I'm back in town and trying to catch up on my reading and these three articles crossed my path within a few minutes of each other, and they are tossing around in my head, in a magical cosmic salad of sorts.
I'm too tired to write anything coherent about them at the moment, so without further ado (plenty of ado tomorrow, I promise) I direct your attention to these three posts:
Firstly, check out Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Misogynist, Wrong, from Fundie Watch (who somehow always manages to turn these fundie rants from freaky to funny).
After reading that (yes, I think the order is important), visit a cat and twenty, for in defense of male-bashing... because, well, she's got a point.
And the multifaceted Poor Bashing...the sexualization of poor wimmin is actually the erotic oppression of ALL wimmin from Dark Daughta. This is of particular interest to me, as I'm currently trying to navigate all the political implications of sexuality in my own life.
men... women... relationships... power... sexuality... anger... fear... There's a lot in these articles. So grab a hot drink and get readin'.
3 comments:
hey redjenny, thanks for the linkage! and thanks for sharing the other two as well, they were both great pieces. the book dark daughta mentions at the beginning of her post is definitely going on my library list (that is, if the DC library actually has it, which is doubtful - the city infrastructure in this place is straight-up laughable. like, if it was published after 2005, they probably don't have it yet...)
KC, not sure why you removed your post, but I suspect it is because maybe after you wrote it, you actually read kate's post. Since she wasn't defending the caricature type of "male bashing" you probably thought.
The one thing I'd like to say is if you saw a child being continually punched by a bully and after being hit a hundred times, the child hits back, would you scorn that child and say "violence isn't the way, kid" or would you inside cheer the kid on. The correct answer is neither, you'd step in there and help get the bully away from the kid. But failing that, you'd at least not criticize the kid for self defense. Yes, violence isn't the answer and blah blah blah, but sometimes the situations are such that certain things that be excused. Similarly with the anger and fear some women feel towards men. Yes, generalizations are faulty, and yes, we want to try to build some sort of harmonious society in which equality is something we don't have to think about, but women have been in the position of slave for thousands of years and sometimes the progress isn't fast enough and we get frustrated. We aren't perfect and for men to demand that we must not be mean or unreasonable or "reverse-sexist" is, well, just patriarchal. These are our real lives that are at stake here: our financial means, our freedom, and our bodies are violated over and over. Nearly every woman has been violated in one of these ways, or knows someone who has. So when kate asks, "if it's not entirely fair - or, dare i even say, reasonable - for us to approach interactions with the male gender with no small amount of wariness or suspicion"... she has a point.
She also has a point when she ties all forms of oppression together under the banner of the economic. This, you of all people should agree with - based on your previous comments on my blog. The truth is that none can be liberated until all are liberated. Does it make any difference at all for African American women that Condoleeza or Oprah have risen so high in the male and white supremacist world? I don't want to win at their game; I want to change the game. But in the meantime, we fight for what we can.
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