Yesterday, I saw a video of a singer-songwriter (I wish I could air quote that job title) named Jamie Kilstein. His spoken-word-think-piece-meets-acoustic-jamboree titled, “Catcall” paints a world where men are scared little squirrels running through the streets protecting their penises with one hand while fighting off giant, dick-hungry Ursula women with the other. It is one of the dumbest, most misguided things I have ever seen.
It’s insulting. His whole gender role reversal experiment only proves that he thinks women have as much power as a deer abortion. This is the wrong way to support gender equality. It just makes me think Kilstein is using this politically-charged song not only to further his stupid musical career by hopping along to increasingly powerful feminist rhetoric, but also employing this as some beta male mating strategy.
When it comes to outsider support in identity politics, the outsider either cowers to the needs of the group in question and waits to become their accepted defender or they are seen as the wheelchair offered to the guy with two working legs: unnecessary and kind of insulting.
My loud, opinionated friend Blaque Chris turns red when upper-middle-class, white feminists try to speak for black or gay rights (both of which he identifies): “I’m sick of white women feeling like they need to immediately run to any situation where gays or other minorities are being mistreated. It gives the impression that we can’t take care of ourselves and it pisses me off. I get they want to do the right thing, but let us handle it first.”
There’s this concept in political science called “self-determination”: nations only become nations through their own actions and struggle. Outside support can be given, but when those outsiders start to determine the direction of the movement, and claim it as their own, the movement itself fails.
Like self-determination, this is the contentious crux of identity politics.
Is there a right way to support? Can you do equality without being accused of acting like a human swaddle? Look at Trudeau. He purposely employed 50 per cent of his cabinet with women. When asked why he made such a decision, the Prime Minister simply answered, “Because it’s 2015.” (I wish he had elaborated, but I’m taking his answer as his version of “because, duh”.) He didn’t hire an entire panel of women, no matter how qualified, and cower in the corner with his lips puckered, ready to kiss their butts just for being women. He made a decision to fairly divide his cabinet and experiment with 50/50 gender split.
According to the Telegraph, Trudeau cherry-picked women he thought were best for the job. Former journalist Chrystia Freeland will oversee international trade. Former Afghan refugee Maraym Monsef will look after democratic reform. Physician and former minister of state for public health Carolyn Bennett will be in charge of a national inquiry into hundreds of missing and murdered indigenous women as indigenous affairs minister. Lawyer and aboriginal leader Jody Wilson-Raybould will become Canada’s new justice minister.
There’s a lot of people who aren’t going to like this because they’re skeptical of any choice that looks like it’s been sprinkled with a pinch of affirmative action. This decision is sprinkled with affirmative action, but I would like to think that Trudeau (and his team) are educated enough to hire people for skill and then quota.
Skepticism should be welcomed, of course. If someone doesn’t like what he has done to the cabinet, they have every right to debate it. Debate is healthy and something that is severely lacking in today’s increasingly PC-policed world. Earlier this year I wrote a heavy article questioning other feminists’ intentions when constantly vilifying straight, white men. I was promptly shut down for “supporting white men”. I didn’t realize asking questions made me a bad feminist. As Christina Hoff Sommers said in a 2014 lecture about feminism, "If you criticize the problem you are seen to be insensitive to it, when in fact, you care about the problem, that's why you want to get down to the truth.”
Most feminists hate Sommers because she harbors this exact attitude. It’s called being a cultural libertarian.
When we look at gender equality as a zero sum game, things get dangerous: if the women win, then the men lose. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it will happen (some argue it already has with young boys failing miserably in school compared to their female peers).
I think the Tumblr generation of regurgitation needs to look up the definition of “equality” once more and start thinking about everyone, and recognizing that in their inability to pick their battles, they can do more harm than good.
