CMV: Modern feminism actively avoids holding women accountable for their own decisions

The genesis for this thread is the article below which is on the front page of CNN.com right now. Thus, it appears to have at least a modicum of social relevance. My view in this thread is that modern feminism actively seeks to excuse women from responsibility for their actions even in the most painfully stupid examples.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/opinions/selfie-death-opinion-filipovic/index.html

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Two key paragraphs from the author (who is cited as being the author of "The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness" in the 'this is why this person is important and being given this platform' portion of the article):

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"And we know that women experience sexualized harassment online with stunning regularity, and that women are judged negatively for sharing images of themselves. Perhaps it's not surprising that, perusing the coverage of "selfie deaths," it does seem to be primarily women who are mocked if something goes wrong in the perfectly normal pursuit of that documentation.

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This is, unfortunately, on par with the general expectation that women will be effortlessly beautiful, and sexually appealing without trying to be too sexy. Young women, especially, are supposed to be pretty -- but not advertise to the world the work it took to get that way; they certainly aren't supposed to indicate that they know they're gorgeous. For the many made uncomfortable by women evincing pride in their physical image, casting a tragedy as a selfie-related death may be a subtle way of suggesting the little narcissist deserved it."

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First, what's interesting is that she makes the claim that women are targeted more for being selfie-obsessed than men yet offers zero data to back up that claim (i.e. proving that one gender takes selfies more, women are actually mocked more for equal rates, etc.). This is common in modern journalism... just make a claim that 'feels' good and then don't bother to back it up with facts or data. It's clearly an appeal to emotions.

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Second, she brings this back to sexism and the claim that women are forced to be beautiful and that this is an unfair burden. It's a tired argument because it ignores that there are expectations on everyone all the time. Men are supposed to be tall, stoic, rich, and blessed with a 9-inch dick. Women are supposed to be gorgeous, demure, thoughtful, and kind. Children are supposed to be perfectly well behaved all the time, seen but not heard, etc. There are stereotypes and cultural expectations across all bounds yet that isn't addressed here. The only item mentioned here is the terrible burden that these wonderful girls must suffer through.

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Interestingly, she doesn't mention that women are often much harsher critics of other women than men are. An easy example is the # of clothes in a woman's wardrobe. It's a cliche but there is truth to the joke that a woman can't wear the same outfit twice too close together because other women will notice and make fun of her whereas the vast majority of men will either not notice or not care. If there is a low hanging fruit here, it is how women treat each other and the impossible standards they set for others. Tropes like 'Mean Girls' exist for a reason. Fashion is largely dominated by women (and to an extent gay men) and is notorious for being one of the biggest social pushers of ridiculous body proportions.

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In other words, she complains about the problems women face but doesn't hold women accountable for their actions which directly lead to or exacerbate those problems. That's a major issue. If the problems are truly going to be addressed or dealt with, all the roots must be exposed... even those that grow close to home.

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All of that being said, the most concerning item about all of this is a stunning refusal to even address that being so oblivious to one's surroundings that you fall to your death is just really fucking stupid. That doesn't mean that the person is stupid but that behavior certainly is. The author doesn't agree. Instead, she bemoans the societal forces that pressure young women into such activities while also excusing these activities as normal because a) it's totally ok to document your own life in this fashion and b) people have been doing stuff like this forever. Neither argument is particularly sound upon closer scrutiny, especially the 'people have acted this way throughout history' portion.

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I've done a deep dive into this article because I feel it is a relevant and useful example or even microcosm of one of the main problems with modern feminism. Feminism wants to provide women with a seat at the table without actually earning it. They want the glory without the work. They want to be credited on the cover of WW2 video games as warriors when the people that were there... who actually bled and died in active combat... were universally male. I could go on but you get the point.

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The major problem with this is that you can't have the glory without the hard work on the front end. No effort, no prize. And when we set up a system where even life-ending stupid behavior is excused and even blamed on something else (not so subtly patriarchy and men), then the problem is compounded 100x over.

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Feminism is largely uninterested in holding women accountable for their own actions. CMV.