The recent addition of to #MeToo’s victim roster is a perfect illustration of the kind of country club nonsense which gives The Cynical Times misgivings about the pseudo-feminist movement.
While we applaud #MeToo for holding America’s toxic elites publicly accountable for their predatory garbage, we continue to be troubled by its focus on celebrity victims.
The Movement’s aim is as faulty as former President Bill Clinton’s when it comes to Lewinsky, who sought the benefits of a sexual liaison with a powerful, famous, married man and is now trying to rebrand herself as some kind of victim. As if the opportunistic 22-year-old woman didn’t know there was a little media attention around him when she threw herself at the leader of the free world in 1995.
Lewinsky’s singular contribution to society?
The unforgettable and comedic admission that she spent an entire day walking around with presidential jizz on her dress after a tryst in the Oval Office bathroom. Then went to dinner with friends.
Note to Lewinsky: “the word you’re looking for is “schmutz.”
Note to Lewinsky’s friends: Your duties include inspecting her clothes and hair regularly for the aforementioned schmutz. Cause you never know.
Victim?
No.
Idiot?
Yes.
It comes as no suprise that Lewinsky is now jumping aboard the #MeToo victim wagon with the zeal of a porn star turned born-again Christian, after decades of insisting she and POTUS42 were engaged in a consentual extra-marital affair. Her new tack on the whole thing is that she was incapable of consenting to sex at the age of 22.
Lewinsky – now 45 – falls well short of the feminist ideal and may still be intellectually incapable of consenting to sex. She makes a compelling argument for treating wealthy, young women as legal minors and resurrecting the .
She also illustrates the central painful truth which continues to elude #MeToo, which is that socialites and actresses are not the only victims of the Predatory 1 Percent. Working class men and women are habitually exploited by them as well, and in much greater numbers and with far more lasting damage.
The Cynical Times fears #MeToo may never get around to the rest of us now. The Movement may have mortally wounded itself by sharing its shrinking credibility with a rich weakling whose only claim to fame is privileged birth and her own avarice, egoism and faulty judgment.
#MeToo seems to celebrate an America where only the rich and attractive matter. These “superior” country club life forms are free to take the benefits of victim status without the burdens.
Burdens are strictly for those of us in the poor and middle class.
This supremacist approach to feminism and equality is a real problem for The Cynical Times, as a Progressive website devoted to the poor and faltering middle class.
It also may be part of the reason describes #MeToo as “Sexual McCarthyism.” We don’t share her Libertarian philosophy, but Young makes a valid point when she worries that the Movement’s failure to vet the claims of its alleged victims creates a kind of “victimhood-based tribalism for women.” One which is a standing “invitation to reframe regretted sexual experiences as coercive.”
The #MeToo Movement has a lamentable obsession with fame and “crying wolf,” which echoes the idiotic allegations of woe leveled by the naked models of PETA and Femen (below left).
“Look at me,” they scream at us with arched backs, cinched boobs, and pouty lips. “I’m a victim, and a really, really hot victim at that.”
No thanks.
The Cynical Times is a bit of a liberal outlier in the sense that we have no problem speaking out about #MeToo’s shortcomings, while lauding its overall direction. We think constructive criticism can make it a more effective movement for change, by pressuring it to deal with its own shortcomings. Which are legion.
If #MeToo wasn’t hitting the Frat Boys hard we wouldn’t bother. So thank you for your service ladies. Now, how about getting your rich heads out of your rich asses?
Pretty please.
There’s decent working people in this country who could use your help. We do your cooking and cleaning, build your mansions, teach your kids, and pave the streets beneath your Mercedes. Your husbands and boyfriends tend to treat us like garbage, and you do too sometimes, but we still think our suffering matters every bit as much as your suffering.
More to the point, there’s a boatload of Progressive middle class Americans pushing for equality who are dedicated to ending our society’s unofficial caste system. We’re not battling to replace the rich men who serve as its Brahmins with rich females.
Sorry, no.
You might consider these painful truths the next time we’re towing your car out of a ditch; snaking sewer pipes clogged with your gilded pubies; plowing the snow from your driveways; and treating your kids in the local hospital emergency room.
Remember us?
. We might be invisible to you, but you’re plenty visible to us.
And we ain’t handing out no freebies on your knowing lies.
The Cynical Times hopes #MeToo will eventually abandon its status as the rich, female equivalent of the “He Man Women Haters Club” of Little Rascals fame. We regret the Movement’s embrace of a zero tolerance approach to rape culture, which levels those who “play the game” with real victims.
Zero tolerance is problematic for Cynical because it makes it easy for fake victims to pose as real victims. Especially at a time when the Movement’s criteria for victim status seems to be degenerating into familial wealth, credit scores, and name recognition.
Feminism as a whole has a laudable compassion for victims of abuse, but doesn’t do nearly enough to police the posers who attempt to hijack that status for personal gain. This accountability shortfall encourages those who play the Hollywood casting couch game to equate themselves with real victims like actress Rosie McGowan, who proudly spit the bit.
Instead of the spinach dip.
We prefer our victims like McGowan, who made principled stands that hurt her career and advanced the greater good. Instead of playing the sex trader with some aging bull to gain an unfair advantage over actors with a modicum of self respect and impulse control.
Enabling the victimization of others by “playing the game” is a form of cheating and Cynical is not going to celebrate these victims of convenience. Ever.
Same goes for allowing gold diggers with faulty aim to rebrand themselves as some kind of victim. Like say the late Anna Nicole Smith, who tried and failed to steal the $1.6 billion fortune of an addled oil baron from his rightful heirs.
The only good thing to come from her matrimonial mugging of oilman J. Howard Marshall II was : “The bride wore cleavage.”
There’s more.
“The 89-year-old groom, speaking from his wheelchair, assured the 11 people in attendance that he sure did adore his new 26-year-old wife, for whom he already had purchased $1 million worth of jewelry. After the champagne-and-chocolate-cake reception, the bride kissed her man and whispered, ‘Bye, darling, I’m off to Greece.’ ”
Nothing but nothing but class as we say in the Bronx.
Militant feminists can call us all the names they like. It’s not going to magically transform the females in these scenarios from predator to victim.
The painful truth is that the dueling scumbags in the Marshall-Smith coupling richly deserved one another. Neither of them was a victim, or even someone worth knowing. Just like Clinton and Lewinsky.
Disclaimer: We have a Chanel Diamond Forever Bag chock full of “snowflakes,” “mansplaining,” “libtards,” “patriarchy,” “Yankee Jew Bastards” and assorted other group-based slurs here at The Cynical Times. And there’s lots of room in it for additional attempts at verbal intimidation by the rich and mouthy.
(blank stare)
Seriously, we’re all about principled stands and those who make them at Cynical. We believe the Rosie McGowans of the world deter both opportunistic predators people like Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly and opportunistic victims like Lewinsky from scamming the rest of us.
To the extent that modern feminism is still about gender equality, we’re on board. To the extent that it embraces the primitive group supremacy, identity politics, and country club nonsense of the wealthy and stupid – we say “no mas.”
We’re spitting the bit at playing the game. Just like Rosie.
So do your worst.
Bottom line, the Lewinskys and Smiths of the world are neither a credit to women nor America. They’re every bit as big a disgrace as the aging bulls on the other end of these transactaional relationships of the rich and famous.
Lewinsky is a spoiled little rich girl who earned a White House internship behind her wealthy daddy’s political donations. Not on merit. Her position came at the expense of more qualified applicants who were not beneficiaries of fortunate birth.
There’s no shortage of power groupies in Washington, D.C., who try men on like fashion accessories and view their vaginas as magical perfumed chalices. This one pursued a consensual sexual relationship with a married man twice her age with zero impulse control. He also happened to be the leader of the free world. That doesn’t make her a victim. It makes her a sex trader.
Holding Lewinsky equally accountable for her actions and decisions is pure feminism. It’s not something else.
It’s not like Lewinsky had to choose between working for a grabby douche and being out on the street with her kids, or having sex with the last man on Planet Earth and leading a celibate life.
She had lots of options. She chose to try and steal someone else’s husband because she was selfish and egotistical. Kinda like the Octomom, who sought fame by having 13 kids, and Devon West, the Lewinsky wannabee who just ended the political career of Florida Democratic leader Jeff Clemens.
These distinctions matter.
Lewinsky secured a fashion career for herself after the Clinton affair ended, courtesy of presidential fixer Vernon Jordan. If you think she earned that opportunity on merit your opinion of women is considerably lower than ours.
Is Clinton free of blame?
Hell no, he’s an arrogant, rich a-hole. But you know what?
So is Lewinsky. How else could she possibly think she can rewrite history by using #MeToo to rebrand herself as a victim?
Eff that garbage. #MeToo is way too important to be used for personal gain. Or was…
Cynical fervently believes the Monica Lewsinkys, Renee Zellweggers, Melania Trumps, Tawana Brawleys and Octomoms of the world are not victims of anything but their own blind ambition and lack of impulse control. Their privileges come at the expense of the rest of us and fems should not conflate them with real victims of sexual misconduct.
There are elements of class warfare, group supremacy, sexism and appropriation in #MeToo which are inconsistent with the principled liberalism of The Cynical Times and the longtime feminist goal of achieving equality. As opposed to swapping out the tyranny of rich men for rich women.
That said, no movement is perfect and #MeToo has done more than any other group to halt the boorish behavior of the male side of a Country Club Set which has long taken misguided pride in the idea that the normal rules of civil society do not apply to them. It’s done far more good than bad.
What’s next?
Hopefully, no more Lewinskys. Pretty please.
And no more porn stars turned born again Christans, no more disgraced politicians turned pastors, Reality TV Stars turned Nazi spokesmodels, Reality TV stars turned politicians, Reality TV Stars turned anything.
Why?
Because impulse control and self respect are qualities which should defy both familial wealth and acess to upscale spinach dip.
