Feminist Cred – Personal Circumstances, Part #6

I see a high-profile group of folks in my Twitter feed, ex-Evangelical Christians, people raised in religious communities and who have escaped or are trying to, and I wonder, is there such a fellowship for me, for people like me?

Feminists who are losing their faith?

I shouldn’t need to defend; I’ve got credits. Look upon my efforts and tell me who walks it.

I heard it from the women in my life, what swine men are, and I believed. I tried a few misogynist things in my youth, sure. I tried calling my girlfriend “Baby” once when I was sixteen and it fell flat on me, I have never done that infantilizing stuff to a woman again. I wrote a gross attempt at an erotic poem sometime before that, with a ‘meat’ sort of analogy about girls and sex in it, which I never felt, I was trying to sound macho or something, I hope it hasn’t survived, hope I’m not still packing that around in a box somewhere.

I was married and raised two girls and did that without the use of any sort of punishment or ‘consequences,’ which meant almost never pulling rank. Everyone in my house and my family had an equal share, no private bank accounts, and I, as the man of the house, was not the final word on anything, I tried to live in a democracy. I shouted a few times, trying to make an impression, but I didn’t win the fight for it, and didn’t escalate to win, I just lost, and the house remained a mess. I was a total pussy, but not by accident. That was the plan, that was how there wasn’t going to be violence or abuse.

OK, so maybe there’s more to living the feminist dream than being a giant pussy, right? First, if that was your first impulse, I’m not the only conflicted person in this conversation. Second, when the girls grew up, when it was maybe separation time, when they needed to cut their teeth, whatever it is, when also I melted down and they decided we weren’t going to live together anymore, democracy ruled.

It may have been a tie, old adults VS young ones, but the vote went straight down gender lines. I didn’t pull any male “rank.” Three to one, I walked.

By the time it came to that I was depressed, but I had been manic, they were scared, and my begging them to talk to me was only scaring them more. As a feminist, the only option I saw was doing as they wished, going away, and staying away, I want no part of terrorizing women. I walked, and walked away from the house, they’re just starting, still in school and such, they need a house. It’s equity, not money, but there was enough extra for child support up to age twenty-five twice over in it. I hope they can borrow money if they need some.

I had set the bar too low. I got mad about a movie choice and it was over; now I’m an abuser somehow in the minds of my daughters, and I am out, alone, pensioned, and stained as a misogynist and an abuser after my life of trying so hard – not only that, any husband and father can say he tried – but after succeeding. Even my girls will admit all of this, I think, but they think I was about to go postal on them at the end there, I guess.

So. Punted by a couple of young adult fembots of my own making in the middle of a nasty breakdown, out here alone, having lost all my family and my reputation, I am losing my faith. I tried, did it all, what I thought women wanted, and it wasn’t enough, my girls are still scared, they still think I’m the enemy, what is the point of it, of any of it?

I’ll tell you one thing though.

You can criticize my life, my perceptions, my choices, call me a pussy, fine. You think you can call me a misogynist because I have a dick, I’ve already lost real people I love to that bullshit, I will block you immediately.

I started doing that a few weeks ago. Hey, just in case I start throwing the link to this at you before I block you, please, ladies, don’t figure it out yourself, you’re not alone, talk to old, experienced feminists. Some of you are fighting the wrong things for the right reasons, and you seem to be under the dangerous impression that you’re winning or something. Hating dudes is natural, status quo, right? There’s more to feminism than that.

 

Jeff

Feb. 15^th., 2018

Innocent Voices during Wartime

I don’t suppose anyone noticed or remembers few months back when I went off on several rants against Bill Maher and his friend-by-default Sam Harris? Here they are, if you like:

https://neighsayersotherstuff.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/open-letter-to-bill-maher-and-sam-harris/

https://neighsayersotherstuff.wordpress.com/2014/10/07/maher-harris-and-american-liberalism/

https://neighsayersotherstuff.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/ive-never-met-sam-harris-but/

and

https://neighsayersotherstuff.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/a-question-for-bill-maher/

(the third one makes a different point, but it was one of a sort of a series, and I hate to miss a chance to display Harris’ dangerously flawed philosophizing.)

Well, there are more high-profile examples lately, of course. When there is a war on – and there is a war on, even if it’s a largely phony one, a la 1984, between the Christian West and the Islamic East (OK, the oil-consuming West and the oil producing East, that too) – polite criticisms become rallying cries and expressions of neutrality are painted as varying degrees of treason.

Of course I’m not the first to say it about these two things, not by a country mile, the Je Suis Charlie twitterstorm and rally and now the new Clint Eastwood movie. I’m not going to spell it out, if you’re online reading this, you’ve seen it all. Suffice to say, as regards the Je Suis Charlie rally, a million people marching and some forty world leaders jumping in for the photo op, a giant-sized show of strength and determination directed at either three guys who were already dead or at an ideology (take your pick), I must ask you. Is this designed to pacify the ideological enemy? Is this peacemaking? I know you know what I think. This would be hostile propaganda if the bombs and unmanned weapons weren’t already flying.

(Note: Obama may have actually earned his Peace Prize by not attending.)

You know, I think I had better see the Eastwood film before I comment on my own behalf, but I have already read much that suggests that while it isn’t propaganda as such, it absolutely avoids any comment specific to the particular war that’s depicted. Cooper has said the ideas are universal: wars and what they do to the men who fight them, maybe that’s fair enough. Having said that . . .

Nothing is fair enough during war.

The idea that the Islam side of the current war could possibly be helped as much as the Christian side by a lot of movie-going Westerners seeing this film and its universal themes is silly. I’ve read something of the true story that the film is based on, and without spoiling it for anyone, I will suggest to you that the hero of the film is not an Islamist.

Enough said, as we used to say in the olden days, when the world was all in black and white. I don’t want to belabour the point. Just know that the war machine is waiting to use anything we say for its own ends, and it can co-opt pretty much anything.