Oh, How I Wish You Had Asked a Feminist

Today's installment of Ask a Feminist is rather a wistful, melancholy affair. Why? Because recently people have been asking the wrong questions to the wrong people, who give them answers that only reinforce sexist and misogynistic attitudes (and yes, women are quite capable of misogyny). First up, some middle-aged man who apparently thought himself quite clever decided to write into Dear Margo and pretend to ask for advice on understanding the term "Friends with Benefits." Too bad the letter was nothing but a poorly-disguised jibe at loose women. Because the man wasn't really asking what friends with benefits meant. No, he asked Dear Margo when "sluts" had come to be known as "friends with benefits" and where he could find one of these renamed sluts. And Margo, instead of calling him on his self-righteous, sexist, double-standard crap, patted his head and agreed that women who do friends with benefits really are sluts and that it's just a generational gap.

Oh, how I wish the sexist ass  individual had asked a feminist. If he had asked me, for instance, I would have asked how he'd made it to middle age without learning the difference between singulars and plurals. I mean, he seems to think that friends with benefits refers to individual female sluts who lavish their attention on lucky, but oh-so-moral male recipients. Then I'd ask if he knew what the word "friends" meant, or if he really thought gorgeous female strangers would randomly decide to have their wicked way with him, all in the name of "friends with benefits." I mean, he must be super hot to think that's gonna happen. And then, I'd have to end by asking, If these women are sluts by your definition, what does that make the men who seek them? Johns?


But all playing aside, this is just a cut-and-dry case of sexism and double standards, with a bit of arrogant hypocrisy spicing things up.

And second - oh dear, I seem to have lost the link. How about I distract you with a little humor?

And hey, how about watching a Lily Allen music video that critiques defining women by their age and/or relationship statuses?



And if that doesn't work, here's a super fun song from Mika: