Althouse: "Women wanted to remove their support from men, the ‘enemy’ in a movement for reform, power and self-determination."

September 21, 2010

"Women wanted to remove their support from men, the ‘enemy’ in a movement for reform, power and self-determination."

"Once I understood the feminist doctrines, a lesbian separatist position seemed the commonsensical position, especially since, conveniently, I was an L-person.”

Jill Johnston, the staunchly radical feminist, has died. She was 81. In the 1970s, she was the radical feminist, and we read her every week in The Village Voice.

68 comments:

chickelit said...: She bears a striking physical resemblance to Cynthia Nixon!; 9/21/10, 6:59 PM
AST said...: Where would you be without the feminist movement? Would you be less independent? Would you have had lesser goals in life? Achieved less?; 9/21/10, 7:00 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I didn't get feminism at the point in my life when it would have helped me: when I was in high school. And by the way, I was subjected to quite a bit of sex discrimination by my high school (which was an excellent high school). I was discouraged from achievement at every turn for years, and though I was the valedictorian, I graduated with absolutely no ambition toward professional achievement or even the sense that it was possible to do anything like that.

I was greatly influenced by the hippie movement however, and by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. And that's the key to my story.; 9/21/10, 7:05 PM
mesquito said...: Sounds like she was a barel of laughs.; 9/21/10, 7:09 PM
Anonymous said...: But what has been the marginal benefit to all of society from feminism?

Women like Ann appear strongly to have benefited individually, but what is the aggregate benefit to the whole of society?

I would argue that it doesn't exist.

I would argue that that the marginal cost to society has not been worth the marginal benefits of feminism - that in fact feminism has made us all poorer.

For every Ann that has a rewarding job and a salary that gives a substantial amount of freedom, there are now dozens - scores - of lower and lower-middle class (mostly uneducated or high school educated) women that are being crushed by the burden of low paying work and family responsibilities.

And thanks to the sexual revolution, many of these woman are single mothers, because men are no longer socially required to stay married and at home. (And women, after all, are independent, so they should get out and get a job!)

In my volunteer work I see such women every week, struggling along with no free money, no prospects, no help from a man, no relief from the burdens of taking care of the children, but a job! - by God, they have jobs! - thank to the feminists in New York City.; 9/21/10, 7:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Men, the enemy...

What a fucking asshole!; 9/21/10, 7:32 PM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: What shoutingthomas said. You haven't even met me, and you declare me the "enemy" based on superficial group identity?

In other contexts, we call that bigotry. I think that term applies here, too.; 9/21/10, 7:36 PM
Prolixian said...: I was 18 in 1976 and this particular brand of radical feminism dominated my college campus and left us young straight women out in the cold. It also didn't fit with what I knew of the many great men in my life. I have no issue with lesbianism at all, but this anti-male blend is what caused me to distance myself from the term "feminist" by the mid 1970s, despite commitment to the ideals of equal opportunity (regardless of orientation or gender identity). It took me years to realize that being told that I just didn't know yet that I was a lesbian was as viscerally offensive as telling a lesbian that she just needed a good f**k.; 9/21/10, 7:46 PM
traditionalguy said...: Women are not an enemy of men...the reverse is true. Lesbians are the enemy of men as Jill Johnston was willing to prove in her day. Not that there is anything wrong with being the enemy of men. When the women rebel, the man and woman teams (called marriages) are no longer possible; and you frankly get a vast despairing place full of "Lost Boys" with no female companionship. Jill was actually the worst thing that happened to humanity in our lifetime.; 9/21/10, 7:47 PM
Revenant said...: Women like Ann appear strongly to have benefited individually, but what is the aggregate benefit to the whole of society?

I guess the answer depends on whether you miss the good old days when half of society was subservient to the other half.; 9/21/10, 7:51 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann, what in the hell makes you think it was any different for men?

Your whining is tiresome.

I come from a background of ignorance and poverty that would shock you. Whether my parents or my school encouraged me was irrelevant.

My parents weren't even aware that the job of a corporate lawyer existed.

Stop whining!; 9/21/10, 7:54 PM
dick said...: Funny how many women did great things without the benefit of feminism. I knew so many when I was growing up who were very married and yet were able to carve out careers of all types. What I think feminism accomplished was to allow women who really didn't try very hard to ride on the backs of other women to gain a career. It just depended on how much you wanted that career and how hard you were willing to work to accomplish it.

There were problem areas where men just did not believe women needed to worry their pretty little heads but there were also a whole lot of men who appreciated intelligent and hard working women for their self.; 9/21/10, 7:57 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Ann, what in the hell makes you think it was any different for men?"

What is the "it" referring to? If you were the best student in math class, would your teacher have told you not to go on to calculus, because it was for engineers? If you were studying art, would your teacher tell you you needed a "sugar daddy" and offer to give you some names and phone numbers? Tell me, really... was it like that for you?; 9/21/10, 7:58 PM
Anonymous said...: It sounds so quaint at this point.; 9/21/10, 8:00 PM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Men, the enemy...

What a fucking asshole!

This was the main reason that I totally was uninterested in the feminist movement. The big "L" in the feminist movement.

The idea that there is a 'war' of the sexes or that it should be men and women against each other, just didn't jive with my world view, my experiences and the example of my parents.

My mother was a woman in a predominantly man's occupation and to my knowledge experienced no discrimination. She was able to excel in her career/job, get along very well with men and be a feminine role model.

Men and women need each other to be complete. To think otherwise is sick and against nature.; 9/21/10, 8:01 PM
chickelit said...: If you were studying art, would your teacher tell you you needed a "sugar daddy" and offer to give you some names and phone numbers? Tell me, really... was it like that for you?

I don't know about the art world but I do what it was like to prepare years for a career, go through the job interview process (at a public university), then learn later that "they would have hired you but the reality is that they needed to hire a woman or a minority."

So I guess I can understand your frustration.; 9/21/10, 8:10 PM
traditionalguy said...: The Professor's point is well taken. There are men in Academia and professions that say a women cannot take away a man's job. And the Good Old Boy system is alive and well inside many areas of politics and Academia. But what does that have to do with getting revenge to the point of women working hard to seduce married women into leaving their husbands as Jill Johnston promoted with the glee of a victorious conqueror? She was pure evil.; 9/21/10, 8:12 PM
Anonymous said...: My parents told me that going to college was impossible. That was for other people.

My father (a wonderful man I do not blame) expected me to drop out out of college and go to work every time life became difficult for me or for my family.

My family simply never had a foothold in the larger world. They had no idea how to navigate that world.

I'm not looking for sympathy or excuses. Why are you?; 9/21/10, 8:13 PM
Anonymous said...: At my wife's job, they would love nothing in the world more than to have more women ending up in the highest positions. The firm actively tries to make that happen. I am quite sure that in the professions it is this way all over the country.; 9/21/10, 8:16 PM
Palladian said...: "If you were studying art, would your teacher tell you you needed a "sugar daddy" and offer to give you some names and phone numbers? Tell me, really... was it like that for you?"

If only!; 9/21/10, 8:18 PM
chickelit said...: Trad Guy wrote: She was pure evil.

Maybe hell has an opening for a new PA Announcer (paging blogfather)

Was she a good speaker?; 9/21/10, 8:18 PM
Anonymous said...: The world of the arts is a miserable shithole for most people.

I suspect that your teacher was clumsily trying to tell you this.

Believe me, my teachers tried to tell me what a miserable shithole I'd find in the arts.

They were absolutely right.; 9/21/10, 8:31 PM
Carol said...: "being told that I just didn't know yet that I was a lesbian'

I grew up in LA/H'wood area..I recall mid 1970s, after my best friend's husband had "come out," how she was agonizing over why she wasn't attracted to women, as she thought she should be. I mean, she felt guilty about it.

It was all absolutely nuts and I soon moved to flyover country and never looked back.; 9/21/10, 8:32 PM
Sprezzatura said...: "by the way, I was subjected to quite a bit of discrimination by my employer (which was the best of its kind in the entire world). As a matter of policy I was banned from being truthful, and though I was the instrumental to the success of my organization, I was told that I was so awful that I could only exist in a closet"

Maybe I edited Althouse's words, but I'm sure they paraphrase at least a few other folks, in a (seemingly) different context.

I wonder if Althouse can identify w/ these folks. Or, is she more persuaded by the folks who can list all sorts of reasons to justify this biased treatment of some citizens?; 9/21/10, 8:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann, your sense of entitlement is off the wall.

People treat you like shit... And you think it's an ideological issue that the larger world should fix.

I was taught to expect to be treated like shit and to learn to deal with it.

Your attitude is preposterous.; 9/21/10, 8:46 PM
damikesc said...: I'll argue that we have a situation now where boys are actively discriminated against in education...and they have precious few people who will actually stand up and defend them.

I have two sons and I'm going to instill in them the belief that they are not the problem, that they are not oppressors, and that they can achieve whatever they want.

I'll drill it in their heads constantly because I know schools won't do it. They will prompt us to drug our sons. I will have to work extra hard to help my sons learn because school is set up in every possible way to impede the education of boys.

Modern feminism killed itself when it decided that attacking men was their goal. Women have sons and most aren't bitchy enough to view their sons as being evil. In fact, I know few women below the age of 40 who have any actual respect for the feminist movement.; 9/21/10, 8:52 PM
Anonymous said...: That quote is really quite hateful. What a sad attitude to be known for.; 9/21/10, 8:53 PM
Unknown said...: Feminism was originally advertised as women wanting to stand with men as equals; to stand up and do whatever job came along without favoritism or the need to ask somebody to do the hard or icky stuff.

Some found that to be more than they bargained for and they decided they wanted preferential treatment instead. And The Democrat Party said, "Let's make a deal".

Ann Althouse said...

I didn't get feminism at the point in my life when it would have helped me: when I was in high school. And by the way, I was subjected to quite a bit of sex discrimination by my high school (which was an excellent high school). I was discouraged from achievement at every turn for years, and though I was the valedictorian, I graduated with absolutely no ambition toward professional achievement or even the sense that it was possible to do anything like that.

The Blonde got some of that in school, but her parents always inculcated the idea in her that she could do anything she wanted (I just wish her mom hadn't written off math (she's better at it than she thinks)). Martial arts did a lot for her self-esteem, also.

Revenant said...

Women like Ann appear strongly to have benefited individually, but what is the aggregate benefit to the whole of society?

I guess the answer depends on whether you miss the good old days when half of society was subservient to the other half.

The one half felt an obligation to protect the other half. It was a social contract - you do the cooking, cleaning, mending, and child-rearing; I do the bread-winning, house building, and protect the hearth - you, included. This, of course, went out with the sexual revolution.; 9/21/10, 9:19 PM
David said...: The hard work of feminism was not done by the headliners and attention grabbers. It was done by millions of women who you never heard of, and never will, because they lead ordinary lives. Millions were "ordinary housewives" who encouraged their daughters, and men--mostly fathers--who taught their girls to stand up for themselves. The notion that flummoxing Norman Mailer by kissing and humping on a stage before a self defined elite was a turning point for women shows the usual elitist unawareness of the influence of "plain folk" and their aspirations on history.; 9/21/10, 9:35 PM
Methadras said...: A lively one she was, sheesh. Well, another leftard bites it. That's a good thing in my book.; 9/21/10, 9:57 PM
AST said...: Ann, I just knew you had spunk.

And I DON'T hate spunk. ;); 9/21/10, 10:11 PM
Anonymous said...: Ann, looks to me like you've got it backward.

You have a preposterous sense of entitlement. You seem to think the world should kiss your ass.

You should receive fairness and people should be nice.

Where did this come from?

I suspect that you, in fact, grew up in a much more privileged family and community than most men of our generation.

You weren't discriminated against. You really got all the breaks. Shows in you attitude.; 9/21/10, 10:12 PM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: edutcher,

Some found that to be more than they bargained for and they decided they wanted preferential treatment instead. And The Democrat Party said, "Let's make a deal".

A long time ago, Harlan Ellison wrote of his disappointment with the March of Dimes. Before I was born, the MoD was formed to raise money for polio research; and their stated slogan was something like, "We're working to put ourselves out of business." And then, when polio was (mostly) conquered, they decided, "Well, since we have this great fundraising apparatus, we can't let it go to waste. Let's raise money to fight birth defects!" And he was disappointed, because even though he understood their argument, he also suspected there was another motivation: the organization had power, and it employed people, and they were reluctant to give that up; and so they found a new cause (albeit another noble cause).

I think this is a common phenomenon in many groups founded to advance a worthy cause (or at least, worthy in their eyes): by the time they succeed, the group, the movement becomes a cause in itself. It must maintain simply so that it can be maintained.

The March of Dimes had a simple tactic: send out volunteers, kids especially, and beg for money. When they switched causes, they kept the tactic.

The advocacy groups similarly stick to their known tactics as they change their goals. If the tactic before was "Denounce injustice, draw attention to it, and demand change," then that remains the tactic even though the goal has changed from equality to preferential treatment -- and even if they have to fabricate claims of injustice.

I think we can see this pattern over and over in advocacy groups throughout our history: seldom if ever does a group disband or even change tactics when it achieves its goal. They just reach higher and push for more.; 9/21/10, 10:35 PM
ndspinelli said...: What Ms. Althouse says is true about how female students were marginalized back in the 60's..I have 2 sisters who had the same experience.

However, now it's payback time. Women run schools of education and are the vast majority of teachers in K-8. Girls were shit on in the 60's and those girls are now in charge and boys are shit on now. There are many similar tales throughout history. We humans have a dark side and it rears its head more than it should.; 9/21/10, 10:40 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I was discriminated against based on sex in a way that stunted my professional development for approximately 10 years. I later figured some things out and made some progress, but I will never know what I could have been if I had been treated the way my male peers were when I was in my formative years. I got a job as a law professor after graduating first in my class at NYU, where the grades were based on exams that were blind graded. The assumption that I got more than I deserved because of affirmative action is based on... what?; 9/21/10, 10:41 PM
Anonymous said...: Come on, Althouse. Everybody knows you'd be teaching law at Michigan or Iowa if you were a man.; 9/21/10, 10:51 PM
William said...: The bright, upper middle class girls back in the sixties became physical therapists instead of doctors or legal secretaries instead of lawyers. For the most part they married well and, whatever their professional disappointments, they enjoyed comfortable lives. There are sadder stories on this earth.....Ditto with Shouting Thomas. Just about every American who came of age in the late twentieth century has had a good deal. I grew up pretty much at the bottom of the bramble bush, but I never missed a meal and most of the time had hot water and steam heat. There are women in Mumbai who maim their children in order to make them more effective beggars. Not only is Althouse a child of privilege, but so is Shouting Thomas. and so are we all.; 9/21/10, 11:05 PM
jr565 said...: El Pollo Real wrote:

She bears a striking physical resemblance to Cynthia Nixon!

Or tom Petty.; 9/21/10, 11:11 PM
Revenant said...: The one half felt an obligation to protect the other half. It was a social contract - you do the cooking, cleaning, mending, and child-rearing; I do the bread-winning, house building, and protect the hearth - you, included.

A contract requires both parties to consent. Consent requires the ability to choose to do something other than what you're being asked to contract for.

So, no, there wasn't a social contract. There was a societal norm, in which women got the short end of the stick for, oh, around two million years or so.; 9/22/10, 12:09 AM
Anonymous said...: It's obvious I have no problem disagreeing with shoutingthomas.

Here, I agree with him.

A highly successful and professional woman bitching she's not more highly successful and didn't get there sooner.

"I will never know what I could have been if I had been treated the way my male peers were when I was in my formative years."

How does the possibility that you wouldn't have done any damned better strike you? That is an option, you know.; 9/22/10, 1:26 AM
Anonymous said...: Revenant --

"There was a societal norm, in which women got the short end of the stick for, oh, around two million years or so."

Don't be an idiot. Society hasn't been static for 2M. We (and you) have no idea what society was like even 10K ago.

Throughout history there have been successful and unsuccessful men and women. BFD; 9/22/10, 1:32 AM
Revenant said...: Don't be an idiot. Society hasn't been static for 2M. We (and you) have no idea what society was like even 10K ago.

I'll bear that in mind the next time you social conservatives start droning on about how marriage has always been heterosexual.; 9/22/10, 3:42 AM
Revenant said...: Throughout history there have been successful and unsuccessful men and women. BFD

I've seen some stupid comments in this forum, but that takes the cake. There were successful homosexuals, blacks, and Jews in history. Perhaps you, Quayle and shoutingthomas could regale us with your dipshit theories about how none of those groups had it bad in the good old days before PC librulism took hold?

Given Althouse's age, it would be a miracle if gender discrimination hadn't held her back early in her career. If she were starting out today it would probably work in her favor -- but she's not starting out today, now is she.; 9/22/10, 3:47 AM
ndspinelli said...: I worked in the legal arena since 1979. I was an investigator so I know attorneys better than just about anyone. Ms. Althouse became an attorney when it was a men's club. In 1982 I worked for a large loop law firm in Chicago. There were 87 attorney..2 were women. Male attorneys, w/ a few exceptions, treated the female attorneys like paralegals and secretaries.

What I saw was that the male attorneys who were ok or good to the female barristers virtually all had sisters, or daughters. I had 2 sisters and felt empathy for these women. when I got an assignment from them it was always small potato cases but I busted my ass for them. It was never explicit, but they were sharp and they were very grateful.

I doubt there were any profession, other than maybe police, that was tougher for women to break into than being an attorney. You can look long and hard before finding bigger egotistical pricks than male attorneys. So, on this one, you all should believe every word Ms. Althouse says. she is, of course, full of shit on the men in shorts thing.; 9/22/10, 7:31 AM
Phil 314 said...: Professor;

was greatly influenced by the hippie movement however, and by Bob Dylan and The Beatles. And that's the key to my story.

Pardon me but,

What the hell does that mean?; 9/22/10, 9:26 AM
bagoh20 said...: Women may have been held back by low expectations, but men/boys are held back now by being told their very nature is evil and needs to be washed out of our society.

Sure, it won't ever totally succeed and neither did patriarchy, but you tell me which is more reprehensible, especially with all our superior sensitivity today. We held back women but at least we loved them and their femininity.

Part of what feminism has "accomplished" is to destroy the best of both sexes in the pursuit of supporting just one.

Every woman in my family worked in male positions - Mom was a welder, and Grandma was a riveter in a steel plant. They never lost their femininity nor respect for men. They were role models unlike the small women in the feminist movement who were simply greedy for power, and now for respect they don't earn.; 9/22/10, 9:34 AM
bagoh20 said...: These radical Feminists never sacrificed anything. From the very beginning, they abandoned a course they never wanted, to pursued one where they got constant reinforcement, approval and money from their clique, their movement and eventually their society. They made change happen, no doubt, but it was neither heroic nor clearly beneficial to the society at large.; 9/22/10, 9:43 AM
roesch-voltaire said...: I remember reading Jill Johnson while I lived and work NYC as a window to the avant -garde I could not afford on my wages working at a sweat shop in Brooklyn while attending night school at the New School. Like Trad guy, I came from a poor working class background, but realized a shift in power was blowing in the wind. Any struggle brings resentment and opposition, such as giving up a certain power equation in marriage, but based on the number of women entering the various professions feminism on the whole has had a positive affect.; 9/22/10, 10:11 AM
madAsHell said...: Influenced by the hippie movement? I grew up in the U-District by the OTHER U-Dub (...Washington!). I guess I was also influenced by the hippie movement, but I think it spun my compass in a different direction. I always thought that Charlie Manson was the ultimate hippie. How did that work for the women around him?

Bob Dylan? He is a master word-smith, and I'm sure everyone comes away with a different interpretation.

The Beatles? I Wanna Hold Your Hand?

I think these are all pleasant memories, but I'm having trouble finding a guiding light, or a mechanism for coping?

If I find that you have changed your name to Rielle, then I'll stop reading.

w/v nantle - no place to hide; 9/22/10, 10:11 AM
test said...: "I would argue that the marginal cost to society has not been worth the marginal benefits of feminism - that in fact feminism has made us all poorer."

Evaluating feminism as one policy is lazy and wrong. Some aspects of it are so obviously right there's virtually no opposition to them today. Can you make an argument against treating women as social or professional equals, removing barriers to their participation, etc? I'd like to see one.

That being said a claim that these accomplishments are part of their movement shouldn't encourage us to accept feminists' crackpot "some pigs are more equal than others" ideas, or engage in the gender warfare nastiness, or agree that because life was unfair to women the appropriate response is to make it unfair to men now. We should also reject the idea that women uniquely deserve protection from the consequences of their own choices, or that society requires a cadre of radical feminist commissars to approve every decision or event. Agreeing to the first set of policies doesn't require us to agree to more.

America is at its best when we feel free to both adopt what makes sense and reject the nonsense.; 9/22/10, 11:28 AM
Prolixian said...: I know this thread is wrapping up but I just must throw in that it wasn't just "low expectations" that held women back in the 70's. The top student in my HS graduating class had her own guidance counselor refuse to write her a letter in support of her application to Stanford. The reason he offered was that our school typically only had one student admitted each year and he thought it was inappropriate for a girl to take that slot. Do you know how it looks on an application if your own school counselor refuses to back you?

That is but one example of the real, material things that girls and women put up with in those days. It wasn't just vague "low expectations."

FYI, this student got a reference letter from a more willing person and was admitted to Stanford.

FYI2, I agree that boys are getting the short end of it now, and it's just as wrong.; 9/22/10, 11:41 AM
William said...: For the haute, the perfect is the enemy of the good. They enter via the red carpet and, if places in the VIP section are not equitably distributed, they raise hell. The working class come in thru the service entrance. They are entranced by all the free food and try not to make a scene because the bouncer is eyeing them suspiciously.....The haute envision a counter life where all pleasant possibilities are realized. Life should be a parade of good things that get better. Lumpenproles fret about the abyss. Their counter life is poverty and chaos where bad things cascade.......I suppose the nobles who forced King John to sign the Magna Charta had a pretty lively sense of entitlement. And the rights that these nobles were granted didn't matter much to the toilers in the fields. I'm glad the feminists got to pursue their goal of a corner office, but it hasn't really had much effect, one way or another, on my life.; 9/22/10, 11:47 AM
Phil 314 said...: I'm sensing a pendulum slowing down and soon to swing back; 9/22/10, 11:50 AM
Anonymous said...: Revenant --

"I'll bear that in mind the next time you social conservatives start droning on about how marriage has always been heterosexual."

You won't be talking to me, you realize. Social conservative I ain't.

One of the problems everyone has to one degree or another is refusing to believe others may have differing opinions on things based on more than bigotry. So much so they attempt to tar you with the brush without knowing what they are talking about.

Meaning you ...

"Perhaps you, Quayle and shoutingthomas could regale us with your dipshit theories about how none of those groups had it bad in the good old days before PC librulism took hold?"

... resort to straw.; 9/22/10, 12:02 PM
roesch-voltaire said...: I guess discrimination still takes place today, after all look at the six million dollar law suit filed by Christine O'Donnell against the conservative group ISI for sex discrimination:something about all women were required to report to males for their marching orders.; 9/22/10, 12:03 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: "Men have removed their support for feminists, the ‘enemy’ in a movement for reason, truth and self-determination."

"Once I understood the feminist doctrines, a scorching anti-feminist position is the only commonsensical position, especially since, conveniently, I am a man.”

Fuck that bitch.; 9/22/10, 1:13 PM
Anonymous said...: "Perhaps you, Quayle and shoutingthomas could regale us with your dipshit theories about how none of those groups had it bad in the good old days before PC librulism took hold?"

Yes, the supposed oppression of gays and women has been greatly exaggerated for dramatic effect.

It's mostly bullshit.

I think you're probably too young to know.

I was there. Back in the Old Days.

We weren't hanging gays and women from the trees. Really.; 9/22/10, 1:13 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: getting revenge to the point of women working hard to seduce married women into leaving their husbands

Along with the anti-breeder aspect of gay culture (and all the evil corrosion it, too, caused) there is so much about the environment I grew up in, that's - deliberately - not discussed, it makes the mind reel. That discussion should also include the fact most of this evil - and there's really no better word for it - was sold as positive.

I was raised in the middle of a Baby Boomer mindfuck. That I escaped at all (only to now be attacked for doing so) still amazes me, it's so pervasive.

Like I said, fuck that bitch.; 9/22/10, 1:53 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Shouting Thomas,

My family simply never had a foothold in the larger world. They had no idea how to navigate that world.

Dude, you're wasting your breath. Stories like that, for the most part, don't register with the rest of 'em. Look at me - foster care, race, NewAge, murders - the average white, nuclear family-raised, religion-lite-loving person who won't experience death until their folks pass have, for the most part, nothing but ridicule to offer in return - oh, their pampered, "educated" asses know so much - about everything but their own capacity for cruelty.

Unlike you (and Ann, who finds despair, etc., not "sexy") whining doesn't bother me - as long as there's a good reason for it. What's funny is how those others assess what a good reason is. (When I compare Ann's complaints to my foster sister being raped by 9 guys**, it really brings it home.) They'll never really be be capable of helping another because they're too busy imagining they, themselves, have serious problems. Which they do - though they're all in their heads.

But there's absolutely, positively - 100% guaranteed - no way they'll ever admit that, even as a possibility.

**My foster brother and I "handled it".

wv: ferskin - what women would get if they grew dicks.; 9/22/10, 2:10 PM
ALP said...: Martin Shoemaker @ 10:35 -

"The advocacy groups similarly stick to their known tactics as they change their goals. If the tactic before was "Denounce injustice, draw attention to it, and demand change," then that remains the tactic even though the goal has changed from equality to preferential treatment -- and even if they have to FABRICATE CLAIMS of injustice." [CAPS MINE]

Outstanding post - it really tied together some random thoughts of mine. I saw this happen in the "child free" movement (I'm being too generous to call it a movement, more like a bunch of whiners who happen to not want kids). If there was ever a group that had LESS to whine about, its people, like myself, fortunate enough go live in a time when we were not expected to have children to fulfill ourselves, and had the means available to make it happen. And even if someone DID push you to have kids, like your parents - its your own damn fault for letting them get to you, neglecting to grow a spine, and living life on your own terms, not theirs.; 9/22/10, 2:13 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Shouting Thomas - and you're really shouting today, homie:

Yea, one of my life's guiding phrases is "Don't take it easy - just take it."

It, at least, sums up what others have expected of me since the troubles. I've really surprised some on that score.

My life's other guiding phrase is "Fucking fuck shit."

It's the best description, of the adulterous Boomer-sanctioned "love" that produced me, I can come up with.; 9/22/10, 2:31 PM
Anonymous said...: Crack,

My late wife, Myrna, always told me:

"They can't do anything to me that hasn't been done before."

That made her fearless.

It's a good way to look at things.; 9/22/10, 2:47 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: seattleWA,

I always thought that Charlie Manson was the ultimate hippie. How did that work for the women around him?

If I find that you have changed your name to Rielle, then I'll stop reading.

Now, now - please make no mention of cults, cultists, or anything related to NewAge, playing a part in hippie thought (The Beatles and the Maharishi?) or women, primarily, using any of it to destroy lives or our country:

People will say you're crazy.; 9/22/10, 2:50 PM
Famous Original Mike said...: Ugh. That woman makes my skin crawl. Good riddance.; 9/22/10, 2:55 PM
Anonymous said...: Crack,

You would have benefited tremendously from knowing Myrna. You would have loved her. (Every man did.)

People don't know it, but there are some people who are absolutely transcendent and brilliant. Myrna was one. The only one I've ever met.

She was brutalized so terribly when she was a child.

I wish that I knew how to tell her story. She asked me to, but I am struggling to find a way.

She loved men and she loved action. Absolutely fearless.

The feminists in New York loved her and hated her. Loved her because they had the hots for her like everybody else. Hated her because Myrna could have been bitching and playing the victim more than any of them... and she didn't want that crap.

I wish I knew how to tell her story. I am not her equal.; 9/22/10, 3:04 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Shouting Thomas,

My late wife, Myrna,...

Just the mention of her name, and knowing the love you had for her, made me smile. I knew that love, once, too.

It's all a damn shame.; 9/22/10, 3:06 PM
Martin L. Shoemaker said...: shoutingthomas,

Get a blog. Every day, write a paragraph of what you remember of her, or just what you feel of your loss. More if the mood strikes you.

It's the only way. Put a little bit out there every day, and you'll find that without even realizing it, you've told the story of Myrna as you know her. "Tell the story" is a daunting task. "Tell the day" or "tell the moment" will actually tell the story more completely and naturally.; 9/22/10, 3:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Thanks for the suggestion, Martin.

Maybe that is the way.; 9/22/10, 3:31 PM