Failure of Application vs Failure of Reason December 18, 2010

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.