Fearless on my breath...

The Daily Texan posts a piece by one Ryan Haecker whose central thesis is, and I quote:

The androgynous masculinization of the modern woman, through the donning of pants, suits, uncovered shoulders and unveiled hair, has in a sense led to the slow whorification of ladyhood.

No, really, that's his main point. But now it's quiz time, can you spot the historical and logical fallacies in this excerpt:

Dresses are the indelible image of womanhood because of the symbolic nature of pants and dresses. If all fashions are symbolic, dresses in particular symbolize womanhood by more fully embodying the ideal of a true lady, the objective understanding of what men find attractive in the fairer sex: passivity, domesticity, childrearing, coital love, piety and fertility. These defining aspects of womanhood are immutable.

Finished your answer? Ok, on to question two. Can you name at least three historical periods in time during which the following can easily be shown to be complete and utter shite:

The nature of sexual attractiveness in women is objective, immutable and incontrovertible because it is directly related to the constant and unchanging physiology of men and women. What men find attractive in women is fixed because the physiology of humanity has been relatively unchanged. In this way, the ideal form of femininity is also unchangeable and without regard for cultural context or time period.

Please feel free to use examples from literary and art historical sources in your response. Including more than three will lead to extra credit.

Question three, can you find at least one example of a woman in pants that shows this bit to be complete bunkum:

Like all fashions, pants are symbolic of something - in this case masculinity - through their allowance of physical activity. Dresses, the antithesis of pants, symbolize femininity through grace and elegance. Men find elegance in women to be attractive, and dresses are a physical manifestation of femininity. The wearing of pants by women represents the masculinization of the fairer sex, which is not at all attractive.

If you're having difficulty, I suggest referring to TBogg for at least one visual reference.

Final question, does the following make you burst into tears for the future of our nation:

Haecker is a history junior.

That, of course, was a rhetorical question. One of the commenters at the DT responds with, perhaps, the most eloquent takedown of our young scholar I've read:

Has it somehow escaped your notice that if these indeed were immutable defining aspects of women, then you would have nothing to write about, because every woman would be wearing dresses and there would be no feminism? If passivity was a defining, immutable aspect of womanhood, then every woman would be passive. Women are not passive, ergo passivity is not a defining aspect of womanhood, ergo your entire ridiculous thesis falls apart. Enjoying the sight of a woman in a dress is a fine thing, but it's not something you're entitled to, you sexist fop.

But please do click over to the DT to read the other comments as Mr. Haecker proceeds to make an ever larger ass of himself by throwing in the odd pseudo-intellectualism. It truly is a car wreck, but the enjoyable kind. There's little better some days than watching a sexist being so beautifully and skillfully skewered.

This response, though, nearly made me spew Gatorade all over my keyboard:

Richard Whittaker
posted 11/20/07 @ 7:47 PM CST
Thank you for your capitol and splendid treatise, young master Haecker, but I must impose upon you to ask a question. My intended's bustle lifted briefly as she lighted into the hansom cab I had my servant summon upon our exiting from a magic lantern show. In this action, she exposed the lower hem of her petticoats to the eyes of the assembled crowd, my good self included. Does this mean I now must immediately ask her father's hand in marriage, or shun her for her gross immodesty? Also, exactly how thick a rod should I use if she continues her childish prattle about working outside the home? Lawks, sir, she'll be requesting the 'right' to vote and keep her own property next!

The evidence the RudePundit demands before serious discussions about bombing Iran take place:

If they wanna bomb Iran (a notion that's soooo 1980), then here's the evidence the Rude Pundit wants to see: he wants to see the Mullahs dry-humping nuclear warheads that read, "Hey, infidels, suck on this"; he wants to see a video of motherfuckin' Ahmadinejad actually shoving an IED into a drugged, tied down Dick Cheney's asshole, saying, "We're gonna blow up Dick Cheney's ass, America, if you don't back the fuck up on our nukes," with the President of Iran ordering his guards to fuck Condoleezza Rice's disembodied head. And even then, there should be a referendum in this country on whether or not we actually care if Dick Cheney's ass gets exploded. Hell, they'd probably just give the Vice President a mechanical sphincter and let him keep on lying and sending people to die for him.

Amen.