Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher

Guests on this program were: Michael Moore, Sandra Bernhard, Yancy Butler, Christina Hoff Sommers, Panel Discussion

Ladies and gentlemen, the star of "Politically Incorrect" -- Bill Maher![Applause ] [ Cheers and applause ]

Bill: Thank you very much, folks. Appreciate it. All right, let's meet our panel. The Brady fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, her book now in paperback is "The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men," Christina Hoff Sommers! [ Applause ] How you doing? Good to see you. The beautiful star of "Drop Zone" and "Hard Target" who now fights evil on TNT's "Witchblade" Tuesdays at 9:00 P.M., Yancy Butler! [Cheers and applause ] Thank you. I'm not evil, am I?

Yancy: No, you're not.

Bill: A gifted actress and comedienne, she is the star of "The Sandra Bernhard Experience," and it is on A&E August 27th at 11:00, Sandra Bernhard! [Cheers and applause ] Always a pleasure to experience you. And an Emmy-winning documentarian, rabble-rouser and author of the upcoming book, "Mad Cow, Mad Dow," our friend Michael Moore, ladies and gentlemen! [Cheers and applause ] Tribune of the people.

Michael: William.

Bill: All right. You know I've been a fan of this book for a long time, "The War Against Boys" 'cause I'm still a boy. So let me just start off talking about that a little bit because, you know, feminism from its beginnings has taken a lot of forms. First it seemed to be about bra burning. Remember that, Mike, when all the wrong women were burning their bras? [ Laughter ]

Michael: I missed that.

Bill: Yeah. That was, like, the late '60s.

Michael: Do you have any pictures of that?

Bill: Then it seemed to be about, "Well, we can do whatever we want sexually." Then it was about the workplace, and now it seems to be about kicking ass. All these movies -- Lara Croft, "Tomb Raider," "Charlie's Angels," "Xena: Princess Warrior" -- everyone seems to be kicking a lot of ass. And --

Christina: Well, 'twas ever so. I mean, there have always been women warriors.

Bill: Ever so? Christina: You go back to the Amazons. There were generals in the book of judges -- Deborah was a general. And -- go back to the 1960s and '70s. James Bond, those heroines were not especially dainty.

Bill: James Bond? Christina: In the James Bond --

Sandra: Pussy Galore? If you will. [ Laughter ]

Christina: Bill, what's not happening in feminism, the current incarnation on the campus, is not about females being powerful. It's about victimology. In the typical women's studies course, or if you looked at the website of the Ms. Foundation or the National Organization for women, it's about women as victims and men as predators, and how we're preyed upon by the capitalist patriarchal oppressive society.

Bill: Yeah. Sandra: Sort of a "Vagina Monologues," you know, philosophy. Christina: Exactly. Sandra: "The Vagina Monologues," which is, you know, a little bit --

Christina: Women are from Venus, men are from hell. Okay, that's the philosophy. [ Laughter and applause ] Michael: Let me just ask you a couple questions. I didn't do that well in history, but I just seem to remember --

Sandra: Except recent history, right?

Michael: Yeah, it just -- how many women have, like, created factories that have polluted this environment? How many women have started wars that have annihilated millions of people? How many women have, you know, done things? I mean, I think most of the crap in this world came from a guy. I mean, it's like, you know -- [ Applause ]

Bill: Oh, please. Yes, oh, oh, oh, oh, how wonderful.

Michael: It's true, Bill. Bill: Oh, please. That is so not true.

Christina: Self-hating male.

Michael: No --

Christina: And women are all loving and --

Michael: No, I think the fact that we are able to get away with all this crap for tens of thousands of years, and we're still in charge, it's a pretty good deal, Bill. [ Laughter ] You know? You know, and women make up 53% of the population. Most -- they vote more than we vote, and yet --

Bill: And they don't vote for women.

Michael: And Congress -- right, that's what I mean. Congress is still, like, just 10% to 15% women. They still vote for us, even though we are representative of most of the evil in this world.

Bill: And that gets me back to my point, which is, this is such --

Michael: Great deal. Bill: I don't buy your theory that women always did this in history. I never knew this, that women could kick ass every time they get into trouble.

Yancy: Oh, but they've been doing it since Greek mythology, I mean, earlier than the '60s. And I loved her, Pussy Galore. We've been doing it for Shakespeare. We've been doing it -- I mean, but women have been kicking ass for centuries.

Christina: I'm saying in entertainment as a form of fantasy, the reverse stereotype. I wasn't saying it was the norm. What I'm saying is it's always been fascinating. Joan of Arc. These are characters that are intriguing, so the stories have lived on.

Michael: I think it's intriguing because we as guys think, "Geez, what if, like, women really did, like, take over and kick our ass for everything we've done?"

Bill: But that's the thing, is that they wouldn't, and they can't.

Michael: They will, and they can.

Bill: Oh, I know they can in the movies. I know you can in the story. I know --

Yancy: But don't we all just really try to fake it well? I mean, you know, I think that we're all just doing that. I mean, I actually -- one of my characters that I play on my show is a descendant, if you will, of Joan of Arc. And you know, this is -- I mean, this is what we do. I don't know if it's reverse --

Christina: They're just stereotypes because most women are not warriors in combat. Bill: Exactly, and if they were in trouble --

Yancy: We haven't been given the opportunity, just like they haven't been given the opportunity, I agree with you, to screw up.

Bill: Oh, please. If there was an opportunity right here -- if there was a madman here right now, every girl in the audience would cower behind her boyfriend, even if it was --

Yancy: Oh, that's shocking!

Bill: Even if it was a guy who for five years has been trying to get into her pants, and she's been saying to him, "I just like you as a friend." Suddenly he'd be the man. Suddenly he'd be the man, and they would want him to do the ass kicking.

Michael: Kick his ass right now! Kick his ass right now, come on!

Bill: When trouble starts, they want the man to do the ass kicking. Women are not kicking ass, they want the man to do it.

Christina: Bill, you're so bitter. [ Laughter ]

Bill: I'm not bitter, I'm just saying that this is bull. This whole idea that women are out there kicking ass and being the physical one.

Christina: It's a fantasy. It's entertaining.

Sandra: First of all, I'm sure that a great portion of those films being made are being produced by men, and it's a male-dominated fantasy to begin with. So and I'm --

Michael: They're the good ones. [ Applause ] They're the good ones.

Christina: There's nothing wrong with that.

Sandra: As I'm sure that, you know, some of the fantasies you've had are driven by your own, you know, prurient kind of, you know, swinging interests --

Bill: Prurient? [ Laughter ] Well, that's true.

Sandra: I've known you for a long time, Bill.

Bill: Yeah.

Sandra: I've seen you go through a lot of changes about, you know, about chicks. So, you know, come on. [ Laughter ] Don't get too, you know --

Bill: Whereas you've stayed the same about chicks.

Sandra: That's right, honey. [ Laughter ] And it's always been hot.

Bill: Yeah. But --

Sandra: And I know it's never exactly turned you off. [ Laughter and applause ]

Michael: You guys have, like, some kind of past thing here?

Sandra: Oh, I've known Bill since he used to put me on at 2:00 in the morning at "Catch a Rising Star" in New York and torture me to keep me there so he could check me out. [ Laughter ] But I've forgiven him.

Bill: The sins of the past revisited.

Sandra: See, people like it. It's kind of titillating 'cause they're not quite sure where it's coming from. 'Cause frankly, the whole warrior princess thing is wearing my ass out. [ Laughter ]

Bill: Because it's baloney. It is.

Sandra: Well, yeah, everything is!

Bill: Women are not going to kick ass.

Michael: It's just a movie!

Bill: Yeah, it's just --

Michael: What do we care?

Yancy: We're talking about two different things. We seem to be talking about real life, and then we're talking about media. I mean, a movie is a movie. So this is -- it's fantasy-based, anyway.

Michael: Leave the movie, walk out in the real world, the men are still gonna be in charge. Big Dick Cheney is still gonna be calling the shots, you know?

Yancy: That's unfortunate.

Bill: It is a new phenomenon where all these women are actually kicking men's asses. And I'm just saying in real life, they wouldn't. If trouble started, they wouldn't kick ass.

Yancy: Bill, you're tempting me, man. I'm, like, foaming at the mouth.

Bill: They would go to the man who was with them, and they'd have him -- women are always saying, you know, "Killing is never right," except when it's a spider, a rapist or Hitler, and then they want us to do it. [ Laughter ]

Christina: What's wrong with that?

Bill: I'm not saying anything's wrong with that. I'm just saying, be honest about it. You're not kicking ass.

Christina: There are such differences. There's what the French call La Difference, and everyone understands men and women are different, except in gender studies where they say it's invented by culture. That is the problem, is that many students on our college campus are indoctrinated by these professors who believe that there's no such thing as masculinity and femininity. It was invented by society, and that's just miseducation.

Bill: Right.

Michael: Why is it, though -- why do you think that we don't live as long, you know, we lose our hair, and you don't. Our brains shrink as they grow older, and yours don't.

Christina: It's called biology.

Michael: But why? Why, though?

Christina: Mother nature.

Michael: Why does nature want to get rid of us? [ Laughter ] Maybe because we're like --

Christina: You said you were the one -- [ All talking at once ]

Sandra: I tell you what the bottom line is. Women are definitely more spiritually evolved than men, and that's really kind of where it's all coming from.

Michael: And you score higher on the S.A.T.s.

Bill: Where did you pull that out of?

Christina: No they don't. Men score higher.

Yancy: I personally didn't.

Bill: But, no, wait, wait. I'm curious. I mean, that's an interesting thing to say. Women are more spiritually evolved.

Sandra: We're doing your spiritual work for you.

Bill: What ass are you pulling this out of, is what I want to know. [ Laughter ] I mean, it's easy to say, but what are you basing it on?

Sandra: The ancient ass of Cabala.

Bill: Oh, Cabala. Oh, right. Something that Madonna got into is suddenly the religion of our time.

Sandra: No, honey, I happen to be Jewish, and it's something I've been studying for six years.

Bill: Okay, but -- but the Jews don't even allow women in the temples.

Yancy: Wait, I'm interested in this. So you feel like we're picking up the slack for their lack of spirituality.

Sandra: Women just, you know, come into this world more spiritually evolved.

Yancy: I mean, I agree with you.

Bill: Oh, you know --

Sandra: End of discussion.

Bill: It's not the end of discussion. [ Laughter ] And that's the problem, as I'm sure you would agree, is that men in our society aren't just different -- we're wrong, we're less, we're somehow needing to be civilized.

Sandra: Bill, not at all. That's not what --

Bill: You just said it.

Sandra: No, no, that's not the point I made.

Bill: You said you're more evolved.

Sandra: You're taking it on some sort of Earthly, you know, the physical level. I'm just saying --

Bill: You said you're more spiritually evolved.

Sandra: No, I'm saying that women, part of our job is to do -- help men do their spiritual work. I don't think that's diminishing a man. It's just saying that, you know -- we're talking about all this kind of physicality, and you know, this sort of angry dissertation about women kicking ass. On a certain level, that's our job. But I'm talking about bringing it into some higher realm other than just the physical.

Christina: But, you know, there's not a lot of good evidence that women are kinder or more moral than men.

Sandra: It's not necessarily about being kinder or more moral.

Bill: But see, you said you're spiritually higher than we are. Wouldn't that be kinder and more moral?

Sandra: Just on a strictly spiritual level, yes.

Bill: More spiritual --

Sandra: That doesn't mean that every single woman attains it or does their work. But if they do --

Yancy: Or does their best with it.

Sandra: If they do, if they're on -- part of their work is to help elevate men's souls.

Bill: I have to take a commercial path. I'm so sorry. [ Applause ] Well, the Chandra Levy/congressman Gary Condit scandal, that is the story that just won't go away. Everyone now is weighing in. Today O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake -- [ Laughter ] -- said if he did keep his wife and kill his girlfriend, it just shows how out of touch Washington is with real America. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ]

Bill: All right. I wanna continue talking about this, because this is -- I've been going around with my new act around the country, and my act is called [ bleep ]. Called "[ bleep ] Nation." I don't know if you can say that. [ Laughter ]

Sandra: We said Pussy Galore.

Bill: That's right, same thing. Because I really believe -- and I think you're a good ally for this -- that this country is in trouble because men have given up the debate. Whatever women say, men just nod along. We don't know how to fight back. We don't know how to stick up for ourselves. When women say things like, "We're more spiritually evolved," we just go, "Yeah, I guess that's right." [ Laughter ] And there's no evidence. And there's no reason to believe that's true.

Michael: It was so much easier last segment when we were just nodding along, didn't you think? It was less work, less stress. That's why we die before they do 'cause we get too worked up.

Christina: Michael, you weren't nodding along. [ All talking at once ]

Bill: But it is a contentious statement. How could it not be a contentious statement for you to say to me, "I am more spiritually evolved than you, just because I say so"?

Michael: Just nod! Just agree!

Sandra: But I qualified it by saying that --

Michael: No, just agree! [ Light laughter ] That's why we get these heart attacks. We get all this stress.

Bill: That's right. Exactly. [ Applause ]

Yancy: Yeah, that's why.

Michael: That's why we die. They live to 85, 90 years old. It was a beautiful thing that she said.

Christina: It's funny when, you know, men are hassled by women and so forth. But when it's little boys who are the target of this kind of hostility and animosity, then it's very serious. And what I found is that attitude of sort of belittling men, putting them down, that's carried now into the classroom. And you talk to almost any parent who has a boy in school, and being a boy is now considered like a pathology, a disorder, something he needs to recover from. There's intolerance in their high-spiritedness.

Michael: You know, if only we would pay attention to all those school shootings done by all those girls. All those girl school shooters. All those girl serial killers. All those --

Christina: Do you think shooting is a typical boy behavior?

Michael: Let me ask you this. Ask anyone in the audience -- ask anyone in the audience here who they think -- if they're afraid that somebody's going to break into their house tonight, first image that comes into your head. Is it a woman? Is a woman going to come in your house and harm you? No one is afraid of a woman. Nobody buys a gun to have in their home because a woman is going to break into their house. [ Applause ]

Bill: Right, but there's a lot of houses --

Michael: They're afraid of us For good reason! 'Cause we do it.

Bill: Yeah, and a lot of times the guy who breaks into the House is because some woman in his house is saying, "Get some money for us. You just do it."

Yancy: Oh, Bill!

Michael: Don't say that.

Bill: Oh, please. Right. There's no such thing as Lady Macbeth. There's no women behind men making them go out and do it 'cause they wouldn't do it themselves.

Michael: Some woman's going out there and saying, "Go out and rob the 7-eleven right now or I'll kick your ass"?

Bill: Yeah.

Michael: Oh! [ Light laughter ] What neighborhood do you live in?

Christina: Here's where you're wrong. Here's where you're wrong. It's absolutely true, no discussion, that a majority of violent felons are males. But the majority of males are not violent felons. Okay? You have to follow that logic. The majority of little boys are not predators. They're not proto-harassers and aggressors, and yet increasingly, they're treated that way in the classroom. And there are theories coming out of Harvard school of education that little boys need to be transformed and resocialized towards femininity, and I find that rather hostile and it's intolerant.

Bill: Right, it's just that our point of view -- [ Applause ] And you're right. Men are more aggressive. We are, of course we are. That is our nature. That is our biology.

Christina: And good things come from that. You see --

Bill: Yes.

Christina: Too many feminists look at the serial killers and the mass murderers. They don't look at the creativity. They don't see what -- camille paglia is my favorite dissident feminist, and she said that masculinity is the most creative cultural force in history. She said she goes across a bridge and she thinks, "men built this" --

Yancy: But we're being quite separatist and even feminine and masculine. I mean, let's go back to Jung's anima/animus. Let's embrace what we -- Jung's anima and animus theory and embrace both.

Bill: Carl Jung, you're talking about.

Yancy: Yeah.

Bill: What is that theory, 'cause I forgot it. [ Light laughter ]

Yancy: We each inherently --

Bill: It was on the tip of my tongue, but I forgot it. Carl Jung, yes.

Yancy: I think we're being very separatist in using these labels, and --

Christina: Masculinity and femininity?

Bill: What is that theory?

Yancy: Well, putting women in such stereotypical nature.

Christina: I don't mean to do that. I think 20% -- as many as 20% of kids will defy a stereotype, and everyone here in some way will defy it. But overall, there are boys, there are girls, and they do embody stereotypes.

Michael: When you say the majority of men are not violent, even though the majority of violent things that happen are caused by men, I mean, it's like saying, well, the majority of sharks don't eat humans, but if you had a choice -- if there was a pool outside right now -- there's two pools, there's a shark in one, and there was a minnow in the other, which one are you gonna go in? Let me go in the one with the minnow who's having this spirituality thing going on. [ Laughter and applause ]

Bill: That's a good example, because -- that's a good example. I'm glad you brought that up as an analogy because --

Michael: Is that what it was?

Bill: Yes, it was an analogy. Because no shark would really ever attack a human except for other circumstances. We do too much fishing, and that's why they come close to the coastal waters and eat people. They don't want to eat people.

Michael: All those female fishermen are doing all that extra fishing, ruining the oceans. [ Laughter ] It's the men ruining the oceans. Name a woman who's ruined the oceans.

Bill: But women are eating the fish, too. You know what?

Christina: Michael, what happened? I mean, how did you become so disparaging of your sex?

Michael: No, no, I'm not disparaging. I wanna live as long as you. I want to sit here and agree with you. [ Laughter ]

Bill: Yeah.

Michael: I'm trying to tone down and just accept your position that feminism has ruined the world, not me.

Christina: Please, please, please. I'm a feminist. I believe in equity and basic fairness, and I became a feminist in the '70s because I didn't like male chauvinism, but it's the new millennium, and now there's a lot of chauvinism on the other side, by women to men. And men can handle it, little boys cannot. And that's what I'm talking about.

Bill: All right, I gotta take another commercial. We'll be back. [ Applause ]

Announcer: Join us tomorrow when our guests will be actor and recording artist David Cassidy, syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, host of "Un-cabaret," Beth Lapides, and author Tony Perkins. [ Applause ]

Bill: A warning to all you computer pranksters out there -- in the U.K., a teenage hacker got sentenced to psychiatric treatment. He was using -- get this -- Bill Gates' credit card information to send Bill Gates Viagra. [ Laughter ] Gates had no comment on this -- comment, but he did change the name of the company today to microhard. [ Laughter ] [ Cheers and applause ] Okay. We were talking about women and feminism, and this is the whole thing. Women -- I'm contending here that they want to be protected. They don't wanna kick ass.

Sandra: Who the hell doesn't wanna be protected?

Yancy: I was just gonna say the exact thing.

Bill: But we haven't. But we don't have the option. We have to do the protecting.

Sandra: No, you don't. Everybody should protect everybody, and that's the way it should be. [ Cheers and applause ]

Bill: What does that mean? Who wouldn't applaud that? What does it mean, though?

Sandra: That means when you're freaking out, and you wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream and the sweats, and there's somebody there with you that you can turn to that person and go, "I'm freaking out. I need your protection. I need your love." It doesn't always have to be on a physical level.

Christina: But sometimes it is on a physical level. Sandra: Well, we've covered that. It's enough already. It's like, we've covered it. We're here. We're responsible as human beings to love one another and protect each other from the negativity and the pain and all the [ bleep ]. It's enough of this [ bleep ] discussion.

Bill: Yeah, but some of us get more of that onus than others. You know, the military, for example. I mean, I know we have to feminize the military, but when it really comes down to it, we want someone who's going to do the dirty work for us. We want the military to be prepared, but we don't want them to, like, bomb any islands so that they know how to do it when the time comes. You know, that would be awful if we actually let the military train because, you know, God forbid it might upset someone's vacation plans.

Christina: Well, it's a scandal that our military increasingly is being challenged legally in every way, and there's no way in which they can practice before they go into combat. So we're sending servicemen --

Sandra: You know, the last time they went into combat, in Iraq, they were barely there. They were in planes that were controlled by machines. In Kosovo, and the people preparing for war, it's such a crock of crap. [ All talking at once ]

Bill: You'd be speaking German now if someone didn't do that for you.

Sandra: It was a different time. We weren't under the technological, you know, conditions.

Michael: What is the threat right now? Why are we having to bomb in order -- why are we protecting ourselves?

Bill: Shouldn't we be ready in case?

Michael: Well, ready's one thing, but spending the billions that we continue to spend when these schools here like in Los Angeles are falling down, the kids are reading textbooks from the 1970s. [ Applause ] That's what the crock of crap is.

Bill: I have to take another commercial. We'll be right back. [ Cheers and applause ] [ Applause ]

Bill: All right. There's the book, "The War Against Boys." Read that one, you damn dirty ape. [ Light laughter ] Tomorrow, David Cassidy, Arianna Huffington, Beth Lapides and Tony Perkins.

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