#why their feminism discussions always are nothing more than hot air

[dicapiito]

A white woman on Twitter got mad at me because she actually thought that if Andy Beshear was the VP pick with Harris; more white women would’ve voted for her instead of Trump.

A perfect example as to why white women aren’t serious about feminism, democracy or anything beyond being a white woman. 57% and too many think that they needed an “ attractive ticket” instead of candidates who were more than qualified to run America. Ridiculous.

[denimbex1986]

'“Go out and get some fresh air,” the Ripley star tells EW with a laugh. “Stop watching. Stop crying. Stop crying in your room with your curtains closed. Do something better with your life. It’s a great show, we all love it, but come on now, pull yourself together. Open the curtains and go outside.” Andrew Scott, a season 2 cast member, on people still watching Fleabag, from Entertainment Weekly

The girls have been tapping into Fleabag discourse for 5 years and counting since the release of its final season; twitter threads have absolutely exhausted this very topic. So after all this time, why hasn’t this witty and emotionally complex series gotten stale? Why am I still simultaneously giggling and crying at my computer during my 5th rewatch? This is sad, right? Despite our beloved hot priest’s advice, I am indeed writing this very review inside with the curtains closed all with the hopes to harp further. Fresh air will have to do without me for the next couple hours! Whether it be the allure of the manic pixie feminist, the undeniable chemistry of the ensemble cast, the intimacy of the broken 4th wall, or simply Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s charming, flawed, yet ultimately relatable character, Fleabag has very much remained within the cultural consciousness, or at least within my algorithm.

Although the series was made for the stage, and was born out of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s 2013 one-woman show, it’s surprisingly not a proclamation of feminist theory & systemic misogyny ingrained into our socio-political structures. That would be far too simple for someone like Phoebe Waller Bridge who, luckily for us, was blessed with unabashed honesty within her writing. She rejects the mold of what feminist writers should discuss; Fleabag breaks girl code, puts all of her self worth into sexual relationships with strange men, and would lose 5 years of her life if it meant she could have the “so-called perfect body.” The self aware nature of Fleabag is part of the reason audiences find her so likable. Her refusal to fake her desires and instincts, although at times problematic, is inspiring in a world where we’re supposed to be good feminists who couldn’t care less about the male gaze.

The series is much more than a nuanced perspective on feminism, though. Fleabag is so funny because it holds so much truth. For example, as someone who grew up with a type-A older sister, I understand the sisterly dynamics between Claire and Fleabag perfectly. The general lack of communication, the post-haircut melodrama, the stealing of the red sweater, and the inability to give one’s sister a non-awkward hug is a seemingly universal experience. We hate each other and can hyper analyze our respective flaws, but we’re ultimately grateful to be stuck together. Who else would we make knowing eye contact with during a passive aggressive family dinner?

On a more serious note, it would be a disservice to the complexity of the series to not call out the headless gold statue in the room. All of the chaotic journeys that Fleabag embarks on are ultimately mechanisms used to cope with the profound losses she has endured in her life. She is simply a grieving daughter and best friend who can’t figure out where the love goes after someone dies. She is proof that grief isn’t always heavy and melodramatic; it’s allowed to look like whatever you want it to! It can crack politically incorrect jokes and make others uncomfortable because it’s all yours, and it is nothing without the love it came from. This series is beloved because it’s about all kinds of love: how it can be small, big, misplaced, abandoned, taken for granted, and all consuming in both beautiful and painful ways. That’s the real reason we remain crying in our room almost 8 years later, even if they’re happy tears.'

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

What happened w the rationalist community, if you’re ok talking about it?

LONG REPLY TIME.

In my Wild Youth (tm) I was hardcore in the rationalist/skeptic/humanist community. You know, the New Atheist types (the vast majority of the community didn’t call themselves New Atheists, that was mostly American Dawkins fans, but we were those kinds of people, just less arrogant-PR about it). For people who don’t know, the core philosophy of this subculture basically comes down to: - humans are mostly good people, or try to be good people, and we should act in ways that are good for humanity, the environment, etc. - people with better or more accurate information about the world are capable of making better decisions - it is therefore vitally important that we view the world as accurately as possible. Truth is inherently important and valuable. We should do everything we can to make sure that our beliefs about the world are as accurate as possible. - your mind will lie to you. Cognitive biases have their social and evolutionary uses, but they result in bigotry and bad information. We should do everything we can to identify and compensate for these, and think as rationally as a human is capable of. - while it’s not perfect, science is the most effective tool we have for determining what is most likely to be true. Rationalism is therefore massively pro-science and pro-science education. (This isn’t a blind trust; most hardcore rationalists are scientists and fully aware of the limitations of the messy reality of how science is funded and published and the biases that introduces. These are taken into account. The other hardcore rationalists tend to be magicians/illusionists.)

All of this is perfectly fine and a hill I’m still perfectly willing to die on.

When you get a bunch of people together who are sincerely seeking truth and want the world to be a better place, there are some fairly obvious groups that they’re going to tangle with. Before my time, when we were just called skeptics, the main targets had been psychics and life-after-death spirit-communing con artists (this is where our magicians came from, the philosophical descendants of Houdini, one of the earliest voices in the movement, and later James Randi). But the big proponents of harm in my time were the healing crystals/essential oils/faith healing people, and the ‘Creation should be taught instead of evolution’ creationists. We spent a lot of time trying to stop people from selling oils that they said could cure cancer, and fighting against science education being replaced with religious belief inserted in science classes. (I spent a lot of my teenage years debating creationists on the internet. I can summarise this experience as a frustrating waste of time on both sides of the debate. Neither side was going to accomplish anything in these discussions.)

This is all perfectly fine. I won’t pretend I’m completely happy with everyone’s actions; it’s the internet, so of course there were subgroups doing things like mass trolling conservative religion forums and stuff, which had no purpose except to piss off people we happened not to like, but you get that. The problem with this is that it’s easy. People can believe what they want, but if you’re coming into a rational debate, every pro-Creation, anti-evolution argument is complete and utter bullshit, mostly demonstrating nothing beyond the fact that the creationist debater a) doesn’t understand the most fundamental things about biology or b) does understand and is willingly misleading the audience. Every pro healing crystal, pro astrology or pro telepathy argument is fatuous nonsense. Twelve-year-olds could walk into these discussions and completely shred every argument put forth by big-name “creation scientists” in minutes -- I know, I watched it happen regularly. I was on our conservative creationist Christian-owned community TV station for awhile doing a little ‘creation vs evolution!’ debate against the wealthy station owner’s son to fill air time, and I’d see him do a couple of hours of research for anti-evolution arguments every time we filmed, and it always pissed him off that I’d shred anything he said immediately, having done no research whatsoever, because even to me, a child, the giant drive-a-bus-through-this holes in his arguments were obvious. (Also, they were old hash; I’d read all the books by his idols before and checked the reasoning myself long before.)

Fresh voices in the community came from two main sources -- people who’d been pro-people and pro-reason/science for years finding others like them, and ex-creationists and magic healer victims who’d eventually found the holes in what they’d been taught. This second group, for obvious reasons, tended to be the most passionately pro-reason and pro-science people, and discussing different experiences in a place where people could feel safe being critical and actively celebrate doubt was great. But, inevitably, we got lazy.

A lot of the ‘laziness’ was perfectly reasonable and practical. Time and attention is always limited, and when you’ve dealt with six claims of “the eye is too complex to have evolved!” and explained the flaws in the irreducible complexity argument four times that fortnight, when someone walks in with “blood groups couldn’t possibly have evolved, therefore the earth must be 6,000 years old”, you just don’t fucking bother, and you shouldn’t fucking bother, there’s no value in that discussion.

That’s not the kind of laziness I’m talking about. I’m talking about the part where we got so used to ‘that sounds so fucking stupid’ leading directly being able to tear an argument to pieces,that it became normal to assume that anything that sounds stupid on the surface MUST be obviously wrong. Where ‘this is weird, let’s examine it and check for flaws’ became ‘that person disagrees with my preconceived notions, let’s double down and explain why they’re wrong, because I’m already assuming that they’re wrong’. At some point, “we want to be as rational and accurate as we can be, we call ourselves rationalist and work towards that” became “we’re rationalists, so we’re more accurate and rational than average and probably right”.

You might recognise that as in fact being *the exact opposite of the proported philosophy*. There were always some overenthusiastic idiots in any group, but watching it slowly become normal for rationalising to replace active rationalism and for the names of cognitive biases to be thrown around as gotcha buzzwords rather than things people were seriously considering in their own arguments was... concerning. (There were a lot of very smart people in the community, which unfortunately made it far more vulnerable to this particular kind of thing. Smarter people are better at fooling themselves; a person good at reason is also good at rationalising, and you can’t tell the difference between these things when you’re the one doing them.)

In practical terms, this doesn’t matter that much when you’re playing in the easy leagues of explaining to someone that the overpriced eucalyptus oil they bought from an MLM won’t protect them against chicken pox. The person who’s gotten lazy is shit at being a rationalist, but your reasoning skills don’t actually need to be all that impressive for this. You know what they do need to be impressive for? For when somebody says, “women are taken less seriously than men in science and biased against in hiring, payment and promotion”, and this hypothetical you, a male scientist who’s never noticed this and already knows that his profession is full of smart and reasonable people who wouldn’t do something stupid like that, thinks “that is fucking stupid” and automatically, without thinking about it, puts their energy into shouting down and dismissing alternate evidence. Or when somebody points out islamophobia in the community, or passive racism, or... you get the picture. Social issues can (and should) be examined and interrogated using rational philosophies, but it’s so much harder to do that than laugh at creationists who are sending you abusive messages about going to hell. And given the particular hot-button issues in the community, most of the people there were interested in biology, chemistry or physics and simply had no idea how to *do* social sciences, treating the parts that were familiar from their own specialities as valid and the rest as irrational nonsense. And now, you have prominent rationalists panicking about Sharia law, sneering at the made-up problems of feminism, and generally making fools of themselves... because they got lazy.

Because, like how it’s hard to be a liberal (American definition) but easy to be a conservative in a gay hat, it’s hard to be a rationalist, but easy to be an arsehole with a big vocabulary. And that’s why I can’t gush about how great Richard Dawkins’ early science books are without somebody bringing up his bullshit twitter opinions.

[thecourtneychronicles]

“Ever since, Act has enjoyed enormous success. From participating in the Emmy-winning TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race to becoming the first drag performer ever to sing live with the San Francisco Symphony to being in campaigns for big fashion brands to winning Celebrity Big Brother to touring the world with her live shows – there is nothing she doesn’t do! Without a doubt, she is a multi-talent and enjoys her career with full passion.

In a time where gender equality, women’s rights and LGBTQ+ movements have become more visible and important than ever, Courtney Act has played a massive role in the conversations concerning it by engaging and educating people about it.

We’ve had a chat with the versatile drag queen and talked about all things drag race, the conversations around drag, and her future plans.

Hi, nice to meet you!

You too, where in the world are you at the moment?

I’m in rainy London unfortunately, and you? Are you back from Hong Kong?

I’m here too! Hong Kong was good, but a lot of civil unrest which wasn’t so good. But then I went to Thailand for the weekend and had some fun! I have only been once before; I had a marvellous time.

Sounds amazing. So, what’s a typical day in the life of Courtney Act then?

Every day is different! Yesterday, I was flying from Bangkok to London, today [18th November] I’m talking to you and debating politics at the BBC, then tomorrow I’m going to the opening of & Juliet which is a new musical. Thursday, I’m recording music for my new live show – it will be sort of a cabaret live show tour through the USA and Australia, and this time all my music will be original! It’s just super exciting and super daunting. Each Thursday, I’m going to the studio and recording. My mission was to write one song a week and so far, it’s been going really well. This time, it’s a different process to what I usually do. Usually, I will sit in a studio with different songwriters and producers and we are trying to come up with pop songs together. But this show is about my views and experiences in life, so I sit at home, sit or stand on the Tube, and just writing down notes. I’ve written songs that are so personal, there is nobody else writing them with me. So, quite often someone says, ‘we need to change this or add that and so on’ and you feel pressure to make creative decisions. But now, it’s just all me, staying up until 4am if I want, in order to perfect and craft songs.

Wow, that sounds busy! How do you ever unwind and let go of the stress that could come up?

Well, all I do is what I love doing anyway. The songwriting thing is so relaxing; you can sit there and watch TV, it’s a good process just sitting there and be creative all night long. It’s been digging up some old emotions! The show is called Fluid; it’s all about the fluidity of life, gender fluidity, fluid sexuality and all sorts of forms. The kind of work that I do is usually exciting and stimulating but when I have a day off, I usually lie in bed all night long, watch some TV or read a book or something like that. I love doing absolutely nothing, I’m extremely good at that when I get the chance!

Well, we’ve got that in common! So, which TV shows are you recommending then?

Oh, Pose Season 2. It’s on BBC iPlayer! It’s just, ‘Oh My God!’ In the first episode, I was already bawling like a baby; it’s just so beautiful and so tragic and yeah, it was amazing. I’ve been watching Strictly [Come Dancing], RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and just reading lots of books on feminism and fluidity. I just read that great book, called ‘Mother Camp’. It’s about female impersonators in America, it was written a long time ago. It was super fascinating to read about drag and all that in such a pre-revolutionary era, and so many things were actually quite similar. It was really fascinating!

Sounds amazing! Good recommendations. Going back to work, how was the whole experience of Celebrity Big Brother? Congrats on winning!

Haha, I think when you win, all of it has been wonderful. If I hadn’t won, I’d probably be like ‘Oh, this happened, and oh god, that happened’. But I have really fond memories of it all. It was so wonderful because the reasons for me were mainly that I was sitting with people, talking to people respectfully – whether it was sexuality, or gender, very sensitive subjects which people tend to polarise. People, I think, just appreciated me and the conversations. That part of myself is one of my favourite things – talking to people and hopefully sharing my story, and hoping to bring understanding in times like these.

The interesting thing was when it came down to me and Ann Widdecombe who has literally voted against every single right against LGBTQ+ in all of her years in the Parliament, so basically everything that I stand for and that I am. She not only had a different opinion but literally legislated against queer people, women’s rights, the environment and more, all across the UK. And even though she had those views, we still remained civilised but, of course, distanced. It was kind of like a Brexit, Courtney vs Ann! Although I’m sure the actual Brexit is more important than me winning [laughs]. Let’s see if we even get the Brexit though!

Oh dear, let’s hope we won’t! You said you’re currently in London – considering you’re from Australia and have found major success in the States as well, what made you want to settle down in London for now?

I was living in the US for eight years, and although things might have been a little tumultuous over here in terms of politics and Brexit, it’s practically smooth sailing compared to Donald Trump and his administration. I lived there for eight years and loved the understanding that came to live in a country. We see the world through media and press, but I realised how much I really don’t know about the US at all. So living there, during an Obama era which was much nicer, I came to appreciate the US.

But then after Celebrity Big Brother, it was a calling to come here and I grew to love the country even more. The UK has a long-standing history of camp and queer and punk, and whereas there are posh institutions, there is also this other side that respectfully co-exists, which is all about diversity, and drag and queer identities in the media. You’ve got people like La Rue, Boy George, Graham Norton and so many more on UK television. Whereas in America, you are starting from the bottom and trying to educate people. Like I mentioned early, I’m going to the BBC to discuss politics. The US doesn’t have a broadcaster that is as dignified as the BBC and also, I would have never been invited at a broadcaster in America. Here, there is a respect and it’s not just about how sensational you are!

Gender equality, pride, drag and everything around it is starting to finally become recognized worldwide by everyone. People are getting woke. Why do you believe people who are not in this scene are only properly respecting it now, and not earlier?

I think there has been so much more visibility now. And visibility always leads to understanding. There are TV shows about drag and queer identity, which has made it really accessible to a wide audience. Drag Race is predominantly watched by females aged 16-35. That filters through. Sexual and gender revolution have been going on with the likes of Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner for example. Caitlyn is a visible person and brought a lot to the conversation. I think this is really the first time that we’ve had some transmissibility around gender. The examples of people, like Laverne Cox, are just really interesting people and so public. Of course, there is still misinformation but there is a lot of conversation going on.

Even with RuPaul’s Drag Race – I keep reading about it all the time and people really seem to love it!

It’s such a fun show that celebrates identity, creativity and has drama that people love about reality TV in general. But there is a real hots for the show. The fashion and creativity elements make it belong to the fashion industry which makes it so cool. It’s just a brilliant celebration about drag and a middle finger to what society thinks of us.

How did your appearance on the show change the way people respond to you, in particular?

Drag Race Season 6, when I started out, aired in 2014 and I had been living in the US since 2011. I just started touring around the world and through the States. I was constantly performing and earning money. I’ve done shitty jobs in gay bars, don’t get me wrong, but then we decided to tour and perform in bigger venues. And when it came to the UK it became hugely popular. And during that time, I was performing in Edinburgh for the first time, and everyone came to see me because they watched Drag Race. And then I started working on so many things, and I feel like it really changed the global way people view drag, and I got to be a part of that.

Do people come up to you a lot and ask for photographs?

Yes, for sure! When I was in Bangkok with my ex-boyfriend last weekend, he was asking me the exact same question when we had lunch, literally! And then someone came up and asked, ‘Excuse me, are you Courtney Act?’, so I was like ‘Oh, perfectly timed, haha!’ Sometimes people just hug me, and I just hug back. And they are like ‘How are youuu, oh my god’ and I just go along. They’re usually respectful, but I have learned that I’m kind of public property in a gay bar – so I pick and choose where and when I go out! But I do get a lot of discounts and more, so it’s not all that bad [laughs]!

[Laughs] I bet!  

Live performances and being on TV must be two different things; you do both. Which one do you personally enjoy more and why?

They’re different. I love performing live, it’s so exciting and also easier. I did a Christmas special for Channel 4, and it was a big live show, but on TV. I love performing with a live band. I love honing and crafting, and finding out what the audience loves; it’s so gratifying.

Sounds like you are living your best life!

I kind of am! We had this offer for a big TV show in the States and I was so hoping it would happen, but then I was like ‘Meh, even if it won’t happen, I will still do my cabaret show and tour all around the world’. So, I’m doing what I love either way!

Besides your cabaret show, what else does your future hold?

Well, the music alongside the cabaret show is exciting because sometimes music in pop is sometimes pointless in a way. You put it out, a few people listen, and it costs a lot to make and create videos. But we are sort of packaging the music into my live show, so I’m excited to put my original music out.

Also, I have a different TV project that I’m working on. Also, I’m working on YouTube videos in which I want to discuss political topics and current affairs, sort of like a web series. It seems like a lot of people don’t know what is going on in the world, so I want to give them an understanding!”

Courtney’s interview for 1883 Magazine - November 26, 2019

[lindyhunt]

The Female Comedians Taking Canada by Storm Right Now

Thousands of T-shirts can’t be wrong: The future really is female. Especially when it comes to comedy. Funniness, like feminism, is best when it’s intersectional. Meet Canada’s newest comedic stars.

Photography by Carlyle Routh. Courtney Gilmour is wearing KAT VON D Everlasting liquid lipSTICK ($24) in “LOVECRAFT,” available at Sephora.

Courtney Gilmour

Canadian comedy fans see more of Courtney Gilmour than they do of their own friends. Did you take in shows at the JFL42 comedy festival? For two years running, Gilmour has been one of the only Canadian women included in the 42 acts. Making the pilgrimage to Just for Laughs in Montreal? Last year, she was the first woman in the competition’s 19-year history to win the Homegrown Comic Competition, and this year she did a Comedy Network taping at the fest. She has also opened for Chris Gethard and Sasheer Zamata. Gilmour, 33, is everywhere. Zaniest of all? This is only the Waterloo, Ont., native’s first year doing standup full-time.

Gilmour, who was born without a left leg or forearms, delves into her experiences with disability in her act. She talks about how some people seem let down by her origin story—so she makes up new ones. Her favourite? Abortion survivor. “I fought back!” she crows. “I had someone describe my comedy as ‘a tiny woman screaming vulnerabilities at you,’” says Gilmour. “And I loved that.” She skewers people’s reactions to what she affectionately refers to as her “nubs,” describing a cab driver who equated her lack of limbs with his wife’s occasional back problems.

Hearing what Gilmour has to endure is jaw-dropping at times, but in an entertainment world populated almost entirely by able-bodied folks, it’s a narrative we don’t hear enough. “I’m annoyed when people ask if I feel obligated to talk about being an amputee or ‘How do you balance writing that material with regular material?’” she says. “If I wanted to tell [amputee] jokes just to get it out of the way, I’d write hacky puns about hand jobs or whatever. Being an amputee is my life, and I need to talk about it. It’s funny how people think of it as a novelty act and then a guy goes up and does 15 minutes on how crazy his girlfriend is and no one’s like ‘Oh, it’s the Crazy Girlfriend guy!’”

Photography by Carlyle Routh. Hoodo Hersi is wearing fenty Beauty mattemoiselle plush matte lipstick ($23) in “PMS,” available at sephora.

Hoodo Hersi

Most people know that there is some small element of risk in choosing a front-row seat at a comedy show. There’s always a chance that the comic might tease you a little. At a Hoodo Hersi show, however, no one is safe. The Toronto-based comedian, 27, keeps up a running commentary on the audience’s reactions to her work. Hersi, for example, will launch into her bit about the Muslim ban. “I’m fine with it,” she says. “Like, I want to ban white guys who go to Thailand.” The laughter crescendoes and then Hersi pauses, a mischievous smile on her face. “There’s always one white girl in the audience who’s like, ‘My dad’s been to Thailand, like, four times, so this joke is not for me.’”

Hersi fearlessly tackles race, religion and gender. Or, as she puts it, “all the fun stuff!” Audiences are wild for it. This year alone, she was named a Homegrown Talent at Just for Laughs and taped a performance that will air on the Comedy Network. She has done CBC tapings at the Winnipeg Comedy Festival and the BBC World Service Montreal comedy show and was selected as an Audible New Voice at SF Sketchfest. She has also opened for Gina Yashere, Moshe Kasher and Eric Andre. Once a month, she co-hosts The Ebony Tide, a showcase for comedians of colour. “One of the goals is for people to understand why terms like ‘black comedy’ and ‘ethnic humour’ just don’t make sense,” she explains.

In a comedy scene often dominated by white men, it is refreshing to see a black Muslim woman performing in a hijab. Hersi takes the occasional cringe-inducing comment and incorporates it into her act. She remembers when a woman told her she was so brave for doing what she does, clad in her “Muslim garb.” “This is from Forever 21!” cries Hersi. “I’m culturally appropriating my own culture! I’m part of the problem!” The room erupts into laughter, but Hersi is already moving on to the next bit: no hesitation, no apologies. “No segues!” she announces. “Next joke!”

Photography by Carlyle Routh. anasimone George is wearing Giorgio ARMANI Beauty rouge d’armani matte lipstick ($46) in “400,” available at Sephora.

Anasimone George

Day after day, Anasimone George went off to her interior design classes. And day after day, she hated her life a little bit more. She detested design school but felt obligated—to her family, to her Egyptian-Canadian community—to get a degree. Then she flunked out. She got a job working at Starbucks as a supervisor. Loathed that, too. Finally, George says, she knew it was time to turn to her true love: comedy. “I had already failed so much, I literally had nothing to lose.”

Her first few months onstage were rocky. “A lot of my old stuff came from a place of trying to fit in, and a lot of my work reflected a ton of internalized misogyny and racism. And if I ever tried [to discuss these issues], I was deemed ‘the girl who talks about race too much.’ But once I grew out of caring what the white gaze wanted, I figured out my voice.”

There was just one problem: Now that she had something to say, there weren’t many places to say it. Sick of waiting around for bookers to give a queer WOC more stage time, she took matters into her own hands and started a monthly comedy night, SHADE, to showcase people of colour, LGBTQ+ folks and woman-identified and non-binary people. “I wanted to create a home for marginalized performers—and make money and actually pay people,” she says. SHADE sells out every month. George—who hails from Scarborough, Ont., and is just 25—is a raucous, engaging host with a big head of curls, her curves barely contained in hot pants, knee-high boots, mesh bodysuits and plunging tops that offer a peek at her ornate breastplate tattoo. Pump-up jams blare from the speakers and make it feel less like a standup show and more like a party. George’s confidence is awe-inspiring—and infectious. She remembers one show where a young woman of colour came up to her afterwards and told her that she was so happy to see someone like herself on a stage. “That shit really melts my heart and makes me tear up every time I think about it,” she says.

[ilovequantitativeresearch]

A Critique on Lauren Martin’s Opinion Article: Why Women Need To Start Asking Men Out…Because Men Have No Balls

                With issues such as gender equality, being built around discussion and narrative, sound analysis and logical consistency must be of paramount value. Unfortunately, in this text, Martin posts unabashed drivel and unfounded opinions on how she thinks the world should work. For whatever reason, it always seems to be in her favor. A large percentage of the article highlights on the fault of the male gender, not once giving them merit or displaying any sense of objectivity.

               The author seems to highlight the problem as something between a man and woman; making constant references to the behaviors of past generations, yet only putting the blame on one stakeholder. In reality, this is has nothing to do with that. This only has to do with horrible, muckraking, sensationalist “journalism”. It is shallow ideologies and thought pieces like these that make it much harder for true feminism and gender equality to gain a foothold in society. This is the very undermining of its true meaning. We delve further into this by dissecting the work in terms of Aristotle’s Appeals, type of claim, logical fallacies, and intertextuality.

The author begins the argument build by displaying the kind of behavior men show.

               “They'll make eye contact with you in the bar, but never come over. They'll get your number, but never call. They'll offer to buy you a drink, but never pay. They'll say a girl is hot, but never hit on her. They'll text you for a week, but never ask you out. They'll do absolutely everything but make a move. I've watched men pine over women, talking about them like future wives, yet after staring at them for two hours, let them walk away. I've watched men chase women down for their phone numbers, yet wait a week to text them, acting like it's something they simply forgot about. I've watched men spend an entire night talking to a girl, yet never get up the nerve to ask for her number”

               Consistently, she repeats the fallacy of Reductio ad absurdium. She blows the situational analysis out of proportion. What’s even more contradicting was the disclaimer she noted before going on the absurdium rampage. “Well — to be fair here — not all men, but a lot of them”. While this could have been a great opener for objectivity, providing credibility to the piece, it had been completely destroyed and off-set by the countless other fallacies which will be tackled further on.

In terms of logical fallacies, the author draws close to a slippery slope.

“(if A)We're dealing with a new breed of men here and it's not the kind we grew up dreaming about. It’s the want-what-I-want-but-don’t-know-how-to-get-it type; it’s the sweet and cuddly mama’s boys who grow up terrified of making the first move; it’s the guys who have so much to say but don’t know how to say it. (then B) Now, the unfortunate paradox for a woman is that she must be the chased and the chaser. She must be the target and the shooter. She must play coy and simultaneously pursue him. (then z!)Anyone notice the problem here? Yet again, women are left to do all the work. We're left playing both sides of the game because they've simply forgotten how to play. “

            Notice how the paragraph concludes the sequence with “left to do all the work”. Yet again, the author draws up the situation out of proportion. The author draws on and on about how the woman now has to be the “hunter” and the “target”. Is there really anything wrong about this? Essentially, feminism and gender equality is founded upon the equal standing between the sexes. With this slippery slope, the author left with it a question up in the air: should women then continue to simply look pretty, provide nothing to the equation and leave themselves as objects for men to select on shelves? This is the exact notion that feminism seeks to eradicate in modern society.

“This leaves women making all the moves. We must tell them what they want if we're to get anywhere close to the goals we had for ourselves. But it will never be as we fully imagined because, in our dreams, men weren't timid or scared little boys; in our dreams, men are the ones with the balls to ask us out.”

            Once again, the author coats on the same dressing: oversimplification. In this piece, men are still perceived to be useless and unproductive, with the only supplementary evidence being nothing but the author’s personal anecdotes. The tone set is final and all-knowing,

“Men aren't these masculine displays of strength and perseverance. They aren't these persistent characters created by Nicholas Sparks and John Green. They aren't going to catch your eye and spend all night convincing you why you should be with them. They aren't Noah Calhouns. They aren't Augustus Waters”

             Martin cites problematic allusions to back the article. References are made to John Green and Nicholas Sparks. These authors are the very creators (and sometimes critics) of the manic pixie dream girl archetype. Most of the women in their novels serve to the character development and fulfilment of the male protagonist however, more often than not, forget their own. The role of the female in their novels is to be the muse and inspiration for men to change and take action in the world, rather than they themselves take action. An example would be Jamie Sullivan in A Walk to Remember and Alaska Young in Looking for Alaska.

“It's said that the male ego is as fragile as a woman's heart and unfortunately for women, men won't take the chance of letting it shatter. While women willingly put themselves out there, men stand back, scared of the tiniest bruise on their overinflated self-image. So yet again, women must be the strong ones. We must put ourselves out there and risk rejection. Because if we don't do it, bars will soon be exactly like those middle school dances: boys on one side, girls on the other.”

               Although the text in its entirety appeals to emotion, pathos is most evident in this paragraph and so is the oversimplification of the situation. However, one must give credit to the author’s consistency- of making a functional, give and take adult relationship sound like a chore, rather than a common decency and standard of social behavior.

“Men, on the other hand, always seem to be waiting for something better. In the age of Facebook and Instagram, there’s this constant filtered delusion that a hotter girl sits just an inbox away”

Another case of Reductio ad absurdium in which the entirety of a gender is being thrown into a singular notion- a notion constructed by the author.

“In a sad, but not all that surprising, report by Nickelodeon UK, men are 11 years behind women in maturity. While women reach maturation by 32, men aren't fully matured until 43. While this study garnered much attention, women everywhere were less than surprised. Didn't we already know this?”

              Nickelodeon is an entertainment company, targeted to children. Clicking on the link, one is greeted by SpongeBob- who is known to live in a pineapple under the sea. This is an example of false appeal to authority. When seeking reputable and credible data on maturity and gender behavioral studies, Nickelodeon should be considered as the least of the options available. Regardless, maturity differences correlating to gender is a well-known fact. However, this only refers to biological maturity. Meaning, men start puberty earlier and also don’t stop growing until much older either.

Furthermore, the real problem of this article is the complete generational bias the author notes to conclude the thought piece.

“To add insult to the few dates you have yet to be asked on, men are also getting married less than ever before. According to a study by Pew Research Center, only 26 percent of Generation-Y is married.

Compared to the 48 percent of our parents at this age, there's no denying that men just don't have their sh*t together.

We’re dating less and thus, marrying less. And the downfall picks up speed with every failed attempt to ask a woman out.”

            Looking at the social aspects of the situation, the conclusion is downright erroneous. While couples are getting married at a later age, they are actually getting married sooner in their lifespans. This is according to the U.S. Census.

              Should we analyze this in the true spirit of feminism, marrying later on is actually a positive indicator for women everywhere.  More women are working, and less are ready to start a family as early. Women are valuing careers more and more, less willing to be stay-at-home moms. A rise in independence, an increase in financial freedom and desire to be more as an individual before becoming a couple means both sides of the aisle are marrying less because they choose to.

               Lauren Martin’s opinion article clearly exemplifies the difference between opinions founded on solid, logical reasoning and opinions founded on shallow, misconstrued concepts- with it inclining more onto the latter. An article teeming with logical fallacies and plain sexism, it serves no higher purpose. It answers no valid questions and problems, and only proves itself to be counterproductive to the discussion and discourse of feminism and gender equality.

Maritin, L. (2014, September 9).  Why Women Need To Start Asking Men                     Out…Because Men Have No Balls [Web log post]. Retrieved February                28, 2017, from http://elitedaily.com/dating/men-pssies-women-need-                 start-asking-men-dates/746965/ 

Vespa, J. (2014, February, 2014) Marrying Older, But Sooner? [Web log post]. Retrieved February 28, 2017,                                                           from http://blogs.census.gov/2014/02/10/marrying-older-but-sooner/

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