learning some misogyny in English

Misogyny starts early. No wonder my male friends can't explain how words and attitudes are popping out of them. They use the ultimate excuse and argument: "this is how I was socialized." And sometimes I found myself using words or phrases that are so unthought. And they stand for so much bullshit. Yesterday I thought a lot about how we use dirty language and what all these colorful and funny expressions actually mean: homophobia, mysoginy, racism, classism, hate. Of course, the solution is not to completely delete all these words and language associations from your vocabulary but to think more about them when using. And if possible subvert them and play around their first problematic meaning. I know it takes a lot of work but that can also be fun, you can do it playfully. Because using what you learn in primary school as something impossible to change means hell. If you look at this "innocent" drawing from a children's book you might get the bigger picture. And fuck, I don't want to live in that patriarchal world. Or to make any kid believe that this is how this world functions.

thanks Bogdan for the image!

men's rights?

Today I looked for some articles on google news with the search word feminist. I am amazed how they lead you to all the Christian right newspapers. Is it possible that they actually encourage a certain line of thought with their too-human search engines? Anyway, at some point, I ended up with this article: First Father Falls For Feminist Fraud, Fails Fatherhood. Please pay attention to the usage of equality and gender aware discourse, how twisted it can get. I see this type of writing as pure mockery, making fun of struggles for rights for decades, of personal grief and pain. Violence is not a civil right, in any type of democracy that you can dream of. If fighting domestic violence and misogyny is gender based discrimination, then this type of discrimination is needed. I am particularly touched by this subject because I know the side effects of gender mainstreaming in Europe and what for what incredible backlash it was used. To the point of closing women’s libraries for not having a male perspective. And apparently these supporters of male rights are doing it for “making things more equal between the genders” and not for supporting patriarchy and their undeserved privileges:

As a fathers’ advocate, I had hope when President Obama was elected. Some expressed disappointment that the author of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) had become Vice President. They feared more gender-based discrimination.
Being a liberal egalitarian, I was optimistic. My president had said he respects our civil rights. I believed all we needed to do was show President Obama and Vice President Biden how false allegations of domestic violence hurt 170,000 children a year.1,2 How VAWA has lead to uncontrollable corruption from individual shelters all the way to the US Department of State.

I was sure President Obama would agree that every parent deserves due process. Those parents deserve a trial with a jury of their peers, before the possibility of losing custody of their children. I wanted to show him how many fathers are absent from their children’s lives, by no fault of their own.But before I knew it, President Obama disappointed me. He also disappointed millions of fathers who are grieving the unjust absence of their children. Instead of making things more equal between the genders, we now have an Office on Women and Children. And we don’t have one for men and their children.

Who is The Rapeman?

Elena pointed me this short notice on feministing.com so I've done a little research.

So, who is actually The Rapeman? on imdb.com at the trivia section we find out that the cartoons are based on "humorous Japanese manga (comic book) series, written by Keiko Aisaki, a woman." Like that can justify its content or make the male viewers safer in their pleasure of watching some nice rape scenes. It appeared from 1985 to 1992 in 13 volumes. Exploring its good marketability, Pink Pineapple produced nine Rapeman live action feature films between 1993 and 1996 and it was rapidly transformed into a cult manga/film fetish in the US.

The Rapeman is a classic super hero with a twist: a shy high school teacher by day he does "great justice" by night and of course has a motto: "Righting wrongs through penetration". His cases are solved by one method in making justice - rape and the "villains" are, picking randomly, a gold digger girlfriend, a boyfriend stealer, a lesbian wife, etc. Even more outrageous, if in the middle of a rape scene, the woman becomes unresponsive or expresses enjoyment, he uses special techniques such as "M69 Screwdriver" or "Infinite Loop" to apply more pain to the villain.

I was surprised to see after a quick search that all information that I could find is presenting the character in a positive light (except the feminist page from where I've started which doesn't say much after all). What for me is ultimately wrong, not having any doubt about it, it is read in a most sincere misogynistic way possible as fun and even ethical. As one guy says "once you get past that whole raping women thing he’s actually a really good guy." That is exactly the issue, how can you pass the "raping women thing"? Considered by its fans more like an intelligent twist on the classic superhero boring narration: " Only in Japan would this type of production be made - and thank God for it. RAPEMAN is a strangely fun and "charming" super-hero" mentioning again that the rape is always done for a good cause. One negative point noted by another reviewer: "Hard-core sleaze fans will probably be disappointed as RAPEMAN isn't nearly as "rough" as some of the older pinku material, but there is some nudity - and there's something that's hard to nail-down that makes this one a big winner in my book. I think the combination of light comedy and strange concept works..." or can it be that straight forward misogyny is simply entertaining? Another guy: "The plot of "Rapeman" may sound offensive for some viewers...In fact it's surprisingly funny and humorous. A perfect flick to cheer somebody up!" Somebody, anybody? If you are a rapist, i guess this is some really good fun.
Rapeman has the effect of even changing the whole concept of rape, you might become rape friendly after watching it: "Most people find the subject of rape a very strong, criminal and evil part of life. And they have every right to believe that way. Then there are other people who think rape can be used as a means of justice, a way to avenge rights and honor. Well, before this movie I always thought Rape was a weird touchy subject. Obviously there's some whacked out nut cases out there, hurting people and families for their own sick pleasures and some of these sickos will actually commit murder. But I also believed that the act of rape can be a desirous outcome for certain people. Well, the latter is tackled somewhat in a movie I'll most likely never forget."
By reinforcing some good/evil dichotomies and the cliche of punishing the evil ones, rape becomes a just method for bringing peace and order. Here is another fan: "People are getting hurt, and that is not right. Rapeman stands for justice, honor and peace. He will not stop until the bad guys get what's coming to them! The movie is believe it or not, warmhearted. It's full of humor, and has some nice sex scenes...they are actually rape scenes but they don't play out like rape. Which for me makes the movie that much better. I wouldn't be down with this if the rape scenes were reminiscent of Irreversible. It take an incredibly serious subject and makes it seem OK....for 75 minutes anyways. It's definitely one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen in a while. And I'm definitely looking forward to the sequels. Yup, that's right! 9 outta 10 for the amazing Rapeman." When rape is done for a good cause, hurray! Well, I don't really think so.

again about organs

The femiblogosphere that i read exploded on this viral. The text says: “Becoming a donor is probably your only chance to get inside her.” More like a porn ad, it was made for the Belgian “Reborn To Be Alive” organ donor foundation. What looks like a necrophiliac joke of sexploitation phantasy produced some interesting reactions to the adolescent bloggers that couldn't get it. "Is she going to die or what? she looks pretty hot in this picture. i don't get it" they might say.

But they surprise the subversion by stupidity of this ad: the phantasy in front of their eyes is a phantasy of death, a deadly person who is not a perfect whole body, she is made of organs that are not so healthy after all. Her organs eat other organs in a mayhem-organ-orgy. And she depends on the generosity of some anonymous donors that gets only one image coming from The Realm of the Senses: the teenager pornconsumer dreaming about his jerking off organ being cut off and put inside her. The monstruous woman, aparently pop culturally appealing but hiding a vagina dentata, strikes again. Where are the good-old pin-up gals from the 50s?

About rape jokes on facebook

I was reading today this article on Une Femme Plus Courageuse's blog and my curiousity made me check my facebook pieces of flair application for rape content. I was using pieces of flair for a while and it had some pretty smart jokes. totally funny. but what about this rape issue that is so big today? it looks like all those chuck norris jokes that were everywhere dissapeared and now there is something funny about rape. where am i standing towards all this? i try to reveal the mechanism of my critique: i often hear that feminists have no sense of humour, they don't get a joke and anyway feminist political corectness is so uncool that you can't even mention something related to it in non-academic circles if you don't want to get a mocking attitude from the joker and an embaressment comment from your good friend host-of-the-party. and why is that? well, first of all jokes are anyway innocent, somehow universal and there can be only good and bad jokes, never offensive ones. the offended is probably a square head that doesn't get it anyway, so don't bother about this type of characters. I have to say that i do not go with this essentialist explination for a number of reasons: rape jokes come with a bigger ironic discourse on protecting patriarchal practices, jokes construct social hierarchies and let's face it, inocent jokes coming from nowhere are not so innocent after all. The ideological game of relating to any form of reality is highly connected to the imaginary present in jokes: the consensus of what is reality is not much of a matter of rational agreement but more of an imaginary affirmation, a form of misrecognition. This type of misrecognition is exemplified by the rape joke: the ideological-distorted reality of the rape is epitomized by the usage of a mysoginistic dominant fiction. and the fictionalized content that makes reality is thrown straight into the popular culture and on facebook. The misrecognition of the rape is ideologically constructed to deny its existance and make it a joke, ie illusory, a made-up story and not a possible bearer of reality. And that's not funny at all.

some random examples of rape-friendly pieces of flair, there are plenty more:

Pleasant Days (2002)

Director: Kornél Mundruczó

Kornél Mundruczó is one of my favorite Hungarian directors and I went to this movie with a big open heart, not to mention that my friend Gergo who took me there was completely ecstatic about his latest movie, Delta. But surprise! With my entire positive attitude, this was one of my worst experiences in a Hungarian cinema. This movie just doesn't work. I accuse the script, the actors and the director. The good image makes it better a bit but at some points you have the feeling that you are in a hip hop music video from Eastern Europe with all the urban clichés of dirt possible. Minimalism just doesn't work in all cases, even if I am a fan of this aesthetic. Without a strong plot, without strong actors that have something to show and some scenes to act, you can't make a whole movie. I've read somewhere that 3/4 is improvised and the director was pretty proud of that...I won't make a fuss out of it unless I want to blame someone else for my failure. And this is the perfect case that improvisation doesn't work all the time. Or we are not all Godards... But there is another big problem here: by making this extreme micro-realist experiment, Mundruczó falls into the trap of being a misogynistic author. What’s the purpose of all this? One can fairly say: abusing his women characters and his feminine cast in a pleasure of masculine domination. And that is done pretty well. A huge disappointment. I have to see Delta to wipe this bitter taste.