Feb
17
Goodbye world. I’m going back to Civ IV.
Filed Under Misogyny
After allowing myself a week’s time to indulge in a heavy addiction to Civilization IV my time was up and I poked my head out to reacquaint myself with the world. Ahhh, the avalanche of misogyny and horrific stuff, it was a bit much. I think I’m in a slight state of shock. And here I was mildly irritated that women don’t seem to exist in the Civ world. Men make history bitches, women are conquests!
Aside from a sprinkling of leaders and 1 or 2 “great people” – who are male bodies anyway – and despite being 50% of the population I should be happy we just got that, I’m told. Well, I’ve been advocating flipping the ratios of government offices so that we have a majority of women instead of men for a long time – nothing wrong with that, right? My overall point being that women constantly get that we should be happy with whatever bone someone throws us, but to reverse the situation would be utterly ridiculous and inconceivable. And I suppose you can say that politics is such a different thing in comparison to representation in a game, but that’s the problem – women are so rarely represented in an equal manner ANYWHERE. And we’re expected to just be happy with what we’ve got. We live in the man channel baby! (Chick flick = film with more than two women. Chick books = books about women. Some sort of equal representation of experiences might dilute testosterone or something.)
I’m cutting the angry part. Read at your own risk.
First story of the day I see, Rihanna was beaten to a bloody pulp and left unconscious in the street by a no good piece of shit. (Kanye West – “Give him a break.” At least I know you’re a no good piece of shit too!) But of course she must have done something to provoke him. Yeah. Let’s continue to be a world full of domestic violence and rape apologists because then we’ll never actually have to address the problem – abusers and rapists rather than the women they beat and rape and murder. Let’s keep letting these men off the hook in favor of concentrating on the woman’s actions.
Add to that the Muslim woman who was beheaded by her husband because she filed for divorce. (Why she stays – often a woman is seen as “stupid” for staying and continuing to take abuse, except that violence escalates when she makes the move to leave, and this is often when he will kill her.) Of course, that’s one story from today, and there are always more and more and more both here and around the globe. I want to know what a world looks like where we take violence against women seriously.
In a similar vein, something that has been pissing me off for a long time – also filed in the “men use religion for all sorts of heinous things” and “women are chattel” categories – Christian nutjobs who deny women the right to leave an abusive husband because “it doesn’t say so in the Bible.” I’m looking at you Rick Warren, and all your small brained misogynistic cronies. Take your (written by men, surprise surprise) Bible and shove it.
Also, the Rock for Life cretins who believe it’s their right as patriarchal Christian men to restrict a woman’s access to abortion and birth control. I was also horrified to see them glorify women who opt not to have abortions despite their lives being in danger. Remember, the cells growing in your body are far more important than you. To say otherwise would actually grant you person-hood and that’s only reserved for men.
You can all take your patriarchy and your religion elsewhere. In fact, go to El Salvador where women are put in jail for 30-50 years if they have an abortion, and you can all hold hands and sing Kumbaya till someone has an unwanted pregnancy (In part due to your mind-boggling restrictions on birth control. Get me a hanger. The constant effort to control the reproductive and sexual lives of women enrages me. But hey, FREE VIAGRA!).
I planned to write a longer post on all these things – Rick Warren, El Salvador and Rock for Life men, but the whole thing just gets me so angry that I really haven’t been able to untwist my brain from the knots they give me.
Speaking of patriarchal Christian men, how can I not mention Mike Huckabee, a man who freed a rapist despite victim’s pleas and advocates that women submit to their husbands. Yeah, I’d certainly trust you to take care of me! “Do the Right Thing” my ass. Please return to whatever hole you came from. Whatever God has in store for you, I hope she makes it good. Eye for an eye and all that, right? Your presidential campaign videos, in which you sat around with Chuck Norris (won’t even start with him) with a cowboy motif (representative of a genocidal era) and talked about how we need a real man for president was truly sickening. You need to get hit with the clue bat, sit down and STFU.
Last but not least, Cara blogged about a Japanese computer game called “RapeLay” in which “The entire objective of the game is to rape women with varying levels of violence — sometimes stalking them first, sometimes using gang rape scenarios, and sometimes forcing them into abortions afterward.” And here I was disgusted at the level of rape and misogyny in Conan the Barbarian and GTA games!
The point isn’t “oh my god, this game is going to create rapists.” The point is “oh my god, this game is going to make rapists think that people are on their side.” Which, of course, too many people actually are already, through their rape apologist jokes and excuses. The premise of the game reinforces the idea of rape as okay and not a big deal. It reinforces the idea that women exist for the sexual pleasure and abuse of men. And the preview of the game Boing Boing, which does not include any actual rapes but only attempted rapes, also ends up reinforcing the dangerous and stereotypical idea of your “real” rape victim who always cries, calls out in distress and overall completely breaks down at actual violence or threats of it.
This post has a lot more vitriol than I usually like to display. I’ve been feeling angry and sad over the pieces of news all day, and I’m just angry at the world right now. People are sick. In blocking these things out for the last few months I seem to have lost a degree of numbness. I am going back to Civ IV. Let me know when the financial crisis has blown the world up for good.
ETA: Twisty’s post sort of restored a little bit of my sanity.
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