Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte
Amanda Marcotte at the 2009 Netroots Nation conference.
Born	Amanda Marie Marcotte (1977-09-02) September 2, 1977 (age 34) El Paso, Texas
Occupation	Blogger
Citizenship	American
Alma mater	St. Edward's University
Subjects	Feminism, politics
Partner(s)	Marc Faletti[1]

Amanda Marie Marcotte (born September 2, 1977) is an American blogger best known for her writing on feminism and politics. Time magazine described her in 2007 as "an outspoken voice of the left," and said "there is a welcome wonkishness to Marcotte, who, unlike some star bloggers, is not afraid to parse policy with her readers"—while also describing her blogging as "provocative and profanity-laced."^[2]

Marcotte is the author of It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments (2008) and Get Opinionated (2010).

Personal life

Born in El Paso, Texas, Marcotte was raised in the small town of Alpine in the west of the state. She graduated from St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas with a degree in English literature.^[3] Around 2004, she began writing for the liberal blog, Pandagon.net, then later for Slate and The Guardian.^[4] As of 2011, Marcotte lives in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.^[5]

Writing

Statements on Duke lacrosse case

Marcotte attracted criticism in January 2007 for her views on the March 2006 Duke lacrosse case, when three students were accused of rape; the students were charged, but the charges were later dropped. Marcotte declared on her blog that people who defended the accused were "rape-loving scum."^[6] One comment in particular attracted attention:

I've been sort of casually listening to CNN blaring throughout the waiting area and good fucking god is that channel pure evil. For awhile, I had to listen to how the poor dear lacrosse players at Duke are being persecuted just because they held someone down and fucked her against her will—not rape, of course, because the charges have been thrown out. Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.^[7]

Journalist Cathy Young described Marcotte as a leader of a "cyber-lynch mob," writing that, "in Marcotte's eyes, the real crime of the independent feminists is helping preserve the idea that the presumption of innocence applies even in cases of rape and sexual assault."^[8] The post attracted so much commentary, including from The New York Times, that Marcotte ended up deleting it.^[9]

Blogging for the Edwards campaign

On January 30, 2007, the John Edwards 2008 presidential campaign hired Marcotte to act as the campaign's blogmaster.^[10] Soon afterward, many bloggers began to quote Marcotte's blog, especially posts in which she criticized the Catholic Church's position on birth control and access to abortion.^[11] One Marcotte blog post that was criticized included: "Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology."^[12] Columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote that Marcotte's hostility to religion should alarm Edwards, while journalist Terry Moran argued that Marcotte's comments could be construted as hate speech.^[13]

Marcotte's most outspoken critic was Bill Donohue of the Catholic League; he asked that the Edwards campaign terminate Marcotte's appointment, and called her a "vulgar trash-talking" bigot.^[14] The campaign responded that, while Edwards was "personally offended" by some of Marcotte's remarks, her job as their blogmaster was secure.^[15] On February 12, 2007, the Catholic League called Marcotte's review of the film Children of Men "anti-Christian".^[16] Later the same day, Marcotte announced that she had resigned from the Edwards campaign, accusing Donohue of a sexist perspective in the calls for her resignation. She returned to her work on other blogs.^[17] In an article for Salon a few days later, she said the reaction to her comments on the Duke lacrosse case was the first in a series of "shitstorms" that had prompted her to resign from the campaign.^[18]

One of the images from It's a Jungle Out There

Books

In 2008, Marcotte published her first book, It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, and her second, Get Opinionated, in 2010.^[1] Jill Filipovic of AlterNet described the first as a "how-to manual for feminist-minded women to take on a sexist society and have a good laugh along the way."^[19]

In August 2007, Marcotte posted an image of the chosen book cover for It's a Jungle Out There on her blog; the image "was a retro-Hollywood pulp cover of a gorilla carrying a scantily clad woman."^[20] The image came under fire for perpetuating racist tropes, and as a result Marcotte and Seal Press changed the cover image.^[20] When the book was released, it again set off controversy in the feminist blogosphere for use of images that many saw as racist.^[21] The publishers had used images taken from the 1950s Joe Maneely comic, Lorna, the Jungle Girl, which was chosen for its retro comic art look.^[22] The illustrations included stereotypical images of "savage" black Africans being beaten up by a white, blonde, superhero, described as "racist cartoons of 'natives' in a jungle setting."^[19] Marcotte issued an apology, adding that a second printing of It's a Jungle Out There would not contain illustrations.^[23]

References

See also

• Jessica Valenti

External links

• Pandagon blog
• Why I had to quit the Edwards campaign article by Marcotte in Salon