Blogger Slams Motherhood, Gets Death Threats — Here We Go Again

“Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit,” declares Amy Glass, a blogger for the site Thought Catalog, in a piece that’s been working many a nerve since its publication earlier this month. In her 400-word essay, called “I Look Down on Young Women With Husbands and Kids and I’m Not Sorry,” Glass rails against wives and moms and the people who celebrate them, calling them “average” and asking, “If women can do anything, why are we still content with applauding them for doing nothing?” Her harsh opinions, naturally, have kicked up a thrumming, angry buzz — along with death threats directed at her, Glass tells Yahoo Shine. 

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“Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself?” her piece, published Jan. 15 but gaining significant attention just this week, continues. “There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.”

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Noteworthy responses on Twitter have called the piece “the ugliest thing I’ve ever read written by another woman,” “the dumbest opinion piece,” “evil” and, more than once, “ignorant.” And new ones keep rolling in:


Plenty of bloggers have taken on Glass, including two fellow Thought Catalog writers, who have defended mothering by answering directly with their own pieces: “Judging Other People Does Not Make You Exceptional: An Open Letter to Amy Glass,” by Julie Horman; and “I Feel Sorry for Amy Glass and I’m Not Ashamed,” which has an anonymous (and possibly, then, ashamed) mother even mimicking Glass’s style. “Every time I hear a ‘feminist’ spout off on a topic she knows nothing about I have to fight back the vomit,” she begins. “Does Amy really not get it?”

Other responses in the rising din: eye rolling on Mommyish, and annoyance on Politi-Chicks and various personal blogs — even a discussion on "Fox & Friends", during which Tucker Carlson calls Glass “just another boring entitled rich girl who’s frustrated with the emptiness of her life” but notes, “What’s interesting to me is this is a manifesto on behalf of selfishness.” He warns that people who agree with her will “wind up on your death bed realizing you lived a pointless life” and says, “There’s dignity in supporting your family.”

Glass tells Yahoo Shine in an email that she will not reveal her age or any other personal details about herself because of the threats she has received and also because “people are especially incapable of removing an argument from the irrelevance of the arguer, when it comes to women. Already people assume I am fat, ugly, and medically infertile without having any evidence.”

She says she was inspired to write the piece by “advancing in my own career and seeing the differences between my male and female peers. A man will stay at the office until 10 p.m. when he needs to: the women have to check with their boyfriends or husbands at the very least, if not leave because their family cannot go on without them the way we allow families to for men.” As for why people have gotten angry with her, she says, “Because there's a kernel of truth in it.”  

She has so far found the "Fox & Friends" response particularly interesting. “Both men said that raising kids was the most important thing, yet they are both doing the opposite! They are career men! It's only easy for them to espouse that philosophy because they don't have to follow it themselves,” she says. “That’s what wives are for.”

In any event, it’s clear that the mystery blogger is not backing down, as she’s written several follow-up posts, responding in one, “Of course being a mother is hard work. I don’t think mothering is an easy task. However, is a task worthwhile just because it is difficult? I bet Sisyphus felt rolling that rock up the hill was a pretty difficult, 24/7 job, but that doesn’t have anything to do with whether it’s good or bad,” she writes. “‘Hard’ is value neutral.”

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