Slate’s XX Factor: what antifeminist women really think
March 5, 2009
by Violet Socks, Editor
|I set out this morning to write about the depressing Rihanna-Chris Brown case, but I got distracted. My attention was caught by Samantha Henig’s post on Slate’s The XX Factor, in which she asks, “Should We Give Chris A Break?” Her answer, incredible as it may seem, is yes:
When I heard that Rihanna might be back together with Chris Brown, only a few weeks after he was arrested for allegedly assaulting her, I found myself hoping that she was right to forgive him, that he isn’t like those domestic abusers who do lash out again and again. I’m not the only one who is feeling compassionate toward Brown: Elissa Jolene Budziszewski at College News writes that Reuters commenters have been largely sympathetic to him. So, apparently, is Kanye, who asked on VH1 Saturday “Can’t we give Chris a break?” I started looking for stats that might show that teenage boys who commit violent acts against their girlfriends are less likely to be repeat offenders than older abusers. I feel for the 19-year-old who hasn’t learned to control his anger but wants to change—and for the 21-year-old who still loves him but worries the world will write her off as idiotic for giving him another shot.
Oh. My. God. Okay, Samantha? Chris Brown isn’t “like those domestic abusers” who lash out repeatedly; he is one. Get it? He’s not some dewy teenage boy who’s just misunderstood.
But what really ticked me off as I was reading this tripe was the insidious little motto the XX Factor sports on its masthead: “what women really think.” My eye. The XX Factor sure as heck doesn’t represent what I think, nor what any of my intelligent, self-aware feminist friends think. Whenever I’ve had the misfortune to stumble onto an XX Factor post by one of their stable of Young Female Journalists, I’ve almost invariably found a depressing exercise in non-feminism at best, egregious sexism at worst. Samantha Henig herself rode the anti-Sarah Palin Misogyny Gravy Train for all it was worth last year, even sponsoring a look-alike contest to ridicule the Alaska governor. This was the invitation Henig sent out:
That’s some class A feminist understanding right there, boy.
So my message to Slate is simple: not all women think like self-loathing misogynistic patriarchy-enablers, okay? Change your damn motto.
That is just terrible. Imagine the damage that Samantha is doing by having women read that. It’s okay to have your face smashed up now and then. Guess she didn’t want to bother checking in with the statistics and repeat abuse.
P.S.: I feel like looking at that picture of Palin has just served as a painful reminder of what supposedly “progressive” women did to another woman! Disgusting.
As a woman, I’ll go on record saying XX Factor does NOT represent what I think.
Does Samantha represent what “progressive” women think? Making excuses for and rallying support for abusers, hosting misogynist parties? Gosh I hope not. In fact, I’ll say there is no way that this woman is a feminist or any kind of “progressive”. It is just not possible.
I’m confused. Who is Samantha? Is she an “evil Republican” or an anti-feminist Christian fundamentalist a la Rick Warren?
Or is she a wolf in a feminist’s clothing?
I’m really, really confused as to why any modern, hip woman would think this way so I can only think of her as some enslaved bun-wearing, handmade dress sporting prisoner of a polygamist patriarchal cult. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Actually, there were a couple more paragraphs to Samantha Henig’s post in which she says that statistics do not support it being a one-time thing.
And there was a later post by Marjorie Valbrun on the same subject.
“stats that might show that teenage boys who commit violent acts against their girlfriends are less likely to be repeat offenders than older abusers……”
I’ve seen some insanity in my day but this gets the door prize – it leaves me speechless – what can a person do or say to counter such ignorance?
Aaarrrrrrrrggggg……….
“Samantha Henig’s post on Slate’s The XX Factor, in which she asks, “Should We Give Chris A Break?” Her answer, incredible as it may seem, is yes:”
I would venture to say Samantha Henig is taking the naive position of a woman who has never felt the terror of knowing she might be killed or permanently disabled by a male partner given to violent temper tantrums.
[...] long. The next thing I did was to read Violet’s wonderful blog piece this morning on what the antifeminists at Slate were up to and seeing the mock poster that was put together by Samantha Henig (if you have the [...]
I don’t quite have the stomach for visiting the Slate site. Is there a place there for public comment against the picture of Palin? If someone with a stronger stomach will give me the url, I’ll post it at Puma Responders.
My email is 1950democrat at gmail com.
It’s incredibly rare for a woman to write for a big name publication in a non-woman-bashing way. Women who do not tow the line for the misogynist media are just shut out.
XX Factor should change its motto to: What men think women should really think. Or maybe: Ladies, Stop all this thinking nonsense and just shut up and listen!
OK, you make a valid point, but personally I’d rather be shut out than misrepresented.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that I thought it was okay for women to write misogynistic crap like this just so we can have women in the media. I meant that most of the female journalists they’ll let have a voice constantly spew misogynistic crap and that’s the only reason they give them a voice. Anything that has the slightest whiff of being genuinely from a woman’s point of view doesn’t get published.
this is a jaw dropper; i just stopped by and will link to this story pronto!
Femisex.com
The girls who write XX Factor are about as intelligent and reliable as Bill O’Reilly. I occasionally stumbled onto their columns during the election – lots of criticism of Clinton for not being “feminine” enough, followed by criticism of Palin for being too “feminine.” I think it was their way of saying that they couldn’t support Clinton or Palin because they are both women.
I do want Palin or anyone with her views, male or female, anywhere near the White House, but I hate that picture and all the methods of attack it represents. There are plenty of legitimate, substantive ways to critique politicians without resorting to attacking them for their physical traits.
As for “Should we give Chris a break?”
There is nothing–no history of physical abuse, no anger management problem, no tender young age, nothing–that can justify or mitigate assaulting a woman in the way that he did. It is ludicrous and harmful to even ask that question.
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