The Issue(s) with Kaitlin Bennet
“Women’s Rights are Gun Rights.” Kaitlin Bennet a conservative “civil rights advocate,” known as “Gun Girl” is a popular anti-choice and gun rights advocate. Kaitlin has always been on my radar, as videos of people taking her down often show up on my explore page on Instagram, and this past week my cousin recommended that I do a Kaitlin Bennet commentary as a blog post. I loved the idea and as I fell deeper and deeper into her channel I became a mixture of angry, inspired and frustrated with her content and political opinions, let’s dive into it.
The first video I watched was titled: Women Against Women Rights
In this video Kaitlin spoke to people attending the Women's March preaching that “Women’s Rights are Gun Rights.” As she kept repeating this, I couldn’t help but draw the connection to situations where women are asking for equal rights and men comeback by stating “so do I get to hit girls back?” What responses like that, and Kaitlin’s responses reveal is a lack of education regarding the issues of feminism. They can’t debate on topics such as repro-rights, equal pay, and sexual violence and so they revert to weak arguments not backed by facts and substance, but rather yelling and a condescending tone. Someone Bennet interviewed in the video put the issue with bringing gun rights to a Women's March perfectly, stating, “I don’t think that's a discussion that's meant for here.” She is correct, there is a time and place for debates regarding the right to bear arms, and that place is not the Women's March. Those were the main themes of the video, but here are some other moments that I think are important to highlight.
Someone Bennet was interviewing: “Are you a lawyer”
Bennet: “Might be”
Someone Bennet was interviewing: “I am”
Then the person being interviewed went on to speak to Kaitlin about how the 2nd amendment is wildly misconstrued by the public. Kaitlin wasn’t hearing it and went into an argument about Roe v. Wade, which was promptly disputed. Something that stood out to me during this portion of the video was that Kaitlin stated “I have the right to own nuclear weapons and you don’t have the right to kill someone else.” What does she think nuclear weapons do?? Explode little bombs of glitter?? After this the woman being interviewed left to go join the march. Kaitlin took it as a win, but really, the woman being interviewed was fed up with Kaitlin’s antics and wanted to go convene with people who had personality traits other than carrying an AR-10.
Another moment in the video that stood out is when a man she was interviewing called her out for not showing all the people attending the march but rather a blank background of trees and empty benches, essentially calling her out on giving a false perspective of the Women’s March and the power of the feminist movement in her video.
The next video I watched was titled “Pride Learns Trump Isn’t That Bad”
Bennet’s main point in this video was to prove that Trump is for LGBTQIA+ rights, and wants to start a worldwide movement of equality, however considering there is a full GLAAD article (https://www.glaad.org/tap/donald-trump), with pages and pages of all the anti-LGBTQIA + decisions Trump and his administration have made, I’m not sure how accurate that claim is. If you would like to read them all the article is linked above but here are a few points that really stood out to me.
Attempt to ban/ banning the Transgender community from joining the military
“Minutes after Donald Trump was sworn into office, any mention of the LGBTQ community was erased from White House, Department of State, and Department of Labor websites.”
“The Department of Health and Human Services proposes in a new memo to change the legal definition of sex under Title IX, requiring individuals to identify according to their gender assigned at birth. This change in legal definition would remove nondiscrimination protections for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals.”
Trump has hired many anti-LGBTQIA + advocates and activists
“President Trump delivers the keynote address at the anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation President’s Club annual meeting.”
“ In an ongoing effort on the part of the Trump Administration to replace "gender" with a biological-essentialist definition of "sex", U.S. officials at the United Nations are seeking to replace mentions of "gender", e.g. "gender-based violence", with alternative terminology, like "violence against women," erasing all references to gender identity and the issues relating to trans and gender non-conforming people.”
Just this past month: “The Trump administration is using departments of State, Justice, Health and Human Services, Labor and Housing and Urban Development to push religious exemptions at the expense of LGBTQ rights, detailed by the ACLU, Center for American Progress and the Movement Advancement Project.”
The final issue I have with this video is that Pride is a place for members of the LGBTQIA+ community to celebrate their sexuality and identity after centuries of oppression, criminalization and even being sentenced to death. Bennet ruining such a powerful event by trying to prove a point about Trump, who, as proved above, has done little to nothing to improve LGBTQIA+ equality and rights, and rather has taken and will continue to take rights away, is disgusting.
The final video I watched of Bennet’s was titled, “Triggered Feminist Gets Destroyed By Kaitlin Bennet”
In this video the person Bennet is interviewing talks about how bad it is that she is promoting gun rights on a college campus.
And she’s right. It’s terrible.
Considering that there were more mass shootings than days in 2019, it is repulsive to even think about how Bennet believes in conceal carrying on campus, and how she goes around college campuses promoting her views and showing off her weapon.
There is much more to unpack in this video, first being that Bennet states that someone can’t be pro-choice if they don’t believe in the right to bear arms. However the right to bear arms is not what being pro-choice is for, pro-choice is about women having control over their bodies, and having the right to choose what she does with it. Not about women having the right to carry guns. Bennet also stated that carrying guns on college campuses can help students defend themselves against sexual assault. Statements like that are at the root of the problem that is rape culture, putting the blame on women to prevent sexual assault, rather than just expecting men not to rape women.
Finally, Bennet stated that she wasn’t a feminist because of what “today's feminism has become” I have already written an article about this:
But what I have to say about it now is Bennet reminds me of those boys in middle and high school who think saying feminazi is peak humor
What I learned watching Bennet’s videos is that she is simply not educated about the majority of the topics she speaks about, and she doesn’t understand the repercussions of her actions.
