Recently, I woke up and scrolled on Facebook to find the latest SJW buffoonery that was making its rounds: various groups are pushing more and more for a "gender-neutral" or female Santa Clause. In fact, at least one poll that I saw published showed that over 27% of respondents favored this idea.

How much longer will the world entertain this kind of absurdity?

Immediately there were several issues I found with this proposal.

For one, there are historical roots to the character of Santa Clause. While Santa Clause has morphed into a character of folklore, he has roots in several historical figures, mostly Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas of Myra. Saint Nicholas was an early Christian Bishop whose habit of giving gifts morphed into the character of Santa Clause. Saint Nicholas was also a man, so of course, Santa Clause also became a man. It was not the sexist, misogynistic, patriarchy that runs Christmas that chose Santa to be a man, it was history.

Furthermore, there is already a female Santa Clause-character in the public conscience- Mrs. Clause. In plenty of Christmas stories, Mrs. Clause is portrayed as the friendly Grandma character of the North Pole- baking cookies and setting the festivities out to make Santa's Workshop feel like Christmas all year round. Why not just make more stories that focus on Mrs. Clause? Why not make her a larger character in the mythos and use her to represent feminist ideals?

However, this article is not really about how Santa Clause being male and destroying feminists. Far from it. This article is more meant to highlight how these fringe ideas that only the farthest flung extremes of groups get represented by the media. The media thrives on controversy and the ridiculous. They do not want to represent the middle of the road- they want to highlight the crazy and the absurd.

The problem is that this causes the public to have a brutal misunderstanding of these groups. People do not know what moderate feminists believe- they just know the ones that believe that their beloved Santa is about to be replaced as a woman or a third-gender. My recommendation?

When you see an absurd proposal like this, do not defend it in the slightest. Make sure people know how horribly this misrepresents feminism and your ideas. Otherwise, you just perpetuate the stereotypes that people already believe about the cause.