Originally published May 2022.
Yesterday, human embodiment of the scary cabinet under the sink Matt Gaetz had a thought that pleased him right down to his toenails, which I can only imagine are sharpened to a fine point. He tweeted the following in response to human women having a problem with the government telling us what we can and cannot do with our bodies, healthcare, and futures:
“How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?” - Matt Gaetz, Twitter
I’m not going to touch the over-educated part, mostly because someone who’s formal education ended with a Juris Doctor doesn’t have to, unless Matt wants to pay for it, hi daddy, but also because I’m absolutely lousy with sistren across the globe ripping new orifices in this man’s posterior for this very word choice. I’m also not going to use the fact that this man is likely, super likely involved in underage sex and sex trafficking, you know…like a pedophile, to finish him because, and I can’t stress this fucking enough, that’s the justice system’s job, and if it could get on that kinda faster I know those with teenage daughters around the country would love it if they felt their kids were safe from the naked, predatory bodies of our elected representatives. I can, quite easily mind you, make my points without these things. If you’re a cunt independent of your sex crimes and alarming handmaid-y educational views, you really have to ask yourself exactly how far from the light have you strayed? I know he won’t though, politicians are busy men.
What I’ll do instead is much more within my chosen wheelhouse: This dehydrated booger came for single women, and in return, he shall get me. It’s a tale as old as time itself, men on high horses of all kinds insulting, degrading, and creating social stigma around women they feel are “too free.” They don’t do it for any reasons rooted in…you know, facts, but rather they’re motivated by an imagined threat, not actually to society, because society will always keep chugging along like that little train at the zoo no matter how many single women exist within it. Rather, they do this because they see women untethered to men as a threat. If that doesn’t give you all the information you need about what (certain)men feel their role is in a relationship, you’re probably not reading this and you likely voted for that shitstain anyway. Y’all see it though, right? How they think partnered women have no power or purpose beyond the home? Please tell me you see it it’s been a long five years.
Patriarchal, elitist men, and those with self worth low enough to listen to them, shame women without men into thinking that we’re deeply flawed, and should thus be embarrassed. Embarrassed enough to become a housekeeper and sexual tool for one of them—at least on the nights they’re not fucking someone else. Comments like this one are meant to make single women feel ashamed for not being “woman enough” to catch the man that’s going to keep us quiet and tame and sweet and nice and agreeable. Dog-collared by a necklace of pearls. All while we’re out here trying to find one of these Y chromosomes who’s what we actually deserve, but how often are we really just looking for someone safe?
What? You haven’t settled for one of us who thinks putting the toilet seat down is doing the absolute maximum and gaslights your every opinion to steal your self esteem and keep you mentally small enough to prevent you from leaving? Shame on you, cat lady—how pathetic. *Farts in his wife’s face as he gets up off the couch.*
Single women never inspire much creativity, I must say. It’s 2022 and we’re still relying on things like dining alone and feline companionship as insults. It’s not what they are, because what they are is lovely. It’s the way people choose to say them, the way people choose to look down at the freest women on earth. All while we’re too busy living unencumbered lives to give sentient sewage like Matt Gaetz a passing thought. We weren’t in your shit at all, my guy, because we find you too wrong in the world to believe you’re not our fucking fever dream. You saw women standing up for themselves and singlehood was the insult you went with because your stance is as strong as overcooked pasta and your day in the sun is about to turn into a pumpkin that we’re about to smash in the street, you sour summer child.
Telling men like our boy MG that they’re living in the past does nothing productive, because that is their dream. The glamorized era of women raised a generation at a time to do nothing other than keep a home and raise a family—if you’re rich enough of course, poor women have been working since the invention of women—that’s what they’re trying to “get back to.” A world where a woman’s place is a small as possible so a man’s place can be literally everywhere else, free from accountability to women. And all he’s got left to drive us back there with is our singlehood. Lol.
All he’s got to tame women with is the way we’re looked upon by men. He wants us to fear being looked upon unfavorably. Because nothing should matter more to a woman than what a man thinks of her, and certainly not an unwanted pregnancy that will curtail her entire fucking future while the man responsible for 50% of the problem fades into the night like subway steam. Men. That’s who we’re supposed to be motivated by? That’s what’s supposed to guide our choices and beliefs? Is he really giving “omg I hope he likes me” passing period locker chatter right now? Actually yeah that tracks.
I don’t know y’all I just don’t see men as quite the motivator he thinks they are, you know? Not for nothing but the experience single women have had with them of late isn’t the strongest advertisement for putting them first. Men, who crave our attention and bodies and once they get both, they ghost. Want to know what that feels like for us? Imagine fucking a woman but she gets up and leaves 30 sections before you orgasm. Men, who rattle off a list of requirements in their dating profiles commanding women to swipe left or right based on whether or not we fit criteria drafted by someone with a mattress on the floor and sheets he hasn’t washed since his mom bought them at Target. Men, who swipe through women’s faces like they’re shopping for vagina in a catalogue, as they regard us with no more respect than you’d give a Kleenex you’ve already sneezed into. That’s the motherfucker’s opinion I’m supposed to prioritize? Let me go feed these cats real quick.
Your words aren’t insults, dumpling, they’re flyers in our bathroom stalls. They’re a bat signal only we can see. They’re push notifications on our phones while we’re at fucking brunch. Each time you try to make us smaller, we grow larger as a group instead. It isn’t fear you’re inspiring—it’s bravery. Have I ever written about one of you demons before? No. Because I’ve been too afraid of what comes next. Yet here we are, so thank you for the inspiration, it makes me money. And the day you are served every morsel of what you deserve, the party is at my house, where I live happily, confidently alone, until a man deserving of me makes a case for why we should microwave dinners for two.