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Notable & Quotable: Male Feminists and the Feinstein Question

May 30, 2023 6:10 pm ET Sen. Dianne Feinstein arrives at a committee hearing in Washington, May 11. Photo: Rod Lamkey/Zuma Press Alexis Grenell writing for the June 12/19 issue of the Nation: The drumbeat for Senator Dianne Feinstein to resign has reached a kind of dull fever pitch. . . . That includes men who identify as feminists, like Bernie Sanders and his minions on the “dirtbag left,” who are happy to swarm Feinstein on social media. . . . So what does actual leadership look like for men on the left who consider themselves feminists? For one thing, sit out the Feinstein pile-on if you threw snakes at [Elizabeth] Warren [for not endorsing Mr. Sanders]. This is not your fight. More broadly, understand that the test for whether something is sexist isn’t just if you’d say or think or apply the same standard to a man—it’s the gendered eff

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Notable & Quotable: Male Feminists and the Feinstein Question

Sen. Dianne Feinstein arrives at a committee hearing in Washington, May 11.

Photo: Rod Lamkey/Zuma Press

Alexis Grenell writing for the June 12/19 issue of the Nation:

The drumbeat for Senator Dianne Feinstein to resign has reached a kind of dull fever pitch. . . . That includes men who identify as feminists, like Bernie Sanders and his minions on the “dirtbag left,” who are happy to swarm Feinstein on social media. . . . So what does actual leadership look like for men on the left who consider themselves feminists? For one thing, sit out the Feinstein pile-on if you threw snakes at [Elizabeth] Warren [for not endorsing Mr. Sanders]. This is not your fight. More broadly, understand that the test for whether something is sexist isn’t just if you’d say or think or apply the same standard to a man—it’s the gendered effect. When [Nancy] Pelosi et al. wrongly bemoan the fact that they never hear the kind of criticism about Feinstein directed toward their male colleagues (John Fetterman, anyone?), what they’re really speaking to is the idea that frailty and illness in women leaders are received differently than they are in men. Remember when Sanders actually had a heart attack in the middle of his last presidential campaign, and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez resuscitated it by endorsing him? There’s ample research on the public perception of aging in women, and feminist men should acquaint themselves with it. In the meantime, if your feminism manifests itself in declaring what isn’t sexist more often than calling out what is, you’re doing it wrong.



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