“…why are you so slow? Why are you so slow to understand the simplest things; not the complicated ideological things. You understand those. The simple things. The
cliches. Simply that women are human to precisely the degree and quality that you are.
“It is an extraordinary thing to try to understand and confront why it is that men believe— and men do believe— that they have the right to rape. Men may not believe it when asked. Everybody raise your hand who believes you have the right to rape. Not too many hands will go up. It’s in life that men believe they have the right to force sex, which they don’t call rape. And it is an extraordinary thing to try to understand that men really believe that they have the right to hit and to hurt. And it is an equally extraordinary thing to try to understand that men really believe that they have the right to buy a woman’s body for the purpose of having sex: that that is a right. And it is very amazing to try to understand that men believe that the seven-billion- dollar-a-year industry that provides men with cunts is something that men have a right to.
“… men come to me or to other feminists and say: “What you’re saying about men isn’t true. It isn’t true of me. I don’t feel that way. I’m opposed to all of this. ”
And I say: don’t tell me. Tell the pornographers. Tell the pimps. Tell the warmakers. Tell the rape apologists and the rape celebrationists and the pro-rape ideologues. Tell the novelists who think that rape is wonderful. Tell Larry Flynt. Tell Hugh Hefner. There’s no point in telling me. I’m only a woman. There’s nothing I can do about it. These men presume to speak for you. They are in the public arena saying
that they represent you. If they don’t, then you had better let them know.
excerpts from “I Want A Twenty-four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape”
