Witch Trails

 

Get THIS:

On December 5, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued the Summis desiderantes affectibus, a papal bull in which he recognized the existence of witches and gave full papal approval for the inquisition to move against witches, including the permission to do whatever necessary to get rid of them. In the bull, which is sometimes referred to as the "Witch-Bull of 1484", the witches were explicitly accused of having "slain infants yet in the mother's womb" (abortion) and of "hindering men from performing the sexual act (control over women's sexuality) and women from conceiving" (contraception). 

                     -Wikipedia, Witch trials in Early Modern Europe 

Wanna really blow your mind?

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers 
by Barbara Ehrenreich, Deirdre English

Women have always been healers, and medicine has always been an arena of struggle between female practitioners and male professionals. This pamphlet explores two important phases in the male takeover of health care: the suppression of witches in medieval Europe and the rise of the male medical profession in the United States. The authors conclude that despite efforts to exclude them, the resurgence of women as healers should be a long-range goal of the women’s movement.

Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts 
by Anne Llewellyn Barstow

In the sixteenth century, a rise in sexual violence in European society was exacerbated by pressure from church and state to change basic sexual customs...As the centuries since have shown escalating levels both of violence, general and sexual, and of state control, the witchcraze can be considered a portent, even a model, of some aspects of what modern Europe would be like."

Over three centuries, approximately one hundred thousand persons, most of whom were women, were put to death under the guise of "witch hunts", particularly in Reformation Europe. The shocking annihilation of women from all walks of life is explored in this brilliant, authoritative feminist history Anne Llwellyn Barstow. Barstow exposes an unrecognized holocaust -- the "ethnic cleansing" of independent women in Reformation Europe -- and examines the residual attitudes that continue to influence our culture.

Barstow argues that it is only with eyes sensitive to gender issues that we can discern what really happened in the persecution and murder of these women. Her sweeping chronicle examines the scapegoating of women from the ills of society, investigates how their subjugation to sexual violence and death sent a message of control to all women, and compares this persecution of women with the enslavement and slaughter of African slaves and Native Americans.

Ultimately Barstow traces the current backlash against women to its gynophobic torture-filled origins. In the process, she leaves an indelible mark on our growing understanding of the legacy of violence against women around the world.

Bewitched to the Rescue!

This scene (go exactly 9 minutes into the show) could have come straight from a feminist's mouth as Samantha tells Darin how she feels about a particular incident with Darren. Great stuff.

It can also be interpreted as a commentary on racism too:

Wikipedia states: "Some episodes take a backdoor approach to such topics as racism, as seen in the first season episode, "The Witches Are Out", in which Samantha objects to Darrin's demeaning ad portrayal of witches as ugly and deformed. Such stereotypical imagery often causes Endora and other witches to flee the country until November. "Sisters at Heart" (season 7), whose story was submitted by a tenth-grade English class,^[10] involved Tabitha altering the skin tone of herself and a black friend with coordinating polka-dots, so that people would treat them alike."

I'd highly recommend watching the entire episode as there are some other nuggets of wonder. = )

Annie Lennox - Keep Young and Beautiful

Yep, she's got that right. Keep young, keep beautiful, and he JUST might love you. . .

What a great message to send to our kids, girls and boys.  We've got to stop taking beauty and youth so seriously in these detrimental ways, and this video does just that.

Seen Not Heard

Two-Spirits in American Indian Culture

A friend sent me this youtube video to me.

Educational film with sociological focus on Two-Spirits in American Indian society both past and present. All materials used were done so in accordance with the U.S. Fair Use policy or are freely licensed. This was a college sociology project. Feel free to share with proper attribution.

TEN THINGS MEN CAN DO TO PREVENT GENDER VIOLENCE

1. Approach gender violence as a MEN'S issue involving men of all ages and socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. View men not only as perpetrators or possible offenders, but as empowered bystanders who can confront abusive peer.

2. If  a brother, friend, classmate, or teammate is abusing his female partner -- or is disrespectful or abusive to girls and women in general -- don't look the other way. If you feel comfortable doing so, try to talk to him about it. Urge him to seek help. Or if you don't know what to do, consult a friend, a parent, a professor, or a counselor. DON'T REMAIN SILENT.

3. Have the courage to look inward. Question your own attitudes. Don't be defensive when something you do or say ends up hurting someone else. Try hard to understand how your own attitudes and actions might inadvertently perpetuate sexism and violence, and work toward changing them.

4. If you suspect that a woman close to you is being abused or has been sexually assaulted, gently ask if you can help.

5. If you are emotionally, psychologically, physically, or sexually abusive to women, or have been in the past, seek professional help NOW.

6. Be an ally to women who are working to end all forms of gender violence. Support the work of campus-based women's centers. Attend "Take Back the Night" rallies and other public events. Raise money for community-based rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters. If you belong to a team or fraternity, or another student group, organize a fundraiser.

7. Recognize and speak out against homophobia and gay-bashing. Discrimination and violence against lesbians and gays are wrong in and of themselves. This abuse also has direct links to sexism (eg. the sexual orientation of men who speak out against sexism is often questioned, a conscious or unconscious strategy intended to silence them. This is a key reason few men do so).

8. Attend programs, take courses, watch films, and read articles and books about multicultural masculinities, gender inequality, and the root causes of gender violence.  Educate yourself and others about how larger social forces affect the conflicts between individual men and women.

9. Don't fund sexism. Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any Web site, or buy any music that portrays girls or women in a sexually degrading or abusive manner. Protest sexism in the media.

10. Mentor and teach young boys about how to be men in ways that don't involve degrading or abusing girls and women. Volunteer to work with gender violence prevention programs, including anti-sexist men's programs. Lead by example.

From: http://www.jacksonkatz.com/wmcd.html

WAR ZONE

I think I'm about to lose my MIND.

This documentary, War Zone, was directed/made by a woman from Louisiana.

She bought a camera, and soon found herself in the streets with her tiny camera filming men saying highly sexist things.

 It's 33 minutes long. I'm only half done. SAVE ME!!

http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=213&template=PDGCommTemplates%2FHTN%2FItem_Preview.html

Just an extra note: 90% of murderers are men.

Teen Sex

"Teenagers used to go to the movies to see adults having sex.  Now adults go to the movies to see teenagers having sex."  -Roger Ebert

A contradiction in America is that teens are divided from adults.  The name of the game is Parents vs. Kids. One generation against their parent generation.

The human race has decided to 

declare a war between Adults and children.

We need to understand our 

imagery, and  we need 

to explore and question 

that imagery, for how will we 

ever know oneself without understanding 

the rest of ourselves.  

SEE?

This is a very dominant thought in our media (i.e. our thinking).  We need to SEE how het male supremacist understand the world, and the media is definitely giving it all.

Watch the Documentary WHAT A GIRL WANTS where this quote was found.

For being effective, you are sentenced to…

Wow, I'll just quote this directly from What Privilege?

When I was a teenage girl who wasn’t shy about pointing out the advantages I didn’t have, I was surrounded by teenage boys who weren’t shy about telling me, “Stop whining and just do something about it.”

I took their advice. I studied the people who had the social standing I wanted, which in my part of the world was white middle to upper class men, ostensibly heterosexual. I learned the vocal tones and pitches they use and avoid (almost the opposite of what most women do). I learned how they stand, how they approach one another, how they negotiate. I learned what they’re allowed (in their social contract as members of the dominant group) to express and how they’re allowed to express it. And I discovered that by merely using these techniques, I got taken about 300% more seriously than far more competent women who didn’t. And all that well before the age of 20. It’s easy hard to learn if you have a natural talent for reading people, which I do. 

What’s hard to do is to apply it. Because even though I could walk into a crisis situation, take charge, fix it and win kudos even from the most neurotic misogynists in about five minutes flat, there was always a backlash. The better I performed, the bigger the backlash. During the crisis, all people saw in me was an individual who projected leadership and competence and showed them how we could all work together to fix the situation. Afterwards, many of the men saw an unmistakably female person of unimposing size, and they were ashamed of having “taken orders” from me, so to even that score they’d play tricks on me, or yell abuse at me, or just ignore me (by “ignore” I mean to the extent of mowing me down in a corridor rather than step aside). A lot of the women, too, would have second thoughts about me after the fact and join in with the men. 

I’m not looking for sympathy – I got over this bullshit years ago. But the other day on a website, I saw someone saying that women don’t get paid as much as men because women don’t negotiate like men, and it reminded me of all this. When women do negotiate like men, they risk being shunned by a community that doesn’t believe they should negotiate like men, but wants them to stop “whining” when they don’t have what they want. It’s a perfect catch-22. 

And of course, a lot of men don’t see it because they’re not even conscious of the way they react when a woman does approach them the way men are trained to do. They think they’re being perfectly fair, and it’s just a coincidence that every woman who successfully commands men calmly and naturally is later realized to be difficult, intimidating, unapproachable or a just plain mean ol’ bitchy man-hater. 

Is it any wonder history fails to record any effective women in history? Fails to recognize them now? Is it a surprise that Hillary Clinton can do no right in a society where the only “right” way to be is male/white/etc., and women aren’t allowed to be that? Is it any surprise that when women react well to an effective woman because we don’t have any manhood to feel threatened by them, it’s suspicious, a conspiracy, an illogical emotional malfunction?

Beware: Mind-Altering - Dreamworlds 3

The dreamworld of music videos.

Staceyann Chin - All Oppression is Connected!

Everyday Male Chauvinism

Everyday Male Chauvinism is a form of intimate partner violence that is not called violence.  This phenomena of power and control over women is unrecognizable, invisible, and remains unnamed.  This is the name of the game, and it is part of everyday relationships with men, especially white heterosexual men who are privileged in ways that are invisible to them as they are the standard.  This invisibility is what makes patriarchy tick; it's the gas that fuels the patriarchal car.  Take away the gas, and the car will no longer be able to run.  This is what making visible the invisible so powerful.  We must make them visible and call out the patriarchal mindset as it arises.  We must not take the path of least resistance.  We must persevere, fight for our rights as human beings in need of respect, dignity, and love.

Men must understand that women and men live in a world where the patriarchal empire Masculand exists and functions in every sphere of life imaginable. This is a global phenomenon, and it's not leaving without outright resistance.  "The recognition of everyday male chauvinism can result in changes in the lives of women who suffer from it.  Men, along with women, must recognise their own behaviour and WANT to change it, not merely think about it abstractly" as I have seen done even in radical circles.  Women WILL NOT progress without the help and support of men; this is not to say that women do not have power.  This capitalistic system will fall to its feet without women's constant unpaid labor of their minds and bodies.  Feminism has drastically changed the lives of every woman who has come into contact with it. Women's roles within society have dramatically changed over the past century due to the fight that women have fought: they have gained the right to vote, to work, to their sexuality, etc.  Of course, our work is not done.  We have far to go, and even farther than Feminism, but humanity for all.

The point is: It is not only necessary for women to fight, but men’s active work is needed.

"The manifestations of everyday male chauvinism are part of a systematic behaviour—they are not occasional and momentary manoeuvres but are tactical steps constituting a strategy. The strategic aim is again the maintenance of the power position, of male dominance, and its restoration if that power is injured. The emphasis is on maintenance and restoration and not on the creation of power because this latter has already been ensured largely by the social, structural element: patriarchal society."

"Men’s 'small' controlling, violent and dominant behaviours are forms of behaviour all within the limits of so called normality and are not particularly outstanding.  They are recognized by men as normal in their lives without even realizing their harmful behaviors.  They do insidious and continuous harm to women’s autonomy, dignity and even their psychic equilibrium. They are extremely common among so called 'nice' men whom public opinion would call neither violent nor particularly controlling  or male chauvinistic."

"These almost unrecognisable mechanisms of “soft” control (i..e. everyday male chauvinism) exercised over women have a devastating effect not only on women but in the long term also on the men who exercise them." These mechanisms of control used by men are damaging to both the man and the woman.  Men are held transfixed in terror, and must prove they can defend themselves endlessly.  They also must defend their property, i.e. women, cattle, his choice of business.  They must defend their "manhood" against other men, and mostly they perish even attempting that.

Male domestic violence and rape in our culture is turned into a fiasco of "victim blaming" where women are castigated as whores and deserving of men's violence.  So, what makes us think the more subtler forms of violence against women like verbal abuse and intimidation are ever even remarked upon in our culture in our daily lives?  Even when it's the most common, most widespread mechanism of control.  Break a woman (soldier) down, and they are yours forever.

Maybe you're thinking to yourself that women are very often violent themselves, even violent against men.  Yes, this is true.  Women can act in all sorts of ways just as men can and vice versa, but the violence women commit is against the flow of the dominant system of patriarchy.  They are working against an everyday patriarchal society where violence committed by men is dominant in their daily lives.  Women, unlike men, are quickly and swiftly shut down and dismissed as bitches, worthless whores, witches, man haters, crazy, unreasonable, illogical.  Pick your favorite.  On the other hand, when a man acts this way, in an intimidating (although, for them, reasonable) way, he is treated like next years king.

In simpler terms, intimidation on women looks bitchy, unreasonable, deserving of put-downs and hatred.  On men, it looks like terror, logical, right, and even can be sexy.

To really make this point compare these photos:

While both look harsh and terrifying, which one's anger looks and feels unjustified, unreasonable, stupid?  Which one looks and feels terrifyingly reasonable?

This woman in the photo uses intimidation and slave-owning techniques just like the man, so don't both genders use intimidation and everyday "male" chauvinism?  Women may use everyday male chauvinism as a mechanism to protect themselves, to fight off feelings of powerlessness from the unequal division of power, or to stand up against the dominant power structures set up to put women back in "their place."  Sometimes the woman, herself, usually alone, must use the dominant system of revenge: castigating him for his indifference and ruthlessness, jail him, use capital punishment.  This is not because she just loves to be sadistic like a man.  It's because it's the only way she is finally able to gain any sort of sense of safety.  If your attacker keeps attacking and threatens to kill you, rape you, or hurt you and those close to you, and if the capitalistic world institution can't help you (even further, they discredit you and castigate you), you are left to defend yourself "outside the proper lawful system".  Outside this "moral" system of lawfulness, we are left to fend for ourselves in a world where our concerns are not considered worth a even a cent! We, women, must stand together, and SHOUT, SCREAM at the top of our lungs that we are not immoral, psychotic, or vengeful.  It is the system which "drives us crazy" and "makes us psychotic and hysteric".  It is a personal feeling and experience that every woman has experienced in a wide variety of ways.  That sick Chicana woman.  That blonde whore.  That negress slut animal.

The majority of women who use violence are merely protecting themselves against the systematic violence that is committed against them on a daily basis.  Any oppressed group can use the tools of the master when the time arises in the right moment of strategic consideration, but, watch out for some serious BACKLASH and watch out FOR YOUR VERY LIFE.  For instance, a man may rape a woman or maybe he throws her around a little bit, or maybe he says something hurtful, or maybe he cheats on her.  The woman may use violence that typifies everyday male chauvinism when other mechanisms aren't available due to her systematic oppression, but the difference is she will be labeled an uncontrollable raging bitch, and therefore simply dismissed as hysteric.Women are castigated as very violent in comparison to men . It's not their "normal" roles to be violent, so any instance of violence by women is heavily sedated by the power structures in place. Neutralized I should say.  This is what we are fighting, women.  Listen up.  Men are neutralizing us before we even have the chance to stand on our two feet.  They kick us down before we even stand.

More men need to LISTEN, really listen... really gravitating to the weight of what women are saying daily about their particular struggle within their very lives NOW.  Women also, especially, if we are even to get this war back on with more equal footing.  What is she going through?  What is she concerned about endlessly as if in a psychosis that can't be woken up from?  Even those men who give us the time of day to speak don't seem to realize the gravity of what we are saying.  After all, their emotional range isn't ideologically supposed to be anything more than an emotional-less stone or anger.  Alas, we are to only be seen, looked upon as their porcelain dolls for them to glorify when we go with the flow, and we will be vilified when we act against the flow of THEIR power structures.  If we "go with the flow" we are seen as innocent, pure dolls, but when we ACT against that flow, we are demonized and systematically dismissed.

We are never to be heard.  We are like children with little right to exist beyond men's needs.  Men treat us like children as they "know better".  They have an "intellectual stamina" over women due to all that inherent male superiority given to them by this patriarchal structure.  Believe me, they realize this structure exists and that it oppresses women.  They invented it afterall, this system of slavery, this slavery of the gender class woman -- can you contradict me?

This is, of course, the same old story of male logic which keeps women down and out of intellectual circles in all fields of life except love, motherhood, and wifehood.  This is of course the biggest farce.  Women very well know what's going on.  They've been learning since they were BORN that they could not be "men" as they were stuffed into a pink bonnet and severely punished for acting out against the gender class man.

Men have been indoctrinated with the idea that they are the show runners of the world.  They see themselves as the rulers, the bosses, the kings, the organizers, the politicians, and this is, indeed correct. THEY ARE.  Big whoop.  Women are the ones breaking their backs with little reward or little thanks from their bosses, their husbands, their boyfriends, and even their families.  They do the dirty work.  They clean, sweep, organize the home, print the kids homework, create the pamphlets for that organization, set the dates for that beach or business trip, shop for your groceries, and the list is almost endless.

What is all very, very critical to this is the man's (and woman's) realization of his (her) socialization, indoctrination as a kid.  As a young boy, he adapted to the terrain of traditional roles set up for him before he's even born (his father maintained the family, his mother takes care of him, and on top of that he sees how other families interact in such similar ways).  His father uses "male logic" on his mommy.  His mommy uses kisses, hugs, complements, and sex as a tool of submission when she requests anything from a man, including him.  These ideas are indoctrinated, uploaded, buried beneath the boy's very understanding of men and women.  It becomes reality.  Even if he knows about patriarchy and wishes theoretically to dispose of it because (logically) he knows this is best for Homo Sapiens survival, he still knows these patriarchal roles are functioning NOW in the world.  He knows, at anytime, he can use these mechanisms and maneuvers against women and other men which degrade both.  He knows, beneath all of that, that he has the capacity to destroy a woman's self-esteem and sleep with any woman he wishes simply through the mechanisms he's used on his mother or sister or that cousin he felt up when he was 15 and she was 5.

This is so well into his very life-being.  He doesn't realize how much of that is in him, even when he may endorse the equality of both women and men in order to dissolve the gender classes.  He exploits and abuses the fact that the woman is an “expert” at taking care of others. He know she's been conditioned to do just that, so why not let her do it as she knows best and it'll be easier anyways, right guys?  By reinforcing women's already socialised calling “to live for others”, it leads the woman into the roles that are hers “by nature”, "by roles", and now "by patriarchy". 

Do you really think men aren't thinking this?  That if they get their wives or girlfriends to do the laundry or those dishes or plan that trip, he won't have as much to think about except his long held desire to exploit her and live out his dream of become "expert" or "theoretician".  It'll be just like living with mommy.

Women are conditioned to be a mother, wife, assistant, secretary, dispatcher, psychologist, social worker, telephonist, receptionist, cleaner and cloakroom attendant all at once for one man and for those men she works for at "her" job without any help from other men or women what so ever (unless, she dare ask for it, for help... which may lead to a hit, a put down, and terror).

“Often men feel that a relationship has deteriorated when the mechanisms of male power, which are accepted as everyday communication, are no longer enough to maintain power over women.” -Why Does He Abuse? Why Can He Abuse?

***This writing was highly influenced by the paper, Everyday Male Chauvinism.  Direct quotes are taken from it and have been modified by me.  No copyright infringement intended. 

Abuse of the MIND

Are you being emotionally abused??

I really want you to THINK about this, hard.  

If you can't feel love from someone who says they love you, it's NOT love.

REPEAT: LOVE SHOULD FEEL LIKE LOVE.

Listen to your INSTINCTS, your EMOTIONAL RESPONSES in every situation.

Listen and protect yourself against harm.  Set Boundaries. 

In the past...

How have your parents treated you?

Do you feel they don't let you become the person you want to be?

Do you feel they demand obedience from you through FORCE of will?

How have your boyfriends and/or husband(s) treated you?

Do you feel they use you only for sex?  

Do you ever feel that they can't share other parts of 

themselves with you in an emotionally healthy way?  

Do you feel they demean you?

Do you feel inadequate around them?

Do others in society regulate your sexuality?

Do you feel you are being shoved into a BOX?  

Do you feel pressure to be something you don't want to be, 

and even forced into being something you don't want to be?

Does your sexuality feel  like it SHOULD be

more than horny, sexy, inadequate, or dirty?

Do others make you feel different, ugly, wretched?

Do others make you  feel like you don't belong because of your ethnic makeup?  

Do you feel uneasy in a grocery store or in a shopping mall 

where your ethnicity doesn't predominate?

Do you  feel  GUILTY for being YOURSELF?

REMEMBER: Abuse isn't always a clear WORD-GAME.

Emotional abuse takes different forms.

Emotional abuse IS SUBTLE and INVISIBLE.  

This is how domination and submission works.

NEVER TAKE THE PATH OF LEAST RESISTANCE!

STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS!

RESIST DOMINATION!

RESIST SUBMISSION!

Emotional abuse is the most common way oppressed peoples of the world 

are held under the control of those who are our abusers.

Yes, that's right.

World capitalism is based on the domination of the false categories of 

adult white heterosexual men who

 UTILIZE 

Emotional and Physical abuse 

to 

CONTROL, MANIPULATE, and DISTORT 

our 

minds, hearts, and bodies.

This is TERRORISM. 

A terrorism so intimate that it infiltrates our very thoughts, emotions, minds, and souls.  

This is a RAPE of the mind, body, and SOUL.

Emotional abuse is CLEAN VIOLENCE.  It leaves no marks, no PROOF of abuse.

This is the perfect weapon. . . 

A weapon used by the dominators of a world system based on ABUSE of its people.

This weapon annihilates personal identity, and shames.

It destroys the oppressed people's of the world sense of SELF.

http://www.joy2meu.com/emotional_abuse.html

REMEMBER: Love is not, nor will it EVER be:

Critical       Shaming  Abusive      Controlling      Manipulative

Demeaning     Humiliating     Separating     Discounting

Diminishing        Belittling        Negative       Traumatic

Painful most of the time            etc.

Patriarchy

Do our fathers, husbands, boyfriends, and sons 

know women can be more than two sexually 

dichotomized categories

of 

"pure of heart virgin"

&

"slut and bitch"?




STOP SELLING US:

A Radical Profeminist: Women, Men, Love, and Hate: A Radical Profeminist ...

Just.... wow....

Very, very strong message.  Here is part of a blog post taken from the blog, A Radical Profeminist: Women, Men, Love, and Hate: A Radical Profeminist by Julian Real

"When most men read writings by women men perceive to be hateful, they will take GREAT offence, become histerical, and see such writing as evidence that women hating on men is a global problem that must be snuffed out by any means necessary.

When many women read writings by men they experience as hateful, they will often often respond with a kind of reasoned resignation, as if to say "Yeah, what else is new? Same story, different day."

Online anti-feminist men are apparently convinced there's something 'out there' called misandry--not committed by MEN, but committed by WOMEN. These delusional people will cling to Andrea Dworkin's writings as "proof" because men love to believe women hate them, ridicule them, don't respect them, and find them generally distasteful. And how many countries did Andrea Dworkin rule? How many courts did she oversee? How many juries did she advise? How many institutions or industries did she control? How much profit did she make from selling rape of women as entertainment for men? How rich was she? How much money did she earn from her dozen or so books? (The answer is shockingly low. You have to write books about boys as courageous, about men as heroes, to make any money at all, if you're a woman.)

Can you count on one hand, two hands, twenty hands, the number of men who rule countries that don't respect women as full human beings? Please make sure you put "the United States" on the first hand. Please add "Canada" too. And "England". And "Australia". And "Japan". And most any nation-state you know of. Even the few Scandinavian countries which are trying to end the procurement and rape of women. Because the procurement and the rape hasn't ended anywhere yet. So women are free nowhere. Even in societies in which women are generally regarded as human, there will always be white men to arrive and remind them what white men think women, globally, are for. Class-privileged white het men in Japan do this a whole lot, for example. And they do it a whole lot in Australia. And England. And Canada. And the United States too. Everywhere white het men go, they carry with them a belief in their absolute right to have sexual access to women and girls. But they don't call this protection of a right wrong as "hate".

These privileged men also will not see women who love women, sexually, romantically, socially, and politically, for what it is: being loving. The also won't see women's critiques of male atrocities for what they are: loving.

To whatever extent actual negative portraits of men exist, socially, they will not ever be regarded by men as a class as a crucial aspect of women gaining some sense of freedom from the imposition on will, on being, and on life, of the primary patriarchal commandment: THOU SHALT NOT DO ANYTHING TO INSULT, DEGRADE, OR DEMONISE ME(N), who are to be revered as gods. This follows the commandment, a very Conservative Corporate Christian one: THOU SHALT DO EVERYTHING IN ONE'S POWER AS A MAN, INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, TO INSULT, DEGRADE, AND DEMONISE WOMEN.

There is a sexual politic to hate. Here is how it works: men are allowed to hate women, or not. Men can show contempt, callousness, or cruelty and always claim "It's because I love ya, baby!! Why don't you SEE that?? Why don't you KNOW that?!"

Women are not allowed to do anything at all that might possibly be perceived by one man or many men as being contemptuous, callous, or cruel to one man or to men in general. If a man takes offence to what a woman does, no amount of pleading for him to understand it as not-hate will stop him from beating the shit out of her, castigating her publicly, or killing her.

A group of college students was segregated for an exercise, by sex. The exercise went more or less as follows.

Female teacher asked a classroom full of male students: "What do you fear most about women?"

The most common answer from individual males was, "She will make fun of me."

Same female teacher asked a classroom full of female students: "What do you fear most about men?"

The most common answer from individual females was, "He will kill me."

This gets to the bloody heart of the matter, doesn't it? Men realities with women are radically different, globally, than women's with men. Women, by media and by men, are incessantly assaulted. Men, by women, are made to accommodate males, to accept males, to appreciate males, to approve of males, to find men endlessly fascinating even when men are boring as hay.

This post, just as it is, noting the most obvious things about men's hatred of women being an institutional and interpersonal problem, that comes up against little to no resistance within patriarchal societies, will be seen as some kind of "threat" to men. As if words on blogs threaten men. As if words on blogs can have any significant impact on stemming the tide of men's misogyny, which floods women's lives at least twice daily.

What men cannot see and cannot accept is that men hating on women is a social problem and men dominating and subordinating women is an ever larger problem. What men cannot see is that women hating on men, however much it happens, has no institutional backing or media support. Even corporate pimps portray it as a kind of fetish of men's: something some men "are into" which has no grounding in cross-cultural social reality. What corporate pimps know, however, is that portraying all women as if they want to be raped has grounding in a very lethal reality: men do wish to rape women and accomplish this, with almost no men ever being charged with a crime, or otherwise suffering any negative consequence, other than more of their heart and soul chipping off and falling away.

We might just as well do away with the term "hate" and find out what's really going on, because "hate" is not really the issue. Men can and do feel all kinds of things for women, and call them all "what is in women's best interests". If men despise women, it's because women deserve it and need it. If men love women, well, men get to behave atrociously and still cling to the claim that it's an expression of love. And, worse yet, they are believed!

When women do disdain or disrespect one man or men in general, she cannot claim that "It's really love, baby--why can't you see that??"

Meanwhile, men do systematically and endemically rape women, singularly and in gangs, at home and in motel rooms and in wars and in "peacetime". Women do not systematically or endemically rape men anywhere.

Father-against-daughter incest, or father-figure or adult male family member against daughter-figure or girl child, is the most common form of child sexual abuse on Earth. Yet the patriarchal media are far more likely to report on boys being abused by men. This is because girls being abused by men is so common a practice that it we would have to add hours to the day to report on all the cases.

I saw a program not too long ago in which the woman host remarked with great sadness, "One in six males will be sexually abused in their childhoods". Is that horrible? Of course it is. It's a criminal shame. And we cannot forget for one moment that over 90% of the perpetrators will be men. "Good" men. "Trusted" men. "Holy" men. Socially adored and respected men.

Let's break down what that means relative to the experience of girls. Twice as many girls as boys will be sexually assaulted--predominantly by men--by the time they reach adulthood, if they reach adulthood.

The sadness felt for boys assaulted in their youth, by men, is felt culturally. It resonates in the bodies of those who hear this news as "Awful. Truly awful." Because it is awful. But the sexual assault of girls is registered in the bodies of the masses as "inevitable", or "unfortunate", or "Why didn't the mother do anything to stop her husband or boyfriend, huh?" As if women have ever been able to regulate men's sexually predatory behaviour. Get this, reader:

If a woman DOES catch her predatorary male partner raping her/their daughter, and she is also being battered by him, and she leaves him, this is what typically occurs:

She is charged with the crime of stealing HIS children from HIM. She is charged with being abusive to the children. Her claims that she was beaten are seen as evidence that she is an evil woman who will do anything she can to selfishly hold onto her children while demonising the prick. The pricks get expensive attorneys who make these arguments to pro-patriarchal judges and juries, who award him full custody and call her a criminal. She's a criminal for leaving the prick; he's not a criminal for beating and raping his wife and children. Now, tell me: where's the social love for women and girls in that?

Is not the act of incestuous molestation or assault or rape a father or father-figure stealing something from a girl? Is this theft not a crime against humanity? Ought not such a man be forbidden by society to ever have access to the child again?

And what of men who desire girls sexually and publicly? What of men who, collectively, socially lust after girls? Who want to fuck girls? Who want to see girls depicted as "sexxx-things for men to get aroused by"? For men to fantasize about, to use as fuel to bring firm up their determination as they make their way into the bedrooms of their daughters?

Is both the desire and the depictions "love" of girls? That's what men say. The term for this condition in men, after all, is "paedophilia", isn't it? "Love of children". Not misopedia: hatred of children. Men who desire to fuck girls and who do rape girls are called "lovers of children". Now, how fucked up is that? If this doesn't show that men don't know the difference between love and hate, what does?

Women, especially over the last forty-three years, have gotten very clear about what men's hatred of women looks like, feels like, and is. And women over the last forty-three years, especially, have realised that men not only hate women, but men don't regard women as human enough to see as full human beings. Some men don't hate women because to hate them one might have to recognise them as human. So some men just hold women in a kind of callous disregard, and in this frame men feel quite comfortable wiping their dicks on girls and women, as if that's what girls and women are for. Men traffic girls and women, as fuck-objects, as objects, as possesions, and as slaves. Men beat women and girls without mercy. Men terrorise girls and women without ever calling it terrorism. Men, collectively, never call this TERRORISM.

I am demanding that men stop terrorising women and girls; that men stop trafficking women and girls; that men stop raping women and girls; that men stop beating up women and girls; that men stop using images of women and girls as their fuel to invade the bedrooms of their spouses or children; that men stop incesting their daughters or other girls in the family; that men stop thinking of women and girls as existing to serve men, to submit to men, to be subordinate to men. I am demanding that men get off women's backs and fronts. That men stop all the hating and love that feels like hate.

And to any man reading this who thinks it is hateful of men, I have only this to say: go fuck yourself. And do it exactly the way you see men in pornography do it to women. And then you might know what hate truly feels like.

I call on humanity to institutionalise male respect, regard, empathy, compassion, and dignity for all women and all girls. To make it mandatory. To make it compulsory. To make it a social requirement for admission into the social and intimate world of women and girls. I won't call on men to "love" women, because I know that for too many men, that word has no spiritual meaning at all. It is, rather, men's excuse for doing to women what anyone with a beating heart would call hatred if women expressed it the same way to men.

I hope women, internationally, rise up against men's domination, men's humiliations, men's indignities, men's assaults, men's insults, men's tyranny, men's terrorism, men's anti-democratic ways of being against individual women and against women as a class of human beings regarded by men as existing for men. And I hope patriarchies everywhere are unplugged soon. Very soon. Perhaps within the next few years. If not sooner. I hope patriarchal societies fall like Dominoes. And that when they fall they crack into pieces too tiny to put back together. I hope for this so that girls and women can know life without men's exploitation, without incest, without rape, without economic servitude, without sexual slavery, and life without men's social and personal terrorism and tyranny. With love in my heart for womankind, I hope for this.Not with hate for manunkind. I will hold out faith that you, dear reader, after taking in the realities described in this post, will intellectually and viscerally know the difference.

The reason I love women of all colors is because women are human beings who show a form courage I've yet to see in white men. Women are collectively enduring a globalised system of male domination, too often in isolation, feeling alone, trapped. These individual women who are experiencing what millions of other women have experienced and are experiencing on this day, will all too often blame themselves for conditions well beyond women's collective control, let alone individual control. At the same time, the most enslaved women are creative, finding ways to survive, get through another day. There is resistance going on, even when it looks like appeasement. I know millions of women worldwide are waiting for the right moment to rise up, collectively, not individually, to get out from under him and his ritually abusive rules, to move out of reach of his grip and to cast off his grim view of what "woman" is for. I refuse to see women as existing for men. I see women as existing for themselves, for Life, for Being. I see women as existing beyond any definitions of "woman" that men entertain and enforce.

The reason I don't hate men is because it is a waste of my energy and it clouds my capacity to see what's going on. Men are human, every one, no matter how monstrously they behave. And there are, after all, some very dear men in the world: Derrick Jensen, Noam Chomsky, and Nelson Mandela. A problem--one of many--is that almost no men on Earth will focus on the oppression of women by men as a central atrocity faced by humanity. Not the only atrocity. But a central one. One worth fighting to end, with all of one's being behind the effort."

A Love So Deadly

Karen Elson - The Ghost Who Walks

The ghost who walks

she's on the prowl

for the man she loved,

he cut her down

it was an ordinary night in June

when he drove her to the lake

so they could watch the full moon

The ghost who walks

she's on the prowl

for the man she loved,

he laid her down

in the tall grass

he kissed her cheek

but with a knife in his hand

he plunged it in deep

She looked at him with pleading eyes

he softly spoke,

"my dear the love has died"

and then he muffled her desperate cries

under the moonlight

Ghost who walks

she's on the prowl

wanders in the moonlight

she's crying to herself because

eyes never once looked cruel

but the moon in the blade 

shimmered like a jewel

she looked at him with pleading eyes

he softly spoke,

"my dear the love has died"

and then he muffled her deadly cries

under the moonlight

Under the moonlight

under the moonlight

under the moonlight

 Is this what love is?  Do I dare question it?

Is there no pure love?  Can love between men and women ever truly be done with purity of heart?

Our world is held under a system of domination..  Hierarchy in all spheres of life...  How does one deal?  How does one love?

Patriarchy is embedded within every interaction (unless one truly fights the dominant systems of thought, and truly fighting is nearly deadly).

Our thoughts are clogged to the core, devilish even.

May we fight this?  It is possible?

I believe it is... but we must learn from our mistakes and become conscious of the processes that proliferate throughout our society and within our very minds and souls.

We are tainted.

If you cannot admit you are tainted by thoughts of domination, of subordination, I would think again.

There's no escaping this.

This is why we must fight.

This is why we must change.

This is why I write, pour out my heart to the world, hoping to not care of the judgement I will surely receive, even if only in whispers and creeping silence.

I must be honest with myself before I can be honest with this writing.

I am the devil, the wicked, just as much as anyone else in the world.

But this does not mean I'm THE devil, the ultimate evil.

I am simply human in a wicked world of hate, as are you.