Video version: The problem isn't that the women are unattractive.
Hello Subbies (lolol),
Here is the video version of my latest Substack essay, The problem isn’t that the women are unattractive — which is all about how superficial, body-based critiques of public figures like Karoline Leavitt, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Ariana Grande, and Cynthia Erivo have supplanted any meaningful discussion about their actions, and why it’s so infuriating to me that we keep looking for excuses to pick apart the looks of women.
In this video, I read the piece aloud and discuss it with the live chat on YouTube. We also talk about some of our earliest memories of noticing misogyny in media, riff off of Danny Lavery’s hilarious recent piece on nonfiction book titles, and explore the differences between Halimede and Chris Overalls’ approaches to online chaser-y.
Enjoy!
I got to be the Angel Gabriel in the school nativity (one of the characters with the most lines! Mary, be not afraid...) because the teachers gave all the angel roles to girls... maybe this was actually an attempt to gender-balance the number of roles available but I got the impression that the teachers actually thought the Angels *are* all girls, because they wear white dresses and have fluffy wings. To my advantage though! I was confused later to learn that Gabriel is a 'boys name'.