Last week, a noted “male feminist” and pretty popular social justice figure was exposed – big time. It seems that he had at least one long-term long-distance girlfriend in another city that he visited occasionally. She was apparently in love with him and he had finally declared his love for her – the day before he married his fiancée. Once he was exposed (by the long-distance girlfriend), he said he “confessed” (I assume to his fiancée as well as the internet). He went ahead and married his intendant.  A day later, it was revealed that besides his long-distance girlfriend, he used Facebook Messenger as his personal savings and loan branch and not surprisingly, all the lenders were women.

That’s as short as I can make that story and as long as I care to. But, this wasn’t the first time something like this has happened in these “woke” circles. Every 16 months or so, there’s an expose on yet another man who duped scads of their social media activist female counterparts into believing they were patriarchy-dismantling, toxic masculinity battling, “male feminists.” They were either sleeping their way through the group, “borrowing” copious amounts of money from women who already had a full financial plate with some ambiguous sob story, promising eternal love to 5-10 women at a time, or doing any other of the things that men are known to do.

Of course, everybody feels for the women who are the targets of these male beings’ bad behavior. I certainly feel some anger when a man thinks it’s okay to deceive his way through a relatively small community in order to get gas money, groceries, and sex from women who, on average, haven’t even begun to have enough life experience or self-concept to accept they are being played.

This leads me to two points. The first is that there is no such thing as a “male feminist.” I’ll repeat.

There. Is. No. Such. Thing. As. A. Male. Feminist.

When I first heard that term used, I knew the backfire wasn’t afar off. When has the oppressed (in this case, women) giving the oppressors (in this case, men), honorary standing in the oppressed group because of a few meager acts of “see, I’m a good one” ever worked? Sure, it makes women feel good to know that there may be 2 wholly decent men for every 100 that they’ll encounter instead of the 0.5 (go with it) for every 100 they thought previously existed. But, in my estimation, if you want to know if there is any validity to it, there has to be measurable results.

With all the talk about “woke” men becoming “male feminists,” the wage gap still exists (including the bigger racialized wage gap) and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere any time soon.  Women are still taxed for basic feminine hygiene products. We still have a hard time getting our attackers to see justice. You would think, with all the men who claim to be in the chorus of #notallmen and who furiously claim disagreement with their fellow men in comment sections, 50% of women wouldn’t be killed by intimate partners, with Black women coming in first.

In short, I’ve yet to see one of these “male feminists” or “allies” do anything substantive to battle systemic sexism, let alone rabid Fuckboyitis™ even within themselves.

No, Susan, your husband cooking breakfast on Sundays isn’t a sign that he’s a “male feminist” hell-bent on seeing the full equality of women to men at some point in his life. No, your internet boo isn’t “different” because when he came to see you, he paid for the Chili’s 3 for $10 special you two split. Hate to break it to you, but disappointment is a part of life.

Parte Dos.

As I said earlier, these “I luuuuurve and respect women” scammers are a never-ending event; almost like bacteria development or seasonal allergies.

Wisdom is loosely defined as knowledge + judgment.

What do we know? We know men are trash. We know that some of the worst atrocities in human history were initiated and executed by men. We know that most, if not all, of the murderers of that 50% of women I mentioned before were men. We know that most female domestic violence (be it physical, emotional, financial, etc…) victims are so at the hands of men. We know that the male-dominated executive, legislative and judicial branches here in the US have bent over backwards to deny women basic rights. We know that similarly male-dominated governments all over the world have done the same. We know that for many of us, just encountering a group of men on the streets sends our fight or flight mechanism into overdrive.

Judgment itself is defined as good sense or the ability to evaluate a situation objectively. Since we know that men generally ain’t shit (objectively) that puts us in a perfect position to judge them unworthy of all the things these “male feminists” in social justice groups are able to bamboozle out of women based on a few “woke” FB posts.

If we combine the two, and actually put it into action, perhaps these social justice pussy hounds will be forced to find another source of income. Maybe they can start to hurt and scam each other to see if they’ve truly conquered their own toxic masculinity. We as women can’t claim to want to topple the patriarchy but toss all wisdom and logic out the door when one of its soldiers tells us he likes us.

In a perfect world, with top-notch elementary education and involved parental engagement at home, I wouldn’t have to say this but for those who won’t read comprehensively and are poised to accuse me of “victim-blaming” based on 309 of over 1,000 words, know that I find these men reprehensible. We can all wish that people would do the right thing 100% of the time, but we have advanced knowledge that they don’t. At some point, we have to recognize the dogs that bite and stop petting them.

I sincerely hope that the women who were duped by the most recent social justice scoundrel are able to rebound emotionally and financially (if it applies). In fact, I hope that all the women who have ever been taken by these sharks receive some kind of retribution.

Let’s hope that the tide is turning and we’ll eventually get back to the feminism that doesn’t make women feel they need to discount what they know in favor of placating and keeping the company of men.

 

 

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