If you set yourself up in the business of mocking others, you should know that the day will inevitably come when others mock you. Which brings us to Robert Stacy McCain.
He got upset about a young woman named Tina Korbe who sat down in a short skirt to do an interview. As you will know, if you've ever seen a young woman in a short skirt sit down (and I never miss an opportunity if I can help it), it tends to ride and the girl has to grab the skirt and pull. And this happened when Ms. Korbe sat down and then poor McCain had comment.
You can see how she might have difficulties from this still from the video.
Now you need to know two things about Mr. McCain to appreciate the full significance of this. One is that there is a notorious shot about of him as a younger man in a Speedo bathing suit. And it's not just that, as a young man, he made an unfortunate fashion choice. No, it's that, how to put this delicately, he's the sort of guy who has assets that it's normally considered over-the-top to have on clear display and that a Speedo tends to highlight. And only a very charitable person would assume that there wasn't some intentionality at work.
The second thing you need to know is that he has made extensive use of revealing photographs of beautiful young women to attract readers to his blog.
So you can just imagine the ripple of cruel mockery that rolled across the web when he chose to criticize Korbe for wearing a skirt he considered too short. But here's the utterly tone-deaf part of it, he head-lined the piece with "Who wants to see Tina Korbe's Thighs?" And nine-hundred thousand conservative men privately thought, "Uh, me!"
But do you know what hits me? It's that she is well-dressed. She doesn't look like a slob or a frump and that is a pleasant change from what we've been through from both women and men these last few decades. It's a short skirt but it's well within current standards for professional dress by young women. (And why didn't it occur to somebody at CPAC that it would be courteous to provide a table of some sort for women to sit down behind for interviews like this?)
One more thing, I see a a generational conflict here that is not unlike what led to the undoing of feminism in the 1980s. Older feminists in that decade looked at younger feminists and had exactly the same sort of freakout that McCain and others had here. Come on guys, prove you are smarter than feminists: look at Ms. Korbe and repeat after me, "this is what the future of conservatism looks like" and then deal with it.
He got upset about a young woman named Tina Korbe who sat down in a short skirt to do an interview. As you will know, if you've ever seen a young woman in a short skirt sit down (and I never miss an opportunity if I can help it), it tends to ride and the girl has to grab the skirt and pull. And this happened when Ms. Korbe sat down and then poor McCain had comment.
You can see how she might have difficulties from this still from the video.
Now you need to know two things about Mr. McCain to appreciate the full significance of this. One is that there is a notorious shot about of him as a younger man in a Speedo bathing suit. And it's not just that, as a young man, he made an unfortunate fashion choice. No, it's that, how to put this delicately, he's the sort of guy who has assets that it's normally considered over-the-top to have on clear display and that a Speedo tends to highlight. And only a very charitable person would assume that there wasn't some intentionality at work.
The second thing you need to know is that he has made extensive use of revealing photographs of beautiful young women to attract readers to his blog.
So you can just imagine the ripple of cruel mockery that rolled across the web when he chose to criticize Korbe for wearing a skirt he considered too short. But here's the utterly tone-deaf part of it, he head-lined the piece with "Who wants to see Tina Korbe's Thighs?" And nine-hundred thousand conservative men privately thought, "Uh, me!"
But do you know what hits me? It's that she is well-dressed. She doesn't look like a slob or a frump and that is a pleasant change from what we've been through from both women and men these last few decades. It's a short skirt but it's well within current standards for professional dress by young women. (And why didn't it occur to somebody at CPAC that it would be courteous to provide a table of some sort for women to sit down behind for interviews like this?)
One more thing, I see a a generational conflict here that is not unlike what led to the undoing of feminism in the 1980s. Older feminists in that decade looked at younger feminists and had exactly the same sort of freakout that McCain and others had here. Come on guys, prove you are smarter than feminists: look at Ms. Korbe and repeat after me, "this is what the future of conservatism looks like" and then deal with it.
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