Hot Topic: Everything Wrong With FCKH8's Feminists

This isn't going to be one of those anti-feminist posts because I already wrote something similar a while back which received mostly positive reviews. This post is about FCKH8's new video featuring little girls who curse like sailors in order to spread awareness about feminism. These children spew out 'facts' about a movement they know absolutely nothing about to teach adults about the harsh reality and oppression that females face in the country. Somehow, I managed to go through the video without vomiting on my coworker's desk. So let me break down the fallacies within the FCKH8 feminist video. But before that, kudos to all the parents who let their kids swear this much. The first time I said fuck was when I was 15 and my mother slapped the life out of me.

Let's get to it:

"Women are paid 23 percent less than men for the exact same fucking work." 

This fact has been debunked time and time again. The gap isn't necessarily because of labor market discrimination but because of the choices men and women make before and during their time in the work force. Women might earn less than men, but the wage disparity has so many other contributing factors that it's just too easy to pull out the gender card. What other factors, you ask? 

Well, men tend to go into high-paying fields like engineering and business while women go into lower-paying fields such as social sciences or nursing. Men also often take on jobs that involve physical labor in dangerous conditions, which is why men suffer the majority of workforce accidents and deaths. I don't know about you, but if I'm putting my life on the line, I better be paid damn well more than those who sit in front of the computer compiling gifs for online listicles.

Don't compare the wages of men in higher paying fields with women in lower paying fields. That's like complaining about the fact that cardiac surgeons get paid more than you. If you compare the wages of men and women in the same industry, the pay gap all but disappears. And besides, if you can pay women substantially less than men and get away with it, why don't companies just hire all women? 

Women are also more likely to work part time to take responsibility for children at home. And yes, some women prefer household work, so don't get all up and arms about it. Why do many feminists tell women where they do and don't belong? Isn't feminism fighting for women to have the right to do anything they want? If women want to have children and lay off work for awhile, like my mother did, then that's their prerogative. It's not a feminism thing. It's a choice thing.

Also, here's a nifty little pie chart for you that needs no further explanation:

"Women who graduate university with straight A's get paid as much as men who only got C's."

This one doesn't even make sense. The grades you graduate with in university has fuck all to do with your income unless you're in a very specific field. My current boss didn't even ask me about my GPA during the interview, he just hired me based on my folio and my eagerness to learn. Both my sisters were top of their class in high school and university, and one of them gets paid double the other. This isn't sexism; it all depends on the job and how well they do it. Because an A at school means jack shit in the workforce. In what world do we live in where those with straight A's are paid much higher than their average counterparts? Because I've never heard of that fact before. You know what, I'm not even going to get into this one. 

"1 out of every 5 women will be sexually assaulted or raped by a man." 

I assumed FCKH8 would be a little more thorough with their facts, but they probably just googled 'rape statistics' and clicked on the first link without any further scrutiny. However, Christina Hoff Sommers from the American Enterprise Institute kindly ripped apart this fact with poise in one of her videos, and I'm going to reiterate her points.

The 1 in 5 statistic can be found in the CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Assault Survey in 2011. It claims that approximately 1.3 million women were raped and 12.7 million men and women were victims of sexual violence. Shocking, isn't it? Now let's take a look at the Justice Department's Annual Crime Survey, which is the gold standard in crime research. Their facts report around 188,000 rapes in 2010. What have we got here—two completely different figures reporting about the same issue. 

Here's what you need to know about the CDC's survey. It was a poorly conducted telephone survey with a low response rate and vague questions from a small sample. They didn't even directly ask people if they have been raped or sexually assaulted. Instead, they projected rape victims as those who have experienced 'alcohol and drug facilitated penetration.' By the CDC's standards, all sex when inebriated falls under the category of rape. That means that one wild night in the back of your car after an EDM rave constitutes as rape. And so was that awesome college party hook-up with Cutie With A Septum Piercing after downing a six-pack. Let that sink in. 

And the 13 million sexual assault victims? The survey asked whether or not their partners have ever pressured them into having sex by telling lies, made false promises about the future, or pressured them by showing they were unhappy. If they said yes to any of them, the survey would label it as sexual violence.

This 1 in 5 fact is a false and exaggerated statistic meant to push women into paranoia. It makes it seem like rape is a true epidemic, when in reality, based on the Justice Department's Annual Crime Survey, it has only affected 0.059% of the population. I'm not undermining the pain of rape victims, but this false statistic does. 

"We're glad that women's right to vote is here, but the next step to equality is walking to the car without fear."

You know, you can walk to your car without fear unless you live in Saudi Arabia where women are banned from driving, or in Afghanistan where it is the most dangerous place to be a woman. Look, its not about 'rape culture' anymore, it's about fear culture. You're allowed to not be afraid walking to the car. That paranoia is your fault. Malaria has killed more than half of the people who have ever lived, and 3.4 billion people are at risk of it (that's half the population). But if I have an intense fear of Malaria, people will tell me to get over it and that's all in my head, even though I live in a tropical country where I can get 30 mosquito bites in a day. Yet women walk in fear to their car for the 0.059% chance of sexual assault. You're more likely to get struck by lightning. So be more paranoid of walking in the rain.

"Society teaches girls that their bodies, boobs and butts are more important than our brains, leads us to thinking our worth comes from our waistline."

Yes, but society also teaches men that their worth comes from their wallets. We need to change both perspectives, not just one.

"When you tell a boy not to act like a girl, it's because you think it's bad to be a girl."

Um, I'm pretty sure we have phrases such as, "don't be a dick," that portray males in a bad way. We also have comments such as, "you're so butch," or "you're such a tomboy," that condescends towards men.

"Girls just want to have fun...damental rights!"

Yes, they're selling those shirts. Yes, the women wearing it are privileged white people. I mean, if the shirts were sold in developing countries or places where young girls get shot in the head for going to school, then awesome. But wearing that shirt in a first world country is pretty ironic, since if you don't have fundamental rights, you wouldn't be able to speak out against not having any fundamental rights. Heck, you wouldn't even be able to make the goddamn FCKH8 ad in the first place. 

Do these feminists even know what fundamental rights are? Do they know that women in first world countries have them? Here, I made a little checklist that I suggest FCKH8 implement on their website whenever someone tries to buy that shirt. If you tick all of them, the site blocks all purchases of feminist t-shirts, mugs, or keychains.

Heck, I'm from a third world country and I can still tick every box. I wonder what fundamental human right American women are deprived of that even us women in the largest Muslim country have. 

That's it, kids! Let's wrap up what we've learned today. 1. The the wage gap fact is a myth. 2. The 1 in 5 rape fact is a myth. 3. Women in first world countries have fundamental rights. 4. The FCKH8 feminist video is complete and utter bullshit that should not be spewing lies to unsuspecting masses.