Said Joe Biden, in 1969, when he was 27, quoted in the new article "Rage against the 'gaffe machine'" (at Politico).
I'm noticing that this morning, because my son John linked to it at Facebook. John called attention to that quote and said "LOL."
I commented over there:
That kind of casual sexism was completely the norm at the time — late 60s. You'd be pushed aside as a humorless dolt if you too didn't find it sweet and funny. This is how feminists got the reputation for having no sense of humor. You'd also be expected to swallow the teasing — if you objected to that particular joke — *Don't worry, no man's going to want to marry you.* Watch the first few episodes of "Laugh-In" if you don't believe me. (It's free on Amazon Prime. You'll be amazed at what was not only said, but regarded as fresh and cool.)
I should add that Biden did get his little girl 2 years later, the little girl who died when she was one year old. Perhaps that's why this old "gaffe" of his isn't in wider circulation. I put "gaffe" in quotes, because, as I said, I think that was within the humor norm of the time.
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63 comments:
"Humor norm of the time"?
Dear God, haven't you learned by now that every word and action of the past must be judged by the standards of today's Wokerati and that any deviation brings total condemnation?
Let me guess--- this article was written to explain away- along with his stutter- why Biden doesn't make sense or speak clearly any more?
This is why we point and laugh at the left.
Norm at the time? There so many of those over the previous decades/centuries but that didn't stop the tearing down of statues, did it?
Using exaggeration to tease.
Karens want to control us. Well, you. Karen has no effect on me. I can't be cancelled.
There is nothing in Biden’s remarks or the remarks about marriage that qualifies as any kind of negative -ism.
These remarks are a reflection of normal human desire and behavior.
The average age of whites in the U.S. is 58. Hispanics: 11. Asians: 29.
Feminism is an evil suicide cult. Feminism is killing off the white race.
As I said, Althouse, (with all due respect) it’s you who’s weird. No sane society builds a moral system to satisfy the needs of the half of one percent of women who have your ambitions and intellect.
"Biden did get his little girl"
When you read Biden and little girl it's usually about him creeping on one.
It’s too tragic to mock this. Biden lost his little girl.
Laugh-In also made fun of horndog men, politicians (mostly men) and delighted us with great women characters created by Lily Tomlin and Ruth Buzzi and the blonde in the bikini. The 1970s taught me that anyone was fair game and it was all funny! And women who tried to label certain comedy as being out of bounds were the foremothers of Sandra Fluke and the era of That’s Not Funny. You can’t do ALL Edith-Ann or you lose some audience. There’s gotta be a little Goldie go-go to keep the boys engaged. That’s TV!
Ah the Golden Age.
The blue collar town where I now live is full of women in their 30s or 40s who were destroyed by feminism.
They played out the approved scenario of going to college, screwing around until 30 and then trying to find somebody who would marry them.
And, then, it was no sale. Nobody wanted them. And, the job they could get wasn’t a glamorous Sex in the City job. It was a dredging, boring job.
I’ve got a few of them in my extended family. They’re miserable.
This is how feminists got the reputation for having no sense of humor.
I am pretty sure there are 1000 other examples of why feminists have shown themselves to have no sense of humor.
It was probably seen as progressive because of the desire for a girl. And I imagine his daughter's tragic death provides some inoculation against attacks on his "sexism." But let's face it, he's the Democratic president. When one is wearing that brand of Teflon, no other is needed.
We watched the first episode of Laugh-in recently. This was the pilot episode, and Goldie Hawn was not in it. The woman dancing in a bikini was Judy Carne, and she didn't seem too happy about her predicament. It seemed like a relic of the past, but it's of a piece with the women dancing on the Grammys the other night. Something about women's bodies just never gets old. You have to keep swapping in new women.
Gaffe? Joke? Clearly this just an early example of Biden and his life long stutter. How ableist of you all to make fun of or judge him for it.
If you want to know who is your master, observe who is not blamed for sexism, no matter how long ago it occurred. (Trump and Kavanaugh and Thomas were not our masters, Ted Kennedy and Beiden and Cuomo were and are.)
It's a sweet quote even today, not a joke at the time either.
No sense of humor - a lot of humor has for one of its components a changing of structure from what is expected, and women don't do structure so will never notice it. They'll just see somebody who has his feelings wrong.
Context matters. The Democrat context matters more.
My last reference ever to our resident Emperor of Wakanda and representative of all blacks.
He’s littering the comments section with the n-word, taunting Althouse.
What can she do?
Her feminist ideology is built on the notion that women were “oppressed just like blacks under Jim Crow.”
So, she has to make an exemption for a black guy because he props up the whole BS worldview of her feminism. She has to genuflect before him. It’s funny to watch.
Something about women's bodies just never gets old.
Yes, they are often quite beautiful and people love to look at them.
This qualifies as the densest statement you’ve ever made, prof.
Same is true of men’s bodies. Statues of naked men and women remain the great artifacts of the ancient world.
Another example of why people think feminists have no sense of humor. No compassion for the real needs of people either. We’re supposed to live up to Althouse’s intellectual ideals.
Within Althouse’s statement is her consistent expressed notion that sacrificing one’s body in some way to make a living is degrading.
Obviously, she’s never done a hard labor job in her life.
Men tend to predominate in those jobs, don’t they.
When Jim Thompson was Governor of Illinois in the late 70s, his wife gave birth to their first child, a little girl. When Thompson was asked to make a statement he said, "She'll do better next time." I remember thinking at the time, "Won't that be a nice thing for his daughter to read about later." Fortunately for Thompson, social media hadn't been invented yet. I remembered, though, and so did karma. His daughter was an only child.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that even among Prof. Althouse's sophisticated, liberal friends, a humorous riff on the phrase "barefoot and pregnant" would not be considered inappropriate. (Compare a use of the n-word, which would be.) But of course no one speaking publicly would use the phrase, even humorously. Our current culture features a considerable gulf between what is considered acceptable in public and in private. In this regard, we resemble the Victorians, though their preoccupations were somewhat--not entirely--different from ours. What's funny is that intellectuals spent the first two-thirds of the twentieth century mocking and denouncing the Victorians as hypocrites. Their campaign succeeded, and the last third of the twentieth century probably saw the smallest gulf in a long time between what was acceptable in public and private. Different times.
Laugh-In may deserve a book by now. I think our host has suggested before the theme of Season I was not just "sex is fun" and "sexism is fun" but: if it's true that hippie girls will put out, what an opportunity for dirty old men (like Rowan and Martin). At best the humour was a parody of TV--choppy one-liners, hardly any development of a joke or a character. Flip Wilson made some difference, and then Lily Tomlin was like a transformation.
Women undressing: I have a kind of rant now: where would Hollywood be without women undressing, and angry men rightly or wrongly committing violence? Schwarzenegger's True Lies (a weird and surely in various ways troubling movie) has a gratuitous woman undressing (Jamie Lee Curtis); so does Butch and the Kid (Katherine Ross).
The 60s: isn't it true that at the hippie communes, which typically only lasted a short time--and at that, all thanks to mom and dad's money--women were expected to cook, clean, get pregnant and do child care?
Sheesh ST.
You are referring to an obscure statistical term called "most common age". It is not the average age, as you incorrectly state.
I won't get into the definition here, because its confusing and would put most people to sleep. It has to do with the fact that whites were the biggest population gainers from the post-World War II baby boom – an era before many of today’s minority immigrants entered the country.
The median age for whites in the U.S. is 44. The median age for minorities is 31. The median age for all Americans is 38.
>> that was within the humor norm of the time.
And slavery used to be legal and common. But that doesn't matter anymore.
You got it, ST. Or what else explains that Crack can get away with using the N-word outright in his comments and not be deleted?
THEOLDMAN
One rule for me, one rule for thee.
"Perhaps that's why this old "gaffe" of his isn't in wider circulation."
Then again, perhaps prog MSM keep everything out of "wider circulation" that doesn't suit them. All the old news that's fit to hide.
A little more difficult in the Internet age. Hence the MSM and tech companies doubling down on scorching the earth entirely now to prevent any further problems.
But you ain't black if you didn't vote for Biden.
Joe Biden--a putz at least since 1969.
The problem isn't what he says--the problem is with how he thinks.
What an awful human being.*
*There is no implicit approval of Donald Trump in this comment.
It's in almost as wide circulation as Obama's transcripts.
It's weird what get leaked & commented on and what doesn't.
"Sock it to me?" said Richard M. Nixon.
here's a rhetorical question
HOW FAR would plagiarizing, child groping, brain dead Biden have made it as a Republican?
Very Far? Not Far?
Tina Trent said...
It’s too tragic to mock this. Biden lost his little girl.
I’d read Biden said it was the fault of a drunk driver. That’s terrible.
but it's of a piece with the women dancing on the Grammys the other night.
Teh Bumpin’ Vajayjayz Dance?
Remember the Sexist Old Days?
Back when misogynous songs like "Wet Ass Pussy" were All the Rage?
Back when the internet was Mostly used for Porn?
Back when girls were taught, that they should "explore their sexuality"?
Back when Marriage (and monogamy) was laughed at?
those were Bad Times!
Laugh-In was the real All in the Family. Except for maybe the flushing toilet, AITF didn't break ground that Laugh-In hadn't visited first. Though Laugh-In leaned* left, it at least looked at multiple sides of issues.
*It poked fun at anybody, but dismissive personal slams were reserved for people on the right.
There is a dark hued rock in Madison that was long ago referred to using a name that was a norm of that era.
Has Biden stopped telling the lie, or better yet recanted, about the circumstances of his wife's and daughter's deaths? He blamed the truck driver involved in the collision, and said he was drunk ("drank his lunch"). The official investigation absolved the driver of fault and showed he was not driving under the influence. The truck driver passed away without ever getting a public apology from Joe. Despicable and much worse than those 60's era comments.
I don't understand why that is problematic.
Is it because, having 2 sons he wanted a daughter? Would saying something like"we'd really like to have a daughter and will keep trying till we get one" be equally offensive?
Is it because a woman does most of the work in having a baby? Would it have been OK if Ms Biden said it?
Is it because Joe made a joke about it?
I not only don't see what was wrong with it then, I don't see what would be wrong with it today.
With some exceptions for context, of course.
But same context and circumstances? Today? I see no problem
I agree with others that using this in any way with Joe is sick given the tragic circumstances.
John Henry
Who voted for this moron? Oh. Wait. Other morons. A few of them actually real people. Never mind.
Fat!
Push-up contest!
You lying, frog-faced pony loafer...
I'm with rhhardin. It's a very sweet thing to say. It's also heartbreaking since he ended up losing his little girl.
That kind of casual sexism was completely the norm at the time — late 60s.
Wanting to have a girl rather than a boy.
"but it's of a piece with the women dancing on the Grammys the other night."
And yet I'm confident that the Grammy audience skews very heavily female. Odd that.
Not that there's much of a Grammy audience at all anymore.
John Henry, do you really not understand why a woman might not want to be seen as a possession that a man "keeps," but rather as a person with agency of her own? And why, as a person with agency of her own, she might want to see pregnancy as a decision in which she participates, rather than a state that a man keeps her in?
Sex chauvinist pigs, feminists and masculinists: keep women and girls appointed, available, and taxable. Abort.
"Biden did get his little girl"
The father and son, too. Apparently, with mother... doctor's approval. A progressive cult.
And why, as a person with agency of her own, she might want to see pregnancy as a decision in which she participates, rather than a state that a man keeps her in?
Couples have their own language, their own understandings.
Just so people know, women were not really kept "barefoot and pregnant" in the 60s. Women being kept "barefoot and pregnant" isn't really a thing from a modern era. It's just a saying.
he's a Woody Allen fan...
Women were kept barefoot and pregnant on hippie communes in the late 60's and early 70's.
“It’s too tragic to mock this. Biden lost his little girl.”
Yes Tina, it really is tragic.
This is fun, going back in time to re-examine every word everyone ever said!
Wait — no it isnt. It’s idiotic.
“Actually, I'm pretty sure that even among Prof. Althouse's sophisticated, liberal friends, a humorous riff on the phrase "barefoot and pregnant" would not be considered inappropriate.”
You’re correct.
Didn't Humbert Humbert say much the same thing?
Women being kept "barefoot and pregnant" isn't really a thing from a modern era.
It never was. Masculinists are a minority. It was only with social progress that women and girls evolved as colorful blocs (e.g. Marxism/diversity dogma, Pro-Choice quasi-religion/ethics, fascism/capitalism) to keep them appointed, available, and taxable to serve the State, feminists, masculinists, ans corporate ambitions.
More tragic and despicable: Biden has never apologized or recanted his charge that Curtis Dunn was driving drunk the day his truck collided with Biden's wife's car, resulting in the death of his wife and daughter.
If they're pregnant they can't squirm around as much when you sniff their hair. Trunalimunumaprzure!
Biden lying about the circumstances of the accident is repulsive, but the point remains: a father lost his daughter. Leave it alone.
No. How he uses that loss and exploits the situation for personal gain is repulsive. It fully explains his basic character.
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