As you all know, we get tons of charming email - one I got this weekend, for example was just "fuck you" copied and pasted three hundred or so times. (You at least have to give him credit for staying on message!) But it was this recent email that I really enjoyed from ellie8d:
Please don't have children. The world already has too many hate filled people.
My husband always said, "Even the most beautiful woman becomes very ugly when she uses vulgar words." I couldn't agree more.
OMG. Are you calling me 'beautiful'?! Swoon!
Seriously though, I love emails like these even more than our standard "fuck you cunt" messages because their authors seem to believe that they're actually good people just passing on friendly advice. (As if sending a perfect stranger an email telling them not to procreate because they curse too much is a perfectly normal thing to do.)
If you're out there, Ellie, I just want you to know that I'm going to start having unprotected sex - lots of it - just for you. Cheers!
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Cussing's genetic? Who knew!
What if Jessica had kids, who'd with luck get her beauty, and gave them up for adoption to nuns, so they wouldn't learn sass-back and potty-mouth?
yes yes, my aunt, who spent many years in catholic orphanages, does not have a potty mouth. and sailors never blush when she speaks.
See? Works every time.
And I bet that if her husband said vulgarity is hot, she'd believe it, too.
I wonder they never say, "my husband said to think for myself."
Don't give them ideas, you know what irreconcilable paradoxes do to the fabric of reality.
"What do you want me to think for myself, sire?"
marc and alecks for the win.
Thank you! We'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your bartender.
"I am now commanding you to stop listening to my commands."
"....fuck."
Oh, the IRONY!
What did the poor helpless time-space continuum ever do to you?
"I command you to not follow the next command I give you."
"I command you to follow the previous command."
Yeah, I get the impression that too many so called "feminists" are into the movement not for its values, but because it is a quick fix for their arguing/drama needs. Its really sad.
That's the case for any movement or point of view.
it's really sad when people with screennames like proudfeminist use air quotes around the word feminist...
No we're not.
As superficial as this may be, I am honestly thankful for these "so called 'feminists'" you speak of. If they're going to hop on a bandwagon, at least they're hopping on this one. They'll help us more than they hurt us, right?
I, personally, believe that anyone willing to call her/himself a feminist is, indeed, a feminist.
In case you haven't been reading other threads, "proud feminist" is a troll. Please do not feed.
hahahaha. I love reading these emails (in small doses).
*eye roll*
So let me get this straight, men can use vulgar words all they want, but it's unseemly for a beautiful woman? Please! At least that seems to be the double standard implied...
Also, I never quite understood hate mail. I can't stand Glenn Beck but that doesn't mean I'm going to waste my breath writing to him to tell him "Please don't procreate".
Not to mention the extreme paternalism in A.) Telling a woman what she should or should not do with her body and B.) Telling a woman what words she should or should not use to make a point.
That's because Glenn Beck can't read ...
ahaha. touche.
HE CAN'T READ????//? GET OFF THIS BLOG YOU LITTLE PINHEAD!!1!@!, etc.
How are all those hairy man-hating dykes supposed to get pregnant in the first place. I smell trouble with their theories...
Well they have to be able to get pregnant so they can get abortions! They looooove getting abortions! The later the better!
I love the fact that she doesn't think that it's rude and a huge lack of manners to tell someone not to have kids.
Her husband obviously told her she's allowed to do this as long as it goes along with her beliefs.
You know, she's just lucky her husband lets her use the computer and send emails (although he probably reads them first to make sure she's behaving like the wife he wants her to be).
I actually meant HIS beliefs. She's probably not allowed any of her own.
Yay! The mailbag is back!! :-D Thank you!
Oh don't worry, Missus Ellie8d, feminists eat babies, remember? So any of Jessica's children would be dinner before they learned how to cuss.
I dunno, I just said "fuck" at the mirror and I still think I looked hot.
Hello next-youtube-sensation.
Funny, I don't get told not to procreate that often. (Maybe because they realize I already am a mother). But I have been told I'm going to die in a fiery crash and go to hell. Fun!
I taught kindergarten in Korea, and one 5 year old girl would tell the other kids that if they didn't pray before lunch they would "die soon." Our prayer?
Thank you mommy,
Thank you daddy,
Thank you teacher,
Have a good lunchtime.
Her grandparents were terrifying.
"Beastly [...] animal [...] of a human being" is a very interesting quote. It seems like they're trying to go in two different directions here, by granting you the respect of being a human being and insulting you by making you a beastly animal.
I got one last week telling me to be thankful my mother didn't have an abortion. Thanks, buddy!
Those comments crack me up. They think they have this huge "SOMEONE GAVE BIRTH TO YOU! GOTCHA! HAH!" argument. But...I'm thankful my mother became pregnant in a time that she could legally choose whether or not to have me. Had she chosen to abort, there would be no "me" to care one way or another.
Many people's mothers did have abortions.
My mom had two, but mainly because of health reasons. Also because I was a newborn when these pregnancies occured and she didn't want two babies that close together.
Anyway, it seems to me that a lot of anti-choicers believe you can only give birth or have an abortion with all your pregnancies. You can't abort some and give birth in other ones.
you mean jeebus didn't get the memo to sear your mother's womb shut for even considering an abortion??? wild.
As a childfree I'm always amused when someone tries to say "never reproduce" as some sort of insult.
And fuckity-fuck her fucking fuckhead husband who tells women what kind of language they're supposed to use. Shhiiiiittttttt.
Sorry, Anti-feminist Mailbagger. The whole trend of calling people hateful/intolerant for speaking out against hate/intolerance is so last-political-administration.
Oh how I love the "if you're so tolerant, why don't you tolerate my intolerance?" line of "reasoning." Well shit, now you're intolerant of my intolerance of your intolerance! We can go all day like this.
I am always bemused at the people who are so hung up on the 1000-year-old racism and classism that made Anglo-Saxonisms like "shit" and "fuck" unacceptable but Latinate formations like "defecate" and "copulate" acceptable and even "scientific".
Btw, "vulgar" comes from Latin "vulgus", the common people. Classism again.
And we're sooo worried about our potential attractiveness to these people. *rolls eyes*
Oh wow, were shit and fuck generally-used, non-swear words, and were made 'disrespectful' because they were seen as lesser than Latin words? That's amazing to learn, thank you!
Yes, basically. When the Normans conquered England, French and Latin became the language of the higher classes, and English was the language of the conquered common people. See the book "Origins of the Specious" by Patricia T. O'Conner and Stewart Kellerman for more details and other fascinating tidbits about the English language and the many misconceptions around its use. Language geek that I am, I've been totally enthralled by this book.
Luckily, us ugly women have nothing to lose!
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
SarahMC, by perverting Ellie's husband's logic into a form that is much more pleasing to me, I'm going to declare that the only women who are ugly are the ones who are spewing misogynistic bullshit.
Huzzah!
Thoughts:
"A conservative telling a woman what to do with her body .... that's new."
"Lucky for her! Feminists just have serial abortions, not babies!"
Something tells me that if Jessica decided to have an abortion( since the world already has too many hate filled people) Ellie's husband would not approve of that either.
From now on, before doing anything, I'm going to ask myself, "What would Ellie's husband think?"
And take his disapproval as a point in the actions favor, correct? I view a day that I haven't done anything to piss off Ellie's husband as a day wasted, myself.
On a grander scale, I think the very existence of most of the people who frequent this blog probably pisses Ellie's husband off.
Is that the new "What would Brian Boytano do"?
I LOVE this comment. Can we please all start living our lives in order to please this woman's husband? He's obviously very important.
Jessica, when you said "unprotected sex," I assume you meant "unprotected fucking."
I'm confused, though; I thought we were supposed to have babies. Lots of babies. Because birth control is evil! And fucking for fun is eviler! But don't fret, I'm sure you'll get married and then your husband will tell you what to think and make you stop the goddamn swearing everything will be fucking fine.
I pictured a woman nodding a lot to herself while she wrote that email, with the occasional disapproving head shake.
See, you know her husband's lousy in bed.
Because any man who hasn't wanted his partner to say "Fuck me" at some point in their life (assuming he's into sex, of course) clearly never has heard it said in that tone, and so must not be very good.
Or something.
That's the problem! Ellie probably didn't say "fuck me". She probably said "get the fuck away from me". Now the guy has to ban all swearing.
Atleast some anti-feminists don't think it's illegal for a woman to not have children.
To be honest, I agree with what the person who wrote in about profanity said. (The overall message, not the patronizing tone.)
I LOVE feministing and I'm certainly no prude when it comes to cursing, but I think the overuse of profanity sounds juvenile and unprofessional and makes the author sound less credible.
you make a valid point, for a lady... what does your husband say?
It is a different world to say "excessive profanity makes a work appear juvenile and unprofessional" vs. "women shouldn't cuss because it makes them less beautiful" - the first implies that anyone, male or female, should use less profanity because otherwise it will undermine the seriousness of their work. The latter implies that women should be constantly concerned about any action that will detract from their looks, because isn't that really the most important thing to a woman? Calling a woman unprofessional or juvenile? Whatever. Calling her ugly? The insult! The horror!
The icing on the cake is that Ellie had to attribute the attitude to her husband first, she is just agreeing with him here!
You go girl!
My father told me not to curse because it was unladylike the other day. I told him that was sexist and he had the most puzzled look on his face...