So, you may have grasped that it’s International Women’s Day today. And some people - hell, they just aren’t down with it. They’ve got some questions that need answering, ASAP, before their brains implode with the possibility of 24 hours dedicated to celebrating the achievements of The Vagina Crew (I came up with a new name for us, girls. Adoption is not compulsory.)
To help this mass of confused and lonely people in their plight, I’ve put together a little Q&A that you might want to - oh, I don’t know - print out and distribute amongst all the irritating people in your office/home/suspended meditation tent.
Or you could just share it online like everybody else. Whatever.
-Why isn’t there an International Men’s Day?
Now, you could go all crazy-ass on this one and mention the fact that the numbers of female MPs, cabinet members, board directors, and journalists always seem to level out at 22%. You could be all, ‘Yea, and why isn’t there White Entertainment Television and the music of white origin awards?’ You could be like, EVERY DAY IS MEN’S DAY YO, and talk about the widespread international practice of Female Genital Mutilation, or the fact that women can’t drive in Saudi, or indeed travel abroad without male accompaniment or written permission from their husbands, or countries where the law restricts what types of clothes women can wear, or TV panels that always have a ‘token woman’ who is immediately vilified for ‘proving’ that all other women aren’t clever/funny/good at debating, or that 5% of the people controlling the media are female, or how 12 out of 193 countries recognised by the UN have a female head of government. Or even that time a man went past you on the street in a taxi and shouted: ‘Wanna come home with me, baby?’ as he sped past. That dude wasn’t expecting you to say yes, and then chase after his car as he disappeared in a cloud of London smog into the distance. He’d spotted you as a lone woman in a public space, and he was putting you in your place (even though, as we all know, ‘cat-caller’ is one linguistic step away from ‘pussy’.)
Or you could just save your breath and tell them that there is actually an International Men’s Day, and it’s celebrated on November 19th. Guaranteed to take winds out of sails, pronto.
-Is this the equivalent of Steak and Blowjob Day?
No. The female equivalent of Steak and Blowjob Day is Cake and Cunnilingus Day. Never heard of it? That’s because it doesn’t exist - OMG, INEQUALITY IN ACTION.
-But aren’t women equal now anyway?
See the rest of the Vagenda. Immediately.
-I guess it must be International ‘Bite My Tongue’ Day, then!
What the hell does your tongue do on every other day of the year, accompany you atop a soapbox as you remonstrate against all womenkind? You could be putting your tongue to much better use on IWT, darlin’ - see above, Cake and Cunnilingus Day.
-What’s the point when we should be including men in discussions about social change, rather than excluding them?
You know how Pancake Day does not equal Eschew All Other Foods In Favour Of Pancakes And Also, Whenever There’s A Discussion About Food, Never Include Anything But Pancakes Until Pancakes Are The Only Thing We Ever Eat Day?
Do you see where I’m going here?
-I’ll wish you a happy International Women’s Day when you’ve made me a sandwich/ Is tomorrow ‘Get Back In The Kitchen’ Day/ What’s next, International Hoovers’ Day?
Oh, ho ho ho! Your humour appears to have been imported from the 1800s. Beware the repercussions on International Men’s Day. In fact, you should probably be even more careful about sudden repercussions on Steak and Blowjob Day - think about it.
-Since women never do anything, they can compress all of their achievements into a single day - then we can carry on celebrating what men do for the rest of the year, right?
There are no words. The same person who asked this included the example that ‘women think baking a pie is wonderful, while men think that the Large Hadron Collider is wonderful’. He is gonna be so bummed when he finds out about Katherine McAlpine, the CERN scientist working on the LHC who even wrote and performed a viral rap song about it. Yea, you heard me right.
-Do women want female supremacy now or something?
Yes. Yes, we want female supremacy. Look out your window and witness the hordes of black-clad females, swarming the streets with advanced weaponry, beating men into quivering submission as they pass! Because if Female Genital Mutilation stops, and half of the population is statistically represented in the House of Commons, then THERE. WILL. BE. ANARCHY.
-Er, but it's Mothers' Day on Sunday?
Cool, it's not like we've spent decades battling against the idea of women-as-baby-incubators or anything. And, like, why count childless women as people anyway when they're basically just sobbing amorphous blobs living bitterly alone in feline-infested apartments, cursing the barrenness of their empty, empty wombs? The questioner who asked you this is almost certainly the manager who recommended that one woman in the company is quite enough, thankyou very much. And then asked you to get him a biscuit. Fuck him (but not literally, unless your vagina has pointy fangs. And if it does, can you send me a picture?)
-IWD, eh? Let me make you feel like a real woman...
So what, you're gonna dock my pay by 16%, call me a slut and then talk about how my womb is public property? I do this 'real woman' business every day, and I know what it entails. Unfortunately, you patently do not know what it entails, and that is why you just asked if you can make me feel like a real woman. The fact that the guy who asked this then chucked a dirty T-shirt at his conversational partner and said, 'Wash that' before keeling over in hysterics probably illustrates my point even more. I just hope to GOD that he didn't choke on his tongue and die a hideously painful death. Because my soft, feminine heart just couldn't cope with a tragic freak incident like that.
Does this Q&A need expanding after some shit you just heard in the office? Tweet us @VagendaMagazine and we’ll totes back you up, laydee.
