Don't F*ck Republicans
It’s not bigoted to reject a man who would erode your rights. It’s smart.
Republicans want you to know about a new “civil rights struggle” plaguing the nation: Women don’t want to fuck them. Ready the protest signs!
Over at the National Review, politics professor Eric Kaufmann complains that when 1500 women at Ivy League schools were asked if they’d date a Trump supporter, only 6 percent said yes. What Kaufmann calls a “generational earthquake” doesn’t just apply to women at elite universities: Eighty-seven percent of all women in college report being unwilling to date a Trump supporter, including 58 percent of Republican women.
Instead of coming to the straightforward conclusion that young women are understandably loathe to hang out with anyone who supports a serial rapist and unapologetic misogynist, Kaufmann believes it’s actually a sign of “political discrimination” and authoritarianism. (Dear god, some men will do anything to intellectualize rejection.)
One solution the professor suggests? “[E]quity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) policies should place political diversity on the same footing as race, gender, and other forms of diversity.” Won’t date a conservative? You’re a bigot!
As frustrating as it is to some men, women are actually human beings with preferences and free will. We are allowed to reject you because of your political beliefs, your sense of humor, or even your shoes.
If Republicans and misogynists are concerned about being rejected, they should try not being Republicans and misogynists. Because it’s not bigoted to steer clear of someone who would erode your rights and dismiss your humanity, it’s smart.
It’s telling, for example, that Kaufmann’s argument is near-identical to the ideology of online misogynists who are furious that women have a choice about who to sleep with at all. Just as he frames women’s dating preferences as a civil rights issue, incels claim women “withholding” sex is a human rights violation. The only difference is the academic sheen and where they’re publishing.
Why would any woman be keen to have a relationship with someone who so obviously sees them as an object they’re entitled to, rather than a person?
Right now, extremist misogyny is on the rise and we’re in the midst of a massive feminist backlash: Reproductive rights are being rolled back, the gains of #MeToo are being whittled away, and there are literal misogynist mass killings inspired by beliefs that conservatives would paint as simple “differences of opinion.”
There is nothing innocuous about being a Republican.
If men on the right want to paint themselves as victims of close-minded women, they can have at it. They’ll just have to do so in a cold shower.
The silver lining, I think, of the horrors we've witnessed over the past six years, is that it means we're finally making enough progress that these people actually feel threatened. I'm aware that as a white man I'm unlikely to be one of their victims, so I don't want to minimize anything by looking for a positive. But now we've just got to win the war they've started, which does give me anxiety to no end.
One particularly frightening aspect of the arguments that this piece is about, becomes apparent if you follow the logic. Bigotry, I think, would be discriminating against someone for something they are powerless over, like race, genetic or ethnic heritage, sex, sexual orientation, or disability. What those who are making these arguments seem to be suggesting is that men are powerless over their conservatism.
At first that notion is laughable. But throughout human history, it has been women who adapt to male preferences and male needs, and rarely the other way around. It is only in recent years that women are beginning to find themselves in a position in which they may actually be able to indicate that they no longer wish to do this. And the reaction from what appears to be a majority of men has been madness and apoplexy.
The argument being made is that men simply cannot adapt to a world in which women and men are equal. I think that's bullshit, but what's scary to me is that I'm not sure how much evidence there is for the alternative. I think we just haven't successfully created those conditions of equality, on a large enough scale, to test it.
I always remember that humans are animals, and that's sobering. I think feminism is rarely about women; it's about the evil that men do and how to respond to it. The problem of civilizing men has bedeviled humanity forever. We have to solve it if we're going to be able to save the species and the planet.
Either men get trained better or the only solutions start to sound like science fiction. I can only hope that the slow progress that's been made over generations can continue. Everything depends on it.
Guess I’m a bigot then. 🙅🏻♀️🍆🐘