Sure, it's obvious madness, and it's hard to believe that anyone who says it (or quotes it approvingly) could really believe it. But that's basically what I expect out of any feminist commentary on any topic. The entire space is littered with claims like this - ones so patently false or morally outrageous that one thinks that surely, surely, the author doesn't really believe what they're saying. Stuff like that there exist no innate biological differences in ability between the genders, or that pro-lifers are motivated by a desire to exert control of women's bodies, or that being falsely accused of rape is less likely than being struck by lightning, or that Otto Warmbier deserves no public sympathy for being tortured to disablement and death by North Korea because he was a beneficiary of white privilege.
I've long since given up hope of trying to parse the madness. I sincerely don't understand what motivates people to say these ridiculous things, and as a consequence I sincerely can't tell when somebody means what they say to be figurative and when they are expressing a genuinely-held (but mad) belief completely literally. Given the alarming frequency with which these sorts of claims in fact become accepted truths among feminists that get repeated over and over, I err on the side of assuming the latter.
Hayden used the word, and did so in a context where there was no obvious way to interpret it as hyperbole or metaphor. In the absence of any other possible interpretation, I'm going to assume that he means exactly what he said.
I've long since given up hope of trying to parse the madness. I sincerely don't understand what motivates people to say these ridiculous things, and as a consequence I sincerely can't tell when somebody means what they say to be figurative and when they are expressing a genuinely-held (but mad) belief completely literally. Given the alarming frequency with which these sorts of claims in fact become accepted truths among feminists that get repeated over and over, I err on the side of assuming the latter.
Hayden used the word, and did so in a context where there was no obvious way to interpret it as hyperbole or metaphor. In the absence of any other possible interpretation, I'm going to assume that he means exactly what he said.