Define: kyriarchy

I would like to alert everyone to this Interesting post on “Kyriarchy”

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Emma Goldman strikes again

Big Trubs, by Allyson Mitchell.

[Woman] can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right of anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them, by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities; by freeing herself from the fear of opinion and public condemnation.”
– Emma Goldman, “Woman Suffrage,” from Anarchism and Other Essays (read here). Found in “Raise Some Hell: A Feminist Childrearing Zine for Everyone,” @ zinelibrary.info.

We used to talk a lot about whether cisgendered feminist women can dress and act the ways that mainstream society expects of us—how our gender presentation and sexuality relate to our feminism. Does normalizing second-wave-style feminist response to social expectations—e.g. refusing to shave and wear bras or makeup—violate individual women’s freedom of choice? Do third-wave-style responses, or “choice feminism”—wearing makeup, wearing typically feminine clothes, etc.—devalue women in society? Personally? Both?

Any monolithic standard of behavior fucks with people’s freedom of choice—no matter how integral choice is supposed to be to the standard. Second-wave feminism (and its offshoots) can make you feel like a traitor to the movement, complicit in your own oppression and others’, for having a femme-y gender presentation. Third-wave feminism makes you feel like an irrelevant troublemaker if your “choices” don’t cooperate with some version of the status quo. I believe that superfemme presentation and noncooperation can be equally liberating for different people, and I think we create false extremes that divide us. From now on, I’m going to try and trust and support you if you want to wear lipstick. But you have to trust and support me in my choice not to.

I’ve recently made very classic dirty feminist-looking choices about my body and my appearance—I don’t shave my legs or pits, wear makeup or sexy clothes, or have pretty hair. In a post-third wave world, this constellation is judged variously as: uninformed, outdated, regressive, gross, pointless, and, frequently, oppressive. I feel like we’ve talked here as well about whether it is oppressive. I’d like to submit: on the contrary! The very, very contrary. And I’d also like to say that I think everyone should think seriously about making second-wave-y choices.

When you think about it, pretty much every physical expectation of women in our society requires us to participate in constructing ourselves as sex objects. Shaving, wearing make-up, having long, pretty hair, attractive clothes, etc… First off, what the fuck. And second, for this post, I will refer to these processes as “sexualization,” but I really mean “mundane sexualization”—in other words, those sexualizing processes that have become part of our standard definition of femininity. Purposeful sexualization for the purposes of turning people on is another topic for another post, to me, anyway. (Also, I’m only going to talk about some very obvious banners of femininity here, rather than deal with newer expectations like surgery, tanning, etc.)

So, the question at the heart of our neverending debate is, should women sexualize themselves in society? Can making yourself look hot or normal be a tool for general empowerment? The societally approved third wave wants us to feel like accepting and performing our own sexualization is an aspect of our liberation. And here’s where Emma Goldman comes in—I think you can exchange “suffrage or the ballot” for “razors or make-up” quite neatly. There is nothing they can do for us that we can’t do better ourselves, and we can never change how they essentially function.

The communities I grew up in, like the communities most people grew up in, were dominated and created by men and other people who value, judge, and commodify women based solely on our appearances. For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, I’ve shaved, made myself pretty, showed off my body, etc. because I wanted to be judged positively and seen as valuable by my communities. And that is such bullshit, to drag women into caring about all that crap because it’s the only value they have in some communities. For some time after becoming dimly aware of feminism, I tried to actively choose to do all that stuff, but it just felt like artificial intelligence—like being a dumb robot with the curse of reason, thinking about why it should follow its programming when in fact it has no choice.

Sexualization by choice and sexualization by default are no different. Society wants women to be sex commodities, and because society expects women to sexualize themselves, it will never bother respecting their reasons. That’s just its due. Daily life in the United States is like a giant Miss America pageant. Thinking critically about society’s requirements and continuing to accept them just traps you in the contest. No judge is going to ask or care why you shaved your legs. They just expect it. It doesn’t occur to them that it might be a choice, and I think we need to ask ourselves whether it even is one before we try to go there in society at large. (I do want to leave sexual relationships out in this post. However, let it be said: your partner should want to talk to you about why you do things to your body and respect your decisions, as part of a practice of consent. I think there’s some kind of magic about a healthy, communicative intimate relationship that allows people to critically examine their own expectations much more readily than in society at large. So in other words, I’m not saying it’s a fool’s errand to even make people think about why women are doing things. Your boyfriend should be able to respect your choice to shave your legs as a choice, and if he doesn’t, dump him.)

On the other hand, if you don’t meet the requirements, you’re not even worthy of their attention—and it rules. It seems like most people don’t even want to judge my worth based on how well I’m sexualizing myself, cause I’m so weird and unfeminine, so I don’t have to deal with them expressing their opinions. What’s more, I don’t have to constantly worry about whether they find me acceptable. Hairy armpits disqualify you. You can get off the stage and find some peace and quiet. Free from “the fear of opinion and public condemnation,” you are FINALLY able to actually devote a reasonable amount of attention to the “meaning and substance of life in all its complexities.”

I’m not really going to touch on the other oppressive categories Goldman mentions—the all-powerful State, reproductive expectations, husband/family, but basically, the same holds true—I believe in ignoring what any particular construction (of work, government, age/status in life, family, etc.) demands from you and trying to see things objectively. Most social constructions were created and/or cemented arbitrarily, and whoever did it probably didn’t have you or anyone like you in mind. Following along with them for whatever reason will never do you any good; it only feeds the apparatus that continues to oppress you (whether the agent of the apparatus means to or not). (Following the system can be and is sometimes neutral, and sometimes you need to do it just to get by, though. I also want to add that I’m lucky enough to fly under the radar in many other ways—I’m white, young, cis, pretty, financially subsisting, able-bodied, etc., and I don’t mean to malign the choices anyone makes to survive.)

I just feel so, fucking, FREE. I feel like a person. There is no, “I’m supposed to look…” or “I should worry about…”. I don’t sweat it when I forget deodorant (HA), I don’t shower every day, and I don’t get worried about my mascara smudging, or my hair unstraightening, or my leg hair growing. I never realized how much brainpower those thoughts drain, and it’s a LOT. Sure, there are new expectations of me, but I have more power over them because I’ve purposely bought into these constructions of what a woman can be.

Life is “simpler, but deeper and richer.” There’s so much stuff I don’t have to worry about any more, and so much more time to think and be happy.

I can buy blush, heels, razors, and haircuts, but I sure as shit could not have bought that.

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creepy experience with a potential creeper

so today i went on a walk. i was dressed in a long flowy patterned skirt, a black tank top, flip flops, a long necklace made of shells, two rings, and a bracelet, with my hair in a long braid. FYI my skin is brown and my hair is black and people say that i look “indian” whatever that means. im 5’4″. and i have a long-term boyfriend (which is relevant to this story) and i love him and he is super nice and devoted to me and he is a feminist and he is like one of the few men in the world im comfortable being around.

so on my way home from my walk, i was sweating up a storm because it was hot and humid outside. but i must have looked approachable despite my eclectic appearance, for this 40-something man comes up to me, 15 feet near my house (i hope he didn’t know that that was my house), and says, “hi, i saw you in tarrytown, and its nervous to talk to someone you dont know. and i just think you are really pretty, and you must be a nice person.”

at this point i was still flattered. i had seen this guy walking out of town as i walked into town. i dont remember if i smiled at him or just ignored him. i have this huge problem when i walk in populated places. i dont know where my eyes should go. first of all, im nearsighted, so its awkward to sqiunt at someone who might be someone i know. i dont remember though, if i had this problem since before i became nearsighted a few years ago. so i walk and walk, and there are plenty of people, walking around, or sitting around, or talking to each other. i dont know if it would be aggressive to look at them, and my natural impulse is to look at the ground a few feet ahead of me. it feels safer, since i dont know what people me to do with my eyes, atleast i wont have to watch them be awkward around my own awkwardness. but then, i feel like im being passive and submissive. so i try to look ahead of me at eye level, sometimes smiling at people with babies and pets, but usually not smiling because many people tend to look straight ahead of them and not smile back, and then i feel sheepish for having made the effort of smiling at them. also i worry, what if someone saw me smile at them and them not smiling back, and thought i was a fool?

damn, it sucks to be me? idk.

so i dont remember if this 40-something man, who has a mustache and beard, mostly black, peppered with some white, and misaligned teeth (not too bad, many people have misaligned teeth and they are not altogether unappealing to look at), maybe 5’7″, wearing a faded teal t-shirt and probably jeans and i think dark sneakers…was someone i smiled at the first time he saw me. probably i tried to look at him to send him the message that i wasnt afraid of him (even though i kinda was, im afraid of mainstream looking white people, as well as white men with a weird/cautious gait, which he had). but i tried and looked at the faces of many people i met, so that i wouldnt seem/feel scared of them.

so here i am, on my way back home, pretty much there already. the guy is walking towards me, as though he were on his own walk out of town and then was walking back into town. i looked at his face again and then diverted my eyes to look straight ahead in front of me as soon as i saw that he was nervously meeting my eye. do not want to get into a conversation with this stranger. he says, “hi, i saw you in tarrytown, and i just think you are really pretty, and you must be a nice person.” so i feel like he’s just being a nice person, like my friend alene, who says nice things like that randomly to people, and then is offended when theyre weirded out. i dont want to offend people who are random kind strangers. so i take off my headphones and i say, “oh thanks,” chuckling appreciatively. oh lord. i wish i hadnt. then he says, “if sometime, youre free, i would like to talk to you,” and im like oh shit i shouldnt have let my guard down, but im still optimistic that he means he wants to hang out as friends. im like maybe he just wants to meet someone to be friends with because maybe he is hopelessly depressed and suicidal and maybe a kind word from me would detract him (this reminds me of lucie’s stand-up comedy piece about a similar, though probably fictional situation). but theres a lot of weird tension and i think he is looking at my chest. so i go, “well that would be good, but i already kind of have a boyfriend, if that’s what you mean,” and he’s like “yeah, youre probably too young for me anyway,” and im like “yeah” (i wish really badly that i had said, “youre probably too old for me” dammit. i want to be more assertive and less “sure id totally fuck you, and ofc you can be on top obviously, if only it werent for my pesky boyfriend!” ew ew ew ew this is really grossing me out but thats how i feel, like i might as well have said that instead.)

and then he’s like “how old are you, twenties?” and im like “mhm,” cuz all this is happening too fast for me to formulate how im going to tell him to go fuck off, and he’s like “youre from india, right?” and im like “yeah” and he’s like “and your parents are from india?” and im like “yeah” and i feel really mad that i was so conciliatory and let him get away with asking me personal questions. he’s like “so are you religious in any way?” and im like “that’s a complicated question” and he’s like “yeah, i feel a real affinity with indian culture something blabla spiritual” and im like “mhm,” and he’s like “what’s your name” and this is what im most mad about, that i didnt say “ramona” which is my fake name for creepers who might be stalkers, and tell him what my real name is. and he goes “im jim” and he hands me his hand and i shake it and i ingratiatingly say “nice to meet you” because at this point the choice is between telling him off and potentially getting stalked/killed, or being nice to him and hoping he doesnt bother me anymore due to the nice impression i left on him, at least in my mind anyway. im afraid of this guy and i hope he lets me leave this conversation soon. and then he’s like “have a nice day” and im like “you have a nice day too and thanks for saying those nice things about me, im sure youre a nice person too” and then he walks off in the direction he came from. and im like did he walk all the way back from his walk towards the other direction, to say this to me???? so instead of walking straight to my house i kinda make a little detour and then walk to my house, looking behind me in case he wants to know where i live, and he’s not there so i go home.

well, fuck. was this guy a total creeper? ofc he embodies everything i hate about male-dominated rape culture, he intrudes into my life, probably because he feels (rightly) that i wont tell him to fuck off because im this passive indian woman who is wearing flowy south-asian inspired clothes and jewelry, and he thinks he has the right to comment on what i look like and what kind of person i must be (“a nice person”) and then he asks me out even though that is inappropriate because he is more than twice my age.

so how much should one be scared of a person like this? in general, im scared of most males, even if they dont do anything wrong to me, because i always feel like if things came to a certain climax, they would be mean to me and do something wrong to me. and this is not paranoia, because this is the pattern that has led to much of my alienation with males to begin with, even my little brother, who is not so little anymore. and plus so many of my female friends have to deal with patriarchal bullshit but feel like they cant say anything and then they continue to be kind, though maybe the slightest bit more distant, with these male friends who have hurt them. because women are taught to be graceful about being insulted or intruded upon or used or abused.

fuck this shit. i want to scream through a loudspeaker. i dont want to be graceful or elegant like i was with this man, sad and weird though he might have been. even someone so meek-looking and non-mainstream like him has the ability to make me worried about what he is going to do to me. not to mention his abhorrent rudeness and assumptions about my culture, life, family, religion, and personality. he thinks he has me figured out. he tricks me into shaking his hand. he leaves me unsettled about whether he knows where i live and whether he is going to follow me in the future or if he has already followed me to the point where we talked today. he tricks me into being nice to him when im actually afraid and want to back out of this conversation. im glad though that he turned around and left, instead of waiting for me to leave. though i dont think he understood to extent to which he had been making me uncomfortable. and even though he was somewhat courteous about it, nothing like “you have a hot body” or anything so overt as “i love indian women, they are so exotic, like you!”, everything he said amounts to the expression of a feeling of entitlement to talk to me, to know about me, to ask me out.

ew. im home safe and i took a shower. now im wearing men’s clothes. i feel better about this relatively small event. but i remain worried about the bigger implications of all this. and i worry that he lives in this town and i worry that my rejection made him feel bad and i worry that he may be suicidal and i worry that he will look up my name and follow me around and possibly kill me, like that man who killed the wesleyan student who had rejected his advances.

damn.

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Being a Woman: The Male Gaze and Saying No

First of all, hey everyone! I’m a new addition to the blog. 🙂 Aida, from Puerto Rico, rising junior at Brown, found this blog through Irene. Hopefully I’ll be contributing steadily. Anyway–I also wanted to let y’all know that I added two websites to the blogroll: Genderfork and Sociological Images. Now, for my first contribution–cross-posted from my personal blagh, found here.

—

In response to this (blog entry that just has an embedded video) and this:

The author here grosses me out.

That guy isn’t real. Somebody decided to make him up so they could write the “write fuck me on your chest and smile” line, claiming female = victim and that somehow, if only men would understand and be sensitive to this, it would be okay.

Most men aren’t anything like this guy, and for the rest of us the author has done nothing to improve our understanding of “what it’s like to be a woman.” If the author were listening, I’d respond: “Being a grownup means taking the fuck me sign off your chest and telling people ‘no’ or ‘piss off’ whenever necessary.”

Giving a reality check to a straw man, kind of annoying.

*

I see where the commenter is coming from, but I think it’s a *very* shallow reading of that clip. The message I got from this video/scene was different. Writing “fuck me” on his chest would be about drawing a parallel between the symbolic gesture and the reality of inhabiting a woman’s body–a body that is unfortunately read by some as “willing” just by virtue of being female. If the guy had actually gone out with the FUCK ME on his chest, it wouldn’t have been the same thing/feeling…but it wasn’t about him actually doing it. It was about showing the parallel between that and walking around with an INVISIBLE (yet oh so visible) marker of “oh yeah, sure, fuck me, that’s great, I really want it from you, thank you.”

A man walking naked with FUCK ME on his chest would be seen as abnormal, whereas a woman just walking around would not be. Violence against women is perpetrated because it’s, in a way, normalized. This is the narrative that we’ve been given; people assuming a naked man with FUCK ME scrawled on his chest wants and is ready for sex is not realistic, but people assuming a woman walking down the street wants and is ready for sex IS realistic. This whole scene is about the psychological impact; it’s about the female character trying to show this man how it feels by creating a “story” that APPROXIMATES that feeling. Taking that story to reality wouldn’t work, but THINKING about it and thinking about what it MEANS would certainly make an impact.

Woman is not inherently “victim,” but the truth is that in society, many times there is a strong correlation between the two. And if it’s not “victim,” it’s still the receiving end of violence, be it symbolic, physical, or both. And that being said…yeah–if only men could understand and be sensitive to the realities of living in a body marked as “female,” we would probably have less scenarios like this. A man would be way less likely to invade a woman’s privacy like what happened on The L Word if he understood how that shit felt. A man would be less likely to leer at a woman and think it’s okay to grab her ass if he understood how that felt. Obviously it would only be a start. Someone’s knowledge doesn’t predict what they will do with it.

But the thing is, there’s no real way to understand, FULLY understand, unless one has lived through it. Anything else is just an assumption, removed to a certain degree, or a sympathetic thought. No one can TRULY and wholly understand or “feel” what someone else is feeling. We have approximations, yes, and a “common language,” yes, but these are only approximations. Still, these approximations are valuable–very valuable. They’re the closest we have to the real thing, and they are important. And even if we can’t feel exactly what someone else has felt, there are probably huge overlaps, and we can sympathize and find solidarity.

Finally, the “…telling people ‘no’ or ‘piss off’ whenever necessary” comment? Telling people “no” or to “piss off” when necessary is a right (and sort of one’s duty to a certain extent), but to have that right respected? A totally different ballgame. Women usually don’t have the privilege of not having to worry that their “no” may not be respected or even taken seriously. Saying “no” doesn’t necessitate or equal a respect of that “no.” Just because a woman screams NO and fights back, does that mean a rapist will stop raping her? Just because we say NO, does that mean a mugger will suddenly return all our money and leave us alone? Just because a NO is necessary doesn’t mean it will WORK. There are various situations when saying NO just isn’t enough.

And sure, most men aren’t like the guy in the video, who will set up cameras all over your house…but that’s not the point. Most men aren’t rapists, or murderers, or robbers–but we still have to talk about those that are, and represent them in the media, and show that they exist. We still have to show that women are hurt, not to normalize that violence, but to show the realities of the world and that they are NOT ACCEPTABLE. We have to put these things in the forefront so people cannot ignore them, so people have to acknowledge them and get educated and DO something about it. The fact that a (presumably) Average Joe (whatever that is) cannot relate at all to this clip and feels that it provides NO insight into how it feels to be a woman is VERY distressing to me.

Addendum: By this post, I don’t mean to say that ALL women are a certain way or feel a certain way. No monolithic understandings of men and women apply. Kthx.

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My Blood Boiled at First but….

by middle I was hooked and I ended up thinking it was really interesting.  I haven’t read the actual study he’s talking about yet, so I’m skeptical about measuring happiness.  I think there’s a link to the original findings in the article for anyone who’s interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/opinion/26douthat.html?_r=1

~Lucie

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BMI Project and self lovin’

It ain’t easy being “obese” on a campus where the trend is to be a skinny hipster.  A place like Vassar should have so many happy wonderful women, and yet hardly a day goes by when I don’t hear some sort of comment come out of my mouth or a friend’s that has some self-hating laced with it, the vast majority of the time referring to weight and body fat. Even my professors who have been so formative in the development of my own feminism all seem to find themselves at the gym running on treadmills like hamsters on a wheel, claiming they need to slim down. It’s hard to find a balance in all of this. Sure we all want to be healthy and beautiful, but what if we already are?

For pretty much as long as I can remember doctors have been telling me I’m overweight or obese and that if I don’t do something about it there will be deadly consequences. Up until recently I’ve always accepted this as fact. And maybe in some ways it is. A lifetime of being the pudgy kid with glasses who gets picked last for kickball is certainly not the ideal healthy life style. And I do have to worry about health, as we all do for some reason or another. My mother has type 2 diabetes as did my grandfather. It’s in my genes, I’m at risk.

But after reading Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose and seeing her BMI Project, I’m starting to wonder just how seriously I should take my doctor’s warnings. Confession: I’m 5′ 6” and a fairly steady 190 pounds, BMI 30-31. I know, it’s alarming. But before we get all fat-phobic on me, let’s think about what that actually means. Last summer I hiked up and down Cadillac Mountain with relative ease. When not at school I travel my hilly hometown nearly all by foot. In high school and for the past few summers when I worked at the school, I walked every weekday a total of roughly 2.5 miles because I don’t have a car. While I’m not very fast, I can swim for pretty long periods of time without too much effort. I take a pretty strenuous yoga class once a week and while I’m no yogi, I manage to achieve new strength and peace with each class. My last checkup alarmed my doctor, because wouldn’t you know I have excellent cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure levels, despite being “Obese” according to my BMI. Everything about my health was normal or better than normal. But still my doctor pulls me into her office to have a “serious talk” with me. It’s time to take care of my health she says. If I don’t do it now I’ll regret it my whole life. But what if I’m actually healthier just as I am?

Could I eat more veggies? Of course, even as an aspiring vegan, I know I don’t eat enough leafy greens and too many french fries. Should I go exercise more? Sure, and so probably should you, dear reader of the interwebz. But maybe as a young non-smoking 20 year old I’m a lot healthier and hotter than I, and you, and my doctor give me credit for. And maybe we should stop freaking out that I’m so fat. Because in terms of health, the only thing really “wrong” with me is the amount of vertical force I exert as a result of gravity, which I’m just gunna put out there I kinda have no immediate control over. I’ve been to nutritionists, endocrinologists, therapists, you name it. Is it poor diet? Poor exercise? Thyroid Problems? High Testosterone Levels? After lots of worrying, shame, depression, and loneliness, I still have no definite answers, and I’m still exactly as I am. And It starts to become obvious that maybe no one can fix me because there isn’t anything really wrong with me, despite what doctors and society tells me. Maybe it’s time to stop the hatin’ and just love myself for myself. I know super rad, right?

So if you call yourself a feminist, stop playing into the patriarchy of the health profession, media, and whatever and start to love yourself, and all your womanly curves, lovely lady lumps, or whatever you want to call them. Love the woman at the heart of this fight–yourself.

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I’m back!

I’m really, really grateful that people actually want me on this blog…I felt like I was being a dick to people, and I felt like I was not contributing positively to the discussion, so I withdrew myself. I would love to continue contributing to the discussion, though, and thank you for being so generous in allowing so many different voices (such as mine) in here. And please feel free, everybody, to challenge anything and everything I say! Anyway. I’ve been having all kinds of thoughts recently on the origins of Patriarchy, and I’d love to know what y’all think. Let’s all follow this train of thought for a bit, if you’d be so kind:

One of the first things the Patriarch realized was that he could not create. The Patriarch could surely make things–fashion objects, construct constructions (social and otherwise)–but he could not physically create life. From the Patriarch’s point of view, this is what separated him from the biological female. For him, at the most basic level, the difference between male and female is nothing greater than labels we slap on to organisms to indicate the “impregnator” and the “impregnated.” And yet, in the Patriarch’s world, this was all the difference in the world–quite literally. Within this world-view, the power to create life is indeed an inherently female power–and so it has been viewed as such, at least, for much of human history.
But, if the one unifying factor of all life on this planet is that it emerged from a female organism, then the very absurd myth of life itself is female. The flowering of nature, the evolution of animals, the taking root of trees and the evaporation of water: to even say that these natural phenomena occur at all is to give voice to their femininity. This natural occurance of life–the very essence of creation–is female. Our misunderstanding of this concept gives rise to all of the problems as in the world today, none so great as the Patriarchy itself.
The Patriarch, confronted with his inability to create life, desired power: power that seeks to dominate life in its pre-existence, and does so by clawing and grasping at everything around itself. The Patriarch could not create life and so sought to control the life that he had been created within–faced with the inability to conceive, he conceived instead of gods, of races, of classes, all in the vain hope that by imposing this order on the world he could take part in some of the creation that was never his to have, gain some power over the universe which he so obviously lacked. And so the Patriarch choked female roots by chopping down trees, silenced female voices by constraining them in corsets, took away female movement by balancing it on high heels and binding its feet, destroyed female freedom by beating it, marrying it, shoving cameras up its skirt and punishing it for not producing more males to carry on the same practices. The Patriarch took away the female body by teaching it to starve itself and value itself only in its relationship to others. In denying the female Other, the Patriarchs hid from themselves the truth that they were nothing more at heart but vulnerable skin and bone and muscles, who must be born and die without having even directly produced life. His removal from the entire process made it a concept that could be ignored, if he tried, and so he tried hard. He sought an all-powerful father, who would dispel all such ambiguity, and an all-powerful mother, to assuage the guilt of the destroyer and to grant unconditional forgiveness. This is the origin of the concept of religion: a search for answers to the great question of life–a question whose answer could be found in no obscurer place than between a woman’s legs. And so, to spite it all, this place was made obscure, made secret and made shameful. Unearthly spotlessness was the only realm in which man felt safe from the very human and substantive female body–so unnatural white was chosen over inscrutable black. In this way the world fall under the sway of the Patriarchy, from underneath which is has floundered ever since.
The very nature of power is circular–it dominates because it is weak. If it was not weak it would never have undertaken such a shallow enterprise as domination. And so, the Patriarch–by his very nature, weaker than women–created a world in which the male is powerful: the world of the Patriarchy. Only in a world of such unqualified oppression could the dominance of such a weak being be possible. Such one-eyed self-centered thinking is masculinity in its rawest form–the inability to look outside of oneself and one’s own interests, origins, and vulnerabilities. The Patriarch wishes to dominate because he knows he will die–his inability to create life plants in him the envious, greedy urge to destroy. Just as he wishes to dominate women, he wishes to witness lesbian sexual activity and to thereby totally remove himself from the concept of sexuality: he wishes to remove himself from the pressures of performance anxiety, responsibility, compassion, and recognition of simultaneous connection and irretractable distance. In other words, men wish to blind themselves from the very nature of our lot in life as human beings. Men, living, yet unable to create life, seek to affirm their own power while thereby tacitly admitting that they have none–they are, after all, male. Life is female–if the very concept of creation is a feminine act–so the very process of living must be so too. Every negative development in the history of the world has been a movement away from recognition of this supposition.

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Vagina Horriblogues

The play was worse than this edit

So I just watched, for the first time, Mount Holyoke College’s production of The Vagina Monologues last night. (Find script here) I was expecting to feel encouraged and heartened by the play. But throughout the whole damn thing, I wanted to get up and leave. It was just awful. I hate this play. I’m feeling pretty angry right now, so the stuff I write is not gonna be eloquent or totally thought-out. All the fuck yous are directed towards the author and the characters (and sometimes, the actors who performed it) in the play, not to anyone on this blog (yet, unless someone says something that would make me say “fuck you” to them but I think I’d be more civil to you people because you’re my community). But here are some preliminary thoughts.

The Vagina Monologues are a huge step back for feminism. And here is why (not in order of levels of offensiveness):

1. It glorifies motherhood. One of the last scenes is about how it is so beautiful to watch a bruised vagina covered with shit and blood, giving birth, and being tired right after having given birth. Lady, stop staring at other people’s tired, oppressed vaginas. And stop telling women that having babies is wonderful. It is not. It fucking sucks. I wouldn’t know personally, but this is what every mother says to me, before feeling guilty and quickly saying how much they love their children. I know you love your children, mothers. But that is not the point. The point is that pushing their too-large heads through your too-small vaginas is a fucking sucky-ass way to do it, and it hurts, and what the fuck is this patriarchal glorification of women’s vaginas not only being beautiful (i.e. to be used for sex) but also useful (to give birth). How wonderful! Now you can have whatever you want, men, because women are in cahoots with you because of this stupid play.

2. It condones rape. A 24-year old woman molests a 16-year old girl, and the girl is all happy and loves it because she realizes that she doesn’t have to hate her vagina, that she can be a happy lesbian without depending on a man. Nice job. Now you have to depend on sketchy older women to show you how to really do it. I know how to do it myself, thank you. I have been molested, and I have been raped, but I know perfectly well how to pleasure myself. I learned it on my own, and I don’t like the message that other people have to validate my genitals for me. This is a mixed offense, because I do like the fact that the girl finally is over her past of being raped by a man, and over her past of a repressive mother telling her not to touch her “coochie snorcher.” But more often than not, if you are a sketch older women who molests a younger girl, it’s not going to turn out that way. She’s probably going to feel weird and guilty and molested. It is not a good message. There is also this other scene in which the woman is like this ditzy lady, and she’s talking about how this completely plain person “Bob” first made her see how her vagina is beautiful. Bob is a fucking asshole. He takes off her clothes, even though she says she doesn’t want that, and stares at her genitals for “almost an hour”. He says to her panting, “you’re so beautiful” while staring at her vagina. BOB YOU FUCKING SUCK AND I HOPE THAT YOU DIE. WHY ARE YOU EQUATING THIS PERSON’S BEAUTY WITH THE BEAUTY OF HER PUSSY? Why do you refuse to have sex with her without forcing off her clothes first? It’s not like she hasn’t already given you permission to have your way (see rape) with her. It ends up a happy story, with the woman finally loving herself and her genitals, all due to Bob. Again, I wouldn’t suggest this strategy. Bobs of the world, take warning: do not take off a woman’s clothes when she doesn’t want you to! I don’t care if you’re trying to show her how beautiful she (i.e. her vagina) is!!!!!! It is a form of sexual assault, and it’s more likely going to end up making her feel weird, guilty, and raped.

3. Very few (I think there were two, out of a cast of about 25) women of color chose to participate in the play, which a friend pointed out could have just been coincidence. She said that there also weren’t very many blondes who were acting in the play either (actually there were, I checked). But I think that women of color are probably offended by the play, because a) it doesn’t reflect their concerns and b) because it contains terrible racist expressions. For example, during the dominatrix sex-worker’s monologue, she talks about how much she loves it when women moan. Then she proceeds to pornographically demonstrate the moans of those women she has pleasured throughout her career as a sex-worker. She does an impression of the “power moan”, the “clit moan”, “the vaginal moan”, the “combo clit-vaginal moan”. All fine and good (not really, she was objectifying herself and other women, in order to give the play a measure of commercial success. Nice job compromising yourself so that the play can sell. Really. I hate you, stupid person). BUT THEN, she does the “African American moan” during which she moans in a really deep voice and at the end of it, says something that I can’t quite catch, but that I’m sure plays off some racist stereotype about African Americans. Nice job. You fucking suck and I hate you. How dare you perform this shit? How dare you try to say that black women moan differently than white women? How dare you homogenize a race like that you racist assholes? The message was that black women moan this one specific way, when feeling sexual pleasure. While white women can choose between a vast array of moans. I wasn’t aware that they were reserved, lady. I can’t even go on, this is such bullshit, I’m not sure how to express the violent rage that I am feeling, not sure how to express what is wrong with this particular monologue apart from what I said above. (It is worth noting that in the version of the script that I have posted a link to above, there is no mention of this “African American” moan, so that is just Mount Holyoke actors finding their new unique own way to be racist. But there is one of a “semi-religious” moan during which the sex-worker is supposed to say “oy-oy-oy” like a Jewish person. At my school, the sex worker character said out loud “Jewish moan” and then she did the horrible “oy-oy” and I wanted to kill myself. Nice job being racist again, Vagina Monologues, you never fail to disappoint.)

4. It reduces women down to their genitals!!!!!! (see #2, the example of Bob and the ditzy lady). WOMEN ARE NOT THEIR GODDAMN GENITALS. There’s all this bullshit in this play about how you are your clitoris, how you are your vagina. Fucking bullshit. Shut the fuck up. This is what men say to me everyday of my life. That I am nothing more than my ability to give, and receive, sexual pleasure. I know that receiving sexual pleasure for women is this new thing that they’ve never been allowed to do before, and it’s this like revolution that should make all women happy and take advantage of it. But this tactic of “don’t worry, it will feel good” is bullshit. This is rapist rhetoric. How the fuck is this play being championed as the messenger for the women’s rights movement? This play oppresses women, and oppresses me. I’m fucking angry.

5. There is this overt sexualization of women the whole fucking time they’re talking about sexual pleasure. These women are slithering all over each other in this horrible commercialized way, to indicate how receptive they are to sex, and how their discoveries have brought them so much sexual joy, which they are expressing with promiscuity. The kind of promiscuity that turns on straight American men. IS THIS GIRLS GONE WILD THAT I AM WATCHING? Actors (and no I will not call them actresses even though they’re women) of Mount Holyoke, are you fucking kidding me? Why are you coming onto the damn stage wearing high heels, tight clothes, corsets and fishnets, and talking to me about how I’m supposed to relate to you, to be “liberated” and “sexual” like you? I don’t fucking wear fishnets. I wear men’s clothes and sneakers. I am not going to put on your ridiculous torture-get-up and go around championing women’s rights while simultaneously promoting the values of the patriarchy: i.e. the constant talk and constant use and constant display of the vagina. I don’t like to use my vagina. I don’t want things inside of it. It hurts. I don’t want babies coming out of it. That would also hurt. (I do like using my clitoris, just to let you know Lucie, because I know you don’t want women throwing out the clitoris with the push up bra, and obviously I don’t want that either because glorifying the clitoris is way more okay than glorifying the vagina, in my opinion). I don’t want TO HEAR A BUNCH OF APOLOGISTS FOR FEMININITY, for torturous push up bras and high heels. Femininity deserves no apology. It is horrible and it is a tool against women (see Irene’s post about what makes her heart sing).

6. The play’s whole shtick is about how women shouldn’t be scared to look at their vaginas, and shouldn’t have hatred for it. This is a good point. But you know what? Although women’s self-hatred of their bodies does have to do with men making them feel bad about themselves, I think probably a good reason for women not looking at their vaginas is because THEY ARE MOSTLY IRRELEVANT TO OUR LIVES. All my vagina is good for is having sex with men, and giving birth, and providing an outlet for menstrual blood. THAT IS ALL IT DOES FOLKS. THAT IS NOT WHERE I FEEL MOST OF MY SEXUAL PLEASURE. THIS IS A MYTH FORMED AND PERPETUATED BY THE PATRIARCHY, men, who want you to use their vaginas to have sex with them. Why did this stupid author not name this thing the “Clitoris Monologues”? Though there is some mention of clitoral pleasure here and there, it is hardly the centerpiece of the play. I don’t fucking want to use my vagina. A vagina isn’t even like a thing, it is a space, it is a potential space, which can be opened when it is forced open by a penis or a baby. And I’m not fucking interested in fucking men or giving birth to babies. Fuck you.

7. It is steeped in materialism. Example of the girl who wants comfortable, luxurious consumer products for her vagina, like cotton panties built in with a French tickler, or fur-covered stirrups to put her feet inside when she is having a gyno exam. SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU STUPID IDIOT. I HATE YOU AND I HATE PEOPLE LIKE YOU. Do you know who is weaving the cotton for your damn cotton panties??? IT IS WOMEN IN SWEATSHOPS. Do you know where the fuck fur comes from? FROM CLUBBING SEALS TO DEATH. You are probably not even a vegetarian!!!!! I don’t even understand what the fuck this stupid fucking asshole is talking about. She wants to perpetuate the oppression on minority groups such as sweatshop workers and animals, so that she can fulfill her glorious American-style consumerist attitude towards her beloved vagina. Nice job white American feminist imperialist. No, actually, I was kidding, you didn’t do a nice job. I loathe you.

8. It makes fun of women!!!!!!!!! Feminism is about how women want to be taken seriously, you assholes!!! There are these insane monologues, by characters that are oblivious of their comedic value. There is a character who gets really upset because she thinks she’s “lost” her clitoris. She’s a full-grown woman, might I add. I think its worth noting that the patriarchy does make some women go crazy, and have crazy fears like this. But most women know perfectly well that they can’t lose their clitoris. It doesn’t fly away if you’ve done something bad. Of course, the whole audience erupts with laughter when she is expressing her fear (I can’t find this part on the script either, but I know I heard it last night). How silly, insane, and hysterical this woman is. Let’s laugh at her, and her concerns. And she isn’t the only silly, insane, hysterical woman on the play. There are a number of them, who all say ridiculous things to be funny, so that the play can be commercially successful. I’m incredibly unhappy with this. Enough laughing at women!!!!! Enough using them to make profits at their expense! Enough using feminism for monetary gain! ENOUGH. Just stop it. Don’t laugh at me. Don’t make me sound funny, and insane, and flighty, and womanly. We already have to fight that reputation. Don’t trivialize my concerns, sexist assholes.

9. At the end, there was this really upsetting slideshow about women who have been systematically raped in the Congo as a war tactic. And I suppose maybe it is good for us all to be aware of this happening. Every year, the people who do V-Day pick a different cause, apparently. But then, it ends, leaving us nothing but the assumption that “this needs to stop.” I distinctly felt that “these men are barbaric” but I don’t want to have to be made to feel like that. This stupid slideshow made these women seem like victims who couldn’t do anything in their lives, and the men seem like horrible barbarians. “Dark hordes,” to use the words of Bq. Homogenization. It didn’t say so explicitly, but that was the message. Is looking at this slideshow, and being made to homogenize the men (as nothing but barbarians) and women (as nothing but victims) of other cultures, and then forgetting all about, at all a good thing? NO it is not. It’s bad. (um not really expressing things well here, I have to go do hw real quick) If you want to help women in the Congo, you have to help men too. You have to learn a shitload about it, read and write and talk, and go there and be there. Don’t donate $3 and hope that it helps. Maybe the money is going to go towards the elites with power, who may choose to hurt the victims even more. Do you really know where your donation is going? Have you looked it up? Have you done so much as a cursory internet search? This message of throwing some money at a situation and hoping that it helps to make it better is a terrible message. There should be people at this play who know a lot about it, who give a speech, who lead workshops, who discuss books, on the topic. At any of these ridiculous plays, atleast there should be that measure of follow-up to atleast partially redeem the imperialist know-it-all attitude. (I would like to thank Bq for her dialogue with me, which shed light on all that I discuss in #9, which I was previously almost completely unaware of.)

There’s probably a lot more that I’ve totally forgotten to mention. As I said, I hate this play. It is a step backwards for feminism, and for humanity. And worst, it is considered one of the biggest progresses that the women’s rights movement has produced, which is obviously a really dangerous misunderstanding.

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patriarchy is everywhere

In this post, you will find: some incendiary thoughts to promote discussion. i do believe in these ideas, but i’m open to changing my opinions if compelling arguments are offered. and a bunch of personal revelations. for me, it is about time to come out with it!

1. Patriarchy is everywhere. Example follows in #2.
2. Men have the incentive to promote sex-positivism, as they have a lot to gain from the idea that women who exercise sex and sex appeal are using them as tools for empowerment. When in fact, these women are tricked into assuming a very specific kind of power, while forgoing many other avenues of expression and empowerment. Of course men would want to promote the idea that women having sex and being sexy and doing sex-work is a good thing for the women themselves. When in fact, I believe that it hurts women, while helping men to get what they want, i.e. sex. This kind of empowerment is dependent upon male response, and is therefore, not empowerment at all.
3. Heterosexual penetrative vaginal intercourse is inherently unequal. The man in this situation can orgasm so he has less incentive to stop, while the woman will rarely find it as pleasurable. Most women cannot climax through this kind of sex. Why, then, are they even having it? I know it must feel good for many women. But it doesn’t feel as good as so many other things, for many women. Why do women settle for an action that only feels kind of good sometimes? I have some ideas for why. It is because women feel culturally pressured into having sex, into feeling that they are not complete people if they have not had sex. I know why I sometimes have sex. It is to please the man. Coincidentally, it may sometimes feel pleasurable for me. But even if it didn’t, I would probably have this kind of sex. I have been tricked into attaching some of my self-worth to whether a man wants to, and will, have sex with me. (To my bejai-baby: I love you and we’ve talked about this and you are amazing and it’s awesome that you are willing to not have sex with me, though I won’t thank you for it, as it’s not exactly a favor that you are granting me so much as not prohibiting me from exercising my right that I already have to not have sex.)
4. It seems unnatural to think of not having sex. But power structures survive from generation to generation by the illusion of naturalness. The oppressor will make the victim think that SEX is how it has always been, that SEX is natural, that SEX cannot change. And the victim will believe him. And it will go on and on and on. The idea that women should reconsider having sex is met with great opposition, even from my like-minded feminist peers!

Thoughts please.

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Constructing Gender Inequality

This is from “Sex, Culture, and Justice: The Limits of Choice” by Clare Chambers. I think it’s a really intelligent clarification of the idea that “gender is a social construct”, a phrase oft-invoked but rarely explained:

“In Masculine Domination, Bourdieu asks why gender inequality has persisted throughout history despite significant social change. In general, Bourdieu is concerned with the question of why it is that many forms of domination persist with relatively few challenges: left to themselves and in the normal course of things, individuals will not disrupt structures of domination, such as patriarchy, from which they suffer (or benefit). Even if they have read and agreed with key feminist texts, most women do not stop wearing makeup, taking on the lion’s share of the housework and childcare, wearing restrictive and uncomfortable clothes and shoes that emphasize sexual availability, or being attracted to men with characteristics of dominance such as a powerful physique or job. Even if we believe that our desires are indeed the product of the norms and expectations of a patriarchal society, still we do actually like makeup, high heels, and men whoa re tall, buffed, and wealthy.

A central reason for the success of patriarchy, Bourdieu argues, is its ability to naturalize its distinctions. At the heart of any system of hierarchy is the distinction made between those who occupy different hierarchical positions. The system of masculine domination owes its success at least in part to its provision of “natural,” biological explanations for hierarchy. This point was also made within the liberal tradition by John Stuart Mill in The Subjection of Women. In response to the claim that sexual inequality is natural, Mill asks, “Was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?…So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural.

The naturalization of gender hierarchy is reinforced in several ways. Women are, according to the patriarchal story, different from men in that they have different bodies and different biological functions. They must be different from each other so as to reproduce; the differences could not be wished away, for without sex differences we would have no means of perpetuating the species. Moreover, these differences justify different positions on a hierarchy in that they dictate different behaviors for men and women regarding matters such as childcare, breadwinning, and courtship, which affect the wider social positions of the sexes. Instead, Bourdieu argues that the categories of gender are constructed and not necessary. Gender differences start with the socially constructed and thus contingent division of people into two kinds according to their bodies, and specifically their genitals. To say that this is a contingent division is to say that everyone could in theory have the same genitals, or that there is no biological difference between men and women, but it is to say that differences between genitals need not be socially significant. Christine Helliwell describes a tribe in Indonesian Borneo, the Gerai, for whom differences in work, not differences in genitals, are the determinants of a system of classification comparable to gender. Although there are people with different genitals in the Gerai tribe, this fact is not seen as particularly significant, and certainly not as the determinant of gender. While there is a correlation between different genitals and different genders for the Gerai, this correlation is contingent and not necessary. In Western societies, for example it is overwhelmingly women and not men who provide the primary care for babies in their first weeks of life. However, genitals and not childcare are the determinant of gender: a person with a penis who is the prime caregiver for a newborn baby is still a man. For the Gerai, in contrast, it is the work that is determining–a person who performs certain tasks in rice cultivation is a man, even if that person has a vulva. Helliwell herself was categorized as a man for some time after her arrival in the tribe as a result of the work she was able to do, despite the fact that everyone in the tribe frequently observed her genitals when she urinated in the stream used for that purpose. Thus, “As someone said to me at a later point, ‘Yes, I saw that you had a vulva, but I thought that Western men might be different.'”

Genital difference, then, does not necessarily signify different roles or identities. But once the difference between genitals has been instituted as socially significant, it is justified by reference to the naturalness of the distinction. In other words, in answer to the question “Why are genital differences socially significant?” the answer given would be something like “because there are differences in genitals.” Moreover, this difference is further idolized by its naturalness. If we ask, “Why are there differences in genitals?” we will receive the answer “because that is how nature is,” which is something like saying “because it couldn’t be any other way.” This circular reasoning leads, Bourdieu argues, to symmetry between the subjective and objective elements of domination. Subjectively, people believe that there are significant differences based on genital differences. Objectively, there are genital difference. The circularity comes in as follows: people believe that there are significant differences based on genitals, and people are inclined to notice and reify such differences because they believe that they exist. In sum, one of the key reasons for success of the system of male domination is its ability to make itself appear as natural–not only in the sense that differences between genitals are natural, but also in the sense that social differences based on differences between genitals appear natural.“

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