Only hot women get raped, according to the worst ‘feminist’ ever

You ever read a tweet so stupid you physically feel a cluster of neurons die and float off into the ether of your brain matter? And then you sit there for like a full five minutes trying to figure out what the fuck their thought process was that made them string that particular series of 140 characters together to create such a dumbass thought?

OK, now picture that in the form of a several-hundred-word op-ed in the world's most respected newspaper.

Yesterday, Mayim Bialik, best known to you as the nasal female scientist on The Big Bang Theory reruns and best known to your mom as the star of 1980s sitcom Blossom, wrote a take on the Harvey Weinstein scandal in the New York Times. It's entitled "Being a Feminist in Harvey Weinstein’s World" and it's a mess.

About 70 percent of the article is long-winded sentences about Bialik being a self-described unattractive girl.

For most of the piece, I'm unsure what being not-conventionally-hot has to do with feminism or sexual assault. Aaaand then we get there.

Bialik says she was never put in an uncomfortable situation with a powerful man because she was not “perfect ten.” She writes that her "proud feminist" refusal to diet, exercise, or get plastic surgery (because those things are comparable? lol) excluded her from the Male Gaze. Because it's only pretty girls who get harassed and attacked, right?

Oh, but you guys. It gets worse.

Bialik goes on to say she makes self-protecting choices to keep her out of harm's way, including "dressing modestly", not expressing her "sexual self", and never acting in a "flirtatious" manner, ever, because that attracts the wrong sorts of attention from men.

Well that's news to fucking me.

What Mayim Bialik doesn't understand is that sexual harassment and assault is never about desire. It's not about a man being so overcome by his attraction to you that he just has to have you.

It's about power, control, and entitlement.

I'm not an overwhelmingly attractive woman either, and I've been harassed, cornered, screamed at, followed down the street, and sexually assaulted more than once. Sometimes I was wearing a short, sexy dress and heels. Sometimes I was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and no makeup. Sometimes it was gym clothes. Once, I was asleep.

No amount of self-protective measures could have kept those horrible, traumatizing events from happening to me. Because it wasn't about me. It was about them, and what they wanted. I was an object, not a person with agency making choices.

How can a woman so publicly and vehemently call herself a feminist and still think a man raping a woman (or another man, for that matter) is the fault of anyone but the rapist? That there were other factors at play, choices we could have made to avoid the literal worst moments of our lives?

I am so fucking sick of this blame game. I blame the rapists, the attackers, the men who use their power and influence in every industry to use us however they want. I don't blame me, I don't blame you, and I sure as hell don't blame a low-cut top or tight jeans for a sex crime.

If you want to pretend a shapeless turtleneck is a magic shield against men who wish you harm, fine. But don't call yourself a feminist ever again.