The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Feminist Amateur Hour

Posted on | December 24, 2014 | 32 Comments

If you ever get bored with professional feminist crazies like Jessica Valenti (“Damn these gendered Christmas chores!”) and Amanda Marcotte (“Damn that Baby Jesus!”), you should check out the craziness churned up by the amateurs at Everyday Feminism. You can tell they’re amateurs not necessarily because their arguments are less coherent or articulate than Marcotte’s and Valenti’s — that would be difficult to achieve — but because on the page where Everyday Feminism solicits contributions they don’t say anything about paying for contributions.

These are sisters working for the Cause, you see, and you can get a pretty good idea of what the Cause is all about by consulting the biography of Everyday Feminism’s founder, Sandra Kim:

“As a genderqueer person of color from an immigrant family, she is committed to intersectional feminism that is focused on personal and social liberation for everyone.”

Nothing says “feminism” like being “a genderqueer person of color,” and intersectionality means that they’re not just amateur experts on how women are oppressed by patriarchy, but they’re also amateur experts on everybody’s oppression everywhere. If you’re looking for raw craziness, then, Everyday Feminism is cranking it out daily.

This brings us to Katy Kreitler’s recent column “Feminism Is a Verb: Why the Movement Has No Use for Fad Feminism”:

It’s great that many are breaking down the absurd stereotypes about feminists and feminism and coming to embrace the label openly.
But in our efforts to rebrand the term “feminist,” are we so relieved to see people finally presenting feminism without denouncing it on the lines of inaccurate associations and baseless stereotypes that we will accept any basic, conservative definition of it? . . .
I’m bored with claims that feminism is just the notion that women are people, or merely a belief in equality and nothing more.
And I’m tired of people declaring that they guess they’re feminist, *shrug*.
I mean, I declare with more fortitude that I don’t want onions on my burrito.
And I hate onions, y’all. But I hate the heteropatriarchy more. And I want to fight to change it.
And I’m not really interested in a feminism that doesn’t include a strong, dedicated commitment to doing the same.
I also don’t really understand how you can be a feminist in theory when you live in a sexist world.
If we spend all of our efforts trying to get people to say “Okay, fine, I’m a feminist” and nothing more, then we’re losing sight of the reason we need people to be feminists in the first place. . . .
Feminism is not just the belief that women and men deserve social, political, and economic equality.
It is also the understanding that, on all of those levels, in all facets of society, all around the world, they don’t. And it is the commitment to changing this for women and for all groups who are disadvantaged from culturally created, systematic, oppressive reactions to their identities, particularly to their gender identity.

No one may doubt Katy Kreitler’s feminism! She hates heteropatriarchy worse than onions on a burrito, y’all, and she is disadvantaged by systematic, oppressive reactions to her gender identity!

And hey, congratulations on breaking down “absurd stereotypes about feminists,” like for example the stereotype that they’re all crazy.

Who is this person? That’s the first question that crosses my mind when I encounter raving lunacy like this.

Katy Kreitler is a Clinical Social Worker specializing in youth, gender, and trauma. She holds an MSW from USC and a BA in Psychology and Sociology from USF. She can be found somewhere in San Francisco reading a book, eating a burrito, and side-eyeing humanity. 

See? You’ve got to have a master’s degree from an elite private institution (University of Southern California 2014-2015 undergraduate tuition, $48,280) before you can fight heteropatriarchy as a clinical social worker and an Everyday Feminist contributor.

Perhaps some readers are wondering, “How’s that workin’ out for ya, Katy?” My guess is, she’s eating her burrito alone.

Sad Spinsters And Crazy Cat Ladies:
Why Society Shames Single Women And Why
We Should Celebrate The Single Life Instead

These are your choices: Either you shame single women or you celebrate single women. Guess which is the correct feminist choice for Katy?

We are products of a lifetime of gendered social messages that tell us that every woman needs a man — that to not have one, even for a moment, is a failure at womanhood. . . .
We tell ourselves when we are out of a relationship that we are lonely when we are, in fact, surrounded by people who love us. . . .
We routinely ask every unmarried friend, coworker, and family member that we haven’t seen in five minutes, “Are you seeing anyone?” as though it is a perfectly appropriate gauge of how they are doing.
We talk to our kids about their future spouses and weddings, assuming they will, of course, be heterosexual and get married.
We reproduce notions of the ticking biological clock, the unfulfilling career path, the predatory divorcee, and the crazy cat lady.
We shame each other. We shame ourselves.
And we have done so for centuries.

Is there a Pulitzer Prize for Sour-Grapes Rationalization? Because when Katy Kreitler gets to the part about how “the gendered partnering process” is “required to maintain the patriarchal order,” she definitely qualifies herself for a nomination. The competition is fierce, however. Feminist theory keeps directing young women toward Crazy Cat Lady status, and as long as there are web sites like Everyday Feminism, they’ll always have a forum to celebrate their empowered lifestyles and warn the rest of us about those heteropatriarchal onions.




 

Category: Feminism

Comments

32 Responses to “Feminist Amateur Hour”

  1. TheOtherAndrewB
    December 24th, 2014 @ 1:26 pm

    It being Christmas Eve, I am about to begin my self-imposed exile from all secular media for the next 36 hours. Before then, however, I have to say that people like the ones our good host chronicles are a constant source of wonder. How can anyone go through life in such a state? How can someone who hates half of the human race just because of their chromosomes function on a day to day basis? How can someone consider herself open-minded, liberal and tolerant when she despises billions of people solely because they have testicles? How is that different from despising people because they possess more melanin in their skin? Ah well, Mr. McCain is right–these people are crazy. Merry Christmas, all.

  2. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    December 24th, 2014 @ 2:10 pm

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-K4ApO6PBh3Q/VJrnSSD7AII/AAAAAAAApaM/4KI86Uep4B4/s1600/10441112_10203545795716895_6000021768051184887_n.jpg

  3. Federale
    December 24th, 2014 @ 2:26 pm

    Surprise, another lonely embittered ideological lesbian. Honey, you definitely need some.

  4. nickshaw
    December 24th, 2014 @ 3:13 pm

    “How is that different from despising people because they possess more melanin in their skin?”
    Funny, I was just thinking along those lines yesterday.
    I happened to be scrolling through the comments at Mediaite (okay, I made a comment or two myself) and the vitriol from lib commenters against supposed “racist GOPers” is really no different than what an actual racist might say about someone of a different shade of skin color.
    How do they not realize this?
    Of course, Merry Christmas back at you and to anyone within earshot! 🙂

  5. EndOfPatience
    December 24th, 2014 @ 3:21 pm

    And since she acts and probably looks like every other lonely embittered ideological lesbian, she ain’t never getting any. Ever.

  6. Crazy cat lady logic | Dalrock
    December 24th, 2014 @ 3:43 pm

    […] be shutting down comments later in the day, but in the meantime enjoy (Courtesy of The Other McCain) the first rate feminist logic of Katy Kreitler in Sad Spinsters And Crazy Cat Ladies:  Why […]

  7. jukin
    December 24th, 2014 @ 6:28 pm

    Someone needs to make a sammich and bring me a cold beer.

  8. Daniel Freeman
    December 24th, 2014 @ 8:03 pm

    I find the onion analogy fascinating, because once they get internal consensus on what the heteropatriarchy is, they always discover another layer of oppression to unpack. They can’t stop the deconstruction process, because they’re too deep inside it to see it clearly: it will never end until there as many variables as people, and they’re forced to finally just treat everyone as individuals (like they should’ve done in the first place).

  9. Jerry Beckett
    December 24th, 2014 @ 8:45 pm

    “And I hate onions, y’all. But I hate the heteropatriarchy more.”

    I don’t know if I’m going to be able to stop laughing about that line.

  10. Daniel Freeman
    December 24th, 2014 @ 9:07 pm

    As a MGTOW, I actually agree with some of the stuff in the “Sad Spinsters” article, at least in the “A Few Ways That Being Single Is Good For You” section. However, it is seriously undermined by the “Ridiculously Brief Feminist Analysis” section, which blathers on with theoretical nonsense in place of the rather obvious point that most people actually want to couple, so most people will encourage their friends to do so, because they want them to be happy. No matter how brief, the feminist analysis is still an over-analysis.

    A further problem comes later when she says, “If you want to be single until you meet someone wonderful, you can.” What she omits is that there’s a bit of a time limit. Around 40, single women hit The Wall and have a Wile E. Coyote moment, where the ground drops out from under them. In addition to much lower odds of having bio kids (if they so desire), they suddenly have to lower their standards for men for the same reason, because the markers of physical attractiveness for straight women are affected by their fertility. (They could still be just as attractive to lesbians, I guess, since there’s no evolutionary pressure there.)

    In conclusion, although she gets some things right, her argument is marred by fatal flaws (both of omission and commission). I could still choose to start looking again, and maybe even have kids — but I can do that because I’m a man. It would be terrible for a typical woman to blindly follow my example, because mother nature doesn’t give a damn what your gender is, and your sex is not a social construct.

  11. Motch
    December 24th, 2014 @ 9:54 pm

    That’s insane. Who the Hell hates onions??

  12. robertstacymccain
    December 24th, 2014 @ 9:56 pm

    Feminists. Because patriarchy!

  13. robertstacymccain
    December 24th, 2014 @ 10:00 pm

    Like all feminists, she sees reality — the normal operations of human nature — as oppressive. If men argued this way, it would be like, “Yeah, I could have been an NFL All-Pro linebacker, except the league is prejudiced in favor of tall muscular guys and thus I was unfairly excluded.”

    Sane human beings adjust to reality, rather than expecting reality to be adjusted for their sake. However, feminists are not sane human beings.

  14. tsotha
    December 24th, 2014 @ 10:07 pm

    It’s not that they’re insane. It’s that we live in a time of peace and plenty, relative to pretty much any point in history you want to pick. Women can behave in all sorts of irrational ways because society has the extra “bandwidth” to tolerate it without people starving as a result.

  15. grainbirds
    December 24th, 2014 @ 10:27 pm

    Merry Christmas, Nick, and to your family.

    There is a lot of hate in some comments, and what’s so discouraging is that so much of it is based on lies. I used to think that if people were getting balanced stories, they wouldn’t feel the same way. Then today it occurred to me that a lot of people may just want to hate, and they read what feeds that.

    And I understand liking to read something that confirms my outrage over something and the dishonesty or ideological blinders of some journalists – I often can’t tell which it is – but I don’t want to be lied to or given only one side, which is really the same thing, and I don’t want to hate. I’m not taking pleasure in my anger.

    I went to Politico tonight and it’s just a madhouse. The comments on the article I read seem riddled with people I suspect are troll plants pretending to be racist Rightists – you can usually tell, and when you check their profiles they’re always locked. Then there are scads of comments in moderation, but when you view them, they are simply people criticizing liberals but not using offensive or abusive language, whereas the fake racist Rightists’ comments with ugly words and statements, the moderators leave as if they want people to read them and think Rightists are ugly people. The comments start out with the fake plants and the people they are fighting with trading offensive comments that have little to do with the article, and then they finally get more substantive.

    At first the comments thing was set on “best,” so I was reading people criticizing liberals in reasonable language, and I was reassured. I had read the article, and was disgusted from the getgo – it began with the (to me) absurd claim that noble liberals de Blasio and Obama tried to govern through bipartisanship, which is the liberal way, but were defeated in this
    aim by their opponents, who are solely responsible for any acrimony or gridlock.

    When people claim that Obama tried to work with congressional Republicans, I don’t know whether they are just doing the usual spin, or whether their ideological blinders are actually so distorted that that is how they truly perceive things.

    Then the article pushed the liberal media Narrative that de Blasio has spoken very well of police, and that the current problems between he and police unions following the murders of the two officers is just an exacerbation of already-existing tensions over de Blasio’s noble efforts to “reform” the NYPD.

    And I just felt, well, let them lie. At least there’s other people giving another side. Then I decided to check the comments, since I’ve seen mixed ones on that site, and maybe I would find some of them encouraging. Which I did, but what a carnival overall.

    Take care!

  16. nickshaw
    December 24th, 2014 @ 11:07 pm

    And a very Merry Christmas to you and yours, Grain. 🙂

  17. Daniel Freeman
    December 24th, 2014 @ 11:50 pm

    We have enough wealth to offset voluntary Darwinian failure. That doesn’t make them sane, and I’ve quite honestly been questioning my own bachelorhood more since I’ve been reading and commenting here.

  18. Daniel Freeman
    December 25th, 2014 @ 12:14 am

    If it were bananas, sure. I think she hates onions because of the kyriarchy. All those layers of oppression…

  19. Daniel Freeman
    December 25th, 2014 @ 12:52 am

    I like Laina. She’s been a good sport. IIRC, she made a video of a parody version of a Justin Bieber hit, re-interpreted it as stalker-y, put some acting into it — and someone turned a still into the “Overly-Attached Girlfriend” meme. And she ran with it.

  20. Fail Burton
    December 25th, 2014 @ 7:02 am

    If the droning of insects were considered complaining, that would be feminism.

  21. robertstacymccain
    December 25th, 2014 @ 8:53 am

    Once people are taught to see the world in terms of systematic oppression, they see oppression everywhere they look. You will notice that many feminists jumped all over the Ferguson-inspired “racist police” message, insisting that this had something to do with women’s oppression. Do you think any of those feminists have examined the question of why there has been a substantial reduction in the incidence of rape and sexual assault in the past 20 years? More effective police procedures (e.g., Compstat) are a big part of the answer, as is the development of national DNA databases for criminal offenders and mandatory sentencing guidelines that limit judicial leniency. Now go look at what happened in Ferguson and ask yourself, whose side should feminists be on? Should they side with the teenage dopehead who ripped off a convenience store, or with the cop who was trying to arrest the teenage dopehead? Which one is more likely to be part of the “rape culture” problem? But facts and logic have never had any influence among feminists, so naturally they sided with the teenage dopehead.

  22. grainbirds
    December 25th, 2014 @ 6:39 pm

    Thank you! It’s been very nice – I’m blessed. In the absence of any commentary on my comment, I’ll take it upon myself to assume that you agree with every word I said. In fact, you found it reasoned, poignant, correctly-spelled and grammatical, and in every way exemplary – including highly pithy.

  23. nickshaw
    December 25th, 2014 @ 7:31 pm

    🙂 Of course!
    You know me, I never disagree with a lady!

  24. grainbirds
    December 25th, 2014 @ 7:39 pm

    You mean there really is no conservative war on women? I’m so relieved. I thought you were all misogynists. (I knew you’d say something amusing.)

  25. Jim R
    December 25th, 2014 @ 7:59 pm

    How is that different from despising people because they possess more melanin in their skin?

    I pointed this out to an Asian-American SJW. Apparently, hating whitey (not that tolerant, loving SJW’sadmit to “hating”, of course) is OK because White Privilege.

    I then pointed out that CRT and feminism sound a lot like rationalizations for nothing more than hateful, spiteful revenge.

    Conversation pretty much ended there.

  26. Jim R
    December 25th, 2014 @ 8:03 pm

    Well said. People with actual economic pressures and real responsibilities tend not to enagage in this sort of navel gazing. Not only have they not got the time, they live with reality on very close terms.

  27. John
    December 25th, 2014 @ 10:17 pm

    You were exposing these feminist loons before it became fashionable (and necessary). McCain 2016!

  28. TravisJSays
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:33 pm

    How do they not realize this?”
    The Ends Justify the Means.
    Once you realize this, you get it all.

  29. TravisJSays
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:33 pm

    “But I hate the heteropatriarchy more”

    No comments allowed on that site. Guess they don’t want any response from the heteropatriacrchy types.

    Meantime, these man-hating types are bemoaning why evil men judge their non-skinniness (yes, the 9 fat myths they bust wherein they call truthful things ‘myths’ adn use logical fallacies to ‘bust’ them). And meanwhile the men go off on their own way.

    “We are products of a lifetime of gendered social messages that tell us that every woman needs a man”

    Idiots. Biology is why you WANT (not need) a man, unless you are a transgendered queer womynfolk sheepdipped in feminist bigotry and get the man-lovin’ endorphins in your brain knocked out of you. Takes a lot of feminysting social message to undo 1 million years of biology, and apparently at least $80,000 in tuitional indoctrination.

    “We talk to our kids about their future spouses and weddings, assuming they will, of course, be heterosexual and get married.”

    God willing, they will. I’d hate to be the ancestor of the Crazy Cat Lady of the neighborhood, let alone another feminist hive mind idiot spewing anti-science baloney.

  30. TravisJSays
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

    “As a MGTOW,” … you are collateral damage in feminists War on Men (and good relations with women).

  31. TravisJSays
    December 27th, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

    Just talk about Asian privilege, since Asians do so well, that’ll surely bring ’em round. lol.

  32. News of the Week (December 28th, 2014) | The Political Hat
    December 28th, 2014 @ 8:58 pm

    […] Feminist Amateur Hour If you ever get bored with professional feminist crazies like Jessica Valenti (“Damn these gendered Christmas chores!”) and Amanda Marcotte (“Damn that Baby Jesus!”), you should check out the craziness churned up by the amateurs at Everyday Feminism. You can tell they’re amateurs not necessarily because their arguments are less coherent or articulate than Marcotte’s and Valenti’s — that would be difficult to achieve — but because on the page where Everyday Feminism solicits contributions they don’t say anything about paying for contributions. […]