I find it especially cute when brainless who idiots feel vaguely disturbed by my posts but are prevented from responding to them by a deplorable lack of brain matter start mewling incoherently in response. Here is a recent example of such impotent blabbering on the subject of my post on why FEMEN and Pussy Riot have nothing to do with feminism:

I agree strongly with Clarissa that these issues need to be addressed, and that “There is a dire need in these countries for a feminist movement that will create a different narrative.” We differ greatly, however, on what that means.  In my mind, simply being a woman with an opinion, and voicing that opinion so loudly that it can’t be ignored, is a feminist act.

If this weird creature’s mind were a little bit less empty than it is right now, s/he might have found an opportunity to learn a thing or two about the countries s/he feels entitled to discuss. Ukrainian and Russian women are not and haven’t been for almost a century wilting flowers, terrified of voicing our opinions. If you believe we are, it means that you are trying to analyze our reality through the prism of your own cultural stereotypes, which is ignorant and offensive.

Right before I found this pathetic outpouring of idiocy on the subject of Russian and Ukrainian women, I was watching a TV program on the most popular channel in Russia. The show’s host, a brilliant, ultra-successful, intellectual woman, was saying that a woman’s only true sphere is the kitchen, women who privilege their careers over marriage and babies are defective, childless women are freaks, and feminists are pathetic shrews who haven’t managed to get anybody to fuck them properly. She was saying it in a very self-assured, confident way and her female co-hosts (brilliant,  ultra-successful, intellectual women) supported her passionately. In terms of how loudly these women defended their opinions, there is not a single TV personality of the female gender in North America who even comes closely to them. However, there is nothing feminist about what they said or the fact that they said it.

In our countries, we grow up listening to women speak. In the classroom, at school, in college, on television, on the Internet, in public spaces and at home, we hear women voicing their beliefs loudly, passionately, and relentlessly. Starting from 1st grade, teachers have to work hard to make the female students shut up for a second and get the silent, mumbling male students to say anything. I already told on this blog the story of how shocked I was when, at the age of 22, I became a student at a Canadian university and heard my male colleagues make comments in class. I wouldn’t have been more disturbed had I heard the chairs and the door participate in the discussion because, in my experience, men never spoke in class and you had to push them hard to make them voice any opinion in any context.

What is a huge feminist achievement (yip-dee-doo, women managed to have an opinion and got somebody to hear them!) for people in one country, is a matter of course for those who come from a different culture. This is why it’s always best to try to learn something about other cultural realities before blabbering stupidly about them.

P.S. Every two weeks or so, somebody publishes a silly anti-Clarissa rant. What happens after that never changes. Readers from the anti-Clarissa resource come over to my blog, read the referenced post, then become curious and read more posts, then read the entire blog from the beginning, and finally become permanent readers. So, if you want to bellyache about being offended by my opinions and send me your readers, feel free. Just remember that whenever you babble ignorantly about my culture, I will get on your case and tear you to shreds. You know why? Because we are a culture of very outspoken, loud, and brash women.

I hope this unintelligent detractor manages to celebrate my belief that s/he is a vapid fool as a deeply feminist act.

In class, I say:

“By the 1890s, Spain was a crumbling old Empire that was barely managing to hold on to the remnants of its imperial possessions. However, at this time, there was a country that had accumulated enough economic and military resources to enable it to declare its intentions to become the new world power. This country attacked the Spanish Empire in a highly symbolic gesture that inaugurated the beginning of a new world order. This country would become a new empire that will dominate the politics of the XXth century with its imperial aspirations. What country am I talking about?”*

The only students in both sections who knew the answer had names like Esteban Garcia and Josefina Vasquez. The rest of the students suggested Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Draw your own conclusions.

* I know the language sounds bombastic and very different from the way I normally speak. But the lecture was in Spanish, and I’m trying to translate what I said as closely as possible to the original.