quotes from feminist literature

texts quoted

Dr Lisa Sugiura, senior lecturer in criminology and cybercrime at the University of Portsmouth, explains: It’s worth looking at the history and origins of [the manosphere]. If you go right back to the early Usenet groups in the 1990s and you think about the demographics of the sort of people [who] would have used these, they are primarily white, educated, tech-savvy men. And there was this thinking about it being their space, their ownership of the space, which is something else worth thinking of when we think of the manosphere and their vitriol – they are ‘claiming what is rightfully theirs’ – and that demographic hasn’t really changed. [It resembles] what we saw years ago in terms of race and gender – it really is white, western men – and in terms of the education: it is very much the developed countries, very much the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. And what I’ve been getting through the data I’m looking at is it links back to the alt-right; it’s about white supremacy, and there’s very disparaging rhetoric coming out towards black and Asian men as well, which is where you get the suggestion that this is a predominantly white space.”

Tim Squirrell, a researcher studying social interaction in online communities, says: The first thing you notice when you look at an incel forum is a mix of hopelessness and anger. These people genuinely hate and pity themselves, but, simultaneously (and almost paradoxically), they feel this righteous anger and vindication that they see the world for how it really is, even if they’re at the bottom of the heap. That feeling of absolute certainty that they are correct is twinned with the fact that they’re correct about their own misery, and that’s a powerful and strange cocktail.

At the root of manosphere communities and white supremacy is a shared belief that the core, sacred purpose of man is to have sex, to procreate and to dominate. Thus, power and control are utterly central to both ideologies. The concept of a white man as a heterosexual, stereotypically masculine, utterly omnipotent figure is key, ironically representing both the hopelessly suffocating societal standard that drives many men to join these communities in the first place and the supposed solution they are indoctrinated to pursue with ever more extreme measures.

In the case of incels, their prime focus is a feverish obsession with sex, and anger at being ‘denied’ it. Yes, this is a community of tens of thousands of men who claim that the world (and, in particular, individual women) is withholding from them the vital human right of getting laid. Amazingly, in the thousands of conversations and endless hours spent discussing their sparse sex lives, alongside lengthy rants about how women are evil, subhuman vessels, it never seems to occur to these men that their hatred of women might be related to their lack of romantic success. In fact, even to suggest such a thing is a banning offence in many incel forums. Instead, incels see themselves as innocent and tragic victims, creating a vivid portrait of a bleak society irreversibly stacked against them.

Incels use the metaphor of the red pill to describe the moment a man’s blinkers fall away and he suddenly realises that he has been lied to his whole life. The world that he has been forced to believe works in his favour is actually hopelessly stacked against him. Everything, from our government to our wider society, is designed to promote women over men. The myth of male privilege, so the story goes, is perpetuated by a massive feminist conspiracy. Incels refer to this man-hating world as a ‘gynocracy’, a clever system designed to keep men (the true victims of oppression) in their subordinate place, without them even noticing.

We don’t like to risk offending men. We find it hard to think of straight, white men as a homogenous group, though it comes so easily when we think of other types of people, because we are used to affording such men the privilege of discrete identities. These men are complex, heroic, individual. Their decisions and choices are seen to spring from a set of distinct and unique circumstances, because we see them as distinct and unique people. We don’t mind talking about women as a group, and about violence against women as a phenomenon, but we do so as though it is something that just happens.

hey gyns! i’m so sorry i haven’t posted in so long. i thought we could have a poll to choose which book to read next.

But we can imagine, to save ourselves, a life in the body that is not value-laden; a masquerade, a voluntary theatricality that emerges from abundant self-love. A pro-woman redefinition of beauty reflects our redefinitions of what power is. Who says we need a hierarchy? Where I see beauty may not be where you do. Some people look more desirable to me than they do to you. So what? My perception has no authority over yours. Why should beauty be exclusive? Admiration can include so much. Why is rareness impressive? The high value of rareness is a masculine concept, having more to do with capitalism than with lust. What is the fun in wanting the most what cannot be found? Children, in contrast, are common as dirt, but they are highly valued and regarded as beautiful.

We do not need to change our bodies, we need to change the rules. Beyond the myth, women will still be blamed for our appearances by whomever needs to blame us. So let’s stop blaming ourselves and stop running and stop apologizing, and let’s start to please ourselves once and for all. The “beautiful” woman does not win under the myth; neither does anyone else. The woman who is subjected to the continual adulation of strangers does not win, nor does the woman who denies herself attention. The woman who wears a uniform does not win, nor does the woman with a designer outfit for every day of the year. You do not win by struggling to the top of a caste system, you win by refusing to be trapped within one at all. The woman [who wins] calls herself beautiful and challenges the world to change to truly see her.

Rivalry, resentment, and hostility provoked by the beauty myth run deep. Sisters commonly remember the grief of one being designated “the pretty one.” Mothers often have difficulty with their daughters’ blooming. Jealousy among the best of friends is a cruel fact of female love. Even women who are lovers describe beauty competition. It is painful for women to talk about beauty because under the myth, one woman’s body is used to hurt another. Our faces and bodies become instruments for punishing other women, often used out of our control and against our will. At present, “beauty” is an economy in which women find the “value” of their faces and bodies impinging, in spite of themselves, on that of other women’s. This constant comparison, in which one woman’s worth fluctuates through the presence of another, divides and conquers.

The terrible truth is that though the marketplace promotes the [beauty] myth, it would be powerless if women didn’t enforce it against one another. For any one woman to outgrow the myth, she needs the support of many women. The toughest but most necessary change will come not from men or from the media, but from women, in the way we see and behave toward other women.

The ideology of “beauty” was a shortcut promise to agitating women—a historical placebo—that we could be confident, valued, heard out, respected, and make demands without fear.

Young women express feelings of being scared and isolated “insiders” as opposed to angry and united outsiders, and this distinction makes backlash sense: The best way to stop a revolution is to give people something to lose. [The anti beauty myth/feminist movement] would need to politicize eating disorders, young women’s uniquely intense relationship to images, and the effect of those images on their sexuality—it would need to make the point that you don’t have much of a right over your own body if you can’t eat. It would need to analyze the antifeminist propaganda young women have inherited, and give them tools, including arguments like this one, with which to see through it. While transmitting the previous heritage of feminism intact, it would need to be, as all feminist waves are, peer-driven: No matter how wise a mother’s advice is, we listen to our peers. It would have to make joy, rowdiness, and wanton celebration as much a part of its project as hard work and bitter struggle, and it can begin all this by rejecting the pernicious fib that is crippling young women—the fib called postfeminism, the pious hope that the battles have all been won. This scary word is making young women, who face many of the same old problems, once again blame themselves—since it’s all been fixed, right? It strips them of the weapon of theory and makes them feel alone once again. We never speak complacently of the post-Democratic era: Democracy, we know, is a living, vulnerable thing that every generation must renew. The same goes for that aspect of democracy represented by feminism.

When faced with the [beauty] myth, the questions to ask are not about women’s faces and bodies but about the power relations of the situation. Who is this serving? Who says? Who profits? What is the context? When someone discusses a woman’s appearance to her face, she can ask herself. Is it that person’s business? Are the power relations equal? Would she feel comfortable making the same personal comments in return?