Gang rape as entertainment
The stories about the Richmond gang rape are starting to piss me off. “How could it have happened?” people say. “What could have possessed those young men to behave like that?”
WE LIVE IN A FUCKING PATRIARCHY, I yell at my computer screen in all-caps. WE LIVE IN A GODDAMN WOMAN-HATING NIGHTMARE. Raping, torturing, and maiming women is prime entertainment, bub.
Last night I came across this post by Nine Deuce about a Halloween haunted house that featured a woman being gang raped.
Listen:
I suppose all of you readers are saying to your computers, “Duh, Nine Deuce, it’s a haunted house. What did you think was going on?” But you must remember that I haven’t been in a haunted house since maybe 1989. At that time, the average haunted house was just a series of dark halls in which drama club dorks with masks and plastic axes would jump out at you and say things like, “You’d better run for your life!” in their best attempt at a spooky muahahaha voice. Even when I was eleven that shit was basically whatever the opposite of scary is. But now it’s 2009, and we live in a world in which movies like Hostel, Saw 1-76, and the Halloween remakes (which are Rob Zombie joints, in case you didn’t know) make millions of dollars. I should have known that would affect the goings-on at the nation’s haunted houses. Stupid me.
Same here. I haven’t been to a haunted house since the 80s, and back then it was exactly as Nine Deuce says: dark halls, sheets, doofuses. I haven’t kept up with the advances in the field since then, nor am I a fan of horror movies. Thus it is that the next paragraph actually surprised me:
Apparently, in the modern haunted house scene, rape is where it’s at. Kerry and Natethaniel told me that the haunted house’s “attractions” included a woman being brutally gang raped, women being tortured, women being murdered, a woman’s torso with the genital area completely mutilated, an exploding ass (I forgot to ask what sex the exploding ass was), and so on and so forth. All of the above came with plenty of blood. My friend Steve said that a better name for the haunted house might be “The Mutilated Vagina House,” and I asked him, rhetorically, why there weren’t more mutilated penises in the mix. He replied that no one would come, and he was right.
Like Nine Deuce, I’m a little surprised at myself for being surprised. After all, I’m well aware that the cult of sexualized violent misogyny is at an all-time high. I guess I just keep failing to imagine all the possible ways in which men’s hatred of women can be expressed. These things just don’t occur to me.
But this is the world we’re in. I think the next time I see one of those columnists wringing their hands over the Richmond rape case and asking “Why? How?” — I’ll send them this story.
51 Responses to “Gang rape as entertainment”
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Puma-SF says:
Please help spread the word. There will be a march in Richmond next Saturday.
http://pumaeyes.wordpress.com/.....-saturday/
November 2nd, 2009 at 2:23 am EST -
Sameol says:
I picked up an old copy of the Journal of Women’s Studies Associations (or something along those lines) at the library today. The first article was about how lawsuits against strip clubs are censoring women’s free expression. The next was about how statutory rape laws violate young women’s agency, plus fundies like them, so they’re bad.
Is there any point, really?
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Briar says:
Indeed. You should have heard the raucous taunting and sneering at Leader of the House (of Commons) Harriet Harmon when she attempted to foreground women’s issues over the summer. If it wasn’t male journalists asking who did she think she *was* (stand-in PM during Brown’s holiday, actually) it was female commentators drivelling on about women’s right to sexual self expression, even if it was as a prostitute or in a lap-dancing club. It is clear that for mainstream society, now as ever, identity for a woman is solely a matter of sexual identity, fundamentally as the plaything of a man. Anyone who hoped that feminism would secure for a woman an identity equal to a man’s, one not limited by sexual role, now has to hear feminists who try to argue for this howled into obscurity for their lack of sexiness and cool.
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Aspen says:
Like many of us, I say about 20 times day, I’m appalled, but not surprised.
Rage Against the Manchine also had another good halloween post about the sexay costumes. -
kenoshamarge says:
Like so many other women I am outraged, appalled, disgusted and repulsed, but sadly not surprised.
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songster says:
No matter how hard I try, I can never quite believe how much the patriarchy hates women.
As usual, Arthur Silber is a better radical feminist than I am.
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m Andrea says:
This particular atrocity fills me with dread for the future. It just leaves a really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
And then I wonder if the young women of today who assume their power is defined by their capacity to relinquish control will continue to believe that as they mature. And what kind of world they will create as a result.
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yttik says:
What’s really awful is how voyeuristic our culture is, so that entertainment on TV is just a parade of naked and mutilated women, all disguised as crime drama. Again with the Polanski case, perhaps unintentionally in an attempt to prove the seriousness of the crime, every intimate detail had to be printed over and over again. And the details of this Richmond rape are rehashed over and over again, almost like one lovingly replays a sexual fantasy.
I remember a rape survivor talking about how after she gave all the details of her attack, half the courtroom would probably go home and whack off. She wanted to know why they didn’t present pictures of her before the rape, as a full human being enjoying her life, so people could understand exactly what was stolen.
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Alison says:
I like the idea of the march in the first post. We need a million women march to respond to this – not in washington but 2 places: NYC and Hollywood. This is where the media crap is coming from and these people need to be utterly humiliated.
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angie says:
Not only is rape/abuse the norm for women, if one dares to fight back it is highly likely that she will be sent to prison for the rest of her life. Remember the case of Sara Kruzan in CA? She was raped by a “father figure” at 13 & forced to work for him as a prostitute for 8 hours a day. Three years later she killed him & she got a life sentence. The USSC is reviewing her case to determine the constitutionality of sentencing minors to life terms. Here is a link if you are interested (more along the lines of sentencing minors)
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angie says:
Here is a big old apology for the the school & neighborhood (“We aren’t all like that! Only those boys don’t view women as human, the rest of us do! The girl was naive who tried to please the bad boys! It only happened because of the lighting!” etc). But read the second to last paragraph “Rough Justice” Am I bad to hope those ex-cons find those rapists before the police do?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....1ACRGU.DTL -
Theresa says:
I have never liked haunted houses, even as a small child in the ’70s when they were even lamer than the ones mentioned in the ’80s buy the reclusive leftist. I don’t like to be scared. I have heard all about the new haunted houses being very violent, but I never knew they were so sexist. No, I am not surprised. Men just kill me. I will never understand why they want to fuck so bad and then hate and mistreat what they fuck. When someone does something nice for me, I most certainly say “thank you”. Sometimes I want the person to do the nice thing for me again, and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I wasn’t expecting for the person to do the nice thing, but I am polite, say thanks, and we both go on our merry ways, both satisfied that something nice was done and the recipient was appreciative. But for some reason men don’t think that way. After being nice to a man’s dick, usually the result it being ignored, being treated like a sack of shit, and being kicked to the curb. Forget a thank you, and nice to meet you, or even a see you around. It is almost an automatic, “you be a skank” in the eyes of the man. As of late, men are pissing and moaning about being emasculated, well tough shit. They brought it on themselves by centuries of hateful, unnecessary, ignorant, brutal, and demeaning treatment of women. We’ve had it, and emasculation is the result. Besides, soon men will be extinct. There is no need for them anymore. If, perchance they decided to be not be hateful, not be ignorant, not brutal and not demeaning, then maybe we could keep them around, just because it could be fun, but…..nahhhhhhhhhhhh
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Branjor says:
Huh? So ghosts, witches, skeletons, operating rooms, morgues and ghost ships full of ghost pirates aren’t the standard in haunted houses any more? Raping and mutilating women is? How utterly sick, pathetic and boring.
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Rich says:
About 10 years ago I went to a doofus style haunted house. Just as I was walking out, whining about how stupid haunted houses are, a pickup truck came out of nowhere and almost sideswiped me. When I got up off the ground I saw it was mounted on pistons of some sort.
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anniethena says:
In about 5 weeks, it will be the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.
Here’s the summary from the CBC archives (http://archives.cbc.ca/society.....opics/398/)For 45 minutes on Dec. 6, 1989 an enraged gunman roamed the corridors of Montreal’s École Polytechnique and killed 14 women. Marc Lepine, 25, separated the men from the women and before opening fire on the classroom of female engineering students he screamed, “I hate feminists.” Almost immediately, the Montreal Massacre became a galvanizing moment in which mourning turned into outrage about all violence against women.
Bolding mine – how soon we forget…
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Violet says:
Angie, I too found that SF article disgusting. There have been several like that. And you know what? The very fact that the chief concern of Richmond high school students seems to some kind of school pride issue tells me that yes, they are every bit as bad as we think they are.
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monchichipox says:
A million women march. I’ve been hoping for that for years now. I’d help in anyway I can. I keep saying we need to arm ourselves, show up with our pistols, waving over our head and saying “we’re hurt as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”
I know I may seem a bit wierd with my call to arms but I’ve had two women friends in my life disappeared. Yes two white, upper middle class women that the media is supposed to cover. I could write a book on showing up to police stations and just trying to get them to even acknowledge you were there yet alone help in a missing persons case. Grasping at straws and pulling your hair out wondering what you can do to make sure they’re not forgotten. -
femina says:
You might be interested in this piece of ancient minutia, monchichipox. In the ’60s or ’70s, there was a radical group called WITCH (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy From Hell).
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madamab says:
Briar said:
It is clear that for mainstream society, now as ever, identity for a woman is solely a matter of sexual identity, fundamentally as the plaything of a man.
And this is why feminism can never, ever be built on sexual terms. That was the biggest mistake we ever made. Feminism must rise above those terms, which are defined by its oppressors, and build itself upon a fight for equality, like all other civil rights movements.
If we are going to coalesce around one issue, I feel it should be the ERA. Just like the single issue “votes for women” galvanized women in the 19th Century and ultimately resulted in a Constitutional Amendment, so should the ERA do the same for women in the 21st century.
Our problem is, as always, the Christian right, whose women are now and forever on the side of the patriarchy, and who will not join in that fight because they do not want women to have control over their reproductive organs. But really, there are a lot more of us than there are of them.
NOW has started to put some energy into the ERA, but still doesn’t seem to have a coherent strategy together. Anyone know of any more active organizations for this cause? I sure would like to get more involved.
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Adrienne in CA says:
But really, there are a lot more of us than there are of them.
If it were just the Christian right, maybe we’d stand a chance. But 2008 and since has taught me that the secular left is every bit as aligned with the patriarchy as their counterparts on the right. Even to the extent of allowing women’s reproductive health, supposedly the last straw, to be downplayed for the sake of keeping more D’s than R’s in office. The result? We have majority D’s, and no straws left. We’ve been divided and conquered.
*****A
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Northwest rain says:
The Confluence has a discussion — Republicans Hate Pro Choice Women” — and several have brought up the same theme –that both the radical left and the radical right HATE women.
I’ve also read the article about the rape — link a few comments above. It was also published in the Seattle P.I. — of course the victim will be blamed/is blamed. BUT — something horrible has happened and a line has been crossed. Men lining up to rape a woman — that’s something that happens during war when the enemy is dehumanized. But it is happening at a high school — by peers of the victim. THEY have declared war on women.
There is open warfare on women — flat out warfare. Unfortunately many women are too damned dumb (or so supportive of the Patriarchy) that they just don’t get it.
The last paragraph about vigilante justice — the older men (ex-cons) understand that something has drastically changed.
Now I’m wondering if the response will be to restrict the rights and freedom of women because a bunch of MFers can keep their pants up and their dicks in their pants. The Islamic fundamentalists men find it impossible to control their dicks — those “things” just take over and do bad things to women — so that’s why women have to wear those full body shrouds and be escorted by a male relative. (That was sort of a snark.)
Women helped put a misogynist pig in the white house — the hostile environment for women isn’t going away soon — perhaps not in our lifetime.
Those Haunted houses are so disgusting — and the fact that it is considered “normal” and allowed without a major protest — shows how damned ingrained misogyny is in this culture.
The young women today don’t have a chance — they are being taught that self hatred is “normal”.
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Kookaburra says:
I keep saying we need to arm ourselves, show up with our pistols, waving over our head and saying “we’re hurt as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”
When I made the big jump from being one of the right-wing patriarchy enablers to full-on blamerville, I was very disappointed that the “militant feminists” I’d been warned about weren’t actually pushing for a bloody, violent revolution. I’d gotten my rifles all polished up for nothing!
But seriously, if there ever is a revolution, I’ll fight to be on a firing squad.
All I hear from the third wavers is “we have to stop the cycle of violence! Think of Gandhi!” FUCK THAT. If men wanted to stop it they had their chance.
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DT says:
So a 15-year old girl gets gang raped for two hours while there are a bunch of other people cheering and doing nothing to stop it. It should be a crime to watch a woman get raped without doing anything to stop it.
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Swannie says:
I remember WITCH ,,, thanks, that made me smile in the midst of all this patriarchial induced misery. We do indeed need to help each other … reading HALF THR SKY is fantastic lift to the spirit
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yttik says:
“Our problem is, as always, the Christian right, whose women are now and forever on the side of the patriarchy”
All women are on the side of the patriarchy at some point in time. We have no choice, it’s in the air we breath. It’s what we do to survive.
To declare a group of women “forever on the side of patriarchy” is why we remain so divided that we do not have the numbers needed to rise up and change the system. The requirements for group membership in the revolution are too stringent. We don’t build unity with other women, we single them out in groups and declare them the enemy.
Other women are not the enemy.
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Janis says:
Theresa, I know why men want to fuck so bad and hate what they fuck at the same time. Fucking isn’t about pleasure for them. It’s that simple. If you just stop telling yourself that they even think fucking is “nice,” that clears it up.
Men follow one philosophy of life: “If I get my dick in you, you lose.” It’s about dominance. Fucking and taking a shit in a woman’s cunt are the same thing to them.
Sex is a mildly physically enjoyable, transient way of settling dominance. Theya re above whatever they put their dicks into in the pecking order. That is LITERALLY all it’s about.
And a man is either a “nice guy” who thinks this way and feels bad about it, or else he’s an *sshole who revels in it. However, deep down inside, they all think it. Every last one.
They don’t think of it as you doing something nice for them — they think of it as you volunteering to be a toilet, so what sort of human filth must YOU be? Anyone who would volunteer to be a loser and moreover like it must be a subhuman piece of garbage! So treat her like one!
It’s really that simple. Sex != nice to men, no matter how much they act like they want it.
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m Andrea says:
All women are on the side of the patriarchy at some point in time. We have no choice, it’s in the air we breath. It’s what we do to survive.
While I guess I understand what you’re trying to say, technically, that’s an excuse. It’s same logic used when men say they must have sex or die. It implies that if one does not comply with patriarchal norms, the result is “non-survival”. No, the result is “surviving with less comfort”.
I’m not making a value judgement with regards to the choice itself to comply, or to what degree one feels comfortable complying with patriarchal norms. My only point is that it is a false dictonomy. A second point is that the process by which one concludes that argument is rendered subconsciously and a false premise must be accepted as true. This false premise sets women up to accept other invalid conclusions as well.
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madamab says:
yttik:
To declare a group of women “forever on the side of patriarchy” is why we remain so divided that we do not have the numbers needed to rise up and change the system. The requirements for group membership in the revolution are too stringent. We don’t build unity with other women, we single them out in groups and declare them the enemy.
Other women are not the enemy.
When a person, male or female, is actively working to fuck me over, then that person is my enemy.
Until they stop attacking my rights, the Christian right, male and female, are the enemy.
They are the ones doing the dividing, not me.
Personally, I don’t see how supporting the Equal Rights Amendment is a stringent requirement for being a feminist. If they don’t want to meet the minimum requirements, then that’s their problem.
Not mine.
Theirs.
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Bella Donna says:
The reason everyone makes a big deal of being “shocked” at this is because if they, like most feminists, recognized it as a not-to-unusual-happening, then the media might have to look slightly deeper into the culture that promotes such behavior.
So, instead it’s all “Oh my goodness, I cannot believe such an incident could happen in this day and age” “Wow what a weird and horrible, singular, one time, deviance from the norm.” “Also have you heard that those young men were poor and drunk and ethnic.” “Oh, look over there let’s see what Katy Perry and/or Congress is up to lately.”
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Branjor says:
What Janis said. She’s absolutely right.
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Janis says:
How ANYONE can have watched what happened last year as the entire nation tore two dedicated, bright, smart public servants into bloody girlie-bits … and have watched plenty of LIBERAL LEFT WING MEN AND WOMEN lick their chops, bare their fangs and JOIN IN … and then conclude that the problem is the Christian right is beyond me.
How facile. How simple. How WRONG. How many liberal men do you have to hear making rape jokes about Sarah Palin before you realize that the problem isn’t only on one side? How many left wing women did you have to hear call her a cunt and Hillary Clinton a monster and Dick-Cheney-in-pantyhose before you wake up? How many times did you have to hear LEFT WING WOMEN call Geraldine Ferraro a whore and say that Sarah Palin deserved to have happen to her exactly what happened to that poor 15 year old kid at that high school dance before you realize that your old ideas of who The Enemy was are WRONG? WAKE UP!
The Christian Right rakes their leaves before they blow into my yard at least. The hateful porn-addicted “murk that hot bitch” pigs on the left are the ones who I’ve since learned will dynamite my house at the first opportunity, thanks.
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yttik says:
It wasn’t women from the Christian right that gang raped this girl.
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bygones says:
When did this blog become a male hating space to the extent that Janis is portraying. I have a husband, son, brothers, and male friends and I take issue with her constant rants suggesting men are all “dicks” and potential rapists. Using the word “fuck” throughout a posting is beyond crude.
As for the Christian Right, they are out to hamper and subvert females as they cling to ridiculous versions of religious freedom. Until they cease with their agenda to prohibit abortion and recognize gay rights, there is very little room for dialogue.
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Janis says:
bygones, you take issue with my “rants?” I take issue with gang rape and all the other lovely accountrements of womanhating that we swim in all day long. To equate angry words with what women all over this planet have to endure is insane. Look around you. Yes, it really is that bad.
And in what universe do you think that the Christian right is the ONLY force out there doing damage to women? And why aren’t you as up in arms about the way that the Dems have sold us down the river? The Christian right didn’t — as I stated above — shred two female public servants into bloody bits last year, did they? Who did — the nice, pro-choice guys on “our” side, eh?
You need to redefine who you think the enemy is — sexism is a nonpartisan issue, and plenty of nice, vegan recycling atheists are just as capable of it as any fundamentalist.
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Violet says:
When did this blog become a male hating space to the extent that Janis is portraying. I have a husband, son, brothers, and male friends and I take issue with her constant rants suggesting men are all “dicks” and potential rapists.
Janis has left a grand total of 6 comments on this blog in all of 2009. That’s including the comment she posted just now, after yours.
This doesn’t strike me as “constant.”
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yttik says:
I have a husband, brother, son, father, and they’re all pretty decent men, but Janis’ post is still very truthful, men are trained from day one to believe that it is all about dominance, conquest, scoring. Men internalize the same negative messages that the patriarchy teaches to everyone.
Obviously it’s all about conquest and dominance, look at the harsh language. It means to screw one over. What’s one of our greatest insults? To tell someone to go get fucked. If men were approaching the act from a position of non-dominance, it would be called enclosure or envelopment or something, and it wouldn’t be phrased as the ultimate degradation.
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no pasaran says:
“You need to redefine who you think the enemy is — sexism is a nonpartisan issue, and plenty of nice, vegan recycling atheists are just as capable of it as any fundamentalist.”
I couldn’t agree more. I was just browsing “Sierra”, the Sierra Club magazine, and in their Nov/Dec 2009 issue in their “Up to Speed: Two months, One Page” column they published the following blurb verbatim and in its entirety (their caps):
“A Berlin BROTHEL OFFERS DISCOUNTS for customers arriving by bicycle or public transportation.”
So, do women not read Sierra? Do the editors not realize how offensive and wrong this is? Do the editors/writers think this is cute?? Am I supposed to applaud that these men are green conscious when they are about to partake in slavery?
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Aspen says:
All of the criticisms of misogynist lefties are well and good.
The Democrats (who are NOT left wing, by and large, and are even less feminist than they are left wing) did what they did to try and win the same type of scumbag voter who was attracted to the swiftboating and lewinskygate tactics the Right had already mastered, and it worked. Castigate them for that, but stop giving them a title they don’t deserve. Just because any two-bit jackass found anywhere on the net who supported Obama in 08 got kicks spewing misogynist venom doesn’t make it reasonable that I and other left wing feminists should have to continue to be characterized with them.
Now that we have established that some Democrats are jerks, shall we move on? The POLICIES of the Right, i.e. neoliberal economics as opposed to democratic socialism, are extremely destructive to women and all other beings on earth, and possibly other galaxies near and far. I’m going to support female politicians, like Marcy Kaptur, who kick neoliberal ass. Right wing candidates, not so much. The Right’s policies favor the privileged over the less privileged Every. Single. Time. they get a chance. I’m not willing to give up my values just to get back at stuck up Democrats.
When a person, male or female, is actively working to fuck me over, then that person is my enemy.
Seconded.
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tinfoil hattie says:
I want to disagree with Janis – I, who am rearing two great, feminist sons and am married to a wonderful, feminist, non-woman-hating man who in fact does not view sex as conquest.
I want to rise up and protest and say, “You’re wrong! What about my Nigel(s)!”
But my head keeps nodding in vigorous agreement. So much so that my neck is getting sore.
Anger is powerful, as we all know – I daresay every woman here has been the object of some man’s anger, to her great detriment. So my m.o. has been to keep churning up the anger. Keep fanning the flames. I just never shut up anymore. I won’t let conversations “go” when some sexist bullshit comes up. I frame every single thing in terms of how it affects women.
I have misogyny-colored glasses now, and the damn things just won’t come clean.
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tinfoil hattie says:
Churning up MY anger, I mean. Because if I get my anger going, and other women start paying attention, which they do – we are going to be the ones who begin the slow turn of the tide.
I may not live to see the tide change. But for now, I will do everything I can to set the change in motion. I can’t live with myself otherwise. I can’t “un-know” about misogyny, sexism, and the truth about how women live in this world. All of us.
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Keri says:
I agree tinfoil, better we push hard against the misogyny, it was because some second wavers in the late 60′s and early 70′s pushed hard with radical leftist feminism that that made “mere” liberal feminism was rendered “acceptable” to law makers. It’s firebrand leftists like Andrea Dworkin rather than those “liberals” who became media players like Gloria Steinem that gave us victories. If you “play nice” the misogynists, left, right and center will walk all over you. You fight back hard and keep fighting.
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angie says:
FWIW, I’m with yttk, Janis & tinfoil hattie on this one argument. Blaming the “religious right” is the easy way out. Seems to me there is plenty of misogyny to go around on both sides of the aisle.
But, more importantly, I had to let you know about the story my mother told me about on my way home from work. An Iraqi man (now living in Arizona) ran over & killed his daughter with his car because she is “too westernized.” See his ugly mug here:
http://www.yourwestvalley.com/.....38;id=9992
Put aside the utter stupidity of the man for moving to the states, having & raising a daughter here & then being shocked, shocked! that she would become “westernized,” this all happened last week & we are just now hearing about it.
Sadly, a google search for the story will show just how many Iraqi men regularly kill their daughters for “dishonoring” them.
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madamab says:
Hello. Reality check here?
Despite what some are implying, never, EVER did I say that the Christian Right was the only enemy. What I said about that group was directly in response to yttik’s talking point about how I should join hands with Christian Rightist women so I can elect people who are bound and determined to give control of my body over to the patriarchy and to NOT pass the ERA.
No thanks.
And yttik, you know very well that I did not say, imply or even think that the Christian Right raped that woman. What an absolutely ridiculous thing to say.
At least when I argue, I argue honestly.
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madamab says:
I’m going to just say this again.
When a person, male or female, is actively working to fuck me over, then that person is my enemy.
So no, I was not blaming the entire patriarchy on the Christian Right.
I sure hope that is clear enough for everyone to understand.
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angie says:
Sorry, madamab, but if we are being honest here, what you wrote was:
“Our problem is, as always, the Christian right, whose women are now and forever on the side of the patriarchy”
See that “as always” in your original sentence? Despite what you may have intended that *does” imply that our *only* problem is *as it always is* the Christian right. So your statement in your most recent post that you “never implied” that the Christian right isn’t the only enemy isn’t honest.
For myself, I’m tired of women making any woman an “enemy.” I might think they are wrong, I might think they are misguided, but a de facto enemy? That’s the opposite of sisterhood.
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Violet says:
Christ on a ramen noodle! I’ve been too busy tonight to watch this thread, and here you all are throwing food and arguing about who’s the enemy.
First thing: no matter who may or may not be the enemy, I’m quite sure that none of the people in this thread are. You’re all here, commenting on a radical feminist blog. You’re all in at least some degree of agreement with me, the crazed proprietor of said blog, or else you probably wouldn’t be here. This already makes you a tiny, select group of cognoscenti whose political DNA is 99.99999999% identical. If we were a religion, the bunch of us could call ourselves The Elect and start secretly producing fake gold tablets to fool the masses. So for heaven’s sake, hold your fire.
As for the religious right, why are we even talking about that? I believe MadamaB brought it up in connection with political opposition to the ERA. Obviously the Christian right is neither the source nor sole reservoir of misogyny, and nobody has claimed otherwise. Once again, I’m stunned by the agreement-to-the-eighth-decimal-place in operation here.
By the way, on the ERA: MadamaB, I have reason to believe that NOW is not actually going to put any juice behind that. I think they are going to focus on equal marriage (gay marriage) instead.
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cellocat says:
Violet: By the way, on the ERA: MadamaB, I have reason to believe that NOW is not actually going to put any juice behind that. I think they are going to focus on equal marriage (gay marriage) instead.
Really? That is a big, sad, disapointment. I thought the new President of NOW had more backbone than that.
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Some things I’ve been reading « Urocyon’s Meanderings says:
[...] was looking for more on that theme at Reclusive Leftist, and had to link to Violet’s post on Gang rape as entertainment. “Like Nine Deuce, I’m a little surprised at myself for being surprised. After all, I’m [...]
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madamab says:
Violet – Wow, that is some really bad news about NOW and the ERA. (And yes, the context of my comment was exactly as you said. Thank you.)
I definitely feel that the ERA can be used to give equal rights to the LGBT community as well. But I never thought that NOW would change its focus from women to LGBT. That sucks! Women never seem to be able to put themselves first, not even in their own organizations.
I was hoping to join with NOW and do some marches and actions on behalf of ratifying the ERA.
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Sasha, CA says:
Cannonfire has a post about this haunted house issue in which he accuses Nine Deuce (the author of the original post Violet linked to) of making “hyper-paranoid assertions” of the sort that “make some women feel better about themselves.” The comments are unfuckingbelievable. Everything from the usual “there’s no connection between porn and violence against women” to the argument that both men and women actually empathize more with women, and — my personal favorite — someone comparing the rape, torture, and sexual mutilation of women to male circumcision! I probably shouldn’t be surprised given Joseph’s past displays of sexism, but his comment section is starting to resemble MRA central.
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RKMK says:
I imagine if there were an overwhelming cultural zeitgeist amongst women towards enjoying ultra-violent movies that celebrated the sexual humiliation and mutilation of men and their genitals by women, Joseph Cannon would sing an entirely different tune.
