Well That Seems Reasonable

[Content note: Misogyny, trans bigotry].

Rod Dreher, who we already know for his deplorable opinion of trans people, is now taking issue with a college that... provides free tampons and pads in university restrooms.(*)

Do you ever get the feeling that some cis white men think that if they don't need something, then nobody should have access to it?

Attribute it to what you will, but what a massive empathy gap.

That goes for abortion. Menstrual supplies. Safe spaces where his views aren't welcome. Content notes preceding content he doesn't understand or care about. Birth control. Gender affirmation surgery.  All of these, many a cisgender white male conservative sees as decadent wickedness that have no place in their preferred utopian enclave. Motto: I don't need it, nobody should have it! Even if others getting it in no way impacts my life!

Can you imagine what it would be to be a woman and/or LGBT person in this Benedict Option-esque society?

What an incoherent logic system.

Imagine: to simultaneously favor forced birth while opposing and mocking the provision of supplies one needs as a result of having a reproductive cycle.

It's the mindset of the men who think that men like themselves are human. Everyone else, an aberration. A supporting cast member to his important hero story. Except, like all privileged white men with unexamined privilege, when he finds out he's not the world's central hero, he believes he's its most important victim.


*I have not embedded a link to Dreher's blog, but rather to a different politics and culture blog whose authors have views that more align with my own. In light of the changes to AfterEllen, I've been thinking more about how many commercial Internet models reward hateful clickbait authors who are financially rewarded for drawing visitors to their site. It presents a dilemma, of course, as one (n=me) wants to counter such speech.

I'm going to try to minimize my complicity in directing traffic to such sites by (a) no longer directly linking to them (perhaps I'll do screenshots or something instead), and (b) not gratuitously calling attention to something unless I am also in some way countering it.  Any "share" of a deplorable opinion that doesn't also counter it or say it's awful is a promotion of it, which, I believe is partly responsible for our current Donald Trump situation. We must do more than use our social media networks to merely say, "Hey this person said this thing, oh no!"

Full disclaimer that I'm not perfect. I'm just trying to be more mindful to minimize my complicity in the Internet's toxic clickbait model.  /Welp this addendum was basically a whole entire other blog post, BYEEEE!