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from Bikini Kill: Girl Power (Issue #2) Why're we always explaining ourselves and our projects to boys? I'm serious. I have wasted more time and emotional energy doing this than I even wanna admit. And see, I have come to the conclusion that we are banging our heads against a big wall. We are trying to fit thru the doors of a clubhouse that is smelly and gross inside anyways...we only want in cuz we've been taught to want in...we change ourselves to fit, alter what we say, how we say it, just hoping, hoping they will change their rules...and all the while the clubhouses we could be building are going unbuilt and us girls are knocking one by one, on a door that will never ever open. We are just keeping ourselves trapped in these nice little boundaries by having these cohesive arguments with boys where we try to explain to them that sexism is real and that we are aware of when it's being acted out around us. If he didn't know anything about plumbing and pipes, I doubt he'd go up to a plumber and start talking all this shit about how he knows how to fix a sink better than her/him. So why the hell is he acting like he knows what it's like to grow up female? and why am I answering to him? I mean, you can't dialogue with someone who is kicking you to the ground, so why are you/I/we explaining all this stuff to these boys who really aren't interested in learning and only wanna "win" an argument? And why are we constructing our arguments on this dumb right/wrong, you've gotta be "plausible," back it up with facts, there's only two ways to be, don't contradict yourself, "prove it to me" level??? It is not our responsibility to explain how boys/men are being sexist any more than it is our responsibility to "prevent ourselves" from getting raped. It is their responsibility Not to Rape Us and it is their responsibility Not to Be Sexist. For me, a big part of feminism (or whatever you wanna call the rejection of the equation, girl=dumb) is the simple assertion that us girls are important. Our bodiesheartsminds are important enough that we will defend them, protect them, ourselves. We don't have to live lives that are filled up with events that are really just sentimentalized versions of abuse. We don't wanna live that way and we don't have to. So why are we taking abuse in the form of these conversations with boys and/or men? Why are we always making these dumb excuses for them, like, "Oh, but he's got a good heart underneath it all," "He's just really young," or (my personal favorite) "But he really is a nice guy." Well, if he's such a "nice guy," why does he expect you to NOT ONLY bear the brunt of sexist stuff like harassment, belittlement, and the valid fear of rapemurder BUT ALSO be prepared to have a calm, fact filled discussion with him about something that is more than just a "subject" to you? It is the struggle we engage in everyday by virtue of breathing, everytime we assert our right to exist. Sexism is not a list or something we can prove, it is not a dot on a line and cannot be located on a graph or colored in on a chart. It is mapped on the lines of our skin and etched in the deepest reasonings of our hearts. Purple Blue Black, thuds that are like death in the middle of the night. OF COURSE I'M GONNA BE EMOTIONAL WHEN I AM FORCED TO DESCRIBE THE BARS ON THE CAGE THAT I FUCKIN LIVE IN. It is time we stopt describing the bars and time to fucking make our move. We are bustin outta this joint. But I know it is not so easy. Cuz we live in a world where we are compelled to explain ourselves to men AND we've got to deal with that while at the same time we are trying to create spaces where we are able to breathe and we do fit in without trying and belong without explanation. This is especially hard cuz we have internalized sexism to such an extent that it's not just an issue of us explaining to "them" (as if there is such a unifier "them") but also an issue of us explaining ourselves to ourselves and to each other. And while I think it is high fucking time that we stop explaining ourselves, I think it's important that we are able to recognize certain criticisms for what they are: Lame attempts, by people who're threatened by what the girl revolution brings, to discount and discourage us. Doing this is sort of like untangling ourselves from a big invisible sticker bush. The same way that rapists and street harassers don't usually come right out and say, "Okay, I'm gonna rape/harass you now." Most men/boys (even the "good ones") don't come right out and say that they are against girls having/redefining power. Thus, in order for them to maintain the unequal power distribution of male over female, without looking like assholes (He agrees with you, he just thinks you are going about IT all wrong), they must find more subtle ways of discounting and discouraging you. Here are some of my favorites: 1.) YOU TAKE THINGS TOO SERIOUSLY. YOU ARE PARANOID. 1 in 3 of us are gonna get raped in our lifetime...the threat of rape permeates every centimeter of our bodies and influences where were are able to live, work, walk and what we feel safe saying. Women comprise the majority of people who live in poverty. Women don't make as much money or get the same benefits from work that men do. We also have to deal with sexual harassment, an experience so commonplace, most of us don't even notice it anymore or have desensitized to cuz we know it'll probably never stop and is almost to be expected anyways. And so many of us are single moms too, and our dumb boyfriends and ex-husbands don't pay any child support and say that $100 a month is just too much. facts. Facts. Facts??? You want facts, you want it in writing? Facts aren't as real as watching your bestfriend cry or seeing a woman who lives in her car, carrying a coat around in the middle of the summer. Women die. Women die of diseases that never get studied cuz no one gives a shit if we have to get our tits chopped off or are laying in our own blood screaming. AND AND AND the NIH (The National Institute of Health that is supposed to be studying diseases but is really spending poor people's tax money to torture and mutilate animals in repetitive and non-conclusive tests) uses mostly male bodies and cells to study AIDS and cancer on cuz these men like to act like male and female bodies are the same when it's convenient for them BUT US GIRLS KNOW that it's a completely different story when they see us on the street. "Nice tits. Nice legs. Nice ass." And us girls are constantly being told in a million ways that we are shit and that the way we are is somehow wrong and our bodies are dirty and we should hide the fact that we have periods and shit and fart and bleed, bleed, bleed....we should hide the fact that we have desire at all, don't let anyone know that we are not content ("smile baby") to be mindless machines programmed to serve Boy wants and needs and desires. AND and AND WE are not the ones who're deciding who the "great" artists or writers or philosophers or musicians are either. That's fucking right, we are totally excluded from the REALM OF THE MASTERS (except those few female tokens who accept fascism for their entrance into the white boy toyland) and we have not even existed as artists, etc...as far as "history" is concerned. We are totally discouraged from learning how to play instruments or fix things because in school it is "suggested" that we take Home Ec (instead of Shop) and Chorus (instead of Band) and then we get treated like we are dumb cuz we can't play Stairway to Heaven on the first try or fix our own cars. But see, a lot of us don't even have our own cars, meaning we have to walk places....and this is horrifying cuz everyone in the world thinks they can judge us like we are in a walking talking Beauty Contest always. They always wanna comment on you, what HE thinks, what HE sees....it makes you never wanna go out and I guess that's the point. Stare Stare Stare at me, at the show, on the street, on the bus, when you pull your dumb Camaro next to my car at the light, at the AA meeting, in the classroom, ____________. The Peeping Tom stares in the window of your own house. ________ that is not enough cuz our girlsouls are very strong and they have to keep trying to crush them. We are fed anti-female propaganda via our exclusion and misrepresentation within: Films & videos, texts, novels, discussions, oral histories, music, tv, newspapers, college boards, classrooms, advertising, etc....We walk into video stores (many of us with our friends who can afford a TV and VCR) only to see female bodies _______ slashed, gashed, mutilated OR at the very least, clinging on to the leading guy, on the cover of nearly every single video. There is no free childcare in this dumb ass country and almost all health insurance (for those of us who have it) doesn't cover anything to do with reproduction or sexually transmitted diseases. (It's your fault you're female) AND even though we are almost the exclusive victims of male crimes like rape, incest and domestic violence WE are also the ones who are trained to make good victims (those highheels look so nice....YOU HAVE GOT TO BE POLITE GIRL) and NOT trained how to defend ourselves via our exclusion from contact sports and self defense in school. AND we are constantly reminded that we had better not speak out against any of this stuff or SOMETHING BAD IS GONNA HAPPEN TO US...from The Little Red Riding Hood story we learn as kids to the 14 women gunned down in Montreal, the message is clear: IF YOU STRAY FROM THE PATH OF SILENCE, THE WOLF IS GONNA EAT YOU UP. Or if you're a college student, maybe he'll just line you and your girlfriends up against a wall and shoot you. I guess if I was running around telling people that the sky was falling I could understand them thinking I was being paranoid. But in a world where 4000 women a year are being murdered by the men "who love them" (heart heart heart), I don't think talking about the situation of women and girls is an "over reaction." How in the hell can someone take the severe psychic/emotional/sexual/physical abuse of over half the world, "too seriously"? 2.) YOU ARE EXCLUSIONARY AND ALIENATING TO MEN. Well excuse me, have I hit a nerve? I guess it's hard for people who have been continually fucking excluded from everything to make their main priority BEING ACCESSIBLE to the very people who perpetuate and profit from their exclusion. Duh. Men/boys need to open their eyes and realize that there is a severe lack of work in every media and field, made from a female perspective (not that there is one singular, female perspective) and that it is really important that we start making things that make sense to US and to our friends. And sure, what we make is gonna be really clouded up with its own shit, sexism, in many cases, translates to self hatred and girl competitions for male approval....and that's gonna show up in our work...as is racism, classism, speciesism, heterosexism, ageism, etc....BUT if we don't at least start trying to FUCK WITH THE POWERS THAT BE (outside and inside ourselves) then we are never gonna make it to the world we are struggling so desperately to envision and create. We have been excluded for fucking ever as far as I'm concerned. Our voices, no matter how loud or impassioned, are still only a muffled whisper as compared to the burly straight white male ones that bellow their stories and opinions into even the smallest crevice of our lives. For men to claim exclusion is totally ridiculous and insulting. Sure, men and boys who're challenging the fact that their gender roles are sucking them dry of real life and denying them access to our sincerest forms of respect...these men are excluded, like girls/women, from most of what the mainstream and supposedly "counter" culture has to offer them....but these men also recognize our work/experiments as VALID, being our Brothers in Struggle, why would they feel excluded?????? TO THE MEN WHO DO FEEL EXCLUDED/alienated by what the grrrl revolution brings: If you are not firmly committed to finding a way out of the pit of capitalism and all other "isms," if you are not ready to put the necessary work in, to posit yourself in history and recognize your privileges.....then maybe you feel so excluded because, as one who profits from the lie and denies it, you are excluded from true life and the revolution.........TAKE RESPONSIBILITY, DUDE.....go high five your neanderthal brothers on it..........NO ONE EXCLUDED YOU, you X'd yourself. 3.) YOU KNOW, SOME WOMEN MANAGE TO "GO BEYOND" SEXISM. This is the same logic that lets people say, "A woman can't be raped unless she wants to be" or "I would never allow someone to rape me." As if those of us who've been raped, secretly wanted it, or HAD A CHOICE. As if some of us totally "get off" on being harassed or belittled or denied access to the stuff we need like jobs, etc.....As if, some of us enjoy sexism, cuz we "get off" on talking about it (it's so fun afterall) or are so bored that we make this shit up. A couple of months ago I asked my Mom how the threat of rape affected her life and she said, "It Doesn't." And so I said, "Well, what about when you are, like, walking around at night by yourself?" And she replied "I would never do that." [my mother doesn't know what it's like to walk down a street when it's dark. My mom can't go out and look at the stars] And Yes, women do have the ability to create environments for them/ourselves where we don't SEE or FEEL sexism as much as we could, but that does not mean that it doesn't exist. The very fact that I avoid certain situations in the first place should tell us how profoundly sexism affects our lives. And Yes, creating situations within our bands, our scenes, our fanzines, where we are ACTIVELY DENYING SEXISM just by refusing to accept it or let it stop us.....and plowing "Straight on Thru" is really really important BUT by acting like girls/women who are critiquing sexism in different ways than this, are, somehow, NOT ALLOWING THEMSELVES to "go beyond" sexism, we are obscuring the very real financial, emotional, racial, educational and cultural differences that separate us. And these differences have everything to do with what projects were are going to choose and how safe we feel about actualizing them. Does this make sense? See, a girl who got hit by or emotionally abused by her dad whenever she said something that "upset him" might not be able to confront the sexist shit in her own life as firmly as other girls can. Or like a Woman of Color who doesn't have the same mobility, as far as jobs go, as most whitegirls do, might be a little more leery about plowing right over a sexist boss or co-worker. Maybe she will write about her experiences instead, as a way to get some power and feel in control again. And the last thing she needs is someone telling her, "Why don't you just confront the person instead of always writing about it?" This "Women could transcend sexism if they wanted to" stuff, sounds suspiciously like something a whitebusinesssuitguy might say. "Blacks are lazy, that's why they don't have jobs. They should just pull themselves up by the bootstraps." Well, that's easy for HIM to say. What is especially maddening about the underlying assumption that some of us CHOOSE to be affected by sexism (we like it, it gives meaning to our boring uneventful lives) is that it so often puts big rifts between us. This is where the whole "humanist" argument comes in. She says, "I consider myself more a Human Being than a Woman." It's as if those of us who are openly aware of fucked up gender constructs are just "hung up" on the fact that we are female. It's like how Freud (the fucker) said that clitoral orgasms are just the immature stage girls pass thru before getting to the real mature business of heterosexual, vaginal orgasms. HE acted like us concentrating on ourselves was immature and just preparation for the real task of fucking with boys....AND it's the same shit I hear in this certain argument.....it's okay that you're a feminist as long as you acknowledge that you are stuck in the past and just going thru a "phase" that will eventually become the bigger and better, more male inclusive stance of popular humanism. LOOK! We need to trust each other. We need to trust that each woman or girl is doing what she needs to do. (Even if it seems really lame) Judgments are what the straightwhitecapitalistworld makes ON US, to ignore _______and put us down. We don't have to play into it though, WE CAN RESPECT EACH OTHERS STRATEGIES EVEN THOUGH WE MIGHT NOT AGREE. Even if it is possible to transcend sexist bullshit (if only for a few minutes at a time or within our own imaginations) we cannot turn our backs on the girls/women who don't feel 'transcendence' as a viable option in their own lives. _______ each other. Discouraging words. Belittling other girls in front of boys, laughing looks...Have No Place Here. Dialogue Does. Let's make girl love real, okay??? 4.) YOU ARE NOT REALLY A FEMINIST BECAUSE... We live in a completely fucked up society with fucked up rules, and then when we assert the fact that we know it's fucked up and want to change the rules (or destroy them altogether), we are, again handed a whole new set of rules. What it is to be a Real Feminist. The boys wanna tell us what a real feminist is and the girls wanna tell each other what a real feminist is. As if we can somehow separate ourselves from the stupid society we live in, and be these perfect feminist entities, in and amongst ourselves. Dualities. It's a man's world and THUS a feminist is the opposite of that. I, for one, have no interest in defining myself as the opposite of anything. I have been unjustly defined, the opposite of male (active, strong) for my whole life. I don't wanna define myself at all. What do I need a staid and pure identity for anyways! My ideas are gonna change, my lifestyle's gonna change, why can't I say I'm a feminist without having it measured against some unchanging thing? How can I be a Politically Correct type feminist when I have to survive in a world that doesn't even acknowledge struggle as real in any way? How can I be a PC feminist (whatever this means) when I have to eat, stay emotionally alive via my connections to other people and get my needs, somehow, met? I AM A WALKING TALKING CONTRADICTION BECAUSE I LIVE IN A WORLD THAT TELLS ME I DON'T EXIST AND I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THIS. Inside, I know I exist and am important in my own ways but what I see outside does not match up to how I feel inside AND it gets really weird because I have to struggle to keep my insides (my soulheartbrain) believing that I am good in the midst of all the lies I get told about myself. YOUR LOGIC IS KILLING ME BECAUSE THE ONLY WAY I CAN EXIST IS THRU CONTRADICTION. And when He/She says that I am not a real feminist because I used to be a stripper, I reply, "Well, motherfucker, this world doesn't make any sense. But I do exist. Deal with it. Deal with my existence." Cuz my history is more complex than feminist/non-feminist. And my ideas are more pluralistic and complex than just being PRO or ANTI on any given issue. This world is not a place where only two distinctive realities exist. Call it Yin/Yang, Right/Wrong, Male/Female, Feminist/Homemaker....I don't care what you call it. This is the 90's, give it up. Dualities support hierarchies----which is what sexism, racism, heterosexism, speciesism, classism, etc..are all based on and supported by. If anyone tells you/me that we are not Really Feminists when they have already missed the point (there is no point ha.ha.ha.) that we don't need anyone telling us what we are or aren't, that we are not playing by white straight hierarchicallogicRules or ideas of LinearPowerControl---- WE ARE what we think we are, what we feel we are when we wake up everyday: We are FeministSlutWhoreVirginsPsychoTrampHystericalMachoMotherProstitutes withHeartsofGoldTearingDownViolentHateFuckPornographyandthenMasturbatingto PhotosofOurselvesSittingReadingABookAloneNextToABoyWEfuckBUTwhoWEdon'tREALLY likeFALLINGinLOVEwithOURbestGIRLFRIENDStakingOFFourCLOTHESandPUTTINGthemBACK onBEINGquietYELLINGsoLOUDpushingTHEwallsALLdownTILLtheyAREsweatingANDbleeding FEMMEbutchesONmotorscooterHARLEYScarryingGUNSandBULLETholstersFULLofLIPSTICK HYPOCROBRATSthatchooseChooseCHOOSEnotTOruleORmakeRULES, okay? I am a feminist cuz I know that the soul of every girl matters. 5.) YOU ARE JUST BORED. YOU ARE INVENTING A PROBLEM BY TALKING ABOUT IT SO MUCH.
6.) YOU ARE JUST TRYING TO BE POLITICAL. And you, are just trying to be a motherfucker and shut me up. WELL, it's not gonna work, cuz, Number One, what is so bad about being political? And Number Two, when you say "trying to be" that implies that I am not really AND who makes you the judge of what is Real and what is Not? And, Number Three, EVERYTHING IS POLITICAL. Okay, so there is this one person who makes this painting of these pretty flowers and then there's this other person who is female and makes a painting of a big cunt with blood flowing all out of it and at the bottom the words are etched in scratchy blood letters "i am a prostitute and proud of it." Now when these paintings get hung up next to each other, everyone says that the girl who made the cunt painting is "just trying to be political" and they want to know what she thinks she's doing and who the hell she thinks she is AND the problem is that this girl is in the bathroom crying becuse this image was tied up in her soul and even though she was scared, she put it out anyways and then everyone's all saying how beautiful the guy's dumb flower painting is and giving her dirty looks. WHEN SHE LOOKS AT THE PAINTING OF THE FLOWERS SHE IS REMINDED THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE JUST DON'T CARE THAT WOMEN DIE because she knows that the flower painting is just as "political" as her cunt is, she knows this cuz, hard as it may be for some people to understand, SHE IS OFFENDED BY APATHY. See, a lot us who are into revolution have to tolerate boringDenial laden images and music and words out loud, all the time. BUT as soon as we make anything that is in any way connected to anything real, as soon as we make something that actually makes some sort of sense besides "nice" sense, "pretty" sense or "hang above your couch" sense, WE are called "political." I guess if you're into the existing system and don't give a fuck about the fact that a lot of people are getting seriously fucked with in this world, if you find yourself reinforcing the status quo as a matter of habit, then YOU are considered apolitical and everyone who's a threat to you is, oh no, no, please not that word, political. I guess what you are doing is normal because people smile at you, well, YOUR NORMAL IS NOT OUR NORMAL, MR. FLOWER PAINTER, there are so many things to do, you are wasting our time. How can we not lash out at the anti-change faction??? It's a matter of our survival. How can we pretend we don't live in a society that completely tolerates terrorism, such as rape as a "necessary evil" in order to keep women oppressed and afraid and make things stay the same? How can we pretend that we haven't watched our mothers stifle themselves before they say something that might not fit into Dad's Grand Scheme? How often have we clenched our teeth after being harassed on the street and known that there is nothing ______ and that it will never ever stop? MY LIFE IS POLITICAL.. To be a ______ is unsatisfied and willing to organize over that dissatisfaction is to be political.To be a girl who knows the word SLUT is a pile of fucking bullshit is to be political. To be a kid who cuts school cuz it seems so disconnected, stupid and unreal as compared to REAL LIFE, is to be political. The revolution is about resistance and imagining a world where resistance is a constant part of life yet largely unnecessary because THERE IS ROOM FOR EVERYONE ...this is the way that the band I'm in and the girl who made the flower painting are political. Apathy is just another political choice, ____ in essence, saying I'm political is redundant, since everything_______ _____ one or another, and besides you can't really judge me cuz you don't really know me and no one who did would say something so mean cuz I am a really nice person. And And And also...._____ 7.) WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS SEXIST TOWARDS MEN. Our culture is based on the idea that there are only two ways to be (in any given situation) IN CONTROL or OUT CONTROL, THE FUCKED or THE FUCKER, a person WHO KNOWS WHO THEY ARE or someone in process of AN IDENTITY CRISIS. Our society trains us to be so anti-confrontational cuz we think this means one person (usually the CONFRONTER) is "right" and the other (CONFRONTED) must be "wrong." We are afraid of arguing cuz we see everything in terms of WINNING/LOSING instead of in terms of understanding each other. This is where the idea of reverse sexism came from, men get threatened by feminists cuz they think we are accusing them of being "wrong" instead of trying to help them understand how WE feel about things and see our point of views on things. We want them to empathize with us so that they can change those behaviors of theirs that are hurting us. We need to move beyond this archaic concentration on blame and move on, towards change. It seems in most conversations about sexism, men wanna immediately take the focus off of how sexism affects women and put it onto how feminism affects them. And once again, men are placed in the middle of the action, as the central characters, his needs come first, you know? So, essentially, the cry of "reverse sexism" is just another form of sexism. He's making a judgement, he thinks we do everything to affect, offend, push his buttons, never for our own sakes. We are obviously screaming, he thinks, to hurt his ears, and not because, we are, genuinely, in serious pain. If a guy starts saying you are reverse sexist, he is obviously threatened by what you are doing. He's threatened cuz he thinks there's only two ways to be, powerful or powerless. He assumes you asserting your right to experiment, fuck around, have fun and scream when you gotta, is an attempt to take power away from him. He assumes you wanna "switch places" with him. He knows you get treated like shit, he knows he gets advantages from your imposed feelings of inferiority (it makes him feel like a big man) he's fearing REVENGE, girlfriend. His fear of "reverse sexism" is basically an admission, on his part, that he knows you get treated like shit and he does not want to switch places with you. Power+Prejudice=Oppression It is not possible for oppressed people to turn around and "oppress" cuz we don't have the power, economic power, weapon power, confidence power, media power. And yes we are mad...we have damn good reasons to be mad. But why do so many people assume that people who have lived thru this shit want to turn around and "do it" to them? I mean, is this guilty conscience stuff, or what? The assumption that because someone is Pro-girl means that they are anti-male is stupid, insulting and LAME. Why is the emphasis always put on how a feminist feels about men and not how she feels about herself and other women. We talk about men all the time and the fucking second we start talking about ourselves, it gets turned around on us, and again, we are talking about men. And also, while I'm at it....instead of telling me my anger is a sign of my reverse sexism, why not inquire into the larger system which forces us to protect ourselves and thus, be leery of men??? Why not ask WHY DO THEY OPPRESS US instead of always asking WHY DO WE RESIST. Of course we will resist, and of course we are pissed off. Duh. 8.) DON'T WORRY BE HAPPY!!!!!! Hey little angel, why the long face? Don't take it so serious, lighten up, you should smile more often, that's right, it'll make you feel better. You want no reminder that I am sad. That I have damn good reasons to be sad pissed off scared. My girlfriend is crying cuz you left her for someone who had a tighter ass, no stretchmarks, was quiet, acquiescent, agreeable. Don't tell me to be happy motherfucker. I saw a tee shirt today at the store. It came in large and extra large sizes. There were ten of them, hanging there, dark black with white letters. I imagined some girl's boyfriend coming home in one. SHUT UP BITCH written across each one. Don't tell me to be happy motherfucker. I listen to you all the time. Your worries and your troubles are the stuff that is like breathing. The stuff so often repeating that it sounds like a ticking clock or a real live heart. Yet I'm the one who is told I talk too much. Axl Rose is on MTV. The image is like this: Guns N' Roses are performing an acoustic set for a gradeschool assembly. Axl is singing those words, "I used to love her, but I had to kill her. I had to put her six feet under." The kids are laughing. Little girls are sitting at his feet, laughing. I am making such a big deal outta nothing. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I am so sorry. You never state how you feel and say maybe if I was more like you I would just deal with things "inside" more often, and "by myself." But see, being silent to you means safety, to me it means being gagged. "Smile princess." Why do you always ask me why I'm not smiling, you don't really wanna know. I WANNA KNOW WHY IT'S IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO ACT LIKE EVERYTHING IS OKAY. IT'S NOT, IT'S NOT OKAY. I AM NOT OKAY. I guess it's not enough that I accept the evil sexist dumb commodity bullshit that eats up my true life and threatens to engulf me in fear and drain me of all hope....you want me to TAKE IT WITH A SMILE too. No. 9.) BUT I KNOW A GIRL WHO LIED ABOUT BEING RAPED.... This is also called 'Passing the exception to the Rule off as The Rule.' Mainstream movies (propaganda) are really good at this one. Take the movie Fatal Attraction, for example. Okay, so like 99.9% of all abusers/harassers in heterosexual relationships are male and then this movie comes out where this woman is running around totally scaring this man and wrecking his whole white and married and middle class thing. And like EVERYONE and their fuckin dog goes to see this movie and I am very very upset cuz I know it is an evil force in the world and that men are just gonna use it as more fuel. You know, if we don't keep those crazy lying bitches down, look at all the havoc they'll cause. The Dangerous Woman. We are so evil, oh yea. Well who are the real rapists, child molesters, serial killers and general bullies in our society anyways? Who are the real people in power??? They take the total freak aberration and play it on every channel, Donahue has a special on women who beat up their husbands, cuz there has just gotta be a reason why women are oppressed, cuz guilty consciences have to go somewhere, cuz men need to make themselves afraid of us enough to justify their violence AND their stupid ways of thinking (evil lying women, you just can't trust 'em) cuz without this propaganda it would be harder to not SEE what's really going on. So, yes, some women have had to 'lie' about rape to save their own asses....like when it was illegal to have sex with a Black man and when an interracial affair got caught, women would be put in the position of either saying it was rape or getting killed or like, sometimes white men would USE women to get Black guys lynched and FORCE them to tell lies under threats to their own safety. And all this sucks so totally bad BUT these are the exceptions. A woman or a girl might also 'lie', not about THE FACT that she was raped but about who did it cuz it might be safer to say that a stranger did it (the courts understand rape as an aberration where a big scary evil guy comes limping from the darkness to "take" a damsel, okay?) than to tell the truth that it was DAD or uncle henry or joe bob captain of the football team, or the whole football team including the coach or the rich doctor who everyone loves and respects and no one can imagine doing such a thing. (Evil lying whore bitch) So, yea, when you quote these exceptions to me as reasons why "Maybe I'm going a little overboard with this whole rape thing, afterall women are really bad and fucked up too," ALL'S I HAVE TO SAY TO YOU IS that WOMEN DON'T LIE ABOUT GETTING RAPED, WE DON'T CALL CRISIS LINES CUZ IT'S FUN AND WE DON'T GET OUR JOLLIES BY BEING HUMILIATED BY THE COURT SYSTEM OR SCARY MUSTACHE COPS WHO WANNA MAKE US FEEL LIKE HELPLESS LITTLE VIRGIN GIRLS OR DESERVING WHORES .... The only reason you would go talking about an exception as if it is the rule is cuz you will look for anything, anything, anything to support your misogyny and justify YOUR fear/hatred of me and the other girls. YOUR FEAR, not mine. 10.) COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN.....AT LEAST YOU DON'T HAVE IT AS BAD AS: a. women used to b. people of color c. women in other countries I had this job for like 4 years at this LIBeral typy college and when I voiced some anger about getting treated like a lackey all the time and not shown any kind of respect or appreciation, ever....I was told, "Well in the REAL world you'd be treated much worse, so you should be thankful to even get treated this good." And I was like "God thanks for totally not even listening to me." Cuz all I was saying was "look you all are hurting my feelings and making me feel bad when I'm at work" and no one could address that, they just defended themselves and ignored what I was really saying. It's like I am trying to make my life better by sticking up for myself and it gets turned into this thing like, you are being completely self serving, and, at least you don't have a spinal cord injury, at least you're not a Black Lesbian in a wheelchair, at least you even have a job. It's like people think of oppression as a test you can either pass or fail. Okay, you get one point for being poor, one more for being female, but oh no, you score a negative one or being white and able bodied and..........I'm sorry but it just doesn't work that way. I mean, addition's nice when you're counting your fingers or toes but not when you're trying to talk about what it feels like to be hungry or lied to or treated like shit or beat up. If organizing around my own issues is somehow wrong cuz there are other people who are in situations that are even more life damaging than me, then I am wrong. Cuz, see, I talk/write about girlstuff so much cuz I am a whitegirl and I am not really into trying to speak for other people or species although I am becoming a better and better listener. I mean, me writing about this stuff in this zine doesn't mean I think girl oppression is any more important or pressing than racial or species or sexual oppression. It's just that I need to organize around what I know and support others to do the same cuz I can't speak for everyone but I do see all this shit as connected. 
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