The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Feminist Tumblr: Having Babies Is ‘One of the Most Selfish Things’ People Can Do

Posted on | January 15, 2016 | 84 Comments

Deep thoughts from a bisexual radical feminist in the Midwest:

I’ve believed for a long time that purposely choosing to have biological children is one of the most selfish things a person could ever do. It IS selfish to create another human because you want it. It’s also foolish when parents convince themselves that they’re doing good for the world by procreating. Maybe your kid will cure cancer, but in all likelihood they won’t change the world in all that big of a way. I just hate when people pretend that having a baby isn’t selfish, that it’s for the good of humanity. Own up to it! You want a human for you. It’s selfish, and it’s also fine. I say this as someone who is seriously considering trying to have kids someday, too. I wish people were more reflective and honest.

Where to begin analyzing this? If I were a psychiatrist, I’d start by getting the patient to narrate the basic facts of her own life: How many brothers and sisters do you have? Are your parents married? How old were you when you realized you were bisexual? How many sexual partners have you had? What’s the longest romantic relationship you have been in? Whenever you encounter a person with strange beliefs, you see, there must be an explanation somewhere in her past. Crazy people — and that’s most feminists are, really — don’t become crazy for no reason. Even if you subscribe to the “neurochemical imbalance” theory of mental illness, not every woman with a personality disorder is a radical feminist bisexual spewing irrational nonsense on the Internet. No, there must be an etiology of this particular case of Feminist Tumblr Syndrome:

Growing up “gifted”, exceeding in academically, and originally getting into Ivy League schools honestly f–ked me up. Now as a person with multiple disabilities who is a family disappointment for going to an average small liberal arts college, I spend every minute feeling intense shame. My adult life has been a gradual descent into a less and less able person, and I don’t know how to cope with it. Even though I (unknowingly) had PTSD, dyslexia, and epilepsy my whole life, it didn’t hold me back academically. I never learned how to study, how to cope with grades below an A, how to manage my time well, how to fail even if I worked hard.
Seriously, never build the core of your identity around being “gifted” or smart or academically capable or whatever. It could all be taken away from you and you’ll feel so f–king lost. Same goes for kids. Don’t hold them to such impossibly high standards that you leave them no room for anything but perfect performance.

Oh, that explains a lot, doesn’t it? I was “gifted” as a child, but I was always an underachiever and a troublemaker who just barely graduated high school and only went to college because my father insisted on it. My personal war against the public education system began in fifth grade, really, and a lifelong antipathy toward bureaucracy probably explains my libertarian tendencies, whereas my conservatism could perhaps be seen as reflecting a belated appreciation for my father’s better qualities. Dad was a New Deal Democrat and proud member of the Machinists union who used to argue politics with me after I turned Republican in my mid-30s, although he was nonetheless gratified by his underachiever son’s success as a journalist. But I digress . . .

We may surmise that the bisexual radical feminist’s animosity toward parenthood in general (“one of the most selfish things a person could ever do”) reflects her resentment of her own parents whose “impossibly high standards” she blames for her feelings of “intense shame” as being the “family disappointment.” And who am I, an underachiever journalist playing amateur psychiatrist on my blog, to argue with her criticism of her parents? Honestly, I agree with her point about parents who push, push, push their “gifted” child onto the academic fast-track where acceptance to an Ivy League school is the expected outcome.

The obvious problem with pushing a child toward success is that they may fail to develop an inner drive for excellence. This wasn’t my problem as an underachiever. I had plenty of drive, but the public-school bureaucracy did not recognize or reward my idiosyncratic aptitudes. In fact, I was a target for frequent punishment for failing to conform to the “one-size-fits-all” structure of public education.

Schools are run by teachers, all of whom liked school when they were kids, and schools are organized for the kind of kids who also like school and will probably grow up to become teachers themselves. The quiet, obedient, do-exactly-what-the-teacher-says type of child — which is to say, a natural-born bureaucrat — is always the Teacher’s Pet, while the creative, energetic rebel is the Problem Child. Thus it was that I learned by heart the Three Rules of Public School:

  1. Sit down;
  2. Shut up;
    and
  3. Do your work.

“Excuse me, Ms. Flood, but isn’t this ‘work’ supposed to be teaching me something? If I’m already reading at a college level, why is it necessary that I do these tedious worksheets about matching subjects with verbs and pronouns with antecedents?”

Asking such questions is “disruptive,” and punishment was by paddling in those days. Up to the chalkboard, bend over to grab the rail, and — no flinching — whap! whap! whap! whap! whap!

Trust me, no feminist ever wanted to “smash patriarchy” as much as I want to smash the public school system, which I consider a greater menace to American liberty than ISIS. If you ever want to hear me rant for 45 minutes, just ask my opinion of what’s wrong with public education — everything, basically, but I can give a detailed accounting of the system’s errors which are numerous, pervasive, and beyond hope of reform. The only way to “fix” the problem is to ABOLISH THE ENTIRE GODDAMNED SYSTEM! But I digress . . .

“The personal is political,” as radical feminist Carol Hanisch famously said, but why do women’s pet peeves qualify as a progressive political movement, whereas progressives don’t care about my pet peeves with public schools or your pet peeves with whatever pisses you off? People have been grumbling and complaining about their problems since the dawn of time, but for some reason the grumbling and complaining of women is a special case. And this bisexual radical feminist Tumblr blogger is a very special case, indeed. Take a look at some of the problems she describes under her “personal” tag. Playing amateur psychiatrist again, I’m tempted to conclude either:

A. Her medical issues are largely psychosomatic in origin;
or
B. Both her medical issues and her psychological problems are symptomatic of overall poor health.

Is she getting enough sleep? What is she eating? Does she get enough sunshine and vigorous exercise? Has she consulted an endocrinologist? You have to suspect she has some serious underlying problem to explain all the things wrong with her. (Seriously, she has a lot of problems.) The only alternative is that she is cursed or possessed by demons, supernatural possibilities that Educated 21st-Century Americans are supposed to rule out as absurd, but after you read enough Feminist Tumblr blogs, it’s tempting to wonder if Beelzebub is ultimately to blame. A girl starts messing around with a Ouija board or tarot cards when she’s a kid and then — boom! — Satan grabs her, body and soul.

Now she’s on Tumblr, telling everybody way too much about her sex life and her gynecological problems and — oh, by the way — her first boyfriend was a rapist and a sociopath:

“I was with my first serious boyfriend for two years, age 14-16, and during that time we made a lot of art together and wrote notes that we passed off at school. I had hundreds of these notes from him. He was manipulative and abusive. He raped me. He was (is) a sociopath. When I was 18, confronting my PTSD, and put on antidepressants that were making me really unstable, I tossed out all of his notes and the art we made together. I regret this. I wanted to simplify the relationship. I didn’t want the good memories around; I didn’t want to fool myself. He was a huge part of my life and those years are still a part of who I am. Even though he is a piece of s–t and I have no interest in ever reconnecting, I really wish I didn’t try to erase him entirely. It just seemed easier to paint the relationship as all bad and try to forget it. I want to get over this regret I feel for throwing all those things away. So many years have passed and I’m still sad about it.”

And there’s this:

“I attended and helped organize Chicago’s first Slut Walk.”

This proves she is a Minion of Evil. And also crazy as hell.

 

Category: Sex Trouble

Comments

84 Responses to “Feminist Tumblr: Having Babies Is ‘One of the Most Selfish Things’ People Can Do”

  1. Fail Burton
    January 16th, 2016 @ 6:18 pm

    Notice how these feminists in fact build their core identity around the opposite: ideological excuses for their own personal failures. They get to blame it all on the “privilege” of others.

  2. Quartermaster
    January 16th, 2016 @ 7:37 pm

    For some of us that’s a tall order.

  3. Quartermaster
    January 16th, 2016 @ 7:44 pm

    And, I did laugh at that when I first saw one. Since most STEM majors (if not all) require at least one programming course, the “get” is pretty widespread among that ilk.

  4. Quartermaster
    January 16th, 2016 @ 7:45 pm

    There’s far more than a grain of truth in that too.

  5. Valerie Stewart
    January 16th, 2016 @ 9:03 pm

    Sometimes, it astounds me how those radfems can write contradictory concepts in the same sentence and not notice, let alone throughout their entire blog or philosophy.

    But then again, they’re so (perpetually) upset about life not going their way that they can’t/won’t pay attention.

  6. Quartermaster
    January 16th, 2016 @ 9:24 pm

    They were never educated, so they have no ability to think critically.

  7. concern00
    January 17th, 2016 @ 1:55 am

    It is important to realize that we all tend to act generally along selfish lines. Pure altruism simply doesn’t exist. There is a reason that we have a ‘personal (selfish) desire’ to have children and ironically it’s not selfish, it is biological. We have an imperative to reproduce.

  8. concern00
    January 17th, 2016 @ 1:56 am

    In a lot of instances, their ugliness is not external; it is manifested internally.

  9. Daniel Freeman
    January 17th, 2016 @ 3:17 am

    I agree with DeadMessenger. See Mindset by Dweck. She clearly has a set mindset instead of a growth mindset.

  10. DeadMessenger
    January 17th, 2016 @ 7:02 am

    I did the same thing! My public skools were more than happy to unload me onto FIT, on account of I was a pain in the a$$ wiseacre, and in my state, when you went on early admission, you didn’t have to pay a cent. My college courses counted for both high school and college.

    Later, I hooked my daughter up with the same kinda early admission and it didn’t cost us anything. Sweet!

  11. DeadMessenger
    January 17th, 2016 @ 7:04 am

    I notice though how all of them were more privileged than me. So, you know, screw them.

  12. DeadMessenger
    January 17th, 2016 @ 7:09 am

    Satan’s sister, I figure.

    Speaking of which, I used to work for her, but then she laid me off last month for no damn good reason, except being related to Beelzebub and all. So don’t expect me to hit the tip jar anytime soon until I can find some other sucker to hire me.

  13. Rebeccalspaulding1
    January 17th, 2016 @ 7:12 am

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  14. DeadMessenger
    January 17th, 2016 @ 7:14 am

    Maybe not. Maybe it’s Hulkess. With her children, the Hulklings. I think Michelle Obama might be of the class Hulk. Hard to tell without further study. I bet I could turn this discussion into a PhD dissertation.

  15. From Around the Blogroll | The First Street Journal.
    January 17th, 2016 @ 8:23 am

    […] Stacey Stacy McCain on The Other McCain: Feminist Tumblr: Having Babies Is ‘One of the Most Selfish Things’ People Can Do and Rave Review for ’13 […]

  16. RKae
    January 17th, 2016 @ 8:28 am

    I’ve believed for a long time that purposely aborting children is one of the most selfish things a person could ever do. It IS selfish to destroy another human because you want aimless sex. It’s also foolish when parents convince themselves that they’re doing good for the world by slaughtering their offspring. I just hate when people pretend that having an abortion isn’t selfish, that it’s for the good of humanity. Own up to it!

    I took out this sentence just to deal with it on its own: Maybe your kid will cure cancer, but in all likelihood they won’t change the world in all that big of a way.

    Why must people “change the world” to justify their existence? Why don’t people have the right to just live? I happen to have great respect for “boring” people; the people who do their bit without stomping on others and who aren’t crushed on the day they discover that, no, they are not going to be rock stars.

    It’s like when you talk about handicapped people having a right to live and someone brings up Stephen Hawking. “Yeah! What about Stephen Hawking! See! If you murdered handicapped people, you might murder the next Stephen Hawking!” Damn. What a sick outlook. Handicapped people have a right to live even if they aren’t making stuff up about what the far side of the galaxy is like.

  17. News of the Week (January 17th, 2016) | The Political Hat
    January 17th, 2016 @ 11:03 am

    […] Feminist Tumblr: Having Babies Is “One of the Most Selfish Things” People Can Do Deep thoughts from a bisexual radical feminist in the Midwest […]

  18. Ilion
    January 17th, 2016 @ 11:40 am

    The people who want to “change the world” are dangerous if they ever get their way in any way. “Changing the world” (almost always) means forcing other people to change how they live their lives.

  19. RS
    January 17th, 2016 @ 12:08 pm

    I don’t think there’s any question that attitudes like this, which are reflected in any number of social “adjustments” are satanic in origin. The first human institution created by God was Marriage/Family in order to reflect His glory and exemplify His love for His Creation. Thus, Satan wishes to destroy that institution. (I use the singular here deliberately.) The Tumblrina mentioned in RSM’s post seeks to foster guilt in those who pursue Marriage/Family. Guilt is a motivator to change behavior. It’s subtle, but it’s part of a larger agenda. RSM has diligently documented Feminism’s role in this.

  20. Quartermaster
    January 17th, 2016 @ 2:25 pm

    “Sex Trouble” could be a dissertation. But, the PhD committee would never survive the explosively increased inter-cranial pressure and finish reading that magnificent work.

  21. CaptDMO
    January 17th, 2016 @ 5:43 pm

    WOAH!
    “.. the government could help, by making adoption much simpler and easier.”
    Do you have ANY idea how many Social Scientists, Woman’s Studies, and Humanities graduates would “unexpectedly” be unemployed by that?
    Folks have worked tirelessly for YEARS to close the Rent Seeker gap. “It’s for the children!”

  22. Dana
    January 17th, 2016 @ 6:35 pm

    Do you have any idea how many Social Scientists, Women’s Studies and Humanities graduates I would care about finding themselves unemployed?

    I’m kind of heartless that way.

  23. Valerie Stewart
    January 17th, 2016 @ 8:54 pm

    Lucky you! All my (incompetent) school had were some AP classes and a half-hearted “independent college tech” classes … And often refused to provide decent transportation to the latter.

    Ugh, don’t even get me started on their stupidly administered transportation program…

  24. Valerie Stewart
    January 17th, 2016 @ 8:57 pm

    Actually, I care about them being unemployed … So that they can finally find jobs that truly benefit society.

  25. Valerie Stewart
    January 17th, 2016 @ 9:01 pm

    Uh, could someone from the Evil Patriarchy please smack this spammer with the Ban Hammer?

  26. Dana
    January 17th, 2016 @ 9:19 pm

    We certainly do need more bartenders and burger flippers!

  27. Valerie Stewart
    January 17th, 2016 @ 9:48 pm

    Definitely more competent ones for sure. (I’m looking at you, McDonald’s.)

    Still, even if they’re not any better than the average, they’d still be contributing by not spreading their BS as much.

  28. Prime Director
    January 17th, 2016 @ 10:43 pm

    Changing the world is easy. Breathe in, breath out…hey, you’re a producer of plant-nourishing CO2! Neat!

    How bout the social world? Also easy: role model to others the behaviors you endorse. Be a living argument for your position. Let your actions speak for you. Be persuassive. Change minds. Anyone can do this, to one degree or another.

    This requires of you respect, acknowledging the right of others to make up their own mind and possibly reject your example and rebuke your argument. This is frustrating, but necessary to preserve your own right to refuse your consent to stupid bullshit.

    Some people do not accept your right to tell them no about anything, including and maybe especially not to their own particular brand of stupid bullshit. They are embued with a righteous spirit that they believe exempts them from the consequences of flauting our rituals and breaking our rules. They do what they want, fuck you very much. A lot of these people are common criminals; some are insane.

    And some of these people are also potentially insane criminals that are so good at something; writing, singing, dancing, acting, predicting how much the price of pork bellies will change from day to day, looking attractive while reading a teleprompter… that they can get their way by exercising their something, like a bulging, disproportionate, overgrown limb to get what they want from you, your no regardless.

    A lot of these people want to change the world; and they plan to grease the skids with your sweat, tears and blood, as necessary.

    They know that burning down the world is consistent with the change they advocate.

    I like using italics but I don’t really know how.

  29. Daniel Freeman
    January 18th, 2016 @ 12:58 am

    To use [i]italics[/i], replace the square brackets with .

  30. Prime Director
    January 18th, 2016 @ 1:21 am

    Rephrase: my use of italics is random-ish

  31. Joe Joe
    January 18th, 2016 @ 3:10 am

  32. Squid Hunt
    January 18th, 2016 @ 2:38 pm

    “Seriously, never build the core of your identity around being…” …crazy.

  33. arik matthews
    January 18th, 2016 @ 7:17 pm

    This chick says she’s “had PTSD…[her] whole life.”
    Seriously?
    Is she arguing that the actual process of being born causes PTSD? Because that’s basically what she said.
    Sheesh. She’s an argument for why we should eat our young.

  34. DeadMessenger
    January 18th, 2016 @ 9:12 pm

    Well, that’s not a very hopey/changey thing to say. D: