An Open Letter to the Men Trying to Sneak into Burned Haystack

Dear Men,

I have read your responses to the group membership request questions. I understand that you’re “just here to learn” and that you “just want to see what this whole method is about” and, my favorite, that you’re “just here to offer the male perspective.”

I have read—more times than I can count—that you are “nonbinary closeted,” and you are apparently so deeply closeted that when I click on your profiles you are decked out in MAGA hats and wailing about other people’s vaccinations and beating your chests over all the women who have disrespected you. You are holding forth about masculine energy and the impending threat of seed oils.

And I have witnessed you bragging on Instagram and preaching from the pulpits of Reddit about how you’ve already infiltrated Burned Haystack (I love that you’re using the verb “infiltrate.” That’s very dramatic). You’re apparently buying fake Facebook profiles and changing your profile names from “Nick” to “Nic” or “Nate” to “Nat” (actual example from last week, and the fact that you are a PSYCHOLOGIST, Nat(e), is super disturbing and highly ethically questionable).

You guys who do these things: You keep revealing yourselves in three specific ways, and they’re super distinct and recognizable. The predictability is humorous to the group. So anyway, we do know. We just don’t care. As long as you don’t talk, you won’t bother us, and when you do talk and bother us, we’ll remove you.

Further comedy: Those of you sneaking into the Burned Haystack community seem to believe that it’s a game-able system—that you’ll be able to crack it and uncover some super-secret box of magic tricks that will empower you to get women melting at your feet into puddles of liquid internalized misogyny so caustic it disintegrates us into the compliant, brainless, fawning tradwives you’re all apparently clamoring to find.

Here’s what’s actually going to happen if you manage to sneak in:

The secret code you’re planning to access is simply . . . Feminism. It’s the exact same form of feminism that already exists in every single textbook, TEDtalk, political rally, and public platform.

People ask me all the time if I’m worried my book is going to “clue men into the system” or “teach them the game.”

There never was a game, unless the game was basic human decency, unless it was seeing women as three-dimensional beings worthy of equal consideration, unless it was shutting up for five whole seconds to listen to a voice other than your own.

Joining Burned Haystack is always disappointing for you guys, and we’re sorry. 😢🎻

You’ve had access to all the theory all along; you’ve just never listened or learned, and that’s why you can’t get dates. You’ve been too busy researching chemtrails or something.

So the real question, I guess, is whether I’m concerned toxic men are going to “learn feminism.”

I mean, no. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to fear that that’s going to happen. These are men who can’t learn to work Hinge, apparently, since they “aren’t that great at checking this app” or “don’t understand why the app won’t let them change it,” in which “it” refers to their age being ten years younger than they actually are. It’s weird that the app never gets their age wrong ten years in the other direction. It’s all very mysterious.

But what about the men who have managed to infiltrate? The men who are sitting in our private women’s community right now flying under everyone’s radar?

Well, 99% of you will reveal yourselves pretty quickly, at which point we’ll jettison you; the slim minority who “trick” us—who are so good at faking feminism that NO ONE ever suspects you, well: I guess it doesn’t make any difference to us, right?

Let’s use an analogy here: I’m a 5’ 1” woman with zero athletic ability or knowledge of any kind of sport whatsoever. But let’s say I for some reason am able to get so good at basketball that I get drafted by the WNBA and lead my team to the championship game? Am I “faking” basketball? Have I “infiltrated” the WNBA? Or am I just really good at basketball now? And does it matter?

So that’s what I’m saying: if you’re “embedded” (another term you like to use) and participating so effectively that no one detects you, then you might just be . . . a feminist. I realize that’s probably scary. You’re at least pragmatically a feminist, because at this point you’re lending your energy and your voice to the advancement of a feminist mission. Thank you.

It’s okay to take an alternate path. So whether you’re serving as counterexamples of whom to date (your guys’ profiles were a HUGE help in writing my book) or legitimately accidentally un-red-pilling yourselves by hanging out in Burned Haystack, you’re providing a tangible social benefit, regardless of whether or not you can get dates.

I just thought that might make you feel better.

~Jennie