Tag: feminism

She’s Hysterical

Emotional immaturity, lack of self-awareness and lack of accountability. When he calls her crazy, wheels out his stories of psychos and other such variants — ask of his actions that instigated her reactions. He’ll not be able to answer, at least not truthfully, because that would mean being honest with himself. The ego prefers those lights off. Instead, believe that he is so desirable; simply existing drives any woman crazy. If asked, though, he may anger at the audacity of being questioned. He’s even the victim in his mind, and he’ll tell himself another story — how dare she, another fucking psycho.

Years later, he’ll return, peering around corners, lurking behind a screen, fingering old pictures, wondering where she went. He’s alone in his asylum of echos.

Of course, he/she is interchangeable, but it dominates, as noted. Just consider even recent 19th-century history, with a pandemic of sorts and a surge of women being diagnosed with Hysteria and other so-called ‘mental disorders’ for not meeting man’s mark of what is considered reasonable, sane, and well-behaved.

But back to the top, flip the narrative and consider each in equal measure. The truth is often somewhere between — hanging in tatters of opposing communication styles, the shredded ribbons of whys, and paragraphs wedged between the lines. 

Suppose we scrape back a little and admit the chemical truth; that although of the same species, the sexes are inherently wired differently. It’s not just physiological; it’s chemical (hormonal) and psychological. We’re not the same. We are not equal. Understanding and empathy can go a long way, but tired, pre-conditioned, defensive, and damaging routes are sadly still more frequently trodden. Footprints smash and merge on that sad muddy path. Nothing grows there.

Popular culture, including methods of control wheeled out by religious and governments, have fed into the tropes that categorise the ill-expressed emotionless and logical male as somehow strong and superior and the overly emotional, sensitive female as unreasonable and, yes, psychotic. And within our sexes, we even betray ourselves. Yes, the external gaslighting happens within the borders too. It’s a fucked up mess to untangle and rework. Neither perpetrator likes to be called out, but that does not mean they shouldn’t.

Unless one is willing to open their eyes and look through a few other lenses, what’s the point? There’s no use in rinsing if one is doomed to repeat.

Balanced Discrimination?

In this world of hyped-up political correctness, labelling and the push for artists to emotionally support, woo, and pamper the egos of a (potential) audience even before they have set foot in an exhibition, opened a book or hit play on that movie. Direct Discrimination thrives loud and proud with every cry for mythical balance through forced diversity.

Charades masquerading as ‘discussions’ that only bend one way do nothing but deepen discrimination such cryers profess to want to correct.

I wonder, once the arbitrary scale tips, what would they go for next?

Honestly, in the real world, there are far more significant problems to be concerned with. Still, my little blether to the void here will focus on the area that prompted my little rant- horror literature – eventually.

Before that, though, be warned, according to an online stranger who was ignorantly assumptive, judgmental, sexist and racist towards me, I was also thrown the mighty slur of the day with regard to my input in a ‘discussion’ (see point above. I know better, but we all fuck up sometimes) about female horror authors. The insult that screams (of the thrower) a lack of discussion skills and intellect… a ‘Karen’.

Yes. Because I disagreed, I’m a Karen….

First time I’ve had that one. Which made me ponder, was this nameless individual compounding the sexism they had already expressed? A Karen? Is it like calling someone a Cunt as a slur, specifically for a female? And female to female, that reeks of anti-feminism. Somewhat backwards for folk screaming for ‘progress’.

Anyway, I decided to ‘look it up’. Since it’s slang, I had a wee look on Wikipedia. Given the context, I really had no desire to do any real academic research with this, even as a student of linguistics. Wikipedia describes ‘Karen is a pejorative term for a white woman perceived as entitled or demanding.… The term is often portrayed…depicting white women who use their white privilege to demand their own way.’ It goes on, ‘the term increasingly appeared in media and social media as a general criticism of middle class white women,’ – so racist, sexist and classist! A bit much, eh?

If my name was Karen, I might be extra peeved at this derogatory and discriminatory slang. Since this person made assumptions about my race, class and gender that had the nameless sharpen their pitchfork and wield the mighty ‘Karen’, it says far more about them than it does me.

The insult also reeks of that well-documented American arrogance and ignorance — one that seems indiscriminate of gender, race, socioeconomic status, political and religious affiliation. Breaking news to those that fall into that bracket: your country is not the centre of the universe, the world is bigger than your echo-chamber. Funny, apparently those that disagree must “do better”. Being from one of the most deprived areas of Scotland, where poverty, crime, gang and drug problems flourish and the lifespan of the female is lower than anywhere else in the U.K. Having fought and lived through prejudice and discrimination from both ‘my own’ and beyond, and that’s only a tiny peek of the tip of the iceberg. Well, to say I scoffed would be an understatement. And I’m not going to go into the rest concerning the cultural and sexual trials. Because none of the personal anecdotes should matter in this context, none of it makes one person’s viewpoint more or less valid than another’s when it comes to how we choose art. Such blatant judgment and ignorance certainly detracts credibility; the nameless ‘wordsmith’ made a right fool of themselves. But hey, that’s the majority of social media, right. Hmmm, a scale that needs correcting?

Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m overly sensitive to name-calling. My history has ensured my thick-skin. I am just a bit of a wormhole thinker. As I mentioned, another term often used in the U.K. is – Cunt, another pejorative. As a slang word for vulva, it naturally wields strong female connotations that are intended to be derogatory. I used to cringe if I read or heard the word ‘cunt’. But that was a long time ago. My consideration and view has changed; being a woman, a feminist and sexual, I can’t see anything derogatory about the female anatomy. It’s a marvel. The cunt is a damn mighty and beautiful piece of our biology. The cunt is to be respected. She is a place of many wonderful things — life’s most intense pleasures and, indeed, a gateway to life itself. In other words, All hail the cunt!

I can’t deny that my turn on the word was also influenced by seeing the Vagina Monologues in Edinburgh many years ago.

The following is a post I shared on social media that echoes the points fuelling the anti-feminist, racist, classist and sexist ‘insult’:

More often than not, when I view a painting — I see the painting BEFORE the artist who created it. This applies to photography, sculpture, literature, music etc.

I want to see what someone is portraying with their art first. Then I may be intrigued to want to know more about the creator behind the art – information that they choose to make available. As a consumer of art, I’m not entitled. None of us are.

I don’t look for the personal details of the creator before deciding if they are worthy for me to look at their art. Most folks don’t. Hell, imagine if we all ‘researched’ every creative involved in a movie before hitting play…

I am not going to seek out an artist based on what they look like, their gender, sex, cultural background, beliefs, heritage, politics, religion, who they fuck…

Now, I’m not saying that these things don’t filter into what is created, but none of those details makes a person’s art ‘good’! Nor does knowing them make you a ‘better’ consumer or person, even if it feeds your ego to think that it does.

Oh, and I am ‘part’ of several ‘marginalised’ groups; I will never use any of that to get eyes on anything I create because not everything is public property.

Now it’s an opinion, a fact of how I consume art. Life is extremely short. When reaching into something such as horror fiction for fun, leisure, enjoyment, and escapism, why is there this sudden expectation to ‘balance my reading list’ for personal attributes of author ‘diversity’ sake? I want to be entertained. Perhaps if I wanted to fuck them, I’d be more concerned with their sex, gender and orientation. Then it would hold relevance.

Perhaps art and artists need anonymity to thrive in a world that feels increasingly entitled to more personal details to feed this absurd mythical ethical balancing act for little egos.