I personally was not motivated to leave over the pie wars, but I know of more than a few women who have. I've spent a lot more time at Booman Tribune lately than I have recently, and I checked out the new womankossacks blog. From what I can tell, these are smart, passionate, dedicated women, some of the posters who I have most respected and enjoyed here. The kind of women you want on your side in a fight.
Whatever your position on the pie ad, there is no denying that many women have taken this very seriously. And what I see is not people leaving over an ad, but over a lack of respect and refusal to be taken seriously.
I watch the brainstorming over what to do, because if women can't be taken seriously at a progressive blog, then where will they? I watch the idea of a third party being floated - shades of Buchanan and Nader. That call is what prompted me to write this.
Now, you can tell women or gays or racial or religious minorities that all a third party will do is split votes, that they are going to lose and that all they will do is forward the very agenda they're opposing.
That's a very pragmatic argument, and it has kept what I will call the Democratic coalition together in the past. It's why we all rallied around Kerry, no matter who was originally our guy. But we rallied and we lost, and in trying to come up with a strategy that will actually win, somebody thought that the right way to go is to cut lose the concerns of the Others, women and gays and blacks and so forth, to focus "on the important shit".
So now many women are realizing that the pragmatism gets them dismissed, and "someday" (as in "someday we'll get around to your issues") actually means "never". You would probably right in saying a third party will lose every major election in the near future, and likely take the Democrats with them. However, a third party is attractive right now despite that fact because it will provide women with the one very important thing that the Democratic party isn't giving them right now: hope.
Hope for a different future, hope that someday their concerns WILL be addressed and the better world they are seeking WILL be realized.
This isn't an indictment of everyone or even anyone here, and I'm not trying to take a position on the pie ad. The whole tempest is less relevant to me than seeing the women I most respect leave, whether I agree with all of them or not. Because they are leaving. And maybe it's to the peril of their own agenda, but it will end up being to the peril of yours, as well.
Just think about it.