I’m literally surrounded by men. Their homes form a circle around mine. Sometimes my daughter will grab one of their hands and take them for a walk. I figure it would do more harm than good to her if I intervened and never let her interact with them – mostly because she needs outside social interaction and few other people are around. She needs to learn to trust her own initiative, and as long as I’m right there, its OK. She’s only using them to balance while she walks.
However, its disturbing to me that through these brief encounters, these fathers-by-proxy, she may learn to trust men. Which is exactly the purpose of the institution of fatherhood. Dad’s job is to instill in his daughter a sense of confidence in males. To prepare her to eventually be swooped up by another male. The challenge is for him to be selfless enough in this task that she is desirable to another man (meaning he does not rape her and cause her to hate men), but that he has still groomed her well enough to accept another man’s rule over her. He must play the role of the benign slave master and teach her to value her subordinate status, which works well enough so long as he doesn’t tip the balance and sneak a taste of the forbidden fruit, so to speak, for himself.
So in a sense I would rather these men not act so kindly toward her, because she is getting entirely the wrong idea about males. None of them actually give a flying fuck about her – if we got evicted, how many would let us sleep on their couch? None. They are simply relishing their moment in the limelight, collectively playing the role of the “good father,” knowing damn well it all ultimately comes at her expense. They are gleefully logging community service hours for the global mutant mafia, while I stand by helplessly wishing we lived on an iceberg in the middle of the fucking Arctic.
Now the problem with living on an iceberg in the middle of the fucking Arctic, aside from global warming and all the complications of the iceberg lifestyle that entails, is that it’s fucking lonely. My daughter and I both need social interaction outside of each other, and polar bears just won’t do (neither will pizzly bears, the result of polar bears being forced out of their normal habitat by mutant (“human” male) activity into grizzly territory. We need other female humans (humans), and unfortunately, they (we) are all infected with parasites (males, if you somehow didn’t get that by now).
This phenomenon is what a former male acquaintance described to me as “Ferraris in the desert.” As females, we’re isolated, we’re trapped, and we’re fucked. Basically. [Now you know when a male tells you that, he’s not “just angry at men because he’s been hurt in the past,” as women’s apt analyses of patriarchy are often dismissed – he’s bragging. Just because it can’t be said enough times, here it is again: THEY KNOW. They know, ok? They totally do. They know because they do it on purpose. They do it because they like it and because they want to. Ok? Ok.]
So if we want time with women and girls, we pretty much have to put up with the men and boys. This I tell you siiiiister, you can’t have her without the mis-ter. Sad, but true. I mean, am I missing something? Sure, I could find another woman or a bunch of them with only daughters (no children won’t do, in my experience childless women are never willing to make the sacrifices necessary for partnership with mothers – but that’s another blog post), who wants to move somewhere remote and not overly warm to live off of kelp popsicles and penguin roadkill and marvel at a majestic sky full of stars – until one day all of our “issues” (as installed by mutants) come out and we end up stabbing each other to death with four foot icicles. Which is roughly my understanding of the final outcome of the women’s land movement.
I do have a plan, actually, which I won’t share in too much detail here for obvious reasons, which are evidenced by the fact that I’m writing this blog anonymously as opposed to shouting it aloud on the street corner… Which I also haven’t ruled out, and which I have reason to believe could prove highly rewarding, provided circumstances were such that nobody could follow me home and kill me. I’ve actually been evangelizing about male parasitism to almost every woman I meet. Surprisingly, most of them AGREE. I’m serious – I have found very few women who will argue against female supremacy in person, especially in a one-on-one convo. One even cried because she was so happy to finally hear someone telling her the truth about men. I’m telling you, women KNOW. It’s very exciting.
Except, this knowledge somehow doesn’t in itself provide women with sufficient motivation to revolt. Haven’t figured that part out yet… It may take more time than I am willing to invest in consciousness raising, and lots of false hope I am too emotionally vulnerable to withstand, seeing as how I am very lonely and therefore hardly able to do this work without some measure of self-interest. So while it’s great to connect with women in person on this topic, it’s equally frustrating that nothing comes of it, that we can have an incredibly explosive, radical conversation, and yet, taking action is a whole nother level. I’ve never been a patient person, but there are also real external constraints on taking our damn time reaching conclusions about what needs to be done. It’s getting to the point where I’ve done nearly all I can do where I am now, and will have to move on soon to avoid backlash from certain women’s mutant captors.
With that said, I will leave you with this parting thought: you can’t burn a witch if you don’t know where she sleeps at night.
Curse the Reign! 