From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: Overthrow "THE MAN" symbolically, was (Who cares)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 25 Jul 92 01:50:01 GMT

In article <2A7099AD.299@noiro.acs.uci.edu> cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
>
>I mean, would it make your damned nads fall off to JUST LISTEN??
>
>Janis

Just as an aside, if anyone looks back on my old posts and the old posts
of others who are angry and bitching about something, you'll see a
pattern.

Whenever someone tries to understand the position of the person doing
the complaining, that person is usually as understanding as all hell
when THEY follow up.  I know myself that the only time I got even
angrier at one person in particular was when that person just attacked
me and said I was bigoted simply because I was angry.  People have
posted and said (in a very reasonable way), "I am sorry for what you've
gone through, but there are other considerations."  And, if you bother
to notice, I never attacked one of these people.  If I am angry and
someone makes an attempt to say my anger is valid, I will not attack.
But when I say something that involves a great deal of anger and pain
and someone just slaps me, the fangs come out and I will draw blood.

Jeff is under the misapprehension that I hate men.  I don't.  I hate the
ones like HIM that just won't listen and the minute someone talks about
oppression and pain just start going off about how THEY'RE sick and
tired of it.  TOO FUCKING BAD.  If you want understanding from me, give
it.  Threefold law of return, bud.  You express no compassion at another
person's pain and anger, you don't get none.  

Many men have posted and said (REASONABLY) that they have also
experienced problems, while fully acknowledging POLITELY the nature of
mine.  I have posted to them politely as well, acknowledging that I have
seen people pull shit like that, and have been seen men I know get hurt
by it.  My SO is one.  My dad is another.  If you think I want to see
men hurt like that, you're out of your goddamned mind.  My own father
had a lot of stress in his life that I think came from feeling that in
his youth, and died young.

In short, all the people had to do was just shut up and let me sound
off.  SO I didn't lick everyone's wounds.  Well, YOU haven't been shit
on for two thousand years, either.

When someone is angry, JUST FUCKING LISTEN, OKAY?  Would it kill you?
The anger I feel and the pain I feel at being made out to be less than
the male norm in this society is profound.  If anyone has problems with
my saying it, perhaps you should ask yourself why you're so defensive.
If you don't believe me, too bad.  *I* have experienced chauvinism and
misogyny, NOT YOU, so I know it best about my experiences with it.

If a man cares to explain how he has been hurt while acknowledging my
own pain and experiences as valid, he will be met with compassion.  If,
however, he goes off right away and starts screaming about how HE'S
being blamed and how women are just as bad so shut up, bitch then he's
going to get disemboweled.  

When I post something about a profound hurt in my spirit and source of
pain and get people telling me I'm full of shit and who the hell do you
think you are and why are you blaming me and *I* didn't do it and you're
just a man-hater and well what's wrong with YOU, then and what did you
do to bring this on yourself -- I have just effectively, after baring
myself and making myself VERY vulnerable, been kicked in the teeth and
told, "Oh, we don't care about you."  This in turn is going to make me
pull out my file, sharpen my teeth, and rip open someone's femoral
artery.  Not to mention the fact that it's not going to make me view
others as terribly sympathetic.  I can't tell you how many times I've
gotten angry while just walking to lunch or brushing my teeth as I think
to myself, "They just fucking don't CARE.  They don't CARE!"  Do ANY of
you, ANY WHITE STRAIGHT MEN AT ALL, have ANY FUCKING IDEA what it feels 
like to say this to yourself?  Do you have any goddamned clue at all?!
If you meet me with compassion and even a brief pat on the back, you
will be accepted, and I will make efforts to understand where you're
coming from.  

But, if you kick me hard, when I need understanding most, when I've just
made myself vulnerable, you'd better run hard and fast, because if I
EVER get in a position of power over you, I'll make you miserable.  This
is the typical way a human being reacts after it's been kicked in the
gut. 

If any of you want to follow up to this and tell me how screwed up I am,
keep in mind that this kind of anger, not listened to, turns into the
Black Panthers and terrorism, okay?  This isn't a threat; it's an
observation.  Like I said previously, where the fuck do you think songs
like "Cop Killer" come from?  Out of the damned blue?  The real problem
with songs like that is not that they encourage violence, but that there
is such a large portion of the population for whom a song like that has
great relevance.  THAT is what we must solve to keep songs like that
from ever being written.  We don't censor them; we solve the fucking
social and emotional problems that make a song like that so real to so
many people.

If any of you think that I am unbalanced because I am this angry, then
58% of the population must be unbalanced, because this kind of anger is
buried inside of EVERY woman, and every other minority as well.

In short, if you think there's something wrong with ME, go shove your
thumb up your ass (, Jeff).  I have understood for the first time in my
life with the research I've done, the same research that has resulted in
my taking the word Witch to my bosom, that there is NOT something wrong
with me, that I'm NOT imagining things.  If you doubt this and follow up
asking me where I get these ideas, I'm not going to reply.  If you doubt
me, read it yourself.  Read Mary Daly.  Read Alice Walker.  Read Merlin
Stone.  Read Toni Morrison.  Read Gloria Steinem.  Read Naomi Wolf.
Read Carol Tavris.  And don't ask me to explain it.  As Naomi Wolf said,
"No!  I *can't* explain it to you between the entree and the dessert!"  
I *can't* explain it to you over the damned net.  Go out and fucking
read it for yourself.  It has taken me YEARS of research to understand
what I now understand; I just fucking *can't* explain it in a series of
posts to Usenet.

If you like this post, fine.  If not, go ahead and follow up; I'm
killing the thread right now anyway.  I don't need to hear any more
rants, and I don't need to hear any more shit from people who don't care
about me.  

Basically, if you don't like what I said in this post, too goddamned
bad.

Janis


 
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