breathing fire

It can be fun to feel exceptional—to be the loophole woman, to have a whole power thing, to be an honorary man. But if you are the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven’t made any progress.

Nearly every terrible thing about our sexual politics comes down to the fact that, in patriarchy, patriarchs understand themselves to be inessential. Conservatives defend “family” and fatherhood as if they're under violent attack. That's because, as long as women are self-determined and possessed of options, they are. The twenty-first-century war to maintain patriarchy includes not just legislative attacks on the right to abortion, but on birth control, and sex education, which allows people to successfully avoid pregnancy in the first place. The fear here, despite generations of rhetoric to the contrary, is not about “killing babies”; men have always reserved the right to kill or at least abandon babies that displease them, usually after they leave the womb. The fear is that women will be the ones making the decisions; it is not death, but life, that we want to keep out of women's hands.

"We have to face the fact that pieces have been cut out of us to make us fit into this society. We have to try to imagine what we could have been if we hadn't been taught from birth that we are stupid, unable to analyze anything, 'intuitive', passive, physically weak, hysterical, overemotional, dependent by nature, incapable of defending ourselves against any attack, fit only to be the housekeeper, sex object, and emotional service centre for some man, or men, or children."

Andrea Dworkin once wrote, "You won’t ever know the worst that happened to Nicole Brown Simpson in her marriage, because she is dead and cannot tell you. And if she were alive, remember, you wouldn’t believe her." And that last sentence is true of every woman who died at the hands of her husband.

“Here’s the twist that emerged. Some young women wanted sexual equity with men: that’s a claim for equal power. They didn’t want to be mere sex objects, they wanted to be active sexual agents. But while true and total sexual equality between men and women is still too threatening, it has nonetheless proved lucrative to flatter women that they have it. So the media began to highlight this message: it’s through sex and sexual display that women really have the power to get what they want. And because the true path to power comes from being an object of desire, girls and women should now actively choose—even celebrate and embrace—being sex objects. That’s the mark of a truly confident, can-do girl: one whose objectification isn’t imposed from without, but comes from within. You have to admit, this is a very slick contortion. The best way to gain this kind of power is to cater to what men want. And you’re not acquiescing to men or to patriarchal sexual requirements: by submitting, you’re in the driver’s seat!”