Right-Wing Women (Part 3-D) March 26, 2011
Posted by FCM in books!, health, liberal dickwads, politics, porn, prostitution, race.Tags: dworkin, elderly women, right wing women
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part 1 is here. part 2 is here. background in the way of dworkins own graphics (some in 3-D!) are here and here. in fact, the 3-D graphics are what inspired this post, so i hope people will click over to scum-o-rama to review them, before reading further. its kinda important. and its dworkin afterall! its worth it! i’ll wait….
the above is just a very low-quality image to serve as a mental placeholder. it will not replace actually viewing the real thing.
in RWW, dworkin states very plainly what she sees as “the condition of women” and the fact that she means to include *all* women, under patriarchy. under patriarchy, pornography is what women are; the crimes against women, as women, by men are what women are for; and prostitution is what women do (in other words, everything women do is within the context of prostitution, because prostitution is the context in which women exist as women, under the P). prostitution is the outer wall keeping women inside the sex-class.
and lets just assume that she is right, for purposes of this post.
now…dworkin blows up her graphic into 3-dimensions, and i think it helps to visualize it that way. because it helps us envision this, too: imagine that the “lateral view” (the flat circle) is actually given depth so that it extends outward like a paper-towel roll (this is what happens when you turn a 2-dimensional “circle” into a 3-dimensional “cylinder”). okay? using dworkins graphic, the outside of the paper towel roll would be “prostitution,” the wall keeping women inside the sex-class; and inside the tube would be “the crimes against women” and inside that would be the “heart of pornography.” (if you cut a slice out of the width of the tube, you would be left with the lateral view again, or the flat circle). can you see it?
now…i am going to add a fourth dimension…lets call it “time.” this is what you see when you look through the tube. so…pick it up and look through it. from the outside, it would look something like…this beautiful faux-antique kaleidoscope, from google! on the inside, what would you see, as time passed, under the system dworkin described, of women living as women, as the captive sex-class, under patriarchy? well…i think this is what you would see:
isnt it? old women. this is what happens to all women, around the world, as time passes. but where women are only valued insofar as they can be exploited, sexually and reproductively, by men…where women ARE sex, and they exist within the context of prostitution, and there is no escape…the passage of time creates…well, see for yourself. from RWW:
*if* you live long enough, this is whats going to happen to you, unless you can do something to stop it. this is what we all have to look forward to, assuming that things continue the way they have been going for the last oh say several millenia. and theres simply no reason to believe that this is going to change, in our lifetimes, if ever. is there?
and the “if ever” is an interesting point, considering that radical feminists are, as women, coming from a base of powerlessness. right wing-women choose to align themselves with powerful men, and not feminists, because right-wing women, when they look at feminists, see women. and they know that all women, living in dworkins horrifying (and accurate) kaleidoscope, are barreling towards the end of their lives, and theres nothing there except the worst suffering and abuse anyone can imagine, and more.
are right-wing women wrong, if they think feminists will not succeed? are they wrong for doubting it? are they?
and are they crazy for being seriously concerned, or pissed off that feminists are potentially ruining the deals the right-wing women have made, with men, so that they (the women) may best survive (as women) under patriarchy? i dont think these women are crazy. no, i dont think so, at all. in fact…the old-age stuff has haunted my days and nights ever since i first read it, and it makes me *kind of* wish i could create my own small army (say 4 or 5 young professionals with unlimited earning potential? just as an example) to help me out when i am old, and have become so much human garbage. kind of. i mean, i can see why someone might want to try it, just in case. i think most people could see why this might sound like a good idea, if they just thought about it a lil bit. or, like dworkin, if they thought about it a lot.
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femonade 
between this scan and the one over at SOR…thats like TWENTY PAGES of dworkin. on a saturday. YOURE WELCOME!!!11!11!
Dworkin makes many good points, and again, our subjugation and ill treatment comes back down to our ‘reproductive usefulness’. Which is why spinsters and lesbians (and sometimes childfree women) are treated with disdain, they won’t perform ‘their duty’.
Ageism is something that primarily affects women, and has little impact on men (men may start to notice it a bit at 65 or so). For women, it can start as early as 40, and definitely has a noticeable effect by the time you are 50 – surprise surprise, around the menopause age. But most of you will start to notice it by 45.
Mass drugging of a population is a method of control, to keep them sedated and unable to rebel or cause trouble.
In older societies, there were the generational links from grandmother to mother to daughter, and this has been deliberately broken by patriarchy, primarily as a method of information control.
3rd wavers who think they have all the answers and that older generations of feminists ‘got it wrong’ sever an important link of information. Patriarchy encourages 3rd wavers to do this, for a reason.
Our biological function is again currently reducing us to body parts (uterus) just as porn reduces us to fuck holes. See my Mary Shelley meets Margaret Attwood post. Uterus transplants are very close.
Juliet Mitchell in “Woman’s Estate” added a 4th dimension, where old women past their Use-By date were often corralled, though most women get it throughout life anyway. Mitchell named 4 ‘domains’ or ‘dimensions’ or ‘estates’ that exploit women-as-a-class. All females are shoved into one or more domains throughout their lives, sometimes more than one at the same time.
– REPRODUCTION: Females have to birth the ankle-biters, or not, males control both On-and-Off switches.
– SEXUALITY: Females grouped into either, or both, public (prostitution) or private ownership (fun-fems) as fucktoys. Particularly for low-status male classes, keeps them quiet so they aren’t thinking about overthrowing higher-status males.
– PRODUCTION: All the low-paid, or not-paid, low-status but usually necessary shit-work. ie “Necessary for life” work – like basic necessities of Food, clothing, shelter etc – agriculture, food-production, food preparation, textiles etc. or “pink ghettos”, or second income for the male-headed family unit.
– CARING SECTOR: Somebody has to look after the helpless young infants, children, and the old, the sick, the injured, the disabled etc. Do the nursing, teaching, child care, social work, meals-on-wheels, charity work, Red Cross, Salvation Army etc, both inside and outside of the nuclear family. Who is most likely to stay home when the kids are sick? Who is most likely to be taken out of school to help at home? PTA or what we call P&C (Parents & Citizens) groups, Elder mothers and mothers-in-law, along with ‘maiden aunts’ or grandaunts parked into granny-flats, to help adult children with their lives…
And the “wife” is the all-purpose, multi-tasking model.
Juliet Mitchell also said, that “reform” as libfems, socialist feminists etc, work for, will never work in the long-term. All it does is provide some relief, for some groups, from the worst excesses of patriarchy.
eg. contraception/abortion legal rights – to radfems, this is just a band-aid, yes of course, it helps relieve some of the worst forms of reproductive oppression, for some women…. but it doesnt solve the oppression of PIV. Men force/coerce women into abortions, just as much as some other men coerce/force them out of abortions.
The second major point Juliet Mitchell made, was that reform in one “domain”, or ‘estate’, often made oppression in the other “domains” worse, and that all four “domains” would need to be overthrown at the same time.
She said tackling just one or two, was not that useful a political strategy.
eg. ‘reform’ in say the “Production” sector, with equal pay laws and so on. This made the Prostitution/Sexuality sectors or ‘domains’ even worse and more oppressive than they had been. Reforms in reproduction, made male rights over children more secure, not less.
are right-wing women wrong, if they think feminists will not succeed? are they wrong for doubting it? are they?
and are they crazy for being seriously concerned, or pissed off that feminists are potentially ruining the deals the right-wing women have made, with men,
No they are not. However, I think left-wing women, do exactly the same thing, ie cutting deals, but with a different group of men – thinking they will get a “better deal” from the lefties.
At least the RWW, know exactly who the enemy is – and just how powerful the enemy is, and are more or less conscious of their strategy. But left-wing women think “their” menfolk are trustworthy, and liberal men-as-a-class don’t renege on their deals, that women can actually *negotiate* on a footing of equality? Which side is the more deluded and living in a mental fantasy-land?
Left-wing women try to cut deals on prost’n for example, with claims of wanting “reform” and ‘regulation’ so its not so bad for the women working in it… in other words, LWW try to bargain with saying, we will let you have your PIV-on-demand, we’ll even agree to teach our 9-yr-old daughters about how to use ‘safe words’ in BDSM etc — but give us some concessions in return, like better pay and working conditions, insurance benefits, some economic independence etc.
They don’t realise, you can’t negotiate with terrorists.
At the time Andrea Dworkin was writing, the right-wing backlash was in full swing, particularly in the USA – but decades later we are now under a more predominantly left-wing backlash, (or both sides) with po-mo, trans, “queer” politics dominating the liberal left. And back in the late 90s, I remember re-reading this book of Andrea’s(for about the 4th time, LOL) changing all the right-wing, to left-wing (or po-mo, or funfem), along with Mary Daly’s Gyn/Ecology about Dionysian (Left-wing) versus Apollonian (Right-wing) forms of patriarchy.
You can’t negotiate with terrorists.
Radfem theory and practice has often been ‘no discussion, no negotiation, no argument’ we lay our female boundaries down – and say to men “No Pasaran”.
yes, lefty women do the same damn thing. absolutely. i think this is perfectly clear to the real feminists (not the fun kind) and the right wing women who see the hypocrisy of the left (and as dworkin says “are enraged by it”) but are making thier own kinds of deals. THIS is what fun-feminism is: its making deals with the devil, its negotiating with terr’rrists. YES. its fucking time that its called what it is.
i think the graphic illustrates this perfectly too, AS WELL AS the passage of time element. dworkin described a closed system, where ALL women share a common condition, from which they cannot escape. lefty women, righty women, radfems, everyone. the passage of time leads ALL of us to the nursing home in a morphine-coma (or an early grave, this nursing home business is only for those of us who dare outlive our usefullness, whatever that is) with bedsores and being raped by the guards, until we die. whether we are fun-fems (woo-hoo prostitution! woo-hoo porn!! YET STILL LIVING IN THE KALEIDOSCOPE). right wing women are right there too (they ARE sex, just like we are. they ARE prostitutes, just like all women). and just like radical feminists, who HATE ALL OF THIS, and regardless of whether we make ANY deals. thats the thing about the system being CLOSED. none of us is getting out, and its all leading to the same place, with the passage of time.
the scan over on SOR is excellent in describing this system, in dworkins own words. i hope people are reading it. the only way to NOT end up in the nursing home, having outlived our usefulness as SEX, as PROSTITUTES to be exploited, (or to make deals with the devil to avoid it) is to break down the wall, to squash the heart. otherwise, its inevitable.
the “time” element is the thing the fun-fems dont get, because they are young. when you are very young, the passage of time is warped: the time between thanksgiving and christmas (for example) seems like 6 months, when really its only 3 weeks. they think that whats in style now will always be in style, and that everything they are thinking and doing is brand-new, because THEY have never done it before (or heard of anyone else doing it). they are, of course, wrong about all of that. and when they get old enough to know better…well they will be too old for anyone to care what they think. just like what they did to valenti, (and what valenti did to herself) when she nearly died from being pregnant, and nobody said a fucking word about it.
I agree,rainsinger. I think because of the right’s dominance for so long is that everyone, they pretty much gave every “other” person a reason to look up to Lefty men. Right-wing men are good for making Left-Wing men look good by comparison.
Dworkin is absolutely right about the systematic abuse of old women, but in the midst of that harsh reality we should remember that there are still quite a few who have escaped that torture, even thrived in their old age. Naturally they can’t do anything about how they are perceived and not valued in society, that remains a constant, but winding up with your fate in the hands of a culture that doesn’t value you, is not inevitable. The vast majority of women actually live out their lives in relatively good health and only a small percentage wind up in nursing homes. I say this because mostly from TV advertising there’s this perception that old women are all helpless, forced to wear depends, needing life alert buzzers, constantly breaking their hips, and “diseased” by old age. In reality many are quite healthy and we’re given a distorted perception of what old age is all about.
The old ones probably have the most to teach us as women. I think this may be part of the reason the patriarchy works so hard to dismiss and devalue them. Our culture doesn’t want us to get the idea that they are survivors, that they have a lifetime of wisdom to share. If women were able to really value our mothers and grandmothers and share generational knowledge and secrets, you’d practically have a matriarchy going on.
I think this may be part of the reason the patriarchy works so hard to dismiss and devalue them. Our culture doesn’t want us to get the idea that they are survivors, that they have a lifetime of wisdom to share. If women were able to really value our mothers and grandmothers and share generational knowledge and secrets, you’d practically have a matriarchy going on.
Yes absolutely yttik. Although I maintain it was a huge reason for setting up a generational divide. Next look at the when, which would be The Burning Times. I believe they got rid of a lot of older women (the ‘burdens’), the wise women, the herbalists and the midwives. Certainly they got rid of younger women too, it was a climate of not being able to trust anybody, a war of terror on the female population.
but i think the point is that the model that dworkin describes has a logical endpoint, which is that if women ARE sex, when they cease to BE sex, they cease to BE at all. they are LITERALLY human garbage. the women you describe that are living happily and healthily into thier old age are still within dworkins circle (assuming you believe that she is correct about the circle). how do they (we) escape the fate that dworkin describes, the systemic abuse of elderly women? its that the women somehow prevented it, isnt it? they somehow created a “life-support system” be it a circle of friends, CHILDREN, money, whatnot, AND they had the extreme good fortune of retaining their health (and a lifetime of quality medical care and prevention is important here, which takes money, time etc). its NOT that they escaped. right-wing women are just trying to create a life-support system, for themselves, understanding (better than liberal women apparently) that the circle exists, and that theres no escape from it. understanding that if we leave our fate in patriarchys hands, the systematic abuse will be brought on us as soon as possible. BY MEN.
i agree that all despictions of women in the media are misogynist and distorted, at all times.
heres the link to the 3-d graphic and a scan of dworkins explanation of the circle, in her own words. its also linked in the post above. its kind of required reading…the circle all by itself was confusing, and (unsurprisingly) dworkins text helped.
http://scumorama.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/right-wing-women-now-in-3-d/
[…] in the medical open thread, what does the future look like for elderly women, the ones who have out-lived their ‘useful’ useby-date? Well, it’s not good. First let us consider the female life cycle. As a girl child, you […]
I was watching late night TV, the history of love and sexual liberation, and sure enough it was prostitution, prostitution, prostitution. Uhhggg, people, that’s neither love nor liberation, at least not for women! They dutifully reported that women had no other options if they wanted to, you know,…eat. It was kind of interesting though, whether you were a wife, a girlfriend, a call girl, a patriot girl, a flapper, a brothel worker, a “sex and the single girl,” you really were just one thing, a member of the sex class, a woman. That Dworkin circle surrounds us all. Even Rosie the Riveter was a sexual commodity. The pill of course “liberated” women farther, now they could have sex without “consequences”, as if there are no consequences to being trapped in the darn circle 24/7?? Maybe, just maybe, it might be harmful to a person’s psyche to be valued as a sexual commodity and nothing more?!
well…the more anyone actually critically thinks about any of this though, the less the lefty liberal dickwads seem like the good guys. which means that the lefty liberal male agenda has been, in large part, to lie and obfuscate the truth about the system, and their own role in it.
if all women are in the circle, then all men are dealing with women who exist within the circle. the ways that lefty liberal men are dealing with women is to exploit them, rape them, and prostitute them, just like right wing men do. the beauty of seeing the system for what it is, is that noone gets to claim special-snowflake status.
fab libber has a convo going on at her place about elderly women under the P. they have started talking about suicide. it is very, very appropriate.
http://fabliberationist.wordpress.com/2011/03/27/elderly-women-how-did-they-get-there/
I know this is not in line with your post, but I love the picture of the old crone with her toad. It reminds me of this dear old lady I looked after until she died. I want to die like her.She refused treatment and had a great time in her few remaining months. She taught me so much. Even though she had cancer, she did not have alot of pain. I marveled
at her integrity and grace.
I grabbed that pic, and it’s now my desktop wallpaper.
Thanks, FCM.
copyright violations r-us.
i selected that pic because i thought it was very lovingly done. (its a painting). the photos i found online seemed kinda creepy, some of them were actually creepy and others i felt would be creepy if used them on my blog for illustrative purposes, when they were real people. and some of them were medical photographs that were really hard to look at, and i got tired of looking at them. glad you all liked the painting. its easy to find online with a keyword search. i dont want to link back to the source, because then someone might find me and ask me to take it down!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1370523/Courteney-Cox-Chloe-Sevigny-Patsy-Kensit-Why-sex-just-isnt-sexy-more.html
Slight derail. And it’s the Mail/male. However I like this piece, clebs n all. What I like is that Paul McKenna announces that he and his ex live together in a sex free way. Contrast that to the seedy crap Sting comes out with. And it does look seedy, desperate, hopeless and incredibly unsexy. Even the word sexy isn’t anymore. I’m going to fess up and say that sex doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. And of course sex = PIV. As Dworkin quotes from Virginian Woolf in RWW “What I value is the naked contact of a mind.”
To get back to the post. I think this post is a thing of beauty. The kaleidoscope leading to the woman with the frog is one of the best paragraphs I’ve read ever.
Not gonna lie, the idea of old age still kinda scares the shit outta me. And I think this is pretty much the underlying reason why: I realize that older women really are just nothing to society. If they can’t be tarted up and laughed at for trying to be sexual (since we just know old women just can’t be attractive at all, right? so old women TRYING to be sexual is the height of hilarity) they are at best nothing and at worst garbage.
I think my fear of old age is the only context in which I have thought about having children. As in, I feel I should probably have children so I can have someone who (presumably) will love me so they can take care of me and keep me safe once I get old. Which I know is bullshit, kids are just as likely to shove their elderly parents into a nursing home as they are to have their parent move in. But the idea there is tempting. I wouldn’t imagine that I am the only woman who has ever thought that, either. But having children generally attaches you to a man in ways you may not be able to ever undo, so even if it’s just children you’re after to try and make old age better you still have to ally yourself with a man in order to have that kind of security.
Of course, my fear of old age is lessened since my initial realization that once I get past 50 I’ll pretty much be a blight on society. I’ve come to terms with it or just stopped thinking about it. Kinda like once I realized there probably isn’t an afterlife, I had a good few weeks of extreme terror and then I came to terms with it. Shit’s gonna be the way it’s gonna be, and I can do what I can to fix it but after that I might as well stop worrying about it and enjoy what I can right now.
Love those graphs, by the way. It really does help me to see that yeah, that is pretty much what it means to be a woman. It’s to the point, no fluff or extra bits floating around it. Just bam, reality. Really great post. And really, thanks for doing all this reading. It’s great to just get book reports on this stuff because I hardly ever get time to really sit down and read. 🙂
God so depressing.
Since I’ve found this blog I’ve really started to think about things I had previously been in denial about.
I’d noticed there’s always been a kind of low-level anxiety hanging over my days, and I had *no* *idea* what it was all about. Now it’s so obvious: deep down I must have had a sneaking realization that if I don’t have a man when I hit a certain age, then this is my future.
Thankfully, reading the posts on here, I’ve decided to get ORGANIZED, stop shopping, start investing, get my shit together so I’m less vulnerable. I seriously didn’t even notice my vulnerability!! Denial all the way.
The most disturbing and chilling part of that post for me was about women being dosed up with more drugs than they need, and a lot more than men because the doctors that dole out the drugs dehumanize women, basically.
Actually my own mother works as a manager in an old people’s psychiatric care home and all her life she’s been trying to tell me about the policy she invented not to give the patients drugs, and how much harder this is because then you need to employ extra staff, and when they’re not sedated patients lash out and are harder to control. But I should imagine they keep a sense of their personality and don’t end up like zombees, and this is what my mother was aiming for.
I wonder if there are examples of other countries that treat the elderly better, out of a general respect for their elders, perhaps Eastern cultures.
Virginia Woolf – sorry.
Old age does scare me, but my mum is in her eighties and painting and selling her work. She’s popular too among her younger friends and of course with her children. She’s made the most of her life since the death of my dad. There’s wasn’t a marriage made in heaven. He was controlling and abusive. I’m so pleased that she has had some excellent years and travelled on her terms and to her agenda. She takes few pills, has never had a smear test or a mammogram. She’s a vibrant person and has told me she thinks of herself as always being 29 inside. A year in which she was happiest. I always think of myself as 32, a year in which I was happiest. I’m 50 now. Far from feeling neglected.
about the policy she invented not to give the patients drugs, and how much harder this is because then you need to employ extra staff, and when they’re not sedated patients lash out and are harder to control.
Yes, there it is, profits-before-people motivation at most of the old folks’ homes out there. Cut down on staff, and increase the profits. Dope up the patients/residents so they don’t complain or cause trouble.
About 20 years ago, my mother also managed an old folk’s home (local council run). They eventually got rid of her in her 50s (probably for being a bit too uppity I reckon). That was the last job she ever had, she could not get work after that.
It is really difficult for women to find work after 50. If they do find work, then most are minimum wage ones. Poverty starts early when you are female, it’s not just after retirement.
Cherryblossom, I cannot tell you how ecstatic that makes me, that you are getting organized, and trying to minimize your vulnerability. That’s terrific. I wish it were a guarantee of a particular outcome, though, and of course its not. But we don’t have to make it worse, do we? Rock on.
Ffs. Someone from four ch*n has linked to one of my old posts. There is disgusting rapist scum afoot.
“from TV advertising there’s this perception that old women are all helpless, forced to wear depends, needing life alert buzzers, constantly breaking their hips, and “diseased” by old age.”
There’s a commercial for Life Alert where the old woman’s script says having it makes her “feel younger”, and I want to punch an ad exec in the dick every time the wretched thing plays.
Ffs. Someone from four ch*n has linked to one of my old posts. There is disgusting rapist scum afoot.
Back up your blog.
Hi FCM,
wordpress.com has been having DDOS attacks recently, but they have been rooted in male vs male power struggles. Nation states, blah blah. They can try to DDOS attack your blog here, but it won’t get them anywhere because wordpress is ready for that shyte.
I think that wordpress blogs are hackproof. It’s if you have your own domain name and server that you are vulnerable to hacking and DDOS attacks.
Backing up your blog is necessary to protect a precious archive historically, and to keep it in feminist hands, whatever the wordpress boyz will decide to do.
Anyone want a xanax?
Sorry. Bad joke. I will just be over here in the wings, entertaining myself with a performance of shadow puppet theater…
It’s if you have your own domain name and server that you are vulnerable to hacking and DDOS attacks.
That completely depends on what the host ISP is and how hard they work to be bullet-proof. Some are just as hard-core (and experienced) about security as WP.
We had a couple of older women, including a nun, sent to jail today, anti-nuclear protesters who broke into a secure military base and made it all the way to the bunker.
The fear of women and old age is real and Dworkin’s diagram is correct, but we need to combat the media depictions of older women and remember that there are some tough old broads out there still fighting the good fight.
Haha, that’s brilliant yttik.
Thanks for the encouragement FCM. I’m thirty, but thank God I stumbled across these radfem blogs because I might have gone another thirty years with my head in the clouds.
Which means that it’s *deliberate* the way the truth is hidden from us. The truth of women’s condition is obfuscated because it’s men who control all the media, and the women who work in the industry are male-identified judging by the amount of misogyny on-screen and in books.
And if we’re oblivious (or in denial) then we’re less likely to fight for the change we need while we’ve still got fight in us.
Maybe the point is that the women you are talking about haven’t “lived long enough” to see what’s at the end of the road? I mean, I doubt the nun you mention was in her nineties, and at any rate is probably relatively healthy, or she wouldn’t be able to “fight” at all. What happens when the fight has gone out of any of us? Probably everyone here is a fighter, but does that change anything? If you agree with dworkins graphic, then you agree that no woman has yet escaped it, and none ever will. It must be destroyed, but instead all the fucking pro-porn and pro-prostitution (and indeed pro-piv/rape) rhetoric is only fully supporting it, if not strengthening it. We are all heading down this road, whether we want to believe it or not, and the fact of the matter is that if our money, our social support or our health run out before our lives run out, we are in serious trouble. The likes of which no man will ever experience.
Noone is disputing that there are excellent, effective women who aren’t teenagers anymore, but this post isn’t about media depictions of women at any age.
Yes, it is important to know, via the Dworkin graphic, that we are all trapped within the system.
And yes to:
We are all heading down this road, whether we want to believe it or not, and the fact of the matter is that if our money, our social support or our health run out before our lives run out, we are in serious trouble. The likes of which no man will ever experience.
Particularly that last part. Women get ripped off on the pensions thing due to time-out for children and/or low income jobs during their lives. So it is relative poverty during the working years, and that really continues after ‘retirement’. Sar’s comment on my blog about her partner’s father was very chilling.
And its YET ANOTHER excellent reason to start seeing this bullshit sex-pozzie rhetoric for what it is. It’s literally just more of the same, and there’s a logical endpoint to all of it. Add the concept of “time” to fun feminism, and see what you get. It’s not pretty, its not sexy, and its definitely not feminist.
The funfem/mozzer rhetoric has a built-in expiry date, anything after 35-40, and a woman no longer exists. Where are their ‘feminist’ policies about older women? Retirement? Equal pay in areas outside the sex industry?
And yes, the Valenti thing…
hit her use-by date and had to step aside for the ‘younger feminists’ wtf.
In Japan women who divorce their husbands are still entitled to half his pension, so this a good start and it’s the type of social policy women need to start fighting for.
I mean, obviously the radical feminist vision goes a LOT further than that, but society’s laws need to be changed. That’s what Dworkin was going on about. We need women-identified women in politics, making changes to the system the men have invented.
One of the great, great beauties of radical feminism is our understanding that ALL girls/women are vulnerable to harm by men therefore ALL women must have a voice.
We value our young women for, amongst so many other things, their bravery in intellectually accepting their fate; a lifetime of fighting like hell knowing that the rest of the world will be fighting twice as hard against them. They are our vigor. They are our blood.
And we value our older sisters because they have refused to be silent; they have refused to keep the secrets of patriarchy. They are our wisdom born of experience, our steely spirit and our stamina. They are our giants.
ALL of you make my heart glad. Thank you, sisters 🙂
In Japan women who divorce their husbands are still entitled to half his pension, so this a good start and it’s the type of social policy women need to start fighting for.
You are missing a piece of the puzzle there CBL. Other countries too entitle women to half (or at least a reasonable share) of HIS pension. BUT, dudes play a little game called “hide the assets” and you need a specialised accountant to track down the missing funds and assets. Dudes will play HTA as soon as the divorce is likely, sometimes even before the woman knows they are getting divorced (he usually has a mistress on the side sort of thing).
Dworkin was concerned with laws, and apparently thought that changing the law was an effective strategy at one point, when she and mackinnon single handedly attempted to make porn a civil rights violation. They lost of course. Mackinnon had more success on her own, as she (I believe?) literally invented the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace. I believe that was her idea. Can you imagine?
I don’t know what to think about the law really. I know that piv will never be outlawed, and that the laws we already have are only selectively enforced, such as with rape…and with workplace sexual harassment for that matter. The Medicaid law Dworkin describes could be changed I suppose, but in general I have very little hope for the law to ever benefit women, as women.
Do you?
I am happy for laws that were changed in the past.
However, I do know that women, as half the human population could easily just make null and void a lot of things. The key is not the law, but waking women up. And we still have billions of women out there who have never even heard of radical feminism. Men try to stop women’s communication with each other–it’s why we have the trans invasion of women’s spaces now– well over the past 40 some years. Men know that when women talk with each other without men present and explosion of consciousness becomes possible. Women could end PIV tomorrow, women could stop having boy children tomorrow, stop raising them stop manufacturing them. Women could stop all production of humans on earth. It’s not about the law, it is about how to reach as many women as possible with all this information. That is the greatest challenge of feminism.
That said, I am very happy so many women did change laws, because I wouldn’t be where I am today without the legal changes, and the rise of lesbian nation. I’d be back in the 1950s as police raided our local dyke bar.
It’s about all 13 year old girls finding this website. It is about young women actually learning from old women. It is about the message of radical feminism reaching all women on earth.
And that has nothing to do with law, it has to do with women’s revolution going global 24/7.
I have very little hope for the law to ever benefit women, as women.
It’s hallucinatory to imagine that females can use laws and regulations to pry the male foot off of our necks.
Laws and regulations only work because there is a means of enforcing them. Law enforcement. Law enforcement is male from beginning to end.
Too tired to go into greater detail at this point. More later.
Yes I see that Sheila. I do. But, even mackinnon acknowledges that the law is only concerned with the “equality model” and whatever benefits women have received was only collateral to men making themselves more equal amongst themselves. Noone gives a shit about dyke bars as you say, the whole reason the cops can’t do this anymore is because teh menz decided to leave other men alone, one reason being that they can all do more harm to women if men’s privacy is left intact!
But I suppose SOME equality was necessary…and now its time for the wakeup call as you say. Absolutely, and it absolutely does explode, in the absence of men.
As far as I understand it, liberal feminism is concerned with tweaking the system and, I suppose, creating laws that benefit women. Then Radical feminism is about “making women up” and envisaging a society where women are liberated i.e the revolution itself.
I do think there’s some overlap in that if we look at how damaged women are by male laws we can imagine a society *right* *now* where women don’t have to be as opressed as they are.
Gotta love Johanna Sigurdardottir, prime minister of Iceland and feminist lesbian, who has closed down ALL strip clubs, banned the purchase of sex, and have an action plan on the trafficking of women:
“I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale.”
http://captivedaughters.blogspot.com/2010/03/iceland-are-not-for-sale.html
“
Ironically, the patriarchal pollution of the environment might actually lead to a natural de-selection of boys and male aggression.
Apparently plastics harbour chemicals that reduce testosterone in foetuses
http://www.growingyourbaby.com/2009/11/17/study-chemical-in-plastics-making-boys-less-boy-ish/
“BOYS WILL BE GIRLS – EVENTUALLY
Extinction threat rises as creatures ingest ‘gender-bending’ chemicals from plastics and pesticides
Mother nature is taking over. An extraordinary feminisation process has begun to affect Britain’s wildlife – and scientists warn it could ultimately dismantle the evolutionary process that has existed for 3.5 billion years. A trend first noted in whelks is starting to spread rapidly among other wildlife species in the food chain”
http://www.truehealth.org/ahealn41.html
It’s about all 13 year old girls finding this website. It is about young women actually learning from old women. It is about the message of radical feminism reaching all women on earth.
And that has nothing to do with law, it has to do with women’s revolution going global 24/7.
Yes it is.
I realised not long ago that this was the point of [my] blogging, to reach the younger generation, give them ‘some ideas’. Most of these teens won’t believe this stuff when they first read it, however, after different things happen to them, they will then get the point, rather than thinking it was something they did wrong. They will see the pattern, and ‘get there quicker’.
It some ways the laws work against us, because most women/girls do not know the reality. The women/girls know that rape is illegal, and are under the impression they will get justice if it ever happens to them. Slim chance. The rape laws the way they are working is actually encouraging more dudes to go out raping, because most know they will get away with it.
Just after the 2nd wave, when I was in my 20s and fairly newly working, I kept waiting for workplace equality to finally kick in. 30 years later, I am still waiting…
so i tried to find a video for you all, “there” by the innocence mission. it might be the only time i went looking for something on you tube and couldnt find it! i was listening to their album “glow” while i was formulating this post and i think “there” was playing the moment i thought of the kaleidoscope and the old woman…i wanted to give you all the total experience. damn you tube! anyway, i also went looking for the lyrics, which i did find, and i have to say…i really dont understand songwriting at all. i mean, how do people come up with this stuff? its not anything i would ever come up with, because so many times the words dont even make sense. its mostly that they use words to create/convey a FEELING i guess, instead of conveying information and ideas…i dont know, i think its a bizarre artform. and i am so glad there are people out there who are good at it! here are the lyrics (sometimes these are wrong, and hilariously so, but they sound right to me and i dont have the album cover anymore to check it out myself:)
Lyrics to There :
It’s a long day, a long way into your arms,
a long, long, get up, get up, through a snowy yard.
And I htink you will see me coming under the sky
And I think you will see me coming
And open your arms wide
To be there, be there,
to be there
It’s a long day, a long way into your arms
a long, long looking forward, through a straining eye.
And I think you will see me coming under the sky
And I think you will see me coming, and open you arms
I try
to be there, be there,
to be there
And all the clouds are weary whales swimming by to find you
And I’m sorry, sorry how, how slow my steps are
slow as hours
to be there, be there
To be there where you are
To be there where you are
It’s a long day, a long way into your arms,
a long, long, get up, get up, through a snowy yard.
And I htink you will see me coming under the sky
And I think you will see me coming
And open your arms wide
To be there, be there,
to be there
It’s a long day, a long way into your arms
a long, long looking forward, through a straining eye.
And I think you will see me coming under the sky
And I think you will see me coming, and open you arms
I try
to be there, be there,
to be there
And all the clouds are weary whales swimming by to find you
And I’m sorry, sorry how, how slow my steps are
slow as hours
to be there, be there
To be there where you are
To be there where you are
http://www.lyricsmania.com/there_lyrics_innocence_mission_the.html
That posted twice.
Whenever I hear about the situation in Iceland, I admit it makes me hopeful. But about a second later I realize that this will likely NEVER happen in the united states, due to all of our (“our”! Ha!) free speech protections. Prostitution is already illegal, but the effect it has is that male cops get legal access to prostituted women (ie. They can force one of them into their cars at any time, for any reason or no reason at all) and gives women criminal records, even underage victims of human trafficking. That one just burns my brain, it really does.
Incidentally, I recently read about a vigil that was held for the victims of the Japanese quake/tsunami, where former Japanese “comfort women” were present. It was reported that the women were used as “sexual slaves” for the Japanese imperial army…which was striking, because its normally reported that they “worked as prostitutes” when its talked about at all. Did someone in the media actually have a moment of clarity??
Prostitution should not be illegal, only the buying of sex. I think that was Dworkin’s vision, now being enacted in Iceland.
The media is often happy to report abuse of women committed by men of other races. The Japanese women were used as sexual slaves by the U.S army too and pumped with dodgy silicone because the women were too flat for American tastes.
Did someone in the media actually have a moment of clarity??
Must have done. Wonders will never cease.
Ok that makes more sense. Accurately reporting gynocidal state policies as an expression of RACISM. Very creative aren’t they?
Although the Japanese use of south-east Asian “comfort women” is actually stomach churning. So all men are rapists in war.
yes, it’s a canny tactic, coming across as “holier than thou”. Every country manipulates its media in the same way, I’m sure.
Prostitution not being illegal and only the buying of sex is also the law in Norway and Sweden.
Moments of clarity that are here to stay. In Iceland noone voted against the decision to outlaw it.
I’m very much into getting a message out there to women worldwide, because I was “lucky” to have come upon feminism (in written form) around 1972 or so. Growing up in a small midwestern city, this was big news. To have access to information by, for and about women is the beginning, and the younger you are the better off you’ll be if you know this stuff.
What did I learn? Well, I figured out that you should never have sex with men or boys, never date them, and focus on studies. I learned to take jobs seriously and save money, and become financially independent as soon as possible, otherwise men would own me. I learned that women were powerful and that men were rapists at worst and sexist pig bosses at best. I learned that you should NEVER have children, and NEVER get involved with childcare, which = poverty and boredom. I learned that lesbians ruled the world, created modernism, were leaders in women’s freedom movements since the beginning of time. I learned that radical lesbians created the New Deal, and that progressive legislation was very much a lesbian feminist enterprise. I learned that lesbians were presidents of women’s colleges in America, that lesbian feminism was a global movement, and that all lesbians had a duty to making the world of women free.
I’m not saying I understood a whole lot of what I read in 1972. Birth control and abortion were exotic concepts to me back in 1972. My major preoccupation was with workplace equality, since I knew I was a serious student, I wanted intellectually challenging work, and I was very well aware of “pink ghetto” jobs, which I wanted to avoid at all cost.
Just having even the mildest of liberal feminism (thank you Gloria Steinem) was a great start.
I just kept reading and studying, and it made my dreams and aspirations so much higher. I was fascinated with what those women born in the 1920s and 1930s thought, I was on fire when I took my very first women’s studies and women’s herstory survey courses in college.
I must admit the sex and sexuality stuff bored me… I was driven to be out in the world. Lesbian feminism was dynamic for me, because it meant that lesbian + feminism = the discovery of fire (Mary Daly paraphrase).
So we as “older” women now can’t underestimate that right wing propaganda to make women compliant sex slaves and helpmeets of men goes on 24/7– on right wing radio, on right wing TV, at mega churches all over the place.
A teenage girl’s mind is a terrible thing to waste, and the “female role” bored me to tears back when I was 13. I well remember my longing for serious conversation with serious women, and I’ve never given up my search for this.
Good luck 13 year old girls who come here— comment, live, learn because you don’t have to fall for the male propaganda!!
Even at age 21 I knew talking with men was a complete waste of time. A baby separatist back then, I knew the key was getting women to come together. Laws were not the goal, liberation was. It was not about “rights” it was about “freedom.” And the two are not synonymous.
The law is owned by men. But we have yet to reach every woman on earth with the message of radical feminism, not even close. Even with all the books, the entire google search info at your fingertips there are still women who have never heard the term “heteronormative” or “heteropatriarchy.” There are still women I meet every day who have never read one radical feminist author NOT ONE!! I don’t know what it would take to have this be a reality for all women.
And I think patriarchy does a great job in instilling fear of being called a lesbian in straight women, fear of feminism, and has women in a constant state of terror over social disapproval.
So we will continue doing our job to get out the message of Dworkin and others, but get out the message of the truth of PIV and all its consequences, before young girls are victimized yet again by “voluntary” PIV. And I’d go a step further that patriarchy indoctrinates into heteronormative behavior, because no woman ever needs to have sex with men ever.
Oh, the HOPE! Iceland! Norway! Sweden! Hooray!!
I agree, blogging is simply about getting the word out. On my terms, of course. Tyranny!!1!1! I could be a little more public-friendly, I suppose. But let’s talk about DRUGS (they make me nicer, after all).
I think this is exactly correct. I’m not sure what’s “best” about it, but I’ll tell ya: I NEED my anti-depressants BECAUSE life sucks. Because there is NO ESCAPE from Dworkin’s horrible concentric circles of sexualized oppression. BECAUSE I’m not even allowed to talk about it in general; I am expected to put a fucking smile on my face and not slit my throat when I am alone. The only thing that makes it bearable IS drugs. I want to be a naturalist, but I’m stuck. It’s a closed circuit. I’m not getting out. I take my meds like a good soldier. It’s not very feminist, I realize. Or something. But I have ZERO fight in me when I want to die. None at all.
How does everyone else feel about psych meds?
PS. I also think children seem like a good insurance policy, but I’d up the ante with some nice foster kids who are even LESS likely to stick around in my old age.
Oh yeah, about the LAW. Yeah, it’s a joke. It’s written by men, for men. Women have only become involved in law over the past century or so– prior to that we were specifically excluded. The law is written to obfuscate (for reasons of male supremacy AND professional elitism), and then, even when established, it is very selectively enforced. Still, working within the closed circuit is all we can do, isn’t it? Until the revolution spontaneously combusts, I mean. I’m sorry to be all reformist and whatnot, but really. And even that depresses me because, as Rainsinger notes, improvement in one realm or area only makes things worse somewhere else. See, I need my happy drugs!!11!! PEACE.
UP – YES!!11! especially the comment on the foster kids. Brilliant.
*raises hand for antidepressant use*.
Anti-depressants take the cutting, excruciating edge off of my suicidal depression. Doesn’t make life worth living, but keeps me breathing for another day.
Yes, the AT BEST remark was painful…AT BEST, “society” is too demanding on women, and doctors are just trying to help us by doping us up. At worst…its a vast conspiracy to keep women complacent and ambivalent towards our oppression, and a docile victim pool from which men can select victims to rape, who will clean their toilets when they are finished being used LIKE toilets.
She really hit the nail on the head with that part didn’t she? All that female energy is simply missing from the world, and its not even missed. Stunning.
13 out of 15 women in a lesbian group I used to be in used anti-depresants. Only two of the women in the group had no involvement in pharmaceuticals or illegal drugs either– me and a lovely photographer. It was a sad state of affairs, and one that alerted me to the fact that women are walking around drugged a lot of the time.
When I was living abroad, there was little of this.
We had a strong lesbian feminist community that supported each other… Americans and North Americans are another story.
If everyone who was suicidal actually killed themselves, we would see the extent of the despair wouldn’t we? And we absolutely cannot have that. It would also significantly decrease the victim pool, and the consumerist pool too.
I have mentioned here before that I once worked at a nonprofit, and I was astounded at the conditions people were living in (mostly women and children) and I thought it was absolutely bizarre that they weren’t killing themselves left and right. At the time, I made a mental note about what seemed like their tenacious will to live, and ability to survive the most brutal, appalling conditions imaginable, and worse. Almost all of them were medicated, as were the children.
We were in a medical setting, so I cannot be sure this was representative of the population however.
Yes, as we all know, I have experience with Social Security Disability cases. SO MANY not-otherwise-specified emotional disorders!! And yes, women who lived under (what I consider) the most AWFUL, truly UNBEARABLE conditions. People who stayed in bed, or cried, ALL day EVERY day. For MONTHS and YEARS. I could. not. do. it. Seriously. A few bad days and back to my suicidal thoughts. People think I’m kidding when I say this (I’m not): my will to live is weak. WEAK. And I will not feel badly about not enduring with what other people do. NO ONE should have to live while suffering with every breath– physically or emotionally.
FCM, you talked about the world not missing all of our glorious female energy. It’s truly mind-boggling. I also think it’s amazing how much NEGATIVITY and PAIN, as an inevitable consequence of our social structure, is tolerated. I believe in emotional energy and when I am depressed, ooooh honey, I can bring down the room! Not even with *behavior*, I stay quiet (I’m not *trying* to shit on everyone’s good time) it’s literally my ENERGY. And there are lots and lots of other people similarly OOZING pain. And we hardly notice. Or we pretend we don’t notice. We aren’t supposed to notice.
fresh off the interwebs…some women feel “anxious and melancholy” after PIV i mean after being placed in harms way by the men who supposedly love them…GEE I WONDER WHY? HOW WEIRD!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42350284/ns/health-sexual_health/
hate, hate, hate this mainstream garbage! jesus fucking christ on a popcicle stick.
This asshat has NO IDEA how right he is, when he talks about “biological predisposition” in this context. Jesus h bleeding fucking christ on a cross.
AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Unbelievable.
He’s obviously implying that a FULL THIRD OF PIV-HAVING WOMEN are mentally ill of course, but we know better.
Postcoital dysphoria!! After piv, I feel like I HAVEN’T been “made love to.” Hmmm. It feel like the OPPOSITE. Hmmm. I am profoundly uncomfortable, upset, and confused. Weird! When NORMAL people (ie. Men) don’t feel this way at all.
I wonder how lesbians feel after sex? I think we feel GREAT! I do, anyway, because I have not been put in harm’s way yet I am thoroughly pleasured. Highly recommended.
BIOLOGICAL PREDISPOSITION??11!! Oh yeah, sorry ladies, it’s YOU. Damned women, can’t even do “sex” right! Clitoris?? What’s that??
I was amused at the term “postcoital dysphoria”.
Now, if we could just get these women to see the pattern, and avoid future PIV, instead of thinking something was wrong with themselves.
I reckon that another third of women, the ones not crying, would be thinking “hmpf, was that it? what a waste of time and effort”.
Not only (NOT! ONLY!) is much of heterosex simply not pleasurable for women and they don’t orgasm from it (which would theoretically be stress-relieving) BUT piv is fucking stressful as hell, because you never know if you’ve just been knocked up (or given a disease). So EVEN WITH an orgasm, the net-effect is probably zero, AT BEST. AT BEST, the stress-relief and the stress-inducement cancel each other out. That’s not my recollection of it though, especially when the true consequences were only found out later. Even with an orgasm, for me, the net-effect was that it did more harm than good, and was stressful.
So many women don’t even orgasm from piv, but for the lucky ones who do, the question is NEVER “so, was it worth it?” Because the answer would probably be NO, EVEN THOUGH I CAME, IT WAS NOT WORTH THE RISK. For many, many women, this would be the answer, but the question is never asked.
UGH. What is the DEAL with het people ONLY taking advantage of clitoral love as some kind of *after-thought*?? Oh yeeeeaaaaah, I forgot about thaaaat. Duh. The clitoris is only the most GLORIOUS body part on any woman OR man. It’s amazing! Phallocentrism at the expense of female pleasure. Pisses me off every time.
I reckon that another third of women, the ones not crying, would be thinking “hmpf, was that it? what a waste of time and effort”.
Hee! Count me!
I’m sorry for generalizing about the hets. It is borderline offensive, I *know.*
Yeah Sar, I was in that second third with you. 😛
I’m not sure about these numbers. What are the other third, hypothetically? Sex pos? Cause I think that grossly overstates their numbers. Worldwide of course, including those without access to western medicine and/or where marital rape is officially legal, I would say the numbers of piv pozzie women falls to about nil.
Also, I have resisted calling s4 “sar” because we already had a sar here for awhile, and they were commenting around the same time. But “real sar” hasn’t commented here in several months. Does s4 want to be “fake sar” or perhaps second sar, or sar2? Sub-sar? Or just…sar? Or does she like s4? Just wondering.
” AT BEST, the stress-relief and the stress-inducement cancel each other out”
Oh I laughed so hard at that
This might be over-ambitious but perhaps mothers could teach their children all of this, and those kids *might* listen , or at least it’s worth a try.
But mothers don’t. Because they believe in the current definition of sex that’s rammed down their throat by the culture and media. They think there’s something wrong with THEM because that’s exactly what the culture tells them.
I’ve never understood the pill. Never got it. I did once read up on it out of curiosity and saw the words “thrombosis” and “blood clots” and thought no thanks.
I’m not sure about these numbers. What are the other third, hypothetically? Sex pos? Cause I think that grossly overstates their numbers.
LOL, it’s probably just the 20 or so mozzers on the internutz.
Statistically insignificant.
Yeah, I thought there was a sar around somewhere (not me!) but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen her.
But anyway I refer to *myself* as Sea, but s4 is cool so I’m kind of using them both. I don’t mind sar though, FAB, because you seem comfortable with it.
Or you know, you all could just refer to me as Her Shining Lightness. That’d be okay too I guess…
S4 sounded more like an automotive part, LOL
Perhaps I can switch to the Sea thing. Old dog, new trick, gimme a while.
S4 (the car part that is highly collectible) will always answer to ‘beautiful’.
I like “her shining lightness” but it doesn’t really count as a nickname since it takes longer to type than her actual name.
Peeps seem to have adopted to calling me “Fab” (which does seem rather fabby). Although, some do seem to get me confused with FCM!
I think it’s the rabid anti-piv thing really… 😛
There are only so many three letter acronyms. But Fabbity strikes a cheerful note. I shall promote it!
I call FCM, “Fact” (cause she brings it)
I call FAB Libber, “Fab” (Fabbity sure is cute tho ;))
I call Ball Buster, “Her Holiness” (for obvious reasons)
I call Undercover Punk, “Punk”. (Duh!)
Everysister else has a name, name like Joy and Mary and Jilla. Okay but not RFC which is kind of a mouthful and for the dyslexic (!) too much like FCM…
What shall it be RFC?
whats rfc? now i am lost.
heres a video of gloria steinem explaining how right wing women “identify with their oppressors” and goes on to tell everyone to therefore, vote democrat!11!! as if lefty liberal women (including sex pozzies) havent done the same exact goddamn thing.
http://bigthink.com/ideas/24765
RFC = radfemcrafts
crafty? LOL
Yes that’s a tricky one to abbreviate if you don’t want to use RFC. Can’t exactly call her rad, or radfem now can we? Like yelling “mom!” at a water park. Everyone turns around.
How about CraftyRad? Three syllables, like Fabbity.
i have never understood “nicknames” that have the same amount of syllabals (or more!?) as someones real name. arent we supposed to be shortening them to save time and effort?
i have a new post up…enjoy!
https://factcheckme.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/on-creativity/
what REALLY pisses me off about the steinem video is that she seems to think that liberal women (and fun feminists) can actually DECIDE (aka “choose”) to live outside the system she is describing. where the oppressed identify with their oppressors, where this is DEVASTATINGLY COMMON and predictable in all hostage scenarios…and yet it somehow doesnt occur to her that SHE and other liberal women have fallen for the same damn thing. anyone who thinks that this system can be overcome just by the fact that one REALIZES the system they are in…doesnt understand the nature of the system, or what it is, how it works, or what it looks like. as dworkin illustrates, the system is a CLOSED SYSTEM. concentric circles of sexualized oppression, from which no woman can escape.
what the hell is wrong with steinem, and all liberal women for that matter? they think they are so fucking smart, that by the strength of their own intellect and WILLPOWER they can levitate above a closed system? sorry, but thats not how it works. and intelligence is a non-issue as we saw in RWW part 1. dworkin knocked that one down first.
what the hell is wrong with steinem, and all liberal women for that matter? they think they are so fucking smart, that by the strength of their own intellect and WILLPOWER they can levitate above a closed system?
No they don’t. Its a strategy of appeasement, or the price paid for a handful of petty concessions. They know they can’t leave the system, but instead they try to make it more bearable to live inside the cage.
As Virginie Despentes says in ‘King Kong Theory’ it is a “way of reassuring men” that despite women’s pseudo-legalised independence, they will always “choose” to please men first. Women keep sending men the reassuring message “Don’t be afraid of us”: We are ‘No Threat’ to you.
This strategy is based in fear of retaliation. “Access to traditional male power brings with it, the fear of reprisal. Since time immemorial, leaving the cage has been brutally punished………
“In women’s literature, examples of insolence or hostility towards men are extremely rare. Censored.
I come from the sex which doesn’t even have the right to be disgruntled. Colette, Duras, Beavoir, Yourcenar, Sagan – a whole history of female writers who all took care to prove their harmlessness, to reassure men, to beg pardon for the act of writing by repeating how much they love, respect and cherish men, and most of all don’t want – …. to create too much trouble.
Because, as we all know, if you don’t reassure men, the female pack will sort you out….
I am of this sex, the one which must keep quiet, which is kept quiet. And which must take it gracefully. Otherwise, you’re wiped out. …….
And if women want to survive, they have to learn to respect this order of things. ….”
To be perfectly honest about it most feminists of every age have attempted to improve the conditions for women within the system rather than advocating for overthrowing the system.
That is why they chose civil disobedience instead of armed uprising. We are fairly confident that men would have no compunction about killing us all. After all they have been doing so for time out of mind.
That is why in this day they pretend that feminism is all about equality and is good for men too. It isn’t.
If you are a member of the ruling class, abolishing the structure of the class system that privileges you is not going to be good for you. It is silly to pretend otherwise.
It will be far better for the population as a whole, but for those who have been schooled in the myth of their own special status as naturally superior by virtue of their sex, not so much.
So, there isn’t anything wrong with Steinem except that she thinks what she has done and is doing will work. I think she is wrong, but there is an old saying that the arc of history bends toward justice. But, being a woman, I’m not so sure it is true.
rainsinger, i absolutely understand that liberal women are NOT levitating above the system, because that would be impossible. HOWEVER their delusion appears to be that they are, in fact, levitating above it. doesnt it? steinem states with a straight face that RWW are oppressed, and that oppressed people tend to identify with their oppressors. i did not see that she ever said “as do we all” or any such thing. are you suggesting that she DOES know that shes not levitating above it, and deliberately obscures both the nature of the system and the fact that she sees that she is trapped in it, as a part of her placating men?
dworkin suggests repeatedly that liberal women actually seem legitimately confused about all of this, and that they arent acting when they “pretend” its something its not. whereas she seems to think that RWW are less deluded. what say you?
dworkin suggests repeatedly that liberal women actually seem legitimately confused about all of this, and that they arent acting when they “pretend” its something its not. whereas she seems to think that RWW are less deluded. what say you?
Ohh.. I agree with Dworkin, RWW are far less deluded, know exactly who the enemy is, and just how powerful men are, and are quite sane in their fear of men. They have already conceded defeat, and figure non-resistence and compliance is their best bet for peaceful survival.
LWW women are in fantasy-land, Cinderella fairy-tales, like most women. Sucked in by the romantic visions.
They don’t see men-as-a-class, as the enemy, they see a system controlled by right-wing men – they are more ‘humanist’ than feminist. They think only some men oppress, and only some women are oppressed.
It was the Gloria Steinem generation which exiled lesbians from the women’s movement – basically thinking, that lesbian visibility gave the women’s movement a “bad name”, and there would be no achievements for “women’s” rights, if lesbians were too visible. It became known as the “Lavender Menace” affair, and led to a very public split in the women’s movement.
I dont agree with them (the libfems, the socfems etc), but I understand it – same as I understand RWW’s compliance. I also don’t hate them for it, any more than I hate RWW for theirs. Like Mary Daly says, neither of those groups of other women are our true enemies, but are set up for us to waste our energy on. Make us fight other women until we are exhausted.
And Yes, the “confusion” is a deliberate strategy of patriarchy. Mary Daly’s Gyn / Ecology discussing it – where she uses metaphors – of the god Dionysus – the “Gentle Man”, the “Merry Mind Poisoner” – he reminds us of our Selves for his gentleness, his anti-war morals, his anti-violence, his anti-racism etc, he appears in “feminine form”, the Gentle Jesus.
Mary Daly was writing this in the 70s, and talked about the “long-haired hippy boys”, who seemed distorted mirror images, of what we should love about our female Selves. We see ‘glimpses & shadows’ of Femaleness in such men.
The Apollonian or macho form, is as Mary Daly points out an “honest” sexism, women always know where they stand, they know what the rules are. With Dionysian form of patriarchy, women are sent “mad”, literally, figuratively and metaphorically by the ‘Nice Guy’ lies, propaganda, romance myths, porn myths.
Hence the ‘confusion’ you point out – and don’t tell me that you, me and most other women on this planet haven’t fallen for it at some point or other, being similarly confused temporarily or otherwise by ‘Nice Guys’.
As for placating men, I think we all do that, in our daily lives “bribing our days with smiles”. It is a very lucky rare individual who can get away with not doing it.
The infamous gender binary, is actually a male-male one, and has nothing to do with femaleness.
Think of all the male-male binaries in life, the universe and everything.
One is macho, one is gentle.
God (fire, brimstone, retribution) and Jesus (gentle, forgiving)
Hawks and Doves (war-mongers & anti-war peaceniks)
Right and Left
Osiris and Set (Egyptian twin-brother gods, one destructive and vengeful, the other gentle and loving)
Romulus and Remus (also twin-brother gods)
and Mary D uses the Apollo and Dionysus myths to illustrate through metaphorical allegory how patriarchy operates through the male-to-male binary.
I also understand LWW from the point-of-view of simple morale. Its painful enough to come to the radfem realisation, but its even more painful to think of all those feminist struggles, the vote, abortion rights, better pay & conditions in the workplace, access to education etc etc – as being meaningless, pointless, its depressing thinking that women will never be free, but will always be caught inside the ‘closed system’ and that nothing we do, could do any good. I understand the need to mythologise and celebrate *something*.
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