Update (3/18): Howard Kurtz quotes me.
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Update: To the troll with the anti-La Shawn web site (not Justin’s site) who blogs under corny aliases, I’m hearing disturbing rumors, and you need to know this for the record: I have never nor will I ever comment on your blog. If someone is doing so under my name or by implication, I’m being impersonated. Whoever it is, they are just as cowardly as you are.
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Blogger Jason (I can’t even remember his name!) Justin wrote: “LaShawn, as much as you preach, I wonder if you have a HUSBAND and a FAMILY??? Probably not.”
Unfortunately this sort of response is what women, married or single, have to deal with from disgruntled men. A woman with strong opinions is a shrew. If she’s unmarried, it’s because of her “preaching” (read: nagging).
This is a great follow-up to the controversy about the “dearth of female political bloggers” and political writers on American newspapers’ op-ed pages. Maureen Dowd (reg. req.) wrote about this subject last Sunday. Although she got a lot of criticism in conservative circles, I actually liked the column. Dowd writes:
Men take professional criticism more personally when it comes from a woman. When I wrote columns about the Clinton impeachment opéra bouffe, Chris Matthews said that for poor Bill, it must feel as though he had another wife hectoring him.While a man writing a column taking on the powerful may be seen as authoritative, a woman doing the same thing may be seen as castrating. If a man writes a scathing piece about men in power, it’s seen as his job; a woman can be cast as an emasculating man-hater. I’m often asked how I can be so “mean” – a question that Tom Friedman, who writes plenty of tough columns, doesn’t get.
Even the metaphors used to describe my column play into the castration theme: my scalpel, my cutting barbs, razor-sharp hatchet, Clinton-skewering and Bush-whacking. “Does she,” The L.A. Times’s Patt Morrison wondered, “write on a computer or a Ronco Slicer and Dicer?”
It is true. Some men probably feel emasculated when I criticize them and/or kick them off my blog.
The person who left the comment (since deleted) is a sour grapes blogger who has experienced my wrath on more than one occasion, and he is not welcome to comment on this blog. Why he’s drawn to it is clear. Despite his belief that husbandless women are in that “condition” because they are very opinionated, he obviously likes being put in his place by such a woman.
I will comply every time. 
Addendum: Did Scott Peterson kill his wife because she was a shrew? Whatever the reason, the judge upheld his death sentence. He’ll have an eternity to think about it.
Chris Nolan has more to say about Steve Levy’s column.
Commenter JaySwash: “I find it amusing that so many of the same people who will rail against society’s “forcing” of judeo-christian values upon them will turn around and belittle anyone who isn’t married with family.”
From another opinionated woman:
Let the public see what the Democrats have been doing for the past four years by accusing people like Charles Pickering of being racist. Show them the content of the memos that show the Democrats being manipulated by liberal interest groups and expose the real racists that would deny a nominee an up or down vote because, among other things, “he is Latino.” I repeat: Don’t screw it up. This is something that we need to get right.
From Carol Platt Liebau: “We want equality of opportunity and fair treatment — but no bean counting. We want to succeed because — and only because — we’re good. Not because we’re women.”
I second that.
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He obviously likes you a great deal (maybe he is a masochist) since he keeps coming back for more
Maybe more than he cares to admit.
Another thought,
La Shawn has PLENTY of family (maybe Jason wants to be a part of it because he’s a little bit in AWE of the company you keep;) )
La Shawn,
LOL! Zing! Ooo that’s gotta sting.
Men just have more pride and find it very hard to swallow when necessary. Especially when it comes from one who is considered the “weaker” vessel. Yet, if criticism comes from another man, especially one that commands respect, he will listen. This is common among morally weak, angry men.
Women, from my experience, simply find it easier to let go of their pride and take criticism, especially from one who commands power and respect, at least they used to. This is highly uncommon among morally weak and angry women though.
Heck, you even have that maroon with a hate blog devoted to you… I guess that’s the digital equivalent of pig tails and ink wells these days.
That, or a restraining order in the making.
Still, if you start sounding bitter and shrill like MoDo on a regualr basis (she has a point some days; but a broken clock is still right twice a day, too), I am sure the regulars will call you on it.
When you say men with small minds do you mean all those liberal judges? or perhaps ted kennedy or jimmy carter or maybe one of those hollywood directors or what else maybe a bureaucrat or enviromentalists
To take it a different direction, how well do you think strong women handle the whole headship issue?
You go LaShawn, you were too kind. You should
publish his URL so the less benevolent of us could
kick his a**.
When the MSM says women, the mean gender feminists. Conservative women are not generally welcome in the MSM. The problem with gender feminists is that once you heard one, you have pretty much hear them all. Once a paper prints MoDo, they really don’t have room for another gender feminists who thinks pretty much alike.
This problem is due to the facts that gender feminists insist that somehow they represent all women, and they don’t tolerate dissent. You heard one gender feminist, you’ve pretty much heard them all.
All the other hand, conservative women have brains, wits and a wide range of opinions. The MSM doesn’t want to hear those voices.
Perhaps this guy is attracted to powerful women and this is his way of getting your attention.
MSM is a canard. When conservative women have something to say, they’ll get in. Monica Crowley is doing a wonderful job on her new MSNBC show. Coulter is brought on to Fox for mostly entertainment purposes. She fit’s Murdoch’s MO. My hope is that La Shawn breaks out and gets a look. There is a difference between those who are stridently opinionated and those who are informed, firm, convinced and congenial. Did anyone notice that La Shawn gave Dowd a fair and favorable look on this particular article? My guess is that her response ruffles the feathers of all kinds of conservatives.
Some of my experiences when I was an active feminist come back to me when I read that man’s comments. I once listened to Rosemary Radford Reuther, [at that time] noted feminist author, lecture to a group of seminary professors, all or nearly all, men. I had come late so I was in the row second from the front. When Reuther had finished, she sat down directly in front of me. When the session was over, a large number of the men came up to talk to her. The point I heard over and over again was that her viewpoint was suspect because it was influenced by the fact that she was a woman! No one spoke to the substance of what she had to say–some of which I disagreed with. So, La Shawn, your viewpoint is deficient because you are not married and don’t have children? Why is gender and marital status so determinative for women? Should we wonder about the many marriages of Peter Jennings influencing the way he looks at the news? Or should we just evaluate everyone’s opinions on their merits?
I find it amusing that so many of the same people who will rail against society’s “forcing” of judeo-christian values upon them will turn around and belittle anyone who isn’t married with family. Keep up the good work in exposing the hypocrites!
Justin Jason
is being just plain rude, even if we give him a break on the other deal.
I like strong women. I married one.
If you don’t like the message, kill the messenger. So insecure men, not having the reasoning skills or the writing skills to dispute your position, resort to personal invective.
If the post is personal, boot the offender off your web site. If the poster has a valid point, let the point be responded to by your readers.
HINT: if the poster has to insult you, he does not have an argument on his/her side.
Look: if we’re going to short-hand all this stuff with ridiculous generalizations like men and their “pride”, then I’ll point out that when women get faced with a fact that they don’t like, they just change the subject. And it will be just exactly as valid as all this “emasculation” jazz.
Anyone who jumps into that pool is going to get all wet.
I have a huge mind, huge I tell you. It’s really incredible. I have small thumbs, though.
I agree with Tom Johnson on all points. Justin obviously can’t do battle with you on the merits of his argument, so he goes for the cheap shot. I think it’s easy (or just reflexive) to do this to people who are different than we are, whether the difference is based on sex, color, national origin, etc. I imagine that you, LaShawn, and your readers have seen some of the hate mail that Michelle Malkin gets. Her attackers usually take the racist angle. Michael Medved on his radio program occasionally gets hit because he’s a Jew.
You’ve got readers who think well of you because you write well on topics that interest us. I think that you’ll get more readers in the future for this reason.
Anyway, I’ll keep checking back to see what you’re writing about.
Take care.
Hey, I *like* strong women (mind or otherwise)!
I imagine that you, LaShawn, and your readers have seen some of the hate mail that Michelle Malkin gets.
Michelle gets a lot of the nasty sexual references. For whatever reason, I don’t. The “race traitor” meme is alive and well, though.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate” as the famous line from Cool Hand Luke goes. Men/women, people. Sin is at the root of it all, so Justin, repent my man, repent. And all you people who added fuel and not light to the fire, here or there or anywhere, repent, my people, repent.
The end of Lent is at hand and Jesus is traveling toward Jerusalem. The glad handers and back slappers are primed to cut palm branches, but melt away into the background when the testing time comes.
Repent my brothers and sisters, repent. Stand tall and pass the testing; be counted on the right side of the line Jesus is drawing in the sand. Repent and take up your cross and walk the walk of the feet that trod the path ahead of you. Be all you can be, a true army of one, a soldier of the cross. Selah.
There, I’ve said it. Now I feel better.
I read your blog because you have insightful things to say.
Never crossed my mind to ask your marital status.
Look at it this way, La Shawn: your lack of husband or family could be viewed as an advantage…you have more time to blog, to appear on TV, and to influence the opinions of far more than just one family’s worth of people.
And, for those who would criticize you on the basis of not being married and/or a parent, I have many words, but I won’t say ‘em here ‘cos you wouldn’t appreciate the invective.
Seems to me often that the MoDos of the world get the accusations of “man-hating” when they write in a tone that… is anti-men.
There’s also an element of men and women making critisisms that the same sex would take honestly, but their tone doesn’t translate well to the other sex. A man can write something innocently intended, and suddenly find that dozens of women think he’s a misogynist. A woman can write something that she thinks is polite criticism, yet finds that men are reading a slight in her words that she never thought could be there. I think a big part of the “why do they think I hate them?” situation is because people don’t consider their word choice/phrasing from the perspective of the other side.
No idea what caused Justin’s thing, though… as “ds” said, I never even considered what your marital or family status might be.
Talk to Michele Catalano about the style and amount of hate mail she got from men when she used to be a political blogger. It’s one of the reasons she no longer writes political opinion.
I’ve gotten some insulting email, but not nearly as much as many women, possibly because my philosophy has always been to hit back harder when someone hits me first. Then again, I also ignore the truly loathsome hate mail, or forward it to the IP’s abuse staff.
Of course, if you’re a woman blogger, you haven’t truly gotten hate mail until you’ve been called the c-word. Lowest common denominator, dontchaknow.
As Rush always says, give them a few seconds and they shrink to getting personal, because they’ve really got nothing else to say…
and when a loser like that makes it personal with YOU, it is a clear sign of your superiority and of a victory on the battlefield of ideas..
Get ‘em kid..
)
(daily reader)
Thanks for the above-mentioned troll update…
I knew it had to be bogus
Keep up the great work!
Congratulations La Shawn! As you now have an anti-La Shawn devoted to you, we can safely be assured that you’ve arrived.
I read your blog because I treasure your insight. Your gender, race, marital status, or age are of no importance.
Don’t ever let these fools get under your skin, LaShawn. Because you’re brave and speak out against the Waffen-PC who dominate the discourse in our country, you’re going to be attacked. Your colleague Michelle Malkin is subjected to all manner of vicious attacks. So is Ann Coulter – and Phyliis Schafly and Elizabeth Wright have been attacked for decades for speaking out.
Keep up the outstanding work.
Yeah and being married and having children has blunted Michelle Malkin’s rapier wit…..NOT
Hey LaShawn,
I came to your site the first time because you were referred to as a conservative black blogger. But I return because you are a good writer. As stated by others, didn’t consider (or care about, really) your marital or family status. You write pointed, interesting social and political commentary. In the immortal words of Stan Lee, ‘Nuff said.
However, if you want balance in your vitriolic responses, I’ll be happy to schedule one nasty sexual response a week, as relief from the race-baiting responses. I’ll vary my screen names though. I hate emoticons, so right here I’m winking and smiling.
If men can’t take criticism by you or another woman then they a weak. Try having a wife who’s a 4th degree black belt in Aikido (I’m a 1st black belt in Hapkido) who routinely beats you in all sparring matches. And I’m bigger and stronger than she is. But she is better than me and I strive to get to her level.
Some fellas need to get a grip.
Isn’t Aikido the martial art that basically requires you to lie down until your opponent gets bored and decides to leave you alone? Seriously, people (not just men) that have a problem with strong women need to open their eyes. They have been here for a while. They aren’t going anywhere. My former pastor is a woman. If anything, that made her MORE qualified to preach certain Biblical texts that men NEVER have dealt with as fully as they could have. I thank God for a mother that is a strong woman. She more than held things together when my father’s employment took him away from home for weeks and months at a time. I guess I just like what strong, secure women bring to the table. (I am so tempted to say “Especially if it is dinner”, but I won’t). I am glad that there isn’t a double-standard in my mind and in my heart regarding women and their abilities. Where would we be without them? I don’t even want to think about it.
Maybe Rachel Lucas at BlueEyedInfidel has it right: If you want to comment or e-mail the blogger, PAY FOR IT. That’s right, Bucko, pull out the wallet and lay down the long green if you’re going to comment! Seems right to me.
Cross commented at Vodkapundit:
How about a thought experiment here?
In LaShawn’s post, and in the comments above, replace the words “man” or “men” with “black man” or “black men”. And replace “woman” or “women” with “white man” or “white men”. And for extra credit, where there’s a homosexual reference, replace it with a Hispanic reference.
For example, start with the headline: “Black men with small…minds.”
I’ll assume I don’t have to type out any more quotes for you.
Do you find this sort of discussion more or less troubling when supposed differences in sex are replaced by supposed differences in race?
You don’t have “strong” opinions. You have very sane opinions. And I’d marry a gal like you any day.
Shrew? silly really. I view you (La Shawn Barber), and Rice both as very powerful and wise ladies. Though I do see your future husband haveing a hard time arguing with you
You have fine argument skills.
LaShawn:
Well, except for your gushing over Dowd, I agree with you here.
Has anyone checked the temperature in hell lately?
Anyway, glad you wrote this.
You quoted Maureen Dowd with approval:
“Even the metaphors used to describe my column play into the castration theme: my scalpel, my cutting barbs, razor-sharp hatchet, Clinton-skewering and Bush-whacking. “Does she,†The L.A. Times’s Patt Morrison wondered, “write on a computer or a Ronco Slicer and Dicer?—
Ms. Barber, the first thing we men think of or mentally picture when hearing the operative words “scalpel”, “cutting”, “razor”, “hatchet”, “slicer” and “dicer” is not penises falling to the floor.
An informal poll of men here at work indicated the most common male-associated concepts were “hospital” (with scalpel), “shaving” (with razor), “wood chopping” or “camping” (with hatchet), “tomato” (with slicer), and “onions” (with dicer).
Have you ever considered that it may be you two and not men who have these pictures in your head?
Your column reminds me of the old man who was given a Rorschach ink blot test. As each ink blot card was flipped over in turn, the geezer said the first word that popped into his head: “p3nis … br3ast … s3x .. Nak3d … .” When they finally finished, the doctor asked him, “why do you always say sexual things?” And the old man replied, “why do you keep showing me all those dirty pictures!”
I can assure you, ma’am, Maureen (and you?) are the only ones seeing the “dirty pictures.”
Speaking of Carol Platt Liebau, she also links an excellent article by Barbara Kay, of the National Post of Canada. Click on the Liebau’s main site and link to the article.
Commenter JaySwash: “I find it amusing that so many of the same people who will rail against society’s “forcing” of judeo-christian values upon them will turn around and belittle anyone who isn’t married with family.”
I find it funny that these same people who rail against it will then turn and try to force their beliefs upon you.
Ya know, if you don’t like what I do or believe, fine. Don’t like or believe it. But don’t tell me I’m wrong or I should believe like you do.
And oh, by the way…The US was founded by Christians. Deal with it.
My wife is a strong opinionated woman. That’s why i married her. I do not want some woman who cowers when she disagrees with me or vice versa. I may be the head of the household by my wife is my first mate…she was put there for me to consult with. Society today say either the woman’s power is absolute or the man’s power is absolute..neither of which is biblical or true.
I really enjoy disliking Maureen Dowd, who in turn, judging by the unpleasant style of her work, seems to enjoy being disliked. It would probably make her as uncomfortable as it does me to find out that I might possibly agree with her on something.
I’m jealous. Whenever I criticize a guy, all I get is an argument. I wish I could emasculate other men just by criticizing them (some guys I wish I could emasculate by other means, and it’s probably mutual).
Maureen Dowd gets negative reactions from male and female readers because she trivializes everything she comments on. I don’t think her being a woman has all that much to do with it.
My question is, if someone criticizes Maureen Dowd the wrong way, is she masculated, or effeminated?
“And oh, by the way, The US was founded by Christians. Deal with it. ”
Amen!
LaShawn,
People who disagree with someone often rather attack something about them, rather then the ideas they express. Consider Michelle Malkin, she is female, married, and has children, so attacks of a mean sexual and ethnic nature are sent to her email. You are the race and sex traitor. The libs own blacks and females or so it is said. Males who are conservative and Christain are called stupid, mean spirited, and homophobe.
Lincoln was called stupid because he did not come from the eastern establishment. He had a year of formal education. He invoked the Almighty in the
time of the Civil War. Has anyone alive written anything as stiring as the Gettyburg Address or Lincoln’s Second Inaugural?
I try to read Thomas Sowell and others in Townhall.com every day.
James M. Barber
Rafael Said : Isn’t Aikido the martial art that basically requires you to lie down until your opponent gets bored and decides to leave you alone?
No. That is the liberal democrat foreign policy and national defense plan.
You’re not married yet because you won’t lower your standards simply to “be married.” Justin’s just jealous because he doesn’t “measure up.”
I am here to confess. I am a beige-American pigmentally-challenged female, and I have a blog.
There. I feel better now.
Lashawn,
I know I am late on this issue, but don’t give this “person” too much attention. It validates him or her or it.
ray
SCSIwuzzy.
No that is called Gracie Jiu Jitsu.
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