My view:

A little from each column...but I'd have to settle on the middle descriptor.

It isn't that McFarlane didn't pull some arguably sexist things off...
The "We Saw Your Boobs" song (I'll get to it in a minute)...
The Domestic Abuse Joke...
Quite a few others...

But what I think the author of this article fails to realize is:

1. the man makes fun of EVERYONE...blacks, Jews, the Religious Right (so plenty of white people), Abe Lincoln himself...all and more were also targeted last night...it's not as if he as singling out women or Jews or any other one group and blasting them alone for 4 hours, I felt he spread his "offensiveness" around and, oddly enough, that makes it less offensive somehow, when it's not malicious and narrowly-targeted but just a wide stupid stream of "Let's see if I can't somehow make enough jokes that somehow cover everyone in this theatre and on TV." I didn't get offended at the Jew jokes (and those who found them "Anti-Semitic," I think, are stretching it WAY too far...there's a difference between a Jew Joke and an Anti-Semitic Joke, not all Jew Jokes are cruel or Anti-Semitic and vicious, and there's nothing vicious or cruel in making a joke about being Jewish to work in Hollywood...hell, Monty Python made a similar joke--"We Won't Succeed On Broadway (If We Don't Have Any Jews)"--in the acclaimed "Spamalot," and that doesn't seem to get people up in arms) and I don't think most people were, either. They weren't malicious, so just roll with it or roll your eyes.

And

2. the OSCARS KNEW WHAT THEY WERE GETTING WHEN THEY HIRED HIM...I'm sorry, but if you hired The Joker to be the birthday clown at your kid's party, you can't then be shocked that there are less balloon animals and more explosive fights with Batman in your backyard. If anyone's to "blame" (if we even have to assign blame at all) it's the people who hired him...the man's style is well-known, it was no secret what they were getting, and they knew his being offensive would generate a lot of buzz and ratings...that's why I don't buy that his Oscar performance was part of some wider attack on women in the industry and in the American workplace. Women DO face issues in the industry and face MANY issues in the American workplace, and that's no joke for sure, but a fact--that being said, this wasn't done to target women and degrade them, it was done to grab ratings, that's all, there was no malicious intent behind it.

THAT being said...

Much the same way I DID like Billy Crystal's sketch as Sammy Davis Jr. last year, and the "We Saw Your Boobs" skit this year in a guilty sort of way...

I will simultaneously say yeah, Crystal probably shouldn't have done a quasi-blackface skit, even if it was based on an old character of his and was done for just a couple seconds with no malicious intent (that phrase seems to come up a lot in this post, but I feel it's key)...and McFarlane probably shouldn't have done the boobs song...

At the same time, NEITHER are worthy of drawing THIS level of ire, I think; if you make a case of everything from the vantage point of any cause, you quickly come across as a PETA-esque group of attention-seeking whiners, which is NOT what feminists in this country should strive to come across as--it'll cripple their effectiveness and make people unwilling to listen to them or unable to take them seriously.

Don'y knock Billy Crystal, a pretty damn nice guy, too hard for his SDJ bit--save that ire and political capital for when the KKK marches in Memphis (as they're planning to have a huge rally soon) or when racial profiling and the like comes up.

Don't waste your time on a stooge like McFarlane and a stupid (if damned-ably catchy) song...save that energy for getting women equal pay in the workplace and for people such as Congressman Akin and comments that are, well, "akin" to his "legitimate rape/the female body has ways of shutting that down" debacle.

As a comedian, McFarlane is one of the most hit-or-miss, love-or-hate people out there.

Thus, McFarlane was a so-so host...he made things interesting...he was very raw...

I think he REALLY tried too hard to go out there for the first time, and he maybe shouldn't have made a couple of those jokes..

At the same time, I'd be lying if I didn't say I found him a more engaging host than most, if only for (mostly) all the wrong reasons. (Though he did give us a Captain Kirk cameo, so nerd props there.) :)

Not a Family Guy fan, at all...but eh...he was so-so...

And probably went a bit too far, but I guarantee everyone was hanging on his every word more than is the case with most Oscar hosts, just to see who would be targeted next, so perhaps that's just the trade-off. In any case, I didn't think it was any great crime against Feminism...maybe just a misdemeanor at most, send all the ladies in the "Boobs" song flowers and make it clear there was nothing personal and call it an Oscars.