the F word and it isn’t fuck

There seems to be an awful lot of defining what feminism is. Yet little of it seems to have anything to do with feminism as I know it or as those I regularly have conversation with seem to know it.

exhibit A

Is Dieting Anti-Feminist?

My efforts to drop pounds made me feel like I was dropping the ball on women’s rights as well. Then the epiphany: What’s wrong with wanting to be healthy and look hot?

I don’t know what is wrong with it? I can’t remember seeing a section in the Feminist Agenda Handbook which states “one must not care about one’s body, health, or hottiness”.

exhibit B

Stubble, stubble, feminist trouble

But the stinging pain of my Veeting was nothing compared to what I felt when a female peer recently belittled me because of my status as friendly blonde. I could see her condemning me for crimes against the feminist agenda — for general silliness. I have a brain, and I like silky smooth legs. It’s often a tough thing to reconcile as a woman, and I find I’m judged not by men for my blond hair and primping but by my fellow women. Serious girls with brown hair like to turn up their noses at me when I laugh, say hello or tell them I like their bag. This, I would argue, is the downfall of feminism. Women are too quick to judge one another.

Now again in flipping through the Feminist Agenda Handbook the only sections dealing with not shaving ones legs are under “Baseless assumptions about feminists” and “Personal hygiene choices”. Friendly blonds …. nope can’t find anything against either hair colour or friendliness.

exhibit C

Muslim Rape, Feminist Silence

In France, the phenomenon of Muslim gang rape as punishment for non-veiling even has a word to describe it: “tournante” (take your turn). In areas where Muslims form the majority (i.e. the Muslim suburb of Courneuve, France), even non-Muslim women feel pressured to veil themselves in fear of Muslim sexual and physical punishment.

In the context of this epidemic of Muslim violence against women, and the open legitimization of it pronounced by Islamic clerics, one would think that the Western feminists of our time would be up in arms, sympathetically coming to the side of their raped sisters and standing up for women’s rights in general.

But this is just not the case.

The West’s leftist feminists are responding with an apathetic heartlessness and deafening silence.

Now perhaps this one is too easy. I found the section dealing with this in the Feminist Grade School Primer it deals with bigots and arseholes trying to smear two opponents at once with faulty argument, skewed statistics and a general Rush Limbaugh approach to logic.

exhibit D

Feminism, my foot!

Me? No, not really. Feminism from my point of view is anti-men. Actually, feminism wants to do away with men and compete unduly with them. That’s not my job.

That’s not my line. I believe in what I call complementarity. There are things men cannot do even if it is biologically and socially and there are things women cannot do. And if you keep insisting on equality, that’s what feminist does, total equality, you are fragmenting the effort. When you come together, you know you have deficiencies as a man and as a woman and two of you come together and complement yourselves. I believe in that. So, in actual fact, I am not a feminist, maybe I am a womanist because I believe that women have actually not been given their due.

Although, many of us are doing some important things, men still think we are inferior to them. In that case, if you think being a feminist means saying that women are important, women issues are important, woman rights are human rights, if that’s what feminism is all about, then I am a feminist. But if it is trying to fight with men and displace them and chase them away and not deal with them and becoming lesbian, so you don’t get any dealings with men, then I am not feminist, I am a womanist.

Confusion. Otherwise known as I’m not a feminist but…. Sadly indulged in by those who want all the rights, freedoms and perks of feminism but don’t want to appear “threatening” to men from whom they still need laudation.

exhibit E

Feminism is undermining human evolution

Before I explain what those Y chromosome differences are, though, let’s see what stories Tucker spins from it.

What has changed is the role of males. Among chimps, males hang out in groups, form alliances, forage together, and do a lot of bickering over status. They do not participate at all in child rearing. By the time hunting-and-gathering tribes arrive, however, men have been folded into the family. Monogamy predominates and both parents participate in child rearing. The extraordinary innovation is “fatherhood,” a role that doesn’t really exist elsewhere in nature.

Apparently, “fatherhood” is a special attribute embedded in the Y chromosome. Monogamy and shared parenting is certainly found in many vertebrates—sea horses and sticklebacks, voles and penguins come to mind—so I’m afraid that his claim of a special status for human fathers is complete nonsense.

He fine tunes his argument, though: paternal investment is a strategy that distinguishes humans from their nearest primate relatives, and is the reason for our success.

In fact, the discovery of bonobo society proves just the opposite. It is precisely because females play a dominant role and males are so passive and unambitious that bonobos did not produce an evolutionary line that led to human beings. Instead, they remain a relatively minor, underpopulated species holding their orgies deep in the jungle. The larger East African chimp, where males predominate, produced the line that led to humanity.

Well, having males “predominate” might not be the best strategy for increasing a population—I think he is referring to male dominance. He really seems to think that letting females have a dominant role in society would mean we’d just be having jungle orgies, and that patriarchalism leads to human ambition and progress (umm, can I just say…the jungle orgies don’t sound all that bad.)

The just plain hilarious.

The only thing I can find relating to this is to get more girls involved in science.

Now all of you watch out for your 2007 issue of the Feminist Agenda coming to your mailbox soon…and be sure to use those coupons for a free leg wax.