Now that we’ve survived the Fall Semester Campus Rape Hoax Season of ’15 with no major incidents, feminists are wrapping up their disappointing year with the usual mishmash of claimed triumphs, faked victories, and cultural appropriation of the advancements of others. Writing in the HuffPo, writer Alanna Vagianos, Women’s Editor, put her listicle 35 Inspiring Feminist Moments From 2015 on full walk-of-shame display. The only problem with her article is that it had almost no feminist content in it at all, and what it did have was hardly inspiring.
The content of Feminism, according to their ad nauseam dictionary recitation (repeated in Moments #8 and #30 of the Huffpo travesty), is usually stated as the promotion of gender equality for women as a class. So, let’s review the 35 “Inspiring Feminist Moments” to see if their character is more genuinely gender equality-based, or just feminist spam. I’ll be combining several of the moments to save space and because they fail the “feminist” and “inspiring” tests in similar ways. I’ll also be duplicating those that clearly hit multiple failures.
Group 1: “Feminist” Moments that failed for the cultural appropriation of racial minority triumphs. There were a number of achievements by black women over white women in the last year, and good for them, but what is NOT so good is the attempt by feminists to claim these achievements as their own, somehow. Feminist efforts to usurp black women’s achievements come off like disgraced Paula Deen claiming credit for inventing soul food – if she had even claimed that. While inspiring to black women in their quest for recognition, these moments are clearly not designed to promote all women as a class, nor promote gender equality. Racial equality, yes, but gender equality? Hardly. Thanks to feminists, these achievements were diluted and co-opted by a bunch of white feminist assholes for their own exploitation:
Moment 1: Viola Davis Became The First Black Woman To Win An Emmy For Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series
Moment 4: Misty Copeland Became The First Black Female Principal Dancer In American Ballet Theater History
Moment 6: Amandla Stenberg Called Out How Black Women’s Bodies Are Treated
Moment 19: The #SayHerName Campaign Highlighted The Value Of Black Women Within The #BlackLivesMatter Movement Okay, this last one did have a slight gender equality component within the racial issue, but this does not mean white feminists get to usurp it without facing charges of appropriation. .
Group 2: “Feminist” Moments that failed gender equality by actually promoting the separation of genders. When it comes to racial equality, “separate but equal” segregation is a failed relic of the 1950’s, but in gender equality it is still inspiring feminists, somehow. When you are promoting the idea that gender is irrelevant and woman and men should be treated the same in society, it is probably NOT inspiring to be reminded by feminists that women are so physically deficient compared to men that, for women to exist in things like competitive sports at all, they need their own gender-segregated sports teams and competitions. Yet, somehow, feminists claim to find inspiration in girls-only sporting events and even gender segregation as personal and government policy. Uh, huh, whatever you say, ladies.
I did enjoy watching the US Women’s Soccer team paste the mighty Japanese ladies’ team in the finals, but I enjoyed it for patriotic, home team reasons, and not because goalkeeper Hope Solo likes to cause domestic violence. Solo’s weak performance was rescued by the high-scoring efforts of her superior teammates.
Moments in this class include:
Moment 2: The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Reminded Everyone That Playing Like A Girl Is Awesome. If it is so awesome, why do you need to compete with men at all, in anything? Where’s the lust for gender equality?
Moment 17: Serena Williams Flawlessly Shut Down A Reporter Who Asked Her Why She Wasn’t Smiling. A winning female athlete appears to be unhappy. She snaps at a male sports reporter who asks her about her being upset, just as he would question an agitated male athlete. Being annoyed is inspiring to feminists? That explains a lot. Can we be inspired enough to kick female reporters out of men’s locker rooms now?
Moment 22: Amber Rose Led A Slutwalk To Combat Slut-Shaming. Rose called for more “safe spaces” for women. Creating “safe spaces” for women sounds a lot like gender segregation to me. Does this mean men can have the gender equality of having their own safe spaces, too? How would THAT be gender-equal or inspiring?
Moment 25. A 109-Year-Old Woman Said Her Secret To A Long Life Was Avoiding Men. More feminist gender segregation. If we can only get rid of women, maybe men can be inspired to live longer lives, too?
Group 3. Moments that failed for miscellaneous absurd assumptions.
Moment 3: Caitlyn Jenner Introduced Her Authentic Self On The Cover Of Vanity Fair. Oh, so it is inspiring that the woman of the year was born a man, and thinks the hardest part of being a woman is figuring out what to wear? Not exactly the inspiration for the feminist narrative, girls.
Moment 5. Jennifer Lawrence Wrote A Passionate Essay About The Wage Gap. The feminist wage gap myth has even been refuted by feminists. Instead of writing about it passionately, perhaps we can be inspired to write about it accurately? Maybe THAT would be more inspiring by proving that girls can do math and science, too!
Moment 24 Kiran Gandhi Free Bled When She Ran A Marathon To Fight Period Shaming. “Free bleeding” was a movement started by anti-feminists in an attempt to troll feminists, and feminists are STILL falling for it. And, ick.
Group 4. Moments that failed the feminist equality test by gratuitously shitting or bleeding on men. I mean, it seems self-evident to me that wanting equality to men is rather uninspiring if you think men are shitty. Are feminists just too stupid to figure out that if they were to see men as great, then it would be inspiring to women to be counted in the company of men? Instead, the following feminist moments shit/bled on men just for the cruelty of it:
Moment 8 Matt McGorry Summed Up Why Everyone Should Be Feminists [sic] (Because you are an asshole if you are not.)
Moment 9 New York Magazine Featured 35 Of Bill Cosby’s Accusers In A Stirring Cover Story (Because Men are Bad, and we still want to be like them.)
Moment 11: Amy Schumer Perfectly Captured Misogyny In Action With Her “12 Angry Men” Parody (Because Men are Bad blah blah blah).
Moment 24 Kiran Gandhi Free Bled When She Ran A Marathon To Fight Period Shaming
Moment 25. A 109-Year-Old Woman Said Her Secret To A Long Life Was Avoiding Men.
Group 5. Moments that failed the feminist equality test by promoting female-only privileges like abortion, reproductive rights, and the right to forced female sexual satisfaction. Reproductive rights are critical and in a gender-equal society, both men and women should have them equally. That’s right, men deserve them too, because equality. Yet, feminism only promotes those rights for women. That is NOT equality. Moments in this group include:
Moment 13. Gloria Steinem Dedicated Her Book To The Doctor That Performed Her Illegal Abortion In 1957
Moment 16. Feminist Activists Created #ShoutYourAbortion To Challenge The Stigma That Surrounds Reproductive Health. Except, of course, feminists WANT men to be stigmatized for wanting the same rights women have.
Moment 20 A Women’s Health Clinic Attempted To “De-Medicalize” Abortions By Creating A Spa-Like Abortion Clinic
Moment 24 Kiran Gandhi Free Bled When She Ran A Marathon To Fight Period Shaming
Group 6. Actual, inspiring, gender-equality moments of 2015.
