Mark Liu: Week 3

The problem with misogyny is it’s only half-correct. It mistakenly believes women are shit when all people are shit. Women are irrational, manipulative, selfish cunts – but so are men. And that is why we need feminism.

I used to be a huge sexist; just check out my article on “Why women are bad at World of Warcraft”, which is still an excellent article, but I’ve come to realise that their overall scrub-level noobness is due to socio-cultural reasons rather than biological.

I also used to hate a lot of feminists because they often hold unwavering viewpoints, like refusing to watch Game of Thrones. A feminist told me the reason she couldn’t watch it is because all the women are depicted as either prostitutes or mothers, which is completely wrong: that’s the only reason to watch it.

I realised though that I don’t hate women. I just hate all people less rational and logical than me, and that the set {women} is just a proper (or strict) subset of {men,women}. And I realised, in order to live, I need both men and women to do things I cannot do myself. Fortunately, with things like self-checkout, the necessity for other humans is slowly being rendered obsolete, and maybe one day robots can give me the pleasure that only the soft flesh of the female can provide. Until then, I should probably view them equally.

They say to understand someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. Well I did the next best thing, which was pretend to be a girl on Omegle while wearing girls’ shoes. The way men treat you is shockingly different. Suddenly, I understood exactly what it was like to be subject to the male gaze, as well as the complications that arise from being bombarded with unwanted objectification while at the same time feeling empowered. Admittedly, it was a strange sort of arousal and I was compelled to experiment further.

I launched quickly into cybersex with a bricklayer from Leeds. The results were interesting (see here). I also re-enacted a classic scene from the film Mean Girls, in order to try to penetrate the female psyche.

What I found out is that I would make a terrible girl if I acted like myself. Ask yourself: could you see yourself being the opposite gender while retaining all your personality characteristics? I’m too cold and calculating and would likely end up having no friends. Instead I‘d have to conform to what society expects of me based on my gender. And that is why I need feminism.

But feminism has a big PR problem. My friend actually said, “I’m all for feminism, but I fucking hate feminists.” She’s a girl too so it’s okay for her to say that. Feminism is actually being ruined by a specific group of militant internet warriors who post twenty-paragraph posts on Overheard at Cambridge. They repeatedly throw around academic-sounding phrases they picked up from feminist theory that are useful to preaching to the converted but actually alienate most people. It reminds me of when an atheist drops Russell’s teapot into a discussion and then starts high-fiving their friends from the Dawkins fan club – believing that, because they’re right, they don’t look like an asshole. Just embarrassing.

So let me finish with some sage advice. Read Faith Barker’s article on “When Feminism Becomes Exclusivism” and realise that most people are not against the concept of feminism, but they disagree with some of the actions and rhetoric that they now associate with feminism. You don’t need feminism, feminism needs you… to stop being dicks on fun Facebook groups.