November 22, 2004
Oh God. Sometimes hypocrisy becomes so utterly vast that it leaves you shaking your head for hours afterwards.
I'm referring to a recent post from the mighty and sassitude-filled site feministing.com. This is the site I truly love to hate simply because a large amount of the postings there are idiocies piled-upon idiocies. Such incredibly inane, asinine and phony pieces of frippery that you really start to wonder about the basic mental competency of some of the posters.
Ahh, but the wimmin over there are so MIGHTY! And do you wanna see how mighty they are? Well, they'll show you! Just watch them flex their untoned arms:
Yeah, take THAT you oppressors!
You GO girl! You GO! Pussy Power!
Wow! That sure is mighty! You betcha! They're mighty all over! Mighty as might can be!
Just check-out that mighty slab of bologna! What more proof do you need of their mighty mightiness?
And how about that mighty logo with the upright middle finger? Oh golly. That simply screams 'mighty'.
"It
infuriates me when women get seen as sex-objects. I have brains, you know-- check-out
my titties! Whoo!"
My God. This is how completely freakin' moronic American chicks have become. Ugh. (Sadly shakes head.)
The whole thing is really a spectacular example of how extremely sexist (and stripped of all pretensions, none-too-bright) females can co-opt the term 'feminist' in order to provide camouflage for their prejudices. Truly, these women are so totally beyond the pale with self-obsessions and gender-based jealousies that they are little more than easily-offended and hypocritical founts of natural gas.
As can be expected, they display the bizarre behavior which characterizes American feminists generally. (E.g.: gleefully making statements that they would decry as 'sexist' if men were to say them, complaining about women being silenced immediately before ordering men to shut-up, complaining about women not being respected as equal adults immediately before calling men a bunch of whining babies, arguing against the presence of men in all-female institutions before demanding the presence of women in all-male institutions, and so on down the long list.) They sometimes base their arguments on a type of reasoning that they like to call 'logic', but it's a 'logic' that always results in men being blamed in ever-more creative ways for the things that women choose to do. And despite the shoddiness of the intellectuality over there, it all gets taken so very, VERY seriously because if a feminist says something it must be the highest and most profound wisdom that you can imagine. The feminist perspective requires us to start with the idea that men make great scapegoats and all data will instantly get distorted through that prism, no matter what countervailing evidence might exist. In physics or chemistry, that type of thinking will get you thrown-out of the academy but in Women's Studies it will get you a degree. (And the site has been endorsed by none other than Katha Pollitt of The Nation. So that's how you know it's good!)
So what is today's feministing complaint? Something mighty and serious and profound, I suppose?
Why it sure is. It's something which affects a whopping .0002% of all women: the scourge of labia reduction surgery!
(If you take the trouble to look-over their site, you'll discover a recurring theme: When it comes to the topic of female genitalia or sexual improprieties, the minds of the site's hostesses start to become totally unglued. Maybe a bit of prick-envy? No no no-- there's no such thing!)
"And what does it actually mean to get your labia “reduced?” Exactly what it sounds like. “In a labiaplasty, the surgical reshaping of female external genital structures, larger or uneven inner vaginal lips are cut and shortened.” Ahhhh!"
And you wonder: who is at fault for this? Hmm? Well, the best thing about being an adolescent feminist is that you always know exactly who to blame. And as you're not surprised to learn, labia reduction surgery can mainly be laid at the feet of the usual culprits:
"And it seems that
much of the time, according to two doctors that perform labiaplasty and vaginal
cosmetic surgery, the reason for the surgery is due to a comment by a partner.
“The bulk of the women getting this surgery are ultimately being pressured
by men who want them to conform to a idea of beauty most often seen in the porn
industry...Doctors Loftus and Young say feedback from male partners is the number
one reason women request the surgery.”
Should
we be surprised? Sigh."
Oh mah gaw! It's those rotten men again! Rotten men with their rotten impossible beauty-standards and their rotten porn are forcing women to get elective surgery! Oh no!
And women simply have no say in the matter whatsoever!
Yes, so overwhelmingly powerful are men that helpless women have no choice but to go under the knife after hearing a mere comment. (Women also become bulimic in the same way. A mere insensitive comment from a male can cause a woman to jam a finger down her throat to obsessively remain thin, didn't you know that? Men have THAT MUCH POWER!) Yes and women are all under remote-control, you see. They are so zombie-like and hopelessly enslaved that they're mindlessly shambling-around in a trance, doing what evil men tell them to do! Ooh! The horror! How terrible!
But do you want to know what has to be one of the most ridiculous contradictions of American feminists? This is a huge one. Seriously, it's an utterly mind-blowing hypocrisy. It's so massive and egregious and obvious and neon-flashy that you wonder why the heads of American chicks don't burst into flames from the cognitive dissonance...
The posters at feministing are simply appalled and horrified by labia-reduction (or rhinoplasty or liposuction or pretty much any) surgery that a woman might have to make herself more attractive to a maaaaayaaaan. You know: violating the sanctity of the female body to attract some useless oppressor is a travesty which can be traced back to that multi-tentacled, omnipowerful patriarchy which sits at the top of the pyramid and hogs all the power. So a woman choosing to have an optional medical procedure for sexual reasons is a bad thing.
Oh, but hold on a sec. What about the favorite mantra: 'my body, my choice'?
Well that don't apply no more! Your body, your choice? You think you OWN your body and can CHOOSE what to do with it?? Hah! No way, babe-- not if you choose an option that might help you please a man! You want a nose-job because it'll improve your 'confidence' and make you feel 'empowered'? Tough! Learn to live with the nose you've got!
Oh, but hold on again... what if a man wants to become an attractive woman through plastic surgery? What about that kind of choice?
Well, that is perfectly fine. Oh yes. Absolutely okay that a man can become a sexy woman. Great. More power to him. Transsexual rights and all that.
But if you're an actual woman who wants to become more attractive, don't even think about it! Don't exercise your right to choose what happens to your body! What are you, crazy?! Huh? You must've been brainwashed by the patriarchy!
Ahhhh, but now you have an unwanted fetus and you'd like to avoid unsightly stretch-marks on your tummy? That's totally different. Violate your body all you want in that case, use your right to choose! Whoo! You go girl! Yeah! Flex your untoned arms! Throw-on a t-shirt that says "I HAD AN ABORTION AND BY JIGGEDY, I'M PROUD!" Yee-HAH!
Never let anyone tell you what to do with your body, sister-- no one should dictate what's best for your body. But, labiaplasty? Gross! Don't do that! That's going way too far!
Flippity. Floppity. Floop.
(Incidentally: contrary to what you might think, I'm pro-choice. I think both women and men ought to have sovereignty over their own bodies and that most of the arguments to the contrary are morally untenable. But because American chicks are so exceptionally loathsome, I make the sole exception for them. I'm going to celebrate if Roe v. Wade gets overturned.)
So they respect a woman's right to choose what happens to her body, UNLESS she chooses to become more attractive (they won't respect that choice). You can practically wet yourself laughing at the sheer absurdity of this. This is near the outermost limits of idiocy, totally incoherent. You just want to burst-out in ridicule, but the probable underlying animus is actually quite depressing...
So what is the nature of this irrationality? Simply put: the idea that a woman would choose to alter her own appearance to appeal to one of the oppressors is so highly noxious and offensive that it cannot be allowed. Because it would suggest that women are not naturally superior! But if a man wants the same thing (to undergo extensive surgery to become an attractive woman), then-- POOF! That's suddenly okay. One more devil gone from the world, one more goddess arrives (but she'll never, ever be anywhere as perfect as the genuine thing).
I love to write about the many sexist double-standards of feminists, but the above isn't even a double-standard. There is, in fact, no standard with these women at all: only an extreme form of chauvinism that insists females are superior forms of life. And if 'my body, my choice' ever contradicts with the idea of a woman's naturally higher value, then the former gets easily forgotten. A woman's superiority is the overriding belief here.
Another fine question is: why are these women so dedicated to fighting sexism? Here's a possibility: at some level, they sense the chauvinism that resides within them, but they cannot bring themselves to look in the mirror and acknowledge it honestly. They need to feel cleansed of sexism, so they attack someone else for having it. Therefore, they end-up raging at the patriarchy for possessing a sexism that is ultimately their own.