Sunday, April 30, 2006
Ole Mis
So I made kind of a stupid mistake the other day while commenting on http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/ , wherein I used the word "misandrist" to describe the condition of hating men as a class. Although I made it clear that I did not think there was wide-ranging and oppressive misandry crushing the spirits of poor hapless men everywhere, I did allow as how individual women could (and did) hold men in specific and manhood in general beneath contempt, and the root cause of all evil and misery in the world, and a worthy object for negative feelings to be projected upon.
but nobody seemed to be buying what I was selling. there was a little scorn, a little disdain, a little debunking...but not a lot of agreeing. if you like you can follow the whole shootin' match here:http://www.haloscan.com/comments/bitingbeaver/114599121621469146/#54920.
I don't mind being disagreed-with, not at all. Further, I am grateful to Biting Beaver for her hands-off moderation style which allowed for much reasonable and educational discourse. however, I'm just not really finished mouthing off on the subject, and I'd rather not hijack anyone else's dissent-safe space*. So, here we go.
Hi, I'm Heidi and I'm an occasional misandrist.
I hate some individual men all the time, notably my pestilential exhusband and George Bush and that walleyed moron Dick Cheney.
I hate all men (almost all men, save two - statistically all men, if you will) some fractional portion of the time, notably when I see example after example after tedious, frustrating, headdesking example of patriarchal entitlement. yep. there are days when men as a class make me want to run screaming from the dick-swinging, conversation-dominating, bossy and aggressive almighty Y chromosome and find a quiet place to shine a penlight at my cervix or something.
I think many women disdain men as a class sometimes. I think that the condition of disdaining men as a class can rightly be called "misandry". I also think that pretending misandry is a slanderous fiction created by misogynists to sully the good name of feminists everywhere and thereby discredit all questioning and forward-thinking women in one fell swoop is a head-in-the-sand solution to a non-existing problem.
do I hate men? sure, sometimes. what of it? why should that insult me personally? why should it insult womankind in general?
for the record, I can occasionally be rightly accused of misogyny - I hate at least one woman all of the time, one whose name cannot be said for fear of summoning her, my own Lady Voldemort.
I also admit to hating all women some of the time. Womankind, the all-powerful sisterhood, my own XX chromosomes - some days all of it makes me want to run screaming from the pink-ribboned vulvolalorrhea of the eternal underdog and go pound down boilermakers while watching The Man Show, just to establish some equilibrium.
OK - now I think I'm done, at least for a while.
Any thoughts?
*thanks to Delphyne who helpfully pointed out that BB's blog was not especially "dissent-safe", although she said I said "dissent-free" - I get her point. I was absolutely wrong about that. there's plenty of dissent over there, of the more-or-less healthy variety. I stand corrected on that point. Thanks again, Delphyne!
So I made kind of a stupid mistake the other day while commenting on http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/ , wherein I used the word "misandrist" to describe the condition of hating men as a class. Although I made it clear that I did not think there was wide-ranging and oppressive misandry crushing the spirits of poor hapless men everywhere, I did allow as how individual women could (and did) hold men in specific and manhood in general beneath contempt, and the root cause of all evil and misery in the world, and a worthy object for negative feelings to be projected upon.
but nobody seemed to be buying what I was selling. there was a little scorn, a little disdain, a little debunking...but not a lot of agreeing. if you like you can follow the whole shootin' match here:http://www.haloscan.com/comments/bitingbeaver/114599121621469146/#54920.
I don't mind being disagreed-with, not at all. Further, I am grateful to Biting Beaver for her hands-off moderation style which allowed for much reasonable and educational discourse. however, I'm just not really finished mouthing off on the subject, and I'd rather not hijack anyone else's dissent-safe space*. So, here we go.
Hi, I'm Heidi and I'm an occasional misandrist.
I hate some individual men all the time, notably my pestilential exhusband and George Bush and that walleyed moron Dick Cheney.
I hate all men (almost all men, save two - statistically all men, if you will) some fractional portion of the time, notably when I see example after example after tedious, frustrating, headdesking example of patriarchal entitlement. yep. there are days when men as a class make me want to run screaming from the dick-swinging, conversation-dominating, bossy and aggressive almighty Y chromosome and find a quiet place to shine a penlight at my cervix or something.
I think many women disdain men as a class sometimes. I think that the condition of disdaining men as a class can rightly be called "misandry". I also think that pretending misandry is a slanderous fiction created by misogynists to sully the good name of feminists everywhere and thereby discredit all questioning and forward-thinking women in one fell swoop is a head-in-the-sand solution to a non-existing problem.
do I hate men? sure, sometimes. what of it? why should that insult me personally? why should it insult womankind in general?
for the record, I can occasionally be rightly accused of misogyny - I hate at least one woman all of the time, one whose name cannot be said for fear of summoning her, my own Lady Voldemort.
I also admit to hating all women some of the time. Womankind, the all-powerful sisterhood, my own XX chromosomes - some days all of it makes me want to run screaming from the pink-ribboned vulvolalorrhea of the eternal underdog and go pound down boilermakers while watching The Man Show, just to establish some equilibrium.
OK - now I think I'm done, at least for a while.
Any thoughts?
*thanks to Delphyne who helpfully pointed out that BB's blog was not especially "dissent-safe", although she said I said "dissent-free" - I get her point. I was absolutely wrong about that. there's plenty of dissent over there, of the more-or-less healthy variety. I stand corrected on that point. Thanks again, Delphyne!
Friday, April 28, 2006
Greetings -
I've been lurking around the radfemblogosphere for a goodly while, occasionally screwing my courage to the sticking-place to post here or there. Usually what happened next had all the hallmarks of non-consensual public humiliation. (So much for schwesterhof.) Finally today I realized that while my comments may not be especially welcome on other people's blogs, that did not mean I had to suffer in silence.
So here I am.
Don't get the wrong idea. I am not an "amazing new voice." I'm not bucking for a Koufax by any means. I'm just a girl with her handy-dandy pocket Constitution burning a hole in her jeans, a cranky old fat lady who still has a battered old coffee-stained library edition of Sisterhood is Powerful propping up her wobbly sofa leg - and I'm not afraid to use it!
See, I just don't get the sense that this world, this culture, this neverending Waterloo of gender was really what they had in mind, the Florynce Kennedys and Shulamith Firestones and Ti-grace Atkinsons and Roxanne Dunbars of the world. Those piles and piles of radical women's journals cranked out on mimeograph machines and now rotting in landfills from coast to coast did not contain a road map to where we are right now. I really want to know - where did we go wrong? and what can be done to make it right?
I cordially invite any and all to chime in with opinions, personal experiences, questions, comments, smart-ass remarks, opposing viewpoints, whatever needs to be said. I do not require commenters to agree with me, defend me, or otherwise blow smoke up my gloriously ample ass. I do require comments to be more or less free of spelling errors, heinous transgressions of grammar, so-called "scare quotes" (get it?) and inter-commenter snark. Disagree all you want, please. Dissent, oppose, negate, disprove, debunk 'til the world looks level - but don't humiliate. I believe firmly that growth can occur through a healthy exchange of ideas - emphasis on the healthy, that's all I ask.
So I should probably throw some content up here to get things rolling. in the meantime, please feel free to say hello.
I've been lurking around the radfemblogosphere for a goodly while, occasionally screwing my courage to the sticking-place to post here or there. Usually what happened next had all the hallmarks of non-consensual public humiliation. (So much for schwesterhof.) Finally today I realized that while my comments may not be especially welcome on other people's blogs, that did not mean I had to suffer in silence.
So here I am.
Don't get the wrong idea. I am not an "amazing new voice." I'm not bucking for a Koufax by any means. I'm just a girl with her handy-dandy pocket Constitution burning a hole in her jeans, a cranky old fat lady who still has a battered old coffee-stained library edition of Sisterhood is Powerful propping up her wobbly sofa leg - and I'm not afraid to use it!
See, I just don't get the sense that this world, this culture, this neverending Waterloo of gender was really what they had in mind, the Florynce Kennedys and Shulamith Firestones and Ti-grace Atkinsons and Roxanne Dunbars of the world. Those piles and piles of radical women's journals cranked out on mimeograph machines and now rotting in landfills from coast to coast did not contain a road map to where we are right now. I really want to know - where did we go wrong? and what can be done to make it right?
I cordially invite any and all to chime in with opinions, personal experiences, questions, comments, smart-ass remarks, opposing viewpoints, whatever needs to be said. I do not require commenters to agree with me, defend me, or otherwise blow smoke up my gloriously ample ass. I do require comments to be more or less free of spelling errors, heinous transgressions of grammar, so-called "scare quotes" (get it?) and inter-commenter snark. Disagree all you want, please. Dissent, oppose, negate, disprove, debunk 'til the world looks level - but don't humiliate. I believe firmly that growth can occur through a healthy exchange of ideas - emphasis on the healthy, that's all I ask.
So I should probably throw some content up here to get things rolling. in the meantime, please feel free to say hello.
