Sick and Tired of Understanding
Just face it, this is a rant. It might take flight into hyperbole, caroom off sarcasm, or head into the far reaches of sheer pissossity (thank you Iyanla!). And this is what it is about:
If one more single individual tells me that I “have to understand” something, I’m going to tear off their head and feed it to the hyenas in the nearest zoo.
Here are a few things I am NOT going to make an effort to understand:
1. Why the late Pope’s stand on (take your pick: communism, war, poverty) excuses his lousy record on women’s issues, including exposing African women to rape by AIDS-infected husbands or relatives or strangers. Better to infect your wife than to wear a condom?
2. Why we need to cut our “allies” in Afghanistan some slack as they go about re-introducing Sharia law and inflicting brutality on Afghan women whose only sin is to be widowed or abandoned by male relatives. Let’s extend this one: why we seem to make allies of the worst abusers.
3. Why it is better that a woman die in childbirth than a fetus be aborted. Let’s extend this one too: why a woman is considered only as good as the production of her womb.
4. Why we still have dumbass conversations about the “delicacy” of women’s feeling and how that makes them less likely to be good political bloggers.
5. Why “morale” and “esprit de corps” is more important than prosecuting male soldiers that rape female soldiers.
6. Why the United States government withholds funding for medical care because, somewhere, somehow, a woman might be doing something the conservatives disapproves of.
7. Why United Nations troops allow the murder of innocents to continue under their own noses because they are afraid of offending the “legitimate” government of some god-forsaken maniac with delusions of grandeur.
In fact, I refuse to understand the idiots any longer. AT ALL. I don’t care about the psychological, ethical, historical, or damnit, onomatopoetic reasons (yes, I know what it means; if you get pedantic on me, it’s your head!). How many victims are asked to understand their victimizers motives?
I am a female of the human species. I am as valuable, as important, as human, as the other half. I WILL NOT be told that my issues and problems are less important in the large scheme of things. I will NOT sit down and shut up. I WILL NOT kneel to a man as if to a God. You DO NOT have the right to shackle my body or my mind. I DO NOT have to live up to your ideal of womanhood, be she the Virgin Mary or the Whore of Babylon.
I WILL hold you responsible for every woman who dies in poverty, abuse, and neglect. I WILL hold you responsible for every woman who dies in a botched back-alley abortion to honor your perverted God. I WILL hold you responsible for placing stupid roadblocks on the way of talented women. I WILL expect you to accept, once and for all, that as an adult of sound mind, I WILL make decisions for myself.
I am your equal. Start dealing with it.
April 11th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
Very very well said!!!
April 11th, 2005 at 9:44 pm
You know what? I think I can deal with that. Nice going, Emma. People do put up with far too much.
April 11th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
I agree totally!! You go girl!!!!!!!!!!!
April 11th, 2005 at 11:29 pm
You know something I refuse to understand? Why women - and all who agitate for gender equality - shouldn’t embrace radical resistance as a means of stopping the onslaught of misogyny. The excuses are exhausting; the rationale nonexistent.
April 12th, 2005 at 5:07 am
Well, sorry sisters. We just ain’t equal. Never have been, never will be unless radical change comes about somehow.
But gee, we’re useful. We’ve been used to justify removing the Taliban (free those poor burkha wearing women!), we were used to justify Iraq War 1 (remember those poor babies taken out of incubators and smashed to bits by mad Iraqis), and we’re even used to justify taking away our own rights (poor little things just don’t understand the real world).
I survived 20 years in the Air Force, and still have women questioning my choices (how could you prop up a misogynistic organization), and have men tell me I never earned my retirement because I was just a token.
Until young women actually bother to get informed and vote, it ain’t changing.
April 12th, 2005 at 5:34 am
OHMIGOD!?? You mean that WOMEN actually write blogs? C’mon! Next you’ll be telling me that minorities write them also.
What’s happening to this man’s world?
I guess I’ll have to check with the National Organization of Men or the NRA or RIck San(c)torum to see if I am allowed to read a blog written by a woman.
I know Ann Coulter calls herself a woman but isn’t she really just a drag queen? I mean since all that stuff that “she’s” written is so pointless and innane, it has to be written by a woman, right? Especially a conservative that writes what “her” male bosses at FOX tell her to write and what to believe!
As to why the U.N. allows murder and mistreatment of women, remember, in the so called “real” world, it’s still considered a man’s world. Just ask any Arab, or Afghan or Iraqi or Conservative.
All kidding aside. I thoroughly enjoy your blog. The fact that it’s written by a woman, a minority (more women than men in the U.S.!) or a little green person from Mars makes no difference to ME. I want as many diversified opinions as I can get.
Freedom is color and gender blind.
Interpretation of freedom can be myopic and bigoted.
The “men” in power can’t agree with each other’s ideas, let alone accept the fact that women are their intellectual equals.
Why any woman in this day and age would allow a man to make a decision concerning her life without her permission has to be a Laura Bush Stepford Wife.
It’s gonna be a God awful awakening for a lot of the male gender when women finally stand up and say, “ENOUGH, It’s my life!”.
April 12th, 2005 at 6:58 am
You go, girl!
April 12th, 2005 at 7:29 am
My equal? I would have thought you’d set your standards higher.
(An exceptional post with excellent points all, Emma!)
April 12th, 2005 at 11:10 am
Excellent. This is especially poignant coming on the heels of the Terri Schiavo fiasco and the death of the pope — the Ken Lay of the Catholic Church. . . . and now Andrea Dworkin. . . .
Thanks — it was refreshing and inspiring.
April 13th, 2005 at 5:27 am
I would say “You go, girl!” except that I’m afraid my head would become hyena chow.
April 14th, 2005 at 6:09 am
i myself am a proud woman blogger too, so more power to ya sister! i certainly don’t agree with all the points you made, does that make me a drag queen too? i never understood why women and african americans who don’t tow the democratic party line are considered “not real women/african americans.” how insulting! i think women are as diverse and free thinking as men, therefore we are going to disagree on lots of things. but i’m no less a woman and, like you, I WILL NOT be told that i am.
i thought your post was passionate and interesting and enjoyed reading it. i’d like to respectfully disagree with the following statement:
“I WILL hold you responsible for every woman who dies in a botched back-alley abortion to honor your perverted God.”
i don’t believe that abortion should be legal, but it has nothing to do with God. i think murder is murder and you don’t have to believe in God to have that conviction. abortion is clearly killing a human life, there’s no rational argument that it isn’t. i think it’s purely a human rights issue - we shouldn’t allow anyone to kill someone because they are unwanted (not talking about the life of the woman here - 99.9% of abortions have nothing to do with the mother’s life). you seem concerned about women dying in back alley abortions, but what about all the babies who someday would grow to be women (and men) who are killed as a result of clean safe abortions and are discarded into the back alley trash cans when the process is done?
i’m certainly not interested in a nasty, hateful debate (which this issue tends to lead to), but i do enjoy intelligent and respectful interaction and hope that that’s how i’ve presented my point of view.
again, i enjoyed reading your post and will have to check out your blog again in the future. i like to read what people on all sides of the political spectrum have to say - i learn a lot that way.