Feminism as Rationalization

Posted on | August 17, 2014 | 61 Comments

One thing you notice if you pay close attention to the autobiographical details that feminists let slip as they’re telling their narratives (because “the personal is political,” y’know, and feminism enthrones extreme subjectivity as “the authority of experience”) is that many of these women have psychological damage they channel into political belief because they can’t come to grips with it any other way.

Her misfortunes can never be chalked up to mere bad luck, nor can the source of her hurt feelings be accepted as “the way of the world.” Still less can any feminist look at her problems and ask to what extent she is responsible for her own failures and unhappiness. Instead, her ideology offers her ready-made rationalization that seem to explain her problems: Whatever is wrong with her life, somehow it can be blamed on men and the patriarchal system of male domination. In any other context, we recognize this as blame-shifting and scapegoating, but when women explain their personal miseries by yelping that they are victims of oppression by the patriarchy, we dignify their rationalization by calling it a political philosophy.

OK, so I’ve been researching feminist “gender theory” as part of my “Sex Trouble” series on radical feminism. And while looking for a certain article I’d read earlier but forgot to bookmark, I was Googling about butch/femme lesbian identities. (Much weirdness out there, folks.) There among the several search results, I turned up this:

Heteronormativity and Homophobia:
A Femme’s Perspective
“But you don’t look gay!”
That is the resounding response I get whenever I come out to people. I vent a lot about how hard it is to be an invisible member of the LGBT community, but my frustration goes a lot deeper than people think.
A lot of people assume that “gender-conforming” queer women don’t experience homophobia and harassment because they often “blend in” with heteronormative society, but I most certainly experience homophobia- just in a unique way. I’m at my breaking point in dealing with peoples’ ignorance and disrespect on a weekly basis — and the worst part is I’m told that it’s not a big deal and I shouldn’t let it upset me. It’s easy for people who have no idea what it’s like to have their sexuality questioned and pried into at every turn to tell me to just relax and get over it. That’s why I’m writing this post: I hope that people will learn to take a walk in the shoes of a sexual minority- particularly an invisible one. . . .
Homophobic people who might otherwise snub me are nice to me because on the outside, I appear conventional. The homophobia often comes later, once I choose to come out. I choose to come out, because to me, being closeted is not an option. If I hide who I am, homophobia wins. I’m also a walking contradiction to many lesbian stereotypes, so I think it’s important to break down peoples’ misconceptions by living my life openly.
Being treated differently than my straight counterparts — being treated like a spectacle, a liar/fake/confused person, an “exception” to someone’s homophobia, a male fantasy — isn’t any less hurtful or discriminatory than being hated on sight for being gay. If you’re a member of the LGBT community who accuses femmes of being privileged or a straight person who doesn’t recognize this type of homophobia, I hope my experience gives you a new perspective.

Hmmm. The whole “femme invisibility”/”femme privilege” thing has been endlessly discussed among lesbian feminists, and this article is by some random girl with a Blogspot site, not from a professor or journalist, but still there was something intriguing:

Jessica
I’m a 24-year old woman with a BA in Psychology and Women’s Studies, looking to go to graduate school for clinical psychology.

Oh, a young Women’s Studies major! How delightful!

Jessica Clayton-Matthews attended Simmons College in Boston (tuition $35,200 a year) and she doesn’t blog frequently on her feminist site, but she’s got another blog devoted completely to her struggles with eating disorders, from which we learn:

For as long as I can remember I had . . . been a picky eater and generally “weird about food” . . .
I started restricting when I was 12, but I wasn’t diagnosed with an eating disorder until after I was hospitalized at 15. I was dealing with trauma at home and I had severe social and generalized anxiety as well as depression. Restriction and later over-exercise became a way for me to calm my anxiety and distract myself from the trauma as well as confusion regarding my sexual orientation. Restriction also became a form of self-punishment, because I had very low self-worth and felt that I didn’t deserve nourishment.
Another contribution to my eating disorder was going to school in a very wealthy community that placed a high value on appearance — I switched schools halfway through the sixth grade, but the damage had already been done. I was a few pounds heavier than most of my friends simply because I was a year older and started going through puberty sooner and I was made to feel ashamed of that. . . . I developed body dysmorphia as early as 11 years old and felt painfully uncomfortable in my own skin. . . .
My family is very loving and supportive, but it took them awhile to understand the severity of my eating disorder. When I was diagnosed at age 15 I don’t think any of us took the diagnosis very seriously, because my other mental health issues felt like more of an immediate threat (I was suicidal at the time).

Hmmm. Anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, suicidal feelings. You see she had all kinds of mental health issues which can’t be blamed on homophobia or the patriarchy. She had “confusion regarding [her] sexual orientation,” but was that all?

When I was 12 I started having romantic feelings towards women, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was very ashamed and confused and I just wanted to go back to being a little girl with no hormones so I wouldn’t have to deal.

OK, fine. Lots of kids experience “confusion” about their “romantic feelings” without going totally psycho. “Body dysmorphia”? Wanting “to go back to being a little girl with no hormones”? Feelings of “very low self-worth”? These are extreme reactions. One wonders about the “family trauma at home” she was experiencing, but with no further details available, that’s a dead end. Were all her problems psychological? It turns out there’s more to the story:

To give an example of a piece of my internalized patriarchal values that I’ve been working through: I have PCOS (Poly-cystic ovary syndrome), which is one of the major causes of infertility in women. Now, for as long as I can remember, I haven’t been interested in having biological children. I want to be a mother, but I’ve always wanted to adopt and somehow known that it was what I am meant to do. But, when I was diagnosed with PCOS, I felt depressed and broken. I started mourning the possibility of not being able to have a biological child, not because I ever really wanted one, but because I thought it made me “less of a woman”. And I kid you not, this thought crossed my mind: “What kind of woman am I if I can’t have a biological child? I am useless!” My reaction was 100% due to the damn patriarchy convincing me that my most important asset as a woman is my ability to bear children.
This is terribly embarrassing to admit, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that, feminist or not, the ideals of the patriarchy are so integrated into our culture that we internalize certain ideals without even realizing it.

Hmmm. She has a disease that causes infertility, but “for as long as [she] can remember, [she hasn’t] been interested in having biological children”? That would seem rather convenient, but she still feels bad about it and, of course, she blames “the damn patriarchy”!

Hey, what do we know about Polycystic Ovary Syndrome?

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), also called hyperandrogenic anovulation (HA), or Stein-Leventhal syndrome, is one of the most common endocrine disorders among females. . . .
Polycystic ovaries develop when the ovaries are stimulated to produce excessive amounts of male hormones (androgens), in particular testosterone, by either one or a combination of the following (almost certainly combined with genetic susceptibility:
the release of excessive luteinizing hormone (LH) by the anterior pituitary gland through high levels of insulin in the blood (hyperinsulinaemia) in women whose ovaries are sensitive to this stimulus.
Also, reduced levels of sex-hormone-binding globulin can result in increased free androgens.

Ms. Clayton-Matthews, it would seem, suffers from an endocrine disorder involving “excessive amounts of male hormones,” and we may wonder if this in turn explains other problems, including her pubescent “confusion regarding . . . sexual orientation.” But it’s easier to blame “the damn patriarchy,” you see, and to think that this woman has a degree in psychology is astonishing. Guess her double-major in Women’s Studies cancelled out everything else.

Category: Feminism

Comments

61 Responses to “Feminism as Rationalization”

Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:39 am

Feminism as Rationalization? Oxymoron?
Adele’s Tummy | Batshit Crazy News
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:42 am

[…] TOM: Wacky Conservative Hit Piece on Raging Lesbian Feminist Carmen Rios TOM: Feminism as Rationalization […]
K-Bob
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:44 am

Daily Caller article about woman who tried to poison her roomates…

Uh, just go see it. Geez.
RS
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:09 am

Two quotes:

It’s easy for people who have no idea what it’s like to have their sexuality questioned and pried into at every turn to tell me to just relax and get over it.

Who are these people who are prying into and/or questioning your sexual orientation “at every turn?” Really? Oh wait, here’s the second quote:

The homophobia often comes later, once I choose to come out. I choose to come out, because to me, being closeted is not an option.

Ah, hah! No one’s really “prying.” She decides to drop her sexuality into everyone’s beer to make a point, and then objects when there are questions. Then we have this:

I’m also a walking contradiction to many lesbian stereotypes, so I think it’s important to break down peoples’ misconceptions by living my life openly.

Um, if it’s “important to break down people’s misconceptions,” because you ostensibly do not “look” lesbian, why then are you angry if people ask questions? How else do you think they will be disabused of those misconceptions?

So what we have is someone who acts like everybody else and had has the good taste to not discuss her sexual behavior, who then decides to spring it unwitting passersby. When they say, “Really? I wouldn’t have known,” they automatically become a member of the “Legion of Patriarchal Homophobes.” Let me just suggest, among the legion of Jessica’s issues is “looking for things about which I can get pissed off.”
concern00
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:42 am

Can we find a lesbian feminist that isn’t damaged goods? There seems to be a not so subtle link there.

On another note, my wife has PCOS. We have two naturally conceived children and, other than being a women, she’s as normal (and wonderful) as they come. We also have an acquaintance with PCOS who’s a real porker. She’d like to think it’s related to PCOS, but you’ve never seen a greater eating machine.
DeadMessenger
August 17th, 2014 @ 3:36 am

Can’t argue with you there…
Anon Y. Mous
August 17th, 2014 @ 3:42 am

You would think that the news that she was infertile would be a godsend for her (though she might not be a fan of the expression). Now she has an acceptable excuse for her preference instead of having to explain her somewhat weird desire to become a mother without having any kids herself.
From Around the Blogroll | The First Street Journal.
August 17th, 2014 @ 8:36 am

[…] The Other McCain: Texas Democrats vs. the Rule of Law and Feminism as Rationalization. […]
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 9:16 am

http://www.liberonetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/jess.jpg
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 9:26 am

The Femme wrote:

Homophobic people who might otherwise snub me are nice to me because on the outside, I appear conventional. The homophobia often comes later, once I choose to come out. I choose to come out, because to me, being closeted is not an option. If I hide who I am, homophobia wins.

No, if you don’t go out of your way to tell people who would otherwise be unaware of your sexual preferences, privacy wins! The notion that people who take positive steps to tell other people about their bed partners have some sort of guaranteed right to privacy and respect concerning their sex lives is ridiculous.

It isn’t an issue of homosexuality at all. If I happened to have a habit of patronizing prostitutes, all very heterosexually, but I kept it to myself as much as possible, no one would notice, and no one would care. But if I screwed the town crack whore for $20, and told everyone about it, I’d have no reasonable expectation that anyone wouldn’t have some disrespect for that, and for me as an individual.
robertstacymccain
August 17th, 2014 @ 9:35 am

You know what’s weird? I read through a good deal of what’s on Jessica’s site and never — not once — did she mention a girlfriend or an ex-girlfriend. Whereas I, by the time I was 24, could have named more than a dozen of my ex-lovers (and I was, at that age, simultaneously involved with two different women, including a left-wing feminist named Donna).

One notices likewise the vagueness with which she says her young self experienced “romantic feelings towards women,” rather than saying, for example, “I had a crush on my English teacher,” or, “I was having sex dreams about my classmate Maria.”

Perhaps the non-specificity of her account has some unexplained authorial intent. It may be too hurtful for her to share details. On the other hand, when I see lesbian feminism expressed this way — “I’m a victim of the damned patriarchy!” — I can’t help but see it as symptomatic of a narcissistic craving of attention and pity.

Please don’t blame me for being sarcastic and skeptical — I was born that way.
Feminism as Rationalization | That Mr. G Guy's Blog
August 17th, 2014 @ 9:35 am

[…] Feminism as Rationalization. […]
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 9:49 am

Following our esteemed host’s links, I found this from the lovely Miss Clayton-Matthews:

My supervisor at work (at a place that will remain anonymous out of respect) cannot believe that I’m gay because of the way I look and act. She brings up how surprised she is about my sexual orientation almost every time we work together. She has asked me multiple times if I’ve ever been with a man physically and if I ever think I’ll be with men in the future.

I am not a spectacle and my sexuality is NOT up for discussion- but somehow this is accepted as normal and appropriate conversation. She does not ask any of her straight subordinates about their sexuality.

Uhhh, if her “sexuality is NOT up for discussion,” then why did she explicitly bring it up for discussion? Her supervisor didn’t know that she wasn’t normal until Miss Clayton-Matthews decided that it was appropriate to inform her supervisor of this. Perhaps her supervisor does not discuss her normal subordinates about their sexuality because they don’t bring up the subject with her.

Miss Clayton-Matthews is expressing the inherent contradiction in the homosexual “community”: a desire to not be seen as heterosexual, when heterosexuals comprise 98% of the population, yet have complete privacy concerning their sex lives. Those two things do not go together.
robertstacymccain
August 17th, 2014 @ 9:56 am

“Can we find a lesbian feminist that isn’t damaged goods?”

I don’t know. if you read their literature looking for autobiographical clues to their personal-is-political beliefs, you find all kinds of “damage.” And, as I say, you notice an inability to accept misfortune as mere bad luck. Nor, seemingly, are feminists capable of adjusting to the unfairness of life.

When I was kid, if any of us ever complained that something was unfair, my father would reply: “Son, who ever told you life was fair?” That simple saying has stuck in my mind all these years, and I wish more people had heard that old-fashioned wisdom growing up. Do I resent being treated unfairly? Yes. But whatever resentment I feel is simply channeled into a determination to work harder, to improve myself, so that while I may never get all that I want in life, I’ll know that I’ve earned everything I get.

Furthermore, I know that (a) I’m a wretched sinner, and (b) there is a God in heaven. If my misfortunes are in some sense the recompense of my own sins, I ought not complain too much, but rather be glad for God’s mercy and kindness.
robertstacymccain
August 17th, 2014 @ 10:08 am

By the way, she subsequently left that workplace and described the environment as one of constant harassment. Of course, she had attended a small private women’s college (Simmons has about 2,000 undergrads) and majored in Women’s Studies, so we can wonder whether this adequately prepared her to cope with ordinary environments in the Real World.
Thelma
August 17th, 2014 @ 10:31 am

They’re right. All of their issues can be directly linked to excessive social standards, and they’re far worse for women. You drum it into a child’s head for years, and years that they have to look a certain way, act a certain way, do x, y, z, and whether they do it or not they can still suffer internally because of it because the programming is simply wrong. You can call that patriarchy, or society, or consumer-capitalism, but either way it’s true. The lie is that it’s somehow an individual, or subjective issue if you can’t adapt to what is for all intents, and purposes, a mad world. the threat is no longer big “government” as conservatives like to claim; is totalitarianism via consumer capitalism, and the market, and all that it entails, and we’re living in it right now. Just look at what our desire to keep feeding this beast has done to the planet? we’ve destroyed the atmosphere, depleted all our natural resources, and now were shooting poison into the ground to pull out whatever’s left via fracking. And if you think resource wars are over, they have just begun.
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 10:43 am

Yet it would seem that Miss Clayton-Matthews meets those “excessive social standards,” in every way which is obvious to society, right up to the point at which she tells other people that no, she doesn’t meet those standards.

Miss Clayton-Matthews’ — and your? — complaint is that homosexuality is not the inherent assumption. That falls right in line with the research which states that only about 2% of the population is homosexual; there is always going to be a default assumption of normal sexuality when heterosexuals make up 98% of the population! Miss Clayton-Matthews’ is upset because not enough other people are like her.

And that is why I insist on referring to heterosexuals as normal, with the implicit — and I’ll say it explicitly — connotation that homosexuality is not normal. If Miss Clayton-Matthews’ problem is that not enough other people share her sexual orientation, it is because her sexual orientation is not normal, and she knows that it is not normal.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 11:04 am

sarcastic and skeptical

Some of the genetic traits of Scots Irish!
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 11:11 am

What she describes from some at least one of her managers would be actionable in a civil lawsuit (one if true would have far more merit than some…[cough cough Kimberlin]…) but I suspect this is fabrication than reality:

“Another manager thinks it’s funny and acceptable to mock my sexuality as a male fantasy. He made a joke the other night about how I should send him a video of me having sex with a woman because he’d be really into that.”

And she is so hard pressed for a job she continued to work there? What does she do for a living? And if she posted it on her blog (even without naming the “manager”) wouldn’t that person figure out who is is referring to?

I am calling BS on this.
William_Teach
August 17th, 2014 @ 11:35 am

“I’m a 24-year old woman with a BA in Psychology and Women’s Studies, looking to go to graduate school for clinical psychology.”

Good luck obtaining a job, because any hiring manager will look and say “lawsuit waiting to happen”.
Quartermaster
August 17th, 2014 @ 12:32 pm

Just more proof that having a college degree doesn’t mean you’ve been educated. Her “science” was probably Sociology and her “Math” cookbook statistics. Real science is unlikely to have come across her near horizon.
darleenclick
August 17th, 2014 @ 12:33 pm

The choice to “adapt” is indeed individual in a society that has no legal recourse to punish you for being outside the bounds.

Liberty to associate (or not) is an individual choice; and behavior acceptable at Folsom Street Fair but not in just about any community outside of Frisco is evidence that even in the shambling lurch of American society to demand fealty to Frisco ‘values’ one can still choose.

And your risible boilerplate of “We’ve raped Gaia” demonstrates your own choice of surrendering your rationality to emotion.
darleenclick
August 17th, 2014 @ 12:41 pm

BTW, Stacy? Here’s another feminist engaging in extreme misandry (“let’s get rid of 90% of males) for your collection.

http://www.vice.com/read/is-reducing-the-male-population-by-90-percent-the-solution-to-all-our-problems
Federale
August 17th, 2014 @ 12:58 pm

Feminism is a special kind of crazy, and by special, I mean short bus special.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:14 pm

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/193495/ Teaching women not to rape…
Thelma2
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:47 pm

My point was “adapt” or not, it makes no difference. You are still adapting to a thoroughly toxic environment under the current system, and the consequences are the same. And no, my dear, it is you who have sacrificed rationality to emotion while defending an unsustainable economic model that requires infinite growth, and consumption with only finite resources to support it. And now, in order to keep feeding the insatiable beast we are destroying the natural environment. That’s fact. Fracking is destructive. Offshore drilling is destructive. War for resources like oil is destructive. And I terms of “sensitivity”, and “emotionalism” it’s conservatives that are more reactive.

http://www.syracuse.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/08/new_study_reveals_biological_differences_between_conservative_and_liberal_brains.html
Thelma
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:49 pm

A person who thinks of the bible as a literal historical document is calling out others for a lack of real scientific thinking?
Thelma
August 17th, 2014 @ 1:53 pm

It’s the environment that’s a mess, and not the individual. When it comes down to it conservatives think like Totalitarian communists who also called other people crazy, and condemned them for failing to adapt to an insane social system which is what free market capitalism is now imposing.
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:10 pm

When ~~Stacey~~ Stacy was 24, he’d have done her!
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:12 pm

And would that experience turned her lesbian or kept her on the straight and narrow!
darleenclick
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:17 pm

#blessyourheart but I came of age during the global cooling/zpg/we-all-gonna-die-so-f**k-capitalism-n-liberty shenanigans of the 70s.

Leftism’s determination to control Other.Peoples.Lives scrambles with each generation to find a new “crisis” in which to demand totalitarian power.

So, dear, even though you insist on channeling Stalin, you have the freedom to get with like-minded busy-bodies and establish your own commune somewhere.

Good.luck.with.that.
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:18 pm

‘Twasn’t so long ago that we were being told that the world was doomed, doomed! by the population explosion, then by a nuclear winter, and whatever other Chicken Little “the sky is falling” cries there were, and yet, here we are still. Global warming is now climate change, because, golly gee, the actual results have not shown any warming trend at all, so the theory must be slightly altered, and now ~~global warming~~ climate change is being used to explain an unusually cool summer.

Fracking is destructive? Offshore oil drilling is destructive? What is really destructive is poverty, is a lack of convenient energy, a lack of modernity, as measured by the lifespans of the people of the past, and of the people who live in third world countries today. That’s not an opinion, but a solidly measurable fact.
darleenclick
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:20 pm

So you believe the Bible was written contemporaneously?

(your writing is as clear as your rationality)
darleenclick
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:22 pm

which “free market capitalism” would that be, dear? The one in which regulations are measured by the pounds exists?

#blessyourheart
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:24 pm

What has free market capitalism imposed? It has imposed the only system we have ever known which has lifted more than a tiny minority — namely: the people with military power — above the subsistence level.

We could, I suppose, go back to the twelfth century, and we’d have no oil-burning industries, no infernal combustion engines, and the like. We’d also be considered old and venerable if we reached our 50th birthday, we’d have our teeth rot out of our heads, and scratch at the earth with sticks and stones, hoping to grow enough wheat to keep us in bread through the next winter. Then, if we had enough bread to make it through the winter, and dad was fortunate enough to bring down one of the King’s own deer, we’d be able to feast in style on venison whilst huddled around the fire in our one room hut.
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:25 pm

Alas! She was Born That Way.
Dana
August 17th, 2014 @ 2:33 pm

And a ratio of say ten females to each male . . .
concern00
August 17th, 2014 @ 3:10 pm

Well said. In retrospect, I think we’d all find moments of our childhood that were confronting, challenging, demeaning, difficult etc. Without a modicum of decent parenting and good old fashioned coping skills, these things could reduce anyone to a raging feminist.
ChandlersGhost
August 17th, 2014 @ 4:31 pm

Short bus crazy?
TiminAL
August 17th, 2014 @ 4:42 pm

No. Just Moron.
Quartermaster
August 17th, 2014 @ 4:46 pm

You’re an idiot. Your statement is irrational as well as incoherent. You must be a feminist.
Quartermaster
August 17th, 2014 @ 4:50 pm

I have never said that the Bible is a literal historical record, but I will say that from all the evidence, historical, archeological and internal, that the Bible is a contemporaneous record of what it purports to record, with the exception of earth’s early history which no one at the time was recording.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 4:53 pm

Could a 24 year old Stacy McCain have turned her toward the straight and narrow…

or confirmed for her the sapphic way.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
August 17th, 2014 @ 4:53 pm

Hmmmm!
One Thing You’ll Never Hear A #Feminist Say | That Mr. G Guy's Blog
August 17th, 2014 @ 6:38 pm

[…] you will never hear a feminist say from Janis […]
RS
August 17th, 2014 @ 6:44 pm

In my experience the more loudly a person pontificates about the evils of the modern, industrial economy “raping” Mother Gaia, the less likely it is that s/he has actually spent any time out in Mother Gaia’s bosom. The facts are apparent to anyone: Nature sucks and will kill you in minutes, unless you equip yourself with the accouterments a modern economy provides. Second, go any developing country and what do you see? Wood smoke. Wood smoke for heating, cooking and light. It causes all manner of ills. It is in the First World, where our air is clean and our tap water won’t kill you.

Oh, and BTW, your posting commments on the internet via an electronic medium powered by your local electric company advances your righteous crusade how, precisely? You want Nature. Here’s what you do: Take off all your clothes, leave your house and start walking with nothing created by the modern industrial economy. Given the time of year, I suggest heading South.
Mike G.
August 17th, 2014 @ 6:52 pm

Hey, it still can get kinda nippy in South Florida.
meepbobeep
August 17th, 2014 @ 7:20 pm

Just a note from my own experience:

all the Womens/Feminist Studies majors in college would faint if you said boo to them. They =needed= training in empowerment.

The women who were self-sufficient majored in physics, math, accounting, whatever…you know, something that didn’t involve gazing into their own navels.

My youngest sister did a minor in Womens Studies at Duke as an undergrad, and she took a class all my other female Duke friends took: some intro to gender studies class, where one assignment was to do something that broke a gender norm.

My sister thought it was ground-breaking to go buy condoms.

(I did not need a class to learn how to buy condoms. Jeez)

Other choices: get fitted for a tux, and the one I found funniest was the woman who claimed to have climaxed while on top, dismounted, and then fell asleep (you didn’t actually have to prove you did any of this stuff, after all…but still…. I mean… that’s somewhat rude.)

There is a happy ending to the story. My youngest sister went on to medical school and is now a practicing pediatrician. Of course, my middle sister and I never had empowerment classes, but we’ll be just fine as an accountant and an actuary.
Bob Belvedere
August 17th, 2014 @ 7:22 pm

THIS.

Bravo.
meepbobeep
August 17th, 2014 @ 7:23 pm

I had an experience with someone who I felt was pretending to be bisexual.

I noticed the chicks kept calling, but she never returned their calls. But she was getting plenty of attention from men, and she reciprocated that.

Mmmhhmmm.

I got annoyed, because this person claimed I was not passing on messages from the chicks. If I happened to hear her say that, I would contradict her, LOUDLY. Anyway, she stopped pretending to be bi once we left college.