I will be nice here. Amanda Marcotte blocked me years ago, and I probably deserved it. There are innumerable tweets that I regret. You mellow with age, as they say. The joke’s on me: Marcotte is still on Twitter, while I have been permanently banned for no good reason. That’s another story. Her piece about the epidemic of women being punched in the face in New York City is what you’d expect from Salon.
It follows typical content one would see on the now-defunct Jezebel. It doesn’t hurt to read the other side's thoughts, even if it drives your blood pressure up a few points. Most of Marcotte’s analysis is derived from the usual criticism of social conservatism, along with why men often are violent with women. Yet, to blame the spike in these violent incidents on the rise of MAGA is where things go off the rails (via Salon):
Whatever the excuse the angry man concocts, the impetus is always the same: The eyes of a woman are directed at someone or something that is not him, and he is indignant over it. So he will make sure she has no choice but to look at him, either by getting in her face or — in these alarming New York cases — punching her. If he cannot capture her adoring gaze, well, he will make her stare at him in fear.
These stories resonate, as well, because the nation is having a moment of increasingly unhinged male fury at women for daring to have lives that are centered around something other than catering to a man's every whim. Unleashed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, there's an upswell of loud male entitlement shouting at us from every corner.
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All the male bellyaching about "Barbie" and Taylor Swift did nothing to dent ticket sales. Roe v. Wade was overturned and instead of scaling back our claims to our own bodies, women revolted, organizing ballot initiatives around the country to protect abortion rights. Polls show that while young men might be backing Trump in large numbers, young women have not been browbeaten out of voting for Democrats. Just last week, a women's college basketball game between LSU and Iowa became the highest-rated college basketball game in ESPN history.
The rise of MAGA is fueled by misogyny. But it's less a backlash than a tantrum, a rage explosion by men who want to restore their dominance but fear that, this time, women won't buckle to their bullying. This rash of men punching women in New York City captures this moment in a dark way. We don't even need to know their names or faces to know that men who do this are losers, lashing out because they've learned that actually, women don't owe them anything just because they're men. It's also true that women aren't just suffering in silence, but telling their stories without shame or self-blame. There's something nakedly pathetic about punching women, as scary as it is for the victims. It's not like the cat-calling or groping of old, which disguised male aggression as a mere over-exuberance of lust. This is a last gasp of men who, unable to justify their sexism in any way, must resort to brute force. Yet even then, they're unable to shut women up.
The women have Taylor Swift and Barbie; Oppenheimer was the more critically acclaimed, though scores of Barbie viewers also saw Oppenheimer as a double feature when both were in theaters. I couldn't care less about that point, though that’s a long day at the movies. The LSU-Iowa women’s NCAA basketball game should get good ratings because the teams were good, but it’s not the men’s game. Hurley’s UConn team would demolish these squads. There’s a difference, which is why men and women play in different leagues, a concept that’s trying to be upended with all the transgender nonsense.
Yet, like Jussie Smollett in Chicago, you can’t blame the New York City punching epidemic against women on MAGA. Chicago and New York were never 'MAGA country,' which was the least of the problems concerning that hate crime hoax. Trump may live in New York City, but it’s not his town. It’s one of the most progressive bastions in the country, with the laws to prove it. You can assault cops, get arrested, and be released with no bail.
Liberals can and have used Trump and the MAGA movement to blame everything. Still, perhaps the rampant punching of women’s faces is because career criminals and the mentally ill are roaming free, knowing that nothing will happen to them if they commit acts of violence. The deterrent of being sent to jail has been removed. It’s what got the late Detective Jonathan Diller murdered: a man with 21 priors shot and killed him last month during a traffic stop in Queens. When law and order break down, the animals take over. That’s why women are being assaulted. That’s why there is chaos in New York City. MAGA isn’t popular in the Big Apple or the Windy City.
When cops can’t do their job, the innocent suffer. Case in point: the mad spike in women being punched and slapped all over the five boroughs.
Beyond parody. https://t.co/GEIrh7H04O
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) April 8, 2024
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