Joan Walsh vs. Caitlin Flanagan

Here is the title of the article I am analyzing today and where you can find it:

“The happy hypocrite.” Joan Walsh. Salon.com. 04/12/2006.

Caitlin Flanagan has the extraordinary ability to countervail the entire coven of hard-core feminists. She proves just how powerful one woman can be.

Joan Walsh writes, “[Flanagan] drives some feminist writers I admire to fits. Not me, I always said, with (dare I confess?) a semi-secret, Flanagan-like flash of self-satisfaction: I would never judge those women who are driven nuts by Flanagan, but maybe I'm just a little wiser, a little more secure in my choices, just a bit harder to rattle than they are, the poor dears.” [Italics in original.]

Regardless of her self-aware condescension, Walsh isn't any wiser, more secure, or harder to rattle than other feminist writers. It takes only one woman standing in opposition to drive her to fits. Right of center women should be thrilled to learn about their potential strength. More right-side women need to get involved in conversations about civics and society, if they are concerned about the future of their children and American culture.

Flanagan's book – that has Walsh, in her article that I am analyzing here, and other feminist writers in such a snit – is entitled: To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.

I am just amazed at how Flanagan forces Walsh into revealing so much of her nihilist feminist ideology.

Walsh writes about the book's, “introduction blaming feminism for causing women 'heartache,' and a truly below-the-belt conclusion, on how surviving breast cancer confirmed Flanagan's conviction that traditional marriage and motherhood is best.” Later, Walsh writes that “the book is a strident attack on feminism and a paean to traditional marriage.” A paean to traditional marriage? Oh, heaven forefend.

Walsh writes that Flanagan is, “a hoaxer who's using a great gift from the cosmos – recovery from breast cancer – to rail against feminism, evangelize for traditional gender roles, and to debase women who can't or won't make the same choices she did.”

Walsh doesn't like it that anyone could consider traditional marriage and motherhood to be better than unwed motherhood. It is a judgment a feminist can't tolerate. We need more women like Flanagan to rail and evangelize against the religion of feminism, because there is nothing more debasing to humanity than nihilism. It is the definition of the word – the belief that traditional institutions have no value and should be debased with malice.

Walsh writes, “Most mothers, let's remember, don't have the luxury of choosing to stay home full-time.”

Feminist thought is very tortuous. Here, Walsh is saying, if you stay home full-time, then you have “luxury.” Usually, however, feminists portray motherhood as an example of “oppression.” They make motherhood sound like it's prison. Feminists debase motherhood both ways.

If you are a mother and enjoy it, feminists take an accusatory tone and debase motherhood generally and you specifically for having so much “luxury.” But they can also try to tempt you into joining feminism by saving you from being “victimized” by the “oppression” of motherhood. Do you see the trap they are setting against women? Vicious feminists will either hate you (women) or will tempt you (women) into hating everybody else (men) with the approval of feminist society. As it stands right now, bad women (feminists) easily defeat good women with this gambit. A lot of women would much rather hate motherhood and men with societal approval than take a stand against feminist society and be hated by feminists. This is why our nation has a womanhood with statistically zero Ann Coulter-types, a small percentage of honest, virtuous, women who say almost nothing at all in opposition to feminism, and so many women in the soft-core and hard-core feminist categories.

In short, feminists will hate anyone, man or woman, who defends traditional marriage and motherhood. The twist is that feminists will allow women the opportunity to hate and blame somebody else (men) if they give their souls to nihilist feminism.

Here are a few more examples of Walsh's typical character assassination: That Flanagan's work is “shtick” and that “Flanagan deserves a kick for the dishonest and divisive gloss”. “Those kidney punches make Flanagan seem a bit sociopathic.” Flanagan's kidney punches?

Walsh writes, “Lots of feminist writers have rebuked big-name editors for giving the anti-feminist Flanagan such great perches – the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and now a hyped book.”

Mind you, feminists aren't for government censorship, just mob rule. In this case, horizontal feminist collectivists are pressuring vertical collectivists to just not allow any disagreement with feminism.

Flanagan has a conceptualized understanding of feminism. She even outlines what she calls the “code of feminism.” Here are three points from what she sees as feminism's code:

“A young woman should not spend any of her energies finding a suitable husband and preparing for her life as a wife and mother.”

“A woman doesn't need a man, and a child doesn't need a father.”

“Caring for the emotional and physical needs of a husband constitutes subservience.”

She adds that, “For many women, this code has brought heartache.”

Walsh quotes from Flanagan's book's conclusion: “Here's what I know: When I woke up from the final surgery, I didn't want to see the articles I've written or the editors I've worked for. I wanted to see my sons and my husband. And I wanted to go home.”

Flanagan loves her family. She loves her husband and two sons.

Walsh then sinks to the level of an Internet commenter, “Here's what I know: This is one confused book, and one confused author.”

Walsh, “Some editor, somewhere, should have protected the mixed-up essayist from many things in this book, but particularly for congratulating herself on being the type of woman whose husband treats her well while she has cancer.”

Walsh, “winces at the hubris of Flanagan's crediting her care for her family with her husband's willingness to nurse her through cancer.”

Walsh, “and all I know for sure is that to credit your own behavior for what is essentially good luck and someone else's kindness is asking for what's called karma, and not the good kind.”

Flanagan is thankful that her husband and two sons love her. Walsh seems to adhere to the feminist practice of never saying thank you to a man, even if he is your husband.

Walsh, “Almost dying taught Flanagan not tolerance, not mystery, but absolutism.”

It's almost as if Walsh wants Flanagan to wake up from surgery and say, In accordance with the random chance of the “cosmos,” “karma,” and “good luck,” I believe in nothing but “mystery.” Let everybody do whatever they don't believe in, because there is nothing and no one worth striving or living for.

I don't know if the code of feminism has brought Walsh heartache, but feminism sure has brought out a lot of her hatred. For Flanagan, however, love and family defeated nihilist feminism.