Sam Bee Tells Men That If They Want to Call Themselves Feminists They Better “F*** Like One Too”
Last night, Samantha Bee took the #MeToo backlash to task, addressing the problems that the media are so fearful of. The “witchhunt,” the mashing together of bad dates and rape, the infantilization of women, etc., are things the media are creating in order to basically tell women “we heard you about the big things, but now we need you to shut the f-up because men need to date!”
As the Bee puts it, “Here’s the number of people who are putting rape and harassment and bad dates in one bucket: literally nobody is saying they’re the same!”
“What many fail to understand is that it doesn’t have to be rape to ruin your life, and it doesn’t have to ruin your life to be worth speaking out about,” Bee added. “Any kind of sexual harassment or coercion is unacceptable. So what the fuck are women supposed to do to protect ourselves? If we go public with a story, we’re petty crybabies hellbent on destroying men’s careers. If we write a secret list to protect each other, we’re gossipy shrews telling lies in the shadows. What men literally cannot understand is, this isn’t about them!”
Then, of course, she brought up Aziz Ansari, since he is someone who has been considered an “ally” and the fact that his reported incident is endemic of something problematic but different from the extreme cases of rape and sexual harassment. Hell, even last night working on the piece I had to be reminded by Teresa that sexual assault doesn’t just mean rape.
The ending of Bee’s monologue is perfect, not only because it perfectly illustrates what is so frustrating about all the backlash happening right now. Women have been trying to talk about their experiences in a climate that finally seemed to be giving them a space to be heard and believed. But as soon as that became “difficult,” we now have to worry if women are being treated like “snowflakes.”
Yet at the same time, we are being told that “men are not mind readers” and that we can’t expect men to pick up on non-verbal cues. Even worse, on shows like The View, we are still sharing the idea that if you go to a man’s house, he is expecting sex and women need to be prepared for sex. If the problem is that we are infantilizing women, why are we treating men like they have zero self-control or sexual intelligence? Why are we treating men like babies?
Anyway, I’ll let the Bee take it from here:
“A lot of people are worried about Aziz’s career—which no one is trying to end, because again, we know the difference between a rapist, a workplace harasser, and an Aziz Ansari,” Bee said. “That doesn’t mean we have to be happy about any of them.”
“People like me had to wade through a sea of prehensile dicks to build the world we now enjoy,” Bee continued. “And part of enjoying that world is setting a higher standard for sex than just ‘not rape.’ And women get to talk about it if men don’t live up to those standards—especially if that man wrote a book about how to sex good. And if that seems harsh, I’m sorry. In fact, you know what? I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
“I’m sorry that anyone ever thought the contents of that list or any of the ways we protect ourselves from men were your goddamn business,” Bee said. “I’m sorry you thought you got to choose what experiences we can share, or how we react to the shitty ways we’ve been treated. And to men specifically, I’m sorry our request to be respected makes office culture a little less fun and flirty. And I’m sorry we tattled on that stuff you did on us, even when it was totally not rape. But listen: if you don’t want to tune into your partner’s feelings throughout sex, maybe you shouldn’t be fucking a person at all. May I suggest a coin purse, or a Ziploc bag full of grape jelly?
“If you say you’re a feminist, then fuck like a feminist. And if you don’t want to do that, take off your fucking pin, because we are not your accessories.”
(via Variety, image: Youtube/Screengrab )
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