Life

The Single Best Response To Anti-Feminist Comments

by Emma Cueto

What's it like to have to sit through and participate in a televised discussion over whether or not men are second-class citizens? Well, I've never had to, personally, but the epic eye-roll GIF of Guardian columnist Van Badham as she participates in just such a discussion seems to pretty well sum up the experience. It's also the perfect reaction GIF to whip out in any anti-feminist situation.

The GIF comes from a discussion on the Australian morning show Sunrise on Sunday, May 1. Van Badham, a feminist writer, later wrote about the incident for The Guardian and explained she didn't have high hopes for the segment once she learned that former Labor Party leader and noted anti-feminist Mark Latham would be on it, but she still participated in the debate. Which is good — I'm unsure why we need to debate whether or not men are second-class citizens at all, but as long as someone's planning to, I'm glad that feminists are allowed to bring some common sense to the discussion.

During the segment, which touches on things like domestic violence and the gender pay gap, Badham made a point to bring up a range of statistics and evidence about the ways in which men are not only not second class citizens, but are still a good deal better off than Australian women. But her evidence was still not enough to convince several of the panelists.

And then at one point, Mark Latham commented that “left feminism is essentially selfish," implying that feminists only care about middle-class white women — prompting Bedham, who writes frequently about economic inequality and applies intersectional analysis for the Guardian, to have the following reaction:

And it's pretty much glorious.

Because when someone says something about how "Men are second class citizens now!", you could spend a lot of time talking about how men are over represented at every level of government in America, or how men earn more money, or the fact that men hold over 90 percent of top corporate leadership positions, or the evidence that wages actually fall when more women join an industry, or how only women have hundreds of laws regulating our bodies, or...

...Or instead, you could just do this:

When someone starts talking about how feminists just hate men, you could walk them through the definition of feminism, or you could just do this:

When someone starts talking about how gender roles are "natural," you could introduce them to the concept of "social construct" and take them on a tour of how gender roles have shifted throughout all of human history. Or:

This GIF is so versatile it's amazing. I plan on using it always and forever. Or, you know, at least until gender equality becomes a real thing as opposed to an aspiration.

In the meantime, you can check out the full segment with Van Badham and Mark Latham below. Badham is pretty spectacular throughout.

Images: Sunrise; Giphy