in light of recent discussions, in particular NTE stuff and the likelihood absolute certainty of the catastrophic loss of human habitat due to male-caused global overpopulation and over male population, whenever it occurs, i am reminded that certain of us have described visions of our female future. in particular, i am re-membering mary daly and sonia johnson, although i am unable to access my books just now to look this up properly (if i am remembering it wrong, i am sure someone will tell me). as i recall, both women “saw” a female future (and a past) where women were free of the plague of global maleness, where we were/are finally, finally free to simply BE, without much if any do-ing, and without the constant threat of being raped and pillaged by men. ahhhh, that does sound nice.
specifically, what i am remembering is that these visions were of another dimension, where women were able (somehow?) to live without eating, drinking or performing any maintenance-type stuff at all — sonia johnson envisioned that women were free of any DO-ing whatsoever and that we literally lived on clean air and sunshine, and could fly. (!) at the time i first read her vision, i embraced this as a thought exercise where women were encouraged to imagine/experience effortlessness, and the freedom to just BE and in so imagining to realize and feel how much of our female lives and female selves are in fact spent DO-ing under conditions of patriarchy female oppression, torture and slavery, especially doing for and doing because of others, namely, men. i found the exercise mind-expanding and helpful.
and as i recall, mary daly imagined women coming together in a place far away from men and maleness; maleness was no longer an issue for whatever happy happenstance (happy/stance) and women found each other and lounged about, enjoying each others company and sharing lore about the bizarre past where patriarchy reigned. daly wrote in the 1990s about this coming-together occurring in what would now — as we are currently in 2015 — be the rather near future. in this future, as i recall, women subsisted (largely? completely?) on lemonade and dog-licks. i dont remember exactly, but that was the gist — another plane of existence, in the not-so-distant future, that is as different from the one we currently inhabit as can be imagined, and then some. and we have everything we need, and nothing we dont, (because) the problem of men and maleness has been solved.
sonia johnson also imagined that women could change perspective at will to experience BE-ing a bird, or a wolf, or a tree.
so currently, in light of the issue of catastrophic climate change due to male-caused global overpopulation and over male population, i am considering dalys and johnsons visions of womens “female future” and i have to wonder just what it was these women were envisioning when they essentially saw women existing without bodies. get it? while it is a nice exercise to imagine not having to eat or drink or DO anything, the fact is that natural law applies, it applies now and it will continue to apply in the absence of patriarchy. and natural law dictates that women — as human animals — cannot, in fact, live on lemonade and dog-licks alone, and we also cannot fly. temporarily “trading” consciousness with birds and trees does not violate natural law as far as i am aware, so i will leave that one alone.
now, obviously i understand and agree that in general, we are free to en-vision whatever we want, or to describe whatever vision comes to us whatever the source (the source may not be “us” exactly, i say this as a creative person) and that it doesnt have to make sense, or be possible. in the case of johnson and dalys visions of our female future (and past) i previously understood these metaphysical (metaphysical = literally “beyond physics”) visions as fictional writing, or thought exercises, and i assumed that daly and johnson were imagining/describing a scenario/universe in which we (somehow) experienced these obviously metaphysical things simultaneously with being (BE-ing) very much alive. i understand and accept that this is the accepted interpretation of this writing, and also that daly and johnson likely intended to be read that way as well.
but i have to tell you. as of recently, i am really wondering: when they “saw” women in this vastly different state, where women are/were finally free of not only men and patriarchy but of everything, including all DO-ing and the limitations/requirements of physics (and bodies) what were they seeing really? not to be alarmist or anything, because whats the point…but as has become my inclination in every area*, i am taking note. specifically, i am taking note and notice of current and past events that could be reasonably associated with global climate change (and resulting near-term human extinction), and i think our best feminist thinkers and visionaries visions of our female future are absolutely relevant to that. that is all.
* i see that they have found one of the black boxes from the most recently “disappeared” malaysian jet and i am waiting to hear if this catastrophic failure was weather-related. considering what we already know, that the last communication with the plane involved changing the flight path to avoid the weather, i suspect we already know the answer to that…but far be it from me to try to predict the future uh, past?
to continue with my thoughts generated by the previous post and comments, i would like to address womens intuition for a moment. as the context remains “radical feminism is gaslighting bullshit” again, sonia johnson once wrote that she thought most women refused to engage in reformist politicking because on whatever level, they knew it wouldnt work. to that, i would add this.
it seems to me that many if not all women feel, on an intuitive level, that everything will work out in the end. this is what religion is, what mysticism is, what hope (including hope for men) is (isnt it?) — women trying to justify or explain their feeling that it will be alright, that things will work out, that its not too late. i cannot think of a single thing any woman has ever done or said that is not consistent with a personal, spiritual, political, or religious belief that things will work out in the end, even if it means there is another life after this one, or that men will magically come around (or respond to our pleas) and stop killing, raping and torturing us because of our sex.
for most women, they do not even believe that they themselves need to act for things to work out in the end — these women are known as normal women, or nonfeminists. some 99% of the worlds women by any estimate, as most women flatly reject feminism on its face. there is perhaps 1% or some other very small percentage of women globally (feminists, including radical feminists) who think that they themselves need to act in order for things to work out in the end, but so long as they act — and activate — towards that end, yes, things will work out. men will stop killing us and everything, in the end.
there is of course another group of women, which i did not even realize existed until recently, and those are women who believe that men have already caused irreversible and exponential, soon to be explosive global climate change that will annihilate all human life, and that this will happen soon. in their own way, these women believe it will work out too — that nature will take care of it. most of those women, like all the worlds women, are not feminists either, so there is no feminist analysis there, just the evidence-based belief that things cannot continue the way they are and therefore, they will not continue the way they are. men have done us all in (unfortunately, they say “humans” and “civilization” did this, but as i said, they are not feminists). these women also do not believe we need to act in order for this to happen — its a done deal.
anyway, it seems to me that all women, in their own way, or in one way or another, feel or believe that things will drastically change, and that it will all work out in the end. interestingly, the evidence of global climate change and self-reinforcing feedback loops created by male “civilization” supports the conclusion that nature will indeed take care of the maleness problem (as if there was ever any reasonable doubt that natural law would prevail. there wasnt). and if it is the case that nature bats last (it is), it means that all the worlds women who have thought and felt for decades or centuries that “it will all work out in the end — and we neednt do a damn thing to make it happen” were absolutely, and demonstrably, correct. meaning, womens intuition was correct, including womens almost universal intuition that feminism wont work, and that men will never voluntarily stop ever.
it also means that the only of the entire worlds women who were partially wrong about any of this were the 1% or whatever tiny number who were and are the feminists, including radical feminists, who believe/d that women had to DO something/anything in order for things to work out, and for the problem of maleness to be solved. obviously, they were wrong about that. they were wrong, and i was wrong.
but women, on the whole, were right and are right. it will all work out in the end, oh yes it will. it wont be what any of us had hoped (prayed) for, since natural solutions are notoriously ugly, and painful (like plague). but i think this explains to my satisfaction what i and many women who came before have noticed: that it is almost impossible to get women on board with feminism, or to get them to “act” or activate towards a feminist ends. its because women know better. like sonia johnson, i trust women, and i now believe they were 100% right to think and act as if it would all “work out” in the end, without our help. of course it will. in fact, at this point…we couldnt stop it.
sonia johnson asked and explored the question, why do women almost universally reject feminism and feminist activating in discussing her involvement with ERA legislation politicking in one of her books. she and many feminists had long pondered, when feminism is in womens best interests, and is in fact the only ideology that adequately represents the interests of women across time and place, why is it so difficult impossible to get women on board? and interestingly, when women do come together to do something great, it almost always doesnt last. why/why not?
johnson concluded that women almost universally reject feminism and feminist activating because its worse than pointless: feminist activating is actually making things worse. women pouring their time and resources into reformist (foreground) pursuits-that-are-bound-to-fail-because-patriarchy actually energizes, motivates and activates men, who vampirically feed off female energy, and besides that, men like things the way they are. many, many women know this is true at a feeling/intuitive level and they shy away from feminism and feminist activating because they know it wont work.
i would also add that feminist activating is unlikely to help, and likely to make things worse because men love watching women writhe and suffer because they are men. in other words, feminist politicking is in reality a sophisticated form of torture whereby males purposely withhold necessary social changes palliative care for women and gleefully observe the fallout with their dicks in their hands. males get off on it because it is torture. this is obviously the case. and women almost universally reject this, whether by instinct (and they do not get involved in the first place) or later, experienced radical women come to reject radical feminism because they know better.
furthermore, because radical feminist activating is based on the premise that males can and will respond to females without violence (isnt it?), against all evidence that this is in fact true, radical feminist activating is also unconscionable gaslighting.
thus, we have the public face of “radical feminism” which seems to consist largely or entirely of women who either do not possess or are ignoring instincts that it is pointless or worse than pointless; and women who simply have not done it long enough to know better. aka. the nuts leave. there are also power jockeys, drama junkies and ass-kissing hangers on, as there are in any movement, but i am not talking about them — if this was an enormous problem, there would be plenty of radfems to go around. the place would be crawling with “us” in fact, if there were anything at all to be gained from this, even squikky political leftovers like networking and career ops but its not.
if this sounds like a fairly motley crew, well, i think it obviously is. and, if anyone thinks most women will willingly spend their time this way, when women have so little time, energy and resources to spend any way, they (obviously) wont. women almost universally will not do this, or they wont do it for long, because it is unconscionable gaslighting, and thus is abusive and bullshit. and women who sucker other women into this, or who tell other women to “keep going” and “never stop” doing radical feminism and repetitiously making pointless fucking points are abusive. or something. there are no words for this.
women will not spend their time and lives this way, and i personally have rejected it, yet, every single day i witness man-ifestations of patriarchy that nearly beggar belief (and virtually beg for a response). every single day i could write a thousand posts (or as many as i could physically write) and start an entirely new blog based on an original idea (like celebrating examples of male violence against other men — yay!) but i dont because it would only deplete me, and there would be no point. yesterday it was the sony/north korea “thing” whereby the hollywood, corporate and washington patriarchal elite in unison denounced “silencing” and reaffirmed their (alleged) belief in speaking truth to power, and not being bullied, terrorized and brutalized into submission. but again, this is all gaslighting bullshit. women do not share this world, nor will we ever. it is beyond ridiculous to even point it out/respond to it, and the only reason i am even mentioning it now is to illustrate a point — it never fucking ends, and it will never end, this is but one example of literally endless examples. get it?
i also mention it as a lead-in to what may well be my final point, because it is *the* final point. or endpoint, if you will.
besides what sonia johnson wrote about her experience, i have never seen it written anywhere that radical feminism is gaslighting bullshit, and worse than a waste of time. i have never seen it written that women who pressure other women to join or to keep going with radical feminist activating are being abusive and that it is gaslighting because it implies that men will respond to women without violence, when thats simply and obviously not true. so *i* am going to say it. it is, and they are. radical feminism is gaslighting bullshit. and it is my sincerest hope that no woman will waste months and years of her life figuring this out, only to figure it out too late — after she has been made sick and broken by it. and this does happen.
andrea dworkin, shulamith firestone and valerie solanas — some of our best and most radical thinkers who mostly did not lie for a living (like the academics did and still do) and who instead told the unvarnished truth about men and what they are and what they do — all died early deaths after years of poor health, and i have to wonder why that was. that is to say, i have wondered about it, and having done this “work” for several lifetimes now (several internet lifetimes that is, where most blogs only last 2-3 months before they fail, and i maintained several blogs for several years) i think i can answer my own question. which is what this is about afterall, for women who cannot reconcile their subjective feelings female selves with patriarchy, we need to know why things are the way they are. i always needed to know.
welp. i now believe that radical feminism probably killed them. and if it did, it means that gaslighting and being abused and gaslighted by “radical” and even well-meaning women, and purposely and callously tortured by men (of course), can actually kill you. kill, as in drain the life out of, and die. i think this is not only possible, but that it has actually happened. and i think we ought to not let this happen to any more of us, and that we each should make sure this does not happen to us individually. which is the only way we can do it by the way. there is no other way except that.
ive been so happy to see the idea going around that it hasnt been women “forcing” manly behaviors, values and thought processes on men, if indeed men have been or need to be “forced” into these things at all. radical feminists point this whole time has been that womens sex role as fuckholes, breeders and slaves has been forced on us by men, and that this role is wholly unnatural to us. our point has never been, until very recently that is, that the same force-thing is happening *somehow* to men. and in fact it makes very little sense if you think about it a bit. if anyone were forcing men to do anything, who would have the power, resources and inclination to do this? oh yes. men! not women, men.
not only that, but where did this stuff come from in the first place? who thought it would be a good idea (for example) to rape women and impregnate us against our wills, knowing how painful and dangerous childbirth is to us (and not to men)? who thought it would be a good idea to force women to do anything, to starve torture and kill us and everyone and everything else? think: global overpopulation and environmental abuse. did women first suggest this, and did women take it further at every step with creativity, leaps of thought and constant envelope-pushing? or did someone else?
here we are faced with a potentially uncomfortable truth, “we” being those of us who still hold out any hope whatsoever for men, that they will change, that this has all been a huge mistake etc. included here are those who think meaningful legal change will be forthcoming BTW, seeing as how the law is the codification and normalization of male behavior, values and thought-processes selectively enforced to support male power at womens expense. to those women and everyone, kindly note (if you havent already) that at the intersection of “who came up with this shit” and “who would be able to enforce it anyway” there are men. men and only men. no women anywhere. if male behaviors, values and thought processes were a gum, it would be men-tyne. if it were a museum, it would be the men-tropolitan museum of art.
not that i personally believe for a second that these things are forced/enforced on men — the evidence actually suggests they enjoy it and even revel in decidedly male interests/pursuits like torture and necrophilia, but lets not dwell on that insignificant detail (or fact, whatever). the point is that i know other women believe its forced, or they assume it without ever really having thought about it, so seeing it as an intersection of maleness (which it obviously is) might be useful to them. is it?
whats compelling to me about this recognition is that it implicates men as a sexual class and takes that concept and discussion further. in this case, we see that we can and indeed must take males as a whole as our “class,” meaning males throughout time and place, not just whoever happens to be alive now, and not just those special snowflakes who came up with something noteworthy/super gross or whatever at some point (i.e. helped move male behavior, values and thought-processes forward through creativity and innovation, like whoever came up with this). in other words, when analyzing how and indeed whether what is known as “masculinity” is forced on men, if we add a fourth-dimension to the class-model, which is time, we see that men have always done this. that there was never a time (that we know about) that they didnt. and importantly, there was never a time when we (females) did.
get it? women had nothing to do with this — men came up with this sickening abuse and necrophilia on their own and it is in fact a closed-circuit of maleness in which we see abusive and sexually and reproductively abusive (i.e. male) behaviors, values and thought processes working and evolving across time. there is no female “input” there are only female victims, and perhaps female collaborators and individual collaborators at that — as a class, women have been wholly excluded. its closed, you see. thats how a closed-circuit works, and this very obviously is one.
if there were *ever* a more perfect example of a closed-circuit, well, it might be one without collaborators (or without equality rhetoric, history-erasure or a fourth-dimension!) because that might make it easier to see it for what it is. but even so, this isnt rocket-science (or is it?) the concept of the closed-circuit does, however, implicate electricity, and therefore electronics, plugging-in, technology, and industry, and probably other things. even time-travel seems implicated here, or all “times” existing at once — non-linear time. we discussed that here, in the context of sonia johnson’s work including “the metaphysics of liberation.”
if that complicates the discussion, disregard. its (i think?) unnecessary to the point, which is that male behaviors, values and thought processes — and patriarchy — is a closed-system of maleness to which women have never (substantively, ideologically) “inputted” and we never will. thats the point. everything you see, hear, feel, smell, taste and intuit around you thats abusive and sick, including men and what they do and what they are, and regardless of whether its “forced” on them (meaning, same result whether it is or isnt) — thats men mkay. its men, its men, its men.
i recently read 3 books by sonia johnson completely out of order like i always do — last summer i read her most recent “sisterwitch conspiracy” and just now i read “going out of our minds: the metaphysics of liberation” and then “wildfire”. and i still havent read her first and most well-known “from housewife to heretic” — heres another bloggers post on that.
i have reported elsewhere that i found “sisterwitch” to be exceedingly silly *and* that it changed my thinking forever. specifically, her use of animal imagery and visions, and describing women talking to each other in the kitchen encouraging dialog by repeating “right on!” a lot — along with being self-published in a very large font made it seem too easy. or something? the silliness was evident immediately, and the drastic and yet *easy* changes came later. i dont know her, but i suspect she might think my rather, uh, conflicted response to her book was funny. 🙂 and indeed it is.
the other two…well i would say they are both exceedingly silly as well, and also extremely timely. like cutting edge, up to the second timely — more on that below. which is also funny considering that they are old (1980s! dinosaurs!) and i read them out of order and she implicates literal time more than once — its part of the plot, you see. time.
in both “going out of our minds” and “wildfire”, she talks about her involvement in what americans were calling “feminism” in the 1980s — among other things, trying to get the equal rights amendment (ERA) passed. she notes that, despite a hearty response from many women, it was bizarrely difficult to get most or all women involved in much of this politicking — it was almost as if most women knew it was pointless. instead of assuming that womens overworkedness or paralysis or lack of gas money or whatever explained their flat refusal to drop whatever they were doing and get onboard, she trusted women, and wondered to herself if there was something wrong with the actions themselves. in the end, she decided there was something fundamentally wrong with the actions — male-centric politicking is worse than useless for women, and will never liberate women from male dominance.
oh, and P.S. roe v wade essentially shored up patriarchy in the US, and singlehandedly defeated the womens liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s. wha?! in “wildfire” she explains her take on it, which is that the deal to legalize abortion was a sedative to womens righteous anger and (therefore) a poison that killed feminism. men are laughing at us to this day for taking this deal, in fact. we have shown them that we can be bought. and prostitution — and womens pain and unspeakable suffering — is terribly funny innit? this answers some recent questions i had about how women involved back then couldve “felt” that revolution was afoot, but in the end it turned out not to have been a revolution at all. (well it answers that for american feminists anyway — whats the rest of the worlds excuse?)
i also suspect that it was women hanging out in women-only safe space while discussing these reforms that made the possibility of a real revolution seem so real — it was real, so long as they were in the room, get it? as soon as they left, and went back to talk with the men or bargain with the men or negotiate, debate and literally plead (their case) to men, it was all over — as with all deals, when one is dealing with the devil, the “deal” of legalized abortion was a dead-end. it was the (dead) end of the women-only organizing that was taking place around it, and it was a political deadend too — men could take away this alleged “gain” at any time and they all knew it, and just thinking about it got the men even harder and even rapier than they were before.
to sedate womens rage and kill feminism — and to get men even harder and even rapier — was the plan, of course, and women were the only ones who didnt know it at the time. because men lie. and they will never do anything that undermines patriarchy or lessens male power, or that actually increases womens power, ever.
indeed, instead of taking this deal, american feminists wouldve been better off staying mad and staying focused on womens liberation, and telling men to go fuck themselves (or implying it) while we taught each other how to perform abortions on each other. wouldnt we? if we had done that, and conserved our energy and kept on in the direction in which we were headed we mightve been well on our way to being liberated by now. but we didnt. live and learn? or…lather, rinse, repeat endlessly? she suggests the former: that we thank the women who came before us for showing us that reformist politicking and deal-making are incompatible with womens liberation, and that we move on.
on the subject of this being very timely, besides the fact that all radical feminism is always timely because it addresses the ways that women are oppressed as women across time and place, it doesnt take much to see the ways that liberal politicking continues to not-work today, as least as much as it didnt-work back then. for all the alleged “gains” we have made over the last 200 years, today, like earlier this week (and every minute of every day since) women are being censored and silenced, and im not talking about the goddamned first amendment mkay — i am talking about patriarchy, and men as a sexual class silencing women as a sexual class, including women who say or do anything that legitimately challenges patriarchy and mens entitlement to abuse and penetrate and harass and lord-over women.
i think this “silencing” includes mens raping and murdering us too, including the recent gang-rapes — mens constant rape and death threats against women who do speak up (or, you know, go out) kind of give that one away. and i think that the medias treatment of these recent gang rapes is meant to silence us too. so i have to ask dont i, what progress? what the hell progress have we even made, and what evidence is there that things have even stayed the same, or have definitely *not* gotten worse? this is a serious question. i think things have gotten worse, and that this is obvious and demonstrable. if someone disagrees, prove it.
and furthermore, thanks to equality-activating, we cant organize in women-only space anymore either. or, we cannot legally do this in some places, and are unable to “ethically” do it anywhere else. because poor men. that we continue to do this anyway goes to womens spirit, womens soul, and our intuition, or something, and at any rate our seemingly unassailable desire and commitment to meeting with each other in women-only space. we *know* how important this is and we keep activating for this. *all* women around the world (except fun-fems apparently) know how important women-only space is, if women are to survive patriarchy. survive in it, and survive despite it, and survive it — we plan to outlive (Out/Live?) it. for this, we go to each other dont we?
call it “strategizing” or consciousness-raising or coordinating your upcoming congressional testimony, whatever. what if what *felt* so revolutionary about the feminism of the past — from the perspective of the women who were there, and who felt they were on the cusp of a real revolution (sonia johnson felt it too) — was that they were in women-only space or nearly women-only space, talking about and imagining being free? what if they had actually achieved what they were looking for…and the only mistake they made was that they left the room to resume talking and dealing with men — and stayed out?
for my part, i am starting to believe that damn near anything is possible.
femonade 