Post Feminist Dystopia or some crap

*contains swearing and rage, images may offend. They certainly made me pretty cross.

My daughter brought to my attention a wild flailing *discussion* of feminism on a local event page... I went to look at it with some trepidation because when I'm not already angry I can usually manage to remember NOT TO READ THE COMMENTS. But she was right, this was worth my attention, though I only made it through maybe half of it before my eye started twitching and I was forced to have a quiet sit down and some tea. PEOPLE ARE STUPID FUCKING DOUCHEBAGS.

I am a feminist. Or as I've mentioned before an everything-ist, but for the sake of today's outburst, I AM A FEMINIST. I am not a *feminazi* and though I grasp where people are coming from with that term I wish they would LEAVE IT OUT. Because this kind of thing shouldn't be identified by its extremists. Every group has its extremists. Can we just call them extremists and not give them special powers by granting them a magic title? I don't like feminist extremists either. I think they are performing a hatchet job on the movement, just like all the other extremists do. They undermine the ability to get anything FUCKING DONE. 

So here I was, on a facebook event page, approaching with caution. The first few entries seemed OK... Then... BAM. I knew before I even started reading the comments on it, that I'd found the entry that had raised my girl's concerns. Because as relatively benign as the initial entry was I could see it was going to both polarise people AND bring the crazies out of the closet. On both sides. 

Let's wade in. What's the difference between a man in public with no shirt, and a woman in public with no shirt? To be clear, nipples out boys and girls. IS there something inherently different about a woman's chest that makes it sensible that the law tends to not give a fuck that the guys has his shirt off but will arrest the woman for indecent exposure? This was where this one started off. If you can't already picture where it's going then you are probably already further from the middle of the argument than I like to be. I don't even care about the initial argument. It took about three seconds for this to turn into RABID feminist extremist versus RABID anti-feminist extremist, and when a bit further along a fucking MRA joined in it was all just doomed. Right. I'll slap myself now. I PROBABLY shouldn't say fucking MRA - some of the points the less extreme versions make are quite valid. MRA for those of you late to the party stands for Men's Rights Activist. And because to an awful lot of people, the very idea that men actually need a rights movement for their very own is pretty ridiculous, they very much START at the rabid end of the scale. The non-rabid ones call themselves humanists, or equalists or something that doesn't sound like big crying babies. Yeah, OK I have a problem with the men's rights activists. Here's the first thing this one posted. I. SHIT. YOU. NOT.

*FYI: This appears to actually have little if anything to do with Dr. Kimmel. The quote is his, nothing else is as far as I can tell. The only *source* I've been able to find for it is a dubious looking website that posts any old crap. But as you can imagine, douchebags gonna douche...

The text is quite tiny, I'll elucidate for funsies. It's a list. Of things that apparently women have as privilege over men. Some of them while technically accurate, it would be hard to call actual privilege. "Women live longer"... yup that's right we do, on average, live longer. What's your point? "Less work-related injuries"... also true. That this is at least partially because we are limited in the jobs that people will give us is irrelevant, apparently. 

One of my personal favs... "Emotional encouragement"... wait, what? Isn't that, that stuff that you tell us is bullcrap? Isn't that, that thing you throw in our faces when we cry during an argument? Isn't that, that thing you tell us boys need a Father figure for so they can AVOID it? I totally WANT men to be raised with emotional encouragement and support. You have no idea. I PREFER men who are in touch with their emotions. Men who are all fucking locked up inside are HARD WORK. And I DO work at it. I've been unlocking men's feelings for all of my adult life. Or trying to anyway. Friends and lovers. Because it's fucking tedious trying to communicate openly with someone who doesn't show you what they feel. 

I'm pretty fond of "Less often admonished by teachers" as well. Because boys are raised to be wolves. Women are raised to not stand up for themselves, to not be rude, to be NICE. That that happens to benefit us during school is pretty fucking irrelevant when I can't convince my boss to pay me the same wage as the douche in the next office. 

There are things on this list that I agree with. "Men don't get a fair deal in family court". (though not for the reasons this douchebag brought up) Women are almost always given custody of the kids. Basically, the mother has to be verifiably fucked up to not get custody. Even when it makes more sense for the kids to go with Dad. 

The massive toolbox who brought this list up seems to be not from NZ (I mention this because the rest of his ranting about family court stuff was utterly not NZ-y) - which is interesting because this was an NZ event and he clearly came looking for a fight. He's probably friends with the less crazy extremist I guess. I'd hate to think he just cruises the internet looking for these arguments. Though I know some people do. Some of what's on the list isn't really relevant to NZ... so I'll choose to ignore it.  

"Draft immunity"... well, I do disagree with it. But as long as the Armed Forces are still clinging to the concept of no women in battle this is unlikely to change. Not to mention there's a biological reason for it - NO I DON'T MEAN WOMEN ARE TOO WIMPY FOR WAR - I mean, if you kill off 80% of the most viable men, the population can still recover reasonably because WOMEN HAVE BABIES. If you kill off 80% of the viable women you are in real trouble. To put that utterly bluntly. The spoodge from one guy can make many women pregnant. The uterus from one woman cannot carry many babies. At least not at once. This is one of those inequities that is probably going to have to wait for science to catch up before we can fix it. When we can grow babies entirely without using lady bodies we'll all fight together. I'm pretty sure all the babies in jars stuff is going to raise some really LOUD religious arguments. But I'll be happy to yell about that too. And we all get to have lots and lots and lots of sexy times unhampered by damned inconvenient pregnancies. WOOHOO. And who said women don't really like sexy times? I didn't give it up because I didn't like it - it was the other stuff that was breaking me apart. 

But a lot of that list is just BOLLOCKS. It's made up BS that actually has more to do with women not being treated as equals than it does with anything else. If you actually look at each thing a large portion of them are bad rewrites of things we want to change BECAUSE; FEMINISM. BECAUSE; EQUALITY. "Expected to take an easier job" That sounds like a BAD thing to me. I don't want an easier job. I want a challenging job. I want an exciting job. 

"Hypergamy" WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? Did this thing ACTUALLY just use a big word to call us GOLD DIGGERS? Mother fucking hell. I literally CAN NOT. If I even start on this one I will be here all day and be swearing even more than I usually do. So I will limit myself to just saying FUCK YOU AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON. 

But look the madness doesn't all come from one side. Or does it? Because I sincerely hope that this next piece is a douche of a man pretending to be a BATSHIT CRAZY woman. BATSHIT. CRAZY. You can't have a Tumblr page called "Castrate All Men" and not be certifiable. Thanks for not helping the cause in anyway you insane bitch. This was posted by the same muppet MRA who posted the list. Because he was "proving" that feminists are mental. 

This is *totes* bizarre. And I am anything but OK with it. The suggestion that someone who TRIGGERS your memories of an assault is also assaulting you is just SO. MUCH. BULLSHIT. I've had to read through a number of posts on this horrible Tumblr to just assure myself that if it is a fake account or "satire" or something it's very very weirdly done. It appears legit. Which makes me want to throw up a bit. Because this wasn't even the craziest thing in there. Don't go looking, just take my word for it. BATSHIT. 

OK IF, maybe IF someone triggered you ON PURPOSE there is a case for some form of crime - I'm not sure what it would technically be, but I can see the case there. But what she describes here is so much bullshit I'm surprised she could dig her way out of it. WTF? BATSHIT. This is the sort of mad ass Misandrist who is completely fucking up equality for everyone. Because who the fuck can take this seriously? And because douchenozzles like the MRA dude will try to tar us all with the same brush. 

For everyone's sake, ladies try to stay sane in your search for equality. Asking for more than equal is douchery. Asking for the systematic dismantling of the male of the species is completely BATSHIT. I don't hate men. Most of my best friends are men. I'm looking for equality here, not some crazy feminist dystopia. I have suspicions that a Matriarchy might be a nice thing to try. But it might turn out to be just as stupid and fucked up as Patriarchy. Can we just run things together? Please? 

Because all this stupid fighting about it achieves very little. But feminists can't stop fighting yet because we haven't achieved equality yet. We've made some big steps. And there are a lot of brilliant, fantastic men on board. Men who see the insidious sexism that goes on every day and want to HELP, want to step up and make it right. AND I LOVE THEM. But then there's the pile of disenfranchised men, who feel like they've lost something AND IT ISN'T FAIR. I'm sorry guys, but what you had before wasn't fair. We're working on fair - and to be completely honest about it, some of you ARE going to suffer for it. Because women are going to be applying for the same jobs as you, and some of them are going to be BETTER than you, but that's actually FAIR. So suck it up and accept it the way you have to when another man gets the job ahead of you. Because it's the same thing. 

Like so many other bigots, you're a dying breed. This is no kind of threat, it's just attrition. The next generation is less douchebaggy about all manner of inequalities. And I love them for it. Each passing generation is an improvement over the last. Like it or not we will achieve equality. Thanks to the kids. 

Peace. Out.