In her blog entry today, Margaret Cho bemoans the fact that feminists do not come forward to defend Courtney Love. Poor Margaret--I think she is under the delusion that we still have a feminist movement.

At any rate, I couldn't agree more that Love has become a popular scapegoat for our culture's hatred of women. This is not to imply that Love hasn't brought many of her problems on herself. Of course she has: She is a substance abuser and has been known to be violent. But that is not the point that Cho makes. The point is that if Love were a man, she would be tolerated, or even idolized as a rock god.

When male rockers use illegal drugs and smash things up, hey--they're just leading a rock and roll life. But when Courtney Love does those things, she is the devil. The most important point Cho makes, however, is that when people talk about Love, they talk about her behavior, and never about her music. Love is an exceedinly gifted songwriter, singer, and musician, with a marvelous vision of what it is to be a woman in rock.

But like Yoko Ono, she was married to a male music god, so therefore she must be evil. She was able to record only because of her husband. She must have killed him. We've heard much of this before. And Cho is right, the complicity among women to unfairly trash Love is deplorable. But since the self-image of American women is hovering somewhere around where it was in the 50's, what can you expect?