Reheated (50)

Or, So Empowered, Yet Oppressed By Everything. 

Faced as we are with the news that Everyday Feminism may soon flicker out of existence, leaving a gaping void in our intellectual lives, perhaps it’s time to revisit some of the many offerings to have entertained us, albeit inadvertently:  

Lofty Beings. 

Feminist “creative” and “multi-dimensional creature” Katherine Garcia attempts to justify her sub-optimal life choices. Things go badly wrong.

The Mouthing Of Bollocks. 

Rachel Kuo tells us how to order takeaway in a suitably fretful and intersectional manner.

Undone By Her Radical ‘Do.

A “white grrl with dreadlocks” atones for her “whiteness” and “appropriated” hair.

An Intellectual Being. 

Melissa Fabello is a feminist intellectual and therefore terribly oppressed. How dare you question her?

Fat We Can Fix, The Excuses Are Trickier. 

An empowered feminist of girth says not being fat makes you complicit in her oppression.

Poverty And How To Get There. 

“Social justice” devotee describes herself to employers as “a political troublemaker,” and wonders why employment is hard to find.

Do Not Date Bedlamites. 

Melissa Fabello shares her interracial dating advice with those less enlightened. Naturally, it’s complicated.

Unseen Energies. 

“As a witch,” says Kris Nelson, “it is my responsibility to engage in radical politics.” She’s also clairvoyant and sells magic sea shells.

Oh, you laugh now, but who will scold us when they’re gone?

Comments

[Alice]

news that Everyday Feminism may soon flicker out of existence,

The American Psychiatric Association should chip in to keep them going. They'd get customers for years.

[Chester Draws]

Oh, you laugh now, but who will scold us when they’re gone?

I don't think their sort will run out of scolds any time soon.

The Greens will keep up the good work if we might have to want to own anything or enjoy anything.

[David]

The American Psychiatric Association should chip in to keep them going.

Well, as a snapshot of a fashionable demographic, I think it’s quite revealing. There are patterns of unrealism, dishonesty and self-flattery. (As when Ms Annah Anti-Palindrome imagined that The Great Patriarchal Hegemon™ - the one that lives in her mind - would be both threatened and enraged by a combination of poor hygiene and pretentious hair.) It’s also worth noting that these ladies profess, vehemently, to be liberated and empowered by their rote regurgitations of feminist boilerplate, and yet, simultaneously, they’re forever telling us how oppressed they are, by everything.

[bilbaoboy]

What do I do to make you want me?
What have I got to do to be heard?
What do I say when it's all over?
And sorry seems to be the hardest word
It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd

h/t Sir E. John

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

We’re on the brink of becoming yet another independent media publication that has to shut down – and that possibility is unsettling as hell.

"Gentelmen, gentelmen, please, we have to protect our phony baloney jobs !"

I don't think their sort will run out of scolds any time soon.

Indeed, there are plenty of outlets that they can use to disseminate their wisdom. For instance, I give you important feminist research, When ‘Angelino’ squirrels don’t eat nuts: a feminist posthumanist politics of consumption across southern California.

Given that the shift in tree squirrel demographics is a relatively recent phenomenon, this case presents a unique opportunity to question and re-theorize the ontological given of ‘otherness’ that manifests, in part, through a politics whereby animal food choices ‘[come] to stand in for both compliance and resistance to the dominant forces in [human] culture’. I, therefore, juxtapose feminist posthumanist theories and feminist food studies scholarship to demonstrate how eastern fox squirrels are subjected to gendered, racialized, and speciesist thinking in the popular news media as a result of their feeding/eating practices, their unique and unfixed spatial arrangements in the greater Los Angeles region, and the western, modernist human frame through which humans interpret these actions. I conclude by drawing out the implications of this research for the fields of animal geography and feminist geography.

"...feminist food studies scholarship...the fields of animal geography and feminist geography..." Two fields long since neglected, I am a better person for just having read the abstract, however, I eagerly await the insight in the section, "Configuring improper bodies through eating practices: the intersections of species, race, and gender", because I am all about the intersectionality.

#feministsquirrellivesmatter

[Clam]

As when Ms Annah Anti-Palindrome imagined that The Great Patriarchal Hegemon™ - the one that lives in her mind - would be both threatened and enraged by a combination of poor hygiene and pretentious hair.

I'd missed that one. :-)

[David]

I’d missed that one. :-)

She does seem desperate to conjure operatic drama out of thin air, and sounds positively crestfallen when no-one is provoked by her “non-conventional appearance” and radical lack of bathing. Which of course she then construes as proof of her “white privilege.”

But for all the fretting, tutting and howling about “oppression,” most of the ladies’ agonies are either laughably slight or entirely contrived. On average, they’re roughly equivalent to that feeling when you turn up to a housewarming party with a 70cl bottle of gin as a gift, only to discover that someone else has already brought the larger, 100cl bottle, thereby making you look cheap. Faintly embarrassing, perhaps, but hardly an existential crisis.

[JJM]

As I've said here before, feminism is so yesterday.

An ideology based on one biological sex in an age where everybody can now be any gender they want.

[Jen]

"You shouldn't have to live in a world without independent feminist media."

Weeping. :-)

[Lisboeta]

independent media publication

Independent? The word connotes "not controlled by a party or interest group". If Everyday Feminism is independent, then I'm an intersectional squirrel.

[David]

You shouldn’t have to live in a world without independent feminist media.

“You shouldn’t have to live in a world without us!”

[Criticas]

Perhaps the Southern Poverty Law Center could look in the couch cushions of their $300 MM war chest and make a donation.

[WTP]

I, therefore, juxtapose feminist posthumanist theories and feminist food studies scholarship to demonstrate how eastern fox squirrels are subjected to gendered, racialized, and speciesist thinking in the popular news media as a result of their feeding/eating practices, their unique and unfixed spatial arrangements in the greater Los Angeles region, and the western, modernist human frame through which humans interpret these actions. I conclude by drawing out the implications of this research for the fields of animal geography and feminist geography.

I've read that three times now and I still don't know if I understand it or not. How possibly can "eastern fox squirrels" be subjected to any kind of thinking in the news media? Or did I parse that part wrong? Do they absorb this information directly, or is there some sort of Dr. Dolittle guy out there doing the translating for them? If the latter, can't we just ask him, for the good of eastern fox squirrels and humanity in general, to stop? I am very confused here.

[sk60]

Related...

https://twitter.com/QuestionMThings/status/862299797990068224

[Lionel Ebb]

Lay off the poor foxes (or squirrels or whatever), they're having a hard enough time at the moment, what, with Theresa May and everything... http://bit.ly/1WI3JkQ

[David]

And in case you missed it, here’s Everyday Feminism’s managing editor Melissa Fabello sharing the news.

[John D]

here’s Everyday Feminism’s managing editor Melissa Fabello sharing the news.

She actually blames Donald Trump for her website going bust.

[Hal]

What do I do to make you want me?
What have I got to do to be heard?

h/t Sir E. John

I've noticed Sartorial Eloquence to be the observation regarding all hipsters ever since they first congealed with that early label of preppy.

You've a certain sartorial eloquence
And a style that's almost of your own
You've got the knack of being so laid-back
It's like talking to the great Unknown

You've got a self-sufficient swept-back hairdo
Pretty certain that you've got it made
Oh your lifestyle shows in the clothes you chose
Sitting pretty in the masquerade

Chorus
Sing it
Don't you wanna play this game no more
Don't you wanna play no more?
Don't you wanna play this game no more
Don't you wanna play no more?

You remain the only main contender
Though you never, you never meant to lose at all
Down at the mouth yet unsurrounded
Adamant before the fall
Though when you go you know I might be lonesome
But I'll keep it under close control
Go and get your kicks and babe let's call it quits
I believe I'm feeling indisposed

Repeat chorus

[Hal]

"Gentelmen, gentelmen, please, we have to protect our phony baloney jobs !"

Harumph.

[Hal]

here’s Everyday Feminism’s managing editor Melissa Fabello sharing the news.

Managing?

[David]

She actually blames Donald Trump for her website going bust.

But it’s, like, literally super-important.

[R. Sherman]

Here’s Everyday Feminism’s managing editor Melissa Fabello sharing the news.

In what universe does channeling the spirit of a 14 year old middle school cheerleader constitute and effectie pitch to potential investors?

[David]

channeling the spirit of a 14 year old middle school cheerleader

Heh. But the nose ring adds gravitas, surely?

[WTP]

In what universe does channeling the spirit of a 14 year old middle school cheerleader constitute and effectie pitch to potential investors?

In a universe where "eastern fox squirrels" are hip to how gendered and racialized they are by the popular news media, this you question?

[Lab Rat]

As I've said here before, feminism is so yesterday.

An ideology based on one biological sex in an age where everybody can now be any gender they want.

I am so borrowing this.

I'd like to see that used as a reply to every feminist blathering anywhere.

They are irrelevant. AND - The Patriarchy wins again - by Identifying as wymyn!

I'd laugh if it wasn't so sadly ridiculous.

[Hal]

She actually blames Donald Trump for her website going bust.

But it’s, like, literally super-important.

Ahem.

But it’s all, like, literally, you know, super-important.

[AnnieMouse]

Well tickle my ass with a feather. All this time I thought it was a satire site.

[Trevor]

But it’s, like, literally super-important.

It's totes imperativo.

[David]

Well tickle my ass with a feather.

It’s ten bucks extra to use the tickling parlour.

[Farnsworth M Muldoon]

Meanwhile, in the "How Can We Find Something New To Bitch About Today", we have Pee Privilege, and no, this has nothing to do with certain kinds of, ahem, showers. I think.

One sign — entitled “WTF IS PEE PRIVILEGE?” — tells students that “pee privilege” is the “ability to use a restroom without fear or concern for your own safety.” The “ability to undoubtedly know which bathroom to pick” constitutes “pee privilege, too.

There are generally pictures or words on the doors for the easily confused.

“Bathroom politics centers around the politicism of who, where, and how people are allowed to piss and shit,” the sign says.

Yes, because all the things from squirrels to bodily functions must be politicized. If you don't have to trim rogue hairs, then you have Nose and Ear Hair Privilege.

As an aside - Gentlemen - yes I actually know how to spell it...

[PiperPaul]

"Well tickle my ass with a feather."

Did someone 'culturally appropriate' the whole chicken?

[David]

and no, this has nothing to do with certain kinds of, ahem, showers. I think.

It’s an extra twenty bucks to use the VIP lounge.

[Thomas Fuller]

It’s quite a challenge, to say the least, to create independent, intersectional feminist media in a financially sustainable way, especially in a world that doesn’t value what we do.

Can this be? Can a fragment of self-awarenessite have plunged to earth somewhere near the bedsit from which Everyday Feminism is disseminated?

[R. Sherman]

But the nose ring adds gravitas, surely?

Given the Feminism is about rebelling against patriarchy-inspired dictates for female appearance, I was more stricken by her obvious attempts to use make-up to hide the mole on her chin. I can't wait for it to begin to sprout prehensile hairs as she slowly morphs into one of those Soviet era Bukovina babushkas who looks like Leonid Brezhnev in drag while singing The Volga Boatman and waiting for this month's allotment of lard.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

Can this be? Can a fragment of self-awarenessite have plunged to earth...

Far from it, it just is more "you sister shagging toothless rubens are too stupid to understand me" victim wailing it hasn't actually dawned on zer that the world might not value what xem do, because it is, in fact, valueless.

[Alex deWinter]

“pee privilege” is the “ability to use a restroom without fear or concern for your own safety.”

That's rich, coming from a bunch that wants to give Pervert McSkeevy unhindered access to the women's restroom.

[Mags]

"We need to save EF because literally white supremacists are in power."

Literally.

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

"We need to save EF because literally white supremacists are in power."

The might have been, had not Pepe died.

[Geezer]

It’s ten bucks extra to use the tickling parlour.

Is that calculated in Dollars, Euros, or Pounds Sterling?

[Sporkatus]

Meanwhile, the local Unitarian hall's sign, which I've mentioned here before ("The Artist as Nonconformist"), is advertising their latest don't-call-it-a-sermon, "The Activist and the Mystic".

One worries about these people. Of course, their less political sermonish offerings once included "the Zen of Popeye", so I'm not sure if they actually have any areas in which they're balanced...

[TimT]

But who will publish the educational comics now?

[Farnsworth M. Muldoon]

But who will publish the educational comics now?

Jack Chick ?

[Wombat_socho]

The might have been, had not Pepe died.

Pepe is not dead. He lives forever in our memes.

[MC]

Rereading Fabello's neurotic ravings about inter-racial dating, it is hard to make any sense of them unless one accepts that white people are genuinely superior to non-whites.

[David]

Rereading Fabello’s neurotic ravings about inter-racial dating…

Yes, despite all the comical pieties, her attitude is fundamentally patronising and racist. Indeed, it reads as a particularly elaborate racial fetish, in which all “people of colour” are to be excused from social norms on grounds of their being dysfunctional and forever in need of endless, neurotic accommodation by immensely sensitive white people, even in the bedroom.

[TomJ]

It’s ten bucks extra to use the tickling parlour.

Is that calculated in Dollars, Euros, or Pounds Sterling?

Nope, it's in head of deer. Incidentally, have you tried the venison sandwiches?

[David]

A couple more.

First up, feminist philosopher Celia Edell struggles with facts and numbers, and then wonders why she isn’t taken seriously. Naturally, her incompetence is blamed on The Patriarchy.

And Emily Zak insists that “marginalised people” can’t enjoy the great outdoors because there aren’t enough reinforced bicycles for very fat people, and because jobs such as logging “remain hyper-masculine and painfully heteronormative.”

Yes, painfully heteronormative.

Oh, and here’s SJW Nonsense parsing Everyday Feminism’s Healing From Toxic Whiteness online seminar. It’s quite a thing.

[Hal]

"Well tickle my ass with a feather."

Did someone 'culturally appropriate' the whole chicken?

Of course I'd be entirely unsurprised to hear the story being quite apocryphal, but sometime back I did hear of a computer tech with a seriously active paganIsh background, where on one occasion he was dealing with some variety of computer equipment that had been assessed and poked at forwards, backwards and upside down, and the contraption still would not behave.

And at some point as he was glaring at the assorted issues, someone had a passing comment about sacrificing a chicken. The tech stared into space for a bit, then wandered off to borrow someone's lunch, given the theory that regardless of the cause, dead chicken is dead chicken.

A few minutes later he wandered back with a bucket of KFC, intoned something appropriate for the occasion, ritually waved the bucket about in the vicinity of the recalcitrant circuitry, and then headed off to return the donation. The computer is stated to have then booted up just fine, all assorted bits and pieces in perfect working order.

[Hal]

"We need to save EF because literally white supremacists are in power."

As opposed to figuratively white, or something like that.

[Liz]

Naturally, her incompetence is blamed on The Patriarchy.

It's all one big conspiracy theory.

[David]

It’s all one big conspiracy theory.

Pretty much.

[Hal]

Meanwhile, the local Unitarian hall's sign, which I've mentioned here before ("The Artist as Nonconformist"), is advertising their latest don't-call-it-a-sermon, "The Activist and the Mystic".

How does a Unitarian begin a prayer?

To whom it may concern.

[Hal]

. . . because jobs such as logging “remain hyper-masculine and painfully heteronormative.”

Oh, don't worry, there are ointments for that. And then after awhile, the calluses develop just fine.

---and I'm reminded of the time that a mostly gay---and all male---dance group was going over the logistics of putting together a float for an upcoming parade that the group was taking part in. At some time in the discussion it was noted that when turning the back of a large truck into a dance floor, use of major tools were going to to be a likely requirement. And at that point one of the queens then loudly proclaimed Chainsaws?!?!?!! That's Women's work!!!!

[David]

Regarding Everyday Feminism, Robert Stacy McCain has some thoughts.

[nbc]

Perhaps a sponsorship deal could be negotiated where they provide one article per month on an exclusive basis?

[dan]

And since we’re a bootstrapped independent media organization comprised primarily of queer people of color, that money to pay for this important work doesn’t come from venture capitalists or a large media conglomerate – which is sometimes the case for other media sites

This is what I love. As though gays are poorer than everyone else, and as though there isn't any money in non-Anglo-Saxon societies....

There are 30-40 million African Americans - they may be a minority but not such a tiny one, and I'm sure they include plenty of venture capitalists too.

[dan]

oops bold gone?

[David]

Fixed.

[R. Sherman]

Tried a < /b > tag. Failed. Dan, you're in deep brown sauce when Dad gets back.

[David]

You’re in deep brown sauce when Dad gets back.

It’s a good job I’m busy with my lunch.

[Lincoln Annie]

To quote John Denver (I think), "More than anything else, I'm sorry for myself..."

[David]

And for newcomers, this seems relevant:

In between the cartoons on how to take your mood stabilisers and anti-psychotic medication, you’ll find articles explaining how your Designated Victim Group is almost certainly oppressing some other Designated Victim Group and why you should feel bad about it. The fun never stops.

They do this to themselves, remember. And given the chance, they’d do it to you.

[Fred the Fourth]

Dan:
Poorer?
Apparently they can't be bothered to Google for one of the numerous Gay- or Women- oriented Angel investor groups.
I suspect their real problem is that investors, to quote Ghostbusters, "expect results."

[Fred the Fourth]

In other words,what EF is really looking for is a Sugar Daddy.

[David]

Janice Fiamengo’s latest video addresses the kind of mindset peddled by Everyday Feminism.

[Lancastrian Oik]

More chicken voodoo (of appeal to petrolheads only, probably).

Back in the early 1970s the then Hesketh Formula Two team (no. 1 driver James "The Shunt" Hunt before he became famous for punching random strangers, taking far too many drugs whilst somehow still functioning as a pretty good racing driver, and shagging anything with a pulse) had already acquired something of its later reputation for eccentricity. On one occasion at Oulton Park in Cheshire, Mosley had seen the entire équipe gathered in a circle in the circuit paddock, chanting and praying to the 'Great Chicken in the Sky' to find them a new engine, their original Ford BDA having expired when Hunt over-revved it in practice. Mosley, then running the March works team of which he was a founder, lent them a spare, after which the team always referred to the future President of the FIA as 'The Great Chicken of Bicester.' "We always called him that," said Hesketh later. "And we used to cluck whenever we saw him, which enraged him."

[ravenshrike]

Does she sell the sea shells in packs of three?

[Tim Newman]

On the subject of feminists...

[David]

On the subject of feminists...

Heh.

Bad Tim.

[David]

I’m now captivated by @RoastMySelfie.

[Geezer]

It’s ten bucks extra to use the tickling parlour.

Is that calculated in Dollars, Euros, or Pounds Sterling?

Nope, it's in head of deer. Incidentally, have you tried the venison sandwiches?

I hear the doe tastes sweeter.

[Hal]

Denis Mukwege has some commentary on actual gender inequality.

[Matt G]

I posted the following elsewhere and paste it here without amendment (and prior to reading any other comments on this thread!):

Genuine question (and one that nobody seems to be asking for some reason): how difficult would it be for an otherwise successful website/online business to either exaggerate or else outright lie about financial hardship (and potential demise) in order to extract cash from their global, terminally gullible user-base under false pretences? Just a thought.

After all, no one outside of EF will have access to their accounts and therefore whatever cash they raise from their e-begging will never have to be accounted for. This is pure speculation of course but it's not exactly an implausible scenario.

Regardless, you have to give scrounging Melissa (via her "literally" begging video) begrudging credit for at least knowing her audience. Indeed, I thought her calculating insinuation that if EF went kaput then somehow evil sexists/Donald Trump would 'win' was a lovely touch and one surely guaranteed to have EF's foam-flecked acolytes eagerly reaching for their PayPal accounts, no questions asked!

I'm calling it now then: EF will 'miraculously' survive, was never in danger of going under in the first place and the same scam will be pulled in the future with further injections of cash from doting fans purportedly needed in order to keep functioning. < safest bet I ever made. ;)

[Hal]

how difficult would it be for an otherwise successful website/online business to either exaggerate or else outright lie about financial hardship (and potential demise) in order to extract cash from their global, terminally gullible user-base under false pretences?

Oh, y'mean Oral Roberts and anyone else of his ilk?

Yes, both the claims of relevance to others and the type of person doing the posturing are indeed the same . . .

[QuintAmpersandJessel]

Deja vu on the Minnow.

[Matt G]

Further to my above cynical prophesying I also predict that after EF's fans 'spectacularly' save the site from ruin with their unbridled generosity, managing editor Melissa "literally" Fabello will coincidentally embark on an exhaustive study of wimmin's oppression.....across multiple 5-star resorts in the Bahamas (or similar) where said oppression is particularly bad. Probably.

;

We'll see. Either way, whatever the truth there's almost certainly no real danger of EF going under thus its detractors are futilely gloating at it's prospective demise!

[fnord]

...I conclude by drawing out the implications of this research for the fields of animal geography and feminist geography.

I've read that three times now and I still don't know if I understand it or not.

========
It's really quite simple. It means what all feminist 'thought' means.......'I hate you Dad'.

[Geckko]

You may mock, but you won't be laughing any more when they're gone.

😜

[bren]

Melissa Fabello is a feminist intellectual and therefore terribly oppressed. How dare you question her?

That one was inspired. :-)

[David]

That one was inspired. :-)

I think it’s fair to say that, like so many of her colleagues, Ms Fabello struggles with the basics of rational argument and isn’t overly gifted with self-awareness. As I think I said in the comments, feminists often try to obscure their underlying vanities and assumptions, hence the reliance on boilerplate and regurgitated jargon. But as often as not, Ms Fabello just blurts them out, as if oblivious to what she’s saying and what that says about her. And remember, she’s employed to edit the writing of other contributors to make it more coherent and convincing.

As the managing editor of Everyday Feminism, and to some extent its public face, Ms Fabello is a yardstick of the contortions currently in fashion there. When not re-tweeting flattering comments about how pretty she is, Ms Fabello regularly denounces “white supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriarchal standards of feminine beauty,” and she does this while taking endless selfies, almost daily, all of which entail heavy filtering and kilos of make-up. In a desperate attempt to achieve the kind of effect that she claims to despise.

I suppose the polite word would be... complicated.

[David]

For more of Ms Fabello’s fearsome mental cutting beam, see also this and this.

[WTP]

From the selfies tweet:
Replying to @fyeahmfabello
any time you need reminding that you're perfect just as you are, I'm here. ❤️

There's probably a reason most sane people don't have people like this in their lives.