Tuesday Talk*: Raising Daughters To Be Gay

Teen Vogue doesn’t limit the information it provides your kids to the correct way to do anal sex. It has serious articles as well, because what teen girl doesn’t stay awake at night wondering how you, dear parent, caused climate change and intentionally destroyed the world? Fortunately, Teen Vogue brings your child one of the world’s foremost experts on such matter to teach her the truth: Roxane Gay.

The question posed was fairly simple: Why is climate change the fault of the patriarchy, as women are its primary victims.

When women fight for climate justice, they are also fighting for their lives. The research makes clear that women are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change80% of climate refugees are women, while less than 20% of the land in the world is owned by women.

Not that it begs the question a bit, but the question concludes:

For long-lasting climate justice, it is imperative to recognize and change the paradigms of colonization, capitalism and patriarchy that lie at the root of gender inequality and environmental destruction.

Who better to explain than Gay?

TV: How can the environmental movement take more seriously the direct and indirect ways that misogyny shows up in the very spaces where we are fighting for justice?

RG: Like how do we make men not be misogynistic? The question is how do men take it upon themselves to do the work of taking up less space and being less misogynistic. It’s really important for us to not take that work on. They already know what to do; they just don’t want to or have to. So create situations where they have to, where we will not engage unless they act right. We aren’t the problem here. I truly believe every woman needs to remind themselves that. Also, call out that behavior when it happens. Another thing that women can do is support each other in the spaces [in which] they are fighting with the patriarchy. We can’t just say ‘Oh, this person does something really good here so we will overlook all the sh*ttiness that they do.’

What did you expect her to say? But that’s not the point today. This is:

What are the consequences of popular media teaching our children, our daughters, that they are victims? This isn’t merely a matter of girls being told that they are slaves to the patriarchy, but so many of the consequential problems, from  rape culture hysteria to cancel culture, to the basic inability of young men and women getting along and being happy with each other.

The old school tenets of equality have given way to the new-found adoration of victimhood, with whatever claims of intersectionality serving to jocky for position on the victim hierarchy, voices like Gay’s are contradicting parents telling their daughters they can be any damn thing they want, make of themselves whatever they please.

At the same time, parents of sons live in fear of their saying the wrong word, looking at a girl when she doesn’t feel like being looked at, and risking their lives being ruined at the behest of some young woman taught to believe that her every feeling is reality, her every tinge of discomfort traumatic and her existence proof of misogyny.

What are the consequences of putting someone like Gay in Teen Vogue to teach our children well? It’s not that she should be silenced, as even the worst of us has the right to express their views, so what can be done to counter this lesson that women are victims and men are their enemy? How do we teach our children about equality when everything they hear under the guise of equality teaches them differently?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.

 

55 thoughts on “Tuesday Talk*: Raising Daughters To Be Gay

  1. KP

    “less than 20% of the land in the world is owned by women.”
    Actually, all the land is owned by some Govt and we are lucky if we can purchase a right to occupy..

    As for bringing sex into it, ask any married man who makes the decisions about what the renovations will be and you’ll soon see who controls the land!

  2. Elpey P.

    “what can be done to counter this lesson that women are victims and men are their enemy”

    Jessica Yaniv has a strategy.

  3. CLS

    I concur Ms. Gay shouldn’t be silenced. What troubles me is allowing her into the world of indoctrinating children.

    This continued push to teach young women they are victims and young men innate predators is troubling. It is a slap in the face for every person who worked tirelessly to bring equality of opportunity to both men and women. And it’s counterproductive to the work of every parent trying hard to raise their children right.

    My daughter is no victim. My son, her biggest fan and defender, is no predator. And anyone who wants to tell them otherwise has to go through me. That’s all I can do to keep them on the right path–teach them the best I can while I’ve got them at home.

    1. B. McLeod

      Of course, Charles Manson isn’t available anymore, and they seem to be bent on finding someone with a cocked-up childhood for this because, well, what could possibly go wrong?

  4. wilbur

    Dare I mention that Teen Vogue omitted the most important element of anal sex?
    Say hello to your new friend Mr. Fleet.

    1. Dan

      They have the right to print whatever idiotic drivel they choose. And SHG, or you, or I, equally have the right to point out that it’s idiotic drivel.

      1. Howl

        Aww, come on, ain’t you gonna guess? You sure know how to ruin the fun.
        Roxanne’s photo is one of nine on the cover of this month’s issue about “WOMEN – A Century of Change”

          1. B. McLeod

            That was her one major quote that I ignored when songwriting (because it was a family-oriented C&W song).

  5. L. Phillips

    OK, I understand that Roxane Gay is a large and easy target, but dammit man I read this blog during breakfast!

      1. Richard Kopf

        SHG,

        The next 8th Circuit Conference, which takes place in Omaha in 2020, is far more likely to have a breakout session on cattle flatulence as a significant cause of global warming and how anal plugs for cattle may serve as a partial answer. This is quite big deal ’cause PETA says the bovine anal plugs, like bacon, must be banned. I will keep you and your reader advised.

        All the best.

        RGK

          1. Jim Tyre

            The good Judge and CLS should cover this together. Hard to imagine another story that would involve a more perfect union of their respective skills.

        1. Skink

          “This is quite big deal ’cause PETA says the bovine anal plugs, like bacon, must be banned.”

          I wouldn’t use a plug for anything. However, nobody, but nobody, is keeping me from using bacon as a garnish in a glass of bourbon. Whole restaurants are built around the concept. If you want to see my fighting side, lay one little pinkie on my bacon garnish.

          1. Richard Kopf

            And very good restaurants at that!
            null
            It is rumored that down in the Swamp such a restaurant exists.

            1. Skink

              Easy there, Rich–someone might think vodka for breakfast is a good idea. It also gets me thinkin’ the Hotel restaurant might need a redo.

    1. B. McLeod

      I much prefer the B. McLeod piece, “A Folk Song, Grand and Gay” (freely accessible with accompanying Peeps diorama on the B. McLeod Soundcloud page).

        1. B. McLeod

          Just availing myself of *Tuesday Talk rules to put in a tip for the less-refined elements of your readership.

            1. Jim Tyre

              Hey McLeod, that’s not bad. And, until now, I had no idea that you could sing. guitardave better watch out!

  6. DaveL

    Maybe I’m just slow, but if 80% of “climate refugees” are women, what happened to their men? I mean, I’m pretty sure the chromosomal odds aren’t that sensitive to CO2, so at some point there would have been as many boy babies as girls. Did they not survive to adulthood? Did they stay behind in areas considered uninhabitable for their women and children? Either way, how is this a better fate?

    I guess it’s easy to construct a narrative of victimhood if you keep yourself firmly blinkered and don’t ask troublesome questions.

    1. B. McLeod

      I’m guessing 60.2% of them died from sun exposure, and the remaining 39.8% perished in the rising waters from the melting polar ice caps.

      1. Anonymous Coward

        Relevant quote: victimhood and outrage have become the dominant social currency and nobody wants to be broke.

  7. phv3773

    As the saying goes, when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. To Gay, every problem looks like misogyny. To others, those nails may look like racism, or white privilege. And to some, they look like the immigrants, the blacks, the Jews, the Muslims.

  8. reasoningbeing

    Did anyone bother to read Gay’s links before labeling this a promotion of a victim mentality and disparaging Gay? Well it would serve the economic dominance interests of men to maintain gendered land ownership disparities and the disparate impact of global warming on women to dismiss and ignore those realities, wouldn’t it? Recognizing reality is the first step to addressing inequalities and injustices. It isn’t for the promotion of a victim mentality. It is about recognizing a problem. Seems to me the commenters here are out claiming victimhood by Gay’s recognition of reality. Gay didn’t claim women are powerless. She actually is encouraging women to use the power that they have for issues other than managing renovations. Funny how that commenter turned that around quickly to our being the victims of government ownership of land. Tired of that sad self-pitying song of right-wing ideologues.

    1. SHG Post author

      The problem is people did read it. Sorry, but you don’t get to substitute your version of “reality” for Gay’s words.

    2. B. McLeod

      I don’t care if it is a promotion of victim mentality, but I read the part about men “taking up less space.” Not all of us are lazy, undisciplined, morbidly obese, gluttonous lardballs like Roxane Gay, and it follows that not all of us need take on the work to “take up less space.” Plus, as she has demonstrated, such efforts aren’t always effective. The surgeons really should refund her money.

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