"I expect that later this century we'll see a growing trend around the world of many couples deciding in advance to simply not have children."

"Hopefully this will occur via mutual agreement for the man to have a vasectomy early on."

Not everyone has to agonize over choosing life priorities, and I think it's likely more and more will choose to skip mom-ism altogether,... maybe for economic reasons, and maybe because we'll have more talk about women asking themselves, "Do I really want to raise kids?".  "If I love kids, would I rather free myself to work with lots of them in other settings?"  

Oh, what could go wrong?!

That's one of the early comments on an article over at The Nation, by Jessica Valenti, "I'm Not a 'Mother First,'" which begins:

Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said it was better for children to have a parent at home. “To have one parent to stay closely connected and at home during those early years of education can be very very important,” he said. It’s not hard to imagine which parent he’s talking about.

Romney’s statement didn’t elicit much in the way of outrage, a sign that American women have one more hurdle to overcome on the way to equality: the sexism of mom-ism. It’s no longer enough that women love their children. To be a truly committed parent, women are expected to be mothers above all else—we’re “moms first.”

To make her point, Valenti must reject Romney's use of the sex-neutral word "parent." Why not take it seriously? What does she do when her standard template doesn't fit? Just force it on anyway. Why weren't American women outraged at the sexism of Romney's statement? Because it wasn't sexist! It was putting children first.

And let's get some respect for the men who take the role of at-home spouse in the single-earner family (or who modify their work life to be the parent spending the most time "closely connected and at home"). Valenti mentions fathers in only one paragraph:

Fathers are never expected to subsume their identity into parenthood the way that mothers are. If President Obama were to tell us that he is 'father-in-chief' first, America would balk. How could a man be an effective president if he put the needs of his children above the needs of his country?

Women aren't expected to subsume their identity into parenthood anymore either. It is a choice, and a woman who makes that choice is at least as likely to be disrespected as to be praised.

And maybe President Obama should have waited until his girls were older before he immersed himself in the overwhelming duties of running for and serving as President. For some reason he had to jump in when he did, despite his and his daughters' youth. We were just about to get the first woman President, so the time was ripe.

ADDED: Hillary Clinton would have been a better President. Where's the outrage about that?

"This is a fucked-up country to grow up in, especially as a girl."

"And we all want to give young women the tools necessary to succeed. So let’s teach girls to survive a misogynist culture with a fist, not a smile."

Jessica Valenti, over at The Nation, is getting a bit exercised about plastic surgery (and a charity that pays for surgery to correct children's facial deformities, including some things that aren't that terrible, but that parents with enough money would probably get fixed to improve their kids' lives).

I respond to those 2 posts Andrew Sullivan wrote about me yesterday.

In Sullivan's first post, he quotes me saying that if his blog had comments, it too would collect some homophobic comments, just as mine does. He called this "disingenuous," because his readers, according to his polls, have said they don't want comments. That's irrelevant. I'm not criticizing him for not having comments. I'm just saying that if he did have comments, some of them would be nasty.

He also accuses me of having comments so that I can get "vile ad hominem, anonymous hate-speech" which he thinks, I "rel[y] on for traffic." What proof does he have that that is my reason for having comments or that it helps my traffic? I'd be very surprised if the ugliest comments brought more traffic. I think they hurt traffic, so I certainly am not relying on them for traffic. I do think a vivid, flourishing comments section keeps readers coming back to this blog, but not because of the ugliness. I think that drives people away.

This is more serious:

[T]hese were not just homophobic comments. They were vicious personal attacks on a specific human being, using both my sexual orientation and my illness as targets.

But generic attacks on gay people as a group are much worse than attacks on a specific person who is a public figure, like Andrew Sullivan.  They are still mean, but they are more like the anti-Bush material that goes on about how he was an alcoholic or used cocaine or whatever. I'm not saying it's good, just that it's different from general bigotry. And I would like Andrew Sullivan to acknowledge that I have a good number of active commenters here who are gay men. (Lesbians too.) So there is plenty of pushback against homophobia, and anybody who hates gay people is not going to be happy in my comments section.

Sullivan goes on to criticize me for not deleting the comments that attacked him:

I am glad she does not deny that she engaged in this thread herself, and she did so long after many of the references to my HIV were published. It seems to me that if you are actually contributing to a comment thread, you tend to have read the thread leading up to that point.

Well, try it some time. There are hundreds of comments. I skim. I look for spam. I stop at the names of commenters I know and like. I have a free speech policy and ignore stuff that looks like low-quality junk. I have a lot of idiosyncratic strategies for getting through it all, and it's still a lot of work. I'm telling you: Your assumption is wrong.

So the idea she had no idea what was afoot is ludicrous.

I may know what's "afoot," but only in a vague way, and not oriented toward finding things to delete. My working strategy is not to delete. From that I have exceptions. One is to look closely if someone emails me and points to something specific. Sullivan never did me that behind-the-scenes courtesy. He just made a post attacking me — and reprinting the ugly stuff. If he really wanted it excised, he wouldn't have reprinted it. He wanted to expose it and air it out. And there you see the value of my non-deletion policy. The ugly stuff is self-destructing! It argues against itself. Why drive it underground? Why empower the haters by letting them see they got to you? They are their own worst enemies.

She has already accused me of being a racist, a heterophobe and a misogynist...

I appreciate those 2 links, because I wouldn't have remembered what I'd said. Go ahead and read those old posts of mine. I didn't generically call him a racist. I found racism in the way he talked about Bobby Jindal. As to heterophobia and misogyny.... well, frankly, I do think Sullivan has a problem with women. Does he ever write positively about women? For the most part, women barely exist in his world. And when one comes into prominence — notably Sarah Palin — he seems to feel a special antagonism.

[E]ven if everything Althouse says in her defense is true, it says a lot to me that she is unable even to offer a word of apology or regret, or to remove any of the vilest personal attacks in that thread. I offended her a while back with a post on her announcement that she was getting engaged to one of the commenters on her site... I subsequently apologized for any offense she subsequently felt.

Did he really apologize? I emailed him about his outrageous insult and he posted something, but it wasn't really to the point.  And anyway, "I subsequently apologized for any offense she subsequently felt"... that's what's called a nonapology. Okay, if it's really that easy then: Andrew, I am subsequently sorry if anything on my blog subsequently offended you.

I was too glib, and insensitive, but it's in a different universe from the hate speech she publishes.

It's different all right. The difference is, what was said about me, you wrote. I didn't write any of the the offensive comments. I just have an open forum and a free speech policy. To say I "published" it makes it sound as though I pre-screened it. Ironically, you published those comments. You chose to copy and paste them on your blog.

If Althouse had not partially built her traffic on this kind of stuff for years, and if she weren't a big blog, and a contributor to bloggingheads and other MSM outlets and a professor at a university, I'd let this slide as I usually do....

Since I didn't respond yesterday, he may have thought I was letting it slide, because he came up with this second post:

Just check out Ann Althouse's reaction to Garance Franke-Ruta's rather anodyne reference to Jessica Valenti breast controversy on bloggingheads....

Oh, for the love of God.

I have no idea what the reference is....

Don't worry. It has to do with breasts. It would only bore you.

... she threatens to hang up and tells Garance that she is involved in character assassination. But she is happy to post the vilest attacks on my being gay and having HIV and refuses to apologize.

Again, jeez, I don't post the comments! I have an open comments section and a policy against deletion. In the Bloggingheads, I was in a one-on-one conversation with someone who was quietly sticking a dagger in and I called her on it. Where is the contradiction? I don't like crap said about me — and believe me, the breast controversy was a shitstorm — and I completely understand that you don't like crap written about you. Do you realize that my free speech policy includes leaving hundreds of insults against me in my comments section?

Finally, Sullivan restates my asserted free-speech position and then quotes something I wrote in 2005, when I was annoyed by the trend in the comments and said "I'm adopting a new, more activist form of supervision." He then says:

Maybe I missed a post after that where she expressed her willingness not just to accept but to participate in threads that accuse an HIV-survivor of AIDS dementia because they disagree with him.

Let me use his word, "disingenuous." It's disingenuous to assume that a policy I stated 4 years ago is the policy I maintain and employ today. Obviously, it's not. Digging up the old defunct policy is a lame device that Sullivan is using to push the point he's been tying himself up in knots trying to make, that the insulting remarks came from me. They did not.

Why antagonize me over this? My inclination is to be sympathetic to anyone with an illness, and I like substantive argument (or funny snark) and not mean-spirited trash.

And, Andrew, if you ever want to go on Bloggingheads and talk about it one-on-one, let me know.

"Love in the Time of Commenters."

On Bloggingheads, Bob Wright wants to know all about what's been going on. Topics:

Ann gets engaged to one of her blog’s commenters
Is the internet full of shy, lonely men?
Are women always in it for the man’s money?
Ann accuses Obama of excessive frivolity
Should we be more freaked out about the economy?
Reviving the Althouse vs. BhTV commenter rivalry

I'll update with some juicy clips soon.

ADDED: The first clip, in which Bob speculates that Meade might be my sockpuppet. The clip ends with a surprising offer.



AND: I shock Bob with a very personal revelation:



AND: "All your commenters woo you, Ann."



AND: The test for how much you need to kiss in public:



IN THE COMMENTS: Mortimer Brezny said:

See? This is why Mortimer Brezny stopped blogging. He came on this damn blog to woo Ann into marrying him and all it got him was mockery from Trooper York and into flame wars with Simon Dodd. (For which I apologize, Simon.) Then some other commenter steals Mr. Brezny's idea and succeeds. I mean, all the defending I did of Ann was totally just a vain and pitiable attempt to get in the knickerbockers! Who cares about what Ron Bailey thinks! And it's Meade! Oh man, I could have put in so much less blogging effort! Gaaah! I mean, I threw Jessica Valenti through a plate glass window for Ann! And I broke her leg with a pipe! I mean, talk about full frontal feminism!

But at least this bloggingheads diavlog clears some things up. Ann is not dominant in her personal relationships. I guess that kills it, Simon. It kills it for me. I mean, I had fantasies, man. Mortimer had dirty, filthy fantasies. Mortimer came to the meetups to score, man! It hurts! The wooing I did here! The hardcore woo action that I put out here! I was devoting it up in here. I am fulminating with rage! Rage and fulmination and fire and brimstone! I mean, if I can't have Ann, no one else should! That is the cosmic rule, doesn't everyone KNOW that?

Anyway, I'm not a shy guy. I don't have any problems meeting women. I just use e-harmony. That's where the real sluts are. But, truly heartbroken. I am. Truly.

So: congratulations and stuff. To the happy couple. This post has all been performance art. Now I must go weep. And, I better get frontpaged for this crap.

"The feminist movement has a right to define what constitutes being a member, and I'm not going to appropriate their label if it bothers them..."

"... any more than I'm going to start calling myself a Catholic who just doesn't happen recognize the authority of the Church. If you read any feminist blogs, you'll know that they spend an enormous amount of time trying to define the core values of feminism, and while I may disagree with the definitions they end up with, if they dislike my opinions on the matter, well, it's their movement."

Says Megan McArdle, and I completely disagree. I was going to explain my disagreement in detail but the second comment over there — by Julian Sanchez — is so apt that it instantly cured me of any propensity toward verbosity:

Why is it "their movement"? I didn't realize the analogy "Jessica Valenti : Feminism :: The Pope : Catholicism" held.

And why must feminism be attached to that ugly word "movement"? Movement feminists can have and define their movement, but they shouldn't be allowed to claim feminism. You know, back in the 1980s, I used to be afraid to say I was a feminist because there were other, more active people out there defining the term and I didn't want to adopt by reference a set of beliefs that I wasn't able to control. By behaving that way, I was ceding the field to the most activist types. That's what Megan is talking about doing now. I understand the impulse to say: Okay, then you can have your word and make it mean whatever you want it to mean. I'll find a different word. But if a word has a grand history and tradition — and "feminism" does — then it deserves a wide usage and a continued struggle over its meaning. Don't give it away to the boldest aggressor.

ADDED: Elisa Camahort thinks I have the better side of this argument and says:

In a way McArdle's concession of the term is not much different than Rush Limbaugh painting feminists as Feminazis. It's saying: over there there is a group of people who hold beliefs with which I disagree, and I am going to decide that they represent the sum total of all people who might believe some of the same stuff.

I do need to defend Rush here. In the time I've been listening to him (since January 2008), he hasn't said "feminazis" much, and when he does, it's always to bait a certain type of type of extremist feminist. He seems to support equal rights for women and similar individualistic feminist values.

In fact, I have heard him encourage young women not to marry, to go into business, and to compete with men. I have never heard him say women are inferior or that they should devote their lives to serving men and bearing children. So I suspect that he would concede that he agrees with feminism broadly defined.

The people to whom McArdle would defer are perhaps the same kind of extremists that Rush is talking about when he says feminazis. So if McArdle-style deference were to prevail, "feminist" and "feminazi" would come to mean the same thing but only because the category "feminist" will have shrunken.

"Is Obama over?"

Bob and Mickey think so.

The link is to a segment of a Bloggingheads episode that's worth watching in its entirety, in part because Bob and Mickey are such great diavloggers, but also because they talk about me... twice. The first time is a teaser for a Bloggingheads that I've recorded, but which hasn't gone up yet and which might cause a big sensation. The second time is in the last segment, where Mickey gives Bob a pop culture quiz, and one question is "Jessica or Nick?" and the only Jessica that Bob can think of is Jessica Valenti, whom Mickey can't identify until Bob prompts with my name, at which point -- I think -- Mickey gives me some light support.

ADDED: A link at "teaser for a Bloggingheads" and, from it, a new quote for the masthead.

Ryan Grim live-chats his way through the big dustup he started by asking me about my "biggest dustup."

You know... all that Clinton-lunching-with-the-feminist-bloggers stuff. Excerpt:

12:12 PM kentucky: I don't understand why Jessica is so defensive about what you said in your profile of Ann Althouse. I personally don't think her chest was the focal point of the photo, but you, as a young man, are welcome to that opinion. So why does holding that opinion mean that you think she was flaunting her secuality [sic], or however she described it?

Ryan Grim: I bought Valenti’s book the other day and am about halfway through it. The title, Full Frontal Feminism, is an obvious play on Full Frontal Nudity, a porn term that let’s folks know how much they’re about to see. And then there’s the cover, splashed with a nude woman’s midsection. And then there’s the content: a steady theme of the book is sexuality, getting into specifics like oral sex and masturbation.

On the Colbert Report the other night, she said, "Nothing says feminism like a naked woman's body." Okay, fine.

I don’t care one way or the other what Valenti writes about. But to pick that subject matter and then object to me saying that she’s “not shy with her body” strikes me as a double standard. A woman can talk about sexuality but a man can’t then say that she’s comfortable doing what she’s doing? And why would anybody object to that characterization? What’s wrong with not being shy?

Thanks to several women who have discussed that very question to me, I now (think I) know why she objects to that. When she says “everyone knows” what I meant, she’s saying that I was using coded language to call her a ‘slut.’

Now, if you take the line I wrote completely out of context, I can agree that such an interpretation is possible, though it’s a stretch. But I can also say that that interpretation couldn’t be farther from the truth. What purpose on Earth would it serve either me or the story to call someone I never met a slut?

Not only wasn't intended to be offensive, the line wasn’t even remotely intended as a criticism. What could possibly be wrong with not being shy about one’s body? A lot of people aren’t and, I would think, that’s a trait shared by mature individuals.

I think there's something really incoherent about the Third Wave/pro-sex feminists. They continually use sexuality for self-promotion, but if you want to examine issues of sexuality from any dimension other than the one they control, they slam you as a misogynist or some such thing. You know, my biggest problem with them is that they are boring. There's no possibility of an interesting discussion about anything.

This adds to my sense that they are incoherent. They don't want to engage, because they can't deal with the flaws that can be pointed out by anyone who is not fully submissive to their ideological discipline. Note that Ryan invited Jessica Valenti to interact with him in the chat, and she wouldn't do it. She just insisted on an apology and a retraction. Even when you're sure you're right, why don't you like discussion, debate, and analysis? How utterly tedious... and suspicious.

ADDED: Bad link fixed.

Let's keep talking about breasts.

Jessica Valenti is writing in The Guardian and connecting the violent threats against Kathy Sierra to my old blog post making fun of a photograph of her and a bunch of other bloggers posing with President Clinton. Read the whole thing. I just want to focus on this:

Let me tell you, it's not easy to build a career as a feminist writer when you have people coming up to you in pubs asking if you're the "Clinton boob girl" or if one of the first items that comes up in a Google search of your name is "boobgate".

Well, let me tell you. I don't like having my name connected to the things you have in quotes there, none of which were written by me. They were written by your allies as they attacked me over and over again.

The only reason the Google searches come out the way they do is because of the endless vicious, nasty attacks on me. I haven't been the one pushing this story. They are. And you are too -- right here! I never even put your name in the original post -- or even in any post until long after you and your allies had posted repeatedly insulting me by name every way they could think of. Your name is all over their posts. Not mine.

And I still maintain that it was absolutely justified to mock that photograph. Distort what I was really saying there all you want, but the fact remains: Cozying up to Bill Clinton is not something a feminist should be doing. You have never responded to what I was really writing about. You have instead chosen to attack me, and you're doing it again, and you and your friends have leveraged what was a minor satirical blog post for your advantage. You're exploiting it again and going through the whole routine of trying to ruin my reputation again. It's an ugly way you've chosen to try to build a career as a feminist writer.

I'd love to see you take some responsibility for what you've done instead of whining that everyone's talking about your breasts. I don't give a damn about your breasts. What I care about is the way feminists sold out feminism to bolster the fortunes of the Democratic Party. But you will never talk about that, because you don't have anything to say there. So it's on and on about breasts, breasts, breasts, please don't talk about my breasts.

IN THE COMMENTS: Larry in Gibbsville said:

Valenti continues to milk her sagging "breast controversy" for all its worth.

Internet Ronin:

[C]an you explain why Valenti and her friends persist in bringing this issue back to life on a regular basis? It seems to me that they are the ones who make repeated references to her breasts, and the picture. That seems an illogical thing to do if one sincerely wishes not to be known as the "breast-blogger" and genuinely wished for this subject to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

If it was so humiliating for Valenti, one must wonder why she insists on reliving that humiliation on a regular basis and is now obviously trying to widen the distribution of the her supposed humiliation.

That's well put. And let me remind people, once again, that Valenti's blog, right at the top, has two very busty "mudflap"-style silhouettes. Yes, I know they are giving you the finger -- that is, they are bringing in additional sexual references (enough to make me think -- people say I'm wrong -- that the blog name "Feministing" was intended to make you see the word "fisting"). It is simply undeniable that Valenti herself uses sexual imagery in an effort to make her offerings more exciting. I would never have written the "Let's take a closer look" post if that hadn't been blindingly obvious to me. I'll give Valenti credit for doing a good job at self-promotion -- calling into her service a swarm of bloggers who have come to her defense by, absurdly, talking about her breasts continually.

By the way -- as Mortimer Brezny points out and discusses in many excellent comments -- Valenti has a book coming out. So you figure out why she's bringing up the subject of my old blog post again. (Someone raises the theory that she actually plotted with Garance Franke-Ruta to revive the old controversy through that Bloggingheads episode, but Garance assures me that didn't happen.) The book's title refers to graphic nudity, and it has a naked female torso on the cover -- more of the same use of sexual imagery for self-promotion.

Responding to someone who wrote, "It was not right to mock that photograph," Bill says:

Which is just plain and utter bullshit. Can we all--ok, can most of us agree--that it's perfectly normal, and fun, to mock things. Photos, religion, hairstyles, bumper stickers, ANYTHING. SNL, Dennis Miller, Jon Stewart, all have perfected the art of mocking photographs. Then there's all the newspapers and magazines that run caption contests--again, mocking the photo being the prime goal.

Note that the original "Let's take a closer look" post links to a "Daily Show" segment in which Jon Stewart mercilessly mocks Katherine Harris for posing in a way that shows off her breasts. You know, it's really laughable that Valenti's Guardian piece lumps mocking her photograph together with threats of real violence. It's utterly specious argument to compare harshly mocking political speech -- like mine -- to real threats of violence. The fact is, Valenti went to that lunch and posed the way she did; it had political meaning, and I talked about it. She doesn't like that to be pointed out in a way that's embarrassing to her. I get it. And I meant to embarrass her. She is a public figure who writes about feminism and behaved in a way -- posing proudly with Clinton -- that raises a feminist issue I'm damned well going to talk about. Though I certainly understand why she and her allies would like to shut me up.

MadisonMan says:

It's odd that a feminist is building a career out of whining about how her breasts are being talked about.

Palladian replies:

People who pursue careers as professional "feminists" usually build their careers out of whining.

L links to the Bloggingheads segment where I lash out at Garance Franke-Ruta for using the expression "the Jessica Valenti breast controversy" and writes:

because really, ann flipping out about character assassination when it comes to an issue she created! ha, c'mon, it is pretty hilarious. lets all join hands and laugh. but knowing ann and her own hatred for her female flesh, she probably will blame her craziness on on her menstrual cycle.

That is completely sexist. Upthread L wrote, "You are just an insecure right wing woman who is jealous of a liberal younger woman's looks and success," so I'm surprised he/she is giving me credit for having a menstrual cycle. The ageist and sexist themes in the anti-Althousiana genre are highly revealing. You think your values don't matter as long as you are attacking opponents? And I love this idea that older women are not allowed to attack younger women. It's just an attempt to silence: You're old, so shut up, or we'll say you're ugly and jealous. It's a lame debate ploy, since it's obvious you're just saying shut up. But to stoop to flat-out sexism and ageism for emphasis... how terribly embarrassing for you, L.

Synova takes issue with this characterization of me as "an insecure right wing woman who is jealous of a liberal younger woman's looks and success":

Does Ann go around making mean comments about the appearance of young women who aren't standing next to Bill Clinton?

I could be wrong but I thought I remembered reading something about Ann being profoundly disillusioned about how feminism responded to the Lewinsky scandal....

I know that my mother was furious and absolutely clear on what *exactly* about the Clinton/Monica thing upset her. It was the fact that this was blatant workplace sexual harassment, something that exists despite consent to the degree that the parties involved have unequal power. This was the "secretary as a sexual perk" role right out of the bad old days when being a secretary was one of the very few career choices available to women.

If my mom saw that picture with all the happy girls clustered around Bill she'd probably have the same reaction as Ann to the visual prominence of the pretty young lady in the center.

Johnstodder has this (beginning with a quote from Mark):

There's mockery and then there's mockery. It's one thing to make a good natured fun of a picture, it's quite another to be mean-spirited and crudely mock someone's appearance in a picture in a sexist way all the while asserting that it's done with a valid purpose of defending true feminism.

Huh? "Crudely mock someone's appearance?" Part of the point of Ann's joke was that Jessica is a relatively attractive woman in a sea of doughy-faced blogger types; posing in the way (as Ann saw it) that attractive girls do to catch the eye.

This observation by Ann is totally consistent with what Valenti says about herself. She is offended by those who would deny her sexuality. She assumes she draws looks from men. The penchant of some men to take oppressive action when confronted with an attractive woman is a major topic of her blog.

Go to her blog. Type in the search term "lookism." You get one hit. One. From a comment that refers to another URL. Jessica has never used the term. Women losing out on jobs and other benefits because they aren't considered attractive by men doesn't happen to be her issue.

For example, on January 4th, she defended Texas cheerleaders targeted by a state bill banning "bawdy performances." She (rightly) mocked men getting "in such a tizzy" over cheerleaders. Old-style feminists might have a disagreement with Jessica on this matter, seeing in cheerleading an institution that rewards the superficial physical traits rather than merit or acheivement.

Jessica's initial position wasn't that she was crudely mocked by Ann. She thought Ann was off-base in using Jessica's alluring appearance against her. If there is one thing Ann and Jessica seemed to agree on, it was that Jessica looked good in the picture. The argument was primarily over intent, and secondarily over whether it was appropriate for a self-identified feminist to seemingly re-enact a shameful moment in feminist history as if the episode had no weight whatsoever.

Hey says:

What's the thing that Bill Clinton is most famous for? Lecherous behavior with younger women, even not especially attractive ones.

What kind of picture is always popping up in the media of Bill? Interesting and compromising photos of him with younger and much younger women (The Economist and other serious media have made hay out of Bill and Canadian billionaire heiress and politician Belinda Stronach, never mind other media). Regular on Drudge, Leno, never mind right wing sites.

If you're a feminist supporter of Hillary, what's the last thing that you should want to do? Provide fodder to comedians and political opponents that highlights Bill's "bimbo eruptions".

What does the Valenti picture echo? Bill's bimbo problems.

Valenti should have been far away from Bill to avoid this. The picture was a hilarious joke of all the worst Clinton pictures And this is by a supporter for public consumption?

The picture and controversy shows that Valenti is an idiot and that her supporters are in denial or are just as idiotic. That this is all about disrespecting feminism, rather than the obvious problems of the photos, is an admission that Valenti screwed up and played into the hands of the Clintons' opponents.

I agree with that. On first seeing the photo, I laughed and thought about how Valenti's placement and pose undermined the whole point of the lunch, which was to use Bill to help Hillary. I don't, however, agree that Valenti is an idiot. I think she's a self-promoter who has been exploiting this incident with some skill, playing the other bloggers reasonably well. I don't know if she's for or against Hillary. (I've actually never read her blog!) But I'll estimate her intelligence at a much higher level if she's against.

Omaha1 provides an outline of the controversy:

1. Ann observed that a young feminist blogger was photographed next to Clinton in dress and manner that seemed to accentuate her attractive figure.

1a. Intelligent women acknowledge that in the real world, men often notice their breasts.

1b. Intelligent women also know that knit tops are clingy and draw men's eyes to their breasts.

1c. Clinton has a public history of sexual interest in young women.

1d. In anticipating a meeting with a prominent political figure, considerable thought would presumably go into one's dress and deportment.

Conclusion: When a young, attractive woman meets with Clinton, if she does not make an effort to dress in a non-provocative way, she is encouraging his perception of her as a sexual object.

2. The majority of the Democratic party set back the cause of feminism in its refusal to condemn the sexual exploitation of Clinton's young, vulnerable intern, Monica Lewinsky.

2a. This "refusal to condemn" was the result of partisan support for a Democratic president.

2b. Since one of the foundations of modern femiminism is abhorrence for the sexual exploitation of women, for any reason, by men in "superior" positions, this was hypocritical.

Conclusion: The apparent willingness of an attractive young feminist blogger to be viewed by Clinton as a sexual object is a continuing endorsement of this hypocrisy.

shorter summary: if Jessica had worn a jacket or sweater over her knit top, there would be no controversy.

shorter summary II: if Jessica is unaware of men's interest in breasts, she is either unintelligent or out of touch with reality.....

[I]f I were meeting with a prominent political figure, I would put a significant amount of thought into choosing my attire, and considering the message it might send. I would probably choose a businesslike skirt and jacket, something that would project a professional, non-sexual image.

I have worked in the predominately male world of software development and seen the effect of women consciously using sex appeal to influence co-workers, and that is something I never wanted any part of. I stand by my assertion that Jessica's choice of attire was a deliberate ploy to gain sexual attention, unless she was either stupid or naive.

And don't miss mikeinsc, who gets into a big debate very late in the comments. Sample:

The number of feminists outside of Althouse who WILL condemn what Clinton did is miniscule. Which is why the current crop of pseudo-feminists are so pissy at Althouse. Nobody likes having their blatant hypocrisy exposed.

I'll give David53 the last word:

The vortex continues unabated. Currently at Level 208. At level 400 the space-time continuum around the server will begin to warp eventually creating an alternate reality populated entirely with sentient breasts.

Bob Wright on why I thought I was "ambushed" on Bloggingheads.

Sorry, this isn't the post about the new Supreme Court case. I'll get to that later. Remember, I'm on vacation. But I've just got to post about the new Bloggingheads episode in which Bob Wright and Michael Kinsley talk about me.

Bob introduces the topic by saying that under "the new Bloggingheads business model," he's going to have to yell at Kinsley and threaten to hang up. It's "the precedent" and "a proven traffic-generation model." Kinsley says he's fine with that, "the sooner the better."

Referring to the precedent, set, of course, by me, Michael says:

I didn't completely understand it. I certainly sympathize with Ann, the woman who felt she'd been abused by the bloggers.

Bob says that's good and notes that I didn't get much sympathy from the Bloggingheads commenters. He goes on:

I'm sympathetic. You're sympathetic because you recently got trashed by liberal bloggers. I'm sympathetic because I am myself prone to fly off the handle.

Michael asks for an explanation of what exactly it was that upset me, and Bob tries to explain. You can go over and listen to the explanation, which I don't entirely agree with, because it lacks context. He makes it sound as though all I ever wrote about was that a woman posed in a way that accentuated her breasts!

Now, Bob says: "Ann, I think, thought it was a set up. She... and I'm slightly culpable for this in a way I could go into and now that I've said this, I guess I have to go into it." He explains that before a Bloggingheads episode, the diavloggers agree to a series of topics, and that Garance Franke-Ruta and I had not agreed to talk about that old controversy -- what Garance referred to as "the Jessica Valenti breast controversy." (I would have refused, by the way, and in the past, Bob has tried to get me to diavlog with someone on that subject, and I have declined.) Bob: "Ann thought this was an ambush. Okay?"

Michael guesses that it was within a larger topic of "people being rude on the internet." But that was not one of the agreed-upon topics either. Bob says he doesn't know what our topics were, but says he's "sure" the topic of "mean left-wing bloggers" was. Well, it wasn't!

Bob says, "so from Garance's point of view, there was a legitimate context." But, no, in fact, she introduced the whole topic.

Bob goes on: "Ann thought it was an ambush, and here's my culpability." He explains that when he was arranging the diavlog with Garance, she had said she'd like to diavlog with -- guess who? -- Jessica Valenti! Bob didn't think that would be a good idea, because he assumed the two of them would just agree about everything, and so he suggested me instead. He makes a point of saying that he didn't realize that Valenti was the subject of the old controversy, however. But he did see me as an "ideological opponent" of Valenti's, based on the way her name had come up in my diavlog with Glenn Reynolds.

Bob reveals that he'd given me all that background and says that he sees it as a basis for me to have assumed Garance and Valenti are "kind of allies." This "increased the plausibility that this is an ambush," he says.

Bob invites Kinsley to comment on it, and Kinsley says, "it makes for good video when people are really upset and threatening to leave" and tells a story about Christopher Hitchens storming off the set of "Crossfire."

I'm not planning to keep bugging you with the old Bloggingheads story (which is a continuation of the old Clinton-lunching-with-the-bloggers story), but Bob Wright and Michael Kinsley were talking about me.

I'm not trying to dredge up the old Bloggingheads thing...

Which is, you know, an old blogosphere flame war, but I see there's a transcription going around -- of this notorious segment of the diavlog -- that has a glaring error that is being used against me. I'm not going to link to any of the many blogs that are using this text, and I don't know what enterprising loser took the initiative to type it out, but it's perfectly easy to Google if you want to know who's purveying the defective text:

these are flame wars, and what I'm trying to say on the overarching point, is that the left side of the blogosphere is vicious and unfair and nasty to me, and I don't like it, and I'm trying to ask you why that's the way they treat me when I support most of what they're for. Meanwhile, on the right side of the blogosphere, where there's much less overlap, I think, I am treated in a very warm and connecting kind of way. And you're really just kind of undermining my point, uh, by bringing that up like that.

Here's what it should be, with the mistakes corrected in boldface.

These are flame wars, and what I'm trying to say on the overarching point, is that the left side of the blogosphere is vicious and unfair and nasty to me, and I don't like it, and I'm trying to ask you why that's the way they treat me when I support most of what they're for. Meanwhile, on the right side of the blogosphere, where there's much less overlap with what I think, I'm treated in a very warm and connecting kind of a way. And you're really just underlining my point by bringing that up like that.

See that last one! I don't say "undermining." I say "underlining." I will wait for the apologies from all the nasty, vicious characters who thought I'd hilariously misspoken and who used that as an occasion for mocking me. (And I didn't say "kind of" before it either, which just shows how sloppy the transcriber was. )

What I find hilarious is that the reaction to this video clip is really just underlining my point! The leftosphere is nasty and vicious to me. And they are trying to assassinate my character, as I say in the clip. They jumped to make themselves into the example of the very thing I was talking about. Ironic, no?

But let me admit something. I do think they have the motive to try to destroy me, and I can see why the left treats me nastily -- unlike the right -- even though I share their opinion on practically all the key issues (except national security).

I have obviously disaggregated myself from the fortunes of the Democratic Party. I will say what I have to say without trying to protect the party's interests. That's dangerous to them, and they should be afraid for me to have clout in the blogosphere. They have reason to portray me as crazy, stupid, drunk, or whatever the latest attack is. They should worry. And, as I say in the video, I will stand my ground.

The source of this distance I feel is exactly what I was talking about in those posts that ignited the old blogosphere flamewar: the way so many Democrats changed how they talked about sexual harassment in order to defend Bill Clinton. (Specifically, I was monumentally impressed by Stuart Taylor's comparison of the way Clinton and Clarence Thomas were treated.)

Let's take a closer look at what I wrote back then, when I mocked that photograph.

Bill Clinton, apparently eager to influence bloggers to give his wife favorable coverage as she sought the presidency, sat down for a lunch and a photo shoot with a select group of them. They ate up the lunch and the flattery it represented and posed looking thoroughly pleased. I think bloggers should maintain their independence and their critical stance, so I hated to read their gushing posts and to gaze on their shiny, happy faces in that photograph. I meant to be cruel to them.

(If they are cruel to me, I concede that I started it and that I meant to be nasty. In that sense, I can't complain... except for effect.)

My cruelty took the form of trying to ruin the picture they thought was so nice by merging it with the idea of Monica Lewinsky. The last thing Bill Clinton wants as he offers his prestige to the cause of his wife's quest for power is for us to think about Monica Lewinsky.

So I called attention to the fact that Jessica Valenti, positioned right in front of Clinton, did look a bit like that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I thought the photograph was set up in a way that was detrimental to the Clintons' interests, and I thought that was funny and that it presented an opportunity for some painful satire. I made it quite nasty, and I did it deliberately. I'm not sorry I did it. I mean to castigate feminists and so-called feminists who cozy up to Clinton. They were surely justified in fighting back at me, and I can understand why they want to ruin me.

But I did achieve my goal and ruin the photograph. You've got to admit that you cannot look at it the way the shiny, happy posers meant you to. The photograph is -- as they say -- reframed. If I must suffer for that achievement -- which I sought -- so be it.

How I'm like Bill Clinton.

I'm really not trying to drag out the Bloggingheads to-do, but one of the commenters, Cyrus Pinkerton, asked this great question:

I reread your blog entitled "Clinton on Fox News Sunday," about Clinton's reaction to one of Chris Wallace's interview questions. What I'm curious about is how you compare your reaction to the "Jessica Valenti breast controversy" comment to Clinton's reaction to what he obviously considered an ambush by Wallace. More to the point, can you explain why you feel your reaction was appropriate and Clinton's was not?

I totally identify with Bill Clinton here. I've never claimed that my reaction was "appropriate." I say at the end of the diavlog that I'm sorry for getting so mad. And I never said that I thought Bill Clinton was a lunatic to react the way he did. He's a smart guy who is good at reading a situation, and he's not a cold fish. He's got some real human warmth to him, and it can take him to some regrettable places. I'm not saying I'm any different. In fact, let me sidle right up next to him and pose proudly.

"But let's reserve the word 'anti-feminist' for our real enemies."

So says Erin Matson, the co-chair of that National Organization for Women Young Feminist Task Force, commenting on the on the breastblogging controversy I caused a few weeks ago. This quote appears in a piece written by Liz Funk (over at Huffington Post). Funk is fairly balanced in her analysis -- although I find it rather unfair that there is no link to my blog. (The other blog, Feministing, is linked twice.)

Funk seems to confirm my observation that Feministing uses breast imagery to attract an audience:

If Feministing is in fact using sex to attract readers, they aren't alone. From female celebrities sporting minidresses on the cover of Cosmopolitan, to risqué perfume ads, to commercials for tampons, many media outlets geared towards women (and many of which are intended to empower women) use women's sexuality to attract women readers. Sex sells... and women buy it.

Sex is almost always needed to market to younger people. As young feminist interest seems to be dwindling in traditional women's organizations, Feministing lures readers with politics and social commentary-made palatable. Putting the term "subverting the dominant paradigm" as a blog post title would not draw Gen Y readers; "'Cause calling girls slut is always funny" relates the same message of gender equality, with more sparkle.

Yes, of course, but if you're going to be a feminist, you need to do a feminist analysis of that move! So you want to get your message across? But you have to ask yourself whether you've changed the message. This is such a glaring question that it's mindboggling that you think you'd escape this critique.

But feminists aren't what they used to be. They shrink from an intense debate with each other. Here's Matson's point in context:

"This controversy is a rehashing of a very old debate within the feminist community: is public sexuality empowering or harmful to women? It's a complex issue and it's good to keep the discussion going... some feminists may disagree with the stance taken by many of Feministing's writers, but let's reserve the word 'anti-feminist' for our real enemies. To slap the same label on Jessica Valenti and Anne [sic] Coulter is completely ridiculous."

"Our real enemies"? Oh, yes, feminism has gotten rolled up into the conventional left-right of American politics. Ever since feminists chose to subordinate themselves to the interests of the Democratic party to help Bill Clinton with his problems, the feminist discourse in this country has been lame. It's a means to a political end, and so you always know who your "enemies" are. Fifteen years ago, feminists critiquing each other was an important part of feminism. Now, doggedly serving liberal partisan politics squelches everything that could become vital.

Maybe if feminists had the nerve to engage in real debate about feminism they could get some young people excited about real ideas. But go ahead, tart up your website with boobies for now. It's helpful that you make your desperation so clear.

UPDATE: Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for linking. If you're not familiar with the original controversy, here is my key post touching things off, and here and here are later posts responding to it.