A diseased patriarchy is in a battle to the death with women

[Heaven Swan]

From:
Panel: What does the US election result say about misogyny?

Read other articles by panelists here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/us-election-result-misogyny-america-panel-woman


Robin Morgan: A diseased patriarchy is in a battle to the death with women


If you ever underestimated the ferocity with which systemic patriarchy would fight a woman attaining serious power, think again. But make no mistake: underlying all the other issues in this election – demographic shifts and racism, economics and education, globalism and immigration and nativism – at the core is a terminally diseased system of male supremacy in a battle to the death with women (and some male allies) who are determined to save ourselves and this planet.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is hardly perfect, but her flaws are those of a sane human being and a politician – not of an orange troglodytic self-proclaimed “sexual predator” who thrives on hatred. She could not have committed enough crimes, short of genocide, to warrant the 30 years of attacks she’s weathered – starting in Arkansas for simply wanting to keep her own name and law career. This year’s sexist vitriol came from the left (Bernie bros chanting, “Bern the witch”), the right (need I list these?), with, for the hell of it, accused rapist Julian Assange, Fox News’s alleged sexual harasser Roger Ailes and the FBI piling on.

The Republican party built this coup for years, preying on the fears of white, working-class, non-college-educated men terrified of a future filled with brown, black and female faces, plus globalisation and technology requiring skills they lack. The GOP conjured Trump, their Frankenstein’s creature, for decades – then acted as if they were shocked when he rose and walked. Hypocritical evangelicals rushed to back this multiply divorced adulterer who spews hate speech. Our media was held hostage to ratings and ad buys: Les Moonves, head of CBS, proclaimed, “I know Trump’s bad for America, but he’s great for CBS, so bring it on!” Not until September did the press grasp the gravity of the threat, and it was print media (prematurely proclaimed dead), not broadcast media, that broke serious investigatory journalism about Trump – though he received nowhere near the scrutiny Clinton has endured for decades. And we worked ceaselessly to support her and voted as if there were no tomorrow.

Now? It feels as if there will be no tomorrow. The unimaginable has happened. Fascism has come to the republic – no hyperbole.

The world is afraid.

The one thing we know is that women are more than half the US population, and the electoral gender gap was a chasm. Moreover, time, and the demographics of diversity and youth, are on our side.

We are digging in, and we will outlive them. The planet depends on it.


Read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/us-election-result-misogyny-america-panel-woman

[Heaven Swan]

Most important sentence in the following piece IMO- "To move back out of the dark ages we are going to need girls and boys to go back to basics, to break up this band of old rich white men who have battered the soul of America."


Every freedom that America’s women have fought for is now under attack
Suzanne Moore

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/suzannemoore


What do we tell our daughters about the future? The big girls who sat up waiting to see the horror-show sexist get his comeuppance? Or the little ones who we told would see the first female president of America? Do we tell them this role is still beyond the reach of any woman? That no woman can meet the standards that are required of her?

A qualified woman with flaws has lost to a man whose lies, tax avoidance and sexual assault allegations are not flaws enough to bar him from the role, nor indeed massive support. Hillary was a prose candidate, not enough poetry. Trump didn’t even do prose, just stream-of-consciousness prejudice.

All through the night I heard “experts” say people respond negatively to women seeking power. They hold them to higher standards. Trump dispensed with standards altogether. Women function to service him, as trophies, possessions. Their bodies are not autonomous. Allegedly, he needs no consent to grope them. This is what your daughters will see now that a man with the lowest possible opinion of women has been elected to the highest office. This is what your sons will see.

If you are a powerful man in America you can treat women like dirt, refuse them the right to make decisions on reproductive rights, basically consider women’s lives lesser than yours. The patriarchy is fully restored. And yes, some women helped restore it, some women voted for Trump, possibly two thirds of white women. For the misogyny around Hillary came from all quarters: the Bernie fans who would not vote for her, the many men of the left who said there was little difference between Clinton and Trump – because women’s rights are low down in their list of priorities. Male privilege spoke on the left and the right.

The Nate Silver charts show that if only women voted, Clinton would have won easily. The rage of men is so powerful, they will unite around this inadequate narcissist. To move back out of the dark ages we are going to need girls and boys to go back to basics, to break up this band of old rich white men who have battered the soul of America. However heartbroken America’s women are, it is they who now have to pick up the pieces. It is they who have to fight for themselves because every freedom they have fought for is now under attack.

[Harvey]

This kind of feminism tends to apply exclusively to white western women, not for example to the seven hundred thousand widows in Iraq, or those in Libya, Syria, Lebanon or Yemen. In case you think that's a cheap retort, consider all of those women who had education in Afghanistan before western intervention drew in the Soviets leading ultimately to the Taliban. Those women across the middle East who lived in secular states with rights including education now have to fend for themselves against Islamist warlords who are in place precisely to further the interests of feminists like Hilary.

Until Suzanne Moore develops enough intellectual honesty to include them, well, I'm just not buying whatever it is you think you're selling.

[Heaven Swan]

This kind of feminism tends to apply exclusively to white western women, not for example to the seven hundred thousand widows in Iraq, or those in Libya, Syria, Lebanon or Yemen. In case you think that's a cheap retort, consider all of those women who had education in Afghanistan before western intervention drew in the Soviets leading ultimately to the Taliban. Those women across the middle East who lived in secular states with rights including education now have to fend for themselves against Islamist warlords who are in place precisely to further the interests of feminists like Hilary.

Until Suzanne Moore develops enough intellectual honesty to include them, well, I'm just not buying whatever it is you think you're selling.

So you think a Trump presidency will be better for women worldwide? Maybe it's a moot point now but the extreme Hillary-bashing from the left and the knee-jerk blaming of white women for everything is a part of what got Trump elected.

[seemslikeadream]

Tennessee Woman Indicted for Self-Induced Abortion Faces New Charges
Nov 16, 2016, 4:29pm Teddy Wilson
Pro-choice advocates have pointed to a rash of anti-choice policies pushed through the Republican-held Tennessee legislature since 2014, reducing access to reproductive health care in the state.


Anna Yocca has been charged with aggravated assault with a weapon, attempted procurement of a miscarriage, and attempted criminal abortion.

A Tennessee woman accused of using a coat hanger to try to terminate her pregnancy is facing new criminal charges.

Anna Yocca was charged in December 2015 with attempted first-degree murder, but that charge was reduced in March to aggravated assault.

A Rutherford County Grand Jury on November 12 returned three new charges against Yocca, reported the Daily News Journal. Yocca has been charged with aggravated assault with a weapon, attempted procurement of a miscarriage, and attempted criminal abortion.

Aggravated assault with a weapon and attempted criminal abortion each carry jail terms of three to 15 years and fines up to $10,000; attempted procurement of a miscarriage carries a jail term of one to six years and a fine up to $3,000.

Pro-choice advocates have pointed to a rash of anti-choice policies pushed through the Republican-held Tennessee legislature since 2014 that have reduced access to reproductive health care in the state.

“These acts of desperation will happen more frequently unless the Tennessee Legislature reconsiders its posture about both current and potential anti-abortion legislation and the fetal assault law which allows a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for fetal harm,” SisterReach CEO Cherisse Scott said in a statement last December, shortly after Yocca was arrested.

Yocca allegedly went to her upstairs bathroom in September 2015, filled the tub with water, got in, and tried to “self-abort” her pregnancy with a coat hanger, according to police reports. Prosecutors claim Yocca, who was 24 weeks pregnant at the time, grew “alarmed and concerned for her safety” when she saw blood in the tub.

Her boyfriend took her to St. Thomas Rutherford Hospital’s emergency room, where Yocca delivered a 1.5 pound male baby, who reportedly needed extensive medical care, the Daily News Journal reported. The child was placed into the custody of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.

The nursing staff reported that Yocca made “disturbing statements” and admitted that she had attempted to self-induce an abortion.

Yocca is being held at the Rutherford County Adult Detention Center, according to the Daily News Journal. She will be arraigned on the new charges November 28.
http://rewire.news/article/2016/11/16/t ... -103247345

The War on Women
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34154

[Searcher08]

This kind of feminism tends to apply exclusively to white western women, not for example to the seven hundred thousand widows in Iraq, or those in Libya, Syria, Lebanon or Yemen. In case you think that's a cheap retort, consider all of those women who had education in Afghanistan before western intervention drew in the Soviets leading ultimately to the Taliban. Those women across the middle East who lived in secular states with rights including education now have to fend for themselves against Islamist warlords who are in place precisely to further the interests of feminists like Hilary.

Until Suzanne Moore develops enough intellectual honesty to include them, well, I'm just not buying whatever it is you think you're selling.

You may be waiting a long, long while. Her writing is vapid sexist drivel.

Suzanne Moore: Why I was wrong about men

You can't hate them all, can you? Actually, I can.
By
Suzanne Moore

Men. You can’t live with them. You can’t shoot them. Well, you can, but this is the New Statesman. And modern feminism spends most of its life not just bending over backwards, but in the doggy position, saying how much it likes men. “I’m a feminist but . . . I love men.” Obviously I’m being a bit binary here, and when I write “men”, I mean women, blokes, anyone fluid enough basically to be in charge.

I once adhered to this. I didn’t want to put anyone off. I used to call feminism “sexual politics”, because that sounded way more sexy. Hey, I’m no man-hater – on the contrary. Look at me. Men? Can’t get enough of them, the poor, damaged critters. It’s not their fault. They’re as screwed up by the patriarchy as ordinary women, probably even more so.

All the special boys. What about the ones who were abused at public school and now run everything but can’t express their emotions properly? All the man victims, trapped by masculinity. Who could hate them? Their oppression is structural. You can’t hate them individually, can you?

You know what? I can. Please don’t confuse that with bitterness. I am in touch with my emotions enough to know the difference between personal hurt and class hatred. As a class, I hate men. I’ve changed my mind. I am no longer reasonable.

I want to see this class broken. There can’t be even basic equality for women without taking away the power of men – and by that I don’t mean feeling sorry for them because they have no friends or suggesting that they have small genitals. I mean the removal of their power.

When I used to give men the benefit of the doubt, that doubt was suffused with my desire for sex, babies, the whole shebang. It wasn’t difficult to get any of this, although the way in which women are encouraged to do so is stultifying.

Marriage, monogamy – a prison where you build your own walls. Familiarity breeds contempt, but this is the aftermath of romance. If you want to fetishise proximity, domesticity, and storage solutions from Ikea, why not go all the way and be a lesbian? If you want to service someone, have a baby. And if you want to rescue someone, get a dog.

Sure, there can be equitable relationships between men and women, in which one turns into the other’s carer. This is the ­optimal compromise, the prospectus that no one really gets until it’s too late.

Having tried to live with various mishaps, I realise that this is not for me and it never will be. But then, nor will the kind of reasonable feminism in which we make allowances for men. Because they are men. I have had it all my life: pro-choice marches in which men insist that they walk at the front. A left-wing party that cannot deal with a female leader. The continuing pushing back of women’s rights.

If you are interested in the liberation of women, you’ll find that the biggest barrier to this is men: men as a class. I used to think, “I don’t hate all men.” I had therapy and everything. Now, I think that any intelligent woman hates men. There are very few problems in the world that don’t have, at the root of them, male violence and woman-hating.

The more I hate men (#YesAllMen), the more I don’t mind individual ones, actually, as it is clear that some can be entertaining for a while. Before you even bother whingeing that my hatred of the taskmasters of patriarchy is somehow equivalent to systematic misogyny, to the ongoing killing, rape and torture and erasure of women, know this: I once made exceptions. I was wrong.

Suzanne Moore is a writer for the Guardian and the New Statesman. She writes the weekly “Telling Tales” column in the NS.

I think the huge countrywide city-stopping demonstrations organised and run by American and British women who are not prepared to tolerate the near slavery of women that exists under Wahabbi Islam regimes is really inspiring.

[Rory]

IMG_20161117_115734.jpg

Our UN Human Rights Council will fix everything for everyone

They gave so much money to Clinton... Bittersweet for the Saudi Feminists

[82_28]

Jesus H. She is a piece of work. Yes she is free to hate, but, as a man, I am free to not be a dick and assume I will not be hated. I may be straight and shit like that, but most of my friends are LGBTQ. I don't give a shit what anyone does. Most of the best friends I have made over time are female. Platonic. It's just respect. I find those comments risible.

But then if I said so I would be "mansplaining". Yeah, no. Carry on.

[Heaven Swan]

Ah, nice to see some spirited discussion. I was afraid the topic held little interest for the readership.

[slomo]

Women. You can’t live with them. You can’t shoot them.

Oops, typo. The actual quote:

Men. You can’t live with them. You can’t shoot them.

[divideandconquer]

I'm watching the series, "The Fall" and one of the characters asks the main character (Stella):

"Why are women emotionally and spiritually so much stronger than men?"

Stella: Because the basic human form is female. Maleness is a kind of... birth defect

Well, we all do start out as female and, with the exception of muscular strength, females are generally stronger, than men.

I've had the opportunity to visit several nursing homes within the last few years, and off the top of my head it seems there are ten women for every man. Not only that, female babies are stronger than male babies, more likely to survive. And as far as emotional/spiritual strength goes, just look around..it's generally the men who take off when the going gets tough.

So are males... birth defects? Would we be better off without men? No more crime. No more war. No more rape....

[Pele'sDaughter]

No, I think we can just do without the idea that men have the divine right of rulership over women. That's just one of the problems I have with religion; that god-man-woman hierarchy in which women have virtually no role in developing their own lives and their own spirituality. In my perfect world there's no place for any superior thinking and both men and women would act in harmony and partnership utilizing each sex's unique qualities. That's a far cry from how it's working now and if we want it to change, we have to shed that programming from the past and relearn how to be authentically human.

[brekin]

Having tried to live with various mishaps, I realise that this is not for me and it never will be. But then, nor will the kind of reasonable feminism in which we make allowances for men. Because they are men. I have had it all my life: pro-choice marches in which men insist that they walk at the front. A left-wing party that cannot deal with a female leader. The continuing pushing back of women’s rights.
If you are interested in the liberation of women, you’ll find that the biggest barrier to this is men: men as a class. I used to think, “I don’t hate all men.” I had therapy and everything. Now, I think that any intelligent woman hates men. There are very few problems in the world that don’t have, at the root of them, male violence and woman-hating.

I see this all the time from both sides. Because it didn't work out for me, and I can't make it work, it is completely systemic and everyone is to blame. This is the same thinking that a virulent woman hating abuser thinks. "I've been screwed over a few times or its never worked out for me. So all women are whores and cheats, so I hate all women. Sure a few may be nice, grand ma baked cookies for me as a kid, but basically all the worlds problems, a woman is involved." If you live in a free and tolerant society and aren't imprisoned, you have choice. To that guy, and Suzanne Moore, we can only say: yes, and some people claim that there's a woman or man to blame, but we know it's their own damn fault.

[Iamwhomiam]

"Why are women emotionally and spiritually so much stronger than men?"

Well that's because men lie. Starting with that Adam's rib bit. Eve was created by Ellie through parthenogenesis, Eve birthed Adam. All her female offspring had this ability and that why we all worshiped a female deity back then. Eventually, and most unfortunately, long ago women lost this marvelous ability. And that's when men saw their opportunity to turn the tables on women and take control and it's been bloody this or bloody that ever since.

You can't deny someone their own experiences, brekin. This is what her observation is as drawn from her experience and she's entitled to feel as she does without "it didn't work out for her" judgment. I daresay she's not alone with such sentiments. Trump is probably thought of as just below average, all things considered.

One surefire way women could get men to grovel in their shit would be for them to design a chastity belt and for maximum effect, watch their face as you swallow the key.

This, of course will not eliminate the problem, as some are immune to such pleasures from women, but with dozens of copies of keys, those that do will come around soon enough and realize who's the boss.

[Grizzly]

So it seems to me we have several potentially emotional elevating topics on board right now. Many gender, race, class issues. Many highly charged. Many feel like disunity. Most feel like debate instead of diologue. I'm curious why this is? Diologue connotes discussion to me, where debate conveys hints of antagonist ego driven rivalry i.e, competition. Anyone else feel it?

As a side note, WWGD?*

What would Gurdjieff do? ..lol