The current model of Choice Feminism is riddled with problems.

In radfem and GC spaces, we take them as a gimme. We understand that many of the alternatives we throw around are older than any of us, that radical feminism is not a reaction to Choice Feminism.

In our sheltered enclave, it’s easy to forget how confusing it is out there.

French YouTuber Alice Cappelle takes on some meaty subjects with a laywoman’s perspective. She lays out details and liberally quotes others, while admitting she doesn’t always know where she stands on things.

I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I had no idea what separatism was.

Doing some long-overdue digging, I learned it’s at the root of the weed that’s choking modern politics.

Research Is Safe And Fun!

I quickly found myself lost in a dense, dry old bramble. Kathy Rudy’s tale of joining a ‘radical feminist’ group is littered with breadcrumbs along the trail into the political wilderness.

Bill Maher makes a great Boomer spokesman.

Sitting halfway between Bill and the Young People I think he’s yelling at this week, I remember his firebrand image from 25 years ago.

He’s always spoken for that segment of liberals who fancy themselves independent thinkers. They made a big splash as the new kids in town, when I was a kid. But the turmoil of the past quarter-century hasn’t triggered any growth as they became the dominant force in American liberal politics.

The irony of feminism supporting transwomen smacked me in the face today.

Hatshepsut, the ancient Egyptian queen, has joined the long list of dead women transitioning recently. You’d think 3,000 years would be too old to matter, but no corner must remain Unclean.

Amnesty UK even stepped in a few months ago to make it official!

Joan of Arc has also been popular lately. Because why else would a young woman traveling with men through enemy territory wear pants, right?

“All this time, we have been quietly permitting society to convince us that, in discarding the torturously repressive corset, we have definitively thwarted the patriarchal hold over female liberty Once And For All…

“While in actuality, our material freedom has been gradually snatched from right under our noses in the form of expensive jeans with fake pockets requiring additionally expensive handbags!

I knew something was up when I woke up to 19 notifications.

They had me right – A smallish account with only so much energy to defend myself. But they just really hated my Cyberpunk article!

After the original poster proclaimed it was “NOT ok to insult anyone because of their opinion,” a group of them wasted no time dogpiling me to tell me why my opinion meant I needed to die.

The other day, I was reading that same discussion again.

“I can’t wait till the tide finally turns and all these loudmouths on the Trans Train will get their just desserts!”

“Yeah, I think about that, too. But I’m afraid the world will just pretend it never happened.”

This goes against the gut feeling of Justice, but the pessimists have a point. How many times have we had something completely off-the-charts insane splashed across our screens, only to have the News Cycle churn onward and nothing really happen?

Tribalism has really gotten out of hand, hasn’t it? Everything must be on one side or the other in the Culture War, no front line is too remote.

But tossing everything in two huge piles throws together things that have no business anywhere near each other.

The simple dichotomy of Conservative = Republican / Progressive = Democrat has shown itself inadequate for a while now. For one thing, a ‘conservative’ is someone who wants to conserve things as they are. But this makes the Biden administration’s Back-To-Normal schtick a little weird, doesn’t it?

Last Fall, I was planning to throw all my little weight behind Elizabeth Warren.

She speaks my language, about families and ground-level economics. I was excited to have a woman candidate whose policies I could actually support. Her background with disabled children and low-income families seemed to indicate a person who understood some issues that have been ignored by mainstream politics for way too long.

I think men convinced themselves women were just a little too stupid for all those centuries, so they wouldn’t have to face what they had done to us.

Exploiting a natural weakness to strip an intelligent, self-aware person of their individuality, and put them to work for the benefit of others – Well, that would be pretty evil. One might be tempted to empathize with such a person, to imagine what it’s like to let go of any thought of personal achievement.