How to Be a Person (23 page)

ONE MORE TIME: If you are not a feminist (or something blamelessly ignorant, like a baby or a ferret or a college freshman), then you are a bad person. Those are the only options. You either believe that women are people, or you don’t. To help you pick one, here is some information!

FIRST-WAVE FEMINISM: MAYBE WE COULD BE CITIZENS NOW?

These were the tough old 19th-century bitchez (note: Calling women “bitchez” with an affectionate
z
is pretty upper-level ironic material—maybe just stick with “women” for now) like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton who were all, “Heeeeeey bros, we were thinking that maybe if you’re not busy we could get the right to vote and stuff please maybe?” Then they proceeded to righteously fuck shit up until the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, which gave American women the vote. A lot of the first-wavers were totally racist, plus they were still pretty into the idea that a woman’s job is shutting up and scrubbing stuff. But, you know, nobody’s perfect.

SECOND-WAVE FEMINISM: MAYBE YOU COULD STOP RAPING US, PLEASE?

After World War II, women started to be like, “Oh! Maybe I can get a job and tell my husband to stop raping me!” They began taking on subtler forms of sexism and misogyny—things that might not be legally mandated (like voting rights) but were fucking up women’s
lives nonetheless. These women would become the second-wavers. In 1963, Betty Friedan made everyone go crazy by suggesting that the nuclear family might be a crock of shit that stifled women’s potential and made them unhappy. Then sooooooo many things happened!!! Birth control pills, illegalization of marital rape (in all states, FINALLY, in 1993!),
Griswold v. Connecticut
, affirmative action rights for women, Title IX,
Roe v. Wade
, and SO MUCH MORE—look it up on Wikipedia, seriously. (Fun fact: Bras were not actually burned.) There was much arguing about pornography (zzzzzz). The Equal Rights Amendment did not pass. Once shit started to get done, shrewd anti-feminists took the opportunity to declare sexism officially over, because women were now allowed to not be raped (sometimes) and also to work for low wages in garment factories and rapey advertising agencies, and therefore any woman who complained about anything from this moment onward was a hairy, braless bitch. Women continued to fight, because women are awesome. Fuck Phyllis Schlafly.

THIRD-WAVE FEMINISM: MAYBE I LIKE RAPE! SHUT UP! MAYBE I DON’T! SHUT UP!

One day, someone had the gall to point out that the term “women” encompasses more than just “upper-middle-class disgruntled white housewives.” Immigrant women exist. Trans-women exist. Entirely
gruntled
upper-middle-class white housewives exist. Sex workers exist. Third-wave feminism is the idea that women can and should define their own womanhood. Because there are
one million different kinds of women, the third wave is big, and can get a little confusing and muddy, and maybe doesn’t exist at all (history is a continuum, really, not a series of waves). Some of the new feminism—particularly the “I use my sexuality as a weapon!” crowd—can look a lot like the old sexism. But don’t worry about it. Just follow your instincts and keep calling people on their shit.

POSTFEMINISM: SEXISM IS DEAD! LONG LIVE SEXISM!

Hhhhhhhhhhhhh. These dicks think that gender inequality is over and we should all have a party because
Sex and the City 2
was super empowering. Fuck these dicks. Or, rather, don’t.

STOP VICTIM-BLAMING!

Repeat this one million times: When a person is raped, IT IS THE RAPIST’S FAULT.

STOP SLUT-SHAMING!

Women have the right to be sexual without guilt. Women can fuck as many people as they want. Women are not soiled or devalued by sexual activity or provocative clothing. Men, stop shaming women. Women, stop shaming yourselves. Honestly. This is just stupid.

GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT: WHAT
ARE
YOU!?

This is going to become mainstream thinking in the next few decades, so you might as well just get used to it. The idea is that gender roles are socially constructed—females do female things
because society tells them to, not because of the elusive “Cathy” gene (SHOE SHOPPING! ACK!). Also, a lot of people feel that they don’t fit into the traditional binary concept of gender at all. (Important distinction: sex = biological/physical, gender = behavioral/societal.) Some people are biologically male but feel psychologically female. Some people feel like they’re 75 percent male and 25 percent female, or 50 percent male and 50 percent female, or 150 percent dolphin, or whatever. Some people feel like they’re none of the above. The bottom line is, other people’s gender is 0 percent your business. People can identify however they like. Your male son can play with dolls. Your coworker can change her pronoun. Just calm down and be respectful and let people do their stuff.

WOMEN DO NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSES OF YOUR BONER

A lot of heterosexual men get very angry when women don’t look the way they think women “should” look. But guess what? “Should” is not a thing. Women’s bodies are none of your business. Women’s body hair is none of your business. What women weigh is none of your business. What women wear is none of your business. Whether or not women want to fuck you is none of your business, unless they do want to fuck you, in which case you should go for it (high-five!).

MALE PRIVILEGE: IT IS REAL, AND IT IS TOTALLY BOGUS

Privilege is invisible. If you have no idea what male privilege is, there’s a good chance you are currently benefiting from male privilege. That’s how privilege works. Essentially, due to the social and political power structures that dominate the entire earth, shit is easier for men. Women make less money, exert less political influence, have their clitorises cut out (actually really truly—Google it), and are widely thought of as property and treated like poop. Privilege is real, and anyone who tells you otherwise is Ann Coulter.

A FINAL NOTE: YES, INDEED!

Unless you’re a total asshat who thinks people are unequal, you are a feminist. YOU are a feminist. You ARE a feminist. YOU ARE A FEMINIST. Welcome aboard!

14. SOME FINANCIAL ADVICE COURTESY OF THE BIBLE

BY BETHANY JEAN CLEMENT AND CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE

Eschew Credit Cards

Y
ou are young, you have no money, and you would like an electric guitar, a new iPhone, and a couch. But how will you afford these things? The credit card is among the greatest of college temptations. Beware the person with a clipboard in the quad, or the solicitations that come in the mail, because seeing one’s name in raised plastic letters is one step toward hell.
Usury—defined by
Merriam-Webster’s
as “the lending of money with an interest charge”—is a grave sin, listed in Ezekiel 22 alongside incest, murder, and beating up orphans.

It’s a sin to borrow as well—“Leave off this usury,” God warns the Jews in the book of Nehemiah, because debt corrupts—but more importantly, it’s just a really stupid idea. You don’t
have
any money, and borrowing money costs money, and borrowing money without any credit will cost you extra in interest, and the way it’s rigged, you’ll be paying off the interest on those credit cards forever and never actually be making a dent in what you owe—that’s how the credit card companies make enough money to flood your mailbox with junk mail and fake credit cards and glossy brochures about far-off places you’re never going to be able to afford once they swallow your life whole with ballooning credit card interest. If you already have a credit card, pay it on time and
always
pay more than the minimum. Whatever you do, don’t take up day-trading while you have a credit card just because you see those commercials for day-trading on TV and think the stock market seems fun and easy and a great way to make enough money to pay off your credit cards. No! No stock market for you! Think of it this way: If you have 18 percent interest on a credit card, paying it off right away is like
making
18 percent interest.

Plus, a paid-off credit card is great for your credit score, which means that later on in life, when you actually need credit, you’ll get it with lower interest than you can get these days. It’s what Jesus would do!

Get Thee Unto a Credit Union

Large banks suck. They don’t care about you. This didn’t used to be the case, but it became clear in 2008 that corporate banks didn’t give a shit about inflicting ruinous financial bullshit on our country and, indeed, the world—first with the foreclosure crisis (they sold toxic investments as super-fucking-awesome investments and knew they were lying about it), and then with taxpayer-financed bailouts (which paid for taxpayer-financed super-fucking-awesome raises for all the guys at the top). If you’re fully into screwing the lower 99 percent in favor of the top 1 percent of superrich assholes, by all means, join a big, douchey bank.

“The meek shall inherit the earth,” the Bible says, but only if we fucking do something proactive. Get thee to a credit union, which are not-for-profit, member-owned co-ops that do not answer to Wall Street but to you. You will also receive better customer service and probably fewer charges for using your own goddamned money.

The Bible Further Suggests That You Get a Job

If you want to buy things, work. Remember Thessalonians: “If any would not work, neither should he eat.” The wise college student takes this to heart by working in a place where he or she can eat for free. Waiting tables or otherwise working in a restaurant (see
What No One Else Will Tell You About Working in Restaurants
)
is the best way to make money and eat for free while doing so, but if you have no experience as a server, you may have to resort to lying (don’t tell God!) or to pizza delivery or working in a movie theater. Working in a movie theater grants more social opportunities than pizza delivery, as well as plentiful popcorn. Communion with the world beyond the ivy-covered and/or graffiti-covered walls of your university is essential, because the pleasant dream of campus life will one day give way to the grinding tedium of your adult years. Get a taste of it now, and thou shalt appreciate thy time now more bountifully.

Jesus Christ on a Bicycle, Don’t Buy a Car

And if you don’t absolutely need the car you already have, sell it. Riding a bike is about $500 cheaper per month, and it makes your ass about 500 times hotter. Also, make your own coffee (see
Make Your Own Coffee!
). It’s not that hard.

The Golden Rule and Beer

Follow the Golden Rule and you will be rewarded with so much GOLDEN BEER. The Golden Rule is, of course: Do unto others as you sure as hell wish they would do unto you. That means be nice and, if you’re out on the town, tip well. Rewards await you—particularly if you revisit the same bar and let your high-tipping
self become known. However, the frugal college student knows to largely abstain from drinking in public houses, because the communion of the keg (or the similar sharing of other alcohol purchased from a store) is the way to satisfaction without the obliteration of the contents of one’s wallet. For more on all of this, see
What No One Else Will Tell You About Drinking
.

15. HOW TO USE A COMPUTER

BY LINDY WEST

Things the Internet Is Good For (Now)

M
asturbation, idle chatter with friends, jokes, laughs, chuckles, racism, dissemination of funny cat videos, the mocking of celebrities, gaining basic knowledge of almost any subject, passive-aggressive communication with one’s mother, managing one’s bank account, shopping, flirting, finding the closest Jamba Juice in one’s zip code, etymology of words, spying on one’s exes, spying on one’s crushes, stealing massive amounts of media, murdering independent book and record stores, celebrity penis
research, 9/11 was an inside job, locating all the sex offenders within a five-block radius, looking up bus routes, looking up song lyrics, looking up driving directions, looking up what the sun is doing, locating humans with whom to have sex, checking one’s flight status, figuring out the difference between houndstooth and windowpane check, collecting fake gold in a fake universe while dressed as a sexy elf, masturbation, masturbating one’s genitals to completion, more masturbation, and masturbation.