It’s 2050 and feminism has finally won. Women make up more than 80% of serial killers and serial killer-related entertainment shows. Everyone agrees that Harper Lee wrote In Cold Blood under Truman Capote’s name as a favor before beating Ernest Hemingway in Greco-Roman-style wrestling. Sex is just when two or more women take the mathematics portion of the SAT together and kick a businessman’s teeth in. It’s 2050 and Bob Dylan was never even born.
It’s 2050, and do you know what science is now? The 1996 movie about teen witches, The Craft. It’s the feminist future, and women are the ones who sit with their knees sprawled out on the subway. Men have to sit on the floor, and if a woman tells them to lick the pole, they have to do it, because Kamala Harris is the eternal Goddess-King of America now. It’s 2050 and January Jones keeps the bones of Bill Murray in a golden cage and it’s illegal to watch or quote Caddyshack. This is what feminism is now.
It’s 2050 and Nick Offerman has to wear a bridle and allow any woman who asks to ride him across the Mississippi instead of taking a bridge. This is what happens when the feminists win. No one has ever even heard of Steely Dan.
It’s 2050, and women swagger down the street, many of them ten feet tall, draped in construction vests and catcalling the men who scurry from hiding place to hiding place during the daylight hours. Actual cats fly out of their mouths, along with sexually objectifying remarks. It’s the year 2050 and nursing in public is mandatory. Whenever a woman starts nursing, every man within a quarter-mile is required by law to watch her do it while feeding her melon and calling her a ‘living miracle.’
It’s 2050 and men spend most of their time writing passionate letters and sending money to charismatic female murderers in prison. It’s 2050 and the number one compliment that women give men is “feisty.” It’s 2050 and instead of using fossil fuels, planes and trucks now run on feelings. The entire Supreme Court has been replaced by Tumblr posts by Avatar: The Last Airbender slash fans. Joss Whedon has been exiled to an uninhabited island where he is regularly brought food and supplies but forbidden from creating narratives about ass-kicking blonde women. The entire cast of Entourage are living footstools in Emma Watson’s house. It’s 2050.
It’s the year 2050 and it’s illegal for men to buy protein powder or use the free weights at the gym. They can use the stair-stepper and if they’re very good, the little two-pound dumbbells that are coated in pink plastic, but they can only use them for calf raises. It’s 2050 and feminists have sexualized men’s calves. It’s 2050 and it’s illegal for a man to play a guitar in a public place or to know what time it is. Men have to guess.
It’s 2050 and Werner Herzog is no longer allowed to make documentaries, only provide commentary over reruns of The Golden Girls and Golden Palace. This is where feminism is leading us.
Tags: feminism, the future
The future is glorious indeed!
“The entire Supreme Court has been replaced by Tumblr posts by Avatar: The Last Airbender slash fans.”
This was brilliant, but this sentence gave me enough incoherent feels to fuel my car for a month. Thanks, Mallory!
That would be an improvement considering how terrible the supreme court has been of late. It would be truly difficult to do worse.
Is the island guard cohort provided with tasers, which they are instructed to use in the event that Joss Whedon attempts to exploit the “but this is different; this is a narrative about a kick-ass brunette” loophole?
Also, it seems as if this post is opening the door for an “If Fairuza Balk Were Your Girlfriend” post.
It’s 2050 and the national anthem is red krayola’s born in flames.
You’re damn right I’m feisty! Now please pass the little two-pound pink dumbbells, these calves aren’t going to sculpt themselves.
“It’s 2050 and feminists have sexualized men’s calves.” I’m already doing my part for a better tomorrow.
I visited Colonial Williamsburg with my family on Monday, and the knee-breeches and stockings really do show off the calf to great effect.
*exhales* Breeches. Hrm. I think more people should wear them.
*fans self*
18th-century menswear just looks good on everybody. Especially with red-heeled Louis XIV shoes.
As soon as I can get the hang of tailoring, you’ll be hard-pressed to get me out of my tailcoat(s).
Breeches seriously need to come back into style for men.
There is a reason why so many people love period dramas…
Oh my god thank you for reminding me of a middle school field trip to Williamsburg, where my friend and I made jokes about calves and giggled ourselves breathless for about 4 hours straight. YOUNG MISANDRY.
“No one is turned on by a man’s calves! They’re a completely unerotic body part.”
“Well, yeah, I’d say that, too, if I had those skinny little chicken legs.”
My legs aren’t long but they’re not chicken legs. I got curves!
one of my most treasured possessions is the first Kate Beaton book, signed with a sketch of Queen Victoria admiring Albert’s shapely calves. it is perfection.
OH MY! Any chance of a pic?
yes!
let’s see if that works, I have never embedded a pic here but I’ve seen a lot of failed attempts to wrangle intensedebate into posting them….
(I went to look for the book and my boyfriend asked what I wanted it for. “I’m contributing to a discussion about sexualizing men’s calves.” “Oh, okay. Do you want me to flex mine in a sexy manner?” Dude is the best.)
EEEE! This is GREAT!!! Thanks for sharing. Also your boyfriend sounds like very good news.
Kate Beaton knows the future! At least, the parts of the future that are like the past 😀
I wish my boyfriend was like your boyfriend
AHHH
AHHHHHHHHHHHH
you (and Kate Beaton) have made my WEEK
“It’s 2050 and Werner Herzog is no longer allowed to make documentaries, only provide commentary over reruns of The Golden Girls…”
I will be dead in 2050 (I am a man, and so will have been trampled under the boots of Supreme Allied Commander The Bachlorette’s merciless army), but I need someone to make this happen now, because I NEED IT.
Rose: Penny for your thoughts, Sophia?
Sophia: You’re an idiot—and that’s on the house!
Herzog [voiceover]: I thought I had come to know Sophia, but I see now how little can be understood. There are in this world immense simplicities too subtle for man to approach without destroying himself. There is a serenity in the olivine eyes of the alligator, sunning its violent bulk beneath the walls of Miami. There is a hard and fatal philosophy reposing in the gemlike glare of Sophia Petrillo’s glasses. These two are alike in their dominion, their perfect and distinterested cruelty; fit monarchs for this, the Golden Palace.
Does that mean Cheech finally gets to be the Mick Jagger he left out?
AMAZING
THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL.
Tomorrow I will watch the sun rise over a new day and curse it because it will never again be the day I read this.
It is 2050 and if a man even opens his mouth to make a joke about toilet seats he receives a moderate electrical shock.
Ha ha, yes. Moderate.
Hilarious. I like that LOL
Now that’s change we can believe in. 🙂
ROLL ON, MATRIARCHY.
We haven’t reached equality till we have reached matriarchy right?
“It’s 2050 and it’s illegal for a man to play a guitar in a public place”
Private places, too, I hope, unless given an explicit waiver from Annie Clark. End the practice of “Hey girl thanks for coming over to my dorm to work on homework oh I see you noticed my Fender anyways here’s Wonderwall”
Is Wonderwall still that thing?
Hopefully not by 2050
Don’t place any bets.
BRB gonna tape it to the mirror and read it every morning
I was just thinking to myself, “how do I make this my desktop background?”
This would be perfect for more shirts and other The Toast paraphernalia!
It’s the only document I’ve ever loved.
Let us all make this our daily affirmation.
Can I kickstart this as a tv show/webseries? I need to see the future.
1. The president of my alma mater recently sent an email to alumnae in which she described students and graduates as “strong, smart, and feisty women.” ?????????
2. Joss Whedon aside, we can still have those narratives, right? Katee Sackhoff should never want for work.
3. Honestly, I can hardly blame men for being reluctant to smash the patriarchy.* I wouldn’t want to either.
*but I do anyway
1 is so insulting but also I think I could really achieve an M.A. in Feistiness
I think I would take a concentration in Sardonic Eyebrow-Raising, as part of the Withering Glances track.
Real talk, did you go to Agnes Scott College?
I did! Hello, fellow Scottie!
It’s the year 2050, and colleges offer “men’s literature” courses. If you want to read regular books, by women, you just sign up for “literature” courses.
Related: men have given up protesting the use of the term “Coeds” to describe male college students, realizing that it is only just and proper that they be differentiated from the female norm.
Oh! God! I never understood that term until just now. My poor naïve self in the past.
It’s 2050, and the covers of books by men feature cartoonish fonts and scantily clad men showing off their calves. Most people (which is to say, most women) are baffled by the concept of “men’s literature.” Obviously if men had the ability to write literature, their books would already be included in the “literature” courses.
Women dismiss the books as “probably all about shopping for beer and cars. I might enjoy the story if I sat down and read it, but I’d be so embarrassed walking up to the library desk with something with such a manly cover.”
I mean, they’re are probably some men who can play with the girls, but generally I just have never liked anything written by a man, and those things I only read because I had to for my men’s lit class.
I didn’t take a men’s lit class, but my lit professor was a bit of an equalist, so we had to read two books by men instead of the usual one.
Really, I think that was more than enough to make me an expert on men’s writing.
No, I haven’t read any “classic literature” by men. But oh man, I loved those parody versions that were all the rage for a while.”The Corrections & The Undead,” “Kavalier & Clay: Bigfoot Hunters,” “I Am Charlotte Simmons, Vampire Bounty Hunter.” Hilarious stuff.
Ugh “I Am Charlotte Simmons” is enough of a parody on its own, though not hilarious.
it’s so beautiful, I can see it in my mind
You just made me cry.
“It’s the year 2050 and nursing in public is mandatory. Whenever a woman starts nursing, every man within a quarter-mile is required by law to watch her do it while feeding her melon and calling her a ‘living miracle.’”
What a time to be alive!
Relevant: that TNG episode with the matriarchal society: http://www.avclub.com/tvclub/star-trek-the-next-g…
It’s 2050, and all men over 21 are required to wear the outfit Riker wears in that episode with the crazy V-neck.
My misandrist heart grew three sizes today, just because of this post.
“It’s 2050, and women swagger down the street, many of them ten feet tall.” I knew Steven Universe was onto something with Garnet.
My daughter and I love Garnet! At some point she and Raven from Teen Titans Go will get together and take over the world (and there will be much rejoicing).
“Joss Whedon has been exiled to an uninhabited island where he is regularly brought food and supplies but forbidden from creating narratives about ass-kicking blonde women.”
The future looks great.
Send all of his relatives and extended family there, too, and then get some real writers for Agents of Shield.
Nah, then he’d have an audience. Let him serve as a warning.
Okay, what’s wrong with Werner Herzog? He is for real one of maybe seven men on this entire planet I can countenance and I’m feeling slightly protective of him right now (which he’d love, can you imagine trying to explain to Werner Herzog that you felt protective of him because of a joke in a satirical internet piece? He’d be like, ‘None of these words make sense to me. Once more, as so often, language fails us, serving only to emphasise the chasm of understanding between every single individual human being’, looking all quizzical and shit.)
Absolutely nothing; in fact, his talents are desperately needed. Those Golden Girls eps aren’t going to narrate themselves.
He’s very into the Inscrutable and Treacherous Feminine (As We See Here in the Mysterious and Deadly Allure of the Impassive Jungle), for one. Very German Romanticism.
The looming misandrist/feminist future has no use for men of Herzog’s value.
Our 2050 Ovarian overlords will wantonly cast aside Good Men in creating the perfect female society.
For the foolishness of women is wiser than male wisdom, and the weakness of women is stronger than male strength. There is no Good Man, only a man who is Less Bad than his brothers.
Related: The Good Men Project is now a site advertising rentboys.
I mean, nothing’s wrong with science either; I don’t actually want it to be replaced with the Craft, even though I love the Craft. There’s some, you know, HUMOROUS HYPERBOLE in this here vision of the future.
Hyperbole is one of the principal tools of the Inscrutable and Treacherous Feminine.
Ohhhhhhh, hyperbole. Of course I knew that. Hyperbole makes sense.
I’ll just, uh, stop researching suitably humane but oh so isolated islands for Joss then shall I? Not that I started. Because of course we were just using humorous hyperbole. Ha ha!
Your profile name is … it’s everything.
Scarily, it’s the actual nickname my mum gave me when I was about 19 and I would complain about her and her best friend waking me up at 4am when they came home from the pub.
“Why are you banging on my window?”
“Ish dark darling, and mummy can’t find her keys.”
“Mum, it’s 4am.”
“oh don’t be like that Saffie, come have some champagne.”
She still uses it when I get tired and grumpy.
Is your mother Joanna Lumley?
Not that my opinion is wanted or matters at all, but I am alright with all this. I’m a good daylight-scurry-er. Sex in 2050 sounds especially hot, businessmen’s teeth getting kicked in is my new fetish.
Shhhhhhh.
I like you, you’re feisty. *winks*
Not that my opinion is wanted or matters at all, which is why I’m not going to give it.
oh shit, I think I just had a little bit of sex after work! Well, we didn’t *take* the SAT math, just discussed changes to the 2016 version of the SAT. And the SAT guess penalty’s relation to gendered tolerance for risk and its affect on standardized test performance. I’m getting hot again just thinking of it.
I want to be the keeper of the little pink dumbbells at the gym, assessing whether a man has been Very Good and is entitled to use them. I assume in this utopia, we all rotate into that position periodically in some kind of collective gym labor scheme. But if I have to build up calf-gazing on my resume and develop a portfolio of man-judgements, so be it.
Just repeat after me: “Oh, honey, a pretty thing like you shouldn’t want to get all bulky. You should try cardio instead.”
“How about you work out those gorgeous stems by fetching me a smoothie.”
“Mm. Hate to see you leave, but love to watch you go.”
THIS THREAD JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER
Emily- You do Calf muscles, i’ll do forearms. Its a hard task I know, but i’ve got the labia to do it. i’m woman enough!
“I don’t really have anything in common with other boys. I prefer to hang out with women; so much less drama.”
Can i give this like a thousand thumbs up? Oh my lilith. That Exact sentiment is one of the VERY things i’m getting SO tired of hearing the opposite of from women. UGH. I nearly gnash my teeth every time a woman implies women r like so dramatic and the boys are soooooo perfect.
i think this may be your masterpiece.
I believe you mean mistresspiece.
Where is the lie.
How does the skeletal wyvern chariot fit in? I ask because I have a ’72 Olds skeletal wyvern chariot that I’ve been tinkering with for years. It’s up on blocks right now, but otherwise in fairly good condition. I was thinking about selling it for parts, but if it’s going to become a classic then I might look into restoring it.
This is so magnificent that I feel like no one ever has to write a single thing ever again.
I really like protein powder and free weights. I’ll miss them.
I cannot wait 35 years to hear Werner Herzog provide commentary to Golden Girls. I need this NOW.
Well now I’m horribly conflicted, because I don’t want to lose non-SAT sex, but I do want to lose Joss Whedon’s ass-kicking blonde narratives. (And what I really want is for all movies and television to come with a Werner Herzog voiceover track.)
I wouldn’t mind hearing what he could do with reruns of Three’s Company.
Standardized sexing is a super inefficient way to measure someone’s sexual ability.
My mom will sometimes explain her decisions with “I’ve got a matriarchy to run, you know.” She’s just doing her part to make this future a reality.
This whole thing is marvelous but “It’s 2050 and it’s illegal for a man to play a guitar in a public place or to know what time it is. Men have to guess” is the part that made me shriek with laughter.
Mallory for president of Earth, 2050.
Women meet regularly in neighborhood social groups to trade helpful hints and tips about serial killing.
Also, there is graffiti that says “Steely Dan is life” in the women’s restroom of my local train station. I don’t understand how it could’ve gotten there.
Trolls
can someone inform me of the significance of Steely Dan in this article? I know the music, but am failing to make a connection.
um. i like steely dan and i am woman. (no, i did not write that). maybe i just like music commonly associated with baby-boomer aged men. but whatever, dude. letting go & listening to steely dan unironically – and just riding on the waaaaave, man – is a thing that is pretty fun to do. don’t knock til you try.
PS noticed your charlie pic. i fucking <3 sunny. (“i don’t understand how women could like that show?” seeeeeee. silliness).
I just read a facebook comment by some douchebag. He posted on an article called “Shit White Feminists Need to Stop Doing”, and his complaint was that women need to stop “lumping him in” with rapists. Because it’s sexist, and, somehow, also racist. (He is white. Of course he is.)
What I’m saying here is that this was the balm the day required.
noooooo what will we do without Bob Dylan. Serial killers, even female ones, won’t seem cool without a crowd of sleazy male beatniks talking about them like they are.
hooooboy did I make some mistakes trying to parse “feeding her melon” on the first try. “Is… do people call babies melons now? Or do they… but how…”
Me too, and I wish that parsing was correct because nobody should ever feed anybody melon, because melons are gross and also poison.
The best of all possible worlds. I welcome our new estrogen-filled overlords!
Oh, sweetcheeks, you don’t have to welcome us. That just interferes with the grand entrance.
*blushing* She said I have sweet cheeks! Squeeeeee!
Nice calves too, I bet. Give us a twirl love and let’s see the goods.
Yet somehow 2050 is also just like The Jetsons. No one can explain this. The Toast is now The Toast-Flavored Food Pill, co-edited by Nicole Spacecliffe and Mallory Jetberg. Women zip around in flying cars and live in giant Modernist saucer-communes on poles high above the ground (“femi-nests”) while the men stumble haplessly on eternal pet treadmills. They’re not even walking any dogs, they are just men on treadmills.
I was with you until the melon-feeding began. Melons are gross and wrong, and nobody should ever feed them to anybody. I just can’t with your vision of the future, because of the melons.
Delta Green was feminist all along
I’m totally fine with this. my calves are finally appreciated and I’ll have a nice steady job on a boat every week saying hey to Joss Whedon.
“Come on, take my new screenplay back with you” he says every time.
“Joss,” I’ll say “You know what happened the last time you convinced me you’d reconciled 2nd and 3rd wave feminism. Just take these 90s alt rock CDs back to the house and I’ll see you next Tuesday.”
“Yeah…yeah okay” he’ll say. And then I’ll start the motor back up on my little boat and head back to the mainland.
It’s 2050 and few parents send their sons to college anymore – they’ll just marry and become stay-at-home husbands, what do they need to go to college for?
Nonsense. Men will still have to go to college. Where else will they meet eligible women headed for successful professions who will support them? It’ll be known as getting your MR. degree.
It’s 2050 and the only meaning MRA has is as a thing cats say when surprised/displeased/both (I assume they’re cool with flying out of the überweibs’ mouths).
Today…I have glimpsed paradise!
*Weeps into a lacey handkerchief*
It’s 2050 and instead of praying to god, we pray to Rose Nylund. Heaven is St. Olaf and hell is full of Stans.
Dorothy Zbornak stands at the pearly gates to issue each of us our heaven uniform – a sensible but stylish pantsuit and large earrings.
every word of this is beautiful
Kate Beaton knows the future! At least, the parts of the future that are like the past 😀
Mallory,
I have uneasy feelings on the feminist culture as well. Although, I rarely run into women with such strong views on this subject. Out of curiosity, how do you relate to women your age? Is it hard to have these views while being in a culture that creates a fad out of anything new and daring?
Ian
We welcome your unease.
My sister's first college roommate only listened to Steely Dan. As in, her iPod was just a Steely Dan machine. Maybe she is responsible?
I clicked all the way over to the second page of comments and all I got was this stupid question from Ian.
I typically use "gentleman companion," but really that expresses a level of affection I'm not comfortable demonstrating in public. "Romantic associate" it is!
It’s 2050 and herpes no longer exists………but hispes does.
In the glorious tradition of Joanna Russ!
Now that's change we can believe in. 🙂
In the feminist fascist future, there's no need for ex-boyfriends. We have most-favored male toy and least-favored male toy(s).
“No one has ever even heard of Steely Dan.”
Okay, I’m on board.
I seriously fucking hate Steely Dan. Probably because my ex-boyfriend kept playing that horrible song about the guy curling up with the girly magazine. It made me want to punch him every time he sang it.