{"id":4537,"date":"2026-03-13T02:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/?p=4537"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:54:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T05:54:41","slug":"visceral-rage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/2026\/03\/13\/visceral-rage\/","title":{"rendered":"Visceral Rage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lots of things make me angry these days. We\u2019re living in those times, the ones where if you\u2019re not mad, you\u2019re not paying attention.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I see red, when I\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s 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\u2019m old and while I know something about fighting, I don\u2019t have the illusion that I\u2019m a superstar.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just that the hatred and the contempt bring out my desire to not just tell an asshole that he\u2019s wrong, but show him by dealing with him on that physical level where way too many men are wrongly convinced that they\u2019re better than women.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t just want to beat those men. I want to humiliate them. I want them to know they\u2019re inferior to an old lady.<\/p>\n

Like I said, visceral. <\/p>\n

The latest thing to set me off was a piece in The New Republic<\/i><\/a> reporting that the CEO of Palantir thinks that company\u2019s \u201cAI\u201d technology will lessen the power of educated women. According to a quote in the article credited to a CNBC interview, he said, \u201cThis technology disrupts humanities-trained\u2014largely Democratic\u2014voters, and makes their economic power less.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he thinks most of those people are women. He goes on to say that working class men \u2013 and I\u2019m sure he means white men \u2013 will end up with more economic and voting power.<\/p>\n

First of all, everything the government and the broligarchs are doing right now is hurting everyone who isn\u2019t already rich. The working class isn\u2019t going to end up with more economic power.<\/p>\n

Secondly, while I know these broligarchs are trying their best to cram \u201cAI\u201d into all kinds of things used by people educated in the humanities \u2013 such as pretending it can write \u2013 it really can\u2019t do their jobs. That\u2019s not what it\u2019s for and we are rejecting it.<\/p>\n

As Cory Doctorow says, that the tech bros are really good at convincing employers that \u201cAI\u201d can do your job, but in fact, \u201cAI\u201d can\u2019t do that work.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The anti-woman backlash this time around doesn\u2019t even try to be subtle.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the absolute nonsense of the Secretary of Defense \u2013 who is cosplaying as the Secretary of War, which would be funny if he wasn\u2019t killing people \u2013 firing women generals and making it clear he doesn\u2019t think women can cut it in the military.<\/p>\n

Or the Epstein\/Trump crowd. It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s that creepy groyper (please don\u2019t tell me what that means) who wants to put all women in a gulag.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the one who got me re-read Suzy McKee Charnas\u2019s Holdfast Chronicles. Right now I\u2019m on The Furies<\/i> and believe me these men should read that and figure out what might happen to people like them if they don\u2019t 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.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had a few personal run-ins with men who got furious when I didn\u2019t kowtow to them, thereby making me even more furious because they expected it. It\u2019s that utter lack of respect, that knowledge that some man thinks you\u2019re inferior, that sets me off.<\/p>\n

They want me \u2013 they want all women \u2013 to be afraid of them. And I\u2019m damned if I will be.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not endorsing this reaction. It\u2019s not safe. It\u2019s not particularly rational. And I have enough training to know that it\u2019s probably not strategic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s visceral. I\u2019m going to react. Thus this rant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of things make me angry these days. We\u2019re living in those times, the ones where if you\u2019re not mad, you\u2019re 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[611],"class_list":["post-4537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rants","tag-misogyny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4538,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4537\/revisions\/4538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}