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Why Women Can't Be 'Negative'
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Why Women Can't Be 'Negative'

Spoiler: Because it makes men uncomfortable

Amanda Montei's avatar
Amanda Montei
Aug 31, 2022
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Why Women Can't Be 'Negative'
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ICYMI, some tweets criticizing women who don’t have kids, and calling them lonely and unworthy of love, went viral last week [they’ve since been deleted].

Some assumptions underlying these tweets are:

  1. there is nothing of meaning to do with life once you turn 40 other than raise children

  2. “fun” and sex evaporate when you turn 40, but are presumably still available if you marry and have children (implicit here is some ageist, sexist stuff about women after 40 no longer being sexually appealing)

  3. “natural connections” LITERALLY (?!) emerge from marriage and fertility— in other words from the nuclear hetero family— and from no other communal or interpersonal relationships

  4. “friendsgivings” are silly and “lonely” and get stale fast!

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