on her!

[MidnightWind]

12. I watched her on Hardball the other night being interviewed

by Norah O'Donnell. What a love-fest that was between two GOP-thugs. Oh my God, it was like watching a train-wreck. If Kate actually believed all the crap she's spewing would she ever have had the CAREER she's had? I love these women who tell women what to do, and then do the complete opposite. She's just another right-wing hypocrite.

[CTyankee]

13. You are so right! How do they get past that hypocrisy?

That is why I think Kate is so deformed. She is one of those hard drinking and smoking Irish types that got screwed up in academia and never recovered. AGHH!! I can't stand to listen to her raspy voice. Well, unfortunately, cigarettes do take their toll and their victims...

[spooky3]

14. "Backlash" (by Faludi) did a fabulous job of documenting many

cases of the anti-feminist woman's hypocrisy. It's definitely worth a (re-)read.