This weekend I had an experience with forced pleasantness. A man, using muscle-ing on a woman counter helper. Distracting her from helping me, flirting. And she tried to be polite but didn't look at him (to not encourage him, I imagine), she kept her eyes on me, she was helping me. But he persisted. That resulted in me mouthing off. I let him know in no uncertain terms that he must wait his turn and that he was making my turn take longer, wrestling control of my turn from me. Still he resisted, he cannot be wrong. I told him that he's the kind of guy that goes home and beats up his wife because she can never control her little bit of space. He asked my why I was over-reacting, I screamed "Over-reacting, who gets to decide what level is normal, am I supposed to just passively have no reaction to your rudeness?" My parting shot was that he is just like all men, ugly and stupid. He was muscle-ing both me and the counter helper, taking over the situation. We were expected to drop everything we were doing, acknowledge how unimportant it was to do such a menial thing in his presence and turn to him and worship the little thing. Of course, my explanation is sans the salty language that I used in real life.
Flashback Friday, a column on feminist notions ... To be fair - it's difficult to think of a non-self-defining feminist woman as anything but a tool of the patriarchy. I have to concentrate on the fact that even though a woman would not call herself a feminist, she would never endorse footbinding (to name a radical example) and it doesn't necessarily mean she is a doormat either. In fact, some of my favorite women scorn my feminism and hate it when they are judged solely on their marital status or gender. Ironically if you look at films made during the so-called liberal 60s and 70s you will see that movies align the woman's role less to what is happening politically in the big wide world and more to what is happening in pornography. The rise of the snuff movie mirrored the rise of violence towards women in the movies, serial killer paradise. Pornography always centers on the woman - probably in an attempt to hide the size of the penis. From my perspective, I am less un...
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