Shut Up Barbie: the New Feminism of the Far Left
Shut Up Barbie might remind you of Sarah Palin in her most immediate qualities: she, too, is sexy and cuddles up to big daddy for approval and attention but the super cool thing about Shut Up Barbie is that she isn’t ignorant! Yes, Shut Up Barbie comes with a book and she can talk well at parties. In other words, she’s the perfect companion for “liberal” Ken. She’s cute, she’s sassy, she’s smart, but she knows when to shut up.
Shut Up Barbie would never, for instance, get angry when her rights are laughed at. Oh, no! Shut Up Barbie joins in the with boys like a Big Girl when they dismiss and diminish in their smug, self-righteous tones why “this rape isn’t rape.” Shut Up Barbie knows that in order to get along, she’s got to go along – and no one likes an angry woman.
Anyway, isn’t this the new face of feminism? She’s happy! She’s sexy! She’ll dance on a pole for you and apparently, you can also too have sex with her while she sleeps and she’ll not utter a peep!
I tell you I’m so moved and impressed – who woulda thought that all it would take to take back the word feminism from all of the ugly connotations is giving up on your major principles! And the real win is that so long as you are willing to give up your sense of self and engage in the diminishment of your pals, the boys will trot you out to speak for them in order to them give pseudo fem cred.
Here’s where Shut Up Barbie and Sarah Palin meet: Both are in this for their own benefit, not the cause. Both know how to WIN and you don’t WIN by bucking the patriarchal kings who run things like cable shows that you might want to get your sleek hair on so you can purr about how awful it would be for good men to perhaps have to spend a few years in jail for rape, right after you shake your head that no, sex without a condom while a woman is sleeping is most certainly not rape. After all, she woke up eventually!
For an added bonus, Shut Up Barbie will speak in serious tones about the damage being done to a Hero’s reputation while at the same time, letting it slip her mind that she is damaging some women’s reputations along with the cause with sly references to set-ups and not real rape while in the background, “this is how you do it” plays as she uses her sublime beauty to sell this myth. Oh, the sexiness of it all! And the mens are so happy. This is a feminist they can get behind (har har, pun intended!)! They all agree, in this fight, the sexy one who agrees with them won!
And the mens all beam at Shut Up Barbie, because they want to believe themselves better than the conservative men who suck up Sarah Palin’s toe lint with all of its mommy dominatrix charm. They know they are superior to those morons. They pride themselves on finding “smart” women attractive. And all it took was finding a gorgeous Shut Up Barbie to conspire with them to show just how angry, wrong, and hysterical these “radical feminists” are who dared to ask that alleged rape victims not be blamed for what may be the agenda of some government officials.
Sadly, some evil radical feminists who actually thought they owned their own bodies and had some right to dignity and protection under the law got all “tizzied up” and took to twitter, causing said boys to have to make this all go away super fast. Shut Up Barbie was VERY helpful at this point, bringing a level of condescension heretofore unseen by a liberal woman to another liberal woman. And here you thought only Sarah Palin could hate on womens like that!
So what if the groupies of said hero, otherwise known as your fellow party members, engaged in death threats and nasty tweets generously employing language not fit to print about and to these angry feminists? Hello, these girls so deserved that for opening their mouths! Free speech, my friends, is not to be engaged in without permission and you must pick the right cause if you’re going to go out on a limb and start talking without permission. We care about your “thoughts” so long as they do not cause us any angst, get in our way, or make us think. I thought we covered that above. Do try to keep up.
And then of course we got the boys petulantly explaining to us all how “I know a rape victim so I would never be guilty of being a rape apologist”, which rings eerily like the Right Wing “I know a gay person and I like them but I don’t think they should have any rights. What’s your problem?” But shhhhhh! Don’t ask. Don’t tell.
Then, the angry mean horrible women who were insisting that their tweets be heard got a sort of acknowledgment from One Film Hero, while The Great Hero walked back his accusations from across the ocean and still another TV Hero was raged into at least considering that if rape happened that might be bad. I can’t understand why you keep insisting that these white men might know little about hate crimes or being a minority.
And they say progress is dead. Ladies, while it may appear that the white male leaders of your party have abandoned you, realize they are but the minority. Sure, they have all of the power, I mean, what kind of world would this be if you actually had equal power and representation? Ha-ha, surely your “tizzies” would make you unfit to lead. Goodness, you might even get mad at a man and try to take sexual revenge with your golden honey pot of irresistible nectar. Evil temptress!
Since some of you do it, all of you must be colored with this taint but don’t go thinking that you can apply that same logic in reverse! Just because some men rape women, don’t suggest all men rape women. Fine distinctions abound and it is incumbent upon you to realize that you must never be guilty of smearing a He Who Shall be Worshiped by requesting that your fellow party members do not smear alleged victims who never even wanted to have Hero charged in the first place. No, no, the thing to do is to toss out a few lines of smirk about how they still spoke to him after and we all know that no rape victim ever speaks to the rapist after, even though 70-80 percent of rapes occur among people who know each other and most of those go unreported so yes, they do speak to the rapist afterward and swallow their pain so they can go along to get along. But hush, now, that’s not real rape and you know it!
Anyway, girls, let Shut Up Barbie be lesson to you all. Good girls, especially liberal girls, know when to shut up. Any time you see the boys’ mouths movin’ and a hailin’ their recent cult hero, you best get out of the way and start baking some metaphorical bread to welcome their hero home, to your bed if you must, knowing as we do that all women love a good ride at any time if the man is famous. What ever you do, do not start nattering on about boring things like your rights. They get it! OK? They just do not want to hear about it. How hard is that to understand?
Oh, sweetie, you’re so much prettier when you smile. Come on, now….it’s just a joke about a broken condom! Didn’t you see her picture? Where’s your sense of humor? What’s an STD or two when we’re saving the world? Surely you don’t mind. The boys are lining up for them!
Well, if you’re going to be difficult you’re going to force us to tell you what Shut Up Barbie never forces us to tell her! Appearances of respect for your opinion are for SHOW and most certainly do not apply when you make the man uncomfortable. If you insist on speaking about dull things like the time you were raped but it wasn’t rape but it was sort of rape (we have determined the meaning of rape and it changes based up on who does it, ladies…so you really need to come to the party!) or how rape allegations should be discussed in the media and by our fellow party members when the boys are doing important things, you deserve all of the condescension dealt out by Shut Up Barbie.
They only haul you out at parties and events to appear like they stand for equal rights! How dare you assume they meant it. The liberals love you on Election Day, sweetie. It’s the rest of the time that they want you to shut up.
Smile, now.
Special Note to any rape victims reading: Being raped is not shameful and it’s not your fault. It is a crime to rape someone. It is not a crime to report rape; it is your choice and your right. Please don’t allow the disgraceful behavior of a few to frighten you into not seeking help. You have rights and your body belongs to you. Any person who honors you as a human being will not have sex with you when you are not fully engaged and/or if the conditions of permission have changed. For confidential support, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1.800.656.HOPE or go online to RAINN.
*Due to the high level of violations of terms of service in the comment section lately, all comments are being moderated before posted. Comment moderation is at the sole discretion of the moderators.
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This is a powerful, profound, and excellent post. I was so moved by it that I shared it with all the female members of my family. Rarely do I read a piece of writing that sticks with me long after I have left my computer. This article is simply breathtaking and I can’t find the words to express my gratitude to you for it. Thank you hardly seems like enough, but it is all that I can say.
I agree. Well done, Sarah, a magnum opus. Thank you for writing this and sharing it with us all.
Thank you gentlemen:-) Your support for women’s issues (indeed, all human rights) makes me even prouder to write with you. Am honored to share this space with such independent thinkers.
It’s a great piece, Sarah! And you are right.
Agreed~ rape is rape and should not be candy-coated!
Sorry. I’m italian and probably i cannot understand. Being raped is a crime. Is Being raped a crime in the USA? Really? Strange! In Italy being raped is a tragedy and raping is a crime! And we have Berlusconi. Please: someone wake up the editor.
Ah, I believe that would be a Freudian slip. The crime, legally is committing the rape, not being raped… but watching the news, it would be easy to think the criminal is the woman speaking up about what was done to her, not the rapist.
Well, that’s the point of this post, isn’t it?
That’s exactly what I meant by that in the first place, but it was confusing for people so I simplified it.
Red, I was thrown a little when I first started to read it. I am a rape survivor myself and sometimes sarcasm takes a little longer to register on me when it involves discussion about survivor treatment, victim-blaming and related topics. Until it clicked in my head, I was getting pretty furious.
This piece is making a point about how some on the left have been mistreating two women who have made allegations of rape against a high profile individual who is respected by many on the left. It highlights a ridiculous and damaging double-standard.
As a male survivor of rape, I have a pretty keen understanding about how many on the left and right feign support in writing or speech when it helps them politically, yet can’t even say the word later when it comes to actually DOING something. There are a LOT of people, many of whom talk about rape quite often when it helps them make a point or who use us when we are convenient for their purposes, but are nowhere to be found when we need them to return the favor by actually helping us.
Exactly. Rape is a terrible horrible very bad thing until it actually happens, then there’s all kinds of excuses and rationalizations. Especially if the perp is well liked for whatever reason.
That’s exactly the point. The statistics on sexual assault are staggeringly high; hence, the party, politicians and pundits who take great pride in being advocates for said “minority” group need to be held accountable when they use said group as political pawns. Liberal Dems are supposed to be the advocates for equal rights for all minorities.
Furthermore, although sexual violence is not a female only issue, the blatant misogyny employed during this latest news frenzy was unacceptable for a party supported by feminists and of which women of all ages are more likely than white men to support.
Liberal Democratic FAIL.
I cannot believe I read the whole thing. It was very good, but if you could distill it into about 600 words, it would be awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying that you should shut up.
I seem to be incapable of writing only 600 words, John, as my editor will sadly tell you. I’m sure you have an excellent point, but I am just as sure that it won’t ever happen:-) Also, while many people have tried to get me to shut up, none have succeeded thus far (much to their chagrin), though I’ve found their rather transparent attempts to do so amusingly inspiring at times.
Do, please, continue to explain to her what she should do with her own writing on her own post from your pedestal. It was even actually very good! You said so yourself!
Shut Up Barbie is one of those people who calls herself feminist without knowing what it means. She’s all for herself being treated like a fully-human equal and it pretty much ends there. Equal pay for equal work! We’ve Come a Long Way, Baby!
As far as advocating for women as a class, well that’s for hairy-legged uggos who can’t take a compliment or something.
Exactly:-) And she comes from both sides of the aisle.
why am I picturing Camille Grammer right now? How is it that we have devolved to Grifting and Golddigging?
The culture reinforces for us at every turn that our power comes from outside of ourselves; namely from approval/lust of the patriarchy. We’ve been sold this rather effectively, though I believe that we know better in our hearts. Watching the women who stood up against this was proof of the mighty power of solidarity in standing up for truth and justice.
Even better, Crystal Harris. You might have heard of her. You probably have, today.
I have always hated Barbie ever since I was a little girl. I was once forced to go to the home of a girl who had a Barbie Doll House so big it covered her bed, with Ken, the car and a ton of clothes. I thought I was going to vomit the whole 2-3 hours I was there. I wanted to be a boy for several years due to being told everything I wanted to do was something only boys did. My mother kept trying to make me more “feminine”. I used Barbie mainly to pretend I was doing surgery.
Sarah this article is a gem. You are demonstrating one of the main functions of liberalism, being the conscience of the people. I admit I had some flaws in my thinking about this incident which are due to my own distrust of our government.
Thank you Celia. That’s quiet an honor and a responsibility. I’ll do my best to live up to it. Your suspicions about our government may or may not be true, but thank you for understanding that I am not suggesting they aren’t. If we do think that, I suggest our outrage be directed at those people rather than the women who do not appear to have wanted to be involved in this from the outset.
I’m deeply humbled by your kind words.
Excellent post. You nailed the hypocrisy of the Left so nicely.
In a way, it reminds me of what left-leaning women have had to experience for years. Remember when women in the mid 1960s presented memos to SDS and SNCC- the most radical groups of the day – about how women were being treated? Told the make the coffee, do the secretarial work, and stay in the background? When one leading male patted Shulamith Firestone (I think it was her, or maybe Ellen Willis) on the head and said “move over little girl, we have more important things to talk about than women’s liberation?” Or Stokely Carmichael’s reaction to the memo re: women’s rights in SNCC — “the only position for women in SNCC is prone?”
Bah.
Right. They want us to believe things have changed, but when push comes to shove, they have not. Clearly.
In this case, it wouldn’t have cost the pundits et al anything to discuss this issue without being misogynistic or misinforming people. They could have made their point about their suspicions of the government without outing the identities of these women, calling them names, suggesting this was just x and not y, suggesting rape isn’t rape, suggesting not all rapes are “bad” and engaging in the usual slut-shaming and “radical feminist” shaming language that is nothing more than group bullying.
Just imagine if they had used the usual hate language to talk about another minority group. The Left thinks it’s “OK” to talk about women like this. Still.
Spot on, Sarah.
btw – this is my first time to your site – I will certainly visit again. Thank you.
Who was it that called the First Lady(about 9 months before she became such) Stokely Carmichael in a skirt? I’m a guy and that comment made me want to bang my head against the wall. Who ever said that certainly had no clue.
And Sweet Jebus, I used Teh Google!! You’ll never guess who the person was that said the above comment. Juan Williams!! It’s fitting, I suppose, that he’s on Faux Noise.
Wow. That’s just a triple shot. It seems the self-propelled power of the First Lady as a human being (not just as the President’s wife) is exceptionally threatening to some which speaks volumes about them. Glad he’s found his rightful home.
Excellent post, Sarah — definitely belongs in the Best of Sarah Jones collection.
This issue requires a level of thinking I’d hoped that at least the majority of the Left had. I’m dismayed to see how challenging it’s been for so many. I hope your words help set some folks straight.
Great work here.
Disregard my last comment. Wrote it in the wrong window.
Great perspective here. Well written article.
Fantastic post. Extraordiary job.
Liberals and the Left have never considered oppression of women a primary oppression. There is nothing for us on the right but there is nothing but lies on the left either.
What kind of lies? Lies from politicians? From the Hoi polloi? From groups like NARAL? I am just wondering what kind of percentage you’d assign to each.
Sarah,
Thank you for this thought provoking piece.
Best,
Danny
Sarah, you are so incredibly brave I admire you! This is an incredible piece and thanks for writing about and following through on this. I admit I wasn’t following the entire story because of other things in life, and I appreciated having your articles.
I have always been very liberal but have to admit I’ve been disappointed the past few years by some of the things the far left have taken on as causes. I won’t go into details but I see them jumping on the bandwagon quickly without truly understanding all sides of a situation. They quickly decide who/what the “victim” is, in this case Assange, and then ignore other facts. Cecilia hit on something and it makes me wonder how much has to do with anti-government sentiment and the tendency for the far left ( gee and the far right) to take the opposite view of the government. I don’t know, I just know I’ve been hurt and disappointed without a voice. Thanks for being that voice in this particular issue. And don’t ever stop!
Sarah, you are on to something.
I’m an old feminist who was raped twice in my early 20s, once with a knife to my throat and both times kidnapped by 2 men, once in Mexico when I was with a date who was unable to stop it. I admit, I don’t quite understand how a she said/he said incident that has been alleged by the govt and reported by the press is being so dissected with such little evidence as to the guilt or innocence of anyone.
As a feminist, I lobbied locally for a women’s shelter and rape/violence counseling when there really was no one to turn to, and shame was a huge factor in the trivialization of women to keep them “in their place”. And please, women who have reached their majority, should never be called “girls”–so stop it–I find it disturbing that this diminution has crept back into the language. Adult women should never be subjected to it.
Somehow, I find this piece a bit disturbing and trivializing of the real horror and damage done to women who NEVER consented to having sex with their attacker(s) in the first place in any capacity. This whole affair has been politicized so badly, why don’t we instead take a look at how women can protect themselves from the constant barrage of exploitative, manufactured culture which defines our sexuality and makes us “objects” once again at the expense of our dignity and gives us nothing with which we can determine our own being and the way we would live our lives. No woman is spared–even at age 70, I see the pressure for older women to retain a “sexy, youthful” appearance by altering themselves with plastic surgery, botox and appearance altering cosmetics and other paraphernalia, and it disgusts me. While you might say it’s choice, I say it’s an acculturation of females from the cradle to the grave to adopt the preferences of men by appealing to our vanity, and to become male-identified not only in our sexuality, but in our choices of work, education and generally, life. Nothing much has really changed and in fact, it has gotten worse, from my perspective.
Sarah, thank you for this piece. I admit it made me feel shame. Shame because I consider myself a feminist who speaks out often on issues of violence against women, yet from what little I heard about this particular case, I treated it dismissively. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in the romantic story of a single Hero taking on the evil world powers and being unjustly accused in order to silence him. So easy to forget that there are still real women on the other side of this media storm. You don’t want to believe that the Hero is capable of truly horrific deeds.
I couldn’t figure out what bothered me so much about the case, but I think this is it. That either there are women who have had a horrible, unthinkable thing done to them, and their experience is being dismissed, and they themselves further victimized worldwide, or, if as many claim, their accusations are entirely fictitious, then rape victims the world over are suffering the horrible insult of having their experience used for political purposes. Either way, these women are being used by all sides, as targets, as bait. It’s disturbing.