PJ Media

Ah, the oft-invoked “I’m worth it” justification. As a point of fact, most young ladies aren’t “worth it.” But most of them think that they are anyway.

As somebody who grew up in the late 80′s and 90′s — when Madonna was considered a roll model of female “empowerment” for girls — yours truly spent high school through early adulthood in the trenches as a revolution changed young white females’ attitudes and behavior. Your son’s observations ring all too familiar. An generation of girls who came of age between the late 80′s and early 2000′s (spanning from late Gen X’ers through Millennials) were raised by affluent boomer parents to be princesses. And as most people slept through the 90′s and early 2000′s, the P.C. movement, the riot grrl movement, the “girl power” movement, the “bitch” movement, the “goddess” movement and any number of other solipsistic “movements” coalesced into 3rd Wave Feminism. 3rd Wave Feminism is a simultaneously raunchy, aggressive, hyper-sexual, anti-white male, anti-masculine, anti-feminine, anti-family, pro-stripper, pro-porn, pro-boozing, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, anti-Western, hyper-materialist, female-supremacist orthodoxy. If that sounds confusing, it’s because it is … until you begin to understand it. 3rd Wave Feminism is essentially a coterie of grievances mixed with heavy doses of entitlement and female supremacy that appeals strongly to upper middle class girls who were raised as princesses.

Read Jezebel or the Frisky to see the thought processes of mainstream, mild 3rd wavers. Read Jessica Valenti’s Feministing to see the real dead-enders.

The tentacles of 3rd wave feminism extend throughout the culture and influence most young women (and many young men) to varying degrees. But they’re always there. The following will be an overly sweeping generalization, but long story short, a generation of urban, single, educated, professional princesses, who otherwise view males as inferiors and enemies, spend their single “party years” using their adversaries (exciting “alpha male” variants only–boring nice guy “beta males” need not apply) as for-fun “boy toys,” the conquest of whom is said to deliver “empowerment.” But without fail, when the Carrie Bradshaw-inspired fun starts to get boring (i.e., when the clock starts ticking), the princesses expect that a funny, charming, successful, ambitious, (very) financially secure alpha male — acceptable careers: hedge fund manager, i-banker or neurosurgeon — who looks like a young George Clooney and has an exciting bad boy streak will suddenly drop out of the sky, sweep her off her feet, marry her — despite her rapidly-diminishing reproductive viability/looks and years of promiscuity — and provide her with a fabulous life.

As stated, that’s an overly sweeping generalization and a caricature–to be sure–of a certain type of single princess in the city, and her 3rd Wave-inspired attitudes and attendant unrealistic expectations. But a lot of girls (many of whom aren’t exactly anything to write home about) will wait for a fairy tale like that to happen. Why? Because they think they’re “worth it.” Kay Hymowitz thinks they’re worth it too.

If that scenario sounds dystopian, it is. Many of us have encountered enough of those girls to know all too well that we don’t want to marry them. It sounds like your son has too. But it’s not all bad — there’s an endless supply of raunchy single girls in their mid 20s who are hell-bent on “having fun” (translation: bed-hopping) throughout their “bad girl party years.” A 20-something or 30-something year old guy who keeps himself in shape, has his sh*t together and doesn’t mind being a “boy toy” can have the world by the balls, so to speak. He just can’t let himself truly “connect” with anyone, or get caught up in anyone in particular. If he wants to keep taking advantage of the oversupply of boozy single girls sowing their Sex and the City oats, he has to remind himself to treat women as objects, not as girlfriends.

So 3rd Wave hyper-feminism has brought about the ultimate irony: the re-objectification of women.

Good times.