Grapes Deemed Sour

From the pages of Vogue, where upscale ladies probe the issues of the day:

Specifically,

That’s the issues of their day, of course, not necessarily yours.

The author of the above, Ms Chanté Joseph, formerly of the Guardian and a stipulator of pronouns, has a theory to share.

“Quite culturally loser-ish.” I’m guessing the intended readership may be the kinds of ladies whose days are driven by endless niche anxieties regarding in-group status. Of “social benefits” and seeming, as if that were the primary function of an intimate relationship or a lifelong pairing. 

Writer and activist. Because one can’t just be a writer. Also, norminess. And dear Lord, we can’t have that.

If you say so, madam.

Ah, the innate loveliness of women. The tender, caring sex.

But remember, it’s totally not about image. Just the embarrassment of an Instagram feed cluttered with obsolete boyfriends. Like unfashionable shoes.

One more time:

I would guess that these are not routine anxieties for regulars of this parish.

Behold, the social blemish of norminess. Or possibly conservative.

Again, the loveliness of women. And then there’s the implication that one might tailor one’s romantic life to the preferences of random strangers on the internet. Dating, or not dating, for likes.

Readers will, I suspect, have registered that these agonies seem to bedevil those who inhabit a world of activists, influencers, and self-styled content creators, and in which one has to be mindful of any shifts in the script. Because those other bitches are always watching.

Don’t look at me. I have no idea. Apparently, women are being “forced to re-evaluate our blind allegiance to heterosexuality.”

We seem to have veered off a cliff. In a cloud of old gender-studies lecture notes.

Never. Not once, you hear.

At which point, readers may be left wondering – among other things – whether the above is an elaborate attempt to rationalise sour grapes, a matter of loudly dismissing that which isn’t easily had. Of, as they say, cope.

Possibly on account of being the kind of women whose world is one of influencers and activists, of Instagram narcissism, and whose preoccupations include denouncing heteronormativity while needlessly stipulating one’s pronouns. The kind of women who fret about whether having a husband or partner, someone to love and be loved by, looks “culturally loser-ish,” or unfashionably “Republican.”

Not the most obvious enticement for a man with other options.

Update, via the comments:

The piece quoted above would seem to fit a genre of article, typically appearing in progressive publications, in which unendearing women try to conjure some elaborate social or political explanation for why they’re so often found unendearing.

It’s also an article in which almost every other assumption is alien to me.

I’m still trying to imagine being the kind of person who frets about whether coupledom or singledom is the more fashionable “flex.” The kind of person who stresses about how an intimate relationship will seem – say, to strangers on the internet – and whether that relationship denotes norminess and therefore being insufficiently radical. Whether it will look too conservative, too “Republican.”

It strikes me as quite bonkers. A weird and impractical set of priorities. And should it need saying, a recipe for misery.

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