Do Girls Rule The World? A Response To Beyonce Inspired By A Young Feminist

It's really amazing what you can find on the interwebz

A feminist vlogger who posts to YouTube under the the name NineteenPercent is responsible for an incisive critique of the new Beyonce song "Run The World (Girls)." This young intellectual, who could give any second waver from the 1970s a run for her money, points out that putting snappy tunes out there about how girls (or women) "run the world" is diss-information since equality for "Lady Humans" is not on the agenda nowadays.  Then she runs it down how bad things really are:  in one state a bill making cockfighting a felony crime was passed recently but a bill that would have made assaulting your wife a felony failed.

If women are making 78 cents to every dollar a man earns, NP points out, women do not run the world.  Not even close to it.  Furthermore, women are definitely not running the anti-violence agenda if, when we discuss crimes that are overwhelmingly committed against women, we have to footnote our remarks apologetically by acknowledging that women are not the only victims of that crime, and men are not the only perps, and so it can't really be a way of enforcing systemic gender discrimination, right? 

Take rape for example.  This is a crime that Beyonce and her girlfriends are able to prevent in the video by dancing skillfully in front of a gang of men who have apparently come to beat and rape them.  Much as Austin Powers defeated the fembots, Beyonce and her dancers terrify their assailants into submission by donning metal fingernails, shaking their scantily-clad hoo-hoos at them, and proving (DUH!) that girls run the world.  However, apparently this technique has not yet been deployed on college campuses, which is why the rape of women by men (78% of college rapes are by a known assailant) is a huge problem.  Perhaps because it is a well-known fact that girls run the world, should you be in a situation convened to discuss said rapes, you may be reproved by men and women alike if you do not adhere to the following rules for discussion:

a.  You have to constantly amend everything you say to include the (often pointless and unproven) "fact" that men are raped by women too, and women are raped by other women.  You have to stipulate this even though, according to Department of Justice Statistics, 91% of rape victims in the United States are women, 99% of rapists are men and you are probably in that room because of a recent and (too) horrible (to cover up) rape of a woman by a man.  Go here if you want to see a truly idiotic discussion on the topic of female rapists that nevertheless semi-accurately reflects every exchange I have heard the under reporting of these dastardly criminals who are using forced sex to maintain their rule of the world.  Only one commenter interrupts the thread by asking: "how can women rape men without a penis? like, with a strap-on?"  No one answered this incisive question, so eager were they to break the silence and report on the dozens of men they personally knew who had been raped by women taking time off from ruling the world.

b.  You have to refer to a woman who has been raped as a "survivor" as if she had suffered a near death experience, or was returning from a form of social death caused by the rape.

c.  You have to have long conversations about consent, as if unwanted sexual intercourse had occurred because of a failure to communicate rather than a WOMAN being physically overpowered by a MAN who wanted it, and wanted it now.  What now passes for anti-rape programming is often commonly called "consent training." It is a lot like dog training, in which women are taught to send very clear signals (andnotgetdrunkandnotgoplacesaloneandneverleaveyourfriendsatapartyandstayprettycoveredupbecausea guymightgetthewrongideaanddontputyourdrinkdownanywheresomeonemightputsomethinginitanddontgoupstairs atthefrathousewithanyoneandalwaysmeetaguyinapublicplaceforthefirsttimedontlethimknowwhereyoulive) and men are taught to keep their ears free of wax so they can hear a woman say no -- "which means no!"  The difference between consent training and dog training is that in the latter case dogs receive treats when they listen and respond to commands (here's an idea:  women could carry cans of beer, and when they say no to sex and men agree not to rape them, the guy gets a can of beer.) You would be surprised how confusing "consent training" is to college women who end up believing that the outcome of any given sexual encounter is a fifty-fifty proposition even when they said quite clearly that they did not want to have sex. 

OK sure, did we expect much of Beyonce anyway, given that she was the woman whose big hit a couple years ago informed the man she dumped that she had done so, not because she didn't dig him, but because he hadn't "put a ring on it?" I think we know from whence she thinks grrrrl power derives (should Hilary try this in the Middle East?)  So without further ado, let's hear from NineteenPercent.



Hat tip.