Douchebag Decree

Regardless of political leanings, gender, religion, or creed, you'd think we could all agree that what happened last week at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a national tragedy that deserves our sympathy and respect. You'd be wrong.

Over the past four years, the Douchebag Decree has become one of the most popular features on the Bitch blogs. Not because Bitch readers love douching—we know you don’t!—but because smart, savvy, feminist Bitch readers want to know when someone in the media steps out of line. Whether it’s signing a petition to stop the exploitation of girls or boycotting yet another "Just for Men" product, our weekly Douchebag Decrees let readers know what to avoid and what actions to take to push back. And let's just admit it—calling a douche a douche can be kinda therapeutic (and fun, too).

Every once in a while, the stars align and we bestow Ye Olde Decree—named for a feminine hygiene product—on an actual feminine hygiene product. Today is one of those star-aligning days: Meet this week's Decreed Douchebag, Damiva.


Joke's on you—I LIKE British comedies.

 

Back in August, our web editor commented on the sexism of the “BIC for Her” feminine pen debacle. She opened her blog with the quip: “Thank God I'm typing this post on a laptop, because ladies like me need special, feminine pens to write longhand these days.” 

Yeah, about that. I’ve got some bad news.

My what a douche-y week! In desperate times like these, we feminists have only one option.... A douche-off! In one corner, we have Ann "R-word tweeter" Coulter, an awful person if there ever was one. In the other corner we have Richard "God intended rape pregnancies" Mourdock, who is also terrible. Two douches enter, one douche leaves!

Some weeks you just want to burn down the whole Internet, and—well, until yesterday's torrent of hilarious post-debate memes, anyway—this has undoubtedly been one of those weeks.

Last Friday afternoon, as you might have heard, or read, or absorbed via social-media osmosis, Gawker's Adrian Chen posted a long, suspenseful post that unmasked a guy named Michael Brutsch, a 49-year-old Texan who for years has been one of Reddit's most prolific and most disturbing contributors. Known online as ViolentAcrez, Brutsch created "subreddits," or forums, with titles like "Incest," "Chokeabitch," "Rapebait," and "PicsofDeadJailbait," and oh so many more, and was one of the main curators of the lately notorious "Creepshots" forums, in which dudes post photos of women taken surreptitiously in public, in order to perv out on both the photos themselves and their nonconsensual provenance.

This isn't a Douchebag Decree about Michael Brutsch, however.

Here's a brief test of étiquette. You're a writer accused of asking an inappropriate question to a famous actor in a national magazine. Another writer takes you to task for what she sees as a history of this kind of inappropriateness. Your response?

a.) Ignore the criticism—you can't please everyone, right?

b.) Explain yourself—you really didn't intend to offend.

c.) Promptly imply that the other writer is jealous and unfuckable.

If you answered c.), hey! You must be Andrew Goldman! Step right up here to accept this week's Douchebag Decree.

Elizabeth Wurtzel, lawyer, memoirist and pretty lady, is heartbroken that you aren't trying harder to look hot. And what's worse? You're ruining feminism.

The new Hooters campaign features two owl puppets—a devil and an angel—meant to represent the internal conflict many customers face when eating fried food at what is basically the world's least gratifying strip club. On the one hand, you consider yourself a nice person, but on the other hand, you want to objectify women while you eat lunch! What to do???


You eat at Hooters, duh. Also seriously, how is one guy supposed to eat all that food?

The Olympics started as an über-macho, male-only competition in ancient Greece. While a lot has changed since then, women are still facing sexism when it comes to the Games.