I never like mentioning this woman's name. It is what she wants, it is what she craves, and it's the driving force behind her so-called activism. But silence of a single person means little. However, adding to the voices of dissent might do much more.
Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian has, through some horrid little loophole, turned her video-making enterprise into a non-profit organization. Rather hilariously, it falls in into class 501(c)3, where you will also find religious and anti-animal cruelty groups. Yup, her little webisode series soapbox for the evils of chauvinism in the media now groups in with PETA and the Roman Catholic Church.
This turns my stomach. Not because of the existence of her ridiculous, pointless drivel that passes as some form of revolutionary, thought-provoking series of insightful videos, but because now she has a legitimate way to pay herself a salary while at the same time hiding in a tax shelter that doubles as a criticism shield.
"Oh, you can't say that I am doing this for money. I am a non-profit, so I am not seeking money for me! It's for the project!"
The reality is that Sarkeesian exists in an echo chamber of her own creation. She repeats what she finds to be popular feminazi dogma (and before you say I am exaggerating, remember, she is in the same camp as those who see disagreement as being worse than rape threats, where men are incapable of any form of understanding of women's rights issues, and where women can get PTSD from Twitter), then makes a passively decent video to try to prove how the media pushes those ideals.
This helps no one. It's the ultimate first world problem. Women in the developed world are forced to see how sex still sells, and how some genres still have lazy tropes tossed in for the sake of justifying a character's motivations. Oh dear god, nothing worse exists in the world for women, right?
I mean, it's not like there isn't a country where there is widespread rape and murder of women, right? I mean, it's not like there is someplace where women are so marginalized by the legal system that their rape and murder isn't even really a huge crime, right? Um, have you looked at this story from India? Or, what about the Sharia, laws still enforced in some countries. I mean, that's not really important, even though it allows for honour killing of women without punishment, right?
You see, it's hard to take any of these feminazis seriously when real feminists like Margaret Atwood exist. In fact, these feminazis have poisoned the well badly enough that even she has backed off on calling herself a feminist. See, that's the problem, this over-privileged, myopic and ultimately pointless people are becoming the face people think of when the word feminist pops up. They are seen as these crazy, irrational women who want to stomp men into the turf and take control, when the reality of feminism is simply the desire that women should be seen as equals as far as human rights, pay and opportunity for advancement.
I will definitely not say that even the US is there yet. We still have a baffling pay inequity. women are still routinely seen as a second-best choice, and there are fields that could use more balance of the sexes, mainly because having another viewpoint, regardless of sex, is better than an old boy's club of people who all agree.
Validating Sarkeesian's pointless video diatribes with the self-righteous stamp of non-profit is a step in the wrong direction. It gives her a pseudo-credibility with anyone who does not think hard enough on the fact that the company, not herself, is non-profit, and that non-profits are fully able to pay staff so long as the net gain for the business is 0. The only advantage I can see is that as a non-profit, she will be required to file her income, and that will be information we, the public, have a legal right to.
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