Ladies! Make yourself attractive to men with the help of Dante, Elvis and, er, Sting?

By David Futrelle

The Federalist — the tradcon clickbait site with the oddly wonky name — has won itself a vast audience of hate-readers by posting some of the most ridiculously backward crap on gender you’re likely to find outside of Return of Kings. Federalist posts regularly go viral on the sheer strength of their stupidity.

Well, it looks like they’ve got another potential hit on their hands, a post with the lovely title “How Acting Like A Feminist Can Ruin Your Marriage.” The writer, a self-described “homeschooling mother of four [with] a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of America” named Carrie Gress, is worried that feminism is making women too girl-powery to be attractive to men.

“Women today are supposed to ‘be bold and assertive,'” she writes, “but could all this girl-power actually undermine our best efforts at finding marital bliss?”

You can probably guess how she answers this question.

Feminism has ushered in a near-universal trend for women to “just one of the boys” or to be better than the boys. It is reflected in our sarcasm, sexual habits, attire, and goals. A recent study found that women are now dropping the f-bomb more than men.

“Fight like a girl,” “Strong is the new pretty,” and “Find your fierce” may sound nice, but we have to ask if they have led women to happiness or an endless fluctuation between ferocity and victimhood.

It’s fairly familiar stuff so far, but Gress breaks new ground with her suggestions on how women can learn how to be the traditional “country girls” of every man’s alleged dreams. It involves Italian poetry, the Grateful Dead, and … Sting. Yes, that Sting.

You can learn a lot if you listen to men when they don’t know we are listening: poetry and music.

From the dawn of time, men croon about particular attributes especially found in women: loyalty, sweetness, a calming presence, kindness, thoughtfulness. Looking past lyrics dripping with lust, a pattern emerges. Dante, the Beatles, Elvis, James Taylor, Sting, The Grateful Dead, Tim McGraw, and on and on—all speak of loving a truthful, kind, loyal, soulful woman who brings them peace. There has been no love song dedicated to a nagging, angry, self-absorbed woman.

Well, none that I can think of offhand. Can any of you think of some? If not, well, there’s literally nothing stopping anyone from writing songs like this and maybe posting them here hint hint nudge nudge knowhatImean?

Also, I’m not quite sure that Mrs. Gress has been listening all that carefully to Beatles lyrics, because if she had been she surely would have noticed that,  in addition to writing assorted silly love songs, the Beatles also wrote songs about:

• Setting a woman’s house on fire because she says no to sex
• Murdering a woman for being unfaithful
• Randomly murdering one’s date because why not?

So I’m not sure Beatles lyrics are necessarily the best guide on how to live a happy life as a woman.

Oh, and the worst bit in the Beatles’ Run for Your Life — “I’d rather see you dead, little girl/ Than to be with another man” — was ripped off word-for-word from an Elvis song, so I don’t think Elvis is necessarily the best guide either.

I would say something about Sting’s lyrics as well, but, come on, there’s no way I’m going to voluntarily go and read a bunch of Sting lyrics. Every Breath You Take is pretty creepy, though. Don’t base your life on that.