Feminism: It's About Not Having Your Picture Taken in a T-Shirt and Overturning Roe v. Wade

Shorter Ann Althouse: "Having your picture taken next to the President while wearing a T-shirt knit top that makes the fact that one has breasts too evident (thanks to Lindsay in comments), and having ads for T-Shirts on your blog, makes you a "clueless fool" who's done nothing for feminism. A real feminist does things like write op-eds for the New York Times urging that radical opponents of women's rights be confirmed for appointment to the Supreme Court. " (More here and here and here.)

Since it comes up a lot, it's also worth addressing this Althouse fallacy: "I really don’t know why people who care about feminism don’t have any edge against Clinton for the harm he did to the cause of taking sexual harrassment seriously." First of all, while his behavior raised serious ethical issues, it's far from self-evident that Clinton's affair with Lewinsky--which was initiated by the latter, did not involve a quid pro quo, etc.--constitutes sexual harassment. But even if we stipulate that it does, it's perfectly rational for feminists to support Clinton because politics is about policy, not personality, and Clinton's record on women's rights was very good. Conversely, between the Alito appointment, his attempts to block emergency contraception, his use of executive orders to restrict women's reproductive rights, his appointment of misogynist cranks to important regulatory positions, and his signing of awful federal abortion legislation of the kind Clinton reliably vetoed, the record of the strongly Althouse-endorsed Bush has been appalling. For her to lecture other people about not being serious feminists is risible. Another recent example of Althouse's theater critic approach to politics is her remarkable attempt to wedge legislation to end military discrimination against gays that is supported by 114 Democrats and 5 Republicans into a "pox on both their houses" narrative; Democratic support doesn't count, you see, because "they have constituents who are more likely to want the policy changed." This is the old John McCain fallacy; sure he has a 0% NARAL rating, sure he voted for Robert Bork (and, hence, to overturn Roe 20 years ago), but somewhere deep in his soul I'm sure he's a pro-choicer! And he may well be, but it's completely beside the point. Whether GOP (and conservative Democratic) legislators vote for a counterproductive and bigoted military policy because they dislike gays or because they're pandering to their constituents is wholly beside the point; the vote is the same either way. And, similarly, that Bill Clinton may have engaged in behavior that warrants disapproval from a feminist standpoint pales next to the fact that he didn't do things like nominate people like Sam Alito to the Supreme Court. Alito's votes to sustain abortion regulations and bans, and the ruined lives that will inevitably follow in its wake, remain exactly the same even if deep in his heart Bush doesn't really care about abortion and would act differently if the forced pregnancy [for poor women] lobby wasn't so powerful within the Republican Party. In politics results matter, not motives.

...Echidne:

Anyway, about breasts. My feminist view on them is a very simple one: they are the property of the person who has them on her chest, having breasts does not preclude having brains and having breasts is perfectly acceptable in the public sphere. And women are not responsible for controlling the reactions of some men to the presence of breasts, women don't have to don burqas for the sake of these men or to bind their breasts, either.

Add to this simple and sane idea the idea of situation-appropriate clothing, and I see nothing wrong in Jessica's outfit in the picture. Most of the other bloggers in the picture are dressed in business-casual, and so is Jessica.

...see also Salon.

...Althouse is now claiming that when you put a picture of yourself in a t-shirt up it's something called a "breastblog." Is she trying for a keynote speaking gig at an upcoming MRA convention or something? Or is she just ultradefensive around women who haven't sold out all of their feminist principles to support a disastrous administration engaged in a disastrous war? Whatever explains it, it's profoundly embarassing. And creepy.

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