Tag: feminism

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Astrology Charleston, West Virginia Writings

The Group Mind

I feel like the group mind is my retarded little brother. He’s so SSSSLLLLLOOOWWWW. A fire breaks out and four years later he shows up with his extinguisher. But now storm clouds are approaching. Hey Retard- LOOK! Do you see that?!?

No, he doesn’t. He’s too busy rolling around on the floor, whacking off to the idea of himself as a fireman.

He’s never any help in the moment. But once the battle is over you can bet he’ll show up on the field to take selfies, then whack off to the idea of himself as a soldier.

Like now, what are people talking about? They are still responding to concepts like ‘toxic masculinity’ ‘believe all women.’ They are still calling people snowflakes. All moments that have passed! (I am making strangling movements with my hands while thinking about this cause it frustrates me so much.) Meanwhile they ignore the threats which are clear and present.

Snowflakes. I got called a snowflake today for the fact that- personally- I find the Heard trial triggering. I find it triggering that she owes 10 million for an op-ed. I find it triggering that people are treating her like a piece of shit when- for all they know- she actually was abused.

Really I should take it as a compliment because I do plan to be a snowflake in years to come. Snowflakes are exactly what we’ll need in the fiery, insensitive days that lie ahead. I claim a right to my own feelings and a right to express them regardless of whether or not they are the feelings someone else believes I should have.

The snowflake phenomenon was only in play during the latter half of the 2010s decade when Neptune was in the second decan of Pisces, which turns people into whiny entitled babies. The problem with those snowflakes is they weren’t real snowflakes. They were bullies in snowflake disguise. Neptune represents what people try to *appear* to be, what they see as ideal, not necessarily what they are.

So the problem with snowflakes circa 2019 is they weren’t really sensitive, they just used concepts like empathy and sensitivity as an excuse to bully others. I guess the overly self-indulgent attitude was a problem as well. Micro-traumas demanded staying home from work to binge watch tv while wearing face masks. But you can guarantee that will be ending soon.

Likewise, the anti-male sentiment people are now reacting too is also in the rearview mirror. It has been for a while. In the past couple years, women have been the main target under group mind attack. Karens. Amy Cooper. Ashli Babbitt. Men in women’s sports and restrooms. Men debating whether or not women have the right to live if it would require an abortion. People saying dumb shit like female on male violence is a serious problem as the Taliban forces women back into their homes. Please don’t hurt me retarded brother. I know the words of 2019 are still ringing in your ears. But I’m not attempting to mount men and force them into eternal submission. Just saying what appears to be true. Men need to finish licking paper cuts which are four years old and move into the current moment. It’s embarrassing.

So what’s coming up? Fire. Aggression. Anger. Athletes. Soldiers. Action. No more laziness. No more philosophical discussions. Dogs. We will all become dogs. But hard dogs, street dogs, dogs that have no owners to soften them.

So I am preparing for my usual position of opposing the group mind as it moves around the zodiac. I plan to become more sensitive. Start taking bubble baths. Float around in them for hours while drooling on myself as tears pour from my eyes.




In case you would like to read more about this from an astrology perspective…

The Future: Neptune in Aries
The Present/Recent Past: Neptune in Pisces
More on Neptune in Pisces

I have to say though- sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night panicking, because in all these years Neptune has been travelling through Pisces I have done nothing but talk smack about it. The truth is Pisces has a lot to offer but every time I try to write something positive about it I suddenly become too lazy to move. So I don’t know what to do about it.

Good things have come from these years though. Things I am only now beginning to appreciate as our Pisces time is drawing to a close. I just saw the movie Top Gun- which I feel accurately captures the values & perspective of Neptune in Aries. I am afraid I won’t cut it in this vigorous new world.

(Hi- this is Julien from the future dropping in to tell you I just wrote a post explaining one of the gifts- sacrifice- that can be gained from Neptune’s transit through Pisces.)

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Charleston, West Virginia men Politics Uncategorized Writings

Heard Depp Trial

Ugh. This Depp/Heard trial is triggering me in too many ways. I don’t know where to begin.

1. It is scary that most people chanting “AMBER TURD!!!! AMBER TURD!!!!” know little to nothing about the facts of the case but are still eager to see Heard’s downfall.

People are acting like this is a pushback against #metoo when really it is the exact same thing. Someone makes a claim and ignorant monkeys go wild, chanting for blood. The fact that it is a man making a claim that a woman lied & abused him makes it no different. Same ole mob justice as before.

2. It is scary that Heard is on trial simply for writing a short op-ed stating that it is dangerous to oppose powerful men because they will make you pay. One in which Depp is not directly mentioned, nor abuse detailed.

In her words “Imagine a powerful man as a ship, like the Titanic. That ship is a huge enterprise. When it strikes an iceberg, there are a lot of people on board desperate to patch up holes — not because they believe in or even care about the ship, but because their own fates depend on the enterprise.”

So if Heard- who does in fact have a mountain of evidence to show Depp was violent- is not even allowed to make a passing mention of abuse and now owes Depp ten million for doing so- what does this mean for the rest of us? Are we allowed to speak about our lives or not?

This is a tricky subject because I realize people can lie and in most cases there is no way for bystanders to know the truth one way or another. But just as ‘believe all women’ does not seem like an appropriate solution ‘severely punish anyone who claims abuse’ doesn’t seem quite right either.

3. It is scary how people are using this to push the narrative “Women batter men all the time but the men are just too shy to come forward.”

In this corner of space time we currently inhabit, it would be very, very hard for almost any woman to batter her husband. I don’t know if people are ignorant as to physical differences between genders or simply feigning ignorance. Sometimes I wish men could be placed in cages with apes, left to fight them, and then tell me that strength does not matter when it comes to beating your spouse.

And it isn’t just strength, bone density, quicker reflexes etc- men are simply more aggressive & likely to commit violent crimes. Since this pattern holds true throughout all cultures and historical periods, we can safely assume it applies in the domestic realm as well. And I do not mean this in an insulting way, but simply assume it is a reflection of their role as warriors of the species.

What’s more, the idea that men are ‘too shy’ to come forward is ridiculous. Claiming to be the victim is the first move many abusive males make. I have read that most men claiming to be the victims of domestic violence are in fact the perpetrators themselves.


4. It is also annoying how people brush to the side that he was older, richer, more powerful, constantly on his own turf surrounded by employees, body guards & security staff. He was a king on his throne who could throw hissies as he wished. To accept that he was dominated by Heard- who was 22 when they met- seems close to believing that Clinton was sexually abused by that gold digging hussy Monica.

5. Heard is constantly being held to conflicting standards. When she videotapes Depp smashing things, that proves she is abusive. (Who would videotape their husband? She is obviously The Abuser!!) When she doesn’t, she is lying. (If this happened, why didn’t she record it? She is The Abuser!)

When she photographs bruises, she is guilty. (Who would do a photoshoot after being attacked? She is The Abuser!) When she doesn’t, she is guilty. (If he had hurt her, there would be photos! She is The Abuser!!!)

When she doesn’t cry her expressionless face proves she is the abuser. When she does cry her ‘fake’ tears prove she is the abuser. Literally whatever she does or doesn’t do becomes the evidence against her.

***


Men on social media keep asking why I care about this dumb trial. It is too petty to be worthy of serious consideration they say. But to me, it strikes at something core to the female experience. For men, dangers occur mostly in the public sphere where they can be seen, talked about and taken seriously. For women, dangers mostly occur behind closed doors, coming from people they love, whose reputations they are honor bound to protect. In a sense, females live much of their life in a veiled world which it is considered unseemly to discuss, for that would be “airing dirty laundry.”

And I don’t know what the solution is. People do need a private life and people to witness their dark side without exposing it to the world.

On the other hand, this arrangement frequently places women in danger which they are not allowed to talk about. They can’t seek support. (Unless they are willing to abandon their life & live like a refuge in a flea infested shelter.)

Not only are they deprived of the emotional comfort that comes from being able to share pain and stories, they are also unable to learn from each other’s experiences.

I’m always encouraging the females I know to write about their experiences with men and publish them. Anonymously if needed. The goal is not to take men down. But we desperately need more light to shine on how females experience life with men behind closed doors. I truly feel that more women sharing their stories could change the world. At least the world females inhabit. A world which may be too petty for men to even think about.




P.S. One more thing that bugs me about this trial is people freaking out about Heard admitting to slapping Depp. “She just admitted she was the abuser!” said a youtube lawyer. “Case closed!!!”

For starters- once again, in this physical reality a female hitting a male is pretty much a non-event. Females probably experience more pain than that during sex, unless the man’s dick is really small, yet we still manage to smile and enjoy ourselves.

Secondly, if displaying any bad behavior makes one “The Abuser” then we are all “The Abuser.” To me, domestic abuse refers to a pattern of using physical violence, threats, control of resources, etc to dominate your partner and place them in fear of you. It is crystal clear Heard did not hold this position relative to Depp.

And finally, I would like to say that I don’t really like words such as “The Abuser” and “Survivor.” Domination and abuse are somewhat woven into the fabric of life. Being on either side of this equation at a given point in time should not become one’s identity. “The Eater.” “The Eaten.” We are all of these things to some extent. I guess we have God to thank for that. I hope he knew what he was doing.







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Charleston, West Virginia men Politics Videos Writings

A Drop of Gizz

(Saturn is squaring my Mercury causing me to hate everything that comes out of my mouth. If I sound like I’m eating a robot, that’s why.)

I’ve been in that phase again where I write a million blog posts then delete them cause I can’t stop imagining all the reasons people will hate me for anything I say.

Personally I love to read people writing about their own experiences. Whether it is trudging across Antarctica or making their husband a sandwich, I don’t care. But when writing about myself, the voices in my head start calling me a self-absorbed, navel gazing narcissist. Sometimes real people do too.

So then I become an intellectual. A defensive posture. It makes men think you are smart and respect you more. Sometimes it feels like men are highly cue based when evaluating intelligence. A woman in spectacles discussing science is intelligent. A woman gluing cotton bears onto a wreath is not. But I can’t maintain being intellectual. It feels like walking on my hands.

And the Heard-Depp trial is ‘triggering’ me. But I’m afraid to say this. If you want your biscuits, this is the time to say you believe men can be abused just as easily as women. You are supposed to say it is just as bad for a woman to push a man- even if he doesn’t move- as it is for a man to push a woman- even if she falls into a bathtub and hits her head. They are equally bad. It’s violence either way!

You are supposed to say that domestic abuse is a genderless crime. And male victims are too shy to come forward. Depp is helping to change this.

But it’s hard for me to imagine a female using physical force to dominate a man. Even moreso in a case like this where Depp is surrounded by body guards. Not to mention endless money, friends, family, staff, homes, vehicles, planes, yachts, guns, knives etc.

It wouldn’t be impossible. But the only way I could see it happening is if Heard managed to establish a guru-like grip over Depp’s mind. But it is clear from the trial that she was not holding his brain in thrall. Drugs and his demons did that.

Perhaps many do not understand the difference between physical aggression and abuse. Lobbing a ball of socks at someone is not abuse. Punching a man, grabbing a woman’s arm & leaving a bruise, screaming, calling someone a bad name… you can only determine the significance of these events by looking at the larger pattern. If Monica slapped Clinton for gizzing on her dress would that make him a battered husband? Not from my perspective. If she stabbed him through the eye with a pen then we are entering new territory.

Because women can commit acts of violence towards men. They could marry an old man for money then slip poison in his food.

But domestic abuse, imo, is when a person uses intimidation, manipulation, violence & control of resources to establish dominance over their partner, making them unable or unwilling to leave despite bad treatment.

How many men exist who are physically afraid of their wives but too scared to leave? How commonly do women cut off men’s access to money, social contacts and transportation while dominating their bodies and threatening to kill them if they escape?

I’m wincing because the next statement will probably shower hate on me, but it seems possible that trace elements of domination are present in many if not most heterosexual relationships. It’s more than men being stronger, it is also how they are built for war and competition while women obsess over connection, frequently placing them in the role of trying to please.

We try to make things gooey and soft. We want to wear matching pajamas. We glue cotton bears onto a wreath. Men don’t do this. I don’t know why. I’m not judging them for this. I’m just trying to state the obvious in a culture which punishes us for doing so.

Muffin papers. I had planned to start making Business Woman Muffins each morning to sustain me through the day. For a Woman On the Go. That hasn’t happened.
My opponent’s sign encountered while door knocking. Politics is another factor making me feel suppressed. One wrong word could cost me votes.

Especially in a Republican primary. Some conservatives judge you for bad language, sexual language, violent language etc. As though God fast tracks all Scorpios to hell.
A red picture of me to showcase my political dominance and power. I admire red, but also feel it is everything I will never be. Which is why I like to stay near it. Kiss the hand that feeds you.
A picture of stones resting on cotton.

Would you like to watch a two minute video of a dog’s face accompanied by a song about a frog?



Slipper’s name is substituted for Mr. Froggy’s though cause she loves the sound of it. I also like to read her Bible verses where it’s God talking directly to Slippers. “I shall cover Slippers with my feathers, and under my wings Slippers will rest.”



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Charleston, West Virginia Uncategorized

Please Stop Putting us on Coins!!!

Although I am by no means a phallocrat, I do wish people would stop pushing for so-called gender equality. I don’t want half of the coins to have female faces on them, nor for 50% of statues and politicians to be women. I don’t want more female soldiers, engineers & race car drivers. And most of all, I would prefer it if “he” could remain the default pronoun.

Why? Because it takes something from people to be in the position which men have held for so long, and I don’t wish that for women. I think it is better for us to have a mixture of sunshine & shade so we can step into the public sphere when desired, but not be pressured to make it our home.  Someone needs to retreat from consensus reality in order to stay in touch with broader and deeper truths,  and traditionally that has been the role of women. Others need to be committed to staying in touch with consensus reality to work out its kinks and problems, and traditionally that has been the work of men.

I think men are better suited to ruling consensus reality, since they are slightly more mental and less emotional than women, giving them greater protection from the soul crushing ideas consensus reality inevitably contains.

It seems to me that the shared, public world of humans will always be a harsh one, filled with half-truths and warped values. I think this is just the inevitable outcome of a thousand different desires and perspectives coming together and clashing in the middle. For women to have one foot in and one foot out of this zone of harshness is a privilege that enables us to keep our psychic integrity and by extension preserve the sanity of the human race.

I definitely think women should be allowed in the public sphere just as men should be allowed in the private sphere, because you need these two spheres to have a high degree of overlap and communication to keep the public sphere relatively hygienic and the personal sphere sufficiently energized. But what I don’t like is women being forced more and more into the public sphere as though this is some great accomplishment and honor.

I still think the only true bastion of sexism in our culture is Hollywood & its buddy industries of fashion, music, beauty etc. They are sexist because they only cast women as sex objects or male persons living in female bodies. They don’t understand females as seperate beings in their own right. That is probably because these industries (for whatever reason) are so soulless that they no longer remember that an inner world exists and have mistaken shared beliefs and judgments for absolute truths. They are the enemy of the world within and by extension the enemy of women. If women want to fight sexism they should focus on these industries and not on getting more women into the senate. There is nothing in the political world that can give us what we are seeking.

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Hurricane, West Virginia Uncategorized

Feminism

I see feminism as being the natural, inflammatory response of a society that needs to flush out an excess of fashion designers.

Officially, feminism is about wage discrepancies and political power, yet it only seems to arise in places where women are made to feel neurotic about their physical appearance. Eventually, they reach a fork in the road where they either have to become a feminist or have that extra rib removed. By nature, women are designed to be sensitive towards what men think and feel about them. It hurts to feel that you aren’t perfectly beautiful and lovable the way god made you. And- even if you are a celebrated beauty- it hurts to feel beautiful only because you match certain objective standards that could be met by anyone. It makes you interchangeable, a commodity. I think people become feminists from the perception that men are shallow and incapable of true love, therefore it is dangerous to risk being dependent on them.

Here in West Virginia, there is really no feminism to speak of, but no need for it either. Thin or fat, old or young, neatly dressed or wild looking, the women seem unselfconscious about their appearance. They are confident that simply being alive and female will suffice to attract men to them. Judging by the number of children they have, it seems they are right. It is strange, but, while living here I have yet to hear a single man or woman praise or critique anyone’s appearance, including their own.

Of course this may stem from the fact that hillbillies devote less of their brain to imagining how other people see them in general, probably a necessary trait for thriving in secluded areas where admirers and applause are hard to come by. From what I can tell, they derive less pleasure from making a good impression, and less pain from making a bad one. Hence, the classic Appalachian front yard, filled with sofas, rusted pieces of metal, and semi-broken toys. Once I asked a neighbor about her landscaping style. She explained that storing junk in your front yard creates more space inside your house, and keeps the backyard free for games and picnics.

Putting your worst foot forward also creates a sort of protective psychological coating, similar to the No Tresspassing signs that adorn every property. It tells people upfront that you aren’t going to bend yourself out of shape to put on the ritz for them, and if they want a cup of sugar they should go elsewhere. Which is an important vibe to put off. Living in the same mountain crevice can get rather intimate and you really need to have a bit of a barbed wire feeling about you or your neighbors will be cleaning out your fridge before you know it.

But anyway, back to feminism….

The myth of sexism, I think, is that it flourishes among backwoods country people and square religious Midwesterners. My observations, however, have led me to believe the opposite, that sexism- like many contagious diseases- begins in the largest, most cosmopolitan cities who then export it through movies, music, and fashion to the rest of the country.

Of course, this depends on your definition of sexism. To some, sexism is defined by the genders having complementary roles rather than identical ones. To me, it is a mental disease that causes women to have low self-esteem which they then attempt to fortify through male approval. Sometimes they do this through excessive focus on their physical appearance, and sometimes through trying to adopt masculine traits that they don’t actually possess. The classic movie heroine, gunning people down in a leather bikini, would be doing both. In a non-sexist society, females can be pudgy and have no greater ambition in life than to create an “Under the Sea” theme for their child’s birthday party. And their husbands can feel very, very proud of them for doing this.

James is very proud of me for making this picture.
James is very proud of me for making this picture.

Of course, the urban worldview causes psychological stress to men as well. They may no longer feel that being a good husband and providing for their family is enough, but instead feel pressure to worm their way towards the top of the human pyramid. These pressures may also exist in the country, but they are not as strong. It is much less exhilarating to sit atop a tiny pyramid and much less painful to live at its bottom.

Which is why I don’t see sexism as being a problem, in and of itself, in our society. It is just one of the many inevitable side effects that occur when a whole cluster of people try to source their self-esteem from being better than each other. We could start a social movement to make all sexist sentiments go away, but since they would probably be replaced by ideas just as offensive, why bother?

On the other hand, while I don’t recommend trying to wipe it from the planet altogether, I do think there are two little steps we can take to diminish the power of sexism in our own spheres and thus render feminism unnecessary.

1) I think a number of “mental diseases” could be cured just by people expressing themselves more honestly and more frequently. One thing I have noticed with men especially, is that it tends to be the most obnoxious and also the most sexist of them (Donald Trump) who are always running their mouths, while the “better” men tend to remain quiet. This sometimes gives the impression that Trump’s thoughts are representative of men in general. As Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

2) On a personal level, we should relish the poisonous ideas of our group mind to the extent that they spur us on towards greater mental independence. After kicking their babies out of the nest, eagles remove the soft filling to reveal a bed of thorns. When the little birds try to fly back to mommy and daddy, their bodies get cut up and bloodied. Likewise, our group mind is filled with ideas that tend to cut into our self-esteem, and the older you get, the less they seem to flatter you. Perhaps this is by design. These thorns push us, once we are ready, away from the mucoid comfort of conformity, and out into the big blue world to perceive and believe what no one else has before.

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Hurricane, West Virginia Uncategorized

Feminism and Me

Feminism is not something I resonate with. Had I lived in the 19th century, I would probably have been a feminist, and if I lived in a Muslim country, I might be one as well. But in 21st century America, where women already have the same rights as men, the idea of getting still more “rights” feels a bit threatening. I don’t want any more rights, especially when these rights seem to entail having a job, paying half the rent, joining the army, lifting heavy boxes, and being fascinated by science. I would rather just decorate cookies and leave the extra rights for somebody else.

In a way, I like where gender relations stand at the moment, how ambiguous they are. I don’t want to go back to a time when women were expected to wear high heels and have dinner on the table when their husband came home (if such a time existed), but I also don’t want to go forward to a time when women have all the pressures and burdens of men on their shoulders. Is there another alternative?

Do you ever think of a nation-state as a living organism? I do. And sometimes I feel that feminism represents our nation’s desire to have all of it’s population involved in taxable labor, and all of it’s population available for the draft, in order to double it’s power.  After all, equalizing men and women was always a big focus of communists movements. It meant that no one was exempt from the government’s needs and desires.

Regardless, it is hard for me to see feminism as anything other than a social engineering campaign “encouraging” women to embrace more masculine aspirations. And it hard to see, in a nation already overflowing with masculine aspirations, how funneling more humans into the rat race will make life better for anyone. Do we really need life to run faster and harder, with no one sitting on the sidelines to watch and reflect? Do we really want more lawyers and fewer homemade cookies?

I can see why women don’t necessarily want to stay home and bake cookies, though. We are a nation of masculine values and we respect masculine qualities much more than feminine ones. In the movies, the “strong” female characters tend to be rocket scientists who love to shoot hoops on the side.  A “good role model for girls” means a female who puts her career first and rapidly rises to the top. The external self, competing and receiving awards, is placed high above the internal, subjective self.  The “office” is the place where you can fulfill your potential. Home is a place to recover from the office, a place where you’ll rot if you linger too long.

To me, women represent the home, and the home represents the inner self. Many aspects of feminism make me feel that the inner self is under attack, being urged to spend more and more of itself seeking external validation. A society can’t tip too far in the direction of the masculine without becoming mechanical, robotic, unable to reflect or decide what has value. Life becomes a game, a game we can never stop playing even when it ceases to be fulfilling.

Sometimes I wonder what it means to be a woman. I think of all the women I have known, mean and aggressive, sweet and kind, cunning and malicious, nurturing and caring… what do they all have in common? So far I have thought of only one thing. They all like to decorate. Maybe cookies, their home, hair, greeting cards, scrapbooks, makeup, flowers, clothes, weddings and theme parties… I have yet to think of a female who doesn’t get a bit giddy when given the chance to express herself aesthetically. Some like to knit, and some want to glue rhinestones to their phone, but they all want to make something pretty. Selecting new towels for the bathroom, making fuzzy teddy bears to hang on the Christmas tree- I like to think these are powerful and important actions, little magic spells that vibrate outwards, setting a course for the future, travelling back in time to rewrite history. In my fantasy, women are the magicians of humanity, and men have traditionally protected them for a reason- because they are valuable.

*

Now I’d like to get petty for a moment, and list some of feminism’s current sentiments which I do not share.

1. Some feminists are concerned that preteen girls tend to lose interest in math and science.

Good for them, I say! If they are losing interest in math and science, they are probably gaining interest in other subjects, like art and literature. That is the way life works- we all bend towards our own sunshine. In my opinion, the real problem is believing math and science are more important than the subjects girls tend to favor.

2. Some feminists are concerned that women account for only about 5% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies.

This seems like a reason to celebrate! After all, what percentage of humans truly want to devote their life to climbing the corporate ladder? If there are fewer women at the tip tops of these ladders, it could be because they have more opportunity to escape from the pressurized, regimented lifestyle that so many humans feel trapped in. Perhaps this is a sign of chivalry- husbands gallantly allowing their wives to climb down from the punishing ladders while they stay behind to toil.

3. Some feminists are concerned that women are discouraged from being bossy.

I wish! But unfortunately, mean and bossy women are all around me, showing no signs of discouragement. Take a moment to think back through all the people you have known, and- if your life has been anything like mine- you will realize there a quite a few more bossy women in the world than there are bossy men.  If women are being discouraged from bossiness, it clearly isn’t working.

4.Some feminists seem to equate female empowerment with promiscuity and self-objectification.

In my women’s studies classes, for example, people would empower themselves by entering “hot legs contests” and that sort of thing.  Why do I think this is a bad idea? Because it makes you attractive to the worst sort of men. Some say it’s always flattering to be found attractive, but I disagree. Humans are attracted to all sorts of things- from dead bodies to men’s butts. To feel good about yourself because a sex predator finds you gorgeous is a dangerous habit. Same with being a slut. Sluttishness gets a bad reputation, because it puts the slut in physical and emotional danger. Could it be a decent lifestyle for the Indiana Jones, bungee cord jumping sort of female? Maybe. But generally, people get hurt.

5. Some feminists believe, when a rape has been committed, we should believe the victim.

In this case, I would like to agree, because look around- victims are frequently punished for speaking up while their perpetrators go on to win golden medals of honor. Ugh. But, once again, look around- some women are tricky. And playing the victim is the psychopathic female’s most common method of attack. A rape is like a murder, we have to dig and peer behind the curtains until we find the real truth. We can’t safely assume anything.

6. Some feminists (like Russell Crowe) do weird things like stick the words “#he for she” on their heads with post-it notes.

At first I felt flattered by this. Wow- Russell Crowe likes me! I even imagined myself calling him to borrow twenty dollars in a time of need. But then again, he is also on the side of every cruel and malicious female who ever walked the planet. I imagined one of them calling him to say he shouldn’t give me twenty dollars. And so he didn’t.

*

Still, I don’t want you to think of me as someone incapable of feminist sentiment. I don’t like it, for example, when women in movies are portrayed as empty shells with nothing living inside.  I even stage my own mini-feminist riots by writing these movies one-star reviews on Amazon.

At the same time, being portrayed in a devaluing light isn’t always a bad thing. When people cast us in a positive light, it is all too easy to wallow in that blissful glow and develop the deadly habit of sourcing our self-esteem and self-image from the outside world. When people demean us, at least it makes it a bit easier to cut loose and go our own way.

In the end, I guess I don’t really believe in changing the world. The world is a burrito-  try to change it, and you’re just going to end up with an enchilada, a chimichanga… maybe some soft tacos. What’s the point? But if you become yourself- then you are bringing a new ingredient to the table. And eventually, new ingredients will lead to radically new dishes.

 

 

 

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Hurricane, West Virginia

Liberals, Prejudice & Demons

Although I tend to think of myself as a liberal person, in recent years the ideas and behaviors that pass as liberal have become more and more disturbing to me. Ideally, I think, to be liberal would mean to be open to a wide range of ideas and possibilities, and to allow people to think and behave differently without punishment or marginalization. But recently, liberalness seems to have become about forcing everyone to have the same, seemingly enlightened, opinions. Opinions which are supposedly tolerant and non-judgmental. Racism, sexism, homophobia, islamaphobia, antisemitism, transphobia… labels like birther and climate-change denier… all these concepts are used like battering rams to force every mind into compliance with the right, the good way of thinking. And I don’t like it. Although I can relate.

The first time Obama ran for president, I didn’t vote because none of the candidates supported gay marriage. I remember Hillary saying she coudn’t condone it due to her deep spirituality (although, miraculously, just like Barack Obama, she has recently had a change of heart). Gay marriage was my number one issue. It felt symbolic to me. Rainbow flags, the very word “gay” with its connotation of happy levity… I naively believed that once gay people were accepted, everyone would be accepted. I would be accepted. People everywhere would drop their masks and let their true selves come forward. Unicorns would walk the streets. So passionate was I about gay rights, I told James I couldn’t marry him unless he would dance in a gay parade. Something which, as a Jehovah’s Witness, he wasn’t keen to do.

James and I would have our worst fights about politically charged issues, like abortion. It enraged him that women would kill innocent babies just so they could continue their debased, sex in the city lifestyle, and I would freak out about all the innocent preteen girls dying as they gave birth to rape-induced babies. He would get choked up as he thought of the poor dad whose first child was killed in the womb without him having any say in the matter; I thought James was being disingenuous to call a single celled organism a child, and if he really was that sensitive then he should be a vegetarian.

Plus, we would argue about black people. Race was a sensitive subject for me. In my mind, black people had become symbolic of my own vulnerable self, of every time I had been abused or treated unfairly. It was easy for black people to assume a symbolic role in my mind, since, to a large extent, I didn’t really know any. Growing up, the black people I knew were mostly housekeepers or waiters at the country club, casting a benevolent and helpful aura around them in my imagination, as though they were a little closer to the angels. Whereas James grew up in a mixed-race world where blacks and whites married, fought, and interacted on equal footing. Which gave him a different view of things like affirmative action. I thought of it in an abstract sense- trying to help a race heal from historical oppression. James thought of it in a more concrete sense- his next door neighbor getting an unfair advantage because of his skin-tone. He didn’t see why he should have to be weirdly sensitive to the black guy sitting next to him in the kingdom hall, stabbing him with a ballpoint pen.

But I really hated fighting with James. Eventually, I decided I would have to stretch my brain out, until I could see things from his point of view. And when I did, I could see that his ideas were valid- he was just reaching different conclusions because he was viewing things from a different place. When I looked at life through his lens, suddenly his ideas and feelings- once reprehensible to me- made sense. Slowly, it dawned on me that my strong feelings weren’t really about gays, black people, or feminism (another point of contention)- these issues had just become symbols for my own wants and needs, my own hurts and pains. And my anger about these issues was really displaced anger, from things that happened to me that I didn’t like. To the extent that I could detach my brain from its baggage and emotional associations, to the extent that I could let it fly free, I saw that, well, maybe a person could want to keep marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution without hating gay people, because, in reality, the only thing that means you hate gay people is actually hating gay people.

And I could also see that it didn’t really matter if any random person did hate gay people, so long as he didn’t set out to hurt them. If he does hate them, odds are that they are a symbol in his mind of something or someone that has caused him pain. We all have these personal symbols, I think, which cause us to irrationally like or dislike certain things and people. Many people who become irate in the face of homophobia make no secret of their aversion to Republican rednecks and religious fanatics. So, considering that it is difficult to even conceive of a person without prejudice, it seems we have no choice but to try and tolerate prejudice in others. If someone did want to wipe out prejudice, their only real option would be to try to wipe out their own prejudices, whatever those might be. However, we tend to view our own prejudices as harmless quirks, not the major threat to society that someone else’s prejudice poses.

There are so many forms of prejudice, so many reasons why people feel superior to others, that it would be impossible to even list them. Wealth, fashion, weight, education, age, career, popularity, sophistication, worldliness, accent, grammar, hair, vehicles, philosophies, diet, opinions, religion, house size, personal size, nationality, lineage, IQ… the list could go on forever. There is no reason to believe that the next Hitler would be an anti-semite. Maybe he would kill people with low IQs  or else people with high ones. Likewise, there is no reason to believe that black people will be the slaves of the future- maybe it will poor people, or else rich ones. The devil never does what you expect him to; he is always sneaking up in your blind spot.

The fashionable isms of our day are just tiny drops in an ocean of potential evil. If we could somehow make it impossible for anyone to think a sexist thought, the world would be no better off, because the feelings and bad intentions that fuel one sort of evil can just as easily fuel another, like demons who leap with ease from one body to the next. Sexism is just a form that evil can inhabit- it is not the evil itself.

Which is why I think it is dangerous to go over the world with a microscope, looking only for examples of the evil du jour, while ignoring the bigger picture, which is that we all have crosses to bear and we all need protection from the devil. Or, to bring myself back to the point (sometimes I get carried away when thinking about demons), we are all both the carriers and recipients of prejudice, probably more than we realize. It is when many minds start to merge and congeal around shared ideas, everyone throwing their own emotional baggage into the mix, that I start to get uncomfortable. A large number of people who hate homophobes is more dangerous than the lone skinhead, in my opinion. And when a groupmind starts trying to wipe out the minds that disagree with it, then things can get downright scary. Once everybody shares a prejudice, it doesn’t even seem to be a prejudice anymore- it’s just reality. That must be when the devil really has a field day.

So, I would think, maybe the next time someone says the “n” word, or implies that Jews are good with money, women are bad at math, or gay kisses are gross, maybe, rather than unleash a torrent of righteous anger, we could just try to understand where they are coming from. I don’t think there is any danger in that. Sometimes, when you move your mind to encompass another person’s position, it enables their mind to move in the process.