Reflections Of A Good Nazi
Nov. 14th, 2004 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloIt's only a hundred years or so since men in the West stopped regarding women as property.
Of course I'm talking Law here. In private lots of men still do regard women as property. We've learned to be shocked by slavery, by genocide, but the overwhelming horror of a set-up where one sex dominates and abuses the other hasn't quite hit us yet. We're recovering, we're in denial. The thing is too huge and we're all pretty much incriminated.
So when we sail into third world countries and beat them up for not being like us, we tend not to put women's rights very high on our agenda. Damn it all, you will have a democracy! But the burkha, female circumcision, forced marriage, the denial of education to women- these are all cultural phenomena and maybe it would be a little racist and imperialistic to criticise.
Where women are concerned all men are nazis. Some of us, perhaps, are good nazis.
Of course I'm talking Law here. In private lots of men still do regard women as property. We've learned to be shocked by slavery, by genocide, but the overwhelming horror of a set-up where one sex dominates and abuses the other hasn't quite hit us yet. We're recovering, we're in denial. The thing is too huge and we're all pretty much incriminated.
So when we sail into third world countries and beat them up for not being like us, we tend not to put women's rights very high on our agenda. Damn it all, you will have a democracy! But the burkha, female circumcision, forced marriage, the denial of education to women- these are all cultural phenomena and maybe it would be a little racist and imperialistic to criticise.
Where women are concerned all men are nazis. Some of us, perhaps, are good nazis.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-15 11:18 am (UTC)Men's argument for the oppression of women has always been that we are "naturally" inferior and servile. To disprove this, we look for foremothers to destroy that arrogant presumption by those who do not even share our nature.
In fact, if pressed, I think most men would still say women are naturally fitted to be mothers and caretakers and helpmeets, and not even see how little that differs from Aristotle's conviction that we exist to serve.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-15 11:26 am (UTC)And I suppose that's why I felt so badly let down when it was pointed out to me that the Chalice and the Blade was fantasy. I had built a belief system on these foundations and they had been shown to be incapable of bearing the load.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-15 11:28 am (UTC)But you and I did the dippy pagans one better--in our disappointment we went out and got real knowledge. It's up to us to interpret that knowledge as a good, and not a consolation prize.