A woman needs a man, Bettina Arndt, please stop a moment while I vomit all over you.

OH.DEAR.GOD!!!!!!!!!!!

I’m usually not a religious women, but I swear, I will drop to my knees pray to God, Jesus, The Virgin Mother, The Prophet Muhammad, Buddha, the goddess or whoever, to make Bettina Arndt shut her mouth and crawl into a cave.

Honestly, if there ever was a woman who is more fascinated with the fucking shadows on the wall it is she. I don’t know if Plato would envision the form of the evil, gender traitor piece of rubbish commentator but if there is one, I have named the Bettina Arndt.

Please stop a moment while I vomit all over the women’s laptop (sorry NUS) because I’ve been forced to read Arndt’s stupid waste of oxygen/print/time piece in yesterday’s paper online (read it here). I usually avoid you due to your tendency to make me dry wretch but sadly, it’s past midnight on what is now technically Monday morning and I’m in desperate need of a blog post.

Okay, confession, I haven’t actually read the entire thing, I am a bad, bad blogger who will not sacrifice my dinner (a home made pastie if anyone is interested) for the sake of my craft. It’s the internet, so sue me. I got the gist of it, which was more than enough, it would appear that the lovely Ms Arndt is talking about the ‘buyers market’ which apparently exists for men on the prowl for a wife.

All these stupid women who are now in their thirties that spent their 20’s out ‘getting an education, a career and playing the field’ who are now totally fucked. ‘Cos they’ve gone out and done what my ex’s grandmother once told me was ‘getting herself over educated’ (the unspoken suffix of which was ‘for a woman’). Stupid, stupid woman. No one wants a lady that’s smarter than they are, your PhD makes it a bit to obvious to them love.

Arndt’s conclusion, which is a lesson to any of you single twenty somethings out there, is to be looking for your ‘Mr Right, right now’. Don’t wait, because once you hit the bit 3-0 then your life will be over, you may as well go out, adopt some cats and start getting your hair set in those curlers. Because your double degree is going to be the only thing keeping you warm at night. Sorry ladies.

Putting aside the heteonormative and offensive nature of this article I’m going to fall back on that old chestnut of the feminist movement. Namely, a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. What’s more if my generation of men turns out to be as intimidated by an intelligent, independent, educated woman then they’re a bunch of stupid babies anyway. If they don’t get to breed then it’s Darwinian baby!

I’m no more capable of being a purveyor of knowledge or advice as a commentator than one Ms Arndt, however, I would like to point out that I’ve been on this earth for some 21 years and I have a feeling that the level of respect and admiration that I hold for women that I’ve met is greater than anything that Bettina Arndt would be capable of.

This generation of women, those before and those that come after, are absolutely breathtaking. The brave feminists of the past did not fight for the vote, for the right of representation and education, for people like Bettina Arndt to tell us that we need to stop our education, our sexual liberation and our careers, for the sole purpose of gaining a husband.

In this generation of women there will be female prime ministers, premiers, there will be the women that lead the trade union movement, there will be Nobel Prize winners and novelists, there will be trail blazers and champions, they will take that glass ceiling and smash it into tiny pieces. Some of those women will be wives and mothers and some of them won’t be.

I hope that some of those women will have the opportunity to be the wives to wives when we end the injustice and embrace equal marriage. Some of those women won’t get married at all, Ms Arndt, and that will be completely fine too.

So, Bettina, Darling, I repeat that a woman needs  a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Now, excuse me while I vomit all over you.

A letter from an activist to her pre feminist self

Dear Pre-Feminist Self,

At the moment you’re in a really awkward stage. You’re using foundation that a friend left at your house in a desperate bid to hid your pustules. You’re passionate, about something, but you’re not sure what. You’ve just stopped calling yourself a ‘non-conformist’ and your friends have breathed a sigh of relief that they can stop rolling their eyes quite so hard.

I wish I could tell you that you’ll get less awkward soon. The thing is that you really won’t. You’ll be 21 and you’ll be walking around with ash in your hair and every time you think of something vaguely witty to say you’ll get tongue-tied.

Here’s the beautiful thing:

You’ll be cool with that.

Feminism won’t be a cure all for your problems – but it will teach you how to stand your ground. You will start to understand why things seem so unfair, and you’ll realize what you need to do to fight back. You will realize that you’re more than a number on the scales, more than a uterus, more than a canvas for that horribly mismatched foundation.

And yeah, you’ll get really mad at times. Like when a pharmacist glares at you for buying emergency contraception, or you’re told you’re “too feminine” to be taken seriously, or people discuss your body as if it’s a car that needs work. But you’ll be able to deal with this bullshit so much better because you know that it is bullshit.

So don’t worry. You’re going to find an outlet for your passion. You’re going to learn a lot. You’re going to do a lot. You’re going to meet amazing people. You’re going to like yourself. Maybe not the ash in your hair, but that’s rather secondary in the scheme of things.

In sisterhood.