Sugar and Spice
by Lori Heine | Posted January 24, 2019
When I was a child, our neighbors had a little girl who would stand outside and scream her lungs out. One day I went over to see if she needed help. She stopped screaming long enough to grin at me, then went right back to it. She was doing it just for the fun of it.
That was a frightening peek into feminine psychology. “Some little girls just like to scream,” my mother told me. “It makes them feel important when people come running.”
They’re screaming because they love to. Apparently, it makes them feel alive.
Many little girls do love a good scream. Whenever there’s a birthday party, or any other gathering of female children, you can hear them for blocks. Their philosophy must be “I scream, therefore I am.”
That seems to be what the professional “progressive” feminists are doing. They’re screaming because they love to. Apparently, it makes them feel alive. They like to make people come running.
I grew up thinking I was a feminist. I don’t think I ever left feminism, but feminism has certainly left me. I don’t even pretend to understand it anymore.
When did making people feel sorry for us replace earning respect? And how can other people’s pity help us to respect ourselves?
I don’t think I ever left feminism, but feminism has certainly left me.
Those on the feminist Left thinks that men have been mean to them. They want to make them sorry. But when your sense of well-being depends on eliciting any particular response from someone else, that does nothing to make you more respectable. All it makes you is codependent — which is something feminists commonly claim that they don’t want to be.
As the cancellation of a recent Women’s March shows, progressive feminists are now competing with one another to hear who can scream the loudest. The screaming never stops.
The Women’s March rally was canceled, it appears, simply because too many of its prospective participants were white. No one is arguing that some are more female than others (though that issue is indeed raised in the transgender-inclusion debate). The “whiteness” issue centers on race: the skin color of those who would be marching.
Much has been made of sisterly loyalty, especially in connection with the #MeToo Movement. But what’s most notable in this kerfuffle over “whiteness” in feminism is not loyalty — the fruit of which is cooperation — but competition. In their attempt to determine who should or should not speak for women, left-feminists are at one another’s throats.
Scream too often, and most people will simply tune you out.
It was famously said, by no less a light than Jesus himself, that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” By blundering into the tall weeds of whiteness, left-feminists are doing their cause no favors. As happens continually in the progressive aggrievement Olympics, the social justice troops are too busy shooting at each other to take aim against any common enemy. Or, to return to my original analogy, the scream’s the thing. And the objective appears to be simply attracting attention.
They’re not even doing a very good job of that, especially not concerning particular problems. Scream too often, and most people will simply tune you out. Our neighbors didn’t waste too much time rushing to the aid of our own little screamer. She could have been torn apart by wild dogs and no one would have noticed.
I hold out no hope for “believe every woman, no matter who the accuser may be.” In the #MeToo Movement, sooner or later the troops are going to turn their guns against other women. The Fair Sex suffers from a deficit in mutual loyalty. Women are just as prone to aiming at one another as they are to pointing the guns of their indignation at men.
Many women need to figure out what real self-respect means, and how it may be won.
It may well be asked if men don’t have the same tendencies. I think in general, they display more of a solid front. Much of their success in keeping the upper hand over women for so many centuries can be attributed, it seems to me, to their confidence that women will compete with one another.
Men are a long way from being the source of all our problems. Many women need to figure out what real self-respect means, and how it may be won. And when we hear some women screaming their lungs out, we need to demand an intelligent answer to the question of what the hell they’re screaming about.
Lori Heine is a freelance writer from Goldwater country. Her young adult novel, Good Clowns, is now available on Amazon.
Share This
Main menu
Search Liberty
Timebound
to be considered for
immediate publication
Most Read
Monthly archive
- November 2010 (24)
- December 2010 (24)
- January 2011 (31)
- February 2011 (17)
- March 2011 (29)
- April 2011 (21)
- May 2011 (22)
- June 2011 (18)
- July 2011 (20)
- August 2011 (20)
- September 2011 (19)
- October 2011 (18)
- November 2011 (17)
- December 2011 (15)
- January 2012 (21)
- February 2012 (15)
- March 2012 (18)
- April 2012 (16)
- May 2012 (20)
- June 2012 (14)
- July 2012 (24)
- August 2012 (20)
- September 2012 (19)
- October 2012 (19)
- November 2012 (21)
- December 2012 (17)
- January 2013 (21)
- February 2013 (16)
- March 2013 (13)
- April 2013 (16)
- May 2013 (12)
- June 2013 (15)
- July 2013 (13)
- August 2013 (13)
- September 2013 (12)
- October 2013 (15)
- November 2013 (13)
- December 2013 (13)
- January 2014 (15)
- February 2014 (13)
- March 2014 (14)
- April 2014 (13)
- May 2014 (13)
- June 2014 (10)
- July 2014 (12)
- August 2014 (14)
- September 2014 (10)
- October 2014 (14)
- November 2014 (12)
- December 2014 (12)
- January 2015 (12)
- February 2015 (11)
- March 2015 (11)
- April 2015 (11)
- May 2015 (10)
- June 2015 (12)
- July 2015 (13)
- August 2015 (10)
- September 2015 (10)
- October 2015 (10)
- November 2015 (9)
- December 2015 (12)
- January 2016 (10)
- February 2016 (10)
- March 2016 (10)
- April 2016 (10)
- May 2016 (13)
- June 2016 (11)
- July 2016 (10)
- August 2016 (10)
- September 2016 (10)
- October 2016 (10)
- November 2016 (11)
- December 2016 (11)
- January 2017 (11)
- February 2017 (11)
- March 2017 (10)
- April 2017 (10)
- May 2017 (10)
- June 2017 (9)
- July 2017 (10)
- August 2017 (10)
- September 2017 (10)
- October 2017 (10)
- November 2017 (10)
- December 2017 (10)
- January 2018 (12)
- February 2018 (10)
- March 2018 (10)
- April 2018 (10)
- May 2018 (10)
- June 2018 (10)
- July 2018 (10)
- August 2018 (10)
- September 2018 (10)
- October 2018 (10)
- November 2018 (10)
- December 2018 (10)
- January 2019 (10)
- February 2019 (10)
- March 2019 (10)
- April 2019 (10)
- May 2019 (10)
- June 2019 (10)
- July 2019 (10)
- August 2019 (10)
- September 2019 (10)
- October 2019 (10)
- November 2019 (10)
- December 2019 (4)
Comments
Scott Robinson
You know, it's interesting when you think of the parallel of the Women's Marches being cancelled because they are too white, and the Don Imus controversy of calling the girls on the Rutgers basketball team, "Nappy headed hoes". The controversy for Don Imus was his racism, sexism be damned. Maybe if he had called them, "Stupid, skanky sluts" that would have invoked cries of sexism. There should be a women's march against the cruelty of racism getting all the sympathy. What about the sexism of the cartoonish depiction of women's genitalia in pink?
Have a Good Day,
Scott
Mon, 2019-01-28 21:12
Michael F.S.W. Morrison
Lori Heine just gets better and better.
What she says is important, but she says it so well, it would be important just because she says it.
Thank you, Liberty, for publishing this.
Sat, 2019-01-26 20:16