Fear and Loathing: An Oberlin Feminist on Men, Republicans and Heterosexuality

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“I hope men realize that we (women) actually fear for our safety every time we walk by you on the street.”
— Kaela Elias, Aug. 4

“when i was younger, i thought i was straight because society makes you think that. it’s sad.”
— Kaela Elias, Aug. 9

“. . . luckily i have parents who accept me for whatever i am and i live in berkeley and have plenty of friends who aren’t straight so it’s not that big of a deal. but sexuality is something that changes a lot, so i guess i’ve accepted that it’ll keep changing as i get older and it’ll never stop being confusing.”
— Kaela Elias, Sept. 19

“So many cishet white boys make misogynistic comments around me purposefully because they know I’ll react, but don’t worry everyone!! It’s okay because it’s just a joke 🙂 saying offensive things to a girl that make her uncomfortable is A+ humor, 10/10.”
— Kaela Elias, Nov. 18

“I recently learned that the guy who lives next to me and literally never even makes eye contact with me is a REPUBLICAN. I am scared.”
— Kaela Elias, Dec. 14

Kaela Elias attends Oberlin College (annual tuition $50,586) and describes herself on Tumblr as “a queer introverted feminist” whose “blog is a space for me to unapologetically love myself.” Being from Berkeley, California, where so many of her friends “aren’t straight” and her parents are “accepting” of her “confusing” sexuality, Kaela’s feminism is inspired by her “fear” of males, especially “cishet” males. As incredible as this may seem, some male students at Oberlin College are actually Republican, so she’s “scared.” Feminist Tumblr is full of frightened young women like Kaela Elias, and we must ask whether:

A. Tumblr is an effect, and this easy-to-use blogging platform more or less accidentally became popular with a certain type of feminist;
or
B. Tumblr is a cause, and this hive of LGBT activism actually facilitates the adolescent sexual confusion that so often accompanies the self-described “feminist” identity.

There is a certain type of brainy, socially awkward girl, of which Kaela Elias is an excellent example, whose tendency to overthink everything makes them vulnerable to the kind of “bisexuality” she describes as “confusing.” While I don’t want to play amateur psychoanalyst here, anyone who has read my series of posts about Feminist Tumblr knows how often the same set of factors overlap.

What we might call Feminist Tumblr Syndrome is manifested by a cluster of symptoms that typically include depression and/or anxiety, an inability to form stable romantic relationships, an irrational fear or hostility toward males, and the expression of a non-heterosexual orientation as a basis of personal and/or political identity.

Excessive involvement in online social media, to the detriment of real-life interaction with people, can be seen as both cause and effect of Feminist Tumblr Syndrome. The more she isolates herself alone in her room with her laptop, the more she identifies with the like-minded feminists she encounters online, and the less she is able to relate to ordinary people around her, especially heterosexual males, who are constantly the object of scornful denunciation on Feminist Tumblr.

Kaela Elias uses “bossy-feminist” as her Tumblr URL and calls her blog “Professional Killjoy.” Here is what she wrote in answer to someone who asked her if she “hates” men:

I hate male entitlement; I hate the things men are expected to do and think; I hate how much space men take up and that they don’t even realize it; I hate the way men oppress others and create violence and the fact that it’s often unintentional; I hate that I often don’t feel safe around men but still feel pressure to seek their approval.

So, she doesn’t “hate” men, she just hates everything they do or say. She hates men for being so . . . well, masculine, basically.

Men “oppress others and create violence” — even at an elite liberal arts school like Oberlin College, where Kaela Elias encounters “cishet white boys” who say “offensive things to a girl that make her uncomfortable.”

Kaela Elias is “scared” of the Republican guy who “literally never even makes eye contact with me,” but can you imagine the terror she would experience if he did make eye contact? My hunch is that the Republican guy never makes eye contact with any female student at Oberlin because he knows they’re all paranoid feminists who would accuse him of “objectification” and “harassment” if he ever so much as looked at them. (Smart boys avoid unnecessary interaction with women who exhibit an attitude of hostile suspicion, as crazy feminists usually do.)

Is feminism a political movement or a personality disorder? Feminist Tumblr is an environment where it is impossible to draw an clear line between ideology and mental illness. Kaela Elias’ parents in California are rich enough to send her to a private college in Ohio where tuition is $50,586 a year, yet she has a weird fixation with “oppression”:

friendly reminder that it’s not the job of an oppressed person to educate someone who’s privileged. if someone who’s oppressed feels comfortable to inform a privileged person about that system of oppression, the privilege person should be eternally grateful and also not expect the oppressed person to be 100% polite. systems of oppression are literal shit, and if the privileged person did something to perpetuate that system, they shouldn’t expect the oppressed person to calmly sit down with them and explain way they’re offended. It’s not their job, and if they are kind enough to do that, the privileged person should be thankful rather than defensive.

But wait! There’s more:

Privileged people need to stop criticizing the way marginalized people react to their oppression. If you’re an oppressor, it is never your job to criticize the way others react to oppression that you perpetuate.

What inspired these particular bursts of jargon? She doesn’t say. She also doesn’t say what made her choose to attend Oberlin, rather than staying home to attend UC-Berkeley, where in-state tuition is only $13,432 a year. When you’re spending Daddy’s money, the sky’s the limit, so Kaela Elias locks herself away in her dorm at Oberlin, scared of that Republican guy next door, blogging about how “privileged” people should never criticize “marginalized” people about their “oppression.”

Perhaps you have noticed something about Kaela Elias:

people telling me I’m looking for a reason to be angry is ridiculous considering how many things in the world are worth being furious about. If you’re not mad, you’re not thinking critically. anger and productivity go together, and frustration makes me passionate, which motivates me to combat injustice. why is anger negative? anger is necessary. anger is a justified response to oppression.

Men have a problem with Kaela Elias:

I’m done trying to reassure men that the feminist movement benefits them. It absolutely does help men, but if the only reason you support a movement is because it directly affects you, then we have a problem.

Kaela Elias has a problem with men:

I have such low expectations for men, but 90% of them still don’t meet them

Men get defensive with a feminist like Kaela Elias:

if a woman expresses her opinion about the patriarchy, men freak the fuck out and get incredibly defensive, yet women are the ones who supposedly overreact about everything?

Other feminists need political advice from Kaela Elias:

Regardless of how problematic Hillary’s policies are, she’s a CONSIDERABLY better candidate than any republican running. If you think you’re protesting her policies by not voting or by voting for an obscure third party candidate, understand that you’re just making it more likely for us to have a republican president.

Despite her willingness to publish her angry rants on Tumblr for all the world to see, Kaela Elias is shy and awkward:

i want to get to know so many people but i’m too shy to talk to them

Again:

so many people to meet at my school, why must i be so shy?

And again:

i hate being shy. i hate feeling awkward or not knowing what to say because then people think i’m boring, but in reality there’s a lot going on in my head i just choose not to share it. i’m usually quiet around people whose opinions i care about and loud around people whose opinions don’t matter to me. so people who i don’t particularly like tend to like me, while people i like don’t always like me. it’s a constant cycle i wish i could stop.

Tempting as it is to recommend Wild Turkey and cocaine — a miracle cure, according to the famed expert Dr. Hunter S. Thompson — I’m not sure Kaela Elias could handle such strong medicine. Who knows how an introverted queer feminist would react to the gonzo treatment? Case studies indicate the effects can be unpredictable.

As I recall, back in the ’70s, a college girl with a steady supply of Daddy’s money could get herself into all kinds of trouble while trying to overcome her shyness. That was before the Internet, however, and now all the shy girls are on Tumblr ranting about “oppression” instead of partying with rock-and-roll outlaws. But I digress . . .

Feminist Tumblr is narcissism masquerading as political activism. Ranting inside an echo chamber about “cishet white boys” doesn’t persuade anyone or accomplish anything in terms of ending the “oppression” under which Kaela Elias imagines she is suffering. Rather than admit that she is the problem — she is privileged, not oppressed, and her shyness and insecurities are the real source of her own unhappiness — instead she uses politics as a rationalization, a defense mechanism that protects her damaged ego by externalizing blame. Her unhappiness is not her fault. She blames “society” for making her think she was heterosexual when she was younger and blames men for the irrational fear she feels toward them, even while she feels “pressure to seek their approval.”

Because she can never accept responsibility for her own problems, Kaela Elias needs a scapegoat and feminist ideology offers her “the patriarchy,” a “system of oppression” of which she may imagine herself a victim. Never mind all those poor people who can’t afford $50,586 a year to attend Oberlin — none of them are oppressed the way Kaela Elias is. They are “not thinking critically” like her. They are not full of the “frustration” that makes Kaela Elias “passionate . . . to combat injustice.”

And as for men, she has “low expectations” for them that 90% are unable to meet. Who could blame Kaela Elias for hating men, considering how they “oppress others and create violence”? In fact, she may considers it violent oppression for me to quote her blog. I just hope she doesn’t “freak the fuck out and get incredibly defensive.”

Merry Christmas, Kaela Elias.




 

217 comments

  1. If I am an oppressor, it most certainly is my job to criticize the way others react to oppression that I perpetuate, as well as to defeat any attempts to end my powers of oppression.

  2. Well, unless daddy, the white cisheteronormative patriarch of the family, is productive and wealthy enough to leave her an inheritance sufficient to keep her in the style to which she has become accustomed for the rest of her life, she’ll eventually be joining the struggles of the working class . . . or marrying that eye-contact avoiding Republican!

  3. Who are you, anonymous account come here to slander us all, to lecture us about attacks? You prove the old adage that when a Leftist talks about ‘discussion’, they really mean ‘lecture you about how great they are and how terrible you are’.

    You can take your whiny diatribe and shove it right back up your fourth point of contact where it came from, idiot leftist troll.

  5. F.F,
    Please quit holding back, Just tell us how you really feel about the individuals lack of civility and couth, I know you were holding back being a MR Nice guy today, eh!
    Paul

  7. “Men, through heterosexuality, have constructed a system that generates all oppressions.” That’s amazing. And here I’ve been thinking (all my life) that heterosexuality had something to do with the procreation of our species.

  8. Heh, I decided they didn’t deserve any more than two paragraphs from me today. Times past, I would have gone on eviscerating them for four or five. If they have the balls to come back and post again, though, all bets are off.

  11. “The right side of history” is a necessary shorthand if you are a totalitarian. For one thing, it gives a bumper sticker slogan suited to mindlessly chanting at rallies. Or if you are a Harvard student it can be printed on a place mat to confound your less educated Neanderthal family members.

    For another it avoids explaining the true goal of statists. This may surprise you, but “We’re going to dispossess and enslave humanity… and then come the mass murders!” is a hard sell outside academia.

    Sadly, for most of history most of mankind has been chattel. Hegel was wrong, there is no inexorable historical force pushing towards justice. If we permit “history” to rule us, we go back to being serfs, slaves, and cannon fodder.

  12. I am disappointed, but hardly surprised, that my comment about the use of ad hominem attacks over substantial discussion was met by comments that were, by and large, ad hominem attacks. Some at Kaela, some at me, but ad hominem attacks nonetheless. Does it really seem inappropriate to no one to give out a woman’s name, picture, and school while at the same time calling her names and including little discussion of the actual ideas at play? If it does seem inappropriate, I beg you to say something, I’m afraid my status as a “liberal” has interfered with my ability to make my point.

    As far as the argument that this young woman sacrificed her right to privacy and opened herself up to criticism upon posting her ideas on the internet, I would ask this: Should a college student who posts views on issues such as feminism, homophobia, and racism, be met with hostile attacks on her mental health? If everyone on this comment thread is so interested in a discussion, and is so upset by the fact that I might “lecture and walk away,” then why does it seem that everyone is so interested in shutting Kaela down by attacking her instead of responding to her points? I agree, when she posts on the internet, her ideas become subject to criticism, but she does not. This type of behavior is what discourages people from listening to other points of view, not lines such as “wrong side of history.” Wrong side of history is simply a phrase that means if we’re going to teach history in schools, we should learn from it. It doesn’t stop discussion. What stops discussion, what closes minds, and what is dangerous to any form of progress, is when someone states a view on a topic and instead of being responded to with ideas, people challenge her history, lifestyle, and mental health.

    Feel free to call me a totalitarian, but I’m trying to move a discussion away from a young woman’s mental health and back towards the ideas and politics at play.

  13. Feel free to respond to my points right here on this comment thread, but I don’t feel like giving out any personal information right now. But like I said, if you’re looking to have a discussion it seems like you already know how to get back to me.

  15. I didn’t go beyond reading what RSM had posted. Is there a reason I should?

    I’m not the hard conservative that many here are. I’m not a conservative at all. But I’ve seen this behavior, stars above I’ve dealt with this behavior all too many times before. And not just from young feminists.

    Is she willing to discuss the ideas? Or is she too busy telling other people how the world should be?

    The truest test of character I know is how someone deals with dissent. I don’t believe she’s willing to accept that she might not have all the answers. I believe she’s not ready to believe that no one person, no one group has all the answers.

    So is she ready to face her fear? Or is she just another girl who blindly follows the worst feminist and progressive dogma out there?

  16. Setting aside the “personal” angle you’re trying to work- implying privacy- which does not exist as soon as someone voluntarily posts something on the internet…

    Is she a “young teenage girl” and therefore defenseless? Someone who all here would reflexively afford protection to regardless of gender/race/creed, etc …?

    [You might not have heard this, but a “RWNJ” (yes, probably armed) will be the first out of the gate to save your ass if the Shit ever gets Livid – out-of-the-blue like…]

    …Or is she an adult with the maturity of experience required to become a moral authority and then go on to lecture others on their shortcomings …?

  18. Why wouldn’t one believe that Kaela is willing to face dissent? The only way one would know is if one challenged her ideas, instead, she has been the target of online harassment. She seems to be a strong willed individual looking for a discussion about social issues. Telling people how the world should be is discussing the issues, telling other people how they should be is not. Kaela is discussing issues, and she is open to a discussion; in fact, I would bet she is looking for a discussion. Instead she got this sideshow of disgusting remarks about who she is as a person. I’ll repeat what I said earlier: we should apologize to Kaela and denounce this blogger and anyone who supports these ad hominem attacks. Then, a real discussion about substantive issues should ensue.

  19. The poor (lone?) Republican guy at Oberlin probably doesn’t make eye contact because he’s terrified that the wrong opinion innocently voiced to the wrong person will get him expelled or worse.

  20. So you’re telling me she’s the first radical feminist in the history of civilization that’s willing to have a rational conversation with others that have very different views than hers?

    That’s the funniest thing I’ve head this year. You and her have no intention of listening to anything that doesn’t fit into your radfem world. Just look how you came in here accusing everyone of all sorts of vileness. Yeah, you’re “willing to face dissent”.

    Babe, I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

  22. It is incredible to me that every time I emphasize the fact that nobody has been willing to accept the fact that this was an ad hominem attack and nothing more, I am met by ad hominem attacks and nothing more. I am telling you right now that I have every intention of listening, even if I disagree, after an apology has been made to Kaela for the disparaging remarks made towards her. Can anyone truly justify ignoring the content of what she said and instead attacking her person? This is the crux of my point, and every comment I have made has been met with attacks. Yes, I am willing to face dissent and I am doing so by posting this comment right now. Facing dissent is different from agreeing with every statement. I am hearing you and having a conversation. I am asking you to hear me when I say this article and the comments that followed were little more than personal attacks on a woman voicing her opinion. In the above comment you didn’t even give her a chance, as soon as you heard the words “radical feminist” you wrote her off as someone who wouldn’t be willing to have a conversation. How can anyone who stops listening at the words “radical feminism” be willing to have a conversation? Once more, I am totally open to conversation, after an apology has been issued to Kaela Elias.

  23. Until you’re willing to apologize for the insulting tone that every single one of your comments here so far has contained, we’re going to give your drivel the exact amount of seriousness it deserves: zero.

    If I came onto your blog and started accusing you of things like you have to everyone here, you’d delete my comments and ban me before the next screen refresh. Furthermore, until you can distinguish between attacking her and attacking her lame notions, we’re not even talking the same language, so engagement with you is less than pointless.

  25. “Being harassed, although certainly threatening and painful, nonetheless still conveys that one exists and is worthy of some social attention and effort, even if this attention and effort is in a negative direction,” write the study authors. “Ostracism, on the other hand, signals that one is so inconsequential to others to be unworthy of attention and effort at all.”

  26. Once more, I am totally open to conversation, after an apology has been issued to Kaela Elias.

    Don’t be a piker.

    Hold out for an apology AND maintenance at the Prytaneum.

  27. The tone of my comments has been informed by the reproach with which I view the ideas at play in this blog. Namely, that it is ok to attack an individual’s person rather than her ideas in an attempt to score cheap political points. Yes, I will insult that idea from dusk till dawn. But I have taken great care to avoid attacking any of the authors or commenters personally.
    I don’t have a blog, but if I did, and somebody wanted to engage in a thoughtful discussion I would engage. I think that the tone of my comments, if understandably angry, has also been serious, and one committed to real discussion.
    Finally, the entire point of my comments is to distinguish between attacks on Kaela and attacks on her ideas. The article above attacks Kaela and not her ideas. Yes, that distinction is the crux of my point, and I suppose we agree that until we can distinguish between those two things any conversation will be pointless. I believe that because this article attacks Kaela rather than her ideas, it is pointless, and I am waiting for someone to apologize to her and start a thoughtful conversation about ideas.

  28. Sorry, you fail. You don’t get to be an ass because you think other people are being an ass.

    Words like ‘disgusting’ and phrases like ‘reprehensible reversals of basic human morals’ aren’t a personal attack? Furthermore, you’re lying to our faces: you said this in your first comment:

    “The authors here are reprehensible, the commenters who further attack this young woman’s mental state are reprehensible, and any reader who does not in some way fight back is reprehensible.”

    That’s the definition of an ad hominem attack. Until you’re ready to retract and apologize for that statement, just for starters, my statement stands: engaging with you is less than pointless.

  29. Words like “disgusting” and phrases like “reprehensible reversals of basic human morals” are not personal attacks when they are aimed at ideas instead of people. This statement: “The authors here are reprehensible, the commenters who further attack this young woman’s mental state are reprehensible, and any reader who does not in some way fight back is reprehensible.” is not the definition of an ad hominem attack because (in context) it pertains to the issues. It is reprehensible to attack a young woman voicing her opinion. It is reprehensible to say that she was clearly either raped or is cognitively disabled. It is reprehensible to give away her name, picture, and school. It is reprehensible to aim an attack at an individual rather than the ideas at play. Just because my language was impassioned, just because I challenged specific people about their ideas does not mean I am calling those people “asses” or attacking anything other than their ideas. I will not challenge anything other than ideas, and the idea that I am challenging here is that this article was appropriate. I am challenging the idea that this article spends more time talking about a young woman’s personal life than offering substantive discussion of any issue. And yes, I believe that anyone who supports this article needs to be challenged for supporting it. But that does not constitute an ad hominem attack and I will never apologize for challenging an idea.

  30. Now you’re changing the definitions of words to justify your own bad behavior.

    You are a bad actor and your posts are indistinguishable in any significant way from that of a troll.

  31. Without looking to any comments other than the ones that have been directed at me, I have been called a
    -piker
    -fascist
    -totalitarian
    -neanderthal
    -coward
    -idiot leftist troll
    And I was told to “get the f^ck out,” because, “having a pickle up the arse isn’t everybody’s cup of tea”

    Kaela has been called, and accused, of much worse.

    I’m not changing any definitions. There is a clear line between telling people they should change their ideas and behavior and name calling. One is the definition of a discussion, the other is the definition of an ad hominem attack. I understand that my tone upset you, but I am vehement in my beliefs and will not back down. My comments are a plea for us to direct this conversation away from attacks on individual lifestyles and towards a substantive discussion of issues.

  32. “What is to be gained by attacking a 19-year old activist rather than the ideas at play?”

    “The personal is the political.”
    — Carol Hanisch

    “Women are an oppressed class. … We regard our personal experience, and our feelings about that experience, as the basis for an analysis of our common situation.”
    — Redstockings, 1969

    Feminists make the details of their “personal experience” the basis of their political ideology. The critic of feminist ideology is then expected to ignore these details — that is to say, the facts asserted as evidence in support of feminist arguments — lest he be accused of “personal attack.” As double-standards go, this is rather clever, and most gentlemen fear they will seem rude if they call attention to it, but at what point does civility become appeasement? Exactly how much bullying are gentlemen supposed to tolerate from these enlightened young progressive women before some adult in the room stands up and says, “enough”? Feminists are totalitarians, and those of us who cherish our liberty cannot be expected to treat totalitarians as if they were civilized human beings.

  33. If I can’t call what the Islamic warrior/ murderers are doing a “jihad”, then ok, I’ll call it a “crusade”, even if it’s the opposite of one of those.

  34. Why wouldn’t one believe that Kaela is willing to face dissent?

    Because she’s hiding.

    …she has been the target of online harassment.

    She’s been the target of online criticism not online harassment. Part of a growing up is learning that the two aren’t the same, and that criticism can offer opportunities.

    The ideas she’s spouting are not a Greater Revealed Truth™ on just her say-so. It’s up to her and others who follow those ideas to show how to make the world better.

    In case you think I’m biased, I regularly tell certain Christians here the same thing when they try to tell me their ideas will save the world.

  38. Yeah! Who the hell does she think she is, telling her oppressors what to do?

    That ain’t the way oppression works, sweetheart!

  39. There is a clear line between telling people they should change their ideas and behavior and name calling.

    No, not always.

    You started a row in the comments and then made facetious demands for an apology as a condition for your continued unsolicited-but-still-enthusiastic-and-evidently-not-yet-unwelcome participation. It was an idle threat and a poor wager. Don’t threaten to leave (perish!) when its clear you have some motivation to be here, some sleen to vent.

    All I’m sayin is, as long you’re asking for stuff you won’t get, shoot the moon. Next time, demand a pony.

    Chicks love ponies.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/ugkvqq440xjowch/File%20Dec%2019%2C%209%2016%2052%20AM.gif?dl=0

  40. Aww. Poor Special Snowflake came into the kitchen and can’t take the heat. For the record, I would expect as a matter of course to be called all those things and worse if I posted dissenting opinions on dKos or any other hard Left site, no matter how polite I was.

    Again, like a collectivist, you conflate the blog author and the commenters here. If you want to argue about the content of the blog itself, go respond to robertstacymccain, since he’s replied to you. Otherwise, we are all individuals and I’m not going to take responsibility for the comments of NeoWayland or Evan3457 or Steve Skubinna or Fail Burton or Quartermaster or Hodor or Sparafucile or DeadMessenger or RKae or mole or Daniel Freeman any more than I would expect any of them to take any responsibility whatsoever for any comments of mine. (No offense intended to anyone I didn’t list.) Take it up with them on an individual basis if you don’t want to just be ignored or mocked.

    But then again I’ve shown that you are a liar so I don’t expect anything resembling honesty or good faith out of you.

  49. I’m sorry but in three to five years, you will have no privacy at all, down to your bank statements. So get yourself right.

  50. I agree, when she posts on the internet, her ideas become subject to criticism, but she does not.

    Oh eff you, there are people that would eagerly disemploy me if they could. I didn’t make these rules but I have to play by them, so you can’t say that she’s immune when I’m not.

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