It’s a day that ends in “y” so that means some woke national mainstream media news outlet is blaming legitimate criticism of female public figures on sexism or something yet again.

On Wednesday, Streiff reported on how liberal journalists and even some conservatives were insinuating that questioning Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s pregnancy discrimination story should be off limits because you didn’t have to go out on a limb to see how something like that could have happened in the 1970s.

Unfortunately, the attempts at shutting down criticism of Warren for the big inconsistencies in her story weren’t just limited to people who said in so many words that it used to be such a common occurrence you shouldn’t question it.

CNN culture/identity/politics analyst Brandon Tensley wrote a piece yesterday that took a two-pronged approach. Here’s what he wrote:

But over the past few days, conservative news sites and mainstream outlets either have sought to directly refute Warren’s account or have disputed it in such a way that it seems as if there’s some reason to doubt that a school in the early 1970s would fire a pregnant woman. But that kind of discrimination continues today. (As The New York Times documented earlier this year, American companies still “systematically sideline” pregnant women by, for instance, passing them over for promotions.)

Streiff astutely pointed out in his piece regarding similar criticisms from other sources that “just because ‘some people did something’ … doesn’t mean it has happened to every woman who was pregnant. It certainly doesn’t mean that it is off limits to call Warren out on her lies when her own words and the documentary evidence says that is the case.” So that base has been pretty well covered here at Red State.

But it’s what came next in Tensley’s write-up that had eyes rolling:

Warren’s story, however, fits into a much larger pattern, one that will indeed be familiar to many women: It’s the tradition of sexism in the guise of scrutiny.

Oh really?

After citing a couple more supposed examples, including one about Sen. Kamala Harris being pulled by the accuser’s attorney into a California case that involves allegations of a sexual assault made against a higher-up who works at Harris’ husband’s law firm, Tensley came to this conclusion:

Each of these examples is, in its own way, a distillation of age-old policing mechanisms and double standards. Each also shines a light on the inveterate sexism — women as unreliable narrators, women as answerable for their husbands’ professional lives, women as weak — that still, today, takes up so much space in the narrative.

Or to use Warren’s own words, “I don’t know what else you’d call it.”

This is such a load of bull that it almost defies logic.

Let’s get the Harris thing out of the way first: The attorney in the sexual assault case who pulled Harris into the mix is a female attorney. How on earth is a female attorney using Harris’ star pull in a case involving an alleged sexual assault on another woman “sexism”? She’s not being pulled into the case to answer for her husband. She’s being pulled into it because of the power factor. That doesn’t necessarily make the move a good one, but it doesn’t = “sexism.”

As far as the Warren criticism goes, someone needs to alert Tensley that by the left’s own rules, your ENTIRE past history is fair game for scrutiny from the political opposition. That includes things you allegedly did or did not say and/or do 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago.

Just ask Joe Biden, who got smacked around by Harris at the first debate when she grossly distorted what he said about working with segregationist Senators in the 1970s.

Just ask Brett Kavanuagh, whose SCOTUS nomination was almost derailed over false allegations of sexual misconduct and assault that dated back to the early 80s. Liberals turned his life upside down trying to disqualify him from the bench.

Just ask Mitt Romney, who was raked over the coals for stories involving alleged “homophobic forced haircut” incidents from his prep school days. He’s a hero to the left now, of course, but back when he ran for president against Obama, he was going to send women back to the 1950s and set back gay rights 50 years for things he allegedly said and did in the 1960s.

If women truly want to be treated as equals, the ones on the left (and their allies in the media) can start by not defaulting to playing the “sexism” card every time they face criticism from a source they don’t like.

To be sure, sexism does still exist and sexist criticism still exists, but not every critique against a woman is motivated by it. In contrast, male political figures are scrutinized to the nth degree on everything they say, too, and they generally don’t immediately trot out any “ism” cards. They address the issue in an attempt to counter it or answer for it, and then try to move on.

Also, considering the outrageous lies Warren told about her non-existent Native American heritage, she should expect every single story she tells to get the microscope treatment. She built that. She has no one to blame but herself for the skepticism she receives now.

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— Based in North Carolina, Sister Toldjah is a former liberal and a 15+ year veteran of blogging with an emphasis on media bias, social issues, and the culture wars. Read her Red State archives here. Connect with her on Twitter. –