And so the branding begins …
Meanwhile, a quip from the in-tray about this post:
So, in 2014, it’s “lumbersexual” and “bears”. In 1991, when I was in Montana, it was just called “Missoula”.
And another reader who, I think, may be onto something:
Do you feel like we’re in the midst of something big, and potentially ugly, in the ‘gender wars’ you referenced in today’s post?
I do.
The video made by FckH8 with little girls screaming the F-word, the video of the woman getting harassed in New York, #GamerGate, and now, a scientist’s loud bowling shirt — this has all gone viral in the past month. Add in the California rape laws and the fact that the midterms gave us an enormous gender discrepancy between the parties, with the problems Republicans are having with women perhaps getting overshadowed by the problems Democrats are having with men, and I feel like something big is brewing.
To my eyes, I think the ‘gender wars’ are heating up primarily because women have outpaced men in the economic recovery following the 2008 meltdown. Many men don’t want to be told they are systematically oppressing women when they see women doing so much better than men in school and the workplace.
Among millennials in particular I feel like men have had it with the message that they are oppressors in a patriarchal society, which is a message they have heard in one form or another since their first day of kindergarten, only to reach adulthood and find the women all around them better equipped to deal with the modern world. They push back, and that angers the feminists who have had the language of victimhood all to themselves for decades now.
I foresee these ‘gender wars’ only getting hotter, perhaps even becoming a defining feature of the second decade of the 21st century.
Which means some, er, lively Dish in the years to come.
Today, I gave some air to the arguments that Obama’s possible deferral of deportations is indeed unprecedented and we offered a snapshot of the debate as it now stands; suggested some common ground in the gender wars; and declared the arrival of lumbersexuals as the triumph of the bears. We took stock of Obamacare’s continuing success; posted some “bad kids jokes“; and appreciated the horniness of the Victorians.
The most popular post of the day was Gruberism and Our Democracy, Ctd, followed by my post on lumbersexuality.
Many of today’s posts were updated with your emails – read them all here. You can always leave your unfiltered comments at our Facebook page and @sullydish. 23 more readers became subscribers today. You can join them here – and get access to all the readons and Deep Dish – for a little as $1.99 month. One long-time holdout writes:
Just wanted to drop a note and say the guilt finally got the better of me; I’ve paid my 25.00 and can sleep easy at night now. Thank you for doing what you do, and I hope you keep doing it for years to come.
See you in the morning.
The Dish 