Why Lilith is important

I just saw this on Facebook:

And the truth is, I didn’t always get it. In fact, I’m not going to get into this in much depth and I’m writing this in the thirty minutes before I start working so I can schedule it to publish at lunch time, so I’m really only raising the subject. I suggest anyone interested Google why Lilith is important for feminism and read one of the more thorough takes on the subject.

As an atheist, my first reaction was to think this isn’t important because I don’t believe this god created anyone. But that’s not the point. She’s there, in the original texts. The Judeo-Christian creation myth originally includes her, but then, whoever decided which stories go in the Bible and which do not, decided to omit her. That’s the point.

Why was she removed? The meme says it succinctly but I do suggest further reading. For example from a theological point of view, this educational throwback to the nineties that suggests her origin is a Sumerian succubus, this thesis by a student of religious studies… and there are plenty more. I’m curious why that one article (and others I’ve seen) suggest that Lilith’s origin was a succubus, and not the other way around. We know that Judaism borrowed from older religions like the Sumerian and Mesopotamian ones and Zoroastrianism, so the origin of everything in Genesis was in earlier religions… Isn’t it more likely a strong female figure was quite literally demonized?

Actually let me show you my motivation for writing this… the comments (by men of course) on the Atheist Republic post that shared the meme.

Urgh. Of course they’re stories. Of course none of that happened. But it was men who decided that a strong female figure didn’t belong in those stories, and yet it’s always men who dismiss the existence of the patriarchy.

Myths can be important, not because of the subjects they contain, but because of the way those stories evolve, and from what they tell us about the people who believe them. They’re important historically, psychologically, anthropologically… and in this case they tell us a lot about the way society pretends that strong women were never part of history. Are we so afraid of women that we must write them out of our mythology?

Cancelling Pepe Le Pew is just silly

Yeah, I know I’ve claimed cancel culture isn’t a thing in the past, but this is getting ridiculous so I can change my mind a little. I still think cancel culture isn’t a thing… mostly – we have the free speech to say and write what we want where we want it, and if we do so on platforms owned by others, they have the right to ban us. (I have 4 days left of a Facebook ban.) That’s the way it works. Free speech doesn’t mean there are no consequences, and that’s the way it should be. Likewise, if you say stupid shit that denigrates millions of people based on their religion (anti-Semitism seems to be a favourite of the right wing here), and you compare yourself to victims of the Holocaust (for example), you totally deserve to be fired from your high profile acting gig.

But… cancelling fictional characters because the fiction decades ago didn’t age well… might be a good idea. Overt racism for example… Enid Blyton’s “gollywogs” had to go. But not all inappropriate content is equal. Which brings me to Pepe Le Pew…

As pointed out eloquently by his creator’s daughter, Pepe Le Pew is a clever parody of men. It’s not about a character that rapes, although his actions can indeed be considered “rapey” by today’s standards. But that’s kind of the point. He doesn’t understand consent because he doesn’t even know such a thing exists, much like the men he parodies. In his mind, he is the greatest lover, irresistible to the opposite sex, a seducer of note. He is brimming with overconfidence and audacity, a near perfect parody of a certain kind of man, the self proclaimed alpha male and all his ignorance and audacity on full display. It’s no accident that the object of his desire is a feline while he is a skunk, and he must bring her down to his level, while he remains forever oblivious that she doesn’t want him. He never gets to rape her though, and the joke is always on him.

In the end, cancelling this character achieves the opposite of its intention as it asks us to forget that rape culture and the audacity of men has been around for a while, and that this decades old cartoon drew attention to it. You aren’t being clever to point out his “problematic bahaviour” in the same way as it isn’t clever to explain the joke to someone who just told you a joke.

“Virtue signalling”? The mating call of the incel who then wonders why it goes unanswered…

This is one of those posts I’d have shared immediately on Facebook. I can’t since I’m on a ban so it has to go here…

Seriously, I haven’t seen a written statement where someone seriously used “virtue signalling” as a pejorative, where that person wasn’t a twat. Or an incel.

Is your masculinity so fragile that you feel threatened by images of female super heroes? What the fuck, dude?

For those who don’t know, “incel” is a term used by certain men who self identify with that label, standing for “involuntarily celibate”, usually in the context of misogynistic drivel aimed at women, especially feminists. They hate women, yet feel entitled to sex, and have the audacity to call themselves involuntarily celibate. Because presumably those dastardly women deny them the sex that they are “owed”.

Pathetic.

Does a queer occult-practicing feminist professor want to use the climate-change “hoax” to bring about the extinction of the human race?

No! What the actual fuck? And yes, I can’t believe I wrote that either.

One of my conservative Facebook friends took time out from her usual Islamophobic rhetoric to share this article last week and I’ve had it open in a tab, meaning to write about it since then. LifeSiteNews is a hate rag. You’d think that an atheist and woman would realize this, as their agenda seems to be mostly anti-abortion Christian hate, with a good dose of fear mongering. Now that I looked a little further I see they’re transphobic too, and of course they oppose same sex marriage.

Climate change is settled science. The 3% of climate scientists who disagree rely on bad or biased science. There is no rational reason to doubt it, even if a site publishes an article that agrees with some of your questionable views.

And why would an atheist share this shit anyway? I thought all of us agree that just like god and Satan isn’t real, the occult is nonsense too. The prof featured in their bullshit article is real, but that doesn’t make the article’s nonsense true. The best lies are ones mixed with truth, but even if we take what they claim about her at face value and she is a nihilist who believes that the solution to climate change and what’s best for the planet is the extinction of the human race, why would we then take her views as representative of all feminists, or all liberals, or whoever the baddies are in your agenda? It’s that same old chestnut where one bad black dude represents all black people to racists but bad white people like school shooters and so on are “lone wolves”. As always hateful views say more about those who hate than the victims of their hatred.

Also, can’t we all agree that anti-abortion is all about taking the rights away from women to their own bodily autonomy, and feminists are for the most part doing good in the world? It’s us white cisgender males who are the fucking problem here… If you aren’t going to support feminists or activists for queer rights, leave them be, please. They have enough problems without anyone sowing division and spewing hateful propaganda that stupid people are unable to see through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A good meme

I have over 170 posts saved for later and still have 23 days left of my Facebook ban, so Zod knows I’m not gonna get to all of them.

Also, I’m on leave this week, cleaned the kitchen which took me nearly three fucking hours and I’m waiting for the floor to dry. So here’s a good meme I saw on my break…

It’s true not because you should try to control any woman, but because you shouldn’t.

A refutation to a silly meme that implies women’s worth is measured by their attractiveness to men

Since I still have another 26 days of my Facebook ban to go, I can’t write my usual commentary and shares there… which means, if I want to refute idiotic memes, I need to do so elsewhere. Why not here?

So yesterday I saw this dumb meme which went something like this:

Attention women: No man notices how long your eyelashes are.
So why bother?

Of course such a meme turned out to be rather divisive, with several women commenting (paraphrased), “It’s not for you; It’s for us”, and several people disagreeing… And one woman who even went so far as to disagree with all the other women to say that long eyelashes are indeed there to be attractive to men.

But I have seen this kind of argument used many times before, in religious apologetics of all places, so I’d like to address what the meme is really saying, in the form of a logical syllogism:

1. Premise 1: Women’s worth is measured by their attractiveness to men. (Assumed.)
2. Premise 2: Men don’t even notice women’s eyelash extensions.
3. Conclusion: Women cannot increase their worth, which we conclude is based on their attractiveness to men.

But why did I write it like that? Well, because that’s what it’s really saying. It’s just like religious apologetics arguments, which almost always assume god exists, then have one or two premises, and conclude what we are not supposed to notice was actually assumed upfront. And just like with the poor arguments in apologetics, people responding don’t notice the upfront assumption, but respond to the premises without addressing that the conclusion was assumed upfront, which leaves them with the impression that it could indeed be true.

So let’s nip this in the bud, shall we? Such arguments are always fallacious because you can’t start with your conclusion (because it is begging the question, AKA circular reasoning). Even though it is only implied, it is treated as if it must be true. Yet nothing in the argument states any logical reason that women’s worth is measured by their attractiveness to men, just like nothing in the religious apologetics arguments give a reason the person assumes their god exists.

The meme is clever because it combines two very different things:

• A “sort of” truth, in that men probably often don’t notice women’s eyelash extensions.
• An assumption: That women’s value is measured by their attractiveness to men, which is absolute nonsense.

It’s clever in its attempt to trick you into conflating those two things. It’s also wrong.

Would you measure a man’s worth by how attractive he is to women?

You might think I’m reading too much into that statement, but I am not. It really is all about dismissing women in general as being silly because they do things like extend their eyelashes, while ignoring that any urge to do so may be for a number of reasons other than being attractive to men. It’s part of a broader problem where misogynistic views are widespread, and even women often propagate them, like some kind of internalized oppression.

In any case, men and women do notice long eyelashes, maybe not directly, but they do notice that something is different. I know this because I, a man, happen to have very long eyelashes. They annoy the fuck out of me when wearing glasses, because they often touch the lenses, which not only makes me uncomfortable, but also eventually damages the lenses, because years of lashes brushing against the glasses eventually scratches them. This is one of the reasons I prefer wearing contact lenses. And then people remark at how different I look. No glasses means you might actually notice my long eyelashes, and also, I can then “talk” with my eyes, by, for example, raising my eyebrows, narrowing my gaze, or widening my eyes, none of which people notice when I’m wearing glasses. You don’t see someone with (for example) long eyelashes and realize what you notice, but you do notice that there is something about them.

My grandmother spent 13 years in a psychiatric hospital because she had an affair with a married man

I am sick and tired of reading comments online by anti-feminists. Every time a man like me writes anything in support of feminism, there’s a 50/50 chance some arsehole will comment about it being a ploy “to get laid” or some similar bullshit. And by the way, when you make such statements, like a dramatic monologue, your statement reveals details about yourself and your horribly misguided misogynistic view of women. You reveal that you see them not as human beings but as objects to be fucked.

The truth is, there are many reasons why my views have shifted to their current position over the years, but I have always been sympathetic to the plight of women, and the start of all this was the realization of what my grandmother experienced at the hands of society that vilifies women simply for existing and having the same human desires as men.

I don’t know the whole story, but what I do know is this: My grandmother spent 13 years in Valkenberg mental hospital for “insomnia”. The story I was told was that she was raped by her stepfather, and after the rape, she lost her memory and was committed to the psychiatric hospital for 13 years. The “rape” led to her pregnancy and the birth of my mother’s sister. Upon her release, she was raped again, leading to another pregnancy and the birth of my mother.

That was the story my mother believed, but I always had my doubts. First of all, she only went to Valkenberg once, not after the second pregnancy. Secondly, as a father who had a lot of unprotected sex before my son was conceived, I know it takes more than one time to conceive a child, and more than two times to conceive two children.

Recently I heard something that makes the story even more implausible, but at the end of the day, nothing can be proven because all the people involved are long dead. Even my grandfather died when my mother was only three years old, literally run over by a bus because he insisted on riding his bicycle after losing his hearing.

My suspicion is simply that she had an affair and was treated like nothing, treated like a subhuman because she was in love with the wrong person. Or she was indeed a victim of rape, and was punished rather than the man who raped her. I’ll never know the truth but I do know that the treatment of women was abhorrent back then, and is still bad today.

Things have improved over the years, and I do not believe that a woman in this country could be locked away for 13 years for the same reasons today. But we still have a long way to go. I used to lie awake at night, trying to imagine how my grandmother, who was one of the kindest people I ever knew, managed to cope with being locked up in an institution for thirteen years.

So don’t project your macho dudebro bullshit on me.

Being logical doesn’t mean you’re always right; The WRONGEST of the wrong people are always the most confident.

Consider the following stupid syllogism I just pulled out of my ass:

• Premise 1: The sky is blue.
• Premise 2: My pen is blue.
• Inference: Somebody drew the sky. It must have been god, and the world is flat.

Obviously my syllogism is outright nonsense. But it is logical.

Last week I shared a contentious meme on Facebook. It was about the gender wage gap, although I was confused and initially thought it was about the gap between rich and poor. (But that’s besides the point.)

So, due to low data and being busy in real life, I spent only a few minutes online here and there. Lo and behold, on Sunday I see there was much activity in the comments, between one guy who insists that the gender pay gap isn’t real, and everybody else in the comments. (Everybody else being progressives and feminists, because probably around 90% of my friends have those sorts of views, as do I.)

Here’s a straw man mocking views like his…

It’s extreme, but his reaction isn’t far from the generalization about men made by the above meme… Point out that women generally aren’t paid fairly, and at least one guy is gonna chime in that the gender wage gap isn’t real, women have been paid fairly for decades, and in any case it’s their choices that cause them to be paid less. That’s right, besides the fact that presumably they chose to have uteruses, he both acknowledges that women are paid less, and denies that there is a wage gap. And then point out he’s wrong, and he’ll call you all kinds of names.

What is this us against them bullshit anyway? I don’t get it. We’re all in this together, working for bastards who will use any excuse to pay us less… We could work together to make life more bearable for everyone, but instead like to make our little tribes where we are right and everybody else is wrong.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen this. Rather it’s a pattern. Some twat tells everybody else that they are wrong, and will not even consider that maybe he could be the one who is mistaken.

I read another interesting article yesterday: The magical thinking of guys who love logic. Check it out as it’s worth reading.

Is Google reverse image search sexist?

A quick one and rhetorical question for you today…

I’ve become quite fascinated with https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/, which generates random real-looking faces. Most of the time. Sometimes it generates people with half glasses, messed up ears, or creepy meat bag half formed faces to the side. You just hit refresh and every time you do so, it generates a new face. (If you search for the URL, you will find articles explaining the technology behind it. Quite fascinating.)

But here’s an odd behaviour of Google’s reverse image search, after searching on two randomly generated images…

(Edit: I’ve set the images above to link to the image search so you can see for yourselves. They do actual reverse image searches using the images I uploaded to Facebook, so if ever the algorithm changes, the results you’ll see will be different.)

• A reverse image search of a young man, who does not exist, comes back as gentleman.
• A reverse image search of a young woman, who does not exist, comes back as girl.

Hey Google, what’s up with that?

Why do men take a single feminist view they dislike as representative of all feminists?

A complete change of subject back to feminism again, thanks to this meme I shared and the arguments in the comments… The following paragraph was the body of my comment attached to the Facebook share, and what follows is the meme itself, originally shared by Atheist Republic.

Gotta love how one “feminist” troll speaks for ALL feminists… but hundreds of white conservative loon shooters in the US don’t speak for all white men. Millions of abusive men don’t speak for all men. The KKK don’t speak for all Christians. Thousands of paedophile priests don’t speak for the Catholic church. And so on…

For arguments sake, let’s assume this was shared by an actual feminist and was not posted from a troll account to discredit feminists.

Can you guess why this gets to me? … men immediately jump onto this, men are offended, because oh no, poor innocent widdle men are suffewing. Oh, boo fucking hoo! Like, let’s hijack every conversation about women being abused and raped and make it about the men! Because reasons.

To be fair, the view shared is obviously intentionally contentious. If she’s serious, she’s not being nice. So what? When every conversation about rape gets hijacked to be about false accusations against the poor defenseless men, the time for niceties are long gone. Literally every single conversation I’ve read online has gone that way. Just brush aside the women and focus on men because… why?

Even if her view is sincere, she does not speak for all feminists. Does every ball-less incel speak for all teenage boys? Does every white teen who shoots up a school speak for all white males? Does every homophobic preacher speak for all Christians? If not, then why does one feminist view you dislike represent all feminists?

Does every rapist speak for all men? I’m beginning to think that maybe the answer is yes. As long as men in general dismiss the plight of women and make rape discussions about the negligible number of false accusations against men, then yes, we are allowing the rapists to speak for us. If we don’t explicitly condemn them, then we do implicitly condone them, at least as long as we allow the anti-feminists to speak for us. Well, fuck you anti-feminist scum. You do not speak for me.