Kat and Phoebe discuss the alleged homicide of millennial feminism and, for the absolute last time, the fallout from that memoir.

LINKS:

She Wrote a Book About Her Throuple. The Internet Lost Its Mind — featuring Leigh “Current” Stein, Phoebe “Day” Maltz Bovy, and Kat “The Internet” Rosenfield:

“Now much of the current-day internet has decided she either isn’t who they thought she was or is lying to herself in saying she’s happy in a throuple.”

The Death of Millennial Feminism - The Atlantic

The Lindy West “Adult Braces” saga continues with an unhinged email from her husband

Is the polyamory dream over — and did Lindy West kill it? | The Independent

Deep cut Feminine Chaos— our 2019 newsletter on l’affaire Lindy:

In the New York Times, author Morgan Jerkins reviewed (and in doing so, cancelled? promoted?) Lindy West’s book, The Witches Are Coming. The book is, Jerkins writes, “a manifesto,” but then she qualifies this: “a manifesto for some people.” Which, one might wonder, are the manifestos for all people? Remember when Lena Dunham played a character who, in a haze, made reference to herself as the voice of her generation, and this got treated in media coverage as Dunham personally thinking she represented a generation? Anyway.

West, you see, is a White Feminist of the most troubling kind: the one who believes herself to be aware of her privileges. It is precisely this self-presentation – as One Of The Good Ones – that all but sets up a review critiquing a failure to acknowledge privilege. Yes, Jerkins notes throughout the review, West makes note of the plight of people other than herself. But when she does so, “her concern feels perfunctory.”

Among other sins, West “willfully ignores the ways that prejudice against the L.G.B.T. community intersects with so many other kinds of oppression — or else, just as damning, she simply doesn’t see it.” Also willfully ignored or simply unseen: “that white women can be just as invested in white supremacy as their male counterparts.” And, needless to say, “West never acknowledges the epidemic of violence toward black trans women.” Had she done so, though, would that have been enough, or would that, too, have felt “perfunctory”?

West writes regularly about not just sexism but discrimination against fat women, of whom she is one: “‘As for ‘Friends’? West says, ‘I need a separate therapist just to deal with Fat Monica.’”

Jerkins is unmoved:

“O.K., fine. She’s pointing out that women can be pathologized for their intelligence and that fat women are a constant source for jokes. This may be true. But West never connects the dots to the bigger picture, where white women have been overrepresented in media since time immemorial…”

What conclusions can be drawn from all of this? So many!

1) It’s unacceptable to write about suffering if there’s still-greater suffering out there unless you fully reckon with the hierarchy of suffering. But!

2) It’s better, strategically, to skip privilege disclaimers and brief references to others’ plights entirely, if what you’re trying to do is write about your own (perhaps legitimate) grievances.

3) Don’t tweet. Oh wait, this was a book, not a tweet? Then we can’t help you.

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