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An Evening Muse on Western Misogyny, Poverty, and Such
I have to admit I’m a little down lately. Despite being a person who expects little from people, situations, and life in general, I’ve managed to become disappointed and once again worn down by life in North America. If you’ve never read further on this site, the context for this comment is this: I frequently live and work abroad; I left a nearly decade-long stint in China at the end of July 2019; I spent a year in the US studying and trying to navigate a possible career change; and then the Virus hit, all my plans went to hell, and I was forced to return to my homeland – Canada – a country I thought I might never return to again other than to visit.
China is a really racist, sexist, and chaotic, but uber-controlled country. It was hard. But I adapted. I was employed, I cultivated a small, but excellent group of local friends, and equally important, I had an apartment that was all mine despite being black moldy and not very cosy. I’ve spent most of my adult life living alone, and I’ve come to see it as a luxury, even when my space is not optimal. I just don’t like living with people. And I especially don’t like living in places where I have no control over who else is living there.
The year in the US was pretty brutal in a lot of ways. First the culture shock – not sure if that is the right word – was kind of surprising. I think in the year and a half since leaving Asia, I’ve realized that if I am going to be an outcast, I need to be a full-on outcast that has no hope or expectation (by self or others) of ever fitting in. Even more than in early adulthood, I just don’t think I can fit into regular society here – and that seems like a simple and precious thing to say, but it is really complicated in a way that you will never understand unless you’ve lived outside your country for years and years at a time.
The US also showed me that women don’t have it better in the West. We are constantly battered with the idea that “women are equal now” and “Western (especially white) women are better off than all other women, so stfu.” But I have to tell you, no, the misogyny is just as bad here as anywhere else. It just looks different. And the less money you have, the worse it is. Because of the lifelong brainwashing, selective women’s history (if any) taught in public schools, and a general unwillingness to self-examine because it’s “too negative” or victimy, the majority of women just don’t see it. And I’d bet that in countries that Western women typically tsk tsk over, those women also don’t really see what they experience as anything other than “that’s life, the way it’s supposed to be”.
I had some good experiences during my year in the US. I was studying plants, for one. And then the Virus hit, which was actually a good thing in some ways – I was able to get some tuition money back after my male teachers decided they didn’t want to work anymore, and continued my plant education by myself outside the classroom by going on 5-10 mile hikes every day. But I spent way too much of my small, scrupulously accumulated savings on keeping wealthy people wealthy through overpriced accommodation. I also contracted a staph infection that has recurred 5 times, manifesting in massive, painful and disgusting abcesses. Antibiotics are NOT something one should be taking regularly, and I’ve had 4 hardcore rounds in less than a year. I swear, if you want to contract a brutal disease, go to the US, not a Third World country. But possibly tied for worst – I haven’t lived alone since I left China – the bad part being that I have lived with some of the most horrible and abusive men and women I have ever met, and paid my hard-earned money for the privilege. Ouch. Once the Virus was in play, housing became even more insecure. I was terrified of being kicked out with literally nowhere to go if I contracted even a small cough. The crazy landlady I lived with during the first few months of the outbreak forced one of the other tenants out when she got a cold. It was stressful.
But you know, despite some pretty seriously shitty stuff going on while in the US, my spirits were good. It was not until I returned to Canada that I started to get depressed. This country is about poverty for me. I spent most of my Canada-side adult years living in poverty, and being back is no different. I have no contacts or references here. I’m an overeducated, middle-aged female and white – all of those working against me in a city with 11% unemployment and a government focused on making sure immigrants have jobs.
And I’m still living with people. And it has been all about male violence. I just moved from a shared house where an older male verbally attacked me and threatened to physically attack me because I wasn’t looking at or speaking to him correctly (we all know what that means – he wasn’t getting the deference and respect he thought he deserved). I just moved out of that house in the burbs to a downtown hostel that accepts month-to-month renters. I had stayed here when I first moved to this city for a job 20 years ago. But things seem to have gone downhill with increased poverty/income gaps and with the stress of the Virus. In a week’s time, there have been two major violent male episodes – luckily not with me. But they were terrifying. One – a verbal screaming match between staff and a male who (as usual) didn’t think he needed to follow the Virus rules mandated by the hostel. The second – a male did something the staff didn’t like and they refused to let him back into the building to go to his room. It was a long ordeal, poorly handled by the staff, that escalated until the male smashed the entire plexiglass wall going from lobby counter to ceiling, and smashed computers and various things on the check-in desk. No cops ever seem to be called here. I took the least expensive room. It is in a hallway beside the lobby. It is a tiny, tiny room with no window. There is an immense amount of noise 24/7 due to people traipsing by or accessing a bank of METAL lockers right beside my door at 2 or 4 in the morning. They are raising the rent significantly next month despite being down season for travellers. It does have a bit of a half-way house feel to it. Or even a homeless shelter (given the male violence and the creepy, listless air of some of the male guests), except that I am paying for the privilege.
As much as I wanted to move on from teaching English to unmotivated, cell-phone addicted students, I’m almost wishing the Virus were over so I could escape Canada, take another teaching job, and have a job and a small private living space away from men again.
Bottom line: the West is just as dangerous and stressful for women as it is in other parts of the world. The income gap and access to affordable and secure housing issues are as serious here as they are in many places. The less money you have as a woman, the more exposed you are to dangerous situations caused by males. And yet Western countries are more and more obsessed with racial diversity and less and less focused on the fact that women are the most at-risk group STILL and face more challenges economically than men of any race.
Let’s hope 2021 brings a better year for us and that we all make it there unhurt by the men around us.
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A Dangerous Woman
When you write about feminist (and I really mean female separatist) issues, you know you are writing about truth, the subjective truths of individual women and the objective truth that is living as a woman in a male-dominated society. Sometimes, you are writing about things that happened to you or other women in the past. Sometimes, you are writing about current events. Sometimes, you are writing about theories, fantasies, and things that could be possible or are definitely not possible in the world as it exists.
When you are out in the real world, you have a mask on. You can’t really talk about what you write or experience or observe. You’ll be gaslit by all men, and the vast majority of straight women. You’ll be verbally and maybe physically attacked. You’ll lose opportunities for jobs, social connections and other things you need to survive. You are a ‘dangerous’ woman, despite how vulnerable you feel. It is possible to be dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. But here’s the thing, the danger you pose is not a real danger like the danger that all men pose to women and girls. It is a perceived danger, and only ideological at that. When you question the status quo – that males run the show and women and girls exist in a state of subservience and suffering at the whim of males – or if you present data that confirm that the status quo is what you say it is, you threaten the male power base. Danger to males means not being able to walk the planet able to do whatever they please with impunity. It is not the same as how females understand danger – bodily harm, sexual threats, isolation, poverty, starvation, death – although males try to equate them or even elevate their idea of danger in importance.
If you’re lucky, you can wear the mask in public and then come home to a place where the mask comes off and you can be yourself and live in relative safety. If you are straight and have chosen to live with a male, you may still wear the mask at home, but I’m tired of people talking about straight women, and the privilege they orbit, and how it can go wrong. If you choose to swim with sharks and you get bit, why are you surprised, ffs??? I mean, we have been bombarded by d.v. data for decades, and women still choose to ignore it. Complicated issue and reasons for ignoring reality, but not going to be addressed here. No, I’m talking about the brave women who reject cock, are punished for it on many levels, are forced to wear a second mask in public because they are deemed even more dangerous than an outspoken straight woman, and then because of poverty, are forced to wear the mask at home because of lack of choice in living situations.
There is little worse than being a poor lesbian or asexual who tries to stay away from men, but is forced to share living space with male strangers because she can’t afford anything else. I’m talking living in hostels, living in houses with multiple rooms rented out (where the renters are chosen by a landlord who doesn’t live in the house, not the renters who have to share the space), living in women’s shelters or prisons where violent male trannies posing as women are allowed in. In these cases, the women must wear multiple masks in public and then wear at least one at ‘home’. To take the mask off in a space where you are supposed to be safe also shows you to be dangerous, and then your ‘threat’ becomes exposed to the straight women and men living with you. Your housing becomes further insecure since you have become a perceived threat, especially if you complain, and you sense that your very life may be in danger because one thing is true: unlike women, when men get scared and threatened, they turn to violence and lash out. They target the perceived source of their fear – a woman who doesn’t literally or figuratively suck their cock or any cock, for that matter; a woman who doesn’t pay them enough attention, attention that they deserve as males; a woman who is a lesbian; it could be anything as no one needs a reason to attack a woman – and they try to take back the power they think they deserve and that they think has been taken away from them (aka ’emasculation’).
I firmly believe that financial independence is crucial for all women so that they may have safety and choices in life, and to help eliminate forced heterosexuality. Women are only dangerous because men say we are, and as we all know, in the he said/she said game, what he says goes. Always.
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If You’re Blind, You Can’t See
Statements of the obvious. Who doesn’t love those? And yet, in our world, the blind lead. The one-eyed are not queens, and the fully-functioning two-eyed are trampled and enslaved and silenced and over-worked.
We worship our blind leaders. The men.
Confused, yet confident at the same time, men design solutions to problems they can’t truly see. We’re lucky if they acknowledge a problem at all. Often glaring problems are spun in a way as to seem natural or inevitable or something that will be worked out in the end or, my favourite – a necessary evil.
Example: Overpopulation
Let’s look at overpopulation. Women are blamed for this time and again. And the finger pointing comes from men. “They should stop getting pregnant.” “They should take birth control.” “They should stop having babies.” “They should get abortions.” There may be comments blaming women for their poverty. “Poor, uneducated women have too many babies.”
No where in the world are women in control of their bodies. In most places, marriage is mandatory. In all places in the world, women must provide sex to men, free or paid. There is no choice to refrain from hetero-sex without serious consequences. Men have designated penis-centred sex as MANDATORY. Most women don’t have access to birth control or abortion or safe spaces free from male pestering and abuse. Men have no interest in inconveniencing themselves with condoms, vasectomies, or masturbation-instead-of-sex. Women and girls get pregnant. Babies are born. The fault lies with men and the the penis-sex they force upon women. Stop mandatory fucking and give women education and opportunities (i.e., reduce dependence on men) and you will lower birth rates (and rape, and STIs, and female death, and female poverty, and and and).
But men won’t acknowledge that they are the source of the problem, so they point the finger at women, and it is, as usual, up to women to shoulder the blame and clean up. But it can’t be cleaned up until we get to the true source.
Example: Prostitution
Ah, the world’s oldest profession. WRONG. The world’s oldest form of slavery. Prostitution is not a profession. Like marriage, it is a direct manifestation of male dominance and female submission and slavery. Prostitution is not a choice, it is a last resort, an act of desperation, or enforced slavery (for many). For a few, it might be a misguided attempt at sexual liberation (as defined by men, of course).
Men may acknowledge it is a problem, but a women’s problem, in that either a) women are spreading diseases, b) contributing to the moral decay of society, or c) aren’t accessible ENOUGH for their liking. However, most men don’t really see prostitution as a serious problem. It doesn’t affect their daily lives, and for many, satisfies a ‘need’ they feel they are entitled to. They may even rationalize that prostitutes save ‘real women’ from the bulk of men’s demands and violence. They are a necessary evil.
But women are not the problem. The fact that prostitution exists at all is the problem and a symptom of vast inequality between men and women. The fact that men believe they are entitled to unfettered access to women’s bodies is the problem. The fact that men dictate women’s available economic options is the problem. The fact that this so-called job affects the status and safety of ALL women, including first and foremost, the prostituted, is the problem.
Women have shouldered the blame and do the bulk of the clean-up. Unfortunately, there is a growing movement of anti-feminist / pro-penis / pro-abuse women seeking to make sure prostitution is here to stay. And it will stay unless we get to the root of the problem: male dominance and entitlement.
Example: Poverty
Systems of currency are based on hierarchy. Hierarchy is a male invention. Capitalism, the ultimate currency-based system of hierarchy tells us that some of us have more value than others and deserve more than others. It also tells us that those of us who cannot survive under this system deserve what we get. Failure to survive is explained away by the men on top (and even men lower down on the hierarchy) as the simple result of ‘natural’ competition rather than bias, disadvantage and just plain unfairness due to misogyny, racism, etc.
Since before the invention of currency, women have been forced into a dependent role by men. The development of currency hurt women even more deeply and reinforced sexual servitude. Not permitted to work for currency, women were forced to assume roles as slaves to men. Women’s labour, even to this day, is primarily unpaid or underpaid. Prohibited from competing on a fair playing field, women have always been vulnerable – their fates tied to male whim and male mortality. Disobedience towards a man, being discarded by a man, or left alone following the death of a father or husband, have left women on the streets destitute and unskilled and in danger from the rest of male society, with very few options for survival.
And so we have poverty.
Men choose to blame the problem of women’s poverty on the women themselves. Women are lazy, vain, focused on their looks, stupid, unable to compete, baby machines, weak, etc. You name it, men have used it as the reason why so many women live in poverty, why women should be kept out of paying jobs, and why poverty exists at all. They’ll never see themselves at the root of the problem.
Male dominance, enforced female dependence, and reliance upon an unfair currency system that over-rewards penised-people for doing unremarkable things are the problems. But until we can name the root of the problem correctly, poverty will continue. Women will shoulder the blame, and will form the bulk of the unpaid/low-paid clean-up crew. Men, meanwhile, will pontificate, design ineffective solutions or ignore the problem altogether.
The Bottom Line
The ‘problem solvers’ who tend to get attention and funding and political support are almost always male. Women are only included when there is blame to be doled out or grunt work to be done on implementing solutions. Women are scapegoats and free labour clean-up crews. Always.
When you don’t approach a socio-econo-enviro-political problem from a feminist perspective, you will never be able to get to the heart of the matter and solve it. Enough with the blind kings, already.
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