Jedi Mind Tricks Don't Work on Me

I'm really hoping that Roxanne Gay's recent op-ed piece in the Guardian, "These Aren't the Feminists You're Looking For," was secretly some kind of joke, or something she was forced to write because she lost a bet.

My initial plan after reading it was to make fun of her for saying at one point, "I don't truck in magical thinking," and then saying at another point, "Feminism should not be something that needs a seductive marketing campaign. The idea of women moving through the world as freely as men should sell itself." But it turns out Martha Plimpton already called her out on that.

So instead, I'll make fun of her this way: Can you imagine the head of a condom manufacturer saying, "Condom use should not be something that needs a seductive marketing campaign. The idea of having hot sex without worrying about pregnancy or disease should sell itself." Or how about, "Beer should not be something that needs a seductive marketing campaign. The idea of getting intoxicated on something that is legal and socially acceptable should sell itself."

Perhaps more in the same ballpark, could you imagine the NRA of a few years back saying, "Charlton Heston isn't the gun owner you're looking for," and following it up with, "Advocacy for gun rights should not be something that needs a seductive marketing campaign." How about Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch saying, "The idea of conservatism should sell itself"?

Look, when we talk about the way things should be, it's an ironic halfway measure to say that the ideas of feminism should sell themselves. In the world that should be, there'd be no need for feminism at all, because it wouldn't occur to anyone to treat men and women unequally. We don't live in a world where things work the way they should. That's why we need feminism. And that's why feminism needs to market itself.

But ultimately, the worst aspect of Gay's column is not the logical inconsistencies, not the failure to admit that we live in a world where marketing is a thing, and one that works. No, the worst of it is that she's put together a screed that consists of one long fit of complaining. She says that Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Watson aren't the feminists we're looking for ... but she doesn't say who we ought to be looking for instead. She says we need to pay attention to the "hard work" of feminism instead of admiring celebrity feminists, but she doesn't give a single strategy for addressing the goals of feminism.

All she does is say that we shouldn't be using the strategies that have been getting a lot of media attention recently. Apparently, we shouldn't listen to the long and detailed speech Emma Watson gave at the UN. We shouldn't care about making feminism more accessible to men. (That one was important enough to put in her first paragraph.) We shouldn't approve of contests in which advertising agencies are challenged to create awareness campaigns in favor of feminist goals.

I don't know. Maybe it's reverse psychology. Maybe she was playing "Truth or Dare" and somebody asked her for a truth she was too embarrassed to reveal, so she had to take the dare of writing a farcical and counterproductive column.

Whatever it was, I hope she comes to her senses soon, because she's obviously an intelligent person with strong communication skills, and I'm not prepared to say she's not the kind of feminist we're looking for.

We should be looking for just about every kind of feminist we can find.

After all, this whole thing is about getting everyone on the same side.