So I was listening to the Honey Badger Radio podcast earlier, the episode was The Horrors of...MANWORKING!!!, and the ladies were trying to figure out the motive of feminists in being constantly offended. They weren't making much progress in this and were getting fairly frustrated because they couldn't wrap their heads around the constant offense-taking that feminists engage in. One, I can't remember which, came to the conclusion that feminists essentially want a world where everyone already knows what offends them and pre-emptively avoids engaging in the offending behavior. But this isn't the goal, and I can't blame the Honey Badgers for not coming to the conclusion I did. Honestly it just hit me while I was hungover and washing dishes, so for me it was more of an epiphany where a bunch of dots suddenly connected and I could see the 'end goal' of feminist offense taking. And I'm sure I'm not the first to figure this out, honestly there are people far more intelligent than myself who are currently trying to figure out the seemingly contradictory behavior of feminists, and they have far more reach. But, fuck it. I had this epiphany and I think I should write it down somewhere, and here is as good a place as any.
The truth is that there is no end goal. Feminists do not hope for a world wherein nobody does anything that could possibly offend them. That may be what it seems on the surface, but digging deeper into the mindset and looking at how they are constantly being offended by more and more ridiculous shit that nobody with a functioning brain should be offended by, it becomes clear (or it became clear to me in what I hesitate to call a flash of insight) that they don't want to fix a goddamned thing because that would negate their purpose.
Think about it like this. I'm going to set up an hypothetical situation that will be a good analogy of what feminists are doing. Say that the oceans are filthy, absolutely disgusting cesspits full of garbage and oil and all kinds of icky crud. Now imagine that there is a group of people who have banded together to ostensibly clean up the oceans. There just so happens to also be a lot of money in this endeavor. These people work for decades, and actually do affect the levels of ocean trash to such a degree that there is almost none of it left. At a certain point, it becomes clear to these people that their jobs are soon going to be obsolete for the most part, because the oceans will be clean and nobody will need to go out and pull trash out of coral reefs or clean up oil. Their livelihoods are officially in danger, and they realize that if this is allowed to continue they will eventually have to go out and get real jobs. So instead of admitting that their job is done and moving on to other things where they could conceivably actually help in a bad situation, they make up problems that magically only they can fix. This ensures the continuation of their business, and indeed monopoly, on ocean cleanliness. They create nonexistent problems to justify their existence, thereby securing that they will continue to get money for essentially doing nothing and will never have to go out into the proper job market and acquire a day job to keep the lights on. They keep the lights on through sheer deceit. And since the light bill comes every month and will continue to come every month, they need a steady stream of income for doing little to nothing in order to keep that light bill paid.
This is what feminists are doing. Anyone who's actually done research into feminism, or just thought about it seriously for a few minutes, will know that there is about a metric fuck-ton of money in feminism. From academic feminism to government lobbying to campaigns like FUCKH8 or the company that sold the 'This is what a feminist looks like' t-shirts that all those celebrities were wearing which turned out to be made by third-world sweatshop workers who were paid about 65 cents an hour, there is a lot of money in feminism. Hell, I've thought seriously at times about setting up a cafepress that exclusively sells 'Male Tears' merchandise, because there's fucking money in that shit. You think those idiot feminists on twitter and tumblr are making those themselves? Hell no, they buy them, probably with their parents money, from some entrepreneurial person who set up an online store to bilk money out of these useful idiots. My problem is that I have standards and I can't bring myself to perpetuate that kind of horseshit for personal profit. So here I am typing away. But my personal morality aside, there's gold in them there feminist hills.
If feminists were to actually fix anything, they'd be out of work. And anybody whose had a job will tell you if the demand for what you're doing goes away, so does your revenue stream. The problem that feminists have run into is that, despite all their whinging to the contrary, people actually do care about women's problems real or imagined. That's why women got the vote without the responsibility essentially by asking for it, that's why FGM is illegal in every first-world country while MGM is encouraged, that's why breast cancer gets ludicrous amounts of funding while prostate cancer gets a pittance, and on and on. People care about women, so when you come up with a problem and state with a straight face and doctored statistics that it negatively effects women, you'll get taken seriously and people will throw money at you to fix this problem. So, because of this innate human desire to care about and want to help and protect women, feminists get taken seriously. And because they get taken seriously, most of their problems have been taken care of. Women can vote and don't have to worry about a draft (although that may soon change, but I'll put money on the draft going away before women are subject to it), we have multiple (mostly redundant) laws mandating pay equality, FGM is illegal and you'll be thrown in prison faster than you can shout, "Religious freedom!" the pay gap is nonexistent, women are allowed to own property, get an education, have a career, etc, etc, etc.
So they've started making shit up to stay relevant. Manspreading, manslamming, mansplaining, sexist air conditioning, whining about butt-slapping in video games, whining about variant comic covers, whining about female representation in media, and the list goes on. They even keep spreading around a few old chestnuts like the pay gap for old times sake. And because it makes them money, of course. These (mostly) women have to keep making shit up because if they don't everyone will suddenly look around and realize that women in first world countries are the most privileged, protected, safe, and well-off group of people in the history of humanity. Consequently they would also stop giving money to feminists for their ridiculous shit. All it would require is some breathing space to look around and take stock, which is why feminists never give society as a whole that space. It's like when you're running downhill, and you know that if you miss-step one time, just once, you're going to fall flat on your face and possibly break some bones. On the bright side, much like running downhill, that momentum can't last forever, and we're seeing the slowing of it now with the growth of active anti-feminism. So there's that, at least.
But to wrap this up, just remember the next time you see a buzzfeed video from a feminist perspective making wacky accusations or nonsensical points and wonder to yourself, "What are they trying to fix?" that they're not trying to fix a goddamned thing. They're just trying to keep the momentum going. Because clicks. Because money. That's their modus operandi, and nothing else. Not to belittle the useful idiot 'coffee shop' feminists out there, who I think actually are good people who think they're doing the right thing because they've been deceived and they're too thick, busy, or lazy to actually go out and do the research themselves. Those people, I think, are genuinely misguided, and could theoretically do a lot of good if you can repair the brainwashing they've undergone. Not every feminist is making money off of feminism, but a lot are, and it's in their best interest to keep the proles as well as the rest of society (which, remember, does actually care about women and want to fix their problems) continually misguided with their lies and constant outrage about nothing much at all.
Don't try to logic it, because you'll only hurt your brain. What they're after is money, it's as simple as that.
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