Pharyngula

Posted by: Miguelito | February 12, 2006 4:26 PM

Have you seen any pictures of Ann Coulter's throat? She looks like she has an Adam's apple. Her demeaning comments towards academics and democrats may be compensation for something else.

Posted by: fyreflye | February 12, 2006 4:55 PM

As the posts above suggest, the rumor is not that she's a woman but that she wasn't always one.

Posted by: tacitus | February 12, 2006 4:58 PM

Half a column inch is too much to waste on this travesty of a human being. She make Ken Ham look normal.

Posted by: C. Schuyler | February 12, 2006 5:04 PM

So far, the rumor is unsubstantiated.

Posted by: Anonymous | February 12, 2006 5:14 PM

Coulter has always had a low opinion of women. She reminds me of that Dave Chappelle sketch with the black KKK guy.

I am less outraged when I think of her as a symptom, not a cause. She does not influence rational people - she is simply someone who the ignorant and intolerant have chosen to hoist up on their shoulders.

Posted by: oldwhitelady | February 12, 2006 5:43 PM

I am less outraged when I think of her as a symptom, not a cause. She does not influence rational people - she is simply someone who the ignorant and intolerant have chosen to hoist up on their shoulders. Anonymous

I like the way you put it! I cannot think that rational people would listen to her.

Posted by: noahpoah | February 12, 2006 6:13 PM

Unfortunately, "she" is coming to my school - Indiana University - soon.

I won't be going to her talk, as I don't want to add to the head count and encourage the bringing in of crazies, but I did have a funny idea when I saw that she is coming - it would be funny to make signs with pro-Coulter slogans on one side, anti-Coulter slogans on the other. Just imagine the cognitive dissonance that would incite.

Posted by: Bryson Brown | February 12, 2006 7:28 PM

Her rhetoric is so crude, so thoroughly 10-year-old bully with a dirty mouth, that I can only believe the more she's seen as an authentic voice of the right, the more quickly the right will dwindle to a cranky, tired, hate-filled rump. Perhaps she's really an agent-provocateuse...

Posted by: phinky | February 12, 2006 8:01 PM

I thought Ann Coulter was a trucker's dream. No bumps, no curves.

Posted by: BlueIndependent | February 12, 2006 9:11 PM

What I don't get is why all of a sudden she's this big loud speaker of crap for the reps. It's not like it's original. It's all the same tripe they've been blaming on democrats for decades, or even a century depending on how far back you want to dig. Maybe she's "unique" because she's the loudest rep female out there, and so they're bussing her all over the place to make it seem like they really adore strong women.

What the hard-right people running the rep party adore most of all is their own marketing. They talk of their name-calling and finger-pointing as if it was divine inspiration, and we should only be so thankful of their singular joyous revelation and wade in its soothing muds with them.

What I don't get is Bill Maher's friendship with her. I'm not about to dictate anyone's interpersonal relations, but how did those two arrive on friendship thing? Bill seems to be the only one that can "calm her down" publicly. And Bill is not a raging centrist...

Anyhow, I think the dems should find a good mud-slinging comedian type that can really "dress Ann down" on stage, and win back people with real humor, not some virtiological rant marketed as such.

Posted by: Ed | February 12, 2006 10:36 PM

Zeno: It's not pornography. No nudes. It's obscenity.

Posted by: Henry | February 12, 2006 11:32 PM

Am I the only one who finds the comments about Coulter's appearance and attitudes being 'unfeminine' to be grossly misogynistic?

Yes, she's nothing but a glorified net troll. But I find it appalling that rather than attacking her words or ideas, commenters are attacking her gender. She's outspoken, confrontational, and doesn't adhere to gender norms of beauty, and this is all that's necessary to dismiss her?

I'm not defending her ideas, I'm defending the apparently unheard-of suggestion that women do not have to pass muster as suitably gender-conforming before their ideas are talked about, and that failure to conform to gender norms is not sufficient grounds for dismissal.

Trash Coulter for the right reasons (that she's a batshit-insane hate-monger who symbolizes everything that's wrong with modern US politics), not for sexist judgements of her body type or lack of proper female submissiveness.

Anyone who has commented in the latter vein and claims to be an intellectual of any sort should be ashamed of themselves.

Henry

Posted by: G. Tingey | February 13, 2006 3:06 AM

Erm ... from England - it is farly clear what Ann Coulter is, but who is (s)he?
And who (apart from the rightwingnuts) is she speaking for, and who pays her?

Posted by: Moe Hammered | February 13, 2006 5:02 AM

First off - PZ, I've lurked on your site for a long time, loving your excellent writing and quirky squid-passions, and I'm more than a little ashamed that "Ann Coulter" has inspired my first comment, but here goes...

Some folks above are associating the joking "questionable femininity" comments (adam's apple, flatness, etc) with some sort of attack on women in general.
I disagree with that assessment. It is more likely that they feel women in general are more sensible and far better communicators than a hateful, ignorant jingoist neo-con mouthpiece like Coulter.

She has been propped up by the old white men of the GOP as some kind of "new-woman" model, a spokes-harpie that casts a glimmer of acceptability onto the rest of their misogynist agenda. The shock value she generates is like those old "real crime" pulp rags with some gorgeous dame on the cover holding a smoking gun - it plays against the stereotype of womankind as "kinder and gentler".
The ploy should be just as transparent, and treated as such.

Deep down, perhaps we all want to de-feminize Coulter because of our common fear of the idea that one day she might...
(shudder)
...decide to breed.

On that note, I think I'm going to try extra hard to find a shot of her that looks like she has an adam'a apple.

But really, I'm going to try extra hard to ignore her and the other puppets of the neo-con Banana Republic we are forced to call our government, and continue to work at driving their puppet masters from power.

Hope y'all do the same.

Keep up the good work, and fight the good fight, PZ.
We love ya.

Posted by: dyspeptic grad student | February 13, 2006 7:23 AM

I hate it when people bring up the "Ann Coulter is a man" rumor. Even if it were true, rather than just an attempt to degrade her, attacking her sexuality instead of her repugnant views is the sort of thing that she does.

I don't see it that way. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the rumor is actually true, bringing it up would be the perfect way to illustrate Coulter's hypocrisy and self-hating nature. And from that, it follows that her words and views should be ignored - not because she once was a man, but because she is so steeped in hate that she preaches hatred against people exactly like herself, which is completely irrational.

Of course, all that assumes that the rumor is true. And even I - as die-hard a liberal as you're likely to find - have trouble believing it.

Posted by: Graculus | February 13, 2006 9:06 AM

Zeno: It's not pornography. No nudes. It's obscenity.

Ed, that depends on how you interpret the definition of pornography - "writings of the lowest class of whore"

Posted by: Inoculated Mind | February 13, 2006 1:36 PM

I agree totally, there's little difference between basing insults off of one's sex compared to basing them off of one's race.

I was going to replace some of her words with fitting parallels that everyone would easily object to, but I became so offended at them myself that I cut them out. Just use your imagination folks.
I would also like to add that Dembski's blog posters (incl. Bill himself) frequently use sex-based insults to describe their opponents. And I also agree with Henry on the issue of insulting Ann based upon any appearance of similarity to the body of a man. I thought PZ's joke about "Isn't there a rumor going around that Coulter is actually a woman herself?" was very funny, and I would like to add that Ann Coulter possessing 23 pairs of chromosomes is also just a rumor. This of course, I base off of her lack of higher intelligence.
I find it ironic that she says that men are smarter than women, and then turns around and calls herself smarter than a boo-ing crowd that includes a great many men.

Posted by: Henry | February 13, 2006 4:56 PM

It is more likely that they feel women in general are more sensible and far better communicators than a hateful, ignorant jingoist neo-con mouthpiece like Coulter.

She has been propped up by the old white men of the GOP as some kind of "new-woman" model, a spokes-harpie that casts a glimmer of acceptability onto the rest of their misogynist agenda. The shock value she generates is like those old "real crime" pulp rags with some gorgeous dame on the cover holding a smoking gun - it plays against the stereotype of womankind as "kinder and gentler".
The ploy should be just as transparent, and treated as such.

Neither of these objections justify such misogynistic cheap shots. The former merely attempts to excuse a stereotype by claiming it's positive (like attempting to claim 'all african-americans are good at sports' is a positive view and therefore not racist). The latter means that those who comment are lowering themselves the the level of those they despise. If they use her 'un-feminine' characteristics for shock value, does that make us any better for insulting her for having those same characteristics. Either way, it's all about gender conformity, and each is as bad as the other.

Legitimate criticism of her ideas is so easy that you can't even excuse gender-based insults as lazy. They're simply misogynist, no two ways about it.

I don't see it that way. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the rumor is actually true, bringing it up would be the perfect way to illustrate Coulter's hypocrisy and self-hating nature. And from that, it follows that her words and views should be ignored - not because she once was a man, but because she is so steeped in hate that she preaches hatred against people exactly like herself, which is completely irrational.

Even that's difficult to justify; Coulter has said enough things denigrating women that she doesn't need to be trans to be a hypocrite. She's claimed, as one poster pointed out, that men are smarter, and she's also publically stated that women should not have the right to vote (but I bet she voted last election). In fact, that's what I took PZM's comment to mean: that she says such denigrating things about women, yet is one.

But, even that aside, her view are so utterly loony that finding hypocracy doesn't require bringing gender into it.

Seriously, why do you even need to bother with gender comments about someone who uses the term 'raghead' in a national political convention? Targets don't come much easier.

Henry

Posted by: SEF | February 13, 2006 8:25 PM

I don't know about Ann Coulter other than comments made here (and on previous such threads). However, it seems her attitude has a disturbing parallel in countries which practice female circumcision. There the women are brought up to despise their womanhood so much and see the prospects of their daughters as so low (and that they are even at risk from other relatives) that they are persuaded to inflict the same mutilations on their own female children.

Similarly, from what you've been saying, Ann Coulter seems to be trying very hard to be sufficiently misogynistic to be accepted by a bunch of people whose attitudes she really ought to be rejecting - had she any decent morals or self-worth left. As such, she's probably something of a victim of abuse herself; but is failing to break the cycle and has become part of the problem instead.

Posted by: Alon Levy | February 14, 2006 3:44 PM

I just thought I'd voice my agreement with Henry. Aren't we better than that? Isn't there enough to attack without being misogynists? Do anyone really think that remarks like "We call Ann Coulter the carpenters' friend; flat as a board" and "I thought Ann Coulter was a trucker's dream. No bumps, no curves" is noticably better than what PZ arrested, and commented on?

You're assuming a false premise under which basic notions of decency, including those of gender equality, trump partisanship. Just because someone's a liberal doesn't mean he won't look for utterly vile ways to attack opponents for being black, female, or gay. When people who protested the Vietnam War bash Bush for draft-dodging, the whole idea of not using whatever tools you have to smear your opponent has clearly been thrown out the window.

Posted by: Alon Levy | February 15, 2006 12:42 AM

Uh, what was the last time you noticed a 'liberal' attack an opponent 'for being' black, female or gay? Sure you aren't victim of an urban legend or two?

Gay rights groups like to out in-the-closet gay politicians who oppose gay marriage; black groups like to call blacks they don't like oreos (if I'm not mistaken, Steve Gillard photoshopped a picture of Ken Blackwell to make him look white with a black mask); whitehouse.org attacks Alberto Gonzales for being Hispanic.

And surely there is an obvious point to be made that a hawk who dodged the draft is a hypocrite?

I'm not talking about the accusation that Bush is a chickenhawk, although I think it's heinous, too. I'm talking about people who call Bush "AWOL" and made a huge story over whether he draft-dodged Vietnam or not back in the fall of 2004.

If Coulter really despises femininity, as her words seem to imply, we may as well fling her own insults back at her.

You're engaging in a double standard here, wherein liberals and conservatives are judged by different sets of standards. A conservative who isn't a straight upper-class white male is a self-loathing sellout; a conservative who is a straight upper-class white male is just selfish. Liberals, in contrast, are lauded as traitors to their class if they're upper-class, and as heroes of the working class if they're not; as self-conscious civil rightists if they're black, female, or gay, and as people who get it if they're white, male, or straight.

Posted by: Henry | February 15, 2006 9:27 AM

Gay rights groups like to out in-the-closet gay politicians who oppose gay marriage

Yes, god forbid we expose the bigoted hypocracy of politicians who advocate writing irrational hatred into the constitution. I suppose you also object to the revelation that a candidate who formerly campaigned on open racism (Strom Thurmond) had an affair with one of his black servants.

Maybe you're just so sensitive revelations of hypocracy because those revelations tend to fall mostly on right-wing loonies. There's a reason why that's the case.