GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

Last Chance to Vote for Conservative Blogress Diva/Why Gay Men Like Strong Women

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Just under twenty-four hours remain to vote for your favorite conservative blogress diva. At 6 PM EST (3 PM PST) on New Year’s Eve, I’ll check the vote tally and award the blogress with the highest number of votes (at that time) the title of Grand Conservative Blogress Diva 2006. And since each of the women nominated has now received over 100 votes, all will join the Grand Diva’s court as a conservative (or libertarian) blogress diva in her own right.

And while we thought our list was comprehensive of the conservative blogress divas, we keep discovering new ones. Bear in mind that we define a diva differently than do most gay men. For us, a diva is a strong, confident and talented woman who commands the respect of men. Yet, as the campaign has shown, some of the nominees have shown a quality which defines the more “traditional” diva — a strong woman who loves attention. It seems that some of the top vote-getters delight in promoting themselves. It’s too bad we can’t name them all Grand Conservative Blogress Diva.

As we honor these divas, let me draw you attention to other great blogresses on the right — The Anchoress, Baldilocks and Little Miss Attila. And be sure to check out this year’s nominees: Ann Althouse, Tammy Bruce, Polipundit‘s Lorie Byrd, Jane Galt (Asymmetrical Information), Bridget Johnson (GOP Vixen), Sondra K (Knowledge is Power), Carol Platt Liebau, National Review Online‘s K-Lo (Kathryn Jean Lopez), Michelle Malkin, Betsy Newmark (Betsy’s Page), Pamela of Atlas Shrugs, Debbie Schlussel, Cathy Seipp and Cathy Young.

Because we gay men respect strong women such as these, we should also consider why it is that gay men look up to and often befriend such forceful women. Indeed, I may be writing my Ph. D. dissertation on such a topic, looking at how the Greek goddess Athena serves to bring men together. It is she who effects the reconciliation between Odysseus and his son Telemachus in The Odyssey. And, in perhaps my favorite classical play, Aeschylus‘ The Eumenides, this feminine representation of wisdom says, “but for marriage, I am always for the male.”

Perhaps, we so revere strong women because we, who pursue romantic relationships with other men, need a means to let the feminine into our lives. It often seems that the gay men with the great problems, emotional, sexual and whatnot are those least in touch with the feminine, both in terms of their relationships with others and their understanding of themselves.

As you cast your vote for grand conservative blogress diva, please join me in pondering why it is that so many gay men honor strong and confident women.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

Comments

  2. The ‘strong woman’ phrase reminds me of the way the women in my family responded to the Lewinsky scandal. They really scoffed at the notion that a strong woman would put up with being married to a serial philanderer.

    The women in my family largely agreed with the guy who said, “If I tried to tell my wife that I had messed around with an intern, but it didn’t count because it was just oral sex, the last thing I’d ever see would be my wife standing over me with a shotgun saying ‘How the Hell do I reload this thing?'”

  4. As you cast your vote for grand conservative blogress diva, please join me in pondering why it is that so many gay men honor strong and confident women.

    Simple. They, like gay conservatives, are people whose existence and success matches the public goals of their respective movements, but not the private, ulterior motives — and, as a result, are attacked and distrusted by both sides.

    For instance, feminism publicly (and correctly) pushed for the right and reality of women to have a career without being disadvantaged because of their gender. However, the ulterior motive in feminism was that women MUST have a career; to ensure compliance, they came up with the notion that CHOOSING to be a stay-at-home mom or a housewife was to be “less of a person” and to “subjugate oneself to male domination”. At the same time, the wingnut right who extrapolate prominence in SPIRITUAL affairs to prominence in ALL affairs publicly acceded, but made it privately obvious that women who concerned themselves with home and family were “better”.

    In short, both sides give women the “choice”, but make it obvious that there is only one “correct” choice, because their ideology and power rests on that specific outcome. Women like our blogress divas, who support a woman’s choice of career or home regardless of the outcome are a threat to both groups and are seen as subversive to their entire ideology. No one who supports women’s rights and competence can stay at home; no one who is worthy to be a mother can have a career.

    The same happens with gay conservatives. The avowed goal of the “gay movement” is to celebrate the diversity and “normalcy” of the gay community, to show that we are people just like everyone else and deserve the same rights, just as the wingnut right claims to embrace anyone who supports God, motherhood, and apple pie. However, the ulterior motive of each group is to weld a powerful and unified voting bloc which can be sold to the highest bidder; gay conservatives, who refuse to go along with the antigay bigotry of a Donald Wildmon or the mindless Democratic partisanship of the HRC are threats to these groups, who have defined their entire ideologies around their supporters fitting a very specific profile. No one can be “moral” who is gay; no one can be “gay” who is not liberal Democrat.

    Thus, we share the experience of a choppy middle, where one is repeatedly shot at from both sides. We both know the difficulty of holding positions that are not popular and receive brickbats from the loudest groups. But most of all, we know the satisfaction of the personal relationships that can come when one looks past labels and sees that we really are very much all the same inside.