I don't know why or how you put up with men.
I really don't.
It's like putting up with a skin rash, or a persistent cough, maybe? You may not want it, but it's part of being alive?
I don't know. Running a one in six chance of being raped is no doubt worse than living with a risk of pneumonia.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do it.
If men were groped, leered at, pawed upon, demeaned, had their generative organs legislated and regulated, paid less than women, excluded from conversations as a matter of custom, raped at rate of one out of every six of us, abused, beaten, expected to be fuck-ready at the drop of the drawers, used as a symbol of wickedness, employed as a cause of social decay, held up as an impossible standard of beauty, castigated as the cause of criminality, excluded from vital decisions, blamed for moral failures, incriminated for how female children turn out as adults, standardized as the set of traits which define weakness and vulnerability, chided as vehicles of sin, idealized as unobtainable prizes, and all as a matter of tradition, culture, law and religion...
...we probably would have torched the world with nuclear death in a pique of self pity by now. Hell, we've already brought the human race to the brink more than once, without being treated like women.
So...
...there's that.
Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
But feminists occasionally say inaccurately mean things about men or sometimes fail to show a sense of humor, so it's even. Right?
ReplyDeleteWe don't think of it as "putting up." We think of it as keeping our mouths shut and our heads down, so you'll permit us to continue living.
ReplyDeletePretty simple, actually.
i think its time for a new perspective, Jack. i direct you to this article...
ReplyDeletehttp://blastmagazine.com/the-magazine/culturefashion/kinky-stuff/feminism-the-winter-of-men%E2%80%99s-discontent/
I don't know why or how you put up with men.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the alternative?
You're right, Crow.
ReplyDeleteI mean, for women to put up with us, they have to have NO self esteem. Pathetic!
Fish,
ReplyDeleteI have my qualms with the essentialist currents of any doctrine, and no matter how many times I try to read Dworkin favorably, I just can't. But, the idea that feminists are humorless scolds is central to the implied) argument that feminism is merely reactive, and not in fact a significant break from the Western norm.
Ms Xeno,
I'd read about that further, your way, if you ever felt the inclination to expand upon the thought.
Orange,
I'm not well disposed to the complaint that men feel "justifiably" put out by women not wanting to put out, or do all the other things young bucks think are owed to them on account of having a piss tube hanging between their thighs.
Phil,
Separatism, for one. I mean, I wouldn't be all that pleased with the turn of my life if my wife left to live with only women, or if she decided that no man was currently worth her company. And it's in that reaction that I know the truth of their condition: as a rule we entitle ourselves to them, don't we?
I'm older now, and we have a strong relationship. I would miss She, the person - and my oldest, closet friend and lover.
But, twenty years ago, I'd have been all like "women think they don't need mens? - wait til they get the horny feeling" as if the thing which drives women to be fully human is a penis in one of their holes.
I'm not suggesting separatism is the answer. Or that there can be a solution which is The Answer, but it is an alternative, and I think the degree to which men balk at it is the degree to which they feel entitled to the services of women.
Cuneyt,
That's one way to read it. It's not how I wrote it, but that's certainly one of an infinite number of possible interpretations.
Oh I was just trying to make a joke about absurd negating arguments males often make to avoid dealing with the real underlying issues.
ReplyDeleteAnd I was also making a sarcastic joke. Women are bitches when they leave and pathetic when they stay or forgive.
ReplyDelete"...Ms Xeno,
ReplyDeleteI'd read about that further, your way, if you ever felt the inclination to expand upon the thought..."
I'll see what I can do. But there's a bit of shorthand I've seen in some "safe" spaces meant for female survivors of sexual assault: If not sex, than violence. It's shorthand for the idea that if men make physical advances, women put ourselves at greater physical risk by resisting than we do by complying.
A great many men, consciously or not, are aware of this and exploit it. Not just in sexual situations, but in seemingly "ordinary" situations as well.
Men who mean well should consider that dynamic before asking us "Why don't you fight back/tell him no/leave/walk away?" etc. In my experience, very few men DO consider it, because they're too busy assuring us that THEY couldn't possibly benefit from this imbalance.
I'll tell you something else: Having read that link in your post, I could go forever without hearing ever again how men can't advocate for women's safety at demos and the like because they'd be "reduplicating hierarchical systems" and blah blah blah. The current hierarchical system is already in men's favor. It tells me that if I'm in a public space like a demo, it's up to ME to avoid and/or deal with unwanted male attention. If I get groped or called "bitch" or what-have-you, the most important thing isn't that the male aggressor be made to STOP. No, the most important thing is apparently everyone discussing whether the aggression was real or only in my mind. Also it's important that I shut up about it, because it would be terrible for anyone to think that men are behaving in a predatory and entitled way towards women, even if it's true.
That's some depressing "MANarchist" shit, Dude.
Hey Man, looking for another Berryman Dream Song I found/remembered this, thought of this post.
ReplyDeleteThank you, good sir.
ReplyDeleteMs Xeno,
ReplyDeleteApologies. Googler caught up your last comment as spam. Bastards.
Ahh.
ReplyDeleteA guy who gets it.
/*falls into beautiful dream about a sane world*/
No worries, Jack. When I didn't see it the first couple of hours, I figured you'd retrieve it at some point.
ReplyDeleteBest.