Toxic Femininity, Redux - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Toxic Femininity, Redux
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Monday, your author was perusing his Facebook feed and happened upon a link being bounced around (with more than 46,000 social media shares as of Tuesday afternoon) amid guffaws and headshaking from a site called Everyday Feminism, and pursuant to this column’s occasional examination of the blatant stupidity of the anti-social Left I thought it was worth presenting.

The piece, written by someone named Lara Witt, is entitled “10 Things Every Intersectional Feminist Should Ask On a First Date” — and it is every bit the laugh riot you, Dear Reader, would expect.

Before examining these gems from the Romantic Conversation Hall of Shame, some quick information for those of you who are already confused. An “intersectional feminist” is a species a bit more specific than your typical misandrist harpy; rather, the “intersectional” denotes the carrying of grudges beyond just the general loathing of all things masculine. To be an “intersectional feminist,” one has to build a totem pole of victimhood and thus assign value to the perspectives and thoughts of people based on their distance from the white male patriarchy.

In other words, if one is a straight white woman, that’s all fine and well and good — but not as good as if one is a straight black woman. Or if one is a gay black woman that’s much better and to be more highly esteemed by the enlightened among us. A disabled gay black woman? Better still. A transgendered disabled gay black woman? Nearing the top of the food chain. And so on.

This quackery is actually promoted and taught at institutions of higher education as though it’s the cutting edge of social science, which is a good indication of what your tax dollars subsidize and your kids’ college fund is paying for in tuition. And it manifests itself outside of academia in stupidity like Lara Witt’s dating advice, which includes — seriously — 10 questions males pursuing right-minded feminists should be subjected to on a first date. These — seriously — are the 10…

  1. Do you believe that Black Lives Matter?
  2. What are your thoughts on gender and sexual orientation?
  3. How do you work to dismantle sexism and misogyny in your life?
  4. What are your thoughts on sex work?
  5. Are you a supporter of the BDS movement?
  6. What is your understanding of settler colonialism and indigenous rights?
  7. Do you think capitalism is exploitative?
  8. Can any human be illegal?
  9. Do you support Muslim Americans and non-Muslim people from Islamic countries?
  10. Does your allyship include disabled folks?

Witt squares the circle formed by an inquisition about sexism and misogyny followed by questions demanding support for the BDS movement and Islam by saying that she “can’t think of any other religion which has been vilified and lied about more than Islam in a cultural and systemic way” and that she “cannot imagine for a second even claiming to be a feminist if I didn’t stand in solidarity with my Muslim friends and family — especially now, especially after 9/11.” And also that her intersectional feminist friends should never date anyone who believes Islam is inherently violent or misogynistic.

The explanations of the other sure-fire conversation-starters on this list are similarly a hoot — you’ll likely be particularly impressed with Witt’s advocacy for a “kind of pro-heauxism where you understand the labor of sex workers of color, especially trans women of color who engage in sex work, because their experience and knowledge is crucial to understanding the oppressive structures of our world” as a demand on a potential male mate. If a man on a date with one of Witt’s acolytes should express that no, he doesn’t see himself in any special solidarity with, say, Haitian tranny hookers, then that man is thus disqualified from romance.

And so on.

This is piffle. It’s nonsense and gobbledygook. It’s also pervasive among the Hard Feminist Left. Just Monday Sally Kohn, who is inexplicably among the more influential of the feminist pundits, wrote at the Washington Post that “Whether we realize it or not, most men hate women.” It’s understandable given a rational imagination of Kohn’s personal experience that she might feel that way, but for most people without psychological defects such a statement is clear evidence of misandry — Kohn’s greater thesis is that sexual harassment ought to be treated as a hate crime; by the standard she establishes it’s not out of bounds to say her entire column is a hate crime in itself.

This is where we are, and it’s filtering down from the universities and the Democrats’ news organs to the general public. If you’re married, count your blessings — you’re probably not aware what’s out there in the dating world. Ask one of your single friends about the lunacy extant on dating profiles at apps like Bumble and Tinder, wherein warnings like “If u don’t think social justice is sexy AF, swipe left” are ubiquitous.

The general lesson from this? People are marrying less, having fewer kids and generally failing at family by the standards of our parents and ancestors. The damage the feminist movement is causing is real. Toxic femininity is real — perhaps even more real than the recent construct of toxic masculinity so hyped by the Democrat media. With stupidity like that of Lara Witt on wide display, things are only getting worse.

Scott McKay
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Scott McKay is a contributing editor at The American Spectator  and publisher of the Hayride, which offers news and commentary on Louisiana and national politics, and RVIVR.com, a national political news aggregation and opinion site. Scott is also the author of The Revivalist Manifesto: How Patriots Can Win The Next American Era, and, more recently, Racism, Revenge and Ruin: It's All Obama, available November 21. He’s also a writer of fiction — check out his four Tales of Ardenia novels Animus, Perdition, Retribution and Quandary at Amazon.
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