#poutyface

Someone [with a penis] must do something!

A commenter at the Daily Mail pointed out the absurdity of Mrs. Obama’s pouty faced tweet:

Don’t give me your hastags Mrs Obama your husband is the President of the United States for crying out loud.

He raises an excellent point.  She is married to the president.  Her best chance to help the kidnapped girls is to privately bring her concerns to her husband, wait for him to devise a plan*, and then publicly support his efforts.

But supporting her husband in his efforts has a number of drawbacks.  It requires submission as well as a degree of accountability.  If she supports her husband and his plan fails, she is associated with that failure.  This way she can take credit for any success and avoid accountability for failure.  If someone (someone with a penis) tries and fails, she can point out that of course that plan wasn’t the plan she had in mind all along.  If someone (with a penis) tries and succeeds, she and all of the other women in the campaign can take credit for the success:

Nothing would have happened if men were left to their own devices!  The world owes women a debt for pushing to have those girls rescued.

Mrs. Obama won’t be alone in taking credit for any success in rescuing the kidnapped girls of course.  She will have to share the credit for any success with her fellow pouty faced (or angry faced) tweeters as well as the brave women in Nigeria:

…concerned women have threatened to converge in Lagos and other parts of the country and later proceed to Borno State, from where they would walk naked into the forest in search of the students.

As absurd as threatening to go naked into a snake infested jungle in order to punish kidnappers and rapists may sound, there is some logic here.  First of course is the fact that they have no intention of actually doing such a thing, and if they did they would be careful not to venture far enough to place themselves in real danger.  Second, by stripping naked (even metaphorically) they remind the world that they themselves do not have penises, so clearly they aren’t the ones who must do something.  Just like with Mrs. Obama’s pouty faced tweet, they also don’t have to stand by either a plan or a leader.  If their histrionics ultimately push their government to botch a risky rescue, they can accurately point out that their plan (running naked through the jungle) carried no such risk to the kidnapped girls.  If their histrionics result in successful government action, they will be praised for their wisdom and courage in making sure the girls were rescued.

Make no mistake, heaping praise on women for making pouty/angry faces and threatening to run into the jungle naked is exactly what we will see if the kidnapped girls are rescued.  Feminists will celebrate the wisdom of women, and conservatives will stand reaffirmed in their faith in men (provided they are given a proper wake-up call).

*If President Obama needs help devising a plan, Professor Hale has kindly laid out some options.