Comments on: Good Morning, Patriarchy!

By: wordgirl

wordgirl — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Ahh…it’s just business as usual here on Planet Earth!

By: Ms Kate

Ms Kate — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Historically, the early bride stuff is a traditionalist community response to encroaching modernism and all the freedom it affords women in particular, but both genders in reality. From the “settled” Irish Tinkers to the Hmong and backward and sideways, parents fearing family shame in environments where their traditional values are clashing with adolescent escape will marry them off younger and younger to the point of absurdity.

While boys are often married off early too, it is more common to pair a periadolescent girl with an older male (usually not way old, but 18 or so) for reasons of economics if nothing else.

Just because it is both classic and predictable does not make it right. It also does not make it any less actionable when a 13 year old southeast asian girl in a northeast US industrial city turns up at the ER with pregnancy complications and all the relatives lack clue when her 20 year old “husband” is chucked in jail and several other responsible adults are thrown in after him.

By: curiousgyrl

curiousgyrl — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

It impresses me how “sexy” the picture of frightened and starving young women is. Of course it is obvious, but sometimes i forget; your first and last tidbits are related. one important type of Sexy in our version of the patriarchy looks like a pubescent girl after undergoing torture. In order to be sexy, we are supposed to do this to ouselves.

I cant upload photos here, but a 5 min perusal of google turned up many such images. I simply searched for “model.”

By: yankee transplant

yankee transplant — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Thanks for keeping our guard up, Twisty. Hope you’re feeling physically pretty well!

By: nina

nina — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Twisty, now I think you’re trying to get us all puking.

By: CafeSiren

CafeSiren — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

I read the last article, and as a professional medievalist, I have to disagree with the authors’ calling this “medieval” slavery. The Middle Ages weren’t no picnic for women, for sure, but this sex-slaves-in-a-cellar thing is way beyond anything I’ve ever read about in my own dear M.A.

You’ve come a long way, baby. ((heavy sigh))

My implulse is to say that this is an aberration, an exception to the rule of progress for women; that the fact that these women are kept in cellars means that patriarchy has, literally, had to go underground to survive. But then I realize that the sick fucks who enslave these women wouldn’t do it if there weren’t a booming market for it. And *those* sick fucks (the paying customers) are walking around free, probably sleeping well at night, thank you very much.

By: mythago

mythago — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

“Beatrice Kitamula, 19, was forced to marry her wealthy neighbor, now 63, five years ago because her father owed another man a cow.”

I’m trying to make a clever play on the buying a cow when you can get the milk for free thing, but it’s just not coming.

By: TimT

TimT — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

If I ever have kids, and one of those kids is a girl, then I’m going to do fight against prejudice by feeding her a cup of warm bacon lard every morning. Hey, it’s only fair.

By: joy

joy — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Notice how nowhere in the article did it mention the fact that clearly there’s a market, i.e. male consumer demand, for trafficked girls in the oh-so-enlightened UK? It was all about the victimized girls and the brave police officers who saved them and the ruthless Albanians who trafficked them. Nothing about the ordinary British guys who are clearly willing to pay to have sex with girls who’ve been shipped in from Eastern Europe.

By: bitchphd

bitchphd — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Apparently prostitution isn’t the only option for young women in Eastern Europe–there’s also being used to pimp the game of chess.