A girl that I used to know back in college recently posted an article on her Facebook -- Invisible/Hypervisible -- written by a self-described "plus sized woman of color" who feels "judged and scrutinized" by her doctors, who do not understand the radicalism behind her choice to exercise her reproductive right while in academia, something frowned upon "unjustly." The author, who only identified herself as "La Chica Mas Fina (The Finest Chick,)" claims that the doctors judging and scrutinizing her are wrong because she "one year" was told she had "the cholesterol level of athletes."
Finest Chick then goes on to inform the reader that her glucose levels are in the normal range, therefore making her pregnancy a healthy one. Not even two days after Finest Chick's article, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology published the results of a 14,000 persons obesity study; the results? Healthy obesity is a myth, even in patients with normal cholesterol and glucose levels.
Also shorty after the article was published, another study revealed that: "A mother's diet around the time of conception can permanently influence her baby's DNA." Despite medical studies and the judgment and scrutiny of her doctors, the public at large should stop "policing" the bodies of "women of color."
The author faults not only the patriarchy for policing her, but also other women in academia, who thus consequently "appall" her. The author uses the word "violence" to describe how she is treated by her peers. The author then states: "I feel in todays[sic] campus climate having a baby is also radical because it’s implicitly and indirectly forbidden," largely hinting that her pregnancy is simply a way for her to feed her need for ideological contrarianism, not for the sake of experiencing the miracle of childbirth and of enjoying the privilege of raising a healthy, productive citizen.
In many branches of radical feminism today, children are ideological experiments and political acts. The author claims that she took time to "come out" about her pregnancy, as if somehow choosing to become pregnant for nine months is tantamount to the lifelong policing, judging, and scrutinizing that gay men and lesbian women have to endure.
After "coming out" the author complains that she feels as if people have "low expectations" from her. In the very next paragraph, the author proceeds to complain about how "invisible" she feels; "I don’t have the privilege of people automatically assuming I am an expecting mother," says the author.
Despite spending the first half of her article complaining about how difficult it is when people judge her pregnancy, she considers an identifiable baby bump to be a "privilege." Though the author argues that a visible pregnancy in academia leads others to judge her, many people cannot tell she is pregnant. If the author were more visibly pregnant, she would be more widely judged and scrutinized, but she laments that people don't take her pregnancy into consideration; "I had been standing for ten minutes while two students comfortably sat
down waiting for a meeting with a professor. My feet hurt as I stood and
waited for my meeting! I felt myself getting gradually angry until I
finally blurted out, 'I am six months pregnant, can I please sit down!'"
Though many radical feminists argue that women do not enjoy privilege in American society, Finest Chick argues that expecting mothers with a visible bump do enjoy privilege, a privilege which she is being unrighteously denied. And why should pregnancy carry privilege? Because: "I want to look down at my non-traditionally sized and shaped belly
and recognize it as my most beautiful curve, my most brilliant
accomplishment, because that curve represents my healthy growing baby
girl."
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The PhD candidate author mentions that her two sisters were young mothers, yet she calls her pregnancy her "most brilliant accomplishment."
The very light-skinned "woman of color" who can afford Forever 21 dresses and Urban Outfitters heels feels that she can get angry at male students who don't immediately recognize that a female student in heels is pregnant. Men should, after all, pay close attention to the women around them.
And so I commented on this article on Facebook, decrying how I wouldn't give up my seat if I were one of the two guys, especially if asked impolitely. In today's world of equality, I was attacked for saying that I wouldn't be willing to give up my seat to an angry person who has already determined that I am policing her and making her feel invisible.
One female accused me of being a typical man, the kind that concentrates on only one little detail in an article in order to tear it down. I was informed to check my "male privilege" by a woman living in the United States, a woman who knows nothing of my life as a Moroccan-looking guy in a country where I'm not a citizen, do not speak the language, and don't have the financial resources of a typical native. At this moment, any Dutch woman, regardless of how unprivileged, could make an allegation against me, however unfounded, and I would be on the next plane out of the country.
In the mind of some radical feminists, all men enjoy privilege, and all women are oppressed. Despite not enjoying the privilege of indoor plumbing and a toilet until I moved from my town in the Dominican Republic to the relatively affluent South Bronx with my father -- who would die from lack of health care at 46 -- I somehow still need to check my male "privilege."
Despite the fact that I used the gender-neutral "person" when arguing that a person shouldn't give up their seat unless politely asked (that's my opinion,) the fact that it was voiced by a male made my words oppressive. When I brought up women getting men's seats as a female privilege, some other female told me to shut up because her "sisters" were getting "harassed" day in and day out on the streets.
I don't know what meaning of the word "sister" she used, nor do I know what definition of the word "harassed" she was using, but I can say that my brothers are stopped and frisked on a daily basis, and it can be far more degrading than being insulted from a passing car.
The sad reality is that men are no longer allowed to voice opinions when words like "privilege" or "rape culture" are thrown around. Many radical feminists purport to promote "healing for all" but the reality is that men's suffering is invisible, and their misdeeds are hypervisible. America does have a "rape culture"; prison rape of men is usually celebrated as morally just by male and female comedians alike.
America not only has a rape culture, it has a torture culture. In Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, the torture of men is glorified. In America's prisons, more than 80,000 are currently being tortured in solitary confinement. Some of those men have been the victims of on-going torture for decades. Do women enjoy privilege? They enjoy the privilege of lower murder rates (state or individual-agent authorized,) lower suicide rates, and lower rates of state-sanctioned torture.
But in the minds of radical feminists, men enjoy the privilege of an armed, tyrannical state immediately siding with them, even when it is obvious that being male carries a presumption of guilt in many cases. No, America is not a panopticon that imprisons more men than any other country in the world, America is a place that gives too much due process to rapists. As such, it is only right that we surrender more rights.
