This blog is closed
A note
I would just like to express — and not for the first time — my quiet but fervent gratitude to the women of this world.
For despite the world of men arrayed against you, you still regard us, in the main, with a measure of respect.
Despite the sullen bullets and blame. Despite the discounting of your truncated, shattered lives as merely the regrettable results not of real crimes, but of “domestic disputes.” Despite our referring to pathologically grasping, parasitic stalkers as “loners” — “he didn’t want to spend time with people, just women.” Despite the blind eyes, the deaf ears we turn, the shrugs and the trivialization. Despite our placing our sins at your feet and demanding you apologize for them. Despite our mournful condemnation of the worst of men followed always by our changing the subject.
You still talk to us, despite it all. Despite it all, most of you persist in talking to us, even loving us.
It is a remarkable gift, made all the more remarkable on these dark days. I have been struck speechless by that gift these days.
Thank you.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
don’t go all weepy on us, chris. women don’t have to and can’t explain the twits and psychopaths amongst us, and you cannot explain what happened at VT.
all us humans can and should worry about what went wrong, and that is likely to be a very complicated story. he is dead now, and we are not likely to get all the information we need.
still, we should be learning something from the tragedies of people killing people. there are some patterns and frequent themes—not all the same in all cases. why can’t we pay more attention to prevention and care, instead of tragedy and aftermath?
sorry for veering somewhat off-topic. this week’s top story does touch on an earlier topic, but it is off-the-charts; and we don’t know very much yet about why. really, WHY? i saw the news about the note, that he wrote about rich kids and women, but that is only the first layer of what was wrong with this kid.
all we can do is to continue to care, continue to ask why, try to be good humans, and make it possible for others to be good humans.
you, chris, facilitate that. push that guilt outside, and let the bunny work it over.
By: By kathy a on 2007 04 18
You’re welcome. :P
By: By Lauren on 2007 04 18
No weeping, Kathy, no guilt. Just observation.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2007 04 18
Someday I’d like to see the end of messages like the one Chris felt moved to write, because it proves we’re still struggling to overcome this base oppression.
Although the message is well intended and I appreciate the sentiment, I’m tired of being pitied and apologized to.
(Already I can hear some men thinking “What do these bitches want? They are never satisfied!) Heh.
I tell you what I would like to see. I would like to see more men rake shitty men over the coals for being shits. For example, when a woman is being harassed, wouldn’t it be nice for one of the “good” men to step up and tell the man doing the harassing to fuck the hell off. It rarely happens.
——————————-
At the risk of having tomatoes thrown at me, I also have difficulty viewing women as victims in every bloody circumstance. Women are fully capable of being vile and vicious. (Example: women who knowingly enable, excuse, and procure for pedophiles. Women who commit first degree murder.) And yet, whenever a woman commits a heinous crime she’s more likely to be excused - or treated more delicately for it - because she’s the “fairer sex” or because of hormones or “oppression” some such nonsense. The Karla Homolka story is a perfect example of this. Feminists came to her aid and I’ll never forgive them for it. That bitch should be rotting in jail with her husband.
When you grow up with a sociopathic mother, you laugh at feminism’s tendency to defend and excuse every woman’s actions.
——————————-
In my lifetime I’ve definitely seen improvements. It’s getting better. But then, I live in a country where women have been able to make progress.
By: By Lesley on 2007 04 18
I’m thinking mass versus individual here.
Lesley’s right, though. I’m painfully aware of the existence of deeply, destructively troubled women.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2007 04 18
That’s right!
By: By Sven DiMilo on 2007 04 18
I have said for many years that I wouldn’t give you a nickel for 99% of my gender (male). That still holds true today.
Lesley… I always go after the shits. They always crumble too because the shits rarely have any backbone at all.
By: By C.R. on 2007 04 18
Unless I’m missing an implied apology in Chris’s post, I read him expressing sober gratitude, not apologizing for his own behavior or that of other men.
as valuable and as gratifying as individual apologies or acts of contrition are, I agree the problem is “mass” and while I certainly buy the idea of a patriarchal society, I also believe there are other poisons out there and many sick fucks on one end of the spectrum and unconscioius, passive “normal” people on the other, both of which perpetuate our problems. Some of them are male, some are female.
and for the record, I’m pro-gratitude.
By: By virgotex on 2007 04 18
I also didn’t read apology or guilt, I read empathy. Not patronizing sympathy, but tender, respectful empathy.
And at a moment of hellish news on nearly every front for women, when more bashing is the last thing we need.
Coming from a person who does ‘rake the shits over the coals,’ and has spoken consistently to other men, and with women, this empathy & gratitude from Chris, spoken so quietly, was good food for me today.
So thank you, Chris - for your many words, these included. Gratitude back at you for your courage, kindness, and wit.
By: By Theriomorph on 2007 04 18
Thank you Chris for your empathic response. I am too disheartened at this point to think anything too coherent, but I am touched by what you wrote.
By: By in medias res on 2007 04 18
anybody think there is a comparison between these attacks in US and suicide bombers. Are these gun-yeilding assassins our suicide bombers?
By: By Adam Spangler on 2007 04 19
What you wrote reminded me of a bit from one of Alice Miller’s books when she was talking about poisonous pedagogy,“Is blind obedience the price we pay now for the right to take our revenge later on a new generation by treating them the way we were treated? It overtaxes my tolerance when they even expect us to be grateful for this treatment, instead of being grateful to us for putting up with it for so long.”
You are an example of the reason we cling to hope.
By: By thebewilderness on 2007 04 21
Categories:
