1. WIN HER OVER
A feminist is just like any other woman: She won't give you the time of day if you don't know how to approach her. To prove you're not part of the dreaded penisocracy, pretend to share her beliefs. But hide your lack of actual knowledge of feminist issues and show her how much you value her opinion by asking intelligent questions: "What must women do to earn equal pay for equal work?" or "Has Gloria Steinem's marriage hurt the feminist agenda?" or "Did you see Cagney & Lacey on Lifetime last night?"
2. OPEN HER EYES
Don't just wait for her to think differently--give her some options. Begin by discussing "lipstick" feminism, which is far more moderate than the combat-boot variety. "She can be a girly-girl and still be a feminist," explains Jennifer Baumgardner, coauthor of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. "There's no need to eschew things like shopping, makeup, or boyfriends." Don't think she's ready for a Maxim subscription just yet? Sign her up for Bust, a feminist-lite mag that says women can be independent, strong, and relatively hairless.
3. TREAT HER RIGHT
Once a relationship is established, you should treat a feminist just like you'd treat any other girl you're interested in, Baumgardner advises. As long as you're not overbearing, she won't object to your opening the occasional door or picking up a check. Next, unlock her repressed Malibu Barbie fantasies and buy her a tight tank top with FEMINIST printed on the chest from outspokenclothing.com. Tell her she looks great--but try to avoid phrases like "bodacious ta-tas."
4. SHIFT HER FOCUS
To preserve any chance of getting your chin buttered, you'll have to reshizzle her feminist-tinged interests so you can actually spend time with her. "Focus on the things you have in common," suggests Michele Weiner-Davis, author of The Sex-Starved Marriage. She likes pro softball? Take her to a major-league game. She's a staunch environmentalist? Go camping. She supports a woman's right to reject the outdated mores of our male-dominated society? Tell her to get closer to your mike.
REALLY????? The patriarchy is so afraid to lose control.
I KNEW every woman had repressed Malibu Barbie fantasies!
ReplyDeleteManipulating a woman takes hard work. It's a lot more efficient to pick up a fucking book once in a while.
Based on purely anecdotal evidence, I think that most men see feminists as members of the other team. That is, it's a competition. Fuck, this article is written like it's "How to infiltrate the enemy."
Of course, while 99% of "the patriarchy" are rich white males, 99% of men will never be part of "the patriarchy." We get just enough advantages so that we've got the upper hand by proportion to women, and feminists are trying to take that away (again, by proportion).
It's divide and conquer, like England telling the Indian upper and lower castes that they're two different races competing with each other to divert their attention from England itself (and of course that the upper castes are Indo-European, not unlike the English themselves...). Shit, trying to undo that got Gandhi killed (okay, granted, that had more to do with Islam and Hinduism than Hindu infighting).
We have a tendency to measure success based on comparison, so if a man makes $50K and a woman makes $40K, the man feels like he's doing well, but if the same man makes $100K and the same woman makes $120K, he feels like he's getting shafted. It's probably some remnant from when all of our species' resources actually were finite or something, but the fact remains that we constantly fail to notice we're NOT getting ahead by keeping everyone else behind.
So here we have men being given instruction on how to preserve the status quo, convinced that they're doing themselves good, but actually just doing their enemy's work for them. Really fucking manly, gentlemen.
Although I will say that I really hope some people try to follow this advice because it obviously wouldn't work on anyone with a brain. Anyone attempting to "cure" a feminist is either gonna give up or end up learning something.
This is utter drivel. I am a feminist, and I acknowledge there are many different kinds of feminism, but this article in Maxim, allows no room for sex positive feminism, and instead insists on a rigid definition of sex negative feminism that makes us all look like uptight, men-hating prudes! I love sex, I love men, and until now I loved Maxim.
ReplyDelete-Milly Payne.