
Actually, I don't think any of those really rise to the level of utter hilarity that is on the very dust jacket of the book, where Jonah tells us who the real enemy is:
The quintessential liberal fascist isn’t an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.Oh, baby, does that sentence have it all! It's got anti-elitism and teacher-bashing, but best of all, it's got pure, unadulterated misogyny.
I mean, really, why add "female" to that sentence? As Neil Sinhababu notes, it sticks out like a sore thumb. It breaks up the parallel construction of the couplet, and that makes "female" the word that jumps out of the text.
But of course, that's appropriate. Oh, thinking a schoolteacher is a fascist is seven levels of insane. But it does hammer home what conservatives been trying to hammer home for fifty years: the idea that women, and specifically women who don't know their place, are the problem. Ironic that a man who got his job thanks primarily to his mother's success would advance that argument, but then, Jonah was making a very serious and thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
Oh, and that reminds me: Swarthmore doesn't have an education major.
Shakesville is run as a safe space. First-time commenters: Please read Shakesville's Commenting Policy and Feminism 101 Section before commenting. We also do lots of in-thread moderation, so we ask that everyone read the entirety of any thread before commenting, to ensure compliance with any in-thread moderation. Thank you.
blog comments powered by Disqus