Dear Woman I Disagree With: Letters from some A — holes

I recently wrote a piece arguing that people who have five or six kids should probably not do that, and suggested that we focus our efforts on adoption, immigration, and providing women with a narrative for a fulfilling life that may not even involve child rearing. I got written up on Breitbart for my efforts, and I got a lot of hate mail. Turns out white supremacists don’t like when you question their need to further the white race. (For the record I wasn’t even trying to argue that people have no kids, just that they limit their reproduction to environmentally sustainable rates. And stop taking away birth control from women who cannot afford it. But nuance is a concept best reserved for arguments against the #metoo movement.)

Of course, the hate letter is by no means a new concept: Mark Twain famously published a book of letters he received from fans and angry detractors. But something tells me people weren’t writing Mark Twain to call him a vapid party girl.

Yes – I know it’s best to ignore trolls that obviously want attention, but also, let me have this one thing in our garbage fire world. Also if there’s anything #metoo has taught me, it’s that we need to show people how bad things really are. Women who express opinions publicly routinely get much worse than this, for much less, and it increases exponentially when we convey messages of gender, racial, and other forms of equality. It’s not ok. It’s not intellectual or civil debate. It’s bullshit. So without further ado, I present to you this work of art…..

Kristen: I lost count of the number of cliches in your article: ‘’open conversation”, “changing the narrative”, “cultural conditioning”, ‘’environmental footprint” and on and on.

Dude the article was only 750 words – do your counting skills not allow for that? Some of these certainly are commonly used phrases, and others are simply verbs or adjectives combined with nouns. This is how sentences are usually formed. I guess what I needed to do in this article was to invent new combinations of words that had never been used in modern language, and the fact that I didn’t truly fills me with regret. I let you down, and I let the CBC down, too.

The ‘’global West’’?? What exactly is that???

This is the part of the world that encompasses North America and Western Europe. Upon closer examination, the fact that term failed to include Australia and New Zealand is inexcusable. I meant them too. It is true, too, that the earth is round, and that any reference to West on a moving sphere is meaningless. The world is constantly turning, so really what are directions anyway but constantly changing, superficial, human imposed devices? I will from this point on refrain from using directions in my writing, and employ a shithole countries vs not shithole countries dichotomy instead.

Don’t you have any original ideas?

No.

Didn’t they teach you how to think for yourself at Humber (did you need marks to get in there or just a pulse and a check book?).

Dude did his research. It’s fairly easy to get into Humber, and as my program was skills based in nature, they didn’t really teach us how to think critically. Combining a technical program with a university degree, which is in fact what I did, is immensely useful, as it gave me the tools to think critically while training me in graphic design, marketing, and writing. Humber is great and now offers a degree program in media communications. In any case I am very sorry to have brought shame on my alma mater, and I hope he fact that George Stroumboulopoulos went there too can be of some comfort to all you sticklers for quality.

Some kid in grade 9 remedial English writes with greater clarity and originality than you do.

This seems contradictory to me. On the one hand, I use cliches, so people must be able to understand those due to their ubiquity. But on the other hand, I should be more original, which might challenge people. Maybe I have managed to use cliches in an unclear way. That’s pretty terrible and I can see why someone would take offence.

“Calling out people who have kids like they’re going out of style”? Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you realize what a dangerous and totalitarian attitude that is?

Most totalitarian regimes actually encourage people to procreate, as long as they are the right kind of people. Nazis, for instance, banned abortions for Aryan women and identified procreation as the main role of women. Of course, abortions were allowed and encouraged for women whose offspring wouldn’t fit the Aryan ideal.

If you’re referring to China, which did put a ban on having more than one kid, I think that was an extremely poorly executed idea, but I am not even suggesting that. I am only suggesting that we socially discourage it in the same way we discourage dangerous behaviours like not vaccinating your kids.

It’s none of your fucking business how many people kids have!

It is though. Countries are literally running out of water, and we soon won’t have enough food to feed our populations.

Who put you in charge?

I’m in charge now?

If this is true, then I hereby declare every day forever International Cotton Candy Day. Because they sell that shit nowhere and that really bums me out. I don’t want to go to the goddamn carnival to get it, are you kidding me?!

GO FUCK YOURSELF.

Now that’s a little rude.

Now you want to shame people for having kids? There’s nothing irresponsible about bringing five children or even 10 into the world.

I argued in my article why it was irresponsible, but I guess my points got lost in the unclear cliches that pepper my writing. Touché. (Add that to the unclear cliche count :) )

Your life is empty because you don’t have kids.

LOLZ. Replace “empty” with “awesome” and you got it, dude.

You’re too selfish, too self absorbed, too stupid and far too in love with partying.

The research must have ended here, because I’ve written extensively about my sobriety. So actually it’s true: I was far too in love with partying. That’s why I stopped!

Am I stupid? Maybe. I’ve tried to push open so many sliding doors that I’m beginning to wonder….

You’ll find yourself alone when you’re 50, joining your condo board and meeting girlfriends for drinks because you don’t know how to do anything else, your memories nothing more than a parade of loser boyfriends who dumped you once the novelty of new sex wore off.

That sounds like an awesome life, as long as the drinks are non alcoholic. I own property, I have friends, and I don’t even have to deal with a shitty man. This reasoning suggests that I need a man to be happy, which is false, and paints an effective picture of the archetypical desperate woman. Shaming women for wanting a relationship and being dumped by men who use them for sex is lame. Suggesting that this will happen to me because I don’t want children is weird, as why would a man who dumps me after sex somehow be more interested if I wanted children? This is very much not how the dating world works. And why would I even want to have children with a person like that? Or, more realistically, why would I want to take care of a person like that AND his children? Because that’s usually how these things go.

My goals in life don’t revolve around a man, and my ideal memories at fifty would include changing the world with my writing and ideas. But this doesn’t seem to be an option considered by the letter writer so….. 🤷‍♀️

If you’re so concerned about children waiting for adoption, go adopt one (oh right, you can’t, you don’t have the warmth or the heart or the generosity or the selflessness……party on, girl!!).

I may adopt someday, but for now I am focusing on making the world a better place through other means, such as writing and sharing my ideas. (Ask me how that’s going LOL.) I am selfish in many ways. People who bring ten children into the world because they want to leave a white legacy are selfish too.

I can’t believe a high profile and long standing organization like (redacted) employs a dim bulb like you.

And then he went after my place of employment, which did in fact put a little stab of fear in my heart. It’s many a woman’s fear that she be exposed as someone who doesn’t in fact deserve to work in a great job. Solid job of playing on that (unoriginal — I’ll admit) fear.

Buddy gave his real name, which I won’t print here.

So let’s review tactics here:

• Calling my writing and critical thinking skills into question
• Expressing bafflement at my ideas and some phrases I use. Making someone feel like they’re not making any sense is a great way to erode their confidence in their own ideas and sanity
• Questioning my authority on the subject
• Making threatening statements in all caps that could later be plausibly denied
• Accusing me of not being able to keep a man and conjuring up images of the sad old maid I will become
• Insinuating I don’t deserve to work where I work, and write where I write
• Using my alcohol problem against me
• Referencing various parts of my life to make me feel unsafe

So all in all, this letter was a master class in attempting to shut someone down. It’s worth noting that no one who has reached out to me has ever raised a point that I hadn’t thought of, or made me think about one of my ideas in a new way. When people contact me about my writing, their goal is not to have a lively debate about my ideas. The ideas aren’t even the point — this is about power. The tactics I’ve outlined above are often used against women in everyday life in various forms, and of course online less subtly, and the goal is to make women be quiet. I know because it almost worked on me.

The first time I got one of these, I felt ashamed for speaking up. I felt stupid for thinking that my opinion mattered, for thinking that I deserved to be heard. This is a feeling I’ve fought against for a good part of my life, and these letters show that this feeling didn’t come out of thin air and into my heart — it was placed there by a society that frequently conveys these messages to young women in one form or another. But I made a promise to myself to not allow people to make me feel that way anymore, so instead, I’m doing something productive with the hatred. Now let’s get that #CottonCandyDay hashtag trending so we can effect real, lasting change.