I’ve been watching with bemusement and confusion the ongoing boob kerfluffle at Prof. Ann Althouse’s blog. See here and here and here. In short, Prof. Althouse noticed a photo of some bloggers with President Clinton, and mentioned in a light way that one appeared to be posing and dressing in a way so as to draw attention to her breasts. And as it happens, the professor discovered, there’s a lot about breasts on that blogger’s site.
I haven’t delved too deeply into all this. I haven’t read all the comments or visited all the relevant sites. But it’s clear — and Prof. Althouse has shown this again and again — that many, many feminists have a hard time taking a joke or light mocking. I know that some things aren’t laughing matters, and many feminist bloggers focus on those matters, so I’m not expecting a constant laugh track. But to the extent that feminists have a stereotype for being utterly humorless, a lot of Prof. Althouse’s critics don’t offer much contrary evidence.
Part of me wanted to use the Clinton tie-in to riff on Hillary Clinton. I have this feeling that one reason so many people don’t like her is that she seems a bit humorless, and that any attempt at joking must have been scripted by a (male) speechwriter. I also have a theory that she’s still young enough (and married to Bill enough) that people get icked out by the idea of her having sex. But I think I’ll save all that for 2008, if necessary.
What makes the timing of Prof. Althouse’s boob affair so priceless is that it came at the same time we were mourning the death of former Texas Gov. Ann Richards. Now there was a feminist who could make, and take, a joke! People loved that sense of humor. I wonder, apropos the Hillary Clinton thing, if Richards would have been as popular if she had come to prominence when she was younger, instead of appearing like she should have been on “The Golden Girls.” Ann Richards was 55 when she made her famous speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but her big white hair made her look older. She was single, though, and I’m sure she had her suitors. (And of course I remember the “King of the Hill” episode where she dated Bill.) Still, her sexuality wasn’t an issue the same way it is for many of today’s prominent feminists, who became prominent at a younger age and often make sexuality (not in the sense of preference, although that’s there, too, but in the sense of sexual-ness) an issue.
Obviously, as a man, I don’t know how difficult all this is. In one of her more famous lines, Gov. Richards noted that Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did; only she did it backwards and wearing high heels. Well, she also did it with a smile on her face.
In her rememberance column, Molly Ivins tells two funny Ann Richards stories:
The ‘94 election was a God, gays and guns deal. Annie had told the legislature that if it passed a right-to-carry law, she would veto it. They did, and she did. At the last minute, the NRA launched a big campaign to convince the governor that we Texas women would feel ever so much safer if we could just carry guns in our purses. Said Annie, “Well, you know that I am not a sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag.”
And:
At a long-ago political do at Scholz Garten in Austin, everybody who was anybody was there meetin’ and greetin’ at a furious pace. A group of us got tired feet and went to lean our butts against a table at the back wall of the bar. Perched like birds in a row were Bob Bullock, then state comptroller; moi; Charles Miles, the head of Bullock’s personnel department; and Ms. Ann Richards. Bullock, 20 years in Texas politics, knew every sorry, no good so-and-so in the entire state. Some old racist judge from East Texas came up to him, “Bob, my boy, how are you?”Bullock said, “Judge, I’d like you to meet my friends: This is Molly Ivins with the Texas Observer.”
The judge peered up at me and said, “How yew, little lady?”
Bullock, “And this is Charles Miles, the head of my personnel department.” Miles, who is black, stuck out his hand, and the judge got an expression on his face as though he had just stepped into a fresh cowpie. He reached out and touched Charlie’s palm with one finger, while turning eagerly to the pretty, blonde, blue-eyed Ann Richards. “And who is this lovely lady?”
Ann beamed and replied, “I am Mrs. Miles.”
I think I would have enjoyed reading an Ann Richards blog, and I think she would have gotten a laugh out of Prof. Althouse’s breast fest. R.I.P., Gov. Richards.