Here’s an interesting article from the Guardian written by the effervescently happy Ellie Mae O’Hagan:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/26/feminists-sexy-funny-anger-changes-world
Apparently, there are some sexy, cool feminists out there and they are wrecking the fun for all the screechy, withered shrews who are accustomed to having the ear of the media. Here are some of the sexy feminists Ellie is talking about:
*brr*
Is it cold in here?
You see, feminism has undergone a change in recent years, from the earnest whining of Betty Freidan about the crushing oppression she, and other middle-class ladies endured in their carpeted bungalows stocked with every modern convenience to a raunchier, more aggressive sort of feminism, personified by the lovely ladies of Sex and the City.
I will confess that I have only seen a few episodes of that show, and they all left me with a bit of a bad taste. That red-headed one, who is a lawyer, is just a massive cunt, the blonde one is a whore, the curly haired one is a shallow gold-digging bore and the mousy one is just, well, mousy. I thought all those ladies sucked. I’ll take Ripley any day.
“Get away from her, you bitch!”
There has recently been a media kerfuffle over two of Ellie’s Strong Sexy Feminists™ going after Taylor Swift, who dares to dress modestly, chase after boys, sing about getting her heart broken and who yearns for love and marriage and children.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/03/06/taylor-swift-tina-fey-amy-poehler-hell-react/
Oh, Taylor, you silly girl. You’ve got it all wrong. Boys don’t matter. Don’t you know that girls run the world? You shouldn’t be lying on the cold hard ground, sweetie. You should be crushing him against a wall in your Cadillac.
Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are a couple of strong, sexy feminists, and they personify what feminism has come to mean rather perfectly. These ladies don’t undermine feminism: they are the embodiment of it.
Let’s go back to Ellie’s article, wherein she writes:
In my mind, if being sexy and funny are the two cornerstones of a new feminist movement, we may as well all pack up and go home now. At its core, feminism should be angry. It should be angry because women are still being taken for a ride. Like the women in The Feminine Mystique, we are being sold a lie of equality in a society where the odds are politically, socially and economically stacked against us.
Feminism’s most basic function should be to emphasise that sexism is not an accident, but an inevitable consequence of a society structured to favour men. Jokes about vaginas and reassurances that we won’t have to give up lipstick are not enough. To put it bluntly, a new feminism should not be afraid to piss people off.
On that last note, success is yours honey! You’ve certainly managed to piss me off.
Let’s take this apart, shall we?
A society structured to favor men. And which men would those be? These ones, who are behind their peers in academic achievement before they are even FIVE YEARS OLD?
http://judgybitch.com/2012/11/22/boys-are-stupid/
Or these ones, who commit suicide at a rate double that of the social average?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205826/Why-mens-suicide-danger-goes-reach-30.html
Maybe you mean these men, who are ten times more likely to go to prison than the social average, mostly for non-violent, drug-related crimes?
You must mean these men, who have seen their jobs evaporate and their livelihoods disappear and their social usefulness eradicated.
http://www.economist.com/node/18618613
Fortunately, these men still have jobs, because their jobs are shitty and dangerous and dirty and obviously, they adore living in a society structured to make sure their lives are the ones that can be thrown away in a mine explosion. Well, the ones who aren’t drafted into the military to die as cannon fodder, either by poverty or legislative decree.
You know which men benefit from the social structure? These ones:
Rich white men. Who tend to have WIVES.
And daughters.
I’ve said it before, but I think it’s worth saying again: PATRIARCHY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ARISTOCRACY
The majority of the men in the world have been, and continue to be, slaves working for a rich class of men AND women who have been ever willing to exploit their labor and ingenuity and raw brute strength for their own gains.
The odds are politically, socially and economically stacked against us (women)
Bitch, are you crazy? The entire political system is rigged to ensure that politicians must chase after women’s votes, which is not a bad thing in and of itself, except that the media has convinced women there is a “war” against them, and that they should vote, not with their economic interests in mind, but with their cultural interests.
http://www.politicususa.com/proof-war-women-2
Try being an American politician and refusing to pay for birth control measures. For women, of course. Dudes, you can buy your own fucking condoms.
Yeah, socially, the rich, white world just sucks for women. Oh, the injustice of being able to jail men for poor decisions made while drunk!
http://judgybitch.com/2012/10/22/54/
The terrible burden of being able to force a man into parenting and paying for a child he did not intend and does not want.
http://judgybitch.com/2013/01/27/mandatory-reproduction-we-already-have-that-for-men/
Economically, women are just screwed. They earn more university degrees than men (albeit in useless subjects like Film Theory), have the option of staying home with their small children, paid for either by a husband or by the state, and they continue to push for the right to be paid on par with men, even though men tend to work harder, work longer hours, acquire more training and spend more time doing socially productive and useful things.
A new feminism should not be afraid to piss people off.
Oh honey.
Your new feminism is indeed pissing people off. Maybe not the people you intend, though. There is a growing group of men and women alike who are getting sick and fucking tired of feminism’s screechy, jackassed whinging and who have had just about enough of this shit.
http://www.salon.com/2011/03/29/scott_adams_mens_rights_movement/
The author at the Salon piece thinks the Men’s Human Rights Movement will not grow. That women won’t get on board with equal rights for their sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, nephews, friends and even all the men they’ve never met before. That they will happily surrender their children to poor women to be raised in absentia.
Wrong, asshole.
I hate Sex and the City. I think slut walks are basically a bunch of stupid, ugly whores using the occasion as an excuse to prance around in their underwear. Look at me! Look how edgy I am! Check out my tits! I think single mothers are selfish slags who don’t give one shit about their children. I think Betty Freidan can kiss my pampered ass. I think hiring poor women to raise your children is the height of feminist hypocrisy.
And mostly, I think Amy Poehler and Tina Fey can go fuck themselves. Two rich white ladies who stand in their halos of wealth and privilege and honestly argue that women are oppressed and in need of more benefits, opportunities and advantages, paid for by men, of course. All the while mocking young women who reject the feminist narrative in favor of something a little more human. That is what feminism has become. Women so blind to their own privilge that they honestly believe they are getting screwed while all men, everywhere, are benfiting somehow.
In Bossypants, Tina writes:
“It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.”
Indeed, Tina.
Welcome to the New World Order. Women are starting to get angry again.
You might be surprised to find out just what we’re angry about. Hang on to your rich, white asses, bitches. This ride could get nasty. And never forget that we’re fighting not just for men, but alongside them.
That tends to be a lethal combination.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
It’s progressive liberalism that feminism is a part of that you exclude. Locally we have a non-profit called the YWCA who’s motto is empowering women and eliminating racism that recently was profiled in the paper because a new directer was coming on board. In her bio, it spoke if her travels to India and the Far East, her daughters, and her principles. The only mention of men though was her strict adherence to the notion white men are privileged and that only through government could equality be established and peace in society would prevail. Nothing was written about the father of her children and I honestly can’t tell if she’s married, divorced, widowed or if her children were hatched from eggs???!
Problem with feminism and progressives, they have no sense of their hypocrisy and are completely out of touch with reality they create. And even worse, do not realize that they are the establishment they are supposedly fighting against.
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….but boy do they squirm when you say “you’re not a feminist, you just hate men.”
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this progress people, not as good as you thought it was going to be is it ladies?
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“PATRIARCHY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ARISTOCRACY”
Apex Fallacy. If the Bushes are white,stupid and rich, all men are white,stupid and rich.
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My book club picked “Bossypants” as this month’s selection and I can’t finish it. It’s not just that Tina Fey is convinced she’s a special snowflake (she is), but she can’t tell a story to save her life. Maybe her style translates better on her TV show (I’ve never watched it) but on paper she’s irritating as hell.
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JB, I’d be interested how you define Aristocracy. Is it based on wealth, social position, and/or connections to the state? (All three, some of the three, or something else entirely?)
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I define it in terms of social mobility. Can you escape the circumstances of your birth?
When your parent’s income is the greatest predictor of your own, then the meritocracy is broken and we have a defacto artistocracy.
Wealth is concentrated and passed down generations.
Poverty is entrenched and difficult to escape.
Kings and peasants. Landlords and serfs.
We’re back to the Middle Ages.
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One has to appreciate the irony. The bulk of the media is geared toward appeasing women because they are the majority of consumers of media and the products advertised therein, because they 2/3 of disposable income and have the majority of the free time… and in order to appease their masters, the media tells them that they are slaves.
And because women are a healthy majority of voters, they get to use this power to keep put the charge of the state in the hands of who ever most insistently tells them they don’t have any power, and accordingly sympathizes.
It would be clear as day to anyone willing to see that you are clearly not an oppressed class when damn near every company in the world and almost all the politicians are falling over themselves to reassure you that you are so oppressed and cry for you.
The only argument left that there is a patriarchy is that we males still make up most of those 100 + 435 + 9 +1 asshats who hold sway in federal policy-making. That’s the patriarchy, representing the interest of men? I think most men would gladly trade the whole damned thing, congress, senate, presidency, and supreme court to the women in exchange just for the ~5,000 men who die every year in the workplace. Can someone call Gloria Steinem so we can make a trade?
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The proper word for American ‘aristocracy’ these days would be bourgeoisie. Most wealth doesn’t stay in the family more than a couple generations. There is a constant movement between middle class people like myself into the ‘upper crust’ when they do well in business and likewise from the upper crust back down into the middle class among the wealthy do… not so well. Most people listed in Forbe’s 400, most corporate CEOs, and politicians were originally middle-class, then made a lot of money and became rich.
The real problem (to me at least) isn’t so much the prospect of some billionaire’s great great grandchildren still being rich, as much as what the people who get ‘up there’ do to stay there, no matter where they came from. The most poignant threat to meritocracy, I think, is perhaps the ‘revolving door.’ between industry and government.
And one benefit of a monarchy or bloodline aristocracy: sometimes you get a bad king or duke, but sometimes a good one is born for whom conscience outweighs ‘class interest.’ In the US, on the other had, every major election, almost without fail, is bought and paid for by people and organizations who’s interest aren’t those of the populace. There’s no element of luck even. Even the best possible leader, in order to get to a position of power, has to sell himself to someone with a lot of money to have any real chance.
Barack Obama is a case in point. He’s not an ‘aristocrat,’ but somehow this working class guy from Chicago has set up an administration that is thoroughly “in the pocket of the banks.” And it wasn’t a right-winger who said that, it was liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, just to establish the credibility of the notion.
My do I write long comments.
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Taylor Swift: I really don’t know much about her. I just have my first impressions from what I saw on a nighttime show (Letterman, I think) a while back …and all these murmurings in the press that seem to amount to nothing.
When I saw her on the show, first impressions: “Wow, she’s hot!”. Then I heard her speak: “Smart girl!”; then heard her sing on the show: “Wow, she’s got real talent!”.
So, from what I can see, she’s sexy, classy, smart and talented.
Why would feminists have an issue with her?
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You do, but they are interesting and well informed, so have at ‘er!
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Because she writes about .love and romance and wanting a man.
She rejects hook-up culture and doesn’t like dressing like a tramp.
She’s pretty much the opposite of GURRRL power.
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First-time commenter here…I don’t always agree with everything you say but definitely appreciate your writing and viewpoints.
This is somewhat unrelated to this exact topic, but I came across this article today about Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s new book (which was basically a review by another upwardly mobile career female):
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/07/mika-brzezinski-cheers-sheryl-sandberg-s-lean-in.html
and found this paragraph especially interesting:
“Some other good advice from Sandberg: invest in child care early in your career even if it seems you are only breaking even, because it will pay off later when your earnings are higher. When my second daughter, Carlie, was just 4 months old, I was skimping on child care, thinking I couldn’t afford it. But I grew so exhausted working an overnight shift at CBS News that one terrible day, when I was spent and distracted, I tumbled down a flight of stairs with Carlie in my arms. The doctors in the emergency room whispered about spinal cord damage, but we got lucky and Carlie recovered completely from a broken leg. I could have left my job, determined to be a full-time, stay-at-home mom, but it would have been difficult to come back. Instead I spent nearly all my salary after taxes on the right child care, kept my career on track, and gave myself the ability to spend quality time with my girls and my husband.”
And while I guess I agree with the author that taking “time off” to be a stay-at-home mother might mean a derailed career track, it also seems to me a deal with the devil that is unfair not only to the child, but also the “right child care provider” who doesn’t have the luxury of being able to make such a decision.
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“she’s sexy, classy, smart and talented.
Why would feminists have an issue with her?”
You just listed four reasons right there.
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Quick note from an Aliens fanboy/pedant, the correct quote is:
“Get away from her, you BITCH!”
Otherwise, I love the essay. Cheers!
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Fixed it!
And thank you.
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“I’ve said it before, but I think it’s worth saying again: PATRIARCHY IS NOT THE SAME THING AS ARISTOCRACY”
Oh my god, I love you for this one. I’ve been trying to find a good way to put this for some time and you nailed it. Thanks!
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*sigh* JB, I love your blog, but why, WHY? Do you have to subscribe to the lie of the “Economic Draft?”
“Well, the ones who aren’t drafted into the military to die as cannon fodder, either by poverty or legislative decree.”
First: LCDR USNR with about 18 years total service. From my own experience with enlisted men, they do *not* fit the stereotype implied by, “Drafted into the military…by poverty.”
Second: My wife as an old friend who recently retired from the Army (Brigadier General, after his last tour in Iraq), who told me that, under current enlistment standards, about 70% of the US military population wouldn’t be _allowed_ to join if they wanted to. So the military doesn’t want the desperate and uneducated.
Third: The Heritage Foundation did a study, using Defense Department data, and it turns out that most enlistees come from richer-than-average neighborhoods.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-in-the-us-military-the-demographics-of-enlisted-troops-and-officers
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I’ll be the first to admit I really don’t know the facts. I was using this as a source https://www.afsc.org/sites/afsc.civicactions.net/files/documents/The%20Poverty%20Draft.pdf
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*whew* Finally found the comment I wanted to reply to.
First, thanks for taking my comment seriously. It drives me crazy to hear the whole “economic draft” rubric, both for the insult to serving military members and how it’s used to justify trying to impose a _real_ draft.
I’ll admit, the flyer you linked to gave me pause, especially once I figured out who made it. Normally, I’d give the Quakers a lot of slack, but then I realized what was wrong with it.
I’ll grant that everything in the flyer happens. I won’t say how often it does, but that recruiters bend the rules and occasionally make false promises, but I note that _nowhere_ in that flyer is there any description of the actual enlistees. There’s no survey data, no attempt at saying what percentage of enlistees have enlisted due to false promises, etc. Only the implication: The recruiters lie to the poor, therefore most of the enlistees are poor and abused.
I’ll take the Heritage Foundation study. They actually studied the enlistees.
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The women I know that truly identify as feminists and feel victimized themselves usually have a serious issue with jealousy and envy of other women. Women like Taylor Swift. Women like Maria Kang (the fitness instructor that received so much hate from feminist women because she looked amazing).
They seem to feel like if they can’t have something (ie: if they are sexy, classy, smart, talented, gorgeous, or fit) then no one else is allowed to either.
I recently read an article on the Huff Post where feminist women in the comments were attacking working moms for having maternity leave. ATTACKING WOMEN who are trying to “have it all” and making it harder for them (no sympathy at all) to be able to have that leave right after giving birth. I was shocked (but I shouldn’t have been)….
One feminist even went so far as to call these new moms “Breeders!” Haha… she didn’t even classify them as humans, just “Breeders!” like they were animals.
Many women commenters that were single and without kids (feminists), were upset because these new moms were able to take the leave while THEY WERE NOT. They wanted “equal time off” so that they could spend it going on either a vacation or on personal growth – no joke!!! I need to go back and save some of those comments because wow – they really revealed how entitled these special snowflakes feel.
The most shocking thing? Seeing them attack fellow women in the workforce… women who are just trying to work and have a family too. I mean, whatever did those working moms do to these single, bitchy, unhappy feminists? Oh… I remember, they got married young, have a husband, have and are building their beautiful families – all that makes feminist women just steam with envy and jealousy.
Rant over, love you Judgy Bitch ❤
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I mean seriously, what women in her right mind equates taking a vacation and working on “personal growth” with having a baby!?!
It blows my mind.
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