HEATHER WILHELM: The Rise of the Weak-Kneed Feminists.

I’m sorry, everyone. I’m all for empathy and understanding, and I’m all for the realization that many rape victims react to and cope with their assaults in strange and unexpected ways. But when modern feminism has spiraled into an impassioned defense of making your rapist breakfast, I think we’re starting to get the definition of “empowered” wrong.

You know what? As a woman, I don’t want to celebrate “pure radical vulnerability,” the supposed virtue symbolized by Sulkowicz’s mattress. I don’t want women to make breakfast for their rapists. More importantly, I don’t want modern feminists, constantly hiding under the guise of “empathy” and “understanding,” to celebrate and normalize self-destructive “I’ll be nice to him”/”I’ll text him”/”I’ll stay with him” behaviors that prevent assault victims from seeking actual justice.

You know what would be really empowering? Putting rapists—real rapists, not the victims of regrettable sex—in jail. But somehow, like a nightmarish conference call that never ends, modern feminists would rather just keep talking, twisting logic, making excuses, embracing victimhood, and ignoring common-sense paths to justice for women who are actually aggrieved.

We may never know what happened in the Columbia mattress rape case. What we do know—or at least what we are told—is that Sulkowicz, despite her seemingly boundless energy and her 50-pound mattress, is a fragile creature, crushed by any questioning of her narrative, no matter how incongruous it may be. To truly pursue justice, you see, would be “draining.” It would take a great deal of courage and strength. That, apparently, is not what feminism stands for any more.

Feminism stands for what pays. And right now, that’s victimhood.