Yesterday, we took a look at some completely ridiculous “Selfish Feminist” memes, based on the premise that women adopt feminism because that way they can reap all sorts of nifty benefits without having to work as hard as men, most notably the FREE DINNERS they constantly con poor schmucks into paying for. (Allegedly.)
For some reason, half of the memes involved actress/activist Ashley Judd, who isn’t really a selfish person at all.
You may recall that one of the memes was captioned “Why I need feminism? Sounds better than ‘selfishness.'”
Well, here’s another one using that little tagline that somehow manages to be creepier and cringier than all the rest of the “selfish feminist” memes all together.
Yep. In the mind of whoever made this meme, women not shaving their armpits is somehow a … selfish act, presumably because “ew, women with hairy armpits.”
Note to dudes who think this meme is somehow clever: What someone chooses to do (or not do) with their body is really only your business if you happen to own that body. Given that, you know, slavery is illegal and all that, the only body you own is your own body.
Women don’t owe it to men in general (or to you in particular) to shave their armpits or any other part of their body, pluck their eyebrows, keep their weight within the parameters you prefer, and so on and so on.
No, dudes, you are not obliged to find women with armpit hair attractive. The flip side of this is that women aren’t obliged to give a rat’s ass what you think of their armpits, or any other part of their body.
@Tessa
Uuuuuuh, seriously? Armpit hair will confuse men and make their lizard brain think I’m a dude? Or something of that sort.
Can’t they just stick to ”I think it’s yucky”? Do we really need some evopsych bull about why we dislike certain things? I dislike beards, should I try to justify it somehow?
@Tessa
So your brilliant friend (who says that you’re filthy?!) says that cavewomen never broke a sweat gathering berries in the hot sun or running a fever or chasing children or fending off Og the rapist with a rock to his head or cooking over a scorching fire or fleeing woolly mammoths or having sex or, I dunno, giving birth?
Is he bullshitting you — or is he just seriously ignorant?
Inquiring minds need to know.
Lots of comments about armpit hair but none about the piercing.
I mean, I’m not into having piercings or anything like that, but surely the nose thingy was a key component in this negative representation.
Mras are against piercings and tattoos also, yes? Which is effging lame as these thngs are so commonplace.
Or have I not paid attention for long enough and am just stating the obvious?
Titianblue,Argle Bargle (formerly Carr), and Kat:
I feel bad now that I obviously didn’t make the explanation silly enough. There (happily) is no evopsych friend. it was supposed to be a parody/sarcastic answer. I didn’t go big enough. Sorry for the confusion. (Though part of me did want to make up even more elaborate responses from my made up evopsych friend… who totally would call me filthy. he’s kinda an ass.)
@Tessa
Poe strikes again.
Not exactly put off by the fact my hairy pits will repel MRAs
@Tessa
Got it.
Truthfully, these people are kind of hard to parody.
I could tell you were joking, Tessa. I thought it was hilarious.
How cruel of women not to be sexually attractive to or sexually available to MRAs willy nilly! Men are so oppressed.
@Kat
You left out the most important part: women should be naturally beautiful and not aware of it. Otherwise they’ll start using their vadge pass to get all kinds of attention and sweet, sweet government perks. That in turn leads to branch swinging, hypergamy, and cucking.
Female beauty is only for enhancing the man’s status, not the woman’s. Women are only valuable for their looks, but if she tries to capitalize on that, she’s selfish. (Funny how they don’t get angry at wealthy men for using their wealth to gain privilege, however.)
Yeah, well, they earned that donchaknow. Completely on their own, with no benefit of parental wealth and privilege, education, connections, internships, fraternities/the Bullingdon Club, the trickle-up effect hard-wired into capitalism etc. etc. etc. not to mention infrastructure and workforce supported/built/educated/kept healthy(ish) by the state in any way whatsoever …
Translation:
“Won’t someone please think of my boner?”
I thought Tessa had a real evopsych studying friend who was joking. Sometimes we have to take a closer look at … unpleasant things.
It’s a little off topic since he didn’t call women selfish, but I have an acquaintance who has recently been trying to convince me that men, especially men who make memes like this, just love, love, love women and are so terrified by that love that they push women away. He also thinks a defining component of love is being dependent on your loved one. He also thinks women are a “force of nature”. He said it like he expected me to swoon with the utter romance of it all, but at least he was properly worried about how he came off when I told him that sounded kind of horrible and dehumanizing instead of being all snide and condescending that I interpreted it that way.
That sounds more like rationalization for abuse than love, tbh.
@pitshade
You’re talking about CMH’s acquaintance, aren’t you?
I agree that his description sounds exactly like that, but it might not be on purpose. Judging by his reaction, it seems like he has an idealized vision of abusive relatioships, which is something that is unfortunately common.
Yeah, I think it is accidental. On one hand, he’s not a native English speaker, so he might not have been as precise as he should have been, and on the other, I think he does have a very romanticized vision of what relationships should be like. Blame it on an overly religious upbringing in an overly religious country, I guess.
Actually, I bet he wouldn’t be pleased with unshaven ladypits either, although he’d frame it as a hygiene issue. He’s terribly concerned about good grooming and corporeal odors. Makes me feel like I should fart in front of him sometimes, just to remind him that humans do that.
But then I’m a little bit of a spiteful asshole.
@Tessa, my only excuse for my complete humour-fail is that I’d been watching Eurovision, last night, & therefore not at my sharpest. /embarrassed
@CMH, that sounds exactly like my sister’s soon-to-be-ex husband. He has been gaslighting my sister for nearly a decade now, to the point where she’s spent the past three years an utter wreck. She finally got the courage to start the separation two years ago, and just last week was the court date for working out child custody. (I shudder to think of how he treats the kids 😐 ) He’s not physically abusive, but uses every emotional manipulation trick in the book, and is very much not above using the kids as weapons to make her feel guilty.
Our society has a terrible concept of romance and relationships. 😐
CN domestic violence, victim blaming
Andrea Hardie has written another blog post glorifying violence against women. In this one, she reveals that (lovingly) accuses her husband of being the type to commit domestic abuse.
Sounds like a healthy marriage. /s
the thing is, most of what I do as a feminist is for other people. I really am not very afraid of getting raped anymore, but lots of women I know have been raped and I feel so awful for them & want to prevent the children born today from having to live with that fear. I dont even get harassed and groped anymore (bc Im older and manly) but I tell my story because I dont like to see young girls today getting harassed and groped. I spend a lot of time sticking up for Muslim people even tho Im a white atheist, because even tho I dont even know many Muslims I feel sorry for them when they are persecuted, particularly the Syrian refugees (not all of whom are Muslim of course) and want to help them. I really dont have to get involved in a Black Lives Matter protest, but I go because my heart just aches for Trayvonne & Ayiana & Tamir and every single black person murdered due to nothing more than racism.
The fact is, say what you will about “SJWs” but it isnt selfishness. Maybe the sort of person who sneers at social justice cant imagine what it feels like to be truly unselfish.
& even if it were selfish, I think the selfish need to not be raped trumps the selfish desire to rape with impunity.
As much as they want to make this about “dinner” let’s be real, those are the real stakes in feminism.
I hate this expectation so much. It is almost impossible to not know how conventionally attractive you are or aren’t in our culture. Men are always letting you know whether you make their boner sad or happy whether you’ve solicited an opinion or not. And it’s not just the men. Women discuss matter of appearance among themselves and it’s not uncommon for bullying to center around appearance whether the victim is outcast for not looking the right way or attacked to being perceived as too attractive and stealing the guys. Women know where they stand.
The only time a woman is very attractive and doesn’t know it is if she has really messed up self esteem due to a mental health issue, having been an abuse victim etc. Which is of course exactly what guys who think women should be unknowingly beautiful want. Someone who can be a trophy and give them status while still being vulnerable, non-threatening and easy to keep down.
I’m going to go with none! Excepting self defense, there’s no such thing as making someone hit them. Hitting someone is a choice you, and you alone make.
Can there be any doubt that the MRM is an abuser’s lobby? I’m sure JB’s fanboys just ate that shit up. As offended as MRAs get when you call them abusers and abuse apologists, I’m willing to bet that no MRA objected to this post. Just as they didn’t care when she bragged about having raped men.
Just noticed stupid mistake in my post.
@wwth
Overwhelmingly positive comments. Just one or two people out of 50+ comments seemed to have any problem with domestic violence.
@RosaDeLava
Yes, I was referring to the acquaintance’s ideas about love.
@CMH
The description you give of his beliefs raises red flags in my mind but you know him and I don’t so take that for what it’s worth.
@weirwoodtreehugger Re-beautiful but not aware of it, sadly I think you are spot on with that theory. I mean, I can totally see the attraction of somebody being generally awesome while humble, but I am wary of men who want to be the sole source of self esteem for the woman their attracted to.
The thing I’ve noticed about people who are in love with people oblivious to how awesome they are, is that those people actively wish their partner was more confident and would not be turned off by a sudden rise in confidence.