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Outrage has erupted over Allard. In response to one of her pieces in Good Housekeeping entitled, “I’m a single mom of 7 kids and never want a husband,” John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, tweeted last year: “This is Jody Allard, who has said her sons are rapists manque. She is very, very ill. If you know her, do something.”

Ill or not, Allard is at least as thick as a brick, and fixated on her vendetta against men

Ill or not, Allard is at least as thick as a brick, and fixated on her vendetta against men. You have to read these articles in their entirety to grasp the full measure of the ugly symbiosis erupting from this woman’s massive ego and obsessive misandry, whose effect, unless these boys are extremely resilient, could turn one or both into Despicable Me’s on a grand scale.

In Allard’s latest article, she identifies one of her sons — the suicidal one? — as a boy “who is sensitive and thoughtful and who listens instead of reacts.” Nevertheless, she indicts him for his refusal to take up robust activism against rape culture. (“He doesn’t understand that even quiet misogyny is misogyny.”) This understanding of human relationships is deeply disturbing. Here we have the ideological slogan “the personal is the political” taken to the absurd conclusion that if sympathy for a parent’s bad experience does not lead to political action, the child’s compassion, however genuinely felt, is worthless.

Reading Allard’s articles, I could not help thinking about a friend who is an incest survivor. She told her three children her story when they were safely-launched adults and could cope with her staggering revelations about an adored, still-living grandfather. Then, comforted in the embrace of her family (which is all she wanted or expected from her children), she went on with her life. That is maturity. That is a mother who loves and respects her children. Not a woman/child who judges her children’s value according to their performance as her personal victimhood valets.

Jody Allard, Despicable You.

National Post

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