ROQ Makes Me Laugh (On Purpose)

A lot of stuff on Return of Queens makes me laugh, but in a way that probably does not reflect well upon my own character.  The writers on ROQ make a fetish of their femininity and constantly admonish their readers to be "lady-like", but their blatant bigotry makes a mockery of their class airs.

You see a true "lady" (or anyone born of the professional or upper middle class in the past fifty years) may be as racist as they come, but she would rather die than admit to it. So that's what I laugh about: the ladies at ROQ are hicks, and -- sorry to say it -- white trash to the core.  Their attempts to pretend otherwise are what make me laugh.

What's different about this ROQ post, "a cutting edge documentary of the MGTOW movement," is that is is supposed to be funny. Kudos to Meredith Knight, the contributor who posted it.

In fact, all of Meredith Knight's posts so far are decent, and show a degree of wit and humor noticeably lacking in most of the anti-feminist female bloggers. Not surprising, perhaps, if she is a Registered Nurse (they're usually pretty smart people).  I wish I could persuade her to switch teams.

I'd leave a comment on the site about how tickled I was, but I am sadly not welcome there, since according to their policy, "No hybrids of either are welcome, especially feminists.  Included in the list of excluded are trans-gender [pre AND post op], gender fluid [whatever the hell that means], gay men, lesbians, male feminists [yes they do exist], and any combination of those previously listed."

I just hope Knight, with all the biology classes she's surely taken, does not seriously believe that "human hybrids" exist.

It's the Economy, I Tell You

In case you didn't see this excerpt from the upcoming book Marriage Markets: How Inequality Is Remaking the American Family, authors Naomi Cahn and June Carbone find that working class women (in contrast to upper middle class women) do better economically as single moms.  I didn't find the authors' conclusion in the least bit surprising: I see evidence of it all around me, every day.  

In today's economy, many working class guys can't get or maintain jobs that allow them to contribute much in the way of financial support.  Marrying such a man makes the woman responsible not only for providing for the child, but also her partner, and gives the man parental rights (i.e., shared custody) or control over her life that he wouldn't easily enjoy if she did not marry him.

Under these circumstances, choosing not to marry the father of her child is kind of a "no-brainer," especially if a woman has parents or other family members willing to help out with child care. 

Is it possible this phenomenon is fueling the backlash that the "manosphereans" represent?  Their fear of obsolescence is, after all, not unfounded.  As the middle class continues to erode, and the former working class slip into chronic, inescapable poverty, the trend of mothers unwed by choice is unlikely to reverse itself, however much they are berated by the religious right wing.  And the impotent efforts of the New Misogynists to shame these women are less menacing than pathetic, for they know and we know that those women they call "sluts" or "feminists" not only don't want them, they are better off without them.