Pic Of The Moment: When A Non-Answer Is All The Answer You Need

[EarlG]

McConnell fundraiser: Wives have 'obligation' to sleep with husbands

When a Woman Isn't In the Mood: Part II (Dennis Prager)

Four Legacies of Feminism (Dennis Prager)

Follow @demunderground

[unblock]

1. wait -- did he say a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle?

maybe he's a feminist after all???

[Voice for Peace]

3. I was just going to jump on that!! Peculiar quote indeed.

unless he is referring to a fish bought in the market which
is transported by bicycle.

[SharonAnn]

5. In the '70's I had a t-shirt that said:

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle".

I thought it made the point.

[Voice for Peace]

7. truly? it really said that? Earl G where did that quote come from?? nt

[unblock]

8. link:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/414150.html

A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle

Meaning

A feminist slogan, suggesting that men are superfluous to women's needs.

Origin

This slogan is often attributed to Gloria Steinem. Other claims for origination point to Flo (Florynce) Kennedy, or to an anonymous author who painted the slogan on a wall at University of Wisconsin in 1969.

Gloria Steinem had this to say in a letter she wrote to Time magazine in autumn 2000:


"In your note on my new and happy marital partnership with David Bale, you credit me with the witticism 'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.' In fact, Irina Dunn, a distinguished Australian educator, journalist and politician, coined the phrase back in 1970 when she was a student at the University of Sydney. She paraphrased the philosopher who said, 'Man needs God like fish needs a bicycle.' Dunn deserves credit for creating such a popular and durable spoof of the old idea that women need men more than vice versa."

Irina Dunn later confirmed Steinem's version of events, in January 2002:


"Yes, indeed, I am the one Gloria referred to. I was paraphrasing from a phrase I read in a philosophical text I was reading for my Honours year in English Literature and Language in 1970. It was 'A man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle'. My inspiration arose from being involved in the renascent women's movement at the time, and from being a bit of a smart-arse. I scribbled the phrase on the backs of two toilet doors, would you believe, one at Sydney University where I was a student, and the other at Soren's Wine Bar at Woolloomooloo, a seedy suburb in south Sydney. The doors, I have to add, were already favoured graffiti sites."

[niyad]

10. I had this t-shirt:

and EVERY SINGLE TIME I wore it, some guy would say, "but. .but. . fish can't ride bicycles"

whoooosh, jet stream. . . .

[unblock]

9. i recognized it at once as an old feminist quote, but he's not getting it

i mean, a fish without a bicycle does just fine, so saying a woman without a man does worse is pretty meaningless.

[niyad]

11. cannot believe the clown used that expression, but makes me laugh

[Demoiselle]

27. Gloria Steinem, in fact….back in the day. (nt)

[siligut]

16. He is either an idiot or he is using confusion to soften the minds of his listeners

While the critical conscious mind is occupied with trying to decipher what he just said, the unconscious mind is open to anything he says afterward.

He is a man who knows he can't win if he plays fair. He knows that married men do better in life and his job is to make women believe that it is a good thing for them to be fettered and used for a man's gratification and amusement. He has probably convinced himself of his lies, because admitting he is a jerk or working harder to be a good man is out of the question.

[valerief]

18. NO. He said that most women without a man (sic) do worse in life than fish without bicycles.

I don't know his stand on fish needing bicycles (there must be some American fundie sect that requires this), but however well or poorly these fish do in life, he thinks women without a man (wonder who that man is) do worse than the fish. I think the assumption is that women with that particular unnamed man do better than the fish (with or without the bicycles).

One thing is for sure. This uber-asshole is fuckin' waste of oxygen.

[unblock]

19. right, see post #9. his "logic" is silly, he's just trying to twist a feminist quote and failing.

[valerief]

21. Yes! These asshole repressive Republican Pieces of Shit always try to take an established meme

and make it theirs, so they can subvert its meaning.

[unblock]

24. yup. say it with a sneer, that's their motto.

[yurbud]

38. he was making a lame joke about that, implying women need men more than fish need bikes

[immoderate]

2. Dennis Prager is, if anything, a bigger prick than McConnell.

--imm

[ballyhoo]

6. You got that right.

[riqster]

15. I'd suspect he's even smaller than McConnell

He ought to work on his technique instead of trying such transparent compensation methods to cope with his, shall we say, diminutive "stature".

[Democracyinkind]

4. The response of the McConnell campaign is surreal.

How can they say that with a straight face? Political rhetoric in this country has become meaningless. Anyone can say anything with a straight face...

[locdlib]

12. Once again the party of party of

sexual repression is talking about how much and when a woman should have sex. In what way is how much sex a woman is having with her "good man" relevant to Mitch McConnell's campaign?

[spooky3]

13. I hate to say something "lookist", but

One glance at Prager's goofy expression, combined with his odious remarks, and it's little wonder that he believes carrots or sticks are necessary for women to have sex with him.

[JI7]

30. i have no problem making fun of his looks because he has a history

of judging women on appearance and always saying stupid shit about how women need to keep up their looks and other shit.

[Madmiddle]

14. Somebody missed out on the birds and the bees lesson early on.

These creepy people are on a mission to say whatever is the stupidest thing to say, so, in the meantime they can win another election by gerrymandering (ie fucking cheating) and suppressing votes discrination, hate speeches. Nothing good is part of the republican landscape. In fact, their landscape is like a home for rapist, pedophiles and airport meetups.

[WinstonSmith4740]

17. Wait a minute...

It's been a REALLY busy at school this week, so I might have missed something. Did we go through a time warp? Is it 1956 again? I'm assuming we're also supposed to forgive and forget when the "good" man we're married to turns out to be not so good after all and turns out to be a lying, cheating, abusive son-of-a-bitch.

I was lucky...I had a good marriage, but we had some rocky times like most people. Most of the people on our side of the political aisle can say the same thing, primarily because (in my experience, anyway) progressive men tend to be loving and supportive, and don't treat their wives like submissive possessions whose only job in life is putting up with bullshit.

[knightmaar]

20. He's kind of right in one respect only

Women are in fact programmed to prefer housewifery over careers.
That's actually one of the major pillars of modern equality/feminist theory - that we're programmed to behave in certain ways that aren't in our best interest, or in the interest of giving everyone a fair shake.

[valerief]

22. No, we're not. Maybe in Fundyland but that's not most of America. nt

[knightmaar]

25. Fair enough, and I agree

I'm sure his daughters, if he has any, were programmed.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

32. Not me!

Kids: Great if their some one else's!

Marriage: Why?

[MADem]

23. With apologies to Lionel: He's once ....twice ......three times a moron, and he neeeds a clue! nt

[tclambert]

26. McConnell needs as much fundraising as he can get in order to buy a clue.

[Crowman1979]

28. Why any woman would marry either of those ghoulish-looking bastards is beyond me.

[Hubert Flottz]

29. I'll bet Old Terra-ist Turtle MaGoo broke his own record of

ducking back into his shell until a question came along that he liked. A real bottom feeder in a senator's taxpayer funded $2,000 suit. The more rotten the chicken the more the snapping Turtle is drawn by the nasty smell. The smell of dirty money and rotten Reaganomics, topped off with lots of Koch's dirty dollars, might draw Mitch the Snapping TURD-le out of his hiding spot, but the tiniest bit of truth about the GOP is the sure fired number one Snapper repellant.

I'd go to his town meeting, if they were riding him out of that town on a rail.

[Lady Freedom Returns]

31. So what am I?

I am career/ dream driven. .I have NEVER wanted kids and am not a homebody. I am not the "Family" type.

So what do they think of me?

[Curmudgeoness]

33. Oh, they think you are a freak.

And quite possibly a lesbian.

I am in the same boat as you......60 years old, never married, no kids, not housewife material.

And I am doing just fine. At least as good as a fish without a bicycle. But if I ever did find a "great" man, I would welcome sharing my life with him....but that is a dream, not a reality. Very few "great" men out there.

[vedat safak yami]

39. An English Professor wrote:

An English Professor wrote:

"A Woman without her man is nothing."

and asked the class to punctuate.

All the males wrote, "A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females wrote, "A woman! Without her, man is nothing!"

Me like !!!

[MadrasT]

34. Dear Republican Jackasses:

Go fuck yourselves.

[alp227]

35. Yet right wingers go hysterical if Obama has fundraisers with Jay-Z "BECAUSE MISOGYNISTIC LYRICS"

but apparently to them, misogyny is OK if it's backed up by religious authoritarianism.

Don't even try to search Obama Jay Z on right wing sites. Just don't.

[Rozlee]

36. He prolly says that 'cause his wife is never in the mood.

And I don't blame her.

[KinMd]

37. Prager is on wife number 3 right now..

so anyone should listen to his advice?

[cordelia]

40. That poor woman. Prager is a phony jerk.

Phony laugh, phony show.

Mike Gallagher is the only other of Prager's ilk who is more loathsome.