Okay, no it doesn't.  Actually there's a new game that allows women to murder men, all to feminist applause.

There was a time that feminists criticized popular culture for promoting gender stereotypes, for depicting women in roles that suggested a narrow view of their legitimate endeavors.  Betty Friedan did it, and she had a point.  Why were women in magazines like McCall's and Redbook depicted as happy as wives and mothers but sad and unfulfilled when they pursued careers?  Didn't that send an unabiguous message to women that was subversive of their real and legitimate goals?  OF COURSE IT DID!  Friedan (and countless others) were right to criticize those and other portrayals of women in popular culture.

But when feminists started producing their own popular culture (well, "popular" might not be really accurate), they suddenly dropped any notion that they should circumscribe their often intensely misandric prose.  If any feminist ever suggested that maybe such people like Andrea Dworkin or Marilyn French should stick a sock in it, it's news to me.  The most they ever did was to tell all and sundry that Dworkin and her ilk were fringe elements not to be taken seriously.  All the while, a great number of feminists took them very seriously indeed and fed off their misandry.

Now, there's a new videogame called "Hey, Baby" that features a woman walking in a cityscape.  Apparently male figures catcall at her and she's able to massacre them, I assume with an automatic rifle, but maybe she's got other firepower as well.  And sure enough, here's sullen feminist Laurie Penny, writing in the New Stateman, that the game is perfectly alright.  (http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/06/hey-baby-real-world-8217-8220).

Well, I take exception.  I don't think "Hey, Baby" should be banned.  I don't think it can be due to free speech considerations.  But just because the government can't pull it off the shelves, doesn't mean I like it, and I don't.  But Penny certainly does.  She thinks that mowing down men who make rude remarks is just fine.  Can you imagine the outrage such a game would cause if it had men slaughtering women simply because they're women?

This is because Penny admits to wearing a glum expression on her face most of the time, and that means that people she meets often say to her "smile!"  Now, a graver offense could scarcely be imagined, so Penny fantasizes about taking violent retribution on those with the gall to encourage her to brighten up a bit.  So "Hey, Baby" is right up her alley.

In short, Penny is a person in dire need of medication; anyone who's that angry (her entire piece oozes vitirol) needs a fix, and soon.  Just like Dworkin, Penny confuses her own emotional dislocations with political commentary.  Like Dworkin, she peddles psychopathology as intelligent analysis.  For reasons I can only guess at, Penny's mind converts the tamest suggestions innocently intended into an intolerable infringement on her personal autonomy.  And so, the violent fantasies spew forth.

In another context, a far wiser feminist, Molly Ivins, once said "that you feel strongly about an issue may be a fact, but it is not an argument."  That sort of intelligence is wholly lost on the Laurie Pennys of the world.  Someone should explain to her that heat doesn't necessarily generate light.

There was a time when some people thought that feminists would polilce their own.  After all, they were all about gender equality and so they'd call out people like Penny, Dworkin, French, etc.  But like I said, if it's ever happened once, I've never seen it.  In fact, their brand of feminism entered the mainstream long ago.  Penny's man-hating still enjoys a hearing at not only the New Statesman, but the Guardian as well.

Here's a woman who lives in one of the most affluent, privileged nations in the world.  Without knowing her personally, my guess is that she enjoys better health (emotional health excepted), a better education, a better standard of living, eats better, has greater freedom, etc. than something like 95% of the world.  And she's the one who wants us to believe that she's oppressed to the point of violence by a man's bidding her to "smile."

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.