from Amazons, Bluestockings and Crones: a feminist dictionary, a woman’s companion to words and ideas, by Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Treichler

A hefty book of over 500 pages of entries, but worth, at the very least, a skim through for words of interest to you.  Here are a few that I love:

 

Academia: a hierarchy whose “purpose is the production of prestige”  (Jo Freeman, 1979)

Acknowledgements: … where authors acknowledged the ideas and intellectual contributions of males and the clerical and editorial assistance of females and where men thanked their wives for critically reading their manuscripts without asking for co-authorship.

Adam: History’s first nonfunctioning head of household (Midge Lennert and Norma Willson, 1973)

Chivalry: In 1694, Mary Astell called chivalry a praise of women’s incompetence and ignorance …

Flattery; Words of praise commonly given to women in substitution of money and occupational status.

Jockocratic Society: “In a jockocratic society, you can turn on the TV and find out the score of some basketball game in Alaska—but you can’t find out how many states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment.  You can turn on the radio, and hear every score in the country repeated all day long—but you don’t hear how many women died from illegal abortions.” (Florynce Kennedy, quoted in Gloria Steinem, 1973)

Love: Andrea Dworkin defines romantic love as the “mythic celebration of female negation…” (1976)

Marriage: [too long to retype, but I found them online:https://www.thoughtco.com/marriage-protest-lucy-stone-henry-blackwell-3529568]

Maternal Instinct: Concept invented by males “to ensure that we would [assume] full responsibility for children per se …”

Men’s Studies: “The academic curriculum.” (Dale Spender, 1981)

Militance: “they call us militants, but General Westmoreland, General Abrams, General Motors and General Dynamics—they’re the real militants.  We don’t even have a helicopter.” (Florynce R. Kennedy, quoted in Gloria Steinem, 1973).

Parenthood: A condition which often brings dramatic changes to new mothers—”loss of job, income, and status; severing of networks and social contacts; and adjustments oto being a ‘housewife’.  Most new fathers do not report similar social dislocations.  (Lorna McKee and Margaret O’Brien, 1983).

Politics: “A male invention that emphasizes conflict and confrontation.” (Tom Peterson, 1984)

Reproduction: “It is noticeable that those who urge women to breed are men, or imperialistically-minded women, to whom consciously or unconsciously more babies are but material in the great game of personal or national aggrandizement.” (B. Liber, 1919)

“Women are not oppressed because of the biological fact of reproduction, but are oppressed by men who define this reproductive capacity as a function.  ‘The truth is that childbearing isn’t the function of women.  The function of childbearing is the function of en oppressing women.'” (Ti Grace Atkinson, 1974)

Waitressing: A physically and mentally difficult restaurant job in which women facilitate the decisions of men.” (Susan Wood, 1979)

War: A sense brutality that causes many men to “forswear their culture, thei humanity, their intellectual efforts, their fruitful labours, to wallow in the joys of regimentation, brainlessness, the abandonment of the will, the primitive delights of destruction.”  H. M. Swanwick, 1935)

“What connection is there between the sartorial splendours of the educated an and the photograph of ruined houses and dead bodies?” )Virginia woolf, 1938)

Welfare Queens: Women who through persistence and ingenuity have learned to operate efficiently within the welfare system and are therefore often assumed to be ‘cheating’ it.  “There’s lots of discussions of welfare queens.  No juicy word for businessmen who cheat the government of thousands of dollars.”  (Julia Lesage, 1982)

Woman: “If you are willing to grant that language and literature are important, why is it irrelevant to you that wimmin are called ‘girls’ until we die?  Wy is it irrelevant that female address terms (Miss, Mrs.) serve to indicate whether or not a woman is sexually available (on the market’) while the male Mr. does not?”  (Julia Penelope 1978)

Women and Work: “As if women who worked were the exceptions!”  R. J. 1884

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A Law of Her Own: The Reasonable Woman as a Measure of Man, Caroline A. Forell and Donna M. Matthews

Well worth the read.  Some quotes and notes …

“Because law is based on male experience, it ‘understands’ men.  Thus, courts apply male values to conclude that sexual and sexist workplace conduct is merely annoying, that fear of a stalker is unjustified, and that sex against a woman’s will is seduction.” (p3)

“Men’s physiology defines most sports, their needs define auto and health insurance coverage, their socially designed biographies define workplace expectations and successful career patterns, their perspectives and concerns define quality in scholarship, their experiences and obsessions define merit, their objectification of life defines art, their military service defines citizenship, their presence defines family, their inability to get along with each other—their wars and rulerships—defines history, their image defines god, and their genitals define sex.”  Catharine MacKinnon in Feminism Unmodified (p5)  I never tire of quoting her!

“[E]ven if sociobiologists are correct [about men’s reproductive drive being evolutionary …], it does not follow that men must prevail when their interests conflict with those of women, nor that men are justified in behaving badly.” (p13)

“In her [MacKinnon’s] view, it is because women are dominated by men that they are different.” (p13)  Wow.  Very interesting reversal of status quo interpretation …

“As Senator Paul Simon put it: ‘Many men were stunned to learn what women regard as sexual harassment.'” (p24)  Then they fucking haven’t been listening.  Sigh.

“… the average sentence for a woman who kills an intimate is fifteen to twenty years; for a man, it is two to six years.” (p158)  I knew it was different, but geez loueez.

“… women do not generally kill their intimates unless hey reasonably believe there is no other solution to their situation.” (p161)   Right, whereas men—how could killing even be considered a last resort?  That there is no other solution to, what, the problem of her insulting him?  Arguing with him?  Leaving him?  Um.  Walk away.  Let her go.

“… male-based inquiry focuses on her instead of him, asking ‘Why didn’t she leave?’ when she kills him … instead of [asking] ‘Why didn’t he let her go?'” (p162)  YES!!

“… women in the United States are five to ten times more likely to be killed by their husbands than are European women.  This difference, among other factors, shows that men killing their intimates is not biologically predetermined.”  (p162)  Indeed.  It shows that American men are soooo fucked up.  Well, at least more fucked up than European men.

 

“… most men do not kill women intimates when they leave or commit adultery.  The small percentage of men who do not take responsibility for their rage and violence, who hurt and kill their intimates, define a perverse legal norm.”  (p178)  So why aren’t those other men doing something about it?  Why aren’t upset that the few are giving them such a bad rep?

“Despite the frequency with which men commit violence against other men, our law and society do not thereby conclude that men like or want to be beaten, nor that men provoke the violence by their appearance, ‘merriment’, or failure to repeatedly communicate their nonconsent.” (p223)

 

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Great piece from Babylon Bee – “I don’t want my skull fractured …”

https://babylonbee.com/news/i-dont-want-my-skull-fractured-by-a-man-says-bigoted-female-athlete

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Pat Murphy’s “Motherhood” – well worth the quick read

And it’s here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/motherhood/

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“600,000 killed in …”

“600,000 killed in 4-inch advance on western front.”

from The Onion’s Our Dumb Century (1915)

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The Montreal Massacre (and Donna Decker’s Dancing in Red Shoes Can Kill You)

People who are/were shocked by the Montreal Massacre don’t know women’s history.  Men have been killing us for centuries.  Simply because we’re women.  They kill each other too, but in that case, it’s mostly because of their target’s sexual orientation, tribal affiliation, or skin color.  They kill us because of our sex.

Is it more horrible because of that?  Perhaps not.  Yes, 51% of the world’s people are female, whereas only 10% are homosexual, but the target group based on tribal affiliations might be larger than 51% (especially when nations go after each other), and target groups based on skin color are most certainly larger than that (assuming it’s ‘white’ people killing non-‘white’ people).

Perhaps the horror is that we have been, willingly for the most part, sleeping with the enemy.  For centuries.

Donna Decker’s Dancing in Red Shoes Can Kill You is a must-read.  Especially for those too young to have been aware of the Montreal Massacre in 1989.

“There were men … who hated the idea of women’s equality so much, they were willing to kill in cold blood.  In Canada.”  (p213)

To be clear, whether we’re engineers or prostitutes, whether we’re under ten or over sixty, whether we’re heterosexual or lesbian, whether we’re white or black, whether we’re feminist or not—none of that matters.  All that matters is that we’re female.  (Which in itself should make us all feminist.)  If ever there was a call to arms—

(And yet, before you pick up that gun—yes, even the one that’s fallen onto the floor out of the man’s hand—know that at least when ‘partners’ are involved, women who kill men spend an average of fifteen years in prison, whereas men who kill women spend about four years in prison.)

“She had [simply] written down [in her column] everything the guy in the coffee shop had said that morning … how he was furious with his feminist girlfriend and all feminists.  She had embellished nothing.  But they had refused to publish it.” (p321) They had called it anti-male.  Note that.  Pay attention to that.  Simply exposing male hatred of women is anti-male.  How do you figure that?  Speaking the truth about men is anti-male?  That means that reality is anti-male.  Hm.  What are you going to do with that?

And men?  If this book doesn’t make you sick, and then determined to fix your brothers, you should, like Marc Lepine, put a bullet in your own head.  (Thank you.)

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If men aren’t doing it, it’s probably not ’empowering’ or powerful.

Read that somewhere. Great observation.


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“Factory workers guaranteed …”

“Factory workers guaranteed eight-hour work day while teething.”

from The Onion’s Our Dumb Century (1907)


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great line from David Brin’s Earth

“Honestly … I just couldn’t be interested in a man so egotistical he insists, in a world of ten billion people, that his genes are desperately needed.” (p120)

(and so much else … a novel worth reading, for sure.)



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Porn for Women

Check out her list of insightful observations:   https://xtan.wordpress.com/2006/06/02/porn-for-women-a-false-notion/ Share