The Washington Post's folksy misogynist nimrod Charlotte Allen has obviously never heard the maxim "Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt." And that's a good thing! Because today she took to the interwebs for a live "chat" that provided a fulsome examination of the machinations and ministrations of her silly little mind.
Amid her numerous dodges come a ton of "highlights." The chief tenet of her worldview is that "Women are not a historically oppressed minority." Fiercely anti-intellectual, whenever Allen was countered on that point, she defended herself on the grounds that women were not a "minority."
New York: "Women aren't a historically oppressed minority." Really? So we've always had the right to vote, not to be raped and have control over our bodies? Can I have some of whatever wacky antifeminist weed you're smoking?
Charlotte Allen: Minority? Not when I last counted. And when did women get the vote--1921? 1923? Rape was a capital crime under Roman law. You know--the Romans, 2,000 years ago. As for "control over our bodies," I guess you mean abortion. Wasn't Roe vs. Wade decided in 1973?
Oh, okay. So everything was peachy keen for the ladyfolk after these great events. No woman has been raped since Caesar defeated the Gauls. Abortion is safe and legal and open to all. The success of the suffrage movement immediately placed women on equal footing in American society. But what does that matter anyway? CHARLOTTE ALLEN HAS COUNTED ALL THE WOMYNS AND EVERY ONE OF THEM IS FINE.
The whole chat is just a mind-bending trip inside the mind of a woman who has not exercised her critical-thinking muscles...uhm...ever. And her weird, nutball reasoning was hardly contained to matters of gender:
Charlotte Allen: I said Katrina was the best thing to happen to New Orleans because it finally opportunity to a huge number of New Orleans residents living in passive dependency on welfare to get out of New Orleans and change their lives for the better.
SO THERE YOU HAVE IT: Let's all move our homes into the paths of devastating hurricanes so we can all avail ourselves of the fantastic opportunities that Hurricane Katrina provided!