Drew Yates

(while discussing feminism at Cathy’s undergrad)

Cathy: I just feel bad for women because of the stresses of beauty and fashion.

Drew: All women?

Cathy: Well, most of them.

Drew: Wait, so you empathize with half of all people in the world because you all happen to be women?

Cathy: Yes, I suppose so.

Drew: But we don’t empathize like that with all people in the western hemisphere versus the southern hemisphere.

Cathy: Yah, that’s true.

Drew: So do you feel that “being women” is vital to your identity? Your most important attribute?

Cathy: Yes.

Drew: And you feel that most women feel the same way? That their identity is foremost “woman?”

Cathy: Yah —I do, at least.

Drew: So how do women reconcile that gender is largely irrelevant and that gender founds their identity?

Drew: See? This is why they don’t like me at college.

Side Note: I would say that most white, heterosexual, American men identify themselves first by what they do: a sport, a hobby, an occupation, a lifestyle, etc. Another test: heterosexual men only very rarely think of themselves as “not women” or “not not men” —at least, in my experience, which granted, is quite limited.

I’ve come to the alarming realization that American girls do not want babies anymore. I’ve learned this from the girls who happen to be my friends and date me. Like a good social scientist, I’ve extrapolated my limited personal experience to apply to all girls in my socioeconomic range. The fact that I dress like an “intellectual creative” (sloppy) and work at startup companies (poor but idealistic) —I’m sure— has no barring on the sorts of females that I tolerate long enough to join my sociological study.

Today is my birthday (I’m 23), and yesterday my girlfriend and I had a picnic on the beach near Santa Cruz. I asked her if she ever wanted kids (in general in the hypothetical distant future, not like, right now), and she said no.

I was aghast.

I tried to explain to her that it was her duty to make good babies to fight the wog hordes of the future, but rather than inspiring a patriotic lust for breeding, I was forced to explain what a “wog” was. It’s a British racial epithet for “not European.” You think that the Americans are imperialist? Ha! Why do you think the world speaks English?

See, I continued, if more good people don’t have more babies, then soon there will be no more good people to join the army and fight all the bad people. When everyone is bad, there will be no one to fight, and all war will end. Without war, the American economic Military-Industrial complex will collapse, and nobody will be left to fight Satan at Armageddon.

Therefore, I deduced, you are a personal accomplice to Satan if you do not want children.

She told me that I sounded like her mother.

UPDATE: Somebody introduced me to Trader Joe’s, a store that actually seems to sell “food” rather than act as a front for pushing soft drinks and snacks. (*cough* Safeway *cough*) Thanks!