Last September, as I noted in a NewsBusters post, the Washington Post published a column by feminist freelancer Jody Allard, who used her perch to publicly shame her sons, lamenting how they were "blind to rape culture."
Last week, facing criticism for continuing to expose her parent-child struggles and her sons' apparently unacceptable worldviews, she went to Medium.com to explain why she's not letting up. Outlets which carry her columns need to be asked how they can justify continuing to enable her.
Allard's habit of dragging her sons into her columns is especially infuriating because one of them has tried to commit suicide. Of course, she had to make that public too. I'd rather not have linked to the column, but those who will have a hard time believing the lengths to which Allard has gone to absolve herself of any responsibility for her son's situation need to be able to verify that the following sentences are actually there:
I have to learn to care for my suicidal teen with limits but without fear
... My son’s depression doesn’t belong to me. I didn’t create it and I am not responsible for it.
Allard appears to have published just one more column at the Post in January, and not to have been seen there since. It was — ironically, as we'll see later — about narcissistic personality disorder, and it managed to steer clear of her own family matters. There's apparently no shortage of other online outlets willing to publish her work.
On July 6, Allard was at it again at a website called RoleReboot.com, which claims to be about overcoming "outdated assumptions about men and women’s roles." Well, it's more than that, given that the site has posted a column claiming that "The categories of human sex and gender expression and identities they could represent is likely infinite." Oh boy — excuse me, oh LGBTQIAPK!
Allard's column went after all men, and she just couldn't resist dragging her sons into the discussion. She also seemed inexplicably stunned that her previous exposures of her son's views and troubles had consequences:
I’m Done Pretending Men Are Safe (Even My Sons)
If the feminist men—the men who proudly declare their progressive politics and their fight for quality—aren’t safe, then what man is? No man, I fear.
I have two sons. They are strong and compassionate—the kind of boys other parents are glad to meet when their daughters bring them home for dinner. They are good boys, in the ways good boys are, but they are not safe boys. I’m starting to believe there’s no such thing.
... My (September 2016 Washington Post) essay went semi-viral, and for the first time my sons encountered my words about them on their friends’ phones, their teachers’ computers, and even overheard them discussed by strangers on a crowded metro bus. It was one thing to agree to be written about in relative obscurity, and quite another thing to have my words intrude on their daily lives.
One of my sons was hurt by my words, although he’s never told me so. He doesn’t understand why I lumped him and his brother together in my essay. He sees himself as the “good” one, the one who is sensitive and thoughtful, and who listens instead of reacts. He doesn’t understand that even quiet misogyny is misogyny, and that not all sexists sound like Twitter trolls.
What in the world did this woman expect after openly criticizing her late-teenage sons for being "blind to rape culture," and contending that they "are part of the problem"?
Allard kept going after her sons' absorption of "toxic" male attitudes in that July 6 column.
Then she gave us a strong clue that her sons aren't the ones who have serious problems interacting with the opposite sex (the Associated Press says we're supposed to stop using the term "opposite sex"; the heck with them), given her experience on a dating site which is supposed to help feminists find suitable men:
... feminist or not, the men are no different from the men anywhere else and I quickly felt deflated. If the feminist men — the men who proudly declare their progressive politics and their fight for quality — aren’t safe, then what man is? No man, I fear.
At some point, ma'am, it might be worth considering the possibility that your problem is facing you in the mirror.
After even more blowback over exposing her sons' reactions to her insistence on exposing them, Allard appeared at Medium.com to explain herself. It didn't help, given that her column included the following gems:
Why I write about my kids
... it should be clear that discussing how particular men, even my children, absorb these cultural ideas (of "rape culture" and "toxic masculinity") is in no way “abusing” them.
... it’s a bit absurd to suggest that my sons are the ones bearing this burden. They are unnamed in my essays, and I often blend them into a single “character” in difficult pieces to preserve some degree of anonymity. It is, in fact, this blending that upset one of my sons the most.
... (regarding the son who attempted suicide) I’ve agreed to write under my own name, but I’ve never used his name in those essays either, as a way to honor his request while also preserving his privacy.
Comments, in order of the excerpted paragraphs' appearance:
- As I noted in September, given that she has branded her sons as "unsafe" sexists, "These boys now have a target on their backs for every wannabe young radical feminist who wants to give them grief in high school, college or where they work." I should have added, "for many, many years to come." And that's not abuse?
- That her sons are "unnamed" solves nothing. There are only two, for heaven's sake, and she tars them with similar degrees of sexism.
- Allard says that the affected son has given presentations on depression and suicide prevention and isn't concerned about his name being known. But if she's trying to protect his privacy beyond their community circle, we're again back to the fact she has only two sons, and that it wouldn't be difficult for others to figure out which one tried to kill himself.
Allard even engaged in detestable self-congratulation at the end of that Medium.com piece, exposing her as one of the very narcissists she discussed in the aforementioned January Washington Post column:
... my mother gave me one bit of valuable advice as a child: Don’t let the bastards win. And for as long as I think it’s valuable to write about my family, that’s exactly what I’ll do.
Translation: I'm going to do what I want to do "as long as I think it's valuable," the rest of my family be damned. I suspect that Allard's mother would be less than thrilled with how her daughter has implemented her advice.
The media outlets which continue to carry Allard's work have no acceptable answer to the question I directed at the Post in September:
Hasn't anyone ... looked in the mirror and asked how their sons or daughters would feel if they were so cravenly and callously exposed?
Finally, this time paraphrasing what I wrote in September: If a conservative, traditional-family mom were to discuss the imperfections of her offspring in a published column, I'm betting that the editors at these press organs and websites would go after the author with the harshest levels of criticism. But because Allard is a self-described "feminist," she continues to get a pass.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
