Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Does Twisty Faster Advocate The Violent Overthrow of the United States Government?

Okay, I'm still doing this post, but as promised, I've gotten to the comments. There are 155 of the damn things and most of them are crazy so I'm only scratching the surface here. Bear in mind, Twisty's quite liberal about deleting comments she finds offensive.

Instead of pandering to those who choose ignorance, of listening to how he thinks and feels “as a man,” (as if I haven’t learned how men think and feel my entire life) I now try to remind myself of all of the deliberate, consciously motivated, cruel acts of misogyny that I and the women I know have survived. I think about those who do not survive.
T-shirts kill millions each year. While you were reading these words, three women have died of t-shirt.

We won’t change things concerning the patriarchy when the power and the money is with a VERY small group of male (or male-ish- which is what I call women who wind up in that tiny subset of our wealthiest individuals and make a lot of money from bowing to the patriarchy) group of people in this country.
So when a woman becomes powerful, she's no longer a woman to you? Well, gosh, that's one way to continue whining "women can't be powerful" in the face of reality. No true Scotsman...

Haha, Eurosabra is commenting on this post. Jeepers.

With all the evidence out there to support the conclusion, I am continuously shocked beyond measure that there are both people who cannot see that men hate women, and/or cannot understand why women fear/hate men. Seriously, it’s like a sky-sized industrial halogen lightbulb being shined directly into our forcibly-opened eyes. It’s the view.
Because most men don't say or do anything bad to me! If there's an entire gender out to get me or any women I know, they're being awful damn subtle about it.

I guess a major difference between me and the Twisty bunch is that on the whole, I'm happy. I have no desire to look around for the reason for my misery and blame men, because I'm just not miserable. If there is a vast male-wing conspiracy keeping me down, well, they've done a piss-poor job of it.

I once heard that the thing men fear most about women is that we will laugh at them, while the thing women fear most about men is that they will kill us.
Oh come on. Not on a daily, ordinary basis. Not unless you're in a seriously abusive relationship (in which case you need to know that this is not the normal order of things, not hear someone go "sigh, such is the world"!) Maybe sometimes alone on the street, unfortunately. But at work, at home, with friends, of course I don't fear for my life! That would be insane.

[Twisty herself:]Misogynist behavior is consistent with the global accords governing fair use of women (I’ve been using that phrase a lot lately. Maybe it’s time for a timesaving blogular acronym. GAGFUW!). In other words: men hate you. Patriarchy hates you. The megatheocorporatocracy hates you.
I wish I could ask--do you mean this literally? Do you mean some men actually physically met and discussed or wrote down how they'd treat women and distributed this information to actual corporations and governments? In the real world? Do you believe in an actual conspiracy against women?

I assume the answer is no, and it's all just taking place in a sort of collective unconsciousness, but sometimes the language really makes me curious.

(Ooh, another question I need to ask: are gay men part of this? Since they're oppressed themselves and have no desire to use women for sex or marriage, are they cool by us, or do their Y chromosomes still supersede all that?)

So the next time T-shirt boy wears his T-shirt, make him pay. Seriously. Do what any number of guys would do if they were deeply offended by another man; hit him. But given what I suspect may be a size and weight differential, don’t use your fists. You want to really make sure he feels it.
VIOLENCE AS AN ANSWER TO FREE SPEECH! Gosh, y'know, I happen to disagree with you, ma'am, so you wouldn't mind if I hit you, would ya?

When you are told what a stupid idiot you are, how you have no common sense, how everyone thinks you’re horrible and ugly and worthless, how you can’t navigate life on your own, how your perceptions are wrong, over and over again, you begin to doubt yourself to the extent that you become PARALYZED, not believing that you can do ANYTHING, not even tie your shoes right. And patriarchy does it to us in so many ways every day.
Uh... it does? I must've been missing those broadcasts. I don't have any dental fillings, so my reception is probably worse.

(Then again, I do wear zipper boots. Hm...)

[Twisty herself:]“So the solution is what?”
Women’s revolt. Women’s revolt. The solution is women’s revolt.
My failure to get it across that women’s revolt is the solution plagues me sorely.
I understand your reluctance to grasp that anything short of revolt is merely a bandaid, I really do, but there is no other solution, girls. Seriously. I mean it. I don’t know how to express it any more clearly. Revolt. Revolt. Revolt is how oppressed populations get rid of occupying forces. It’s not my fault; that’s just how things are done.

Again, I'm desperate to ask: literally? In the actual physical world? What, in non-metaphorical non-ironic words directly describing physical reality, would this revolt consist of? Are you talking about real violence? Are you willing to kill people? Are you planning to kill people?

These last questions aren't sarcastic; I'd really like to know.

16 comments:

  1. If there's an entire gender out to get me or any women I know, they're being awful damn subtle about it.

    We learned it from watching you!

    I wish there were an archive somewhere of the daily woman-hating that happens in the patriarchy and women’s horrific suffering, the things that are not kept on record anywhere because they are not reported on the news or to police.

    Fortunately, the women doing the same they say they hate to men is self-documenting. Silly women, learn how to run a conspiracy!

    ...the global accords governing fair use of women...

    Download a copy of yourself to my iPoon. Now.

    Do you mean some men actually physically met and discussed or wrote down how they'd treat women and distributed this information to actual corporations and governments?

    See above. We got the subtlety memo, and we're running with that fucker. Whoever leaked a copy of that memo to Twisty has a very short shelf life right now.

    Do what any number of guys would do if they were deeply offended by another man; hit him.

    So does that mean the tables are totally turned, and they're most afraid of us laughing now?

    so you wouldn't mind if I hit you, would ya?

    Your previous posts indicate that hitting is not a problem.

    When you are told what a stupid idiot you are, how you have no common sense, how everyone thinks you’re horrible

    Two points describe a line, three points confirm it. Hearing those things a lot? Just sayin'...

    Uh... it does? I must've been missing those broadcasts.

    Like ninjas. Damn we're good at this shit.

    Women’s revolt. Women’s revolt. The solution is women’s revolt.
    My failure to get it across that women’s revolt is the solution plagues me sorely.


    And after so much about how awful it is that men are bigger and stronger and women live in perpetual fear of being killed by the evil men, I have only two words to describe this plan: STRATEGY FAIL!

    Are you planning to kill people?

    Planning? Oh absolutely. Capable of anything other than laughable internet drivel of the sort most commonly shouted from the padded rooms? We'll hear Hillary singing the praises of W first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stingray - Damn, I just edited the post down for length/repetition and you sniped me. Ah well, there's only one thing you quoted that went away.

    Despite your testicles, which define you more than anything you do or say ever could (actually, in your case it might be true...), you are awesome.

    And yeah, I know damn well that these ladies wouldn't so much as slap someone--goodness, you could get in trouble for that!--but nonetheless I'd just like to hear Twisty say straight up whether she advocates violence. None of this cutesy-pie oh-so-po-mo "I blogulate the Twistolucion" nonsense, she needs to either admit that this is all a damn game to her, or that she supports the violent overthrow of the United States government.

    I think the consequences would be entertaining either way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. i want to say stuff, to try and answer you questions. but the one time i tried that before, you were annoyed.
    and since i come to read your site to get a different perspective, not to argue, i stopped.

    i am not as radical as Twisty. but i really do agree with a lot of what she says. she just goes extreme because otherwise its lost in a fog.

    revolt - there are a lot of old sci-fi books and stories about the "woman's revolt". it mostly covers women LEAVING. ALL of them. and the world falls apart until men realize that all the dirty things women did are what makes the world go 'round, at which point either the men start doing women's work, or civilization totally fails.
    does that help?

    i really don't want to argue, or fight, or quibble. i get enough of that already, fighting to be heard in class and everywhere. if you don't want to talk about any of it, i won't.

    but i have to say... i am REALLY jealous that you don't suffer harrasment, and i have to ask how? i mean, i walk with a cane, due to my disability i now weigh 190 pounds, i don't wear makeup and my hair is almost always in a bun, and i STILL have random guys yell at me (i HATE the phrase "hey baby" anymore) i still get some random dude who tries to grab my ass or get me to cheat on my boyfriend whenever i go out, i still have times when a guy follows me.
    i am not at all what culture dictates as "sexy" or "hot" anymore, if i ever really was (32! cane! disabled! walks with a limp! huge scar running from waist to halfway down my thigh from hip surgery! no attempt to dress up!)but it still happens. it happens LESS, but i can still be pumping gas and a random asshole will insist on my phone number. I. Am. Not. Hot.

    so, really, in all seriousness, HOW do you avoid this? is it where you live? (somewhere left-coastish i thought, but i have to say it was worse in CA than it is here in OH). do you have a "walk" (don't fuck with me walk, i'm not interested walk?)? i mean, the pics i have seen of you, you seem very pretty, and you have the youth thing...
    i am jealous, and want to know how you do it. sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If this woman truly believes that what she says is happening is actually happening she SHOULD be violently revolting. I know I would. However the fact that she is not lets you know just how serious she is about all of this.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Denelian - Hm. "Women leaving" still doesn't seem particularly well thought-through--leaving to where? what will we eat when we get there?--but at least it's not violent, I guess. Still, I'm not entirely sure that's what Twisty means.

    As for not getting harassed:

    It's not zero. But it's hardly enough to affect my quality of life--maybe once a month, six weeks, someone will make some vague harassy comment at the edge of my peripheral hearing, whatever.

    It's been threatening exactly once in my life (and that one time was interrupted within thirty seconds by a gigantic biker who took my side rather vociferously and asked nothing in return). Everything else has just been words and mostly ones that would be complimentary if the guy were cuter.

    I dunno, maybe I project toughness (or unattractiveness? oh no!) unconsciously somehow? But I really don't perceive that most women are walking a gauntlet all the time--I don't see other women getting harassed much either.

    Maybe I'm just incredibly oblivious. But any oppression an oppressee can miss just by being a lunkhead clearly isn't that bad.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Keith - Yeah, that blog has a lot of "Tuesday: this is dead serious and this is literally a war with real lives at stake. Wednesday: time for a cute little post about my horsie! Oh, that war stuff was yesterday, comment on the last post if you still wanna discuss war stuff."

    It's such a goofy little game.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Megatheocorporatocracy.

    This is my new favorite word.

    It really is tragic that the Patriarchy is so damn subtle. If only more women realized that they're being constantly assaulted and beaten down by Teh Ebil Mens, we could overthrow them, enact a genocide against the Y chromosome, and elect Twisty as Dictator. Because unlike The Patriarchy, she totally has our best interests at heart.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Internet revolutionaries are cute. There are people out there right now making serious plans to overthrow the rest of us and feed us to hogs so they can finally irrigate the filthy wound that is our diseased society with the disinfectant of truth and the coagulant of brutal violence. . . . but those people are not blowing their wads on Blogger over a t-shirt. Seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Aebhel - Just remember, trying to take away people's freedom is wrong, unless you're doing it for a really good reason.

    DG - Seriously. And if you're too much of a fragile flower to weather a t-shirt (wait, I thought women were strong?), what the hell are you going to do the first time someone actually shoots at you?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Everything else has just been words and mostly ones that would be complimentary if the guy were cuter.
    Did you just acknowledge that a man's appearance plays a role in whether you've been verbally raped? No wonder Twisty hates you.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bruno - Well, like a few weeks ago in the supermarket some creepy guy came up behind me and was like "damn girl, you've been keeping in shape." If he had been not so bad himself, I would have been quite glad to tell him so.

    However, he had the misfortune of being both skeevy-looking and obviously drunk at 10:30 in the morning, so I did not attempt to further the relationship.


    (So I just made a frowny face and walked away and he went on his way. Even drunk and skeevy he wasn't even implicitly threatening; there was absolutely no cause to fear for my safety.)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Geez, I said I was sorry. You didn't have to make it all public and everything.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Well, like a few weeks ago in the supermarket some creepy guy came up behind me and was like "damn girl, you've been keeping in shape."

    He said this to someone who, by her own admission, is 5'3" and 180 pounds? >_>

    ReplyDelete
  14. Greenearth - It's a little less now, I've been eating more sensibly the last couple months. But still, I wouldn't fool ya for a marathon runner.

    What can I say, he most likely wasn't a certified exercise physiologist.

    ReplyDelete
  15. finals are over and i can have a life again!
    (i hate being a decade older than all the other students. i can't stay awake for three days anymore...)

    you know, Holly, in all those sci-fi stories, it was either a story about where the women went, following the women and not telling us about the men back on earth (because it was almost always women going to another planet and manipulating their ovum so they don't need men at ALL) or it focused on the men left behind and no one at all KNOWS where the women are.
    i don't know if that is what Twisty is advocating. its not *I* am advocating - i just think that men should think about what they would if we did leave (personally and publically)

    i think that you are one of those women who doesn't get upset at random harrasment. i have (mostly) learned to be that way, but it still sometimes bugs me.
    thankfully, it happens LESS now.

    but i think you could teach classes in serenity. if a random skeevy guy started talking about how i looked, i'd throw a fit. so, i think my jealousy continues to be justified :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. men realize that all the dirty things women did are what makes the world go 'round

    Like rebuilding engines! And building hydroelectric plants! And inventing calculus!

    Bah. I love women. I realize perfectly that many of them are absolutely capable of doing any of those things I mentioned.

    But it's not like it takes a master's degree in applied physics to do laundry or cook a meal, ok? And isn't it ridiculous for the feminists to be telling me that "women's work" is stuff like mopping the floor and buying groceries?

    So, get over yourself. You want to be an engineer? GO DO IT! You want your boyfriend to clean the dishes? TELL HIM!

    Lots of people do lots of different stuff. Welcome to the 21st century. Christ! Some people are so bound up in this "patriarchy" bullshit that they refuse to see the possibility of having some fun.

    ReplyDelete