Young Feminist Has Problems

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Erin McKelle Fischer (@ErinMcKelle) is a Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies major at Ohio University whose name I recognized because in February I quoted her denunciation of “heteronormative” virginity:

“The idea of your first penis-in-vagina sexual encounter being something significant and life altering (well, for women anyway) has origins in women being considered property.
“That is to say, virginity is a social construction that came about because of the commodification of women. . . .
“Virginity is heteronormative.
“Virginity assumes that penis-in-vagina sex is somehow a special type of sex that is different from all others.
“This means that there is an assumption that engaging in heterosexual vaginal sex is the standard (and should be) for your sexual activities.
“Heterosexuality is the norm, and virginity just works as reinforcement to this.”

So I was already familiar with Ms. Fischer’s name before I encountered her column today at Everyday Feminism about “the very real struggles that young feminists face,” e.g.:

A lot of it comes down to there not being a whole lot of opportunities for young people to get paid for their work. If more paid internships and fellowships, programming, and feminist-based work designed for young people existed . . . this could help bridge the age gap.

In other words, Feminism, Inc., doesn’t have enough job openings for all the Women’s Studies majors who would like to become full-time professional Marxist lesbian man-haters, but Ms. Fischer declares our belief that feminists hate men to be a “stereotype”:

Unfortunately, because of common stereotypes about feminism, many people think feminists are all just angry people, man-haters, or “killjoys.”

Excuse me, Ms. Fischer, for logically inferring that a woman who expresses hostility toward “penis-in-vagina sex” and the “norm” of heterosexuality might be hostile toward men in general. Also, Ms. Fischer, have your Ohio University professors taught you that your historical analysis — “women being considered property . . . the commodification of women” — is derived from Marx and Engels? If you haven’t yet read Engels’ Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, you should, so that you understand that those who teach you this stuff are just repeating the errors of 19th-century radicalism. The idea of “traditional sexual relations” as “oppressive and humiliating” to women, of “the woman . . . being humiliated by the domination of the man,” and monogamy as a male imposition required by “economic development” — it’s all right there in Engels. The fact that tens of millions of people were killed on behalf of the insane Marxist vision . . . Well, I don’t suppose they teach that history at Ohio University, do they?

In her column, Ms. Fischer describes her own feminist journey:

I discovered feminism first when I was 15 and read Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism. . . .
My stepmom found out about a program taking place through my local rape crisis center that was geared towards developing youth activists and educators. We would be learning about sexual violence, as well as doing projects out in our communities that we would be compensated for. . . .
This changed my life.
This was what brought me back to feminism, as I would check out hooks, Lorde, and MacKinnon out from their resource library, not to mention learning about gender-based violence, oppression, and privilege. It inspired me and my mentors encouraged me to take action and do more.

Permit me to say that any high-school kid who reads radical feminists like bell hooks, Audre Lorde and Catharine MacKinnon is likely to suffer permanent brain-warp. It’s like Nietzsche. I have long been of the opinion that no one should read Nietzsche until they’re old enough to realize that the syphilitic weirdo was a dangerous madman. Maybe by the time you’re 35, and have a full-time job, kids and a mortgage, you can read Nietzsche without suffering permanent brain-warp. Still, his books should come with a warning label: THIS NOTORIOUS GERMAN LUNATIC DIED OF BRAIN SYPHILIS.

But I digress . . .

In February, Ohio University’s Women, Gender and Sexuality program hosted a conference at which were presented such papers as “Using the Lesbian Gothic to Combat the Male Gaze in Film and Literature” (Alane Presswood), “Is Your Vampire Boyfriend Abusing You?: The Twilight Saga and Perceptions of Intimate Partner Abuse” (Kelly Choyke) and “Bridging the Paradox: SlutWalk, Culture, and the Quest for Identity” (Jennifer Seifert). Erin McKelle Fischer also contributed a conference paper entitled, “‘Am I Pretty Or Ugly?’: Why Online Harassment is the New Sexism.” While I can’t find Ms. Fischer’s paper onlline, the title refers to a much-discussed YouTube video genre in which teenage girls invite criticism of their looks. Ms. Fischer is very much an activist against “lookism”:

Why are “Fatphobia” and “Fat-Shaming” feminist issues? Maybe for the same reason the federal government spent $2.2 million for research on why lesbians are obese. And now, Erin McKelle Fischer presents, “5 Ways to Have a Body Positive Summer”:

 

112 comments

  1. Dang, Stacy! Can we get a content warning the next time you want to include a video like that? Some of us were planning on eating in the next month or so.

  3. JEEBUS H. CHRIST!! Usually Stacy, you put the gross photos/videos at the top of your posts, but you fucking sandbagged us!!! DAMN, that was just… BAD…..

  4. Monogamy is the foundation for every bit of equality women now have.

    She complains about women being property and then slams monogamy? What a hapless idiot.

  5. Colleges will give out degrees to folks in fields that have no corresponding jobs?? That IS outrageous, angry zaftig gal!! Feminist organizations SHOULD create a job with a living wage for every angry wyminz studiez graduate. Because “mail gaze” — or is it “male gays”?

  6. Reading hair-on-fire liberal crap like this makes me thankful that our South Carolina Legislature shuttered the entire gender studies department at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

  7. Sorry to be the propagator of further feminist stereotypes, but they all appear to be unattractive and large (fat and ugly, if you like). I think I’m onto something…

  8. Apparently you haven’t seen the chick from “Girls”!! I’ve been breathlessly told by all media that she’s the most attractive, loveliest being since Betty Friedan.

  9. This girl’s stepmother assisted her in getting involved with feminism when she was in her teens?!?
    Why not just introduce the kid to meth instead?

    Anyone who has children about to enter college should listen to Andrew Breitbart’s talk about his experience with Cultural Marxism when he was at college. I played that for my daughter when she was applying to colleges in 2010- 2011 and it really helped me communicate my point of view about the pernicious influence of Cultural Marxism in academia. Luckily she’s an engineering major so there’s a minimum of CM influence in STEM related classes.

    I can’t find the link to that video right now, I think it may have been a Heritage Foundation talk although Andrew did talk about CM frequently … damn I miss that guy.

  10. So, Nietzsche died of syphilis, and that means that every single thing he wrote is the consequence of syphilis. Who could argue with that? That’s some deductive reasoning you have there!

    And you guys practically worship Ayn Rand, which is just watered down, regurgitated Nietzsche. I mean who is John Galt, but Nietzsche’s “Ubermensch”? I think the reason you really don’t like him is because he goes at takes apart Christianity like no other.

  11. Some of them, but there’s fat, and ugly women from every walk of life. Jessica Valenti, and a lot of those gals over at Jezebel are quite attractive.

  13. “Virginity is heteronormative.

    “Virginity assumes that penis-in-vagina sex is somehow a special type of sex that is different from all others.

    “This means that there is an assumption that engaging in heterosexual
    vaginal sex is the standard (and should be) for your sexual activities.

    —

    Man will she be surprised when she finds where babies come from!

  14. No, actually they shouldn’t listen to Andrew Breibart about anything, and his death at 42 should be a lesson in moderating your drinking, and cocaine use.

    Gawker did a wonderful obit on Andy, and took apart his hate of “cultural studies” while at Tulane:

    So far, Breitbart’s story lacks an essential tragedy, the sense of loss that conservatism mourns. Horatio Alger never wrote the story of a well-heeled Californian nearly failing out of his American Studies program because he tried to drink the Southern Comfort equivalent of Lake Ponchartrain. And so like Rick Santorum, who transformed the dull meathead reality of his Penn State days into an epic, dark struggle against the oppressive forces of cultural studies, Tulane provided Breitbart a key thing: An excuse to break from the vague liberalism of his youth. His later accounts of the fateful moment of realization varied; historians will determine whether it was indeed during a concert by The Cure at the Hollywood Bowl, or while watching the public grilling on C-SPAN of a “dignified” Clarence Thomas, America’s pube-bequeather.

    What is beyond question is the critical role his Tulane professors played in crafting “Breitbart: Bubba Avenger.” Their attempts at “brainwashing” had, instead, created a fighter. Repudiating liberal indoctrination by failing to meet even the shabby standards of the apparently predictable and sclerotic left is a familiar hero’s journey for the right. Breitbart slouched, eked out a pathetic GPA as an American Studies major, then tried to exonerate his failure via a baseless indictment of “Marxist” scholarship: He didn’t fare poorly because of innate failures but because he rejected the school’s terms. (“Dude, I woulda done waaay better on the SATs, but I took ’em drunk, because fuck that.”)

    http://gawker.com/5890660/andrew-breitbart-big-deal-big-coronary-big-corpse

  16. Do a quick search on “lena dunham beautiful glamorous”. Gently weep over the 1.3 million results.

  17. One could argue that a good deal of the half naked tools of FEMEN are not unattractive, but boy they all sure are ugly.

  21. The stupidity of her viewpoint lies in the fact that if we all lived by RadFem ideals the human race would go extinct. The ad absurdum in that reductio is rather telling.

  24. The stepmother is one half the duo subsidizing this youngster’s wasted years at Ohio University.
    —
    Memo to Mr. Derbyshire and other dabblers in genetics and tests-and-measurements psychology: upbringing matters.

  25. You mad, bro? Breitbart owned you over and over again. It was glorious. It’s being carried on just like he wanted.

  27. Wow. You don’t even have the intellectual wherewithal to post an original comment, just cut & paste from Gawker.
    Film studies major?

    Indoctrination + regurgitation =/= education.

  28. She looks like she might be the love child of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Bill (or Hillary) Clinton.

  30. Oh, I must be a moron because I quoted from an article that made Breitbart sound like a goofball. You’re upset because it makes you feel like an idiot for taking such a putz seriously.

  31. Yeah, sure, he was quite a visionary. he managed to dumb down every single person who took him seriously, and avoid facts all costs. When the lawsuits are finished his wife, and children will be destitute, and hitting up Ben Shapiro, and Joel Pollack for money.

  33. There’s an ad hominem, but I don’t think it’s too much of stretch to think drugs, and alcohol played a part in a 42 year old man dropping dead of a coronary, especially when you look at one his finer moments outside the RNC where he’s practically falling down drunk, and yelling at protesters to stop raping people. Yeah, he’ll be missed. A real class act!

  34. And, no, bro, he owned you. You’re the one who was dumb enough to buy into his bullshit, and actually call him a visionary!

  35. And yeah, I’m “indoctrinated” by Gawker! LOL! Any other sloppy meme’s you want to toss my way? Look, doofus, Im just street smart, and know a charlatan when I see one. That’s also why you’re love for Sarah Palin has always struck me as ridiculous.

  41. She was raped as a child? Seems to be a very common thread among feminists. No wonder they rail against “PIV”. When you’re a nail, everything looks like a hammer.

  45. Hey, I wanted to get a degree in reading comic books for a living. You’d be amazed how many jobs there aren’t in that field.

    So I did other things. Just a suggestion.

  49. It’s amazing how many of these people are damaged by sexual abuse. It should wake them up to the fact that sex is serious business – not a hobby.

    You’d think they’d be all for strict behavior codes, but no. They want MORE sexual chaos.

  50. Of course: I write 800 words about feminism, make a quick wisecrack about Nietzsche and — boom! — the Nietzsche Fan Club shows up to hate on me.

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