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Don’t Feed the Parrots? Or, On Spinning and Spiraling, Part 2. Or, On Cargo Cults, Part 2. Trigger Warning: Monty Python October 16, 2012

Posted by FCM in feminisms, logic, meta, thats mean, thats random.
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in light of recent discussions, it occurs to me to talk about merit-based systems (among other things).  many of us are not used to a merit-based system, because that is fundamentally not how patriarchal systems work.  many women get up every day and do their best impersonation of a worthy, competent human being — meaning they try to impersonate “good women” or men the best they can — and go to work, or out in the world generally and try to get things done, but most of us have realized by now that at the end of the day, life aint fair if you were born female under patriarchy.

its not about what you do, or even about who you know, or even about “who” you are, but what you are that will determine whether you win or lose (if you are female, you lose.  end of.  read more about women impersonating men and male rituals in the context of cargo-cultism and the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc logical fallacy here — really, its fascinating.)

in short, male success and male reality are not based on either the merits of their work or the objective truth of their beliefs.  generally speaking, men can shuffle papers around all day, looking busy but not doing much, and look at porn on their work computers in their spare time — porn, the perfect illustration of male truth-telling about men while lying about women — and somehow they manage to get paid, promoted, elected and respected anyway.  somehow, (somehow!) they end up being put in charge of things including monitoring and judging others behavior, or charged with keeping us all safe…

its a boys club out there.  a non-merit non-truth based system, or overlapping systems.  we know this.  this model does not generally work for women, but we keep trying vainly to make it work anyway…

enter…the girls club?  or something?  (srsly, what the hell is this?  read the comments)  completely without regard for the merits of anyones work, the objective truth of their statements, or the radicalness of their alleged radicalism, anyone spouting daly quotes or claiming to be a woman or a radical feminist gets in the door, no questions asked allowed?  really?  we are creating a non-merit non-truth based system, why again?  because it works so well for women generally?  because we dont know what else to do?  or…what?

the thing about radical feminism — unlike anything men try to do — is that it actually makes sense mkay.  this sense-making operates on 2 levels — one is the mathematical level, in that our “proofs” actually work, and are logical and “true” in the mathematical sense.  we do not “argue” we demonstrate.  we do not “debate” as much as we debunk.  this is how and why we are able to draw logical proofs and flow charts and are generally able to show our work.  its because we are right, and obviously so.  its a matter of naming the agent, and wiping away the patriarchal cobwebs, mindbindings, doublethink and reversals to reveal whats been there all along.

radical feminist sense-making also operates on an intuitive level, or something like it…our words resonate with women because of our shared experience as women.  we believe that there is such a thing, and beyond that, we are right — there is.  and because of this shared experience, on an intuitive level or partially intuitive level (read: the learned survival mechanisms all slaves have, and perhaps with something genetic thrown in, in case evolution itself has been affected by millenia of patriarchy or by our being subjected to the brutal realities of animal mating behaviors even longer) our words generally do not go “clunk” as they hit the dirt.  far from it — our words cause sparking and spiraling inside other women.  we know this is true.  so believe it.  believe your eyes.

now, i will grant you that the second (intuitive) “test” of radical feminist material might be more fallible than the first — by contrast, mathematical proofs are notoriously reliable, which is the entire point, and if your proof is debunked you must concede that you were wrong because its made obvious through another proof — but which one has probably saved more womens lives and asses across time and place?  its not the math.  when something sounds “off”, or doesnt resonate or whatever, it is evidence of something.  evidence, not proof.  and we are entitled, as thinking persons, to make reasoned conclusions based on credible evidence.  like….that the person spewing it isnt really a radical feminist.

and beyond that, spewing male-centrism — including liberal feminism under any guise — is boring mkay.  it just is.  i might even go further and say its RUDE.  its RUDE for writers to put their audiences to sleep like that…please dont do it…

anyway, we all know better than to feed trolls by now — but might i also suggest that we refrain from feeding parrots as well?  in this context, a “parrot” is a person who has nothing original or interesting to say at all, and who simply offers decontextualized or misplaced quotes from classic radfem texts (or parrots blogs, or parrots other peoples comments from blogs) to show any number of things (or to cause thought-termination) and where such quotes are notably *not* offered as a teaching tool or jumping-off place from which we are all invited to spark and spiral.  you know the type.  do not feed these people with your attention — ignore them.

for what its worth, mary daly didnt appreciate parrots either, and upon learning that women were merely parroting her work, she cited it as evidence that unfortunately, then, those women didnt understand a damn thing she had said, or radical feminism at all for that matter.  im paraphrasing from here.  parrots can very easily be men, too.  because all you have to do to be a parrot is buy a book.  you dont even have to read or understand it — and men do neither.

instead, might i suggest that we adopt a merit- and truth-based approach in general: the proof of anyones radicalism is in the pudding.  show, dont tell.  write something radical, and lets talk about it.  dont name drop, dont vouch for other womens radicalism — say something radical, and you will be seen to be a radical feminist.  where (oh where?) have we gotten this bizarre notion that the merits of anyones work are irrelevant and the truth doesnt matter?  (or alternatively, how has this become so reversed, where the merits are mistakenly believed to matter in some instances, and are also mistakenly believed *not* to matter in others?)  why is it ok to have muddy thinking and reversals pollute or comprise our movement?  this movement specifically i mean — radical feminism.  this playing loosey-goosey with the rules ideology doesnt happen everywhere.  thats important.

TL;DR version: i like my feminism how i like my coffee — merit based.  our safety and our movement depend on it.  thank you.

PS.  monty python clip to illustrate just HOW boring male-centrism and liberal feminism are.  also, words have meaning.  enjoy!

Sadistic? Check. Controlling? Check. Hate being laughed at? Check! (A Male Privilege Checklist) August 6, 2011

Posted by FCM in entertainment, gender roles, pop culture, thats mean, trans, video intermission.
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men have been dressing up in womens clothes for centuries, as comedy.  it was always meant to be funny (because misogyny is funny) and now some men are doing it with straight faces and they demand that we all keep straight faces too.  its sadistic and controlling, is what it is, to change the rules right in the middle of the game *and* to say somethings not funny (or not funny anymore) just because they say its not.

hmm, sadistic and controlling.  and…hate being laughed at (unless they are trying to be *intentionally* funny of course.  more of that control-stuff).  what does all of this sound like, to you?

now heres a couple of classic clips where men dress up as women, as comedy.  you better not laugh; its not funny anymore.  its not, because they say its not.

and heres one specifically making fun of transwomen.  stop laughing.  its not funny.  because they say its not.

heres one with a man performing femininity.  badly.  strangely, no transwomen seem to want to perform *this* kind of femininity, so i guess its still funny?  i dont know, you be the judge.  but laugh at your own peril mkay?  the transactivists might decide ANY DAY NOW that they want to perform this kind of femininity too, and at that very moment, making fun of men who do this badly will cease to be funny.

and heres one of my personal favorites.  it is!  its a dood that dresses up and plays almost all the female parts himself, and its funny.  of course, real women get to play the hot chicks, cause you know, everyone can spot a man in a dress at a million paces and men in dresses arent part of the rape class so arent really sexy.  women are sexy, men pretending to be women are funny.  at least, this is the way its worked for centuries, people.  centuries!  (or decades, whatever, i dont know when real women were first allowed in theater at all.  my point is that men want to change the game NOW.  men pretending to be women are really women.  dont laugh!).

and all of this is very harmful to men, and definitely not to women.  and women are to blame for all of this, even though men are the ones doing it and they have been doing it (and making money off it) for literally centuries.  got that?  good.

Witch Village June 24, 2011

Posted by FCM in gender roles, logic, PIV, pop culture.
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the casey anthony trial illustrates perfectly (as it must, mustnt it?) the ways patriarchal institutions are designed to destroy women, and to elevate men at womens expense.  loretta did an excellent takedown of this media spectacle at the HUB and added some context to what we are all witnessing: motherhood itself is on trial.  femininity is on trial.  which is terribly perverted, isnt it, considering that the “laws” regarding what is required of women and mothers are mostly unwritten.  they are also contradictory and therefore literally impossible to fulfill: as loretta mentions for example, our emotion and our lack of emotion are both evidence of our guilt in mens courts of law.

this may be particularly true where a mother is accused of child-murder.  in the case of casey anthony, she is really in between a rock and a hard place: mothers are known imagined, by men, to be fiercely protective of their children…and yet are expected to allow men to intervene in their own lives, and in their childs lives, in various contexts.  to be and to do both things, two contradictory things, at the same time.  gotcha!  and here, caseys story appears to be that her child accidentally drowned and she didnt call the cops, paramedics or the coroner to take the body, but kept it for a period of time and then disposed of it herself.  well im sorry, but if a mother is fiercely protective and would protect her child from predatory men in life, why wouldnt she do the same thing in the event of the childs death?  and if casey was an incest survivor herself, and she knows how sick men are and what they do to female children, why would she trust male authorities with her childs body when the child was already dead and there was nothing to be gained from allowing predatory men access to her?  this is a serious question.  (if anyone thinks that men are above sexually defiling corpses, think again.)

with their contradictory and impossible standards of conduct for women, mens legal system as applied to women is literally (LITERALLY!) psychological torture, and a sick cat-and-mouse game where men seek to punish women no matter what.  they further torture us by making it seem as if all of this is fair and that justice is blind: they make it seem as if we have a chance to successfully defend ourselves against their charges in their courts, but we dont do we?  and we never will, so long as every single thing we do, or dont do, is evidence of our guilt.

and more than that, in the case of motherhood specifically, men deliberately put women in the position of being scrutinized, every inch of us inside and out, physical, emotional and spiritual, is scrutinized and picked apart and destroyed, by every patriarchal institution i can think of, when they impregnate us.  the big 3 of the patriarchal institutions, medicine, law and religion all attach at the moment of conception.  and there is absolutely no room for doubt that this is deliberate, on the part of men, and that impregnation specifically is a devastatingly effective tool to accomplish what they clearly want: to bring women under formal control, so that men can enslave, torture and kill us.  is this too harsh an indictment?  i wish it were.

i wont endlessly regurgitate the details of the anthony case because its kind of irrelevant isnt it?  i mean really.  the very obvious ways that impregnation and PIV-centric sexuality serve to bring women under patriarchal control plays out in nearly every het relationship on the planet, and has for billions of women across time and place: forced to endure (or orgasm from, whatever) PIV and PIV-centric “sex” we are often left with pregnancies and children we never wanted.  or we are left with ambivalent pregnancies, pregnancies and children we would have been perfectly happy without, but we were subjected to PIV and PIV-centric sex anyway, and our number came up.  this is how our bodies work, and men know this, and they have designed their institutions to attach to our lives, to our bodies, in a way that mens institutions never attach to men, and in the only way that only they can control (impregnating women!)

and then they have the unmitigated gall to publicize an abstract-image (devoid of context) of “motherhood” as being not only unqualifiedly positive for women, but comprising our very nature, as if the entire institution of motherhood as we currently know it wasnt deliberately designed by them to destroy women, and benefit themselves.

what if this was all just a sick game?  is it so beyond the realm of possibility that men would find all of this incredibly titillating, as they apply heat and pressure and make us squirm, knowing the whole time that we are going to lose and that they are going to win, always, no matter what?  indeed, once we are willing to consider the possibility that men are sick bastards who enjoy torturing women, suddenly things start falling into place.  many things start to make sense.  PIV makes sense, insisting on it, demanding it, defining “sex” to require it, and forcefully taking it from us all makes sense.  and having contradictory and unwritten requirements for female behavior, including when men accuse us of capital crimes where the end-result is state-sanctioned murder of women, by men…just makes sense.

another avenue of inquiry that would lead us straight to men via their sickening sadism would be “who benefits from all this?”  how does this work, whats really happening, in which direction do the gains flow, and what do these gains look like?  as we do in other contexts to figure out the source of a problem, to suss out corruption (and in some contexts, even to recapture ill-gotten gains — now thats compelling isnt it?)…just follow the money, honey!  entire economies are built upon “free” (read: unpaid, from the womans perspective) domestic labor and sexual slavery of women.  men profit from the prison system and from legal fees too.  and the tangible benefits to men in terms of increased status (as opposed to womens, which men purposely lower, see how that works?  its all relative afterall) and decreased competition from women in public places (because women cant be in the home and in public at the same time can they?) works to benefit men, at womens expense.  all it takes is a little honesty to see men for what they really are, and to see how all of this works together in tandem, against women, to benefit men.

and i am extremely interested in this idea of divesting men of their ill-gotten gains.  mens “legal” system and all mens systems have obvious parallels to organized crime.  and researching this mayve just become my new hobby.

New Year, New Nicked Videos and Citrus-Themed Clip-Art January 1, 2011

Posted by FCM in entertainment, feminisms, health, international, liberal dickwads, pop culture, thats random, video intermission.
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this is the final scene from monty pythons “the life of brian.”  interestingly, it reminded me of…fun-feminism!  yes, it did.  i wasnt even looking for this video, i thought perhaps the parrot sketch or the ministry of silly walks would properly ring-in the new year.  i dont know, i was just looking.  but the crucifixes with the sun gleaming behind them seemed appropriate to the season…and the absurd, baseless optimism and complete refusal to recognize certain brutal realities spoke to me more.  call me crazy!

and this one…well this isnt exactly new, since i have posted it here before…but again, it kind of fits.  its the best use of a treadmill i have ever seen.  and with millions of people set to engage in their annual rituals of self-loathing (aka. “new years resolutions”) starting TODAY (ok, maybe tomorrow) and billions of mostly-womens consumer dollars about to be thrown into the weight-loss and fashion industries’ coffers as you lose, lose, lose…then gain it all back…i invite everyone to take a deep breath, and consider “resolving” to JUST.  NOT.  just consider it!  thats all i ask.

next, in 2010 we saw…the first million-dollar appraisal on the US-version of antiques roadshow!  it featured a collection of jade that this womans father brought back from a military appointment in china.  i dont know why, but i am absolutely fascinated by this show.  people bringing in all their shit, not having any idea of its value, and then having someone else, some hyper-credentialed “expert” assigning peoples treasures their objective worth, and filming the owners responses.  now thats good television.



and this is a tribute to (golden girls, maude, mamas family) actor rue mcclanahan, who died in june.  there are several tributes out there and this one, although it isnt the “best” with regards to either video or audio, actually made me cry.  the vidder made a personal tribute to her at the end, but i had to strain to hear it, and i could still barely hear what she was saying.  and it actually moved me to tears, anyway.  it surprised me, and warmed my tiny shriveled heart.  and below that is the final scene from the “golden girls” series finale, and then part 1 of the pilot to “the golden palace,” which was a spin-off that i completely forgot ever existed.  the rest of the pilot is available on youtube, for anyone who wants more.

enjoy, and happy new year!



Failure of Application vs Failure of Reason December 18, 2010

Posted by FCM in books!, entertainment, international, liberal dickwads, politics, pop culture, race, radical concepts.
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i wanted to expound on the concept of “application versus reason” that i mentioned about a month ago (help!  i’m being repressed!).  analyzing social inequities using the “equality model” is standard liberal dickwad politics 101, in that it allows self-identified progressive males to analyze “unfairness” without being distracted by the ugly realities of male privilege, and the ways that women are and continue to be victimized as women, by men and male institutions.  in the above clip, the monty python players make hi-larious fun of class-based inequities, and their extreme silliness and ability to absolutely hit the nail on the head with regard to analyzing class assures monty python its place in history and in the hearts, minds and living rooms i mean ipods of good liberal dickwads everywhere.  i mean lets face it.  they are funny mkay?  and smart.  and they know it!

but the equality-model as the foundation for modern liberal dickwad politics (ie. liberal politics) was first advanced in the male civil rights context.  in other words, the idea that there is no legitimate reason to treat black men any differently than white men are treated.  but disenfranchised men, and only men, were meant to be included in the arguments against slavery, and all race-based anti-discrimination discourses that came later.  in her essay “reflections on sex equality under law,” catharine mackinnon notes that including women in federal workplace discrimination legislation was an afterthought, and sneaky politicking by a racist senator that was intended to bring about the failure of anti-racist legislation by including teh wimmins in it.  (heartwarming isnt it?)  for some reason, it passed anyway:

but just because women were now technically protected under anti-discrimination law in certain situations, it doesnt mean what we might like it to mean, when the laws were drafted and intended to apply to only men, and in fact have only men in mind throughout.  and where the favored liberal-dickwad argument is “but thats not fairrrrrr, you wouldnt do that to a white man.”  for example, in an employment context: you would never stick a white man in the kitchen of a restaurant instead of letting him wait tables.  or, you would never execute a white man for sticking his dick into someone.  etc., etc.  male-centric anti-discrimination discourse addresses and prevents failures of application only.  meaning: if it makes sense for a white man, it makes sense for a black man.  if it doesnt make sense to make a white man do something, then it doesnt make sense to make a black man do it either.  not surprisingly, unfair-application isnt the issue though, when addressing the ways women are victimized as women, by men.  namely, female-reproductive issues and the sexual abuse of girls and women by men:

what the failure-of-application or “equality” model doesnt address, doesnt anticipate and doesnt care about at all, is the failure of reason that comes into play when any male-centered discourse is applied to women.  for example, sick time, and the 40-hour workweek.  its all well and good (under an equality model, its not “unfairrrr”) to give everyone (or no-one) 5 days a year of sick-time right?  its all well and good (under an equality model) to force everyone to sit at their desks for 8 hours a day, every day, if they expect a paycheck.  but women are subjected to medical events that men arent, just by virtue of being biologically female (care to name them?).  they are also more likely to be the caretakers of the home and of children because they are socially female.  you see where i am going with this.  and it gets worse.

the inapplicability insanity of applying of male-centric disourse to womens bodies and lives becomes glaringly obvious when observing the mental (and legislative) gymnastics regarding the fetus, and its relationship to the pregnant woman carrying it.  the best they have so far been able to do (bless their clueless hearts!!!1!!11  actually, no.  fuck them all.  srsly.) is to regard the fetus as a body part.  because men have body parts tooooo!!111!11  but a fetus is NOT a “body part,” and its in fact completely irrational and unreasonable to regard something as something it isnt:

ignore the dangling words at the end there.

do we get it now?  its not merely unfairrrrr when male-centric discourses are used against women, as women.  its literally insane.  its not rational.  so, when the liberal dickwads snort and knee-slap over the monty-python players in the “witch village” clip, what is being criticised here really?  men murdering women of their own class based on misogynist religious superstition (literally, insanity masquerading as logic) and sex-based discrimination in the legal system?  HA!  not likely:

taken in the context of monty pythons usual social class-commentary and criticism of the ruling elite, this is clearly a criticism of religion and superstition sullying the legal process, which is usually rational, although perhaps unfairly applied, against men, by other men.  whew!  thank (us rational men) this doesnt happen anymore!  except that it does.  this very type of shit happens all the time, when you are a woman.  reason, fails.  logic, fails. 

more examples!  the male-centric discourse surrounding sex, which is that PIV = sex = PIV.  you went over to his house because you wanted to have sex, and he stuck his dick in you against your will…well, sorry, but you actually asked for it.  HUH?  yes!  reality of course being completely irrelevant here, which is the problem when we are dealing in INSANITY.  a mother abusing her child gets an extra-harsh sentence for “abusing a trust relationship” because we are allegedly, as a civil society, horrified when people abuse trust-relationships.  right?  not so fast.  even *if* the male-centric legal system applied this one equally to male abusers of children (they dont), we are still left with a significant problem, in that its not even fucking true.  we *dont* value trust-relationships, at all.  or at least, when a trusted man rapes a woman, its not really rape at all in most peoples minds, because she knew him, and trusted him.  HUH?  the examples of this kind of shit are endless, and the legal frameworks of both motherhood and “sex” are extremely…fertile…ground.

the equality-model and liberal-dickwad politics dont work for us, because they dont protect us in the way we need protecting: from men, exploiting girls and womens biological femaleness for our destruction and their gain. 

and we have to understand that its not intended to.  men create this chaos, this unreasonableness, and force women to live in it, because it benefits men to do so.  our adpoting male-centric liberal dickwad politics isnt going to help us a damn bit, when men *are* our problem, and they always have been, and they fucking revel in it.