My Flash

Rebecca Solnit of “Men Explain Things To Me.” A peerless, superb and very funny piece that almost made me want to throw in my ancient towel—an aspect of my long life as a woman that .... just about drove me crazy.

Well, that and four thousand other things; the slippery, oft-used devices or downright glitches in the male mind that are so difficult to describe …. when the other gender with whom we must survive and do want to love comes from the ghastly throne of Entitlement — all the more wretched because the throne is invisible, to he who sits atop, as is the power thus bestowed on himself. There is nothing more frustrating than wanting to have a genuine partnership, in love and in life, with a mind that thinks only in Pecking Order terms. Where did I recently read the tragic description of the end of tribal cultural — and yes, women by nature remain tribal to this day, how fucking frustrating — and the beginning of the accumulation of capital that turned men into shits, created masters and servants, the greater and less well-off (I could go on forever) … created it and ground it into the fine powder that has permeated our every breathe since. And still, we trudge on, writing articles, blogs, books, as if anything was going to change in this system bred in the bone, in the brain, of the gender that has what it most wants: power. Yeah, okay guys, give up what little shreds of power you have, even if it’s a man’s right to be king in his own home. Never giving thought number one, never question, then who shall be my vassal? And do they want to be? Do they deserve anything more than that? An evil term: whenever you see the word Deserve come up in these sorts of arguments, watch out. Somebody thinks he is King. And is he? Can he ever be? Or is this a fantasy you contribute to, every time you play the game. Play it out of fear, no doubt, whether it be fear of being on the dole, physical fear, or probably the most powerful fear: standing up to and standing out from society’s most powerful unwritten laws. Because shit will happen. It will happen to you, if you don’t play along. It has to: you dislike, denounce, defy the man’s role and it is certain, you will sooner or later be both lonely and deeply stung.