My RedState colleague Kira Davis posted about this earlier today, so I thought I’d share it all with you. It’s just one of those reminders to anyone who isn’t a progressive why it’s a good thing to not be a member of this club. Enter Helen Rosner of New York Magazine and the New Yorker decided to dole out this Twitter thread on how dudes can support women’s rights. It’s the usual goodie bag of supporting abortion, accepting women with male parts as…women, “prioritize women's issues when you decide who to vote for,” and dabble in intersectionality.
First, you already lost me and every right-leaning Americans and conservative with the definitive and unbending position on abortion. That’s par for the course I know. Second, there’s not a chance in hell I’m becoming a follower of the hyper progressive intersectionality theory. New York Times op-ed editor Bari Weiss had a good description back in June:
Intersectionality is the big idea of today’s progressive left. In theory, it’s the benign notion that every form of social oppression is linked to every other social oppression. This observation — coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw — sounds like just another way of rephrasing a slogan from a poster I had in college: My liberation is bound up with yours. That is, the fight for women’s rights is tied up with the fight for gay rights and civil rights and so forth. Who would dissent from the seductive notion of a global sisterhood?
Well, in practice, intersectionality functions as kind of caste system, in which people are judged according to how much their particular caste has suffered throughout history. Victimhood, in the intersectional way of seeing the world, is akin to sainthood; power and privilege are profane.
And it has a tendency to eat its own. Weiss was writing about how a Jewish lesbian was tossed from a LGBT march because the Star of David, which she had placed on a rainbow flag, was—get this—triggering to the other participants. Yeah, you know the whole Israel is an evil occupying force talking point peddled by the Left.
There are a few good things she tweets—I’ll be fair. Like I find nothing wrong with having and searching for female role models. The Vespa clan is full of strong, independent women. I have plenty of role models in that sphere and elsewhere. I also see nothing wrong with reaching out to women for support for whatever personal crisis you may be going through; friends are friends. The things I couldn’t care less about are her fifth, sixth, and eleventh points. This isn’t a zero sum game. I don’t need to prioritize anything. I don’t need to fit into this left wing glass case of horrors. I was raised to be independent, support causes, and vote for candidates that I supported—and this was coming from my liberal feminist mother.
This is America; I will vote for whomever I like, hang out with my friends, watch sports with whomever I like, and not really care about whether I’m supporting this imaginary system of oppression that is often used to legitimize this culture of political correctness (and its related bulls**t courses in higher education) that has infested the Left and turned off the rest of the country. No one cares. And the more these people push this upon the rest of us, the more appealing the Republican Party becomes. Not exactly based on policy—but because the Left is just awful. It’s a Venus fly trap. We’re tolerant. We’re open, but if you stray—we’ll destroy you.
If you're a man unsure of what to do to support women right now in your daily life (beyond, like, not sexually harassing us), some starting points:
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
1. Overcome your own transphobia. Trans women are women. Accept the lived truth of NB and GNC people, whether or not they are women.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
2. Be pro-choice and be vocal in support of reproductive rights. (And generous! Give to @abortionfunds) Understand that the opposite of reproductive choice is forced childbearing.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
3. Support subsidized birth control. Support nontaxed menstrual products. Ask your workplace if tampons and pads are free. Get over your embarrassment about menstruation.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
4. Vocally advocate at your workplace for longer and more egalitarian paid parental leave, whether or not parenthood is part of your life. Advocate for lactation spaces. Advocate for on-site or subsidized childcare.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
5. Tell your elected officials that you are a man who votes and you prioritize women's issues when you decide who to vote for.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
5a. Actually prioritize women's issues when you decide who to vote for. Understand that women's issues are your issues.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
6. Whenever you are in a group of only men (social, work, church, etc.) ask yourself why. Then ask out loud why. Force an honest answer.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
7. Cultivate genuine, intimate, nonsexual friendships with women.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
8. Seek out women to be your heroes and mentors.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
9. Any time you see a building, street, institution, etc. named for a man, see how long it takes you to spot another one named for a woman.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
10. Ask yourself what you don't do, for whatever reason, that you also think of as something women tend to do. (Sew? Send birthday cards? Care about skincare?) Try doing it for a while.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
10. Ask yourself what you don't do, for whatever reason, that you also think of as something women tend to do. (Sew? Send birthday cards? Care about skincare?) Try doing it for a while.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
11. Talk less. In all spaces. At all times.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
12. When you need support, reach out to men as well as women. Create a culture of openness around yourself.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
13. Consume media marketed to women. Don't perform your consumption.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
14. Deprogram your beliefs about thinness being an optimal state of feminine beauty. Deprogram your beliefs that your desire matters.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
15. Jerk off without porn for a while.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
16. Learn about racism and intersectionality, and do everything you can to empower and amplify black women and nbwoc
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
17. Befriend children.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
18-infinity. Please add more! I've got to go do other things now.
— Helen Rosner (@hels) October 16, 2017
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