Monthly Archive for December, 2006

Well, it has certainly been a revolting couple of days here at Twisty HQ. The righteous indignation emanating from every cranny, including the cranny I at this moment inhabit, is making my boob scars itch.

One thing is clear: I can’t stop people from having stupid ideas.

I can’t even stop myself from having’em. And here are a few on the subject of feminist revolution, the promotion of which, by the way, despite the occasional foray into sport corsets and the hypocrisy of Oprah Winfrey which are the result of my fun but ultimately obfuscatory fascination with the existing false patriarchal “reality,” is ultimately the goal of this blog. A brief explication of a relevant facet of my current working theory of feminist revolution may help clarify why I believe that both those who advocate an exclusionary woman-born-woman view, and the transactivists calling bullshit on what is by any definition bigotry (as well as every other living human being), are all targets of the same deeply entrenched, deeply corrupt paradigm.

In summary:

Patriarchy derives its precious bodily fluids from enforced binary sex roles. The ultimate result of this binarism is an oppressive heteronormative matrix. Within this matrix, binary gender, which functions, with its attendant phallogocentric mythology, as the rationalization for a system of domination and submission, is artificially fixed.

For example, woman, as a concept, relies for its meaning not on invisible chromosomes doled out at conception by Mother Nature, but on a cultural understanding of preexisting conditions of heteronormativity, patriarchy, romantic feelings about aching ovaries, pseudoscientific notions focusing to the exclusion of all else on genitalia, etc. The context of patriarchy is necessary to define woman.

The thing is — and I believe this is the reason feminism is dead in the water — not all humans who identify or are identified as women, regardless of chromosomes or extant genitalia and despite the ubiquity of misogyny in all its colorful guises, share a common, unified experience. For example, the dominant culture identifies me as a woman because I am clearly not a “man.” However, I currently experience this “womanhood” from the decidedly non-universal perspective of a privileged, educated, middle-aged, mostly celibate, skinny, honky American dyke with no sex organs, no estrogen, no nuclear family, a limp, and a faint mustache. A thousand other apt descriptors (I’m funny, I don’t “bleed”, I don’t do housework, I’m not “good with kids”) differentiate me from the universal “woman.” What am I really? Just a mutilated woman? A spinster aunt? Why not a trans man?

Why, indeed, must I be any “thing” at all?

In a post-revolutionary society, the core development that, above all else, must obtain is the dissolution of these oppressive binary sex roles. This must extend to the dissolution of biology as a determining factor of identity.

Without the patriarchal binary sex role paradigm to enforce my status, I would be just what I am. Not woman. Not man. Not “something in between.” I would be merely a realized consciousness delimited by organic matter. So would you.

This is what I mean when I say that gender can not survive the revolution.

The intercollegiate basketball team in question has been using dude practice players for 8 years, attributes their team success to the dude practice players, and despite an upbraiding from the NCAA Committee on Women’s Athletics that using dude practice players “violates the spirit of gender equity and Title IX [and] results in diminished participation opportunities for female student-athletes,” they plan on keeping their dude practice players.

And uh-oh, when asked whether she thinks using dude practice players sends a message to potential women practice players that they suck and that their suckage is vagina-based, team member/dumb jock Julie DeMuth said no way, not at all, she just “likes” playing with dudes because “they’re more athletic and stronger.”

A glance through narrowed eyes at some recent headlines reveals that a class of subjects identified as “women” are widely reviled in the online media as messed-up, insatiable, dead, guilty, and of course, pregnant.

“Women are greater love cheats than men!” [DailyIndia.com]
The joyous fact of women’s’ natural slutty duplicity is distilled by this news outlet from a gazillion factoids collected by an enormous condom manufacturer survey. The survey also reveals to a breathless public that Coventry is the vibrator capitol of the UK and that the honky movie actor currently starring as James Bond is the “sexiest man alive.” Newindpress delights that 34% of women supposedly fantasize about “lesbian sex.”

“AN INFECTION THAT TURNS WOMEN INTO SEX KITTENS!” [sawf.org]
Humans infected with a certain parasite suffer brain damage resulting in personality changes. Male sufferers are merely “jealous and morose” but afllicted women “ooze sex” and become “more promiscuous” and “more attractive to men!” Hooray!

“More women drivers guilty of drink-driving” [BBC via Kwik-FitInsurance.com]
The statistic quoted in this article to substantiate the use of the adjective “more” to describe drunk-drivin women is this: of 109 drunk drivers caught, 99 were men. In other words, 90% of drunk drivers are men, which makes this headline a total lie. Which does not prevent Kwik-Fit from indulging in a patronizing finger-wag, reminding ditzy, infantile chick drivers that “women motorists who drink and drive may not only be endangering their women’s [!] car insurance, but also their livelihoods, as some will require a driving license as part of their employment.” Thanks for the news flash, Officer Friendly.

“Do Sudden-Death Genes Strike Women Most?” [CBSNews.com]
“Women are more likely than men to carry — and to pass on — mutant genes that cause long-QT syndrome, a defect in the heart’s electrical system linked to sudden death.” [my italics]. Where women and aberration are involved, allusions to dire mutuant reproductive ramifications are never far away.

“Women should not be punished for adultery” [IndiaTimes.com]
In India the debate rages on amongst official vagina monitors: should women who have “extra-marital affairs” be punished as criminals, or is adultery merely a civil “wrong”? There is no option, apparently, for women to just do it like fucking human beings without some sort of invasive juridical oversight.

“Military death count for women reaches 70″ [UPI]
“Some have argued that the women who have died are no different than the men,” said a report from the Center for Military Readiness, The Washington Times reported. “But deliberate exposure of women to combat violence in war is tantamount to acceptance of violence against women in general.” Bwaaaah! on so many levels.

“Pregnant women hope to delay births for German govt aid” [Reuters]
In order to cash in on a sa-weet government bucks-for-babies incentive that doesn’t kick in until January 1, the pressure is on to stay pregnant until the cut-off date. Women who manage to hold it in long enough present the fatherland with a 2007-vintage bundle of joy — the program is one of those desperate actions taken by governments when they’re afeared of population shrinkage, in which women are — what else is new — essentially paid to incubate new Germans — will reap 25,000 euros and the thanks/disdain of a grateful nation.

Hey girls. Wanna make a buck in a man’s world without having to rub your tits in anyone’s face? How about this: charge men a fee — say $795 a month — for explaining to them the mysterious, bizarre ways of women, so that these men may then make a buck off the women, thus completing the cycle of capitalist patriarchal control.

Take the manly, sweaty, short-sleeved world of auto sales.

It seems that ‘traditional’ methods of salesmanship, such as asking the female customer to bend over and wait for it, are no longer working quite as well as they used to. Confounded salesdudes may now turn to AskPatty.com.

AskPatty.com isn’t just a handy website of “automotive advice for women.” Here men , too, may take advantage of the perpetually shocking information that women actually buy cars by learning from an actual fake woman (‘Patty’ appears not to exist, at least in human form) how to communicate with the alien sub-species. AskPatty.com sells car dealers a book called How to Get Rich Selling Cars and Trucks to Women, a training course, and an exam. Dealers who pass the exam get ‘certified’ as ‘female-friendly’.

Where are all these alleged autodudes who pay AskPatty.com $795 a month for certification proving that they are conversant in women-as-a-second-language? I don’t know. A search produced the disheartening result that there are no certified female-friendly auto dealers — not even, alas, Aston Martin, Lotus, or Porsche — within 100 miles of the Twisty Bungalow, or I would certainly have gone out and bought a car just so I could report back on the experience.

Naturally the president of AskPatty.com, Jody DeVere, is quick to aver, lest her bid to be taken seriously in the World of Dudes die the usual lonely death of stifled female opinion, that she is not “a screaming feminist waving [her] finger at auto dealers.”

God forbid the readers of the Clarion-Ledger should think DeVere is one of the Humorless Hairyleg Army. Comfortingly, AskPatty.com was founded by and is currently CEOed by a dude.