Conservative commentator/demon lady Charlotte Allen is behind some of the biggest anti-feminist hits of the past decade: she's argued that sexy Halloween costumes justify rape, mocked transgender rights, and straight-up called women dumb.
But now she's outdone herself with a gag-inducing National Review Online piece in which she argues that Adam Lanza wouldn't have shot 20 little kids and 6 adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School if there had been any men (or beefy 12-year-old boys) to rectify the "helpless passivity" that permeates every "feminized setting" like poisonous gas made from lady tears.
After Allen "pored over a map of the school and its killing sites - and studied a timeline of the incident, which appears to have unfolded over about 20 minutes" — good job, Sherlock Horrible — she came up with some inane observations:
There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel - the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the "reading specialist" - were female. There didn't even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza's knees.
First, some facts: a male custodian ran around the school warning people and Sandy Hook Elementary School is actually K-4 so there weren't any 11 or 12-year-old boys. If you're going to write a mind-bendingly odious op-ed you might as well do some basic research. (Or maybe she was too busy studying maps and timelines that were apparently coded by gender — we're envisioning big blue sad faces to signify the lack of men and pink skulls and crossbones to mark the heroic female staffers who risked and sacrificed their lives to save the school's kids — to actually read about what happened.)
in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak - but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.
Umm, do you know what would've happened if a bunch of "husky" 12-year-old boys tried to attack an adult male with a semi-automatic rifle? There would've been a bunch of dead husky 12-year-old boys.
Cops and everybody else encourage civilians not to try to defend themselves when they are criminally assaulted. This is stupid advice. There are things you can do. Run is one of them, because most shooters can't hit a moving target. The other, if you are in a confined space, is throw things at the killer, or try a tackle.
Yes. It was really too fucking bad that all those 6 and 7-year-olds didn't quickly form a crayon-fueled militia against an armed shooter.
Allen is right that there weren't very many men around that day. But there was one notable guy who showed up: Adam Lanza. Along with a killing weapon made by a company that tells men they're pussies if they're not armed. But woooo, "male aggression," you're the best.
In conclusion, I think we should all ask ourselves, "WWCAD?" (What Would Charlotte Allen Do?) if we found ourselves in a life-or-death situation. WWCAD? Throw a broad-shouldered 12-year-old (or janitor's bucket, if she can find one) at the problem and, if that doesn't work, swoon.
Also: go to hell, Charlotte Allen. You're disgusting.
[NRO]
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