I am just trying to get THIS malware infected site up and working again….it won’t let me upload any images. Will it let me make a post? Let’s see!
This, Too, Serves a Purpose
While I am the FIRST to admit I have been missing my daily Amanda Marcotte fix while she is livin’ it up at SXSW, I disagree with this article. In it Marcotte states that Steinem, Morgan and Fonda have gone TOO FAR in bringing up the idea that MAYBE we should as a nation consider the idea that the unbelievably toxic Rush Limbaugh ought to be banned from the public airwaves.
While it is true that censorship is by and large a bad idea, open to all sorts of abuses, there are many things we do not allow on our public airwaves and outright Hate Speech really OUGHT to be one of them. But more importantly, I think that WE, the “progressives”, need to allow for voices TO THE LEFT of the middle  to be heard. The Right has allowed FAR FAR RIGHT pundits, so far Right as to be throwbacks to several CENTURIES ago, to speak, and has thus been VERY successful at moving the “middle ground” to the right. So successful, that it can be truthfully stated that Nixon (NIXON!!!) would be considered A Liberal DEMOCRAT NOW!
Yet when a position is taken by a Feminist or other Liberal that is to the LEFT of the middle ground, the Progressives try to talk them back from the edge. “Come back! Come Back! You are going to get called names! We here in the middle may start to feel mildly embarrassed to be seen with you!”
We don’t let the Fringe-y Left do their part, which is to PULL THE MIDDLE GROUND LEFTWARD. Instead, we just keep letting the For-crying-out-loud QUIVVERFULS! and SLAVERY-ENDORSERS (and THIS GUY) pull the debate to the RIGHT!
We need to take a lesson from the Right: we need to LET the FAR-LEFT express their views, without policing by the Moderates. (And not to say that Fonda, Steinem and Morgan are THAT far left! The Far Left view on the Limbaugh situation would be, I dunno, advocating for the Fairness Doctrine?)
The First Stirrings of Thought
While reading about the whole “Just put an aspirin between your legs” comment by Some Idiot Somewhere, I was stimulated to think about the conundrum, if ALL the ladies are supposed to be keeping their legs together, who exactly are all these Conservative male pussyhounds supposed to be fucking? Why don’t the OBVIOUS LOGISTICAL PROBLEMS in half of the Heteros (the females) being celibate, and the other half (the males) Completely Depraved seem to occur to these idiots?
And then I thought, this is so blatant that it MUST be a feature, not a bug. What would they get out of it? Well, they would get to keep on having that Framing of Sexuality that goes like this: Man is the HUNTER!! The Pussy Hunter!! The women don’t want to/get to give it up, so then we (the males) get to use TAKE IT! In other words, Rape Culture. The “Game”. The Dominance Game.
Plus, the obvious benefit that if a woman “gets herself pregnant”, the entire male subset of the population doesn’t have to Give a Shit, because, she was slut who broke the rules! The rules that the males made up so that they would always “win” in every situation!
It’s pathetic.
Amanda Marcotte Called It
As many as FIVE YEARS AGO, Feminist writer Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon PREDICTED that the focus on abortion was only the tip of the iceberg, and that conservatives longed to outlaw Contraception.
Well it is happening! ALL of the Republican contenders for POTUS have gone on the record as being AGAINST CONTRACEPTION! I really wonder if the average American has noticed.
This is really radical stuff. Really really outrageous….I can’t even think of the TERM for this kind of nonsense.
More Ideas
One idea I would like to put in the novel is, there is a sympathetic male character, and although he tries to be taken seriously as a person by the women, nothing he does works and he finds himself an object of ridicule, and it is Very Confusing for him (just as it is for Us, NOW!).
ALso, and this is G*R*E*A*T, MEN are considered to be the more dumb, more romantic sex, who are fed fairy tales about finding a perfect woman, a “Princess Charming”, and having their lives be great, (and this DOES happen to a FEW men, to make it more frustrating and heartbreaking for most men) and then they are mocked for being so dumb as to BELIEVE anything like this could happen to them. Men are considered more clingy, and more loyal, and there is a saying in the society along the lines of, “No Dog is more Loyal than a Neutered Male”. (This actually IS a saying in the DOG breeding community!) Women who have espoused theirselves to a male generallly take the male totally for granted TOTALLY, because, economically the male is FUCKED if he ever leaves, for starters, and also, usually these males can be counted on to be grateful and loyal and loving, because that is their NATURE! Not like Women, who are naturally more adventurous!
My Feminist Novel
So, I had this idea that I was going to write a Feminist Novel.
What GOADED me into the idea of actually BOTHERING to sit down and WRITE one, was one too many comments by Some Choad on a Feminist Thread, sayin’, “If WIMMIN are so GREAT then why aren’t there any Great Wimmin writers or thinkers or artists or generals or FILL IN THE BLANK?” I mean seriously. Seriously, I had KINDA SORTA thought that the problem of Institutionalized Misogyny had been covered. I thought that MOST people, even CHOADS, got it: for most of recorded history, female human beings have been systematically prevented from things like, learning to write, learning to read, all higher education, etc, let alone getting into institutional bias and the convenient “forgetting” of the “exceptional” women of history.
Well it just pissed me off, if all. So I thought as a Fun Lark I would jot down a full length novel about an imaginary scenario where the shoe was on the other foot. Because, we are soaking in it: we don’t even SEE all the misogyny of out OWN culture, we are so indoctrinated. It is one of those mind-bending experiments that still WORKS, to imagine something that has been said or printed about, or that has happened to a woman, happening to a MAN, and seeing how different it is, how differently we perceive it.
I know it is ridiculous to say “as a fun lark” but I really DO think it will be fun. It is FUN to imagine the Female-dominated culture that I am going to create. (It isn’t a FEMINIST culture, because, Feminism isn’t ABOUT subjugating men….my imaginary world WILL be.) I am going to write it in such a way that it will be impossible NOT to see exactly what Institutionalized, normalized sexism does, how it limites and belittles and shames the gender that is “less than”. I am hoping it will become the paperback that college women give their boyfriends to read instead of having to SPLAIN it all to them personally.
HAHA Because GODDESS KNOWS, men aren’t very good at reading academic texts! Like the Feminist Canon! They can’t be bothered!
But I AM LAZY, and have LOTS of good ideas that I never get around to DOING, so I thought I would approach this as a project on my BLOG, right here. I am going to thrash it out in (semi) public. I mean, NO ONE reads this blog, because I never post, because I am lazy. But NOW it is going to become my favorite pastime! Jotting down my novel!
To get started, I am going to write about the structure that I mean to embrace. Believe it or not, I have given SOME thought to all this ever since I dreamt up the idea. My novel will follow, in the fine tradition of best-selling Historical novels, several main characters simultaneously…..all from this imaginary society…..who eventually collide with one another in various ways. I will write rather sympathetically of all of them, even the ones who are WrongDoers et al. Like Middlemarch, it will be an ETHICAL tome, but the ethics will be skewed to reflect the institutional bias of the imaginary society.
For instance, in Middlemarch, one guy works real hard and is honest, and becomes better off than he was before….after a lifetime of serving the Capitalists, he is rewarded by a more secure position as overseer or several estates of the Gentry. I forget his name. ( Is it Mr Garth?) But that is an ethical result for someone who is a Capitalist…..work hard and be Honest and you will be rewarded.
My novel will have similar “rewards” for it’s characters….for instance, a man who learns to be subservient, correctly subservient, is rewarded. He gets to live in a house with a female, instead of in a forced labor camp or whatever my imaginary society has dreamt up to do with the Male Labor Force. You see this is the kind of thing I need to cogitate upon. The STORY will be about CHARACTERS and their LIVES, but the entire, assumed background of the novel will be this imaginary society….like Tolkien, I will have to dream up the whole society before I really get into the STORY.
I mean I ASSUME Tolkien did that! I know Lewis did….spent a lot of time thinking up the imaginary lands before he wrote about adventures there.
SO!
I am going to write down some of my Ideas about my Imaginary Society! For one thing it needs a name….I need to think of a NAME. Well, one will occur to me I am sure. but for now, A LIST!
1. Everyone in any position of power is female, with maybe a token or two
2. This seems completely natural to everyone, of course, no one questions it except rebellious little boys…rebellious little boys who want to be thought Human and Worthy, as little girls are thought of.
3. It is thought to be a bit of a shame if your firstborn is a boy
4. People feel sorry for you if you have only boys, like your family is second-rate
5. (Oh man I could do this FOREVER!)
5. Women don’t have to please men. Men have to please women. Men have to alter their bodies to please women. Women would never dream of it….it would be UNDIGNIFIED. Women’s clothes are comfortable and well-made, their shoes are functional and fit well. You get the picture.
6. Men have to wear ridiculous get-ups, and the women (sort of) despise them for it. But insist upon it. Because the natural male body is GROSS!! (Women are not angels in this world, not at all.)
7. Hmm perhaps men are thought to be angelic? No, they are thought to be DANGEROUS!! Â Women hate and mistrust them! If THEY were in charge of things, it would be a BAD SCENE! It is unthinkable. Men have to be contained and supervised. They were clearly formed by Goddess for MANUAL LABOR!
8. Of course Religion is a Female thing and being Female is required to be Fully Human.
More Later!! I have to go see myself be in a Movie!!
Rebecca West
“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.†~ Rebecca West.
Dashes
When my Mother and my Aunt Jeannie used to write letters to each other (back in the days before the internet, way, way back when normal middle-class people only used LONG DISTANCE twice a year (Christmas and Birthdays) because it was perceived as SO EXPENSIVE) they used what I remember as a bizarre writing style, with virtually no punctuation at all, other than Dashes. (?) Now, my Aunt Jeannie was an english major who graduated from Boston University, she KNEW HOW to use punctuation. But a typical letter, written by either my Mom os my Aunt, would go like this:
“Nan-
The cats are all in, huddled around the fireplace- Mother can’t stop complaining about the cold-Don thinks he is going to make a million dollars with his new thing-do you have that recipe for pork roast-no one knows what to do about Aunt Helen-well I gotta go-
Love Jeannie”
Now, when I can no longer ask either of them (because they are dead), it all seems so mysterious somehow….why just dashes? I think because, written in that sort of stream of consciousness way, there was no pretense of even TRYING to write well, so it was IMPOSSIBLE to FAIL.
How deep are our fears, that so many of us don’t even TRY? To do a simple thing? Or, were they just SO RELAXED with one another, that there was no point in exerting themselves? Or, was in an epistolary style they developed when utterly sleep deprived as young mothers?
Ventures in Common Sense
At my recent visit to Half Price Books during the 50% off coupon day, I happened upon a little book entitled “Ventures in Common Sense”, priced $3. Published in 1919, the title just had that special ring of a book crammed full of conservatism and misogyny, circa 1919. As I leafed through it, I found I was spot-on (as the British say.) I toyed with the idea of buying it, and quoting on the pages of OVERLADY, as a feminist exercise.
“Nah.” I decided. Why perpetuate this junk? Negativity. Better to let it vanish down the Memory Hole.
That is, until I read about J-Lo bloviating about how there wasn’t any misogyny until the Damn Feminists noticed all the misogyny that wasn’t there and irritated everyone with their stridency. And Ruined Everything!
So I went back to Half Price Books and purchased this little gem. I will now commence my series, based on direct quotes taken from the lengthy chapter “Women”, which is, naturally, the very first and (presumably) most important in this Patriarchal primer.
Women are gentler than men; they are more patient, but not so fair. The fairest human being is an old man who, beginning with good intelligence, has fortified it with experience, education, and age. Women have more prejudices than men; they cannot see the truth so quickly. If women ruled the world as unquestionably as men do, I very much doubt they would be so fair to men as men are to women. The men have always controlled the courts, the armies, and every other element of strength; yet women have every right they should have. Men have made severe laws punishing themselves for offenses against women, and enforce them. In every case where women are tried before male juries, the women get the best of it.
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Let’s take this a thought at a time.
Women are gentler than men; they are more patient, but not so fair.
Because everyone knows how very fair the rich white guys have been to everyone else since, well, EVER!
The fairest human being is an old man who, beginning with good intelligence, has fortified it with experience, education, and age.
Which is why Dick Cheney should be King. Because Old Men aren’t at all corrupted by Power. Not at all!
Women have more prejudices than men; they cannot see the truth so quickly.
Women are always believing the sluts who cry rape. Women are just so credulous…always tender-hearted toward the oppressed. If they hadn’t been such nags and bleeding-hearts, we could still have slaves!
If women ruled the world as unquestionably as men do, I very much doubt they would be so fair to men as men are to women.
The Fear of Retribution. This fear is deeply ingrained is nearly all misogynistic sentiments and writing, much more so than one would imagine. Your standard misogynist is terrified of women, and terrified of what we are going to do to them, if we should manage to get the upper hand.
The men have always controlled the courts, the armies, and every other element of strength; yet women have every right they should have.
Gotta love this! Women have every right they should have. This was written in 1919, three years before women GOT THE VOTE! Buh-buh-buh-but they have every right they should have! You know, every right the other livestock has!
Men have made severe laws punishing themselves for offenses against women, and enforce them.
Do I even need to expand upon this pronouncement? Men didn’t enforce these laws then and they don’t enforce them now. When this was written, taking a man to court for rape branded you as unmarriagable, damaged goods that were immediately worthless, to boot, even if you were a lily-white member of the upper classes. (If you were poor or dark, well, everyone knows you were asking for it.)
In every case where women are tried before male juries, the women get the best of it.
Those wily women with their diabolical attractiveness! Pulling the wool over the menfolk’s eyes! We men are really at a disadvantage when it comes to keeping up with the Ladeez! When they bat those eyelashes, watch out!
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President Obama’s Press Conference
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I was just sitting here, TRYING to figure out how to work the program “Photoshop” by trial and error, and the Press Conference came on. I think it was on NBC. Might I be one of the voices in the wilderness willing to voice some rationality?
1) Just who invented this framing of Obama’s presidency where he is supposed to FIX THE WORLD in thirty days? It is such PATENT BULLSHIT! I have been paying attention to national politics for decades now, and I can actually SEE the framing, and where it is coming from, and it is Barftastic to watch, and it is a CRIME that that President Obama has to even grapple with it.
Destroying things is much, much quicker and easier than building them. To demonstrate this, imagine singlehandedly burning down a house. Pretty easy! Now imagine singlehandedly building a house. It would take YEARS. At even an extremely conservative estimate, let’s say it takes 8 times as long to fix a broken or destroyed thing.
Dubya had EIGHT YEARS to destroy this country, and he did it with abandon and with multiple henchmen. We should give Obama SIXTY-FOUR years to fix the country!! THEN pronounce his success or failure.
Even at an unrealistic numerically “fair” comparison, Obama has 8 years to fix what Dubya and Darth broke. But no; the top 1% of this country (financially I mean, obviously) just HATE HATE HATE the idea of the peon workers having even a mildly sympathetic President and Congress. They appear to be shitting BRICKS at the idea of forking over any taxes at ALL. So they program the mainstream media (which grows more irrelevant daily, thank Jeebus) to constantly spout this insanely retarded rubric, that Obama had better FIX EVERYTHING in a month or two or else his is a “failed presidency”.
2) Can I just mention how I WEEP WITH JOY to hear a President who can speak English without embarrassing us all? And that’s not all he can do! He can also think WITH HIS BRAIN! He can speak with the Press Corps with dignity and coherence, without losing his authority. He is actually fit for the job.
3) Clearly, the strain is beginning to show. It may just be my filters, whatever they may be, but Obama is CLEARLY quite angry, not only with AIG and the financial Robber Barons, but with his colleagues in Congress who are showing about as much backbone and patriotism and love for America……as they did under Bush. Which is so say, they appear to, for the most part, be for sale. It’s infuriating.
I supported Edwards initially (the Working Man’s Friend), then Hillary (What is not to love about that woman?) and came to Obama in a “well, I like him just fine, even if he wasn’t my first choice” kind of way. (More on that later!) So, I am NOT a wild-eyed Obama-maniac. That said, I am TELLING YOU that we LUCKED OUT TO THE MAX getting this man to take on the leadership of this country in this dark hour.
