Lots of things make me angry these days. We’re living in those times, the ones where if you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention.
But the ones that make me furious on a visceral level are the ones where some misogynist expresses hatred or disdain for women or sets out a plan to strip away our rights.
That’s when I see red, when I’d really like to confront one of them in person and get them to throw a punch at me so I can throw them into the nearest wall.
Now that’s not a healthy response. I mean, I do know how to slip a punch and throw someone, but I also know that when things get physical someone could get hurt and it could well be me. I’m old and while I know something about fighting, I don’t have the illusion that I’m a superstar.
It’s just that the hatred and the contempt bring out my desire to not just tell an asshole that he’s wrong, but show him by dealing with him on that physical level where way too many men are wrongly convinced that they’re better than women.
I don’t just want to beat those men. I want to humiliate them. I want them to know they’re inferior to an old lady.
Like I said, visceral.
The latest thing to set me off was a piece in The New Republic reporting that the CEO of Palantir thinks that company’s “AI” technology will lessen the power of educated women. According to a quote in the article credited to a CNBC interview, he said, “This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less.”
And he thinks most of those people are women. He goes on to say that working class men – and I’m sure he means white men – will end up with more economic and voting power.
First of all, everything the government and the broligarchs are doing right now is hurting everyone who isn’t already rich. The working class isn’t going to end up with more economic power.
Secondly, while I know these broligarchs are trying their best to cram “AI” into all kinds of things used by people educated in the humanities – such as pretending it can write – it really can’t do their jobs. That’s not what it’s for and we are rejecting it.
As Cory Doctorow says, that the tech bros are really good at convincing employers that “AI” can do your job, but in fact, “AI” can’t do that work.
But the whole idea that he wants to keep women in particular from exercising their rights makes me so viscerally angry even though I recognize that nothing he is saying is true.
The anti-woman backlash this time around doesn’t even try to be subtle.
There’s the absolute nonsense of the Secretary of Defense – who is cosplaying as the Secretary of War, which would be funny if he wasn’t killing people – firing women generals and making it clear he doesn’t think women can cut it in the military.
Or the Epstein/Trump crowd. It’s not just the rape and abuse, but the whole lack of respect for women, the idea that women only exist for the convenience and pleasure of men.
And then there’s that creepy groyper (please don’t tell me what that means) who wants to put all women in a gulag.
That’s the one who got me re-read Suzy McKee Charnas’s Holdfast Chronicles. Right now I’m on The Furies and believe me these men should read that and figure out what might happen to people like them if they don’t clean up their act. (Amazing how so many of these men claim to know something about science fiction and not only miss the point, but miss the books that might actually educate them.)
I’ve had a few personal run-ins with men who got furious when I didn’t kowtow to them, thereby making me even more furious because they expected it. It’s that utter lack of respect, that knowledge that some man thinks you’re inferior, that sets me off.
They want me – they want all women – to be afraid of them. And I’m damned if I will be.
I’m not endorsing this reaction. It’s not safe. It’s not particularly rational. And I have enough training to know that it’s probably not strategic.
It’s visceral. I’m going to react. Thus this rant.
Right on, Sister! My head keeps turning with the number of things that are happening that destroy people’s rights and lives. If I don’t laugh at these clowns I’d be constantly in tears. Instead, I’ve gotten increasingly involved in politics. Solidarity!
Glad you’re in the fight.
Whew. I’m always affected by your blog but this one is intense! Goes right along with my reading Parable of the Talents.
I was really just writing about my emotional reaction. I get mad about a lot, but it’s mostly a cold and rational mad. The contempt underlying all this just sends me over the edge.
But, given that you’re reading Octavia Butler, it’s pretty clear that there is a lot of very good science fiction that is completely on point these days.
Over years of being in Silicon Valley, the second half managing mostly men at steadily rising levels, I encountered lots of hate from men. Usually they slunk by in the shadows, trying to undercut what I was doing behind my back, but sometimes more obviously.
The more I look back, the more treacherous some workplaces seem.
I have been fairly lucky in my workplaces–but then, I often dodged the places where I would have been managed by men who clearly hated women. And even the ones who don’t exactly hate them, often cannot not see women as equals. Some of those guys were treacherous because they were courtly and solicitous to the women they worked with, but made every woman into a “little lady.” I suppose it’s hard to feel threatened by a woman you’ve reduced to “honey, get me a cup of coffee” status.
I had a deal with one boss: if I was getting a cup of coffee, I’d ask if he wanted one. If he was getting a cup of coffee he’d ask if I wanted one. But he was very secure in where he was and what he had accomplished. Not all of them are (and they’re the loud ones).
I don’t recall a lot of problems in the workplace, though I certainly recall not getting jobs because of gender discrimination. Most of the personal stuff that has set me off has been with men on the street who were angry that I talked back to them. What’s really getting me these days are these people with money or some political power who actually say women shouldn’t vote and that we should all be home raising kids (or I suppose if we’re my age and childless, just kick the bucket). They have the gall to think they’re superior to me and I have the strong desire to prove them wrong.
I read you loud and clear. I am so beyond angry and horrified at what’s happening. But of course it’s always been “a man’s world” in their view. My bully of an ex-Navy father wanted boys but got four daughters, so he called us “his boys” and expected us to out-perform all the boys in the neighborhood at fishing, climbing ropes, digging ditches, chopping firewood, changing a tire, etc. So when I worked as a nuclear reactor operator with ex-Navy guys, I could hold my own as “one of the guys.” Not sure that was a triumph…. And even there, a co-worker told me I should be home making babies and not taking a man’s job.
Holding your own as “one of the guys” was a necessity for surviving in those spaces. It probably still is.
It just occurred to me that I didn’t run into crap on the most physical job I ever had — loading trucks for UPS — in part because the supervisor was a woman. She had done the loading work before and a couple of other women ended up working there when I did. None of the guys or the drivers (who I think were all men at that point) ever said anything out of line. Amazing how much it helps if another woman is there ahead of you.