How to Tell if You’re Reading a Misogynistic Rant or Feminist Satire
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar…
Satire is tricky. It’s hard to write and, in the wrong frame-of-mind, a reader may misinterpret the subtle humor as serious commentary, leaving him or her feeling offended rather than empowered by clever political prose.
I had this very experience yesterday. I was reading a story that had all the trappings of a misogynistic rant, with many statements that put men in one camp (serious writers who cover topics in industry and technology) and women in another (writers who share the most intimate details of their feminine issues), with no apparent ability for cross-over into each other’s worlds.
I read it as an angry diatribe, a forceful and bitter attack against female writers on Medium. I read it as a sleight against the kind of writing I sometimes do and I always enjoy reading. I read it as though it was written by a man who is frustrated with the overexposure of emotion on the platform he calls home.
But, egg on my face, since when I got to the end of the piece I saw that it had been tagged as both Satire and Feminism. How could I have interpreted this piece so wrong?
I assuaged my embarrassed soul by remembering that some of the greatest satitists of all-time have…
