I see the Liberal outrage over Romney’s comment that he “had binders full of women” as profoundly hypocritical when accompanied by a complete lack of concern over Obama’s “women and families” and “this is not a women’s issue.”

I don’t think this fake outrage over what Romney said has anything to do with women’s rights. It only has to do with the need to dump on Romney.

Look, I dislike Romney as much as the next person. But what’s with this blind worship of a candidate that precludes people from seeing an obvious fail on his part? It’s kind of sad that the same Liberals who ridicule the Fox News crowd for not noticing Romney’s gaffes are completely blind to Obama’s mistakes.

Let’s remember that this is not the first time where Obama makes profoundly patriarchal remarks about women, either.

P.S. I said I wasn’t going to get past this soon.

I always wondered why there were never any interesting female characters in world literature. Male characters are always complex and easy to identify with while female characters are brainless, whiny, and only interested in selling themselves to the highest bidder. Now that I have started reading more second-tier British and Spanish writers of the XIXth century, I have come to realize that interesting female characters abound. The only problem is that the novels they protagonize are not nearly as popular as the ones whose female heroines are boring and pathetic.

Take Jane Austen and George Gissing. Austen’s female characters are interested in absolutely nothing but selling themselves profitably. Her novels always end with a wedding because once the bargain is struck and the contract is signed, nothing else of interest can happen in a woman’s life. If married women appear in her novels, their only goal is to sell their daughters, nieces, or friends. Austen’s women think of nothing, talk of nothing and dream of nothing but handing themselves over to a man for a good price. Austen’s most popular novel Pride and Prejudice is the most unapologetic hymn I have ever encountered to the only legalized form of prostitution.

George Gissing, on the other hand, realized that making even the most profitable marriage imaginable cannot fulfill a human being. The idea that women can be happy only serving the needs of their families and having no lives, no careers, no interests of their own was invented by men who don’t see women as fully human, Gissing suggests in his novel The Odd Women. Gissing believes that women should have the right to receive the same kind of education as men do, practice all of the same professions, and have the same rights and freedoms as men because there are no differences between men and women save for the purely physiological ones. Gissing’s Monica Madden is far less educated and intelligent than Austen’s Elizabeth Bennett. Yet she manages to realize that a patriarchal marriage – be it as profitable as it may – can only make a woman miserable. And men, Gissing points out, are as unhappy as women in a patriarchal society. Women who reduce themselves to the state of complete idiocy in order better to fit the image of an Angel in the House can cause nothing but suffering to men who choose them as life companions.

Gissing’s female characters work towards the liberation of women and create clubs to help each other. They study, engage in political activism, try to achieve financial independence and professional success. They even have conversations that do not revolve around or even mention any men.

In spite of all this, nobody knows Gissing (save for a few lucky nerds here and there) and everybody knows  Austen. Why do you think that happens? Why is Austin’s favorite (and only) idea that all a woman has to do to be successful in life is to get married to a wealthy man so popular? We all know who always was and still is the main reader of novels, so I think the answer is obvious.

I’m discovering such great writers through my Classics Challenge that every time I read a novel from my list, I want to set everything aside and read everything else by the author. I think I will probably reach the conclusion that the secondary classics that populate my list are better than their more famous peers.

A fellow blogger and academic left the following comment:

I actually showed some of the second debate in my class yesterday. (I work at a private school, and we haven’t been told to not talk about politics in class, so I’m happy to do so.) We picked apart some of the answers of both candidates. My only fear is that the students were left so dissatisfied with BOTH candidates’ idiotic commentary that they won’t vote at all. But I did point out what you said — that treating women as if all they care about is family is really sexist and undermines every woman’s goals and dreams outside of being a child producer. Your influence is hitting the heartland!!

Just the other night I had a discussion with somebody who asked me why I follow the US politics so avidly, watch the debates, blog about them, etc. if I can’t have any real impact since I don’t vote in the US. (I’m a citizen of Canada.) I answered that I don’t understand how anybody can live in a country and not care about its politics. Now, however, I also have proof that I’m making an input even without voting.

Certain male commentators are peeing themselves with joy over Obama’s put-down of women in the recent debate:

It also bears saying that Obama’s answer that connected women’s health issues with economic and family issues was beautiful. In a night of truly strong answers, it was nearly everything anyone concerned with the real lives of real women could have asked for.

I especially dig the “real women” bit. I’ve been sitting here with bated breath, waiting for some guy to tell me what real women should ask for. Because God forbid a woman should want something without a man telling her what it should be. That will probably make her an “unreal woman.”

Such is the unconscious chauvinism of Liberal men. Just imagine what the conscious, self-congratulating sexism of the non-Liberal is like.

Today:

– I have been working non-stop from 11 am to 9 pm.

– I have worked  on my research, taught classes, and graded papers.

– I caught three students using Google Translator.

– I caught two plagiarists.

– I had to listen to a student claim in a presentation that euskera (the Basque language) is “exactly like Spanish.”

– I had to listen to the strep student’s new story about yet another disease that prevented her from being in class today.

– All I did for fun today was bitch on my blog and cook a vegetable soup.

– Translated a letter to the publishing house for somebody. Without using Google Translator.

– Had to put up with a student throwing a hissy fit because I gave her a B on a paper.

For all of the above-mentioned reasons, I will now drop into a bath-tub and stay there for a long time with a mask on my face, a book in my hands, a glass of home-made vegetable juice by my side, and a rose-scented candle on the sink.

What’s worse than translating your essay with Google Translator?

Finding an article in English, translating it with Google Translator, and trying to pass the resulting monstrosity off as your own work.

Plagiarism and Google Translator: why stop at just one offense when you can have two?

But wait. . . there is something that is even worse.

Does anybody wish to venture a guess what that is?

What’s worse is doing all this when your name is Pedro Rodriguez.

Now try topping that! Well, the semester is still young. I’m sure somebody will come up with something even more egregious.

Good students whose Spanish is quite excellent are tempted by this stupid thing to hand in a ridiculous jumble of unconnected words because they think that a translation by Google Translator is better than an essay in their own words. I don’t know what else to say to convince them that Google Translator is not capable of producing scholarly articles.

I have a feeling several of my students will fail their Senior Assignment and will not be able to graduate this year because of this stupid Google Translator. I don’t know what else I can say or do to make myself heard. I keep repeating that Google Translator cannot translate essays and make them comprehensible but I’m not getting through to the students. And then the students come to cry in my office which stresses me out.

I hate Google Translator.

I always remind my students to vote. Of course, I never tell them whom to support and never betray my own political preferences. But I do tell them that voting is both a right and a privilege, that they need to have a say in how this country is run, that they should keep themselves informed and participate in the political process.

I gave this speech in 2004 and in 2008 and was preparing to give it this year. In my experience, the speech works. Students always look energized and more interested in voting after I give it.

I have discovered, however, that I’m not allowed to remind students to vote because this supposedly constitutes political activism which I’m not entitled to engage in while on campus because I’m employed by the state. The students will supposedly feel coerced to vote by me as the representative of the government (sic!), even though I don’t offer credit for voting and never persecute anybody for not voting.

It feels very weird to avoid any mention of the elections in my classes. In my language courses, I used to get students to recreate the presidential debates in Spanish and it was always a lot of fun. Now I can’t do any of this.

Of course, I will not violate this requirement but I still don’t get it. Do you think it is coercive to remind students that there will be an election on November 6?

Feminists who are a lot more popular than yours truly were “on the verge of tears with gratitude” when Obama made his extremely offensive comments that

These are not just women’s issues. These are family issues; these are economic issues

and that

In my health care bill, I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured, because this is not just a health issue—it’s an economic issue for women. It makes a difference. This is money out of that family’s pocket.

Given the palpable contempt for “just women’s issues”, I have to wonder what it is that such feminists are so grateful for. The idea that a woman has no value and no interests of her own outside of the patriarchal family that consumes her entirely is not new.

I don’t feel like any of these comments were addressed to me. They sound like they were addressed to men who needed to be reassured that those useless womenfolks would not cost their male owners too much.

I also wonder what the deal is on “just women’s issues”. Women represent 52% of all inhabitants of this country. When Romney dismisses 47%, we are all appalled, and rightfully so. But where is the same outrage when Romney’s opponent tells us that the interests of 52% of the population do not merit to be addressed unless they affect somebody else’s interests, too?

No, I’m not getting over this any time soon. If there is somebody who is as incensed about this as I am, please let me know. I’m getting to feel too lonely here.

It’s ridiculous that there should be a legal battle about extending the voting hours. The voter turnout in this country is extremely low, so any measure that allows more people to exercise their most important civic right should be welcomed.

It makes absolutely no sense that the election should be held on a Tuesday. How are people who work supposed to get to the polls? I have no doubt that many of my students will not vote because they are running between school and work all day long.